Unfortunately, I live in a rural area where gyms are hard to come by. I have enjoyed running for its own sake in the past, that's a part of why I want to get back into running shape, but I will try to add in some body weight exercises as well as my running.
It's mostly just the contrast between how I learned running in High school cross country and what's actually recommended now. There were no real rest days, we ran 5 days a week and we were supposed to run at least once on the weekends. We ran hill reps two days a week, and long runs on the other days. We were all on the same training program regardless of where we started from.
What I've read recently is that about 4 days a week is a better way to do it, at least during your early progress, with a mixture of long slow runs and some interval work outs once you've reached a good level of fitness.
I've been struggling with how to improve in running all last year, and now again this spring. I finally realized (after reading a lot of articles on lesswrong.com, and specifically the martial arts of rationality posts) that I've been rationalizing that Couch to 5k and other recommended methods aren't for me. So I continue to train in the wrong way, with rationalizations like: "It doesn't matter how I train as long as I get out there."
I've continued to run intensely and in short bursts, with little success, because I felt embarrassed to have to walk any, but I keep finding more and more people who report success with programs where you start slowly and gradually add in more running.
Last year, I experimented with everything except that approach, and ended up hurting myself by running too far and too intensely several days in a row.
It's time to stop rationalizing, and instead try the approach that's overwhelmingly recommended. I just thought it would be interesting to share that recognition.
I just registered. I think it will help to go through the basics again just to make sure I'm not missing anything.
I'm also taking a database class offline here, but I should have plenty of time to work on linear algebra.
I thought I had a pretty good understanding of Linear Algebra until I worked through the 1st chapter of "Structure and Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics". When I took Linear Algebra before, all of the material was very practical and so I missed the bigger theory behind the class. I'd like to really get that understanding.
I've actually become a lot more interested in the subject now that I see how much more there is to learn and all the connections with physics.
It would be mostly a second pass for the basic material, but I've never done the least squares analysis and I still struggle with the theory behind eigenvalues/vectors. There's a lot of material I would like to understand in the future, especially topology and abstract algebra, but I think this would be a useful start, and then I can continue to read through SIQM without getting overwhelmed.
I will definitely check that out. Thanks.
My other thought is to also get a linear algebra book that covers infinite dimensional vectors.
I'm Anthony. I found out about Less Wrong from Overcoming Bias, and I found out about Overcoming Bias about 2 years ago when Abnormal Returns, which is like a sampler of all kinds of posts on the econ-blogsphere, linked to Overcoming Bias.
I had previously decided that the singulatarians were crazily optimistic. I thought they were all about the future being unimaginable goodness all the time. I guess that was my interpretation of Kurzeil. I thought they were unrealistic about the nature of reality. I don't believe that the singularity will hit in a few decades, at least I don't understand the arguments enough to think that yet, but it is an interesting topic
I used to be part of an Objectivist campus club at the University of CU-Denver. And then an Objectivist magazine promoted the idea of nuking Afghanistitan in response to 9/11. And also I discovered Michael Shermer's "Why People Believe Strange Things", and specially the chapter calling out Objectivism as a cult. I fought against the idea of Objectivism being a cult for a long time, but then I started to be convinced, and I eventually abandoned Objectivism completely.
But reading HPMOR, the sequences and some of the other posts here has been really informative and fun. I especially liked the Quantum Mechanics sequence, it really cleared up some of my fogginess on the subject, and made me want to know more. I am now working through the "Structure and Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics". Just the linear algebra in the latter half of Chapter 1 goes way behind anything I learned in college, so it is still slow going, but I have learned a lot about Linear algebra (projection operators. How to take a norm of a complex-valued vector, etc.)
I live in the Northern Lower Penninsula of Michigan. Its pretty rural up here. There aren't many jobs in IT around here, but I have one of them. Its a lot less specialized that I'm sure most IT jobs are. I do purchasing, PC support, in house app programming, printer support and on and on. I'm in the middle of a difficult programming project that's taken 2 years, because I am the only programmer here, and I can't spend full time on the project.
I see that there was recently a meetup in Detroit. I might have to make the drive south for the next one, if there is another one.
Anyway, I decided to it was time to get more involved and learn more actively. So I registered rather than continuing to lurk.
I would just set up short runs around my apartment that were all "run" no walk and gradually increase my distance. But one of the problems was that I just wasn't out there very long. It was a convenient excuse when I was busy to just run a 15 minute loop instead of run/walking for 30 minutes+.