One of our goals for this year, in conjunction with our move out to California in a few months, is to reduce our inventory of material possessions.   Sometimes referred to as “purging”  or “decluttering”….I personally prefer to use the term “downsizing.”   “Purging” can have unintended negative associations (bulimia, genocide, etc), and “decluttering” implies that we … Continue reading Downsizing

If you're not familiar with the “Trolley Problem” scenario, check it out here on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem. It’s a pretty well known and oft-cited vignette in circles of psychology, ethics, and morality.  There are several interesting variations of it that control for different decision making or ethical factors. One thing that none of the variations account … Continue reading A variation to the Trolley Problem

As I was putting together my 2016 Year Recap, I got to thinking about our concept of a year, specifically a calendar year.  I’ve always been somewhat fascinated and intrigued by celestial and planetary astronomy.  However, like most people my understanding only went about as deep as this: “A year is 365.25 days so we … Continue reading The year and the calendar

As 2016 closes out this week, I thought I'd take a look back at the calendar year.  Like my race recaps - this “year recap” serves as a mechanism to reflect back at the past calendar year and look forward into 2017.  Again, it's long, but I tried to include a bunch of pics in … Continue reading 2016 Year recap

Wow - much to write about on this one.  This is going to be a longer-than-normal recap, because Hellgate was a powerful experience.  Over the course of 14 hours and 24 minutes, Hellgate broke me down. Definitely the hardest race/event that I’ve ever done, but in the end I learned a lot from it.    I’ll … Continue reading Hellgate 100k – postrace

We leave this morning to drive up to the Blue Ridge for the Hellgate 100k run, which starts at 12:01am on Saturday morning.  Over the past week, as the race has gotten closer, I have been unable to think of much else.  I will obviously write a recap blog afterwards, but I thought it would … Continue reading Hellgate 100k – prerace

Race info at a glance: Date:  12 Nov 2106 Distance: Marathon Participants:  ~5000 Weather:  ~40 deg at start, ~60 at finish.  Sunny, a little windy Pre-race goal:  Training run, consistent pace.  Est 3:05-3:10 // This one’s gonna be somewhat short and quick…not as much to write about as in a trail ultra.   Pretty straightforward: 26.2 … Continue reading Richmond Marathon – 12 Nov

Race info at a glance Location:  Blue Ridge Mountains.  Blue Ridge Parkway KOA campground to Montebello, VA. (South to North) Participants:  Max 400.  This year they had 277 entrants, 238 starters, 210 finishers (202 before cutoff) Course info: •    Roughly 60% doubletrack/dirt roads, 40% singletrack (my estimation...not official by any means). •    9200 ft total … Continue reading Backblog – Mountain Masochist 50 mile race report (from 05 Nov)

     After a week long family reunion at my Aunt and Uncle's ranch in the mountains SW of Colorado Springs, we drove north through Colorado to Steamboat Springs - the site of the Run Rabbit Run 100 and 50 mile trail races.   Run Rabbit Run (RRR) is more well known for it's 100 mile … Continue reading Backblog – Run Rabbit Run 50 mile Race Report (from 17 Sept)

26 Nov 2016 - Starting the blog today. I've been contemplating doing one of these for a few months now, and have enjoyed writing reviews for a few races I've done. I'll post those "back-blogs" first, the Run Rabbit Run and Mountain Masochist race reviews. The Richmond review is new. I hope to update with new posts at least monthly, more often if I can swing it. For me - it's a good exercise in thinking deeply about things that interest me, and then transforming thoughts into words that (hopefully) make sense. Any feedback is always appreciated, and if you like it feel free to share the URL.