2018 Week 27: Mileage and Musings

Fitness:
At the end of this September I plan on running the Blenheim and Oxford half marathons, ideally setting a personal best. Last year I ran the Blenheim Palace race in 1:47:13, and ambitiously I would like to do better than 1:30:00. I suspect this is too large an improvement to expect even with 3 months to train, but it provides a target to work towards an incentive to train harder.

Oxford has some beautiful places to run. Below are some pictures from routes around Christ Church Meadow, Port Meadow, and Oxford Parkway.

Small Holidays:
This weekend I visited Oxford’s Arboretum, and Blenheim Palace. It was lovely to enjoy the summer sunshine. With so much interesting content so easily accessible online and on paper, it can be difficult to prioritise taking time to just experience the outside world. Emotionally, it felt very valuable to be out somewhere a little different, to take a small holiday. Some photos from the weekend:

 

Car Ownership:
It has now been two out of a relatively few visits to the palace that have included a car show, and this time it was the Pre ’50 American Auto Club Rally of the Giants. It is remarkable the strength of the relationship people form with their cars, and this is particularly noticeable in the context of a community that defines themselves by the restoration and care of classic machines. The reasons that come to mind for this strength are: cars are one of the largest purchases commonly made, cars provide freedom (of movement) to a unique extent, and for many commuters cars are a often occupied second home. I enjoy the practicalities and aesthetics of cars (and motorcycles, and bicycles), but for something so common, the economics don’t seem to add up. Intuitively, for such an expensive piece of infrastructure, the majority of (privately owned) vehicles seem to spend a rather minimal amount of time being used. While I (like many) enjoy driving, it would seem the more hours I spend driving my car, the fewer hours I would have to focus on other tasks, and as such relocating or finding alternative transport (even if slower) would net gain me more hours of useful time. I suppose it would be interesting to quantify this from the perspective of homo economicus, but a quick search of the literature give me only “semi-structured interviews with 19 regular private car commuters” and “discrete choice models of the household’s decision to own zero, one, two or three or more vehicles“, i.e. interesting descriptions of individual and collective behaviour with regard to owing cars, but not a judgement on if it makes sense.Quotes

Some interesting comments include “Drivers frequently fail to appreciate the full costs of their travel and equate running costs with fuel costs only” and “Thus the autonomy and empowerment drivers feel can benefit health and wellbeing and access to a car is associated with superior physical health, less depression and lower mortality rates”.

I suppose, ultimately, it would require pricing relatively difficult concepts such as the flexibility of point to point transport to an individual, or the sense of safety it provides, or the value in transporting dependants.

Writing from the office.

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