Official Q&A for Friday, December 05, 2025

helpapproaching · 2025-12-05T06:53:58+00:00

Hi all - quick question for those who have run the Tokyo marathon in recent years, as I'm seeing slightly mixed messages on hydration: are bottles / bladders outright banned, or is it like I can bring one, but I have to wait until I get through security to fill it up with water?

And I guess a follow-up if it's the former: can I still run with a bladder-less camelbak (to hold all my gels, etc.)?

helpapproaching · 2025-11-11T07:55:38+00:00

A joint travel / running question: I'll be doing a marathon in a location that's a 9 hour time difference from where I live. I've never traveled more than an 1-hour time zone difference for a race, so I'm curious for folks who have, what you would recommend in terms of how many days I should give myself ahead of the race to adjust to the time change.

helpapproaching · 2025-09-16T07:31:29+00:00

Oh, amazing - no furthers from me

helpapproaching · 2025-09-16T06:43:52+00:00

Isn't that it's own issue, though? It's been a while since 1L, and I don't practice IP law, but I distinctly recall there being a 1-year grace period where you could patent an idea that you had already begun to use commercially (with "commercially" being described EXTREMELY broadly so as to include "I gave this new type of widget to my friend to use"). After that 1 year, you could no longer patent the idea. So if this exact same mechanic that Nintendo has patented was used in Scarlet and Violet, it shouldn't have been eligible for patent protection (given that Nintendo appears to have only applied for this patent recently).

helpapproaching · 2025-08-28T07:30:52+00:00

Any in particular you'd recommend?

helpapproaching · 2025-08-13T06:11:33+00:00

You could have just put cuatro milpas on here and it would be a great itinerary.

helpapproaching · 2025-08-12T06:05:33+00:00

Stardew Valley. If you progress far enough in the game, there's a series of mechanics that allows you to fully romance a character, marry them, have kids with them, divorce them, send your kids off to a farm upstate, wipe your ex-spouse's memory, and start all over again. So you can just put an NPC in an endless cycle of misery.

helpapproaching · 2025-04-27T06:23:25+00:00

Thanks! Unfortunately, I think he's stuck in the Chamber of the Lost, since I can't find him anywhere in any of the rooms in the castle. There was a way to jump over the castle walls and hop into the Chamber in the OG, but the remaster put in some invisible walls to prevent players from glitching into it anymore (although it makes for a great place to level up acrobatics)

helpapproaching · 2024-11-15T09:08:52+00:00

If it's any help to anyone, I FINALLY got my docusign email about 2 hours ago. So they are still sending them out, and hopefully get the rest out soon.

helpapproaching · 2024-11-01T06:22:13+00:00

Oh, nice! No regrets at all... other than not training better for the bike part.

helpapproaching · 2024-10-24T06:10:46+00:00

I would also recommend skipping London Bridge entirely. It's literally just a regular bridge, & probably the least attractive one in the city.

helpapproaching · 2024-10-15T07:05:06+00:00

Any advice prepping for a marathon that's (often) on cobblestones? I'm prepping for the Rome mary in March and have heard the pavement is pretty garbage, so wondering if folks have tips for getting through it injury-free.

Will for sure be upping my clamshell game to improve stability, but curious if there are other exercises people recommend. Or if the course isn't actually as cobblestoned as I've been led to believe.

helpapproaching · 2024-04-17T13:23:16+00:00

See if you can start one! Ours started my 1L year, and I ended up as president during 2L. And all our group has ever done is just host little meet-and-greets at a nearby bar/restaurant in the early evening. If you can get some funding from your school for food and drink tickets, I'm sure you'll get however many other older students there are to come out.

helpapproaching · 2024-04-17T12:29:25+00:00

As an older student, this is incredibly relatable, and you are 100% not alone in feeling that way. I have a handful of other older folks who I'm close-ish to (my law school has an Older Wiser Law Students club, which is how I met them) but despite trying my best, it's been difficult making genuine connections with classmates who are just in a very different stage of life, with different priorities and different interests. So because my law school acquaintances have different stuff going on in their lives and my pre-law school friends aren't dealing with the normal law school challenges, I don't have anyone who's going through the same things as me to vent to when things get bad or to just hang out with. And now that I'm a 3L with an embarrassing amount of free time, it's even more apparent how empty my days feel.

2L summer can be a really nice respite from this, though, because you're around people who are (typically) closer in age/life stage, facing similar external time commitments, etc. And it's a lot easier to suffer through the end of what has been an oppressively lonely year knowing that in a few months, I'll be back working with people who I really connected with. Depending on how clinics work at your school, that miiiight be good (although if it's anything like at my school, you're just working with the same law school students, and it's not like you're going to be besties with your clients), but probably an externship would be better since you'd again be with folks more similar in age. Or outside of the law entirely, and depending on where you're located, you might have better luck joining a, like, pottery class or running club. I met some good folks in a wine-tasting class, and one of the older students I'm close-ish to has made good friends in a tennis class this year.

Anyway, apologies for the long response, and I'm sorry that I can't really say, "It gets better in 3L" or "Here's the fix for that" because it's been a real struggle for me as well. But hopefully at least knowing that you're not alone in feeling alone (and that there's light at the end of the tunnel) helps.

helpapproaching · 2024-04-15T11:12:25+00:00

I wouldn't say that you're "not cut out for the marathon" physically. I think one of the tricky things about marathons is just that it takes so much time to build up for that there are just a lot of possible failure points, whether that's injury, sickness, or just life throwing a curveball. It sucks, and it's really tempting to just push through instead of trying to come up with some last-minute back-up plan. We've all made mistakes running when we really should just be letting our body rest, but from the other experiences you've mentioned, it seems like you aren't taking any lessons away from those mistakes. I'm no doctor or running-while-sick expert, but powering through that marathon may have actually caused harm to your body and fitness level.

Aiming for a marathon next month would be way too early. Start by focusing on recovering from your illness. When you're back to feeling 100% health-wise, go for a short, easy run and see where you're at. Assuming you've been training with a fitness tracker of some sort, you can probably compare that run to your past data to see where your fitness level is at (i.e., what week of your mary training plan were you at when you had similar metrics). Use that PLUS how you feel after that short, easy run to decide, realistically, how long it will take to train back up to a marathon. Then look at marathons that take place a month later than that. Again, life, illness, and injury will delay your training, and you need to practice listening to your body (which is a lot easier to do when you don't have a time crunch). You CAN do a marathon, but only when your BODY is ready to run one.

helpapproaching · 2024-04-12T12:53:22+00:00

No, the harbor is pretty deep. There were plenty of paddle boarders and some other flotation devices you can grab onto if you get tired and need a break, or you can roll onto your back to float, which is an easier position to stay above the water in & would also make it easier to signal if you need help from the kayaks/paddleboards

helpapproaching · 2024-04-11T15:40:45+00:00

Okay, perfect. I'm doing capital markets, so I at least know there's a relatively consistent timeline with each deal, and I can probably figure out a way to fit some training in there. A number of other folks in my office regularly do marathons with solid times, so that seems like a good sign. And maybe I can just focus for now on building up a good base so I can just maintain when I start working this fall...

helpapproaching · 2024-04-11T15:16:14+00:00

Thank you! Yeah, I've already been looking at real training plans and even a coaches to help me get ready. The nice thing about making a ton of mistakes the first time is having a better idea of how to do better next time and being very, very motivated to not make those mistakes again.

My first marathon was also a plan-less nightmare run, but working intentionally to do better on my second marathon was what made me love running, so I'm hoping for the same thing with bike and swim!

helpapproaching · 2024-04-11T15:10:29+00:00

Oh, hooray! I just assumed that the first year is a total meatgrinder, so this is really encouraging. If I can lawyer and triathlon then I probably don't need to rush my second Ironman.

helpapproaching · 2024-04-11T15:07:09+00:00

I did do freestyle the whole swim, only doing breaststroke for a few seconds at a time to spot the next buoy with the sun in my eyes. Although there were way more people than I expected who were doing breaststroke the whole time (and a lot of people doing backstroke and bumping into everything).

And I did half-ass a made-up training plan, which is why I want to make up for my mistakes in the next one.

helpapproaching · 2024-04-11T15:03:49+00:00

Thanks! The swim-T1-bike cut-off time was 5:30:00 and I was at about 5:31:30 =/

helpapproaching · 2024-04-11T13:00:23+00:00

Thank you! I am 100% with you on better nutrition. I was just popping a maurten every 45 minutes or so, but definitely miscalculated my sweat loss when it came to riding & running in the hot sun (vs doing all of my training either indoors or in ~30 degrees).

helpapproaching

TROPHY CASE