While the focus of my journal/newsletter is mostly on running, I haven’t done much of that over the past couple of weeks—partly due to the need for rest and recovery and partly because of the holidays. So this edition is going to be light on the running content.
I spent the last few weeks mediating life at age 40 (my birthday was December 19) and then on vacation at my parents’ house in Idaho as part of our normal Christmas holiday (though I actually had to work most of the time). The time spent in Idaho was fun, with activities too numerous to describe outside of a bullet-point list:
Catching up with friends.
One of the best parts of visiting Idaho/Utah was catching up with a number of friends who live in that area, or were visiting themselves.
*We went to a USU basketball game with my family and our dear friends Jarom and Desi Burbank, who were visiting from Boise, ID. Jarom and I were mission companions in Finland ages ago, and we spent tons of time together and young married couples during college (both at USU and later in SoCal).
*We also bumped into one of my lifelong best friends Mike Parker during halftime. I didn’t take a picture, so you’ll just have to imagine it.
*On the way home, we stopped in Orem, UT for a day to hangout with the Cluffs. Ben and Shaunie and their kids lived in Irvine while Ben was in grad school, but they moved for Ben’s job a few years ago. We have stayed close through periodic mini-vacations and video games. They were in St. George for my most recent marathon, and Ben took a photo of me Naruto-running across the finish line. He got the photo framed and gave it to me for my birthday:
*I didn’t run much in Idaho, because it was so dang cold and snowy/icy. I cannot understand how anyone trains in the wintertime there. But I was able to run 6-7 miles with my friend and unofficial coach Steve. I’d never run with him before, but he’s a much stronger runner and I was far more nervous heading out the door than jogging with a friend should cause one to be, but I settled down alright and we had a great run in which we discussed goals and races for 2020 and the Great Shoe Debate at length. Speaking of shoes, here is my birthday present:
My current running shoe rotation is as follows:
***Hoka Clifton 6 (their ugliness is matched only by their comfort level) as my workhorse & recovery shoes. I’ve been running in Hokas since last spring and just love them to death.
***Saucony Triumph 17 for off-day/middle distance (7-10 miles) workouts. I haven’t run in Saucony shoes since early 2017, and I’ve never used a Triumph model before. I’ve taken a couple of short runs in them, and they seem good.
***Nike Zoom Fly 3 for speed workouts. I have yet to wear these, since I haven’t done a track workout since mid-December. Probably this week.
***Not pictured are the hot-pink Nike Vapor/Alpha/Whatever-flys that I will inevitably get before my next marathon.
Skiing. Henkka and I went night skiing at the new-ish Cherry Peak Ski Resort. We had a good time, and the snow at the resort was better than previous years (we’ve visited each year since it opened 3 years ago), but the resort just really isn’t that great. I don’t think we’ll go next year. A couple of days later, we went (with Beatta and Salla, this time) to Beaver Mountain, my favorite resort in the world. Tons of fresh powder, and a blustery, snowy day made for excellent conditions and skiing.
Even better, we also bumped into our close friend Steve Evans, who happened to be skiing there that day with his sons. It was great to briefly catch up with him, as well—we hadn’t seen each other in 4-5 years. We only had a couple of short runs together, but that was enough to cover the basics—dogs peeing on the carpet, kids obsessed with video games, etc…
Henkka and Salla made huge leaps forward in skiing ability from last year, which was great. Ville didn’t want to go, which I was simultaneously happy and sad about. We’ll probably make him go skiing at Mammoth next month anyway.
Skiing with the kids is a lot more fun than it used to be—I was even able to coax Henkka into a few black diamond runs for the first time.
Beatta, standing atop Gentle Ben. Beaver Mountain is a smaller resort with crappy lifts, but it has the best combination of terrain, snow quality, and variety I’ve ever found. I sort of appreciate the poor lifts at times, because if they were much better, the resort would attract more people and get crowded.
Sledding(?) We attempted to go sledding in the mountains near my hometown, but a snowstorm made the roads a bit slippery. While we California folks were fine, a local hipster in a 1990’s-era Cadillac (NORTHSTAR SYSTEM!) sedan with no power-steering found the roads a bit more difficult and ended up in a snowbank on the side of the road. We stopped to help dig him out until a dude more suited to *actually* helping came along (we knew he was more qualified, because 1) he had a truck, and 2) he was from Wyoming (1 probably flows naturally from 2, but whatever)). By the time we were done with that adventure, the snow was falling too heavily and the roads were too dangerous, so we turned back, sleds unused.
Puppy. Allow me to introduce the newest member of our family: BMO Pants Football Bosworth:
BMO (pronounced Bee-Moe) is an Aussiedoodle who was 6 weeks old when we picked her up last week. She is all black, except for a tiny bit of white on the very tips of her toes, and a sweet white soul patch on her lower chin. Driving home from Idaho with a new puppy in the car was pretty wild, but we did it nonetheless. We love her.
Regarding the name: We have thought about dog names for the past year as we’ve planned to get a puppy, and BMO has long been a contender. BMO is the name of a small handheld computer in the cartoon Adventure Time, and her mirror image is her imaginary friend named Football, so that is where those names come from. After we first met the puppies—before we had decided on one in particular—my daughter suggested “Pants” as a name, and we all immediately loved it. In the end, we felt BMO was better, but still wanted to incorporate Pants. Hence, BMO Pants Football Bosworth.
Other stuff
Christmas Card Failure
Our Christmas cards never got done, but it wasn’t my fault. You may recall from a previous newsletter that delays are usually my doing. This time it was a collective decision to prioritize other things, so we will probably send out a digital edition sometime before St. Patrick’s Day.
Running Goals for 2020:
TBD. I know I need to get on this, but I am still trying to sort out some weird injury/health issues, and need to get some clarity there before I can do much else. For now, I’m just trying to maintain about 30 miles a week, with a couple of high-quality workouts.
Media Consumption
Reading Materials
Wheel of Time update: I finished the fifth book (The Fires of Heaven) during our travels and have started Lord of Chaos. I expected to be running out of steam after FoH, but I did not!
Other books: For Christmas I got a couple of books that I am anxious to get into—Born to Run (which I am embarrassed to have never read), and Vacationland (by John Hodgman, whose podcast we adore as a family).
I was also invited to participate in a book club started by Greg Taylor (he has a fun newsletter if you’re interested). They’re reading War & Peace, which I would read if I was a better person than I actually am. He told me I should join anyway, but the invitation he sent me didn’t work, so I think it was a joke.
TV/Movies
We have consumed virtually no film or TV since before Christmas, outside of watching the new Star Wars film while in Mesquite, NV. I thought the movie had some fun moments, but mostly was not great. Shallow, disjointed, formulaic, and felt like an unnecessary over-correction from the previous entry. But cool ships and lightsabers and stuff like that.
Gaming
While on vacation, Henkka and I (and my nephew Ian) finally started our campaign in Gloomhaven! That board game is absolutely spectacular, and worthy of all the praise it has received since release. It’s very big and detailed and a bit overwhelming to start with, but once it gets rolling…goodness! It will probably take us years to finish the campaign, but that is totally okay with me.
I didn’t play any video games while traveling, so nothing there. Here is again my regular call for another player to join our (mostly) weekly game night on the Xbox—we really could use another player or two!