A new equilibrium (wonkish) and various observations (petty)
In basic economics, a supply-and-demand graph shows quantity supplied and demanded on the x-axis and price on the y-axis. The supply curve (normally a line) is upward-sloping, because the higher a price a firm can command for its goods, the more of that good it will produce. Similarly, the lower a good's price, the higher the demand for that good, so the demand curve is downward-sloping. The point at which these curves intersect represents the equilibrium price of that good.
On the graph above, D1 and S represent the supply and demand curves for a given good -- say, X-rated DVD rentals. The makers of these DVDs can produce a given quantity and sell them at price P1, represented by point A. This is the equilibrium price point.
Say something happens to drive up demand for these DVDs. The demand curve will shift to the right, to D2. In response, purveyors of filth will churn out more smut for a suddenly more licentious populace. A greater quantity of DVDs will be sold at higher price P2. Point B represents the new equilibrium price point.
Now consider the y-axis to represent not price but the overall importance a person (say, a Satanically motivated fellow in Colorado) places on running as a steady force in his life. The x-axis represents mileage actually run. S represents the amount of running this heathen is capable of doing, and D2 represents his level of willingness to do it.
Years ago, I was at point B and stayed there for a long time. But as I slowed down and became more disenchanted with myself for having ever poured so much effort into running as a mediocre talent, the satisfaction I derived from it at any mileage level waned, meaning that its importance fell from P2 to P1. For a while, in spite of this, I did as much mileage -- at least sometimes -- as I had done for ages, so my unstable equilibrium point on the above graph fell somewhere below B and to the right of A. Before too long, however, I wised up, and my psychological drive to even go through the motions decreased. This shifted my demand-to-run curve to the left, and the quantity of running I supplied decreased accordingly. The end result is new equilibrium point A, where I do far less running than before, but derive as much satisfaction as I now can from the activity.
I often wondered back in my racing days how much I would run once I was old and slow, assuming I could still run as much as I pleased. A few friends who were about my age and station decided that about an hour a day would work. As it happens, though no real conscious design on my part, that is about where I seem to have settled: 45 to 50 miles a week takes me a little less than an hour a day, on average, to lay down.
QUIZ: What would happen if I suddenly "needed" running more again, and P1 jumped up to P2, but without any more willingness on my part to run more than I do? How could I then achieve an equilibrium state?
Now that various intermediate times are often included in online race results even for events shorter than marathons, I find myself scanning down the columns of splits early in the race to look for outliers. Sometimes you'll see even some of the fastest finishers coming from way back at say, 10K into a half-marathon, but far more often it goes the other way. I derive an uncomfortable level of satisfaction from looking down to see which person has finished in the highest (worst) place in a long race after, for example, a first 5K under 20:00 or a first 10K under 40:00. (I usually exclude marathons from this, since the high number of people who fall apart in the last third of a 26.2-miler cheapens the Schadenfreude considerably.)
These pictures were taken by a friend during an 11-mile run yesterday that took us through all sorts of interesting places. The salient point about these photos isn't my level of reverence for the sculptures that graciously posed with me; it's the fact that I had no shirt on. The high temperature was in the 60s here in Boulder.
This one was taken this afternoon, about 20 minutes before it started raining. It is now 33 degrees and snowing at 9:20 p.m. I did not know that this was in the forecast, but it doesn't surprise me.
There is a 400-meter track just out of the frame in this photo, and I was considering doing something resembling a workout on its surface even as I took in this worsening-by-the-minute tableau. Fortunately, there was a Sunday soccer game going on, and as invariably happens -- even in Boulder where runners tend to hold disproportionate public sway but especially in Boulder where the sense of entitlement is only slightly lower than it is in the West Wing -- the parents of the kids playing had plopped not only themselves but most of their crap in lane one. I've never understood this, because here, as at most such facilities, there is plenty of room between the inside of the track and the soccer field to set up camp. While such people are certainly inviting a flurry of curses and perhaps a few keyed car doors from people more motivated and misanthropic than I, in this case I has been gift-wrapped a perfect excuse to do a haphazard few miles around East Boulder Park instead (see: the first part of this post).
I will leave you all with a clip that is also from yesterday's run. About once a week, I check in with the octet of goats at the Jewish Community Center about three miles from my house. My favorite is Sahar, the black-and-white one. I've decided that more than one pass through the video should leave anyone who has undergone a fairly normal socialization process with a vague sense of creeping unease.