The year is 1959. Eisenhower is on his second term, Castro just kicked Batista out of the country and Ray Charles’s Let the Good Times Roll is topping the charts.

Yesterday, I completed a marathon on the SkiErg, with a pretty respectable time (see results here). I know I can do better, and I know I will do better. On the other hand, this was a marathon where I pretty much did everything wrong. And that was sort of an instructive experience in its own right. The title is somewhat misleading. Not much went wrong – the marathon itself was smooth sailing.