I let a friend convince me to participate in a local 5K hosted by his organization—that race turned out to be tougher than advertised. I crossed the finish line first overall. While the official times may suggest a comfortable margin, the reality was very different. Once you take the lead, the pressure to hold it can be intense, and every step to the finish demands focus and determination.

This marked my first, first overall, win; making it a very rewarding achievement. …sweet victory

Rebuilt the old Java tiling engine in Python, just to see if I could. Because a lot of the math had already been worked out, it was not to difficult. The means were different, but the methods to calculate and render accurately are still the same. As an added bonus/challenge I took a stab at hexagonal tiling and design. My love of video games made this rewarding on such a deep level. The next logical step here would be to make a few small scale games if I can just find the inspiration.

Cold plunging was a craze that swept through the fitness community and got a foothold in social media space. Even though trends can gather widespread popularity and acceptance the results may vary or be fudged. So I had to see for myself if this was something I could benefit from.

My first times cold plunging yielded benefits very early on. Aches and pains from marathon training were winning the battle. There are only so many hours in a day, if a certain amount of time is spent training then a certain amount of time will have to be spent recovering. One of the ideas in training is being more efficient and effective with your timing. I believe as an athlete you should also be efficient and effective with the time you spent recovering. I.E if you're dedicating X hours sleep, Y Hours to other passive recovery methods and Z hours to active recovery methods. How do we get the most out of each? I found one of the answers to be cold plunging. It helped me deal with swelling and got me to relaxed meditative states.

I started out using a local wellness and recovery companies cold plunging service, that enabled me to run longer and train harder. Which meant I needed to plunge more to mitigate the wear and tear, before an injury sidelined me. This had the potential to be very expensive but the cost/benefit was still in a good place so far. This prompted the thought "why don't I just do it myself?" If I can plunge as much as I wanted, whenever I wanted for however long I wanted I thought I could squeeze more of a benefit from the equation. So based on what I knew about the process and with a little additional research I built my own fully functional cold plunge. And my friends let me test it out on them.... or used the fact that I had it to their advantage.

Need: Better way to Deal with the Wear and Tear of Running

Solution: Cold Plunging

Secondary Need: Cheaper more convinient way to cold Plunge.

Secondary Solution: DiY Cold Plunging

Impact: Can sustain higher Mileage with no physical problems. Although running 112 miles in a week takes time away from so many other things. Proposed solution... figure out how to become a professional lol

Finishing a marathon in under 3 hours has been one of the most rewarding running goals because it was the result of dedication, discipline and perseverance. No matter how much you prepare you still end up experiencing setbacks and adversity during the race. This distance will test your mental resilience and ability to fight through discomfort. I feel that the marathon is a great anology for life where that deep sense of commitment and determination can turn challenges into success.

I enjoy the challenge of isometric tiling because it is an art that at a minimum requires percision. Once you've mastered being percise the sky is the limit. Isometric tiling can be challenging because it requires careful alignment and consistent angles to maintain an illusion of three dimensional space, on a flat surface. Small measurement errors in the angles or length of the edges can distort the overall pattern and shatter the illusion due to the lack of symmetry. Maintaining seamless repitition across large areas is also difficult becasue a variety of shapes and layers must fit together perfectly without gapping or overlapping. The combination of both technical and visual demands make isometric tiling an art of patience and percision