Archive for May, 2008

Progress

Saturday, May 24th, 2008

Yay Visa I got my visa in the mail yesterday!  I have a plane ticket.  The summer school fee has been paid.  I’m going!  Now I just need to get the visa extended for the full year.  The problem arises in that nobody that I have yet spoken with knows how to go about it or what I will be able to do once in country.  The way I see it, there are four possible outcomes.  (1) I order an extended visa before I leave on June 5th.  This requires special forms from the University I am attending in the Fall and Spring, Tsinghua, as well as other Chinese contacts which I don’t really have yet.  Tsinghua obviously isn’t in any rush as I’m not going there until September.  I have been told that I cannot apply for an extended visa from within the country.  This is all assuming overnight mail is capable of sending my passport to the consulate (processing time) and send it back in about seven business days.  (2) Get the year long student visa after I am in China…may or may not be possible.  I would like to have multiple entries so that I may visit other nearby countries in my time off…again may or may not be possible.  (3)  Get residency of some sort once I am in China with multiple entry ability.  (4)  Mail passport out and don’t get it back by June 5th…miss flight…lose money from plane ticket and summer program…still try to go in the fall…completely lose all credibility.

Parents are on my back just about every day asking for information that I just don’t know yet.  It’s frustrating and I wish they would just trust me.  What I need to do next is to get in touch with the consulate to find out my options definitively.

I’m writing this via a Verizon wireless usb card from a lake near where I live in TN.  It’s so nice out here.  I’ll put up some pictures here.

Virginia Creeper Bike Trail

Saturday, May 24th, 2008

17 miles to Damascus, 35 to Abingdon

Meredith (my girlfriend) and I took a trip up to the Virginia Creeper Bike Trail last weekend. It’s about 35 miles downhill from Whitetop Mountain to Abingdon, VA, which is a quaint town surrounded by rolling hills that were once and still are used for farming

and cattle.

The drive up was fine, but I had spent the night before trying unsuccessfully to get this page synced up with my own domain, www.dannyclimber.com, so Meredith drove a good portion of the way. The town had many early 1900s buildings and the bike shop was one of the more prominent buildings right off the highway. Hanging our bikes from a trailer and borrowing some unwashed helmets, we took the shuttle through Damascus to White Top. Damascus was having a city wide rummage sale that took about 20 minutes to get through!

The trail and weather were beau

tiful and all downhill as you can see from the terrain map, but it still got a little tiring after three hours. There is an optional shuttle ride after about 15 miles, but what’s the fun in that? TI saw some geology, did some wheelies (about wiping out once), and enjoyed Meredith’s company. My bike is way to small now and my back was killing me when we were done, but I felt pretty well accomplished. I think it would be a great course to run for an ultra marathon. Uphill would be nuts.

Climbing China

Sunday, May 4th, 2008

Late into the evening on Saturday, I spent the time with good friends discussing my upcoming plans to visit the red dragon. Namely, they helped me work on this blog, gave advice on how to capitalize on China’s burgeoning economy, and how to keep having fun.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWxvqut-sV8]

Here is my first video blog.

Knoxville Marathon

Sunday, May 4th, 2008

I ran my first marathon on March 30, 2008 in 3 hr 54 min. It was an incredible experience that I really want to do again sometime soon.

Knoxville Marathon
Knoxville Marathon Homepage
Results

There were several things that I enjoyed:

(1) the culmination of over 6 months of determined effort. I paid the $55 fee back in October to ensure my commitment, but my real motivation was having told all of my friends what my plans were. marathon4I would have been very disappointed if I had to explain my not having the will to follow through. More about my training plan is described below.

(2) the friendly atmosphere of the event and attitude of everyone involved. Competitors came with all levels of experience from across the country. Those with several marathons under their belt were especially encouraging to the first-timers. I met a 58 year old black man who had completed 9 in the past year. He passed me at around mile 16. He had a very awkward looking gate and only barely picked up his legs enough to clear the pavement, but the muscles and tendons in his legs looked like solid rock. I met up with Breck, a forty something family-man, at mile 22. He had ran this same race a couple of years ago only to get stuck in the last few miles by knee troubles. Since, he did some halfs, but was ready to finish this goal. He initiated our talk by asking about the AFROTC shirt I was wearing, and the conversation led to our thoughts about the mental toughness that is required when every part of your body is fighting you to take another step forward. He told me a story about the USS Indianapolis as an example of mental toughness:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Indianapolis_(CA-35)
The Search for the USS Indianapolis (Discovery Channel)

Training: When I decided to do the race, I hadn’t run more than about 7 miles consecutively, and 26 seemed completely out of reach. Here is the training promarathon14gram that I used, paying most attention to the longer runs on the weekend. I very typically only ran once during the week (in addition to AFROTC pt twice a week) between those long runs because I would completely exhaust myself. Every time I built up 4 or 5 miles, I would return to my apartment hardly able to walk for the rest of the evening or next day. The time never felt wasted, even when each run began to take upwards of 2 or more hours long. Meredith, my girlfriend, was very supportive, and was often present to help me around after a buildup. Here is the training plan that I used: Novice Training Plan

For finishing, my dad got me a new pair of Brooks shoes!

I’m starting a blog.

Sunday, May 4th, 2008

This is me starting a blog. Do you want to leave a comment?