My 2019 was a year of contradictions, marked in equal measure by thrilling successes and crushing failures. I raced my longest-distance race to date at the Forget the PR 50K and I got a new full marathon PR one month later at The Flying Pig … but I also experienced the longest furlough in my running career after breaking my ankle. Continue reading The Year That Was: 2019
(or, How I Spent My Summer Vacation) From the week of Memorial Day through the week of Independence Day, my … Continue reading Back from the Break
Rebekah and I braved thunderstorms and tornado watches on Saturday to catch Vampire Weekend in concert at Cincinnati’s PNC Pavilion at Riverbend. Vampire Weekend was one of the first emerging indie acts that I covered for the now-defunct PAUSE Culture Magazine. After writing about the impending release of their first album, I caught them in concert in the garage performance space at Cincinnati’s also-now-defunct Gypsy Hut (currently the Northside Yacht Club) in 2008. A lot has changed since that small 2008 club gig, obviously, and the band that emerged on stage this weekend was nearly twice the size of the original Vampire Weekend quartet. Continue reading Waddling Along to Vampire Weekend
I’m now two full weeks removed from the fateful stumble that left me with a broken ankle. I was finally able to ditch my crutches three days ago, which has certainly made life a bit more manageable. That’s the good news. The bad news is that I’ve already seen a noticeable amount of muscle wasting in my left calf thanks to the 12 days spent on crutches. Continue reading Aches and Atrophy on the Road to Recovery
So … funny story: 48 hours after turning 40, I joined some friends for an evening run only to have one split-second decision impact the next few weeks of my life. I took an unplanned step off of the sidewalk, rolled my left foot and subsequently broke my ankle. Continue reading Forty and Fractured
Last May, my wife and I spent a few days camping at Mammoth Cave National Park before heading to Nashville to catch Fleet Foxes in concert at the Ryman. During one of our caving tours, a park ranger told us about another (somewhat) nearby cave in Tennessee that served as a music venue. One year later and we finally had a chance to check out that unlikely concert space – formally known as The Caverns – for a taping of the PBS program Bluegrass Underground featuring one of my absolute favorites: Gregory Alan Isakov. Continue reading Gregory Alan Isakov Graces the Underground
Kristian Matsson, the Swedish folk singer-songwriter better known as The Tallest Man On Earth, has been an absolute favorite of mine since I first heard the title track from his sophomore album The Wild Hunt nearly a decade ago. It wasn’t until 2016’s Nelsonville Music Festival that I finally got a chance to see The Tallest Man on Earth in concert, though. That summer, Matsson was touring with a full band in support of Dark Bird Is Home and he played a tremendous set at Nelsonville. Continue reading Besting the Revelation Blues With The Tallest Man On Earth
And then there was the Pig. 29 days after running my first 50k, I ran my eighth full road marathon. I seemed to recover fairly quickly from the Forget the PR Mohican 50k, so it didn’t seem entirely crazy to put all of this season’s speed work to the test at the Flying Pig Marathon roughly one month later. There were complications from the very start of this year’s Flying Pig, though, so it quickly became clear that this was not going to be my day to run a 3:20-3:30 marathon. Continue reading Race Report: The Flying Pig Marathon
I blinked and April was over. In what seemed like no time at all, my first 50k was in the record books and I had already returned to training with the BERunProject team. Since the turn of the year, I’ve run 626 miles, pedaled 676 miles with Peloton and spent about 14 hours in semi-private personal training sessions at Beyond Exercise. That’s a combined 135 hours worth of training over the last 18 weeks … all while continuing to observe #nodaysoff. Continue reading Four Months In And #NoDaysOff
After training for 18 weeks, 539 miles and 22,675 feet of vertical gain, I finally completed my first ultra distance on Saturday, April 6, 2019. The weather was just about perfect for the Forget the PR Mohican 50k, which is held in northern Ohio’s expansive Mohican State Park each spring. While not everything went according to plan during the race, I still had an awesome time in a surprisingly beautiful part of my home state. Continue reading Race Report: Forget the PR Mohican 50k
Run, Kamandi, Run! 