Poojan (Wagh) Blog

Confident.

I’m like dynamite. I need a cheerleader.

I went for my first outdoor run in a long while. I still have some deadlines at work (mid-April), but I got over one hump this week.

And everyone was actually encouraging me to leave at 4, especially after I advertised it all day.

So at 4, I left. I didn’t want to immediately–there’s that usual fear of cold or being out of shape–I went for a run outside. I ran to downtown Dundee and back. All in all, it took an hour.

I listened to The Fault in our Stars, and finished it on my way back.

I then got to work on some computer chores, and did that until the family came home.

I haven’t seen much of the family this week, despite it being Spring Break. It was a nice afternoon and a nice evening.

Since last time:

Got a friend’s lunch cards automated (8th grade hot lunch) and printed them out for her.
Went to a  memorial service for my wife’s uncle.
Ran outside.
That same day worked from home and increased the bandwidth of a bias loop by about 10x.
Gave some coworkers some info they needed.
Unfortunately, got sick but luckily Monday was a day off.

Since the last time:

• Helped my wife at Cub Scout Sunday
• Got an eye exam (my eyes got a bit worse this past year–I think not running has an influence)
• Bought new phones for the house
• Co-Ran Monday pizza hot lunch
• Got kids to bed and up in the morning for the two nights/days that my wife was at Manager Tools
• Ordered new checks
• Set up my friend Scott to ride the lead bike in the Irish Jig Jog (which means I can now run it–and you should too)
• Went to First Communion meeting for my youngest child
• Upgraded my cable modem to DOCSIS 3.0 (with 50% faster connection rates & IPv6: before & after)
• Finished “David and Goliath” (Malcolm Gladwell) and finished “Highway 61 Revisited” (Mark Polizzotti)
• Started “Beautiful Ruins” by Jess Walter
• Ran once (indoors for 50 minutes), Friday of the week before

Stuff I did or that happened since January 17th. Man I’ve been busy! Read the rest of this entry »

This song came on my playlist today.

Really too late to call,
So we wait for morning
To wake you is all we got
To know me as hardly golden
Is to know me all wrong, they warn.

…

At every occasion I’ll be ready for the funeral
At every occasion, once more, it’s called the funeral

Stuff I’ve done this week:

Monday hot lunch at kids’ school.
Sent donation email out to families for hot lunch.
Worked late Tuesday night (2AM) and released some circuit blocks to layout.
Called hot lunch pizza provider for duplicate receipts.
Got back episodes of How I Met Your Mother.
Returned Netflix DVD – TWICE (this is huge).
Recruited volunteers for Pinewood Derby.
Pinewood Derby RSVP email.
Finished Divergent Book 2: Insurgent.
Met a friend (from Infinium) for dinner.
Work party at the go kart races.
Bought new keyboard for desktop computer.

You don’t need a title or role or permission to lead.

A few years ago, I was given the opportunity to be a project manager.

I left a very comfortable job to go to this company. After two years of challenging work, I was well established in a small management role. And then I was offered a new project management role. I took it, essentially risking everything I had built up to that point.

The new role wasn’t a good fit. And, of course, it didn’t work out. It ended abruptly after 3 months.

I was told that the job would go to someone name Matt. It was difficult for me to accept. I really wanted that project management role, and I had given up an equally important role (one that I spent a couple years working through) to take it on.

Anyway, here’s an email thread from about a week after this transition:

From: Poojan Wagh
Sent: Friday, March 18, 2011 5:24 PM
To: Boss; ProjectX; ProjectY
Subject: Re: ProjectX Technology updates 3/18/2011

… and awesome progress. ProjectX is in good hands.

—– Reply message —–
From: “Boss” <boss@company.com>
Date: Fri, Mar 18, 2011 4:46 pm
Subject: ProjectX Technology updates 3/18/2011
To: “ProjectX” <ProjectX@company.com>, “ProjectY” <ProjectY@company.com>

Awesome writeup…

From: Matt
Sent: Friday, March 18, 2011 11:22 AM
To: Boss; ProjectLead
Cc: Coworker, Coworker
Subject: ProjectX Technology updates 3/18/2011

Hey guys,

Below are some progress updates on our new network and software solutions over the last week. Please forward as necessary.

…

In case you missed it, Matt emailed the team a progress update. Our boss praised his reporting. I praised Matt’s progress and gave him my support.

I don’t want to overstate how hard it was to give Matt my support. I got along well with Matt, and most people did, too. I thought he was a good choice for the role. So, I wasn’t merely putting on a good face when I had to accept this change. But, it would have been much easier to say nothing than to give my support.

Leadership isn’t always easy. It often means putting the team or an organizational goal above yourself.

The most powerful leaders lead by example. And we need more powerful leaders.

One can see a distinct trend of phone screens getting larger. For example:

Left: HTC EVO 4G; Middle: Galaxy Nexus, Right: Nexus 4

On the left is an HTC EVO 4G (circa 2009), a Galaxy Nexus (2011), and a Nexus 4 (2012). Based on these observations, I’ve extrapolated what the next-generation wristwatch will look like:

Left: Timex; Right: future

The one on the left is a Timex (circa 2008). The one on the right is a prototype.

Today wasn’t my greatest run. I got lapped 4 or 5 times (depending who you ask) by a friend. Last week, I was able to do roughly 25 minutes for 37 laps (3.166 miles). Today it was 27:30.

What bugs me is that I’m not as fast as I was 6-9 months ago. And I’m not able to get back there, it seems, without a great deal of effort.

My friend and I reflected on our runs. For me, I notice that when I want to go fast, I take longer strides. This is counter to the advice I’ve read (Born to Run) that shorter strides are more efficient.

During my run today (and other runs), I periodically dabble in the shorter strides. But, eventually, I lose patience since I’m just slower with the shorter stride. I then go back to my long stride.

When I trained last year, I focused on just running as fast as I can for as long as I can. I started out fast, since I observed that I tend to save too much for the end, and I need to start spending stamina earlier. I’d then just try to maintain that clip as long as I could (or as close an approximation as possible).

It occurs to me that I learned to get faster the wrong way–by getting myself conditioned to a long stride and being able to sustain it for 3.1 miles, rather than shortening my stride and becoming more efficient.

My friend commented that I look very well-aligned when I run. I have a straight form. This alignment is something I do mentally. I focus on a point on the wall (we were indoors) and pretend that I’m going to run right through that wall. However, at some point during my run, I dabbled (once again) in trying to lean forward. I’ve heard that’s a good thing to do, too. Or is that only when you’re going downhill?

I’m thoroughly confused. So, I decided that I need to visit the running form itself and figure out what my goal should be. I was aware of two schools on running form: POSE and Chi. They are summarized pretty well here: HowStuffWorks “How is ChiRunning different from Pose Running?”.

But which one? And do either of these have any scientific backing? (Double-blind experiments with a control group, for example.)