a dad's ultrarunning and data science adventures
A large number of condolences went to extremely strong women in 2018, so much so that laz dubbed it the ‘year of the woman.’ Unfortunately some of those strong women didn’t make it to the starting line for one reason or another, but there were still some very good contenders in the field this year. Quite a big deal has been made over the years about the lack of a woman finisher at Barkley, and laz loves to get people (and especially talented women) riled up by saying a woman can’t finish.
In something that’s seemingly incredibly rare for this blog, here’s an actual post on data science. This is a podcast I did that has absolutely nothing to do with running or triathlon. So for most people who visit my blog, sorry this probably isn’t of much interest. But this is what I do at QxBranch for most of that 90% of time that I’m not running around mountains.
Understanding Data Sets: Describing the advantages of data
In this episode Andy Davis talks to John Kelly, Director of Analytics at QxBranch. On the show they discuss the excitement around Quantum Computing. Andy asks about the skills a person’s needs for a career in Data Analytics. They also chat about the projects John is working on.
A couple of weeks ago I posted Failing with Purpose. I had some great feedback, questions, and discussion from that, and have been meaning to post a follow up for a while now. So here it is, finally. Also related: Component Goals – Lessons from a 5K, Look How Tough I Am!.
The main question that arose out of the previous post was, “what is just the right amount of difficulty?” I advocated for setting stretch goals where failure is a likely outcome. I still believe that more benefit can be realized by falling short of a stretch goal than by overachieving on an easy one, but just sending yourself on fool’s errands isn’t very productive. There’s a tl;dr at the bottom of the post if you’d rather skip to the bullet point version.
Note: This post generated some great discussion, which led to The Goldilocks Difficulty as a follow-up post. Also related: Component Goals – Lessons from a 5K, Look How Tough I Am!.
This isn’t a Western States post, but it’s one that it inspired. This also steals almost entirely from a talk I gave a couple of months back for my high school’s honors night (if you really want to see the video, it’s at the bottom). I hadn’t planned on posting it, but with some of the discussion I’ve seen this week I felt like I should.
I was done with Barkley posts, but this is one that I told quite a few people I would make and hopefully it will answer a number of the questions I’ve received. After this, though, I’m done for real. If you’d like to revisit anything else related to the 2017 Barkley you can find it at the Barkley Archive.
This post is meant to give a small glimpse into my Barkley strategy, gear, and nutrition choices this year. Parts of this might seem like plugs for my partners, but there’s a reason I work with these companies. They make great products that I’ve found are the best for me. If they weren’t, then I’d work with someone else and you’d see them here instead.
If you REALLY want to see one of my generic, high level data science and quantum computing presentations. I’m sleep deprived and winging it, so pay no attention to the umms. 🙂
The slides aren’t visible, but if you really want them send me a message.