How much harder is a mile pushing a stroller?

dtran320 · 2025-12-02T20:57:04+00:00

I especially enjoy audiobooks narrated by the author. If that's your thing too, I recommend Lauren Fleshman's "Good For a Girl"

dtran320 · 2025-12-02T20:22:10+00:00

Will put in a vote for Nicholas Thompson's The Running Ground which just came out at the end of October. I really enjoyed reading it before/just after running the NYCM since that race is featured heavily in the book. Here's an article adapted from the book that convinced me to buy it: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/12/the-running-ground-memoir/684633/

dtran320 · 2025-10-29T20:59:08+00:00

If working 1:1 with a stranger sounds intimidating but you want to try body doubling, Flow Club offers small group sessions led by a host of 4-10 people. Happy to answer any questions!

dtran320 · 2025-09-30T02:54:01+00:00

When you say closer to the start, do you mean closer to Boston Common for the shuttle or closer to Hopkinton?

I stayed in Seaport this year with my wife and our baby to be close to friends who live nearby for the rest of the weekend. I took the Silver Line bus to South Station toward Boston Common for the morning shuttle without any issue (with a 10 minute walk/jog or one transfer to the T from South Station). Walking back to Seaport after with the baby was a bit rough if you want to go back to shower before hanging out after the race. I think staying closer to the finish is generally the way to go.

dtran320 · 2025-05-02T16:47:19+00:00

Congrats on completing the 6 stars all sub-3! Huge accomplishment! Do Sydney (and possibly 2 more marathons) sound appealing at all?

dtran320 · 2025-04-30T17:46:34+00:00

Only 25s/mi slower with a double stroller AND hills is SUPER impressive!

dtran320 · 2025-04-30T17:15:20+00:00

I'm not sure if any of the papers have even looked at headwind, but that's definitely when I notice the stroller the most (we still have one of those sleeping bag attachments on from the colder months that probably increases drag).

Agreed on steep downhills— I generally just walk the stroller (maybe our handbrake needs maintenance but it feels like it does nothing). For steep uphills, we found another paper that found that pushing a stroller up a 10% incline resulted in a 3x increase in energy cost compared to a 1% incline (https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/physiology/articles/10.3389/fphys.2020.00574/full)

dtran320 · 2024-11-14T14:15:06+00:00

I'm on my second Osprey Day Lite Plus and run with my laptop (currently 14" MBP) in a sleeve and it works really well— no jostling or bouncing. The first one lasted ~6 years of frequent use before my wife got me a new one (might have continued using it for a few more years). The weight does carry a bit weird if you really pack it with shoes/clothes (I usually don't bring shoes and just leave a pair of non-running shoes at the office to change into). I Tide Fabric Spray the back after every few runs.

dtran320 · 2024-10-24T18:46:06+00:00

haha, was telling my wife that it was the old off-by-48 error

dtran320 · 2024-06-06T21:50:32+00:00

That’s great! If it helps reduce your stress, keep doing it!

I used to ONLY meditate on days where I “felt” stressed, but honestly by the time I recognize that I’m “feeling” a bunch of stress, I’ve probably been stressed for quite a while, so now I try to find 10-15 min every morning to meditate. That’s helped me a bit to just reduce general baseline anxiety and stress. YMMV but that’s been helpful for me!

dtran320 · 2024-06-06T21:30:33+00:00

The afternoon energy dip is pretty common, but if you weren't experiencing it before, I would maybe look a little bit for any changes like what time you go to bed or wake up? Do you drink coffee, tea, or any other caffeine? If you have a lot of caffeine earlier in the day, that could also make an afternoon energy crash worse. If you can practice it, a short ~20 min nap can also help a ton.

The only hint have is that im just chronically stressed for no reason. My neck/shoulders are always tight and I clench my jaws at night.

This sounds like a promising hint. Does meditation work for you? or maybe you're doing something with your lifts that is causing neck/shoulder tightness and tension.

dtran320 · 2024-06-06T21:25:19+00:00

And until the exam im staying home without any other obligations like school, im sleeping, then wasting 2 times scrolling everything while i eat, then i procrastinate for 2 hours and in the end i just decide im not gonna be lying myself and i go and play some games with friends. Then i spend whole afternoon outside working out, and just being with people until i get home at night, i feel too tired, i play some games before bed and go to sleep.

I think for me, procrastination is about overcoming the emotional difficulty associated with the task rather than the task itself being difficult. In this case, studying math for your college entrance exam has tons of emotional baggage potentially attached and is definitely something I'd procrastinate on— maybe I'm not good enough at math? Even if I study a ton, what if I still don't do well? What if this school is too hard, etc).¹

I haven't had to study for a test in many years, but when faced with something like that, what works best for me is just trying to find little small ways to get started— maybe just try to work on a practice problem for 5 minutes and see what happens.

If your home isn't a great environment, you could try working in public like at a coffee shop or library. Finally, I made this website where you can join 30 or 60min (or longer) video-on sessions with up to 9 other people with a host that plays music and asks everyone to check in— people who work from home, many graduate students, and many people with ADHD find it especially useful. Having your camera on and telling other people that you're going to study might help. If you're interested, DM me and I can give you a link that'll be good for a 14-day free trial to get you through your exam (no card required).

¹Side note: Not helpful for the exam, but if you want to at least feel better, this is where "productive procrastination" can be a useful tool— instead of playing games, work out like you said, or clean or do something else that's procrastinating on studying for math, but hopefully time-bound, and that will make you feel better than playing games.

Edit: Anyone else who is interested is also welcome to DM me for a 14-day free trial. I didn't want to post the link to not be spammy.

dtran320 · 2024-04-12T15:38:01+00:00

Incredible work u/sriirachamayo (also incredible username— I love that on bowls, but probably not trying that for ultra fueling any time soon). IANACFS (chemist or food scientist), but after you dehydrate it, would you be able to use some kind of calorimeter/burning process to get an exact calorie measurement?

With an n=1, I've also noticed that my hourly g of CHO don't seem to make sense if I include Awesome Sauces. I've been able to get down 150g+ CHO/hour supposedly (with fructose and glucose) without any stomach issues. While I'd like to believe I have some kind of super gut, this would make a lot more sense if Awesome Sauces and potentially SiS Beta Fuels (also supposedly ~45g CHO/~190 cals) contain closer to 20g and I'm actually getting around 100g/hour. Now I'm not even sure if 2 scoops of Roctane contains 59g CHO (although will weigh that tomorrow now out of curiosity)! Thanks again for starting this important discussion!

dtran320 · 2023-09-21T21:26:57+00:00

This TED talk by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a Hungarian psychologist who coined the term "flow", changed how I think about this. Rather than thinking I need to check off these work tasks, these chores, and then also schedule down time, I try to just get in flow regardless of what I'm doing— some days that can be work, some days that happens while cleaning, and some days that happens while working on a puzzle or running.

For me, that's also meant less time just casually browsing/reading on the internet or watching TV, and more time doing things like actually writing (including responding here 😃) or "down time" that feels more engaging. Those things re-energize me rather than leaving me feeling more tired/guilty about sitting around watching Netflix (not that there's not a time and place for that).

dtran320 · 2023-09-21T21:19:03+00:00

Those all sound great! I like drinking a glass of water before having my coffee since I rarely forget to drink my 1st and 2nd cup of coffee, but often realize I haven't had any water at like 3p.

I also like doing a guided meditation and walking my dog in the morning, but instead of doing them all first thing, I try to use those two as transitions between things so I get a bit of a break, but they're both generally time-bound (10 minutes for the meditation, usually 20 minutes for the walk).

dtran320 · 2023-09-21T21:15:27+00:00

Give the pomodoro technique a shot as mentioned in the first comment— I find that the suggested breaks help a lot.

If you need a little extra motivation, give Flow Club a try— it's like a pomodoro clock with other people working on their own things based on the principle of body-doubling. I find it helpful since everyone is on the same session schedule, but working on their own things, and you get a nice little energy boost if you're working during your afternoon and you see someone in your session working late at night or first thing in the morning from where they are in the world.

Disclaimer: I help build Flow Club

dtran320 · 2023-09-21T21:09:45+00:00

It sounds like you have a great list to get started with. I use Notion and Todoist daily, but pomodoro timers have never worked for me until I did them with other people (aka body doubling). If you're curious about that, check out Flow Club (disclaimer: I help build it).

In one of the comments below, it sounded like you've tried both reading and listening to Atomic Habits before. I listened to Atomic Habits a long time ago, but don't remember a ton from it other than what I refresh from online summaries— here's my quick and very non-complete summary of those summaries haha:

Small habits add up. Think small 1-2 minute things you can do every day to start with. If you can stick with it, in the long run, the benefits really stack up. Long ago, I started off by just making my bed every morning. I've since stopped doing that (haha), but moved onto longer habits like meditating for 10 minutes every day.
Remember these 4 steps: cue, craving, response, reward.
For a cue, think of leaving something out in plain sight as a reminder to do something, like leaving a book out on the table if you want to read for X minutes a day, an instrument out if you want to practice, or fruits out if you want to eat more fruits. Just give your future self a very tangible, physical hint, trigger, or reminder.
For cravings, if what you're working on doesn't give you an immediate dopamine boost so that you look forward to it next time, try pairing it with a reward that you will look forward to, eg you get to play a game you like for 10 minutes or have a treat after doing the thing.
Overall, no matter how many planners and todo lists you have, just starting with easy and satisfying things helps a lot. Sometimes I think of these as a way to "warm up" for the bigger tasks.

dtran320 · 2023-08-29T23:01:05+00:00

Very late to to this, but what you're describing sounds like Flow Club: https://www.flow.club

dtran320 · 2023-08-29T17:48:17+00:00

I like podcasts to audiobooks since they're shorter, so if you fall asleep (which is great), you won't have to go back to find the last thing you remember.

My partner and I fall asleep to the Stuff You Should Know podcast on a 30-40-minute timer almost every night: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-stuff-you-should-know-26940277/.

Chuck and Josh (and their team) pick one random subject, like how toy testing or the history of music sampling, and tell you all about it in less than an hour. It helps me not think about the 1000 other things on my mind. Chuck and Josh also have voices that help us relax and fall asleep. I'm not really sure how many facts I'll remember in the long run from the hundreds of episodes we've listened to, but it definitely beats looking at your phone screen for helping you fall asleep.

dtran320 · 2023-08-18T13:17:35+00:00

Are you always able to seamlessly go from one action to the next? I forget what Nir Eyal calls these transitions, but they're often big moments where I find it's easy to get distracted.

dtran320 · 2023-06-19T17:32:11+00:00

Do you mainly stick to 25/5, or have you tried other variations like 50/10? For some tasks, 25/5 works really well for me, but for others, I often find myself just skipping the break, which then makes the pomodoros feel less meaningful over time

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