2019 in review.
Hm. 2019. I'm not sure what to say about it. It was a strange year for me. But I feel like maybe it's just a year of change, where I settle into a new normal.
Let's start with the biggest thing I did in 2019, which was ride my bike from London to Stockholm. That was a trip that sounded ludicrous and impossible before we did it, and sounds ludicrous and impossible now, half a year after we did it. But it was an amazing trip, so much fun, so hard, and I hope that we do it or something like it again in the future, hopefully many times.
Here's my whole trip log, if anyone missed it the first time and wants to check it out.
And some of my favorite photos (okay, a LOT of my favorite photos, I couldn't narrow it down any further than this, people, I'm sorry).
Whew.
Ohyeah, and we did this trip to celebrate our 20th anniversary! We've been married 20 years. Crazy.
So from January 2019 until mid May 2019, I did a whole lot of riding my bike, not a lot of running or swimming. I commuted to work most days, and Matt and I did several group rides to build confidence and practice with our gear.
Amidst all this riding, Trista and I did sneak in one swimrun race, SwimRun Georgia.
Or rather, part of a swimrun race, since it was ultimately canceled for lightning. But at least we had that practice under our belt, because once Matt and I got back from our bike trip, it was ALL SWIMRUN ALL THE TIME, starting with Casco Bay!
That was a tough one for both of us, on our minimal training, but also such a fun experience and a good reminder that we can do hard things.
We got a little more training in during the next few weeks, then the one-two punch of SwimRun Tennessee followed immediately by SwimRun NC!
I started 2019 signed up for one swimrun race, and ended up ultimately doing 4! This was the year of swimrun for me.
It was also, notably, the first year since I started doing triathlon in 2004 that.. I did not do a triathlon.
Did I miss it? I really didn't. Not even when we went and surprised Karen at IMFL. No FOMO. When I decided to retire from Ironman, I didn't also plan to retire from triathlon, and I haven't, but so far I also haven't felt the urge to sign up for another one. I just.. don't really enjoy riding a bike.
nofomo
Okay, I realize that sounds funny coming from someone who just recently rode a bike 743 miles across several countries, so maybe what I really mean is I don't enjoy riding a bike "fast". I don't enjoy racing bikes. I'm not good at it, I don't enjoy it, life is short, so why would I spend my time doing something I don't enjoy?
So for now, I am swimming and running, and enjoying both, separately and in combination.
2019 totals:
Swim: 91h 56m 43s - 277472 Yd
Bike: 217h 29m 28s - 2489.35 Mi
Run: 147h 48m 21s - 825.09 Mi
Speaking of things not sparking joy, I've pulled away from social media a lot this year. I mean, aside from spamming everyone with pictures and a trip report from our bike trip. I just.. it's too much. I've stopped following most news organizations, I've unliked and unfollowed places and people that just want to sell me things, I've unfriended people who I don't even really know, but felt obligated to be "friends" with. That in conjunction with a lot of my friends moving away over the last few years has increased my natural inclination to be misanthropic and hide at home. Fortunately Matt and family and dogs keep me from going full hermit.
I only read 16 books in 2019, due to a combination of less bus commuting (replaced by running and cycling), more bus reading time replaced by bus language-learning time, and 4 of the books I read being REALLY INSANELY LONG.
Oh, and I'm still learning languages via duolingo currently with a 1743 day streak. Languages in rotation at this time: Swedish, Russian, German, Spanish, Dutch, Chinese, Norwegian.
That mostly sums up this year, which brings us to 2020.
More swimrun! A couple years ago, Trista sent me a "promposal", inviting me to do the Rockman SwimRun in Norway with her in 2020. It seemed like a joke at the time, but.. ultimately we really did sign up! When you retire from one kind of stupidly hard thing, you have to replace it with some other kind of stupidly hard thing, I guess. To train for Rockman, we hired an experienced Rockman coach, and have laid out a schedule of training races over the next few months. We're pretty excited and terrified in equal parts. But.. Norway! If we live, it should make for a GREAT race report, no matter how the race goes.
Promposal.
Otherwise lots more reading, language-learning, trying to pretend like I know what I'm doing at my job, and most importantly.. DOGS!
Goodbye 2019, welcome 2020.
Let's start with the biggest thing I did in 2019, which was ride my bike from London to Stockholm. That was a trip that sounded ludicrous and impossible before we did it, and sounds ludicrous and impossible now, half a year after we did it. But it was an amazing trip, so much fun, so hard, and I hope that we do it or something like it again in the future, hopefully many times.
Here's my whole trip log, if anyone missed it the first time and wants to check it out.
And some of my favorite photos (okay, a LOT of my favorite photos, I couldn't narrow it down any further than this, people, I'm sorry).
Whew.
Ohyeah, and we did this trip to celebrate our 20th anniversary! We've been married 20 years. Crazy.
So from January 2019 until mid May 2019, I did a whole lot of riding my bike, not a lot of running or swimming. I commuted to work most days, and Matt and I did several group rides to build confidence and practice with our gear.
Amidst all this riding, Trista and I did sneak in one swimrun race, SwimRun Georgia.
Or rather, part of a swimrun race, since it was ultimately canceled for lightning. But at least we had that practice under our belt, because once Matt and I got back from our bike trip, it was ALL SWIMRUN ALL THE TIME, starting with Casco Bay!
That was a tough one for both of us, on our minimal training, but also such a fun experience and a good reminder that we can do hard things.
We got a little more training in during the next few weeks, then the one-two punch of SwimRun Tennessee followed immediately by SwimRun NC!
I started 2019 signed up for one swimrun race, and ended up ultimately doing 4! This was the year of swimrun for me.
It was also, notably, the first year since I started doing triathlon in 2004 that.. I did not do a triathlon.
Did I miss it? I really didn't. Not even when we went and surprised Karen at IMFL. No FOMO. When I decided to retire from Ironman, I didn't also plan to retire from triathlon, and I haven't, but so far I also haven't felt the urge to sign up for another one. I just.. don't really enjoy riding a bike.
nofomo
Okay, I realize that sounds funny coming from someone who just recently rode a bike 743 miles across several countries, so maybe what I really mean is I don't enjoy riding a bike "fast". I don't enjoy racing bikes. I'm not good at it, I don't enjoy it, life is short, so why would I spend my time doing something I don't enjoy?
So for now, I am swimming and running, and enjoying both, separately and in combination.
2019 totals:
Swim: 91h 56m 43s - 277472 Yd
Bike: 217h 29m 28s - 2489.35 Mi
Run: 147h 48m 21s - 825.09 Mi
Speaking of things not sparking joy, I've pulled away from social media a lot this year. I mean, aside from spamming everyone with pictures and a trip report from our bike trip. I just.. it's too much. I've stopped following most news organizations, I've unliked and unfollowed places and people that just want to sell me things, I've unfriended people who I don't even really know, but felt obligated to be "friends" with. That in conjunction with a lot of my friends moving away over the last few years has increased my natural inclination to be misanthropic and hide at home. Fortunately Matt and family and dogs keep me from going full hermit.
I only read 16 books in 2019, due to a combination of less bus commuting (replaced by running and cycling), more bus reading time replaced by bus language-learning time, and 4 of the books I read being REALLY INSANELY LONG.
Oh, and I'm still learning languages via duolingo currently with a 1743 day streak. Languages in rotation at this time: Swedish, Russian, German, Spanish, Dutch, Chinese, Norwegian.
That mostly sums up this year, which brings us to 2020.
More swimrun! A couple years ago, Trista sent me a "promposal", inviting me to do the Rockman SwimRun in Norway with her in 2020. It seemed like a joke at the time, but.. ultimately we really did sign up! When you retire from one kind of stupidly hard thing, you have to replace it with some other kind of stupidly hard thing, I guess. To train for Rockman, we hired an experienced Rockman coach, and have laid out a schedule of training races over the next few months. We're pretty excited and terrified in equal parts. But.. Norway! If we live, it should make for a GREAT race report, no matter how the race goes.
Promposal.
Otherwise lots more reading, language-learning, trying to pretend like I know what I'm doing at my job, and most importantly.. DOGS!
Goodbye 2019, welcome 2020.