Ok so we’ve visited on the Types of Fun previously; although my natural instinct is to be very black and white about things I really do think we need a Type 1.5 fun.
At this year’s Ragnar I ended up enjoying myself much sooner, and had already (mentally, if not publicly) committed to doing it again *NEXT* year (note to friends: let me know if you want to do it next year!). Even though I got lost halfway through my second run.
I think one of the things that made it much more pleasant was knowing what I was in for and training more. I am at my very core an impatient person and so training is really not my forte. Training represents the tedious effort that “wastes time” until I can get to the “fun stuff”, but training helps. Much like at work. It has been a year now since Firehouse left and it has taken every day of that year for me to feel like I have a handle on my platforms, and not constantly second-guess myself. A super-good dev manager helps, as did a super-good boss (true to form, as soon as I really liked my boss I get a new one. It’s like I’m training bosses).
However I spent all of that training time listing all of the things I’d do “once Ragnar was done”. Once Ragnar was done, I was going to do the pruning in the front yard. Once Ragnar was done, I was going to run a deprecation at work. Once Ragnar was done, I was going to start on a quilt, reorganize some personal spreadsheet sprawl, go back to weightlifting, catch up on my podcasts (running with podcasts is a mixed blessing — I tend to lose about a minute a mile), clean up my filing system, fix my reporting metrics, and evaluate my wardrobe. I was going to reach out to friends again (because whenever I sign up for one of these things I tend to fall out of social events) and catch up on correspondence. I was going to blog again (hey, check!).
It’s just once that you’re on the other side of “once Ragnar was done” you realize there’s another Ragnar, and there was just no good reason to put off things for “once Ragnar was done”. And now that Ragnar is approaching Type 1 fun, I can demote it from being a milestone of deferment.
Bobbie Conti 