Nassim Taleb, author of the New York Times bestseller The Black Swan, was the first person ever to email me here at the Knackered Hack.

No, honestly, it’s true. In the annals of this blog, that was seen as something of a red-letter day (if not a black swan event). But its relative importance on the part of the sender was naturally quite insignificant. Let’s say, our relationship was perfectly asymmetrical. So, when I turned up to meet Taleb at his London hotel recently, without the more imposing affiliation of a national media title with which to introduce myself, it took a while for it to sink in just who in publicity hell I was.

Finally, after 10 minutes, the author exclaimed in his soft Levantine accent: “Ah, I remember! You’re the marathon guy with the picture!”

Rarely have I been so pleased to be recognised for so little. It was nice to know that I registered with Taleb less as a total “unknown, unknown” and more as just faintly forgettable. Taleb had been researching blogs with a view to publicising his latest book, and had hit on this humble site. “I saw you writing about my book Fooled by Randomness on a marathon blog. I said to myself, this guy’s interesting!”

Even better! It’s a rare journalist who gets an actual compliment from the The Black Swan author.

As we exchanged initial small talk about exercise, I explained that I was a bit annoyed by all this complexity stuff of his, because his work has devalued most of my post-graduate business studies. Moreover, after leaving business school I moved on to devote a lot of my spare time to marathon training. But lately, having suffered repeated illness and injury and read the blog of another student of complexity, Art De Vany, I’d been led to the conclusion that this marathon malarkey might be injurious to health as well.

At this point a jet-lagged, publicity-dazed Taleb came alive: Continue reading ‘Caveman lunch with taleb’

It did start to feel like it would never end. I’d begun to regard a heart rate above 50 as normal. I can’t recall when I’ve sustained such a measurement for such a long period. I was rewarded for not training yesterday: my resting heart rate this morning fell back to 47 beats per minute, indicating the passing of the virus. I suspect it could still go a little lower, as I didn’t have enough sleep.

Over three weeks of no exercise, my weight only drifted up a couple of pounds. Even so, I was eating a lot. Over the past few days, it seems to be moving in the other direction. From 73 kg (161 lbs) last week, my rather imprecise scales are now leaning the other side of 72 kg (159 lbs.) Following on from the BBC’s Truth about Food programme and its revelation that the calcium in dairy products like yoghurt drain fat from food, I’ve started eating quantities after some meals. I’ve also gone back to porridge and honey for breakfast – classic marathoner’s food and a staple of Paula Radcliffe. It certainly has left me full in the morning, even in the recent cold weather, so no need for a couple of pieces of buttered toast and marmalade. The Christmas cake is now but a small, drying triangle, and so much easier to overlook at coffee time.

I’m nervous about losing weight, and the Bath University Human Performance Centre staff warned me not to pay too much attention to it on a daily basis – I guess they’re only too familiar with the danger of obsessiveness in this area. I’m not particularly heavy. But my VO2 Max, or capacity to pump oxygen around the body, will certainly improve for marathon purposes if I dropped some weight. Combining that with higher intensity training looks risky. Two pounds in a week is probably a little too much to lose, and may be a case of more noise than signal, likely to even out on a week-to-week basis. But I’m happy eating lots of fruit, smoothies, pulses and organic meat.

Resting heart rate 47

Weight 72 kg

Mood

Total exercise energy consumed 568 kcal (5k jog, 10 mins bike)