I love spending time on trails and there's a metric crapton of options where I live, so giving mountain biking a shot seemed like an obvious choice. I've wanted to try for a long time, I just never managed to get around to it. Recently, while knee troubles sidelined me from high-impact activities, I decided it was high time I get some trail time on wheels. I'll be the first to tell ...
Living Well
February Spending Freeze Check-In
I feel like I just wrote about the start of the February spending freeze challenge, and here we are already most of the way through it! Here's a quick update on how it's going for me. Spending freeze gray area As I wrote in my original post, my intent with this ban was to spend absolutely no money that I didn't have to spend. The primary purpose is to abstain from shopping, but I extend that ...
Fitness Update: Navigating Injury
It's been a little while since I wrote about what I'm up to in my fitness life. 2018 hasn't exactly been off to a roaring start: I'm officially benched due to injury. I first started having pain in my right knee while hiking the Na Pali Coast, as I mentioned in last week's post. In the weeks that followed, I limited my running volume to give my knee some space to heal. That said, I couldn't ...
It’s Time for The Annual February Spending Freeze Challenge!
For the entire month of February, I'm challenging myself and you to freeze your spending for an entire month. That means not spending money on anything you don't need for all of February. The first time I did a spending freeze was circa 2011. February always seemed like a natural fit for a spending freeze, not least of all because it's the shortest month. I always get so much benefit from ...
Lessons and Reflections from 2017
If I had to use one sentence to sum up 2017, it would have to be: "not what I expected." Yes, life never quite goes how you planned it, but this year seemed like it was especially rife with experiences that totally took me by surprise. Here's a few highlights and musings on another year. Active endeavors I kicked off 2017 with Kayla Itsines' 12-week BBG program. I had been wandering ...
Race Recap: The Flagstaff [Half] Marathon
After months in the making, I did what I set out to do: ran a half marathon! I ran the half distance of the Flagstaff Marathon up in the high-elevation forests here in northern Arizona. Here's how it went. Training recap: by the numbers 20 weeks 60 training runs 256 miles 18,461 ft elevation gain Race strategy Pre-race I did my longest run (12.5 miles) 2 weeks before my race. I scaled ...
