New day, new site, new running goal... GO! 🏃🌄
#running, #sunrise #morning
It has been a while since I woke up before the sun to run but it felt great to get out early again even if my body was not fully awake yet….
Time Spent
More than ever I am guessing people are (or maybe are not) noticing how they are spending their time or maybe not as various schedules have been disputed over the last 6 months. I know mine has as I have gone from working in an office every day to working at home daily now.
I ran across this interesting article by Brad Feld titled “Are You Spending Your Weeks The Way You Want To? Reading it gave me pause to think myself how I have been spending my time not only in this short 6-month window but over the past 39 years of my life. If this sparks some interest some further reading is the original article that Feld references which is published on Wait but Why titled “Life in Weeks”.
Personally, all the question Feld asked is really the questions I have been searching for over the last couple of months and maybe years at that. I am going to definitely spend some more time thinking through this. In addition, the original article dives in a little bit more and provides more food for thought.
One advantage to all of this camping lately is finding new and interesting spots to run in the morning…
📚 Veil by Eliot Peper
Veil by Eliot Peper (@EliotPeper) was just released a week ago and I really can’t say enough good things about it. If you are looking for a great book then look no further as Eliot has produced another great page-turner after not long ago finishing his most recent sequels.
The book was released on May 20th, 2020, but I was lucky enough to get an advanced copy from my good friend Eliot himself. However, I enjoyed the book so much that once it was released I purchased another copy as well for my collection.
Unlike some of Eliot’s other books, I actually felt like this one started a little slower but that was a good thing. As with a lot of good books, it built you up getting to know the characters and backgrounds. Speaking of, the main character, Zia León seems like your normal humanitarian that leads various aid missions to help areas in need. However, what makes Zia unique is she comes with sass and attitude that fits her well in order to get the job done.
As the first part of the story goes I was trying at times to see how all the pieces were going to fit together. Honestly, it took me a little while to start putting the pieces together, and then all of a sudden a kidnapping happened and I could not put this book down. Not only does the story speed up but more is revealed along the way that made it even more of a page-turner. I soon found out that the adventure was just beginning for Zia.
Eliot does it again by looking into the near future and laying out what might happened due to various social/global issues that are relevant in today’s world. With his ability to research those relevant topics, expand on them to plausible future events and outcomes all while crafting other drama into the story always amazes me. Don’t get me wrong there is more to the story than just social events as friendships are tested, betrayal unfolds, and stubborn relationships rear their ugly heads. Everything centers around Zia and she must deal with them all along the way.
Final Thoughts
The one thing I appreciate about Eliot’s books is the way he sometimes weaves things from other books into the mix. I might have only caught one referring to an open-sourced software architecture 😃 but I am sure there were more. Additionally, he finds ways to weave current locations and eating establishments that again makes the futuristic feel of this book that much closer to home.
I have really been enjoying Eliot’s near future books as the concepts and issues are not unrealistic to see come to fruition. Not to mention he always seems to be writing about topics that are big and bold and not just ones that change over the course of a year.
This is again one of those books I really can’t recommend enough. In a time where politics seems to be guiding best practices for how we deal with climate issues, this book takes you to the near future in the path we could be on.
To make sure you don’t miss out on his next books be sure to follow him on twitter (@EliotPeper) and subscribe to his newsletter from his website (http://www.eliotpeper.com/).
As I mentioned I have read some of Eliot’s books before and wrote about them so if you are interested to check out some of his other books go for it as you won’t be disappointed! Here are a couple: True Blue (A Short Story), Bandwidth, Borderless, and Breach.
Spotted Elf on the Shelf rollerblading tonight on my walk with Lainey Lou the Doodle 🤷♂️🤦♂️😂🤣
Starting this week off right with a sunrise run on some trails…
Had a great time biking with this girl again today. She wanted to go farther than yesterday so we ended at 12 miles. Also, don’t think for a minute we are only biking as she likes to explore random places too 😁
Ran into a couple small obstacles this morning while feeling like I was running through people’s backyards 😁.
Update from back when I realized I did the following according to Strava 2.8 miles with the dog and 3.4 miles solo.
It has been a long time since Lainey Lou the Doodle has run with me and I think she regretted all those morning she scratched on the door after I left to run without her 🏃♂️….. 🐕.
Beautiful morning run today which is fitting as it is Earth Day today. Hope everyone can enjoy the nice weather today but physically distancing yourself from others 😁
Happy Birthday to this amazing lady that keeps our family moving one day at a time. For her Birthday she got two amazing cakes from the kids that they worked on this afternoon. Not to mention all the other fun treats from friends that did drive-by or delivery.
Well hello there. Nothing to see here I am just passing by…
I decided to find some less traveled trails this afternoon for a snowy run. Had a good amount on the ground and it kept coming down the whole time.
Thanks for the motivation @fakereedwoodford.
Today’s home science lesson was on how to make simple syrup… Real life skill!
Was a beautiful morning for a long run today. I enjoyed the signs along the trails telling people to well… Be smart 😁
Early morning meetings require even earlier morning runs.
The weather was too nice today for me to sit inside all day. So after my last work call late this afternoon I ventured out and what was going to be 3.1 became 6.2. Thanks family!
Thirty-Nine
It seems strange trying to look back at the last year when there is so much noise clouding the past couple of days/weeks/months.
I am sure this will be shorter than some of the previous years as I feel like I have a little bit of a mental block. In fact, I was thinking about what I was going to write on the morning of what I deemed 6.2 Birthday miles but I didn’t come up with much. That is not to say that nothing has happened over the past year. Last year I wanted to focus on Embracing things more and trying to cut out things that didn’t bring myself or my family joy. Overall, I feel like we kept moving in the right direction. We all continued to focus on things that brought us joy and in some cases started to let go of others.
One last hike in before the storm rolled in and we had to leave Sedona (Airport Loop Trail, May 2019, Sedona, Arizona)
One of the things as a family we did was a last-minute trip to Arizona last May. We were not planning it at the beginning of the year but as my wife and I started to talk about it it just seemed like a great time to go visit family and also be together as a family. The week turned out great as we spent half the time with our Arizona family and then the other half in Sedona exploring all the trails. In fact, what was only going to be a one night stay we extended it to two as everyone was having so much fun.
Running along the Skywalker trail in the early morning hours (May 2019, Skywalker Trail, Sedona, AZ)
I had a couple overseas work trips this past year and on these travels, I tried my hardest to embrace the surroundings and explore more. While traveling to China I made a point to see the Great Wall and I am happy that I braved the adventure as I found myself alone on the wall as I got there so early in the morning (thanks jet lag). Not all of my work trips had such a spectacular sight to see, however, I made the most of almost wherever I went mostly because my early morning or late afternoon runs would lead me to some interesting overlook or park.
Looking towards Tower 23 in the far distance at the Mutianyu Great Wall before the steep climb to come with no one in sight. (May 2019, Mutianyu Great Wall, Beijing China)
Speaking of running, over the past year I continued on with my running and eventually hit a goal that formulated in my mind as the year went on. In October I had hit a mark of running a 5K a day for 365 days. The timing of that seemed to be about perfect as I am looking back at the last 5 months since I don’t think I could have kept it up. However, my running goals have been focused more on distance now and not the consistency of every day running. Some other benefits of my odd running achievement were that I embraced the unknown and talked about my running adventure on a podcast called Off the Couch. It was something new to me and when they reached out I figured why not.
With everything that is going on in the world right now and the focus on physically distancing us and the bans on travel in place as well. I think continuing with the theme of Embracing seems fitting. We are in a very interesting time where my wife and I are both working from home and we have all of the kids with us every day for what might be the end of this school year. In addition, with no after school activities or playdates with friends, this is a great time to be together as a family and do things you always feel you never have time for. My wife and I were just commenting the other day how many weekends or nights do we really have nothing going on. So we are going to embrace this time together as a family and hope we all don’t want to kill each other in the end 😄.
Late night run was what was needed to clear my mind after all that’s been happening…
