Well after a very interesting day of trying to work with no official work laptop. I was ready to get this long run in before we head out on vacation. I want sure how this one would feel so late in the day but it was great to get out and chase the sunset.
Decided to take big Darbs for a longer than normal walk today enjoying the snowfall. 🌨️🐶
Got lost in a book tape and just enjoying the beautiful weather and scenery I almost forgot to take a picture today on my run. So I took a rather odd one mostly because I don’t think I have noticed this little stream in-between buildings and not sure where it comes and goes to. 🤷
Not going to lie, even with the beautiful weather out today this run was a struggle. However, I pushed though mostly because it was more or less an out and back and I had no choice but to continue on.
Sitting in the Shed Office this afternoon it is feeling kind of warm so I was debating if this weekend I should get the window AC unit down and installed. Then I went out and saw how crazy the next 7 days of weather is swinging of 30°F after tomorrow.
Running Route Diverted - Portland Maine
Because I’m a slightly curious person, after coming across all the mess on my usual running route in Portland, Maine, I had to dig into why they seem to be moving this narrow-gauge railroad track over by about 5-10 feet and causing havoc on my favorite trail along the water.
That is right don’t mess with my normal paths or I might get curious!
From my digging and research, I found that this is due to new property development in what, from my perspective, has always been an abandoned lot. I couldn’t find much on how the development will look overall, but it sounds like a win since it could bring more people to this area which is great (except for the selfish part of me that liked it less traveled). However, there seem to be some sketchy things about how this all transpired, and I’m not entirely sure I have the full story.
Here are some links I found about the whole debacle. On one hand, it sounds bad, but really, if the solution was just to move the railroad which has seemingly been there since it was built about 5-10 feet over, that should have been made very clear from the start. That’s not something that happens overnight, and it makes me wonder who’s actually footing the bill, because I can’t imagine it’s cheap to have a narrow-gauge rail car put spikes in as well 🤷♂️.
Then, in the last link, you can see that part of the track (looks like the offshoots) is actually on the property now being developed, which is probably a big part of the issue. I guess that makes sense for why it has to be moved. But it does make me wonder if the track was that important to Portland, why didn’t they carve that part out of the development plans? For the last 10+ years that I’ve been around this area, the track has been there, and nothing seemed all that ‘active’ on the lot.
- Maine Narrow Gauge Organization- Trackside Development Update- (Archived version)
- Yahoo - Portland’s narrow gauge railroad to close temporarily to accommodate nearby construction
- Portland Press Herald - Portland’s narrow gauge railroad to close temporarily to accommodate nearby construction
- Discussion board with Tax Map Screenshot
I guess for now I can’t wait till everything gets back to normal as it is not ideal to have to run back and forth across this track at varying points along the Eastern Promenade Trail
It was a long day of work today with some other kid stuff sprinkled in as well. I kept just thinking I would take a day off but honestly I needed this time to run as the sun was setting tonight. I told myself finally OK, just do 3.1 miles and so I just started running.
Forty-Four
I’ve just spent the last two weeks in Portland Maine obviously traveling back on the weekend because I wanted to watch my daughter swim at her state competition. Now that I’m back, I’m reflecting on everything as I normally do when writing these for what have become almost yearly reviews.
This past year has, as always, been full of changes. My youngest daughter decided to shift her focus from competitive dance to going all in on competitive swimming and she’s done amazing. I love watching everything she has accomplished so far this year and how much her work and effort is paying off. My middle child who has been a dedicated hockey player for as long as I can remember has really branched out this year. After giving up dance, she took some time off the period year, however now it’s been great to see her grow and try new things from volleyball and soon to be track. My oldest has also had an interesting year. He’s still the kid who loves basketball, but he’s been hanging out with friends and trying new things like golf. Not to mention he started driving this past year! As he is almost now 16, his new thing is looking for a job. I am both anxious and excited for him to be able to drive himself to work, events and activities. The one thing over the past year for him that has been interesting to see is that he has gone on two trips with one of his friends and as much as I hate seeing him go I really love the connections he’s making and hearing all about it when he gets back.
The big news for our family this year is that we finally decided to sell our camper at Kiesler’s in Waseca Minnesota. As much as I enjoyed my time there and as much as our family did too it was probably the right time. Our oldest wants to work as much as possible over the summer and our middle child wants to spend more time with friends so I think the biggest people affected are my wife, my youngest daughter, and slightly me. For me, the camper was always a place to go and just relax not having to worry about everything at home. The only trade-off was still having to manage everything at the camper but that was mostly at the start and end of the season with a little in between.
Looking back at past years I always talk about running and honestly I haven’t done much with it lately but I did join a friend’s podcast to talk about running and I really enjoyed it. There may be more episodes in the future that I join him on and I look forward to that as well. Talking to him made me realize I have more to say but I don’t have the time or energy to start my own podcast so I would rather just join someone else’s and talk about what I know (not that I really know that much but I do like to talk about running). I’m not saying it’s the greatest podcast just because I was on it but I really like what Joey is doing bringing in normal people like you and me to share their experiences. I felt the same way when I joined Off the Couch in the earlier part of their podcast however, I think as it grew they shifted toward professional athletes. It was an honor to be included but as someone who runs as a hobby and even though it is always interesting hearing people talk about how they got into running that are more professional, it’s harder to relate to career ultra-runners.
From a work perspective I don’t have much to report but I am glad to be taking a year off from planning our big yearly team event. I know it doesn’t sound like much but even if you’re not handling the entire scope of planning a lot falls on you to ensure the week goes smoothly. I’m looking forward to showing up as just a participant this year fully engaging in the topics instead of spending the whole time thinking about logistics, taking frantic notes, and preparing recaps at the end of each day and week.
I feel like my yearly recaps have gotten a bit scattered over time and I’ve probably written too much at this point so I will close with that.
Looking ahead to 2025 I really want to embrace the shifts in my kids’ activities and with the couple of unique family trips we have planned. I want to be present for those experiences and take the time to really enjoy what they have to offer. I’m also trying to reduce the noise in my life whether that’s deciding how or if I want to post to a blog or being more intentional about what I consume on a day to day or week to week basis. I don’t know what that will look like yet but this isn’t going away that I am sure of.
In full disclosure I recorded as much of this as I could on a flight back to Minnesota from Detroit as I was stuck in airports for way to long due to delays then edited it over the following days.
Planned to take a little time off this morning to do my yearly birthday run. It got a little delayed for work stuff but I did make it out. I didn’t plan for it to be as cold as it was when I started but it is a good start to another year around the sun.
Glad to be back home running on some familiar trails again. Decided to put in a short one before everyone was hungry for brunch and basketball games started up again.
Looks like I will be on a big plane for the last leg of the flight.
Not exactly what I had planned for today. I created really interesting route that I wanted to try only to wake up and find it pouring rain outside. I decided to scrap my actual route as it would have been had me being outside for a lot longer in this cold rain and just tried to run along the water. Only the construction along the trail caused that to be derailed slightly as well.
It was a rainy and cool one out this morning as I meandered around the bay and then town of Portland. However, not too cold that I could run with shorts today so a win in my book.
Another week in Maine and another loop around the Back Cove in the morning hours. Even though I could probably sleep in more when I travel here it is hard to pass up a nice morning run along this path.
Was able to find the only time I had today to get this run in. In fact, I dropped my youngest and wife off at the door for State Swim then found a parking spot and ran home so then I could catch my Uber to the airport as I was flying out 😅.
Shorts and tee shirt weather today on this run back in Minnesota. It was super nice out today and just wanted to get a couple miles in this afternoon before the weekend. However, my only mistake was I thought I should hit a couple of trails in the conservation place and lets just say I tried to make the quickest exit possible with out back tracking as it was muddy.
Running Behind Podcast
A friend of mine, Joey Metzger, has jumped into the podcast game with Running Behind. On top of already making great YouTube videos about his running adventures, he decided to take things further and launched the Running Behind podcast about a month ago. There is now, three episodes out there now that are fantastic and after catching up with him a couple weekends go for a run, I can say the guest lineup is only getting better.
Maybe selfishly, but the latest episode titled “Eric Walker | “The Streak”, Running For Fun & Digestible Numbers” (released just yesterday) will always stand out to me as the best by far because as you can tell Joey let me join him for a discussion about running. I had such a great time chatting with him, especially since, as you’ll hear, we hadn’t caught up in a long time. In fact, it was only about six months ago that we reconnected as we found each other on Strava (Joey’s Strava Profile) and then realized that we are both crazy runners. Though, to be fair, he might be the crazier one as he runs much longer distances and sticks almost entirely to trail races.
I won’t spoil too many details of our discussion because you should give it a listen. We talked about my running history, especially my 5K a day streak from 2018, but with Joey being the great host he is, he managed to dig out new stories and other takes on running.
I really do appreciate that Joey let me join his show and I hope he still has listeners for your next episode after this past one.
I was glad to get this run in today as I fell like I would have been disappointed if I didn’t wake up early again to make it to the back cove area. I think ever since I started working out there I have always made that loop at least once.
