One of the unexpectedly benefits of having an extremely obscure blog is that I’m not bothered by trolls or comment-bots (cue the crickets) so it has been awhile since I have had one of those messy email/message board exchanges that happen from time to time.
I’ve sure you seen and/or participated in them–people going back going back & forth in a futile exchange, quickly losing any resemblance of an actual discussion, mis-interpreting and mis-understanding each other on each on a larger and larger, often on an increasing personal, scale.
Human communication is a flawed method of transmitting information as it is. Not content with mis-communicating with local humans, we have greatly expanded our ability to mis-communicate over long distances with people we have never met at instantaneous speeds.
Enter the 10% rule. Although, probably not the 10% rule that runners might think of–the long-standing rule of increasing your weekly mileage by a maximum of 10% per week (A rule I have issues with but that’s a different post).
A long time ago (20 years, give or take) in a galaxy (online community) far, far away… I learned a different 10% rule–be 10% nicer online than you would be in person.
My first web experience was skimming the Usenet groups, especially rec.running. From there I found the dead runners society. This presented a wonderful opportunity for me to have other running buddies around the world. A phenomenon that was noticed pretty quick online was that it seemed disagreements could quickly explode into “Flame Wars”, much more quickly than in real life. A big reason of that is typing messages back and forth is a different, if not inferior, method of communication. You lose the body language (part of the reasons emoticons were invented–to partially fill this gap), you lose the ability for quick back & forth (parties typing long, partially disconnected rebuttals), and you lose some context (this person is responding in the 5 minutes they have before the tater-tot hot dish is done).
So at some point, and I wish I remembered the genesis, the dead runners society (drs) adopted the 10% rule. There were still disagreements and Flames but over the decades, it has been one of the least contentious online groups I’ve been a part of. I believe that the 10% rule is a big part of that. I also believe that the group has held nearly annual world conferences where deads meet each other has a big rule–reminds you that there are actual people at the other ends of the Interweb. I believe that keeping in mind the limitations of this form of communications is important in keeping conversations, either in a message board or via eMail, respectful.
My blog represents a portion of who I am, what I think, and what I feel. Sometimes because of my own inability to express myself, a lack of time, or a desire to keep some personal information personal, you may or may not get an accurate impression of who I am, what I know, or what I mean. This blog is mostly focused on my running & I try not to pull too much non-running stuff into it. But I don’t put everything about my running in it either–I would bore the snot out of you (wonder if I could monetize that) if I gave every little details of my running, especially since the vast majority of my training is boring, aerobic work especially now during base season. So sometimes a post will be based off a fleeting thought ( a rumination, if you will) that lasted 10 seconds.
Without proper context I can see how a post like Worries might make someone think I’m stressing out a goal time when I really wanted to reflect a moment of doubt I often have in the winter while I am still building base at a slow, ice-dodging, layer-encumbered, aerobic pace and before the spring thaw has brought back the bounce back to my step. And sometimes in a post, without realizing it, I don’t fully explain something–say, for example, my goal of running Grandma’s in 3:29:59. I am well aware that basically as a first-timer, I should just do it for the experience–that if I insist on setting a goal pace, it should be at least 15-20 minutes slower than what my other race time might predict. But I’m also willing to experiment and fail. I’m also experienced enough that if I need to revise my goal in a month, or two months, on race day, or during the race–whether due to laziness, injury, conditioning, weather, or the view–that isn’t the end of the world. At this point, a goal time is almost meaningless anyhow since I’m still just doing aerobic runs. Once I run a couple of training races–the Ron Daws 25k in early April and probably a half in early May (Eau Claire? Lake Minnetonka? New Prague? anyone want to throw a blogger a freebie?)–and really judge my fitness, will a goal time really be meaningful. At this point, the goal time mostly serves as a motivational tool for me, not something I’m married to.
I welcome questions, comments, or scathing rebuttals–an intelligent, respectful disagreement is both fun and a learning experience but please abide by the 10% rule and don’t assume you know everything about me based off of a couple blogs posts or 140-character snippets, don’t make wild-ass assumptions, if something makes your spidey-senses tingle-ask about it, don’t read too much into random blog/twitter/email comments, don’t extrapolate what I may knowingly choose to do in my running to what I would recommend someone else do, consider that maybe “what we have here is a failure to communicate“, don’t assume that because I don’t instantly agree with you that I’m a moron, and as Mighty Mur Lafferty says, “Don’t be an Ass”. And, for my part, I will continue to delete personal insults like “Arrogant old butt blister” from my responses.
If you can live with those terms of engagement, great, let’s have a civil discussion & debate–if not, have a good life.
