2025-12-12 Email to BARGE
Link to Original Email
The original email that I sent should appear at this link, but you’ll need to be logged into a Google account.
What follows is a copy of that email, formatted to reproduce links, quotes and other formatting. Other than formatting, the only I made is: I fixed “I plan to compete” to point to https://github.com/ctm/Bataan-Memorial-Death-March/blob/master/2026.md#im-committed instead of the broken http://2026.md/ which I accidentally had in my original email.
The email (formatted in markdown)
Subject: all things deadhead
On Monday, the sixteenth episode of the niche “Run Long After 60” podcast came out and it’s an interview with me. It was supposed to be about an hour, but we ran long. D’oh! I don’t suggest anyone watch the entire thing, but I did mention BARGE--albeit not by name--at about 14:41. With all my “um“s and “ohs” and other tics removed:
I sort of fell into marathoning accidentally. I fell into running accidentally. I have a group of people that I go out to Las Vegas and play poker with every year. They do side activities. A couple of them decided to organize a fun run and it was like two miles and I had not run. I could draw this out, but one thing led to another and I ran my first marathon in 2009.
Afterward, I felt bad about not mentioning BARGE explicitly, but I did not know what Mark Vega, the host, was going to ask and I hadn’t thought if I should identify names and organizations explicitly. In general, I opted not to, mostly out of a subconscious desire to respect privacy. I will make a conscious effort, however, to mention BARGE explicitly and to mention barge.org in my future conversations, interviews (I hope to do some poker related ones “soon”), etc.
The only other portion of my interview that may have semi-wide BARGE appeal is begins at 1:31:59:
Some people drink and have fun, and there are a number of running events where alcohol plays a role…. It’s how many four mile laps you can do in twenty-four hours, drinking a beer each time… Peter Livingstone used to hold the course record in the beer division. But, of course, I had to take it away from him.
In other news, I’m ridiculously broke, but my mom is amazingly healthy. Once again, I plan to compete in the Bataan Memorial Death March and I got exceedingly lucky and will be attempting to “run” the Hardrock 100.
At this point, anyone who has read so far may be asking “If you’re so broke, shouldn’t you forego all the running and take better care of your company?” That’s a great question and one that I’ve asked myself several times (almost exclusively when I’ve been tired; I rarely ask that when I’m awake). My answer is that I’ve definitely backed off on my running significantly and perhaps I should do so more, but I got into trouble when I did so last time. This letter is far too long already, so I’ve added a little more info below my signature1.
For what it’s worth, since mid November I’ve been in my “training for the Bataan Memorial Death March” training block and it’s going significantly better than last year (and I came in 3rd last year). At a very high level, I’ve applied to mom much of what I do to squeak performance out of myself. It’s worked a treat.
There are currently twelve members of the BARGE Strava group, including mom. If two more join, I’ll finally add a logo and picture, although to be fair, I’ll probably do that regardless. However, it’s free to join and not only can you see some BARGE “faces” (some of us post selfies), you can also meet Albie, the roadrunner mom and I have befriended (if you’re logged into Strava, that’s a video of Albie eating out of my hand).
Whatever you do, don’t let winter get you down or hold you back.
Whee!
--
Cliff Matthews
Founder, Craft Poker Co.
https://craftpoker.com
clifford.t.matthews@gmail.com
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I have battled sleep problems since I was a pre-teen. I had mixed (i.e. both central-nervous-system as well as obstructive) sleep apnea for more than half my life. It--IMO--almost killed me. It certainly contributed to the death of my first company (where we did some Macintosh emulation that was impressive at least to some people). Eventually, I had three surgeries to correct the obstructive portion, but I’m still an amazingly light sleeper in the best of circumstances and--perhaps because I suck at it--founding a poker company is stressful.
Empirically, I’ve found that I gain productivity by running. When I cut back on my running due to the amount of time I was spending with mom, on the mistaken assumption that there are only so many hours in a day and that I’d get more done if I spent less time running, I slept much worse and I believe I got a lot less done. When I added running back in, it was tricky because at first the running was making me tired because my body was no longer used to running and to make matters worse, I then injured myself, due to my body not being used to the stress. Eventually, I returned to what I consider a great balance between time lost running and productivity gained by running. During all my experimentation on myself, however, I was making mom healthier and improving her cognition and memory.
FWIW, I’m not suggesting that others should run to gain productivity, nor am I painting myself as virtuous for doing so. I’m flawed to require as much activity as I appear to require, but it’s kind of like breeds of dogs: some of them really need their exercise. ↩