Just a little nuts

I'm starting to think I might be a little nuts.  My MTB epic is just a week away - 80 miles, 7572ft of climbing, at night - and I'm only a 3 weeks away from submitting a paper to IEEE on the Epic Framework.  I've just received the MTB event notes and it reads like the riot act.  I've been preparing my body for months and my bike has seen a fair few upgrades, yet the list of last minute things to prepare is shockingly long.  As for the framework, the framework needs some good hours coding yet, and the paper is a mass of notes and in no real shape yet.  Trying to figure out which event I'm least prepared for...

The ultimate non-renewable resource

Someone once told me there’s only one thing you need and you can accomplishing anything.  Everyone has a limited amount of it and for something so rare it is amazing how I use it at times.  So what could this special non-renewable resource be?  Money, friends, or heart beats?  No, not money, that is a renewable resource – if you run out just print some more.  No, not friends, that too is a more or less infinite resource – if you want more friends you just make more friends.  Heart beats perhaps?  Getting closer, but no it’s not heart beats.  Heart beats might be a limited resource, but exercise and a healthy lifestyle will give you more of the thing I’m actually talking about – it’s Time.

Have you ever thought “if only I had more time”?  At the moment I’m constantly thinking if only I had more time for training, more time to spend with my family, or more time to work on this epic framework.  During working hours I’m pinching an hour here or there between meetings and never seem to have time totally dedicated to this framework.  It’s the same with my training, I line up a number of bike rides and then something ruins my well laid plans.  Just this week the freehub on my bike wore out and that meant it was out of action for a week.  Well now I’m off on holiday for a week and I hope that will be great for the training with lots of rides in the Lake District, but sadly nothing much will happen on the framework – unless you can send me an idea for a thought programming device.

Every journey begins with a single step

At the moment I’m working on two epic challenges.  One of them software based, the other on two wheels.  The two wheel challenge is a mountain biking epic that involves riding 80 miles over rough terrain on a very well-known UK route called the South Downs Way.  The South Downs is known for its short sharp (painful) climbs and fast exciting descents.  Whenever I mention this challenge to someone new there is generally a very long pause followed by a comment like "80 miles...  That's a long way to drive, and you say you’re doing it on a bike?".  To which I normally reply "Did I mention I'm doing it in the dark?".  That's right, this particular challenge starts at sunset and hopefully ends in time to see the sunrise. 

That brings me to my other little challenge - an epic framework challenge.  This challenge involves creating a new user agent interaction model for a 20 year old application.  It promises some short sharp (painful) technical challenges, some long drawn out battles of the hearts and minds variety, and with any luck some good times as discoveries are celebrated.  This framework will be built using a well-established architectural style (REST), but this style has many interpretations of the original research, some battle-hardened, and some pure theory.  To keep life interesting there are also a number of different camps to choose from - there is even one self titled camp calling themselves the RESTafarians.  I think you get the picture and you might say I'm building this framework in the dark, but I'd prefer to say we're discovering new territory.

To start either of these challenges without some sort of training and preparation would be madness.  The mountain bike preparation will involve some goal setting, a plan for the event, some careful tool selection, a training schedule, and a few milestone events to test myself.  Preparation for the epic framework will be no less rigorous, but we will also need great requirements, sound architecture, an excellent test harness, and some agreed milestones.  This promises to be some ride.