In Apple Mail, open Preferences
> Signatures
.
Once open, create a new signature.
Name the signature something meaningful in the central column. Replace the signature contents on the right with some placeholder text. This text should be recognizable to you as we will use it to help identify the correct signature system file later.
Ensure the Always match my default font
checkbox is off
Associate the new placeholder signature with one of your email accounts by dragging its name from the second column to an email account in the first column.
If you want to setup the signature to be the default for an email account with auto-load when starting a new message, select the email account in the first column, and choose the new signature.
Close the Preferences
window to save it, then Quit Apple Mail.
Compose your html
code inside of your favorite text editor. I use VS Code.
You do NOT want to use Microsoft Word, Dreamweaver or any other "smart" editor as these programs
will manipulate your final code in a way which will most definitely break your code and design for your recipients.
The page should not have html
or head
tags.
It should include only inline css (mostly), and should only consist of basic html elements
(div
, span
, img
, a
, etc…).
Even though many email programs now support more advanced tags, there is still a large
percentage of people who use older versions of Outlook and other software,
and you want your signature to look great for them too.
If you need additional help with html signature design or implementation, I have created a company called GiantUser (it's an anagram of "signature") to do just that with very reasonable prices. Check it out!
Here is some example code from my signature to get you started.
We are going to be using TextEdit to open code files in the following steps, so we need to ensure that it is setup properly to display the raw HTML code.
Open a TextEdit.app, found in Applications
, and open Preferences
> Open and Save
.
Ensure that the checkmark next to Display HTML files as HTML code instead of formatted text
is ticked.
Close the Preferences
panel, and close the new document.
We are going to need to locate the folder containing the placeholder signature. Unfortunately, you are likely not going to be able to use Finder to get to these folders.
Apple goes to great lengths to hide these files from people as they usually contain info that is not usually editable by hand.
Trying to navigate to them by clicking in Finder will usually lead you to your visible iCloud Drive
folder with nowhere else to go.
Don't worry though, I will walk you through an alternative method of getting to the hidden signature files we need to work with.
The files can be in 2 different places depending on whether you are using iCloud Drive or not.
You are most likely using iCloud Drive, even if you are not using an iCloud email address.
Check to see if you're using iCloud Drive by going to System Preferences
and selecting your user id on the left column.
Next, select the iCloud
button…
…and see if iCloud Drive
is On
.
If so, double-check that iCloud Drive
is enabled for Mail by selecting iCloud Drive
, selecting Options
in the popup…
…and see if the checkbox next to Mail
is ticked.
If this checkbox is ticked, then you are using iCloud Drive and should proceed to the next step. If not, skip ahead to step 15.
(You should skip this step if NOT using iCloud Drive.)
To open the placeholder signature file, we will need to use an application on your computer that lets us interact with your files in a different way than Finder.
Please find Terminal.app in Applications > Utilities
, open it by double clicking.
When terminal opens, copy/paste the following line into the box.
This line tells Terminal to list all the files in this directory along with some other file info, then sort it by date. Now press enter
to run the command.
When you press enter you should see a bunch of lines, each of which corresponds to a file and some of its metadata.
Look at the right side column — the file names — and notice the ones that end in .mailsignature
.
These are the files we are interested in working with.
Note: Your output might look a little different, and the rows that display will differ from the ones in this screenshot because the contents here are unique to your Mail setup. This is not a cause for concern.
If you get an error, make sure you pasted the line in exactly like shown on one line. If you still get an error, you may not be using iCloud Drive and are following the wrong step.
In the new lines that come up in Terminal after running the command,
you should see a .mailsignature
file that has the date and time of when you started this tutorial.
This is the placeholder file. If you don't see a line listed, then you may have done something wrong in a previous step, and should try again.
As mentioned above, we could normally use Finder to view these folders, but Apple has hidden access to them to
prevent direct editing, something we wish to do here. If you have only 1 .mailsignature
file,
then this is most likely the placeholder file you created in the earlier steps. If you have more than one
.mailsignature
file in there, then we need to find the one you created earlier.
Because this list is sorted top-down by the most recently updated, it will most likely be the top one, but you
can check by opening them all and seeing their contents.
Terminal.app does not respond to double-clicking the file, but we can open the .mailsignature
by running another command.
Copy/paste the following command into Terminal.app, all on one line:
This line tells Terminal to open all files in that directory that have a filename that ends with .mailsignature
,
and to open them using the TextEdit application.
Now press enter
to run the command, and TextEdit windows should pop open.
Once you have the file(s) open in TextEdit, move on to step 16.
(You should only do this step if NOT using iCloud Drive.)
Luckily for you, we can use Finder to open the signature file we need. In Finder, select the menu bar item
Go
> Go to Folder…
A panel will popup that allows you to input the direct path to the signature folder. Copy/paste the following line into the box:
After clicking Go
, a finder window should appear with several files.
Look at the file names and notice the ones that end in .mailsignature
. These are the files we are interested in working with.
More specifically, we are looking for the placeholder signature file you created earlier. Locate the most recently modified .mailsignature
file.
If you have more than one signature file in there, or cannot determine which is the placeholder, you can open each of them to help you find the right file. Simply repeat the following process for all the files.
Right-click on the .mailsignature
file in Finder, select Open With
, and choose TextEdit.
If TextEdit is not an option, choose Other…
, and then choose Applications
> TextEdit
.
Once you have the file(s) open in TextEdit, move on to step 13.
Now that you have the .mailsignature
file(s) open in TextEdit, we need to ensure it is the right one.
Make sure that the placeholder file we created earlier is open by scanning each of the open TextEdit documents for the
placeholder text you entered earlier in the Mail.app Preferences
panel.
Because the text I entered earlier was Placeholder text
, this is what I am looking for now.
Look for your placeholder text within the file's HTML code. Here, we know we have the correct file because we can clearly see our placeholder text: Placeholder text
If you cannot find the placeholder, you may still be in "edit" mode on the signature.
Try closing the Mail
> Preferences
Window,
completely quitting Apple Mail, and repeating the previous steps.
If you still cannot find the placeholder, you may need to double check that you are/aren't using iCloud Drive, as detailed in an earlier step.
When you have located the right placeholder .mailsignature
file, keep it open and close all
other TextEdit windows as we won't be using them here. Feel free to resize the window to make text editing a bit easier.
You will see a few metadata lines on the top of the file and some HTML code below it. Select all that code from
the line starting with body
, all the way to the end of the file.
Keeping the top metadata lines, delete the entire block of placeholder HTML code.
Still keeping the top metadata lines unedited, paste in your own custom HTML code from earlier.
Save and close the file, then Quit
TextEdit.
Open Apple Mail and go back to Preferences
> Signatures
. If you have images in your signature,
they will not show here in the preview, but they will show in the real signature
as long as your coded image source location is valid.
To test that it is working correctly, simply compose a new email using the account you associated this new signature with, and set the signature (right side of screen) to be the one with the name you created earlier. If the images show, and everything looks as it should, you have succeeded!
Was this page helpful for you? Buy me a slice of 🍕 to say thanks!
]]>
Marathon #27 is in the books, and it was a good one! This is my second time running the
Boston Marathon, my second sub-three hour finish in this race,
and my second fastest time ever. Despite being slightly injured and coming in with lower expectations,
everything came together for me in this race and I finished with a 2:56:28
time (06:44/mi
),
putting me at #3,042 place overall (out of 28,580), and #432 in my age group.
Finish
sub 3:30:00
sub 3:20:00
sub 3:15:00
What do I mean by slightly injured anyway? For the six weeks leading up to the marathon, I felt a persistent tightness and pain on the outside of my left foot. When it first started nagging me I feared the worst, so I had Di do a couple of ultrasound scans looking for a stress fracture, and luckily there were none she could find. Wanting to play it safe, I decided to reduce my training levels for Boston and see if it would get better on its own. It did not.
At 3 weeks out, and after skipping many of my long runs in the final stretch of the training cycle, I looked into deferring the race. However, it turns out that Boston only allows deferments if you are currently pregnant, or postpartum. Turns out that I am neither of those things so I was left with a choice of skipping the run, or going into it with no pressure and just finishing. I decided on the latter, and stopped worrying about training, stopped worrying about performance, and stopped worrying about putting up a strong result.
I am not a doctor, but some googling around has shown me that this could be the peroneus tertius
tendon
giving me issues here, right at the base. Tendonitis has no magic-bullet cure, with a period of RICE
(rest, ice, compression, elevation) advised. I did a little bit of this, but my foot was not getting any better. It was
also not getting any worse!
So, I never really stopped "training" for the marathon, only eased up. I still put up some miles, but ran them all at a slower pace, and skipped the speed workouts. After I decided to go easy on marathon #27, I also skipped the long runs. In the days leading up to the marathon, I still did my full pre-race preparation of tapering down, lots of sleep, lots of fluids, and good fuels. I was hopeful that the foot would start to feel a bit better with the taper, but it persistently nagged, both on and off runs.
Due to my personal best performance last year at Boston (2:54:21
) and other strong races, I was assigned
Bib #3739
, which had me starting in Wave 1, Corral 4, with a ton of fast people. I positioned myself in
the back of the pack, knowing that I would be running slower and fade back a bit throughout the race. We march towards
the Hopkinson start line, and the rain started to dump down on all runners.
Enough has been said about the Boston course online that I don't need to share too much of that here, but the initial
3 miles are downhill, and many runners are not able to accurately dial in their full race pace until the next flatter
section, miles 4-9. I kept it slower than I normally would have here for the first mile 6:54/mi
, but then
got caught up in the crowd and didn't really want to block anybody behind me by continuing to run slow. So I picked up
the pace a little while downhill. No big deal I told myself, I would slow down once things thinned out on the course.
I finished the first 5k downhill at a 6:38/mi
pace, and had thoughts of slowing down. But then I realized
that my foot was not nagging me anymore!? Perhaps it was the excitement and nerves, or the wet feet from the rain, or
the extra hour of sleep I got, but my foot felt pretty good at this point. I decided to try and keep a pace between
6:41/mi
(2:55:00 time
) and 6:50/mi
(2:59:59 time
) for as long as I
could, and reassess after the flat stretch.
I finished the next 5k at a 6:32/mi
pace and realized that I hadn't been training well enough to do any
pace regulation, as I had no idea what my new on-the-fly target pace felt like. The next 5k was ran in
6:44/mi
, and the next in 6:37/mi
. Somewhere in those flatter miles, I abandoned my goals of
a targeted pace and simply ran by feel! The foot still felt ok, so I continued to run at the faster paces, completely
expecting to pay for it in the later miles.
By the time I hit the Newton hills, I was running with about a 2:55:00
finish, and decided that I would
try to finish in a sub-three hour time. My foot was just starting to get a little painful, and I had already banked about
5 minutes of time which would allow me to slow down when needed, and even walk for a bit where necessary… just
not too much walking!
My slowest mile was on mile 21 (Heartbreak Hill), where the hill, the pain in my foot, a developing side stitch, and
The Wall all became a bit overwhelming. I think I walked about 30 seconds of that hill near the middle, but was able to
rally eventually and pick up the pace again. I never got back down into the 6:30s/mi
pacing, but my banked
time allowed me to settle into a 6:50+/mi
pace for the rest of the race and still get a sub-three!
Throughout the race, I was able to get many phone calls on my watch from Eli chanting "Go Dada, Go!",
and that really helped me get through the last miles. They were cheering me on near the finish line, and even
though we somehow missed each other in the final stretch, the support from them, and the roaring crowd pushed me through
the last mile to a final time of 2:56:28
! This is obviously well under a 3-hour marathon time, and completely
exceeded my expectations coming in to the race.
Here is a the full race analysis on Strava if you are curious.
I wasn't able to get a tattoo in Boston due to the state holiday (Patriots Day) but will get inked soon and update this post when I do!
So what's next? I am taking some time off for my foot to fully heal. I am hoping that a full week without running will do it, but maybe 2 or 3 may be necessary. Marathon #28 is coming up in the beginning of June, so I don't want to lose too much fitness before then, but I also want to fully heal and put this nagging foot injury behind me.
Was this page helpful for you? Buy me a slice of 🍕 to say thanks!
]]>There are plenty of tutorials online to create an HTML signature in Apple Mail with older versions of macOS/OS X. You can even find one of my other tutorials on how to add HTML Signatures in Lion, Mountain Lion, iOS 7, Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan, Sierra, High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur, or Monterey. However, the process has completely changed for the new macOS Ventura (13). Here is how to do it:
In Apple Mail, open Preferences
> Signatures
.
Once open, create a new signature.
Name the signature something meaningful in the central column. Replace the signature contents on the right with some placeholder text. This text should be recognizable to you as we will use it to help identify the correct signature system file later.
Ensure the Always match my default font
checkbox is off
Associate the new placeholder signature with one of your email accounts by dragging its name from the second column to an email account in the first column.
If you want to setup the signature to be the default for an email account with auto-load when starting a new message, select the email account in the first column, and choose the new signature.
Close the Preferences
window to save it, then Quit Apple Mail.
Compose your html
code inside of your favorite text editor. I use VS Code.
You do NOT want to use Microsoft Word, Dreamweaver or any other "smart" editor as these programs
will manipulate your final code in a way which will most definitely break your code and design for your recipients.
The page should not have html
or head
tags.
It should include only inline css (mostly), and should only consist of basic html elements
(div
, span
, img
, a
, etc…).
Even though many email programs now support more advanced tags, there is still a large
percentage of people who use older versions of Outlook and other software,
and you want your signature to look great for them too.
If you need additional help with html signature design or implementation, I have created a company called GiantUser (it's an anagram of "signature") to do just that with very reasonable prices. Check it out!
Here is some example code from my signature to get you started.
We are going to be using TextEdit to open code files in the following steps, so we need to ensure that it is setup properly to display the raw HTML code.
Open a TextEdit.app, found in Applications
, and open Preferences
> Open and Save
.
Ensure that the checkmark next to Display HTML files as HTML code instead of formatted text
is ticked.
Close the Preferences
panel, and close the new document.
We are going to need to locate the folder containing the placeholder signature. Unfortunately, you are likely not going to be able to use Finder to get to these folders.
Apple goes to great lengths to hide these files from people as they usually contain info that is not usually editable by hand.
Trying to navigate to them by clicking in Finder will usually lead you to your visible iCloud Drive
folder with nowhere else to go.
Don't worry though, I will walk you through an alternative method of getting to the hidden signature files we need to work with.
The files can be in 2 different places depending on whether you are using iCloud Drive or not.
You are most likely using iCloud Drive, even if you are not using an iCloud email address.
Check to see if you're using iCloud Drive by going to System Preferences
and selecting your user id on the left column.
Next, select the iCloud
button…
…and see if iCloud Drive
is On
.
If so, double-check that iCloud Drive
is enabled for Mail by selecting iCloud Drive
, selecting Options
in the popup…
…and see if the checkbox next to Mail
is ticked.
If this checkbox is ticked, then you are using iCloud Drive and should proceed to the next step. If not, skip ahead to step 15.
(You should skip this step if NOT using iCloud Drive.)
To open the placeholder signature file, we will need to use an application on your computer that lets us interact with your files in a different way than Finder.
Please find Terminal.app in Applications > Utilities
, open it by double clicking.
When terminal opens, copy/paste the following line into the box.
This line tells Terminal to list all the files in this directory along with some other file info, then sort it by date. Now press enter
to run the command.
When you press enter you should see a bunch of lines, each of which corresponds to a file and some of its metadata.
Look at the right side column — the file names — and notice the ones that end in .mailsignature
.
These are the files we are interested in working with.
Note: Your output might look a little different, and the rows that display will differ from the ones in this screenshot because the contents here are unique to your Mail setup. This is not a cause for concern.
If you get an error, make sure you pasted the line in exactly like shown on one line. If you still get an error, you may not be using iCloud Drive and are following the wrong step.
In the new lines that come up in Terminal after running the command,
you should see a .mailsignature
file that has the date and time of when you started this tutorial.
This is the placeholder file. If you don't see a line listed, then you may have done something wrong in a previous step, and should try again.
As mentioned above, we could normally use Finder to view these folders, but Apple has hidden access to them to
prevent direct editing, something we wish to do here. If you have only 1 .mailsignature
file,
then this is most likely the placeholder file you created in the earlier steps. If you have more than one
.mailsignature
file in there, then we need to find the one you created earlier.
Because this list is sorted top-down by the most recently updated, it will most likely be the top one, but you
can check by opening them all and seeing their contents.
Terminal.app does not respond to double-clicking the file, but we can open the .mailsignature
by running another command.
Copy/paste the following command into Terminal.app, all on one line:
This line tells Terminal to open all files in that directory that have a filename that ends with .mailsignature
,
and to open them using the TextEdit application.
Now press enter
to run the command, and TextEdit windows should pop open.
Once you have the file(s) open in TextEdit, move on to step 16.
(You should only do this step if NOT using iCloud Drive.)
Luckily for you, we can use Finder to open the signature file we need. In Finder, select the menu bar item
Go
> Go to Folder…
A panel will popup that allows you to input the direct path to the signature folder. Copy/paste the following line into the box:
After clicking Go
, a finder window should appear with several files.
Look at the file names and notice the ones that end in .mailsignature
. These are the files we are interested in working with.
More specifically, we are looking for the placeholder signature file you created earlier. Locate the most recently modified .mailsignature
file.
If you have more than one signature file in there, or cannot determine which is the placeholder, you can open each of them to help you find the right file. Simply repeat the following process for all the files.
Right-click on the .mailsignature
file in Finder, select Open With
, and choose TextEdit.
If TextEdit is not an option, choose Other…
, and then choose Applications
> TextEdit
.
Once you have the file(s) open in TextEdit, move on to step 13.
Now that you have the .mailsignature
file(s) open in TextEdit, we need to ensure it is the right one.
Make sure that the placeholder file we created earlier is open by scanning each of the open TextEdit documents for the
placeholder text you entered earlier in the Mail.app Preferences
panel.
Because the text I entered earlier was Placeholder text
, this is what I am looking for now.
Look for your placeholder text within the file's HTML code. Here, we know we have the correct file because we can clearly see our placeholder text: Placeholder text
If you cannot find the placeholder, you may still be in "edit" mode on the signature.
Try closing the Mail
> Preferences
Window,
completely quitting Apple Mail, and repeating the previous steps.
If you still cannot find the placeholder, you may need to double check that you are/aren't using iCloud Drive, as detailed in an earlier step.
When you have located the right placeholder .mailsignature
file, keep it open and close all
other TextEdit windows as we won't be using them here. Feel free to resize the window to make text editing a bit easier.
You will see a few metadata lines on the top of the file and some HTML code below it. Select all that code from
the line starting with body
, all the way to the end of the file.
Keeping the top metadata lines, delete the entire block of placeholder HTML code.
Still keeping the top metadata lines unedited, paste in your own custom HTML code from earlier.
Save and close the file, then Quit
TextEdit.
Open Apple Mail and go back to Preferences
> Signatures
. If you have images in your signature,
they will not show here in the preview, but they will show in the real signature
as long as your coded image source location is valid.
To test that it is working correctly, simply compose a new email using the account you associated this new signature with, and set the signature (right side of screen) to be the one with the name you created earlier. If the images show, and everything looks as it should, you have succeeded!
Was this page helpful for you? Buy me a slice of 🍕 to say thanks!
]]>
I'm happy to share that I just completed my 26th marathon, the 2023
Rock 'N' Roll Arizona race out in Tempe/Scottsdale!
Despite being only two weeks post-Covid, I was somehow able to eek out a sub-3 hour run, finishing with an official
2:59:45
time, putting me 4th in my age group, and 40th overall.
sub 3:15:00
sub 3:05:00
sub 3:00:00
sub 2:55:00
The race started off at 7:50am, which is just after sunrise in January. While you would expect a desert race to be hot and dry, on this particular morning, we had some light-to-medium rain, cloud cover, and low 50s temperatures. It ended up raining for the first hour of the race, which left me with soaked socks and gear, but kept me cool.
The course is very flat except for a small section of hills around miles 17-18, and a few small bridges near the end
of the course. This was great as I was really able to dial in my pace and find my targets pretty consistently.
I started off at 6:40/mi
, but felt pretty good after the first 4 miles so ramped up to a target
6:35/mi
and sustained it more-or-less until mile 12 or so. I felt good, and my stretch goal of a
2:55
time seemed plausible.
Miles 12 through 17 had me dealing with a minor blister, and looking out for a bathroom, and I ended up losing about a minute here in this section. I hit mile 17 and some steepish hills going up into the park, which disrupted my rhythm and had me doubting my stretch goal. I ended up losing about another minute and a half on miles 17-18, and started to doubt myself… I hit the wall! I abandoned my Stretch goal, but was still hoping to meet my A goal.
Luckily for me, what goes up must come down, and eventually the course left the park with a downhill section,
allowing me to pick up the pace a little bit post-wall and allowed me to hit around 6:55/mi
on miles
19-20. At this point though, I was really starting to feel the exertion and was not able to pull my pace back up to
my target 6:50/mi
, which is the pace needed for a 3:00:00
time. I was now hoping I had
enough time in the bank to make it, but doubted my legs' ability in the final stretch and mentally prepared myself
for my B goal or even C goal.
I ran miles 21-26 in wildly varying paces, with splits all over the place from 6:44
to 7:40
.
There were a few times where I needed to stop and walk for 10 seconds at a time, catching my breath, and attempting
to remotivate myself to push on. I stopped looking at my watch and dug deep. To be honest, these miles were a bit of
a blur to me. I remember passing some runners, I also remember being passed. At some point I trailed two really strong
finishers (likely in my 6:44
mile 23) which helped a ton.
Somewhere near the end of mile 25, I looked at my time and saw that indeed, my A goal of a sub 3-hour
time was still within reach. The split time does not reflect it at first glance, but that 7:40
was me
pushing really, really hard over that last bridge and through the finish line.
Here is a the full race analysis on Strava if you are curious.
One thing that really stood out in this race vs others in the past year is that my average heart rate was about 10-15
beats per minute higher than my average rate of 162 bpm
. This is likely a combination
of post-Covid lungs, and a higher elevation which would give me less oxygen per breath and more bodily stress. I had
no mechanical problems in this race, fueled well, was well-hydrated, received enough electrolytes, but just felt
as though I was running out of gas anyway. I think my end-of-race fatigue was ultimately due to my muscles not getting
all of the oxygen they needed… but who knows really ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I was able to find a local tattoo shop in Tempe open on Sunday and able to accommodate my walk-in! Thanks to Ronny at @skinlabtattoo!
Marathon #27 is coming up in April, stay tuned…
Was this page helpful for you? Buy me a slice of 🍕 to say thanks!
]]>This blog started off running as a custom CMS I built in Rails 2. I was really proud of it, but it was one of my first prod apps and ran really slowly, and wasn't full featured at all.
At some point, I didnt't want to maintain the custom setup anymore but I did want to keep the content, so I imported and migrated everything to the now-defunct Posterous blogging platform, mostly so that posts there would push to all the various social networks I used at the time. Here is what I wrote at the time.
When Posterous announced it was shutting down in 2013, I decided maintaing an app was unnecessary, so I migrated to a static site generation tool called Octopress. Octopress was built on top of the Jekyll generation engine, and was really just a collection of nice tools and plugins that made it a little easier to work with. Here is what I wrote at the time.
I have been blogging less and less in recent years, as I got sucked into social media, started working again for a company that is not mine, and started a family. But, I have recently given up all social media for many reasons, and want to focus on writing posts here again.
I wrote up a post about how and why I started running, which has been a major part of my life, but a topic that I have been mostly silent about here. Of course, I got stuck trying to revive the dev environment of 2013 just to publish, and looked for a different solution.
After learning from the mistakes above in self hosted complexity, and in third-party hosted shutdowns, I am keeping the static site generation approach. But I am ditching Octopress, and am starting from a new Jekyll install. Yes! They are indeed still alive and thriving!
Sticking with Jekyll is kind of a no-brainer:
It is already live, but there are still some things I need to fix as I go. I may still change items of the layout or organization. Galleries are not working, until I find or create a better image tag that can handle it. Many of the older posts are not fully visible or properly linked. Feeds might be messed up a bit. Code blocks may sometimes be malformed. Stay tuned, hopefully they are easy fixes. 🤞
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]]>I was recently given a chance to tell the story of how, and why, I started running marathons, and thought it would make a great (and long-overdue) update to this personal blog.
While I played all kinds of other sports all throughout my youth, I never ran specifically as a sport. In junior high school I played basketball, softball, flag football, and soccer. High school saw me dabble in basketball and excel in football at fullback and middle-linebacker, earning team MVP freshman year and defensive MVP sophmore year. After I was expelled for smoking pot (different story, different day), I moved schools, and did not resume sports, opting to work instead, marking the end of my youth sporting life. It wasn't until my early 30s that I started doing anything resembling and active sport again, and finding my way back to fitness.
By now, you likely know that I am a software engineer. People in this profession usually end up leading a very sedentary lifestyle, and I was no exception. Since 2005, I would spend 8—10 hours a day in front of a screen, more so when I started my own company in 2008. My max weight was about 225lbs with no muscle mass. I had bad skin, high blood pressure, knee issues, low energy, and poor self-esteem.
With my weight skyrocketing and my health plummeting, I decided that I needed to do something about it around early 2011, just as I entered my 30s. I spent my 20s taking very little care of myself, and that needed to change ASAP.
I started out by walking on a treadmill desk a few hours each day while coding. I would walk a little, then sit a little, walk a little, sit a little, over and over.
Before long, I was walking at least 20mi each day (2.5mph * 8hr
), started shedding the weight, and feeling healthier.
My fitbit was off the chart! At some point, I felt I could take a little more strenuous activity, so I started using an
elliptical at the gym a few times a week. The weight loss trend continued, and my motivation to push further increased.
I started looking towards running outside.
I used a couch to 5k app which began with a lap around the block, and slowly got me to 3.1
miles.
Set my sights on a 10k and slowly worked my way up to that distance, not worried at all about speed.
Setting and hitting these distance goals gave me the rush of endorphins, pride, and fulfilment drove me to continue.
I committed myself to training for something I never thought possible: completing a marathon.
After chatting with a runner that I randomly met in a bar, I heard about the 9+1 program offered by the New York Road Runners in which you would gain access to a paid spot in the NYC marathon if you ran nine smaller races throughout the year, and also volunteered to work at least one event. I signed up in late 2014 and started running races.
2015 came around and I ran a few 5ks, 10ks, and my first half marathon.
I hit the 9+1 very early and knew that I would have at least a full year to train for my first marathon, so I thought. After applying for the 2015 NYC Marathon lottery with low hopes of getting in, I got in! This meant I had to start training really hard to get ready. That year I really dug deep and put in the hard work to increase my distance endurance.
Race day came in November, and I miraculously finished marathon #1 in just over four hours, forever hooked on running the 26.2 mile distance of a marathon.
Since my distance goal was now met, I needed to find a new goal, and that was to improve my speed. I wanted to get faster and faster, and ultimately find my personal best. Using various apps and programs I found online and in books, I increased my weekly mileage, tweaked my form, learned to rest and recover, and constantly broke personal best times over the next several years.
Ultimately, I got faster and faster in my self-guided improvements and could potentially see a sub-3 hour marathon time in my near future, but following a recommendation from a friend, decided to join the New York Harriers running club to help me get there faster. Turns out that simply joining the team and running in a team singlet got me sub-3 the very next attempt.
Now that I hit my speed goal or a sub-3 hour marathon, could further work with the Harriers help me continue to build upon it and continue to PR? While certainly possible to improve my times (I would pr a few times after this), I shifted my commitment to quantity instead of distance or speed. I pledged to run 100 marathons over my lifetime, and decided to document my commitment on my leg with a tattoo that has room for 100 tally marks, in 5 rows of 20.
Age 38 at the time, I figured that I would try to front load these remaining 90 marathons while my body is able to. I figured if I can get 5 or 6 marathons run in a year, I might be able to finish by the time I am 60 years old. So I began to sign up for marathons all over. Sometimes pushing for PRs, sometimes just pushing to finish.
Covid cancellations derailed my plans a little, but I completed 3 marathons in 2020…
…completed 7 marathons in 2021…
…completed 5 marathon in 2022, including my personal best in Boston…
…and am signed up for 5 marathons in 2023 so far. My current tally is 25!
So that's it, the short story of how and why I started running, where it has led me so far, and where I plan to go with it. I'm sure I will update here periodically as I continue to run, as along the way to completing the 100 marathons, I am also hoping to achieve the following crazy goals:
Stay tuned!
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]]>There are plenty of tutorials online to create an HTML signature in Apple Mail with older versions of macOS/OS X. You can even find one of my other tutorials on how to add HTML Signatures in Lion, Mountain Lion, iOS 7, Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan, Sierra, High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina, or Big Sur. However, the process has changed ever so slightly for the new macOS Monterey (12). Here is how to do it:
In Apple Mail, open Preferences
> Signatures
.
Once open, create a new signature.
Name the signature something meaningful in the central column. Replace the signature contents on the right with some placeholder text. This text should be recognizable to you as we will use it to help identify the correct signature system file later.
Ensure the Always match my default font
checkbox is off
Associate the new placeholder signature with one of your email accounts by dragging its name from the second column to an email account in the first column.
If you want to setup the signature to be the default for an email account with auto-load when starting a new message, select the email account in the first column, and choose the new signature.
Close the Preferences
window to save it, then Quit Apple Mail.
Write an html page inside of your favorite text editor. I use Sublime Text 3. Please do NOT use Microsoft Word, Dreamweaver or any other "smart" editor as these programs will manipulate your final code in a way which will most likely break your design for certain recipients.
The page should not have html
or head
tags.
It should include only inline css, and should only consist of basic html elements
(div
, span
, img
, a
, etc...).
Even though many email programs now support more advanced tags, there is still a large
percentage of people who use older versions of Outlook and other software,
and you want your signature to look great for them too.
If you need additional help with html signature design or implementation, I have created a company called GiantUser (it's an anagram of "signature") to do just that with very reasonable prices. Check it out!
Here is some example code to get you started.
We are going to be using TextEdit to open code files in the following steps, so we need to ensure that it is setup properly to display the raw HTML code.
Open a TextEdit.app, found in Applications
, start a new document, and open Preferences
> Open and Save
.
Ensure that the checkmark next to Display HTML files as HTML code instead of formatted text
is ticked.
Close the Preferences
panel, and close the new document.
We are going to need to locate the folder containing the placeholder signature. Unfortunately, most of you are not going to be able to use Finder to get to these folders.
Apple goes to great lengths to hide these files from people as they usually contain info that is not usually editable by hand.
Trying to navigate to them by clicking in Finder will usually lead you to your visible iCloud Drive
folder with nowhere else to go.
Don't worry though, I will walk you through an alternative method of getting to the hidden signature files we need to work with.
The files can be in 2 different places depending on whether you are using iCloud Drive or not.
You are most likely using iCloud Drive, even if you are not using an iCloud email address. Check to see if you're using iCloud Drive
by going to System Preferences
> Apple ID
...
...then look to see if the iCloud Drive
checkbox is ticked or not.
Double-check that iCloud Drive
is enabled for Mail by clicking the Options
button and ensuring the checkbox next to Mail
is ticked.
If both of these checkmarks are ticked, then you are using iCloud Drive and should proceed to the next step. If not, skip ahead to step 12.
(You should only do this step if using iCloud Drive.)
Open Terminal.app, found in Applications > Utilities
, and copy/paste the following line into the box and press enter.
This line tells Terminal to list all the files in this directory along with some other file info, then sort it by date.
When you press enter you should see a bunch of lines, each of which corresponds to a file and some of its metadata.
Look at the right side column — the file names — and notice the ones that end in .mailsignature
.
These are the files we are interested in working with.
If you get an error, make sure you pasted the line in exactly like shown on one line. If you still get an error, you may not be using iCloud Drive and are following the wrong step.
In the new lines that come up in Terminal after running the command, you should see a .mailsignature file that has the date and time of when you started this tutorial. This is the placeholder file. If you don't see a file, then you may have done something wrong in a previous step, and should try again.
As mentioned above, we could normally use Finder to view these folders, but Apple has hidden access to them to prevent direct editing, something we wish to do here. If you have only 1 .mailsignature file, then this is most likely the placeholder file you created in the earlier steps. If you have more than one .mailsignature file in there, then you need to find the one you created earlier. Because this list is sorted top-down by the most recently updated, it will most likely be the top one, but you can check by opening them all and seeing their contents.
Terminal.app does not respond to double-clicking the file so how can you open the .mailsignature files? You can copy/paste the following command on the keyboard, all on one line.
This line tells Terminal to open all files in that directory that have a filename that ends with .mailsignature
, and to open them using the TextEdit application.
Once you have the file(s) open in TextEdit, move on to step 13.
(You should only do this step if NOT using iCloud Drive.)
Luckily for you, we can use Finder to open the signature file we need. In Finder, select the menu bar item Go
> Go to Folder...
A panel will popup that allows you to input the direct path to the signature folder. Copy/paste the following line into the box:
After clicking Go
, a finder window should appear with several files.
Look at the file names and notice the ones that end in .mailsignature
. These are the files we are interested in working with.
More specifically, we are looking for the placeholder signature file you created earlier. Locate the most recently modified .mailsignature file.
If you have more than one signature file in there, or cannot determine which is the placeholder, you can open each of them to help you find the right file. Simply repeat the following process for all the files.
Right-click on the .mailsignature file in Finder, select Open With
, and choose TextEdit.
If TextEdit is not an option, choose Other...
, and then choose Applications
> TextEdit
.
Once you have the file(s) open in TextEdit, move on to step 13.
Now that you have the .mailsignature file(s) open in TextEdit, we need to ensure it is the right one.
Make sure that the placeholder file we created earlier is open by scanning each of the open TextEdit documents for the
placeholder text you entered earlier in the Mail.app Preferences
panel.
Because the text I entered earlier was Placeholder text
, this is what I am looking for now.
Look for your placeholder text within the file's HTML code. Here, we know we have the correct file because we can clearly see our placeholder text: Placeholder text
If you cannot find the placeholder, you may still be in "edit" mode on the signature. Try closing the Mail
> Preferences
Window,
quitting Apple Mail and repeating the previous steps.
If you still cannot find the placeholder, you may need to double check that you are/aren't using iCloud Drive, as detailed in an earlier step.
When you have located the right placeholder .mailsignature
file, keep it open and close all other TextEdit windows.
Feel free to resize the window to make text editing a bit easier.
You will see a few metadata lines on the top of the file and some HTML code below it. Select all that code from the line starting with body
,
all the way to the end of the file.
Keep the top metadata lines, delete the entire block of placeholder HTML code.
Still keeping the top metadata lines, paste in your own custom HTML code from earlier.
Quit
TextEdit.
If you are using iCloud Drive, skip this step and proceed to the next step. You can determine if you are using iCloud for Apple Mail by checking System Preferences > iCloud. Still unsure? Skip this step — you can redo the steps and include this one if your signature is not working correctly at the end.
Even though you saved this file, Apple Mail may use the original version and overwrite your new signature unless you lock the file.
With your text editor now closed and the file saved, open Applications
> Terminal.app
,
paste the following line, and press enter to lock all the .mailsignature
files in the folder.
If you get an Operation not permitted
error, you need to open System Preferences
> Security & Privacy
> Privacy
, then select Full Disk Access
on the left column, and ensure Terminal is on the list in the right. You may need to tick the checkbox next to it, or use the +
button to add it. Then restart Terminal and try again.
If you mess up, you can unlock the files with this command.
Unlock Files:
Open Apple Mail and go back to Preferences
> Signatures
. If you have images in your signature,
they will not show here in the preview, but they will show in the real signature
as long as your coded image source location is valid.
To test that it is working correctly, simply compose a new email using the account you associated this new signature with, and set the signature (right side of screen) to be the one with the name you created earlier. If the images show, and everything looks as it should, you have succeeded!
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]]>There are plenty of tutorials online to create an HTML signature in Apple Mail with older versions of macOS/OS X. You can even find one of my other tutorials on how to add HTML Signatures in Lion, Mountain Lion, iOS 7, Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan, Sierra, High Sierra, Mojave, or Catalina. However, the process has changed ever so slightly for the new macOS Big Sur (11). Here is how to do it:
In Apple Mail, open Preferences
> Signatures
.
Once open, create a new signature.
Name the signature something meaningful in the central column. Replace the signature contents on the right with some placeholder text. This text should be recognizable to you as we will use it to help identify the correct signature system file later.
Ensure the Always match my default font
checkbox is off
Associate the new placeholder signature with one of your email accounts by dragging its name from the second column to an email account in the first column.
If you want to setup the signature to be the default for an email account with auto-load when starting a new message, select the email account in the first column, and choose the new signature.
Close the Preferences
window to save it, then Quit Apple Mail.
Write an html page inside of your favorite text editor. I use Sublime Text 3. Please do NOT use Microsoft Word, Dreamweaver or any other "smart" editor as these programs will manipulate your final code in a way which will most likely break your design for certain recipients.
The page should not have html
or head
tags.
It should include only inline css, and should only consist of basic html elements
(div
, span
, img
, a
, etc...).
Even though many email programs now support more advanced tags, there is still a large
percentage of people who use older versions of Outlook and other software,
and you want your signature to look great for them too.
If you need additional help with html signature design or implementation, I have created a company called GiantUser (it's an anagram of "signature") to do just that with very reasonable prices. Check it out!
Here is some example code to get you started.
We are going to be using TextEdit to open code files in the following steps, so we need to ensure that it is setup properly to display the raw HTML code.
Open a TextEdit.app, found in Applications
, start a new document, and open Preferences
> Open and Save
.
Ensure that the checkmark next to Display HTML files as HTML code instead of formatted text
is ticked.
Close the Preferences
panel, and close the new document.
We are going to need to locate the folder containing the placeholder signature. Unfortunately, most of you are not going to be able to use Finder to get to these folders.
Apple goes to great lengths to hide these files from people as they usually contain info that is not usually editable by hand.
Trying to navigate to them by clicking in Finder will usually lead you to your visible iCloud Drive
folder with nowhere else to go.
Don't worry though, I will walk you through an alternative method of getting to the hidden signature files we need to work with.
The files can be in 2 different places depending on whether you are using iCloud Drive or not.
You are most likely using iCloud Drive, even if you are not using an iCloud email address. Check to see if you're using iCloud Drive
by going to System Preferences
> Apple ID
...
...then look to see if the iCloud Drive
checkbox is ticked or not.
Double-check that iCloud Drive
is enabled for Mail by clicking the Options
button and ensuring the checkbox next to Mail
is ticked.
If both of these checkmarks are ticked, then you are using iCloud Drive and should proceed to the next step. If not, skip ahead to step 12.
(You should only do this step if using iCloud Drive.)
Open Terminal.app, found in Applications > Utilities
, and copy/paste the following line into the box and press enter.
This line tells Terminal to list all the files in this directory along with some other file info, then sort it by date.
When you press enter you should see a bunch of lines, each of which corresponds to a file and some of its metadata.
Look at the right side column — the file names — and notice the ones that end in .mailsignature
.
These are the files we are interested in working with.
If you get an error, make sure you pasted the line in exactly like shown on one line. If you still get an error, you may not be using iCloud Drive and are following the wrong step.
In the new lines that come up in Terminal after running the command, you should see a .mailsignature file that has the date and time of when you started this tutorial. This is the placeholder file. If you don't see a file, then you may have done something wrong in a previous step, and should try again.
As mentioned above, we could normally use Finder to view these folders, but Apple has hidden access to them to prevent direct editing, something we wish to do here. If you have only 1 .mailsignature file, then this is most likely the placeholder file you created in the earlier steps. If you have more than one .mailsignature file in there, then you need to find the one you created earlier. Because this list is sorted top-down by the most recently updated, it will most likely be the top one, but you can check by opening them all and seeing their contents.
Terminal.app does not respond to double-clicking the file so how can you open the .mailsignature files? You can copy/paste the following command on the keyboard, all on one line.
This line tells Terminal to open all files in that directory that have a filename that ends with .mailsignature
, and to open them using the TextEdit application.
Once you have the file(s) open in TextEdit, move on to step 13.
(You should only do this step if NOT using iCloud Drive.)
Luckily for you, we can use Finder to open the signature file we need. In Finder, select the menu bar item Go
> Go to Folder...
A panel will popup that allows you to input the direct path to the signature folder. Copy/paste the following line into the box:
After clicking Go
, a finder window should appear with several files.
Look at the file names and notice the ones that end in .mailsignature
. These are the files we are interested in working with.
More specifically, we are looking for the placeholder signature file you created earlier. Locate the most recently modified .mailsignature file.
If you have more than one signature file in there, or cannot determine which is the placeholder, you can open each of them to help you find the right file. Simply repeat the following process for all the files.
Right-click on the .mailsignature file in Finder, select Open With
, and choose TextEdit.
If TextEdit is not an option, choose Other...
, and then choose Applications
> TextEdit
.
Once you have the file(s) open in TextEdit, move on to step 13.
Now that you have the .mailsignature file(s) open in TextEdit, we need to ensure it is the right one.
Make sure that the placeholder file we created earlier is open by scanning each of the open TextEdit documents for the
placeholder text you entered earlier in the Mail.app Preferences
panel.
Because the text I entered earlier was Placeholder text
, this is what I am looking for now.
Look for your placeholder text within the file's HTML code. Here, we know we have the correct file because we can clearly see our placeholder text: Placeholder text
If you cannot find the placeholder, you may still be in "edit" mode on the signature. Try closing the Mail
> Preferences
Window,
quitting Apple Mail and repeating the previous steps.
If you still cannot find the placeholder, you may need to double check that you are/aren't using iCloud Drive, as detailed in an earlier step.
When you have located the right placeholder .mailsignature
file, keep it open and close all other TextEdit windows.
Feel free to resize the window to make text editing a bit easier.
You will see a few metadata lines on the top of the file and some HTML code below it. Select all that code from the line starting with body
,
all the way to the end of the file.
Keep the top metadata lines, delete the entire block of placeholder HTML code.
Still keeping the top metadata lines, paste in your own custom HTML code from earlier.
Quit
TextEdit.
If you are using iCloud Drive, skip this step and proceed to the next step. You can determine if you are using iCloud for Apple Mail by checking System Preferences > iCloud. Still unsure? Skip this step — you can redo the steps and include this one if your signature is not working correctly at the end.
Even though you saved this file, Apple Mail may use the original version and overwrite your new signature unless you lock the file.
With your text editor now closed and the file saved, open Applications
> Terminal.app
,
paste the following line, and press enter to lock all the .mailsignature
files in the folder.
If you get an Operation not permitted
error, you need to open System Preferences
> Security & Privacy
> Privacy
, then select Full Disk Access
on the left column, and ensure Terminal is on the list in the right. You may need to tick the checkbox next to it, or use the +
button to add it. Then restart Terminal and try again.
If you mess up, you can unlock the files with this command.
Unlock Files:
Open Apple Mail and go back to Preferences
> Signatures
. If you have images in your signature,
they will not show here in the preview, but they will show in the real signature
as long as your coded image source location is valid.
To test that it is working correctly, simply compose a new email using the account you associated this new signature with, and set the signature (right side of screen) to be the one with the name you created earlier. If the images show, and everything looks as it should, you have succeeded!
Was this page helpful for you? Buy me a slice of 🍕 to say thanks!
]]>I live in New York City and am married to an Emergency Physician, so it may not come as a surprise when I say that I contracted Covid-19 three weeks ago. While I did not get tested, my wife, who had the exact same symptoms, did get swabbed at work and was positive, so it is almost certain that I had the 'rona as well.
There have been many accounts of what it feels like generally, so I thought I would talk about how I dealt with contracting the disease, recovery, and dealing with the remnants afterwards as it pertains to my running.
I am not a pro runner, but I am not an amateur either. I am a sub-3 hour marathoner (2:58:04 NYC '19), with 10 under my belt so far. This year, I was signed up for four marathons (Mt. Charleston, Chicago, NYC, Philadelphia) and have tried to maintain marathon shape throughout the entire year. In the weeks before contracting the virus, I was running between 50 and 65 miles per week, with an average of 56. I would run 5-6 times a week in the mornings, with daily runs no shorter than 8 miles, and a longer run on the weekends.
My marathon goal pace this year was a 2:55:00, meaning I set my base marathon pace for training at 6:40/mi, and my calculated paces ranges were:
I use the excellent Daniels' Running Tables spreadsheet for those interested. Twice a week on Wednesday and Friday mornings, I would do speed workouts with the New York Harriers, generally working 10-12 miles with 3 mile warm up/cool down and tempo, hills, and/or intervals in the middle.
On long runs, I could go 23 miles without a problem, and without soreness the next day. I would run long runs generally with a 7:20/mi - 7:30/mi pace, and try to get some 6:40/mi miles in the middle or near the end of the run. All of my prep work had been paying off, and I was feeling nearly ready to run the Mt. Charleston marathon in early April, when the Covid-19 virus first starting hitting New York City, and everything changed.
On March 1st, the first confirmed Covid-19 case was reported in NYC. Starting on that day, I self-quarantined and changed my routines. I was the first from my company to work from home. I maintained social distancing with my ER Doctor spouse, even within our home. I stopped going to the Harriers workouts, but I did not stop running. It was actually one of the only things that still made me feel "normal" throughout the month of March.
I was able to maintain my routine and weekly distances, all while weaving and bobbing through Central Park, trying to stay six feet away from other runners and pedestrians. As gyms started to close around New York City, more and more runners emerged in the park as their treadmills were no longer available. Throughout the month of March, I felt great, maintaining good pacing and speed control.
The Mt. Charleston marathon was canceled on March 19th, but I was still sticking with my marathon training plan. I wanted to run a marathon solo on the day of the canceled event, so kept my distance run increases steady up to my peak week, and was planning on tapering down up to early April, though wasn't very successful in tapering off my weekly mileage. I felt great, and was running well, when all of a sudden, I got a fever…
In the middle of the night on April 1st, I woke up hot and drenched in sweat. Using an over the counter oral thermometer, I had measured a 99.9° temperature and knew I was in trouble. The following morning, I ended up with a 102.5° temp, and general body pain. My spouse gave me a once-over and declared me (most likely) Covid-19 positive. She herself wasn't symptomatic at all, but was most likely the source due to the exposure in the hospital.
I won't go into the details of what it was like being sick, but I will fast forward to the evening of the 2nd, where my fever, and all other symptoms, just vanished. It was like nothing ever happened. I locked myself in the house for 72 hours after my symptoms went away, closely monitoring my temperature, blood oxygen levels, and other vitals, and felt great. My wife declared the viral-shedding portion of the infection most-likely "over", and we both were grateful that my symptoms were not that bad.
I didn't run on April 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or 5th, but after getting my doctor's approval and checking the CDC guidelines, I decided to get back out there on the 6th, taking it short and easy. I ran 4.3 miles at an easy run pace and noticed something was a little off… It was a little bit tough to breath while running.
Author's Note:
There is a lot of misinformation out there and a lot of opinions on the web, mine included. While some people may be mad at my decision to run, I did so by following my doctor's guidelines,
and the CDC guidelines as they existed at the time. Those guidelines currently state:
Persons with COVID-19 who have symptoms and were directed to care for themselves at home may discontinue isolation under the following conditions:To be honest, I can't remember if the third point was established yet on April 6th, but I took 5 days off, and passed the other two criteria for resuming activity with protection.
- At least 3 days (72 hours) have passed since recovery defined as resolution of fever without the use of fever-reducing medications
- Improvement in respiratory symptoms (e.g., cough, shortness of breath); and,
- At least 7 days have passed since symptoms first appeared.
Throughout the time spent at home not running, I never had a cough, never felt short of breath, never felt any lung issues at all, but when running, I felt as if I was not able to get 100% of the oxygen I needed to maintain the activity. I told my wife about how I felt, and she ultrasounded my lungs to take a look at what was going on inside of them.
For anybody in the medical field that may be reading this, according to my wife:
This scan shows multiple B-lines in the inferior posterior aspect of the lung suggesting interstitial edema that is consistent with COVID lung findings, which are also very commonly found in other viral pneumonias
In layman's terms, my lungs were full of moisture, remnants of the disease, making it tougher for my body to absorb and covert the oxygen it needs for strenuous activity such as running.
I felt great though. My legs were well rested, I didn't feel sick at all, I was ready to go. So I decided to try and power through it, hoping that by running, I would be able to burn it off. Coming back out the next day, I decided to let my body control my pacing, for my normal distance of 8.5 miles. I ended up running a 7:19 pace, but it was not easy. I kept feeling "phlegmy", and was coughing up a little during my run. Not wanting to spew any fluids into public, I swallowed anything that I might have coughed up, and also covered my mouth with my mask or sleeve whenever coughing.
I went back out the next day, and the next, each with hopes of burning out the remnants of fluid in my lungs, but it didn't get any easier. My Strava pace and run notes from those 4 days:
Another New York Harrier reached out to me after one of these early runs and gave me some context as to what I could expect over the next few weeks:
Hey man, I’m on the Harriers. Saw your run description so wanted to message you that I had Corona and how it affected my running. Started feeling crappy March 17 and couldn’t run for three days, but my chest didn’t hurt. Began running again March 20th for two days and then felt sick again but this time with chest/breathing issues. Couldn’t run again for another three days. I prob came back way too soon but the first time I felt normal on a run, chest and body wise, was April 5th so it’ll come back soon.
I originally doubted the estimated time line of how long it would take to get better, but they were 100% right.
I had been trying to run the same route each day to get a sense of how each part has been getting easier or harder day-to-day. My go-to route is a one mile warm up to Central Park, a single counter-clockwise loop, and a mile back home. This route has a few stress points on it, notably Cat Hill (mile 3), the Harlem Hill (miles 4-5), and the Three Sisters (miles 5-6). I found myself short of breath on the tops of each of these hills, much more than I normally would be. I have been having to stop to catch my breath before moving on, something I never did before at all.
Using a decently accurate Garmin chest strap, I noticed that my average heartbeats per minute was elevated about 10 beats higher than normal, at all parts of the run. I normally run at a steady 141 bpm on flats, but was regularly hitting 150 or higher on the same portions. My heart was working harder to get oxygen to my muscles, which was is short supply because my lungs were not absorbing at 100% due to the residual moisture in them.
I decided to take the next several days off to see if it would help. Resuming after four long rest days on April 14th, I still felt like my lungs were full of fluid. It may have been slightly easier, but it was still tough. My pace was starting to get back down to normal though, but I was still working hard to get my oxygen.
At this point I was pretty scared. I thought that I might never feel normal again while running. It was frustrating that everything about me felt healthy and ready. My legs were fresh, I had no cough, my mind was ready to run, my heart was fine mostly, but my lungs were just not cooperating with me. I got a little depressed and decided to take one more day off, then another few runs to test.
After a depressing Sunday run, I decided to take another rest day and went back out on Tuesday with my standard 8.5 mile run around Central Park:
Am I getting better? I think so, but I still don't feel normal at all. My pacing got back down to sub-7 this week, but it feels like I am having to work much harder at it to keep that up. Of course, running with the mask isn't making it any easier, but my mask is pretty flimsy and shouldn't get in the way too much. It is really only there to prevent bits of spittle from leaving my mouth as I run.
It has been 22 days since I was first symptomatic, but I am still feeling the long-lasting effects of this virus. On the more challenging parts of my runs (read: up hills), I feel as though I am breathing in deeply only to have the needed oxygen blocked by some sort of mucus moisture barrier. Is it bad? I don't know… It certainly doesn't feel 100% normal yet, but I am able to keep pace, and aside from the anomaly this last Sunday, I seem to be improving each day.
As a disclaimer in conclusion, this is a completely anecdotal account of running while recovering from Covid-19. It should not be used as medical guidance, running guidance, or anything else other than to give you an idea of what might happen, should you catch the virus and try to keep running while recovering. It gets better, though it takes several weeks!
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]]>There are plenty of tutorials online to create an HTML signature in Apple Mail with older versions of macOS/OS X. You can even find one of my other tutorials on how to add HTML Signatures in Lion, Mountain Lion, iOS 7, Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan, Sierra, High Sierra, or Mojave. However, the process has changed ever so slightly for the new macOS Catalina (10.15). Here is how to do it:
In Apple Mail, open Preferences
> Signatures
.
Once open, create a new signature.
Name the signature something meaningful in the central column. Replace the signature contents on the right with some placeholder text. This text should be recognizable to you as we will use it to help identify the correct signature system file later.
Ensure the Always match my default font
checkbox is off
Associate the new placeholder signature with one of your email accounts by dragging its name from the second column to an email account in the first column.
If you want to setup the signature to be the default for an email account with auto-load when starting a new message, select the email account in the first column, and choose the new signature.
Close the Preferences
window to save it, then Quit Apple Mail.
Write an html page inside of your favorite text editor. I use Sublime Text 3. Please do NOT use Microsoft Word, Dreamweaver or any other "smart" editor as these programs will manipulate your final code in a way which will most likely break your design for certain recipients.
The page should not have html
or head
tags.
It should include only inline css, and should only consist of basic html elements
(div
, span
, img
, a
, etc...).
Even though many email programs now support more advanced tags, there is still a large
percentage of people who use older versions of Outlook and other software,
and you want your signature to look great for them too.
Here is some example code to get you started.
We are going to be using TextEdit to open code files in the following steps, so we need to ensure that it is setup properly to display the raw HTML code.
Open a TextEdit.app, found in Applications
, start a new document, and open Preferences
> Open and Save
.
Ensure that the checkmark next to Display HTML files as HTML code instead of formatted text
is ticked.
Close the Preferences
panel, and close the new document.
We are going to need to locate the folder containing the placeholder signature. Unfortunately, most of you are not going to be able to use Finder to get to these folders.
Apple goes to great lengths to hide these files from people as they usually contain info that is not usually editable by hand.
Trying to navigate to them by clicking in Finder will usually lead you to your visible iCloud Drive
folder with nowhere else to go.
Don't worry though, I will walk you through an alternative method of getting to the hidden signature files we need to work with.
The files can be in 2 different places depending on whether you are using iCloud Drive or not.
You are most likely using iCloud Drive, even if you are not using an iCloud email address. Check to see if you're using iCloud Drive
by going to System Preferences
> Apple ID
...
...then look to see if the iCloud Drive
checkbox is ticked or not.
Double-check that iCloud Drive
is enabled for Mail by clicking the Options
button and ensuring the checkbox next to Mail
is ticked.
If both of these checkmarks are ticked, then you are using iCloud Drive and should proceed to the next step. If not, skip ahead to step 12.
(You should only do this step if using iCloud Drive.)
Open Terminal.app, found in Applications > Utilities
, and copy/paste the following line into the box and press enter.
This line tells Terminal to list all the files in this directory along with some other file info, then sort it by date.
When you press enter you should see a bunch of lines, each of which corresponds to a file and some of its metadata.
Look at the right side column — the file names — and notice the ones that end in .mailsignature
.
These are the files we are interested in working with.
If you get an error, make sure you pasted the line in exactly like shown on one line. If you still get an error, you may not be using iCloud Drive and are following the wrong step.
In the new lines that come up in Terminal after running the command, you should see a .mailsignature file that has the date and time of when you started this tutorial. This is the placeholder file. If you don't see a file, then you may have done something wrong in a previous step, and should try again.
As mentioned above, we could normally use Finder to view these folders, but Apple has hidden access to them to prevent direct editing, something we wish to do here. If you have only 1 .mailsignature file, then this is most likely the placeholder file you created in the earlier steps. If you have more than one .mailsignature file in there, then you need to find the one you created earlier. Because this list is sorted top-down by the most recently updated, it will most likely be the top one, but you can check by opening them all and seeing their contents.
Terminal.app does not respond to double-clicking the file so how can you open the .mailsignature files? You can copy/paste the following command on the keyboard, all on one line.
This line tells Terminal to open all files in that directory that have a filename that ends with .mailsignature
, and to open them using the TextEdit application.
Once you have the file(s) open in TextEdit, move on to step 13.
(You should only do this step if NOT using iCloud Drive.)
Luckily for you, we can use Finder to open the signature file we need. In Finder, select the menu bar item Go
> Go to Folder...
A panel will popup that allows you to input the direct path to the signature folder. Copy/paste the following line into the box:
After clicking Go
, a finder window should appear with several files.
Look at the file names and notice the ones that end in .mailsignature
. These are the files we are interested in working with.
More specifically, we are looking for the placeholder signature file you created earlier. Locate the most recently modified .mailsignature file.
If you have more than one signature file in there, or cannot determine which is the placeholder, you can open each of them to help you find the right file. Simply repeat the following process for all the files.
Right-click on the .mailsignature file in Finder, select Open With
, and choose TextEdit.
If TextEdit is not an option, choose Other...
, and then choose Applications
> TextEdit
.
Once you have the file(s) open in TextEdit, move on to step 13.
Now that you have the .mailsignature file(s) open in TextEdit, we need to ensure it is the right one.
Make sure that the placeholder file we created earlier is open by scanning each of the open TextEdit documents for the
placeholder text you entered earlier in the Mail.app Preferences
panel.
Because the text I entered earlier was Placeholder text
, this is what I am looking for now.
Look for your placeholder text within the file's HTML code. Here, we know we have the correct file because we can clearly see our placeholder text: Placeholder text
If you cannot find the placeholder, you may still be in "edit" mode on the signature. Try closing the Mail
> Preferences
Window,
quitting Apple Mail and repeating the previous steps.
If you still cannot find the placeholder, you may need to double check that you are/aren't using iCloud Drive, as detailed in an earlier step.
When you have located the right placeholder .mailsignature
file, keep it open and close all other TextEdit windows.
Feel free to resize the window to make text editing a bit easier.
You will see a few metadata lines on the top of the file and some HTML code below it. Select all that code from the line starting with body
,
all the way to the end of the file.
Keep the top metadata lines, delete the entire block of placeholder HTML code.
Still keeping the top metadata lines, paste in your own custom HTML code from earlier.
Quit
TextEdit.
If you are using iCloud Drive, skip this step and proceed to the next step. You can determine if you are using iCloud for Apple Mail by checking System Preferences > iCloud. Still unsure? Skip this step — you can redo the steps and include this one if your signature is not working correctly at the end.
Even though you saved this file, Apple Mail may use the original version and overwrite your new signature unless you lock the file.
With your text editor now closed and the file saved, open Applications
> Terminal.app
,
paste the following line, and press enter to lock all the .mailsignature
files in the folder.
If you get an Operation not permitted
error, you need to open System Preferences
> Security & Privacy
> Privacy
, then select Full Disk Access
on the left column, and ensure Terminal is on the list in the right. You may need to tick the checkbox next to it, or use the +
button to add it. Then restart Terminal and try again.
If you mess up, you can unlock the files with this command.
Unlock Files:
Open Apple Mail and go back to Preferences
> Signatures
. If you have images in your signature,
they will not show here in the preview, but they will show in the real signature
as long as your coded image source location is valid.
To test that it is working correctly, simply compose a new email using the account you associated this new signature with, and set the signature (right side of screen) to be the one with the name you created earlier. If the images show, and everything looks as it should, you have succeeded!
If you need additional help with html signature design or implementation, I have created a company called GiantUser (it's an anagram of "signature") to do just that with very reasonable prices. Check it out!
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