For the first time in a while I’m feeling really hopeful that we’re on the back-side of this pandemic. Vaccines are rolling out, case numbers and deaths are falling, and the harsh winter cold is starting to subside. However, there’s still trepidation when deciding to make plans for later in the year. Many of the […]
Read more
2019 was a huge year for running. I completed my first 100K and 100 mile race, and overall hit a huge stride in my running. I know that my running years usually cycle around to a low mileage, low accomplishment year every fourth year, so this year should have been another knockout year. However, as […]
Read more
Even though I use a Garmin device to track all my activities, I push all of them from Garmin Connect to Strava. For the most part, Strava is my social network for biking and running activity following. Strava also has a feature called Privacy Zones, and the way that it integrates with third party tools […]
Read more
It never fails. Every year around this time my activity levels drop like a rock and I find I need to re-motivate myself to keep putting in the work. I have managed to transition a lot of running miles over to long haul hikes, but it’s still not quite the same. My biking has also […]
Read more
It’s been a couple months since I was able to really run, thanks to a broken toe. I finally passed the 6 week point and decided it was time to get back at it. I had tried to do some hiking at Afton a couple weeks ago, but the rough terrain was just too much […]
Read more
This past weekend we took an extended trip to Itasca State Park. It was a long time coming, and we were super happy to finally be able to get to a place we’ve been trying to get to for multiple years. However, there’s always a twist when it comes to seasons in Minnesota. Being in […]
Read more
A couple of weeks ago I had an unfortunate run-in with a dumbbell. Not the kind currently trying to take over social media, but the kind that you’re supposed to use to lift weights. And before the jokes start about, “That’s what happens when you try to do strength training”, I wasn’t even using the […]
Read more
Somewhere in our crazy mind, the UMTR Board decided that doing a virtual fatass would be a great idea, and to make it even crazier, we added a twist. The loop you run (or out-n-back) has to be less that 0.5 miles long. So this morning I headed over to the pond two blocks away, […]
Read more
The recent coronavirus outbreak, COVID-19, has disrupted life as we know it, and at the moment it often feels confusing and frustrating about how to react. One of the things that has happened over the past week are many running events being cancelled, alongside other major sporting events. This can be a very frustrating and […]
Read more
January of 2010 was the start. It’s hard to believe that it was so long ago, but the end of 2019 also marks the end of my first 10 years of running. I could never have imagined when I started this journey how consuming it would become, and how much of my identity would be […]
Read moreThe year 2019 is my tenth year of running, and is seems appropriate that I celebrate that milestone with a bang. I’ll be writing a retrospective post on the past decade in a few days, but for the moment I want to spend a little time looking back at just this past year, and how […]
Read more
My plan was to pull my sled for 80 miles from Park Falls to Rice Lake. I made it 35 miles before I had to pull the plug, registering my first winter ultra DNF. So what went wrong? It almost all came down to my back. I’ve never pulled a sled for 30+ miles before […]
Read more
Second Runnings 