TITLE: I Miss Repeats
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: June 07, 2022 12:25 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:

 This past weekend, it was supposed to rain Saturday evening into Sunday,
 so I woke up with uncertainty about my usual Sunday morning bike ride.
 My exercise bike broke down a few weeks back, so riding outdoors was
 my only option.  I decided before I went to bed on Saturday night that,
 if it was dry when I woke up, I would ride a couple of miles to a small
 lake in town and ride laps in whatever time I could squeeze in between
 rain showers.

 The rain in the forecast turned out to be a false alarm, so I had more
 time to ride than I had planned.  I ended up riding the 2.3 miles to the
 fifteen 1.2-mile laps, and 2.30 miles back home.  Fifteen mile-plus laps
 may seem crazy to you, but it was the quickest and most predictable
 adjustment I could make in the face of the suddenly available time.  It
 was like a speed workout on the track from my running days.  Though
 shorter than my usual Sunday ride, it was an unexpected gift of exercise
 on what turned out to be a beautiful morning.

 A couple of laps into the ride, the hill on the far end of the loop began
 to look look foreboding.  Thirteen laps to go...  Thirteen more times up
 an extended incline (well, at least what passes for one in east central
 Iowa).

 After a few more laps, my mindset had changed.  Six down.  This feels
 good.  Let's do nine more!

 I had found the rhythm of doing repeats.

 I used to do track repeats when training for marathons and always liked
 them.  (One of my earliest blog entries sang the praises of
<a href="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2004-07.html#e2004-07-15T12_07_34.htm">
   short iterations and frequent feedback</a>
 on the track.)  I felt again the hit of endorphins every time I completed
 one loop around the lake.  My body got into the rhythm.  Another one,
 another one.  My mind doesn't switch off under these conditions, but it
 does shift into a different mode.  I'm thinking, but only in the moment
 of the current lap.  Then there's one more to do.

 I wonder if this is one of the reasons some programmers like programming
 with stories of a limited size, or under the constraints of test-driven
 design.  Both provide opportunities for frequent feedback and frequent
 learning.  They also provide a hit of endorphins every time you make a
 new test pass, or see the light go green after a small refactoring.  

 My willingness to do laps, at least in service of a higher goal, may
 border on the unfathomable.  One Sunday many years ago, when I was still
 running, we had huge thunderstorms all morning and all afternoon.  I was
 in the middle of marathon training and needed a 20-miler that day to stay
 on my program.  So I went to the university gym -- the one mentioned in
 the blog post linked above, with 9.2 laps to a mile -- and ran 184 laps.
 "Are you nuts?"  I loved it!  The short iterations and frequent feedback
 dropped me in to a fugue-like rhythm.  It was easy to track my pace,
 never running too fast or too slow.  It was easy to make adjustments
 when I noticed something off-plan.  In between moments checking my time,
 I watched people, I breathed, I cleared my mind.  I ran.  All things
 considered, it was a good day.

 Sunday morning's fifteen laps were workaday in comparison.  At the end,
 I wished I had more time to ride.  I felt strong enough.  Another five
 laps would have been fun.  That hill wasn't going to get me.  And I liked
 the rhythm.
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