Wind Surfing at Stanford!

Hi Readers,

So some of you may know that I've recently started taking wind surfing classes here at Stanford. Yes, Stanford offers wind surfing classes, because it is so awesome. I was debating about taking the class, especially since I had suffered a cut to my leg the week before and it would hurt to put the wetsuit on. However, since it is only offered every spring, I finally decided to take it, and it was a fantastic idea!

So to start off, Stanford is humongous. It's so large, in fact, that it includes several lakes. There are acres and acres of land which are part of Stanford, but which are not developed in any way. This includes a lake called Felt Lake, which is located behind the campus, on the other side of 280. This is where the windsurfing classes are held.

For a course fee of $100, everything is included. Even though I wasn't sure that a wetsuit was necessary, I bought one anyways, and it was definitely a great idea. The first time I tried the water, it was freezing cold. I was nice and toasty inside the wetsuit (and blubbery as well, since the wetsuit made me look like a seal).

Wind surfing includes a board, a sail, and a boom. The board is what you stand on, the sail stands on top of the board so you can catch the wind, and the boom is what you hold onto with your hands to direct the sail. The first class taught us how to assemble all the parts, and how to balance ourselves on the board.

Once you are on the board, you have to pull on the sail until it stands up straight. This is probably the hardest part of learning how to windsurf (so far..there's only been 2 classes). Balancing is really difficult, and if the wind is strong or unsteady then it's hard to stay on the board. I fell a lot that first day. A LOT. But on the second day, it got a lot better! I was able to move around the lake using the wind, and it was really fun! It also helped that the second day had much better weather than the first day.

I found that the hardest thing to do, once you start moving, is to go upwind. It is a problem - once the wind blows you down to the end of the lake...how do you get back? I found this out early on in the 2nd class, when I found myself at the very edge of the lake and unable to go back. Fortunately, one of the TAs came by and guided me on how to zigzag across the wind, heading slowly upwind the entire time, in order to get back. Whereas I spent 10 mins getting to the end of the lake going downwind, it took well over an hour and a half to get back up the lake again.

Stanford really never ceases to amaze me with what it has to offer. I love this place!

Till next time!
-FCDH

An Outdoorsy Ascent

Hi Readers,

Yesterday I went with NS and a couple of other people we met at the ARC rock climbing wall to go climbing in Jackson Falls, in southern Illinois. It was the first time doing outdoor climbing for both NS and myself, and we were pretty psyched. I almost said "no" when the offer was first made, but then I thought, "mehwhatthehellwhynotyouonlylivelifeonce......" It turned out to be an awesome decision!

We left at 6am. It was probably the earliest I've been up in at least half a year, so I was yawning the whole car ride down. We got there at around 10, and it was already soooooo hot. Ditched the jackets, grabbed the water bottles, and we started our trek out to Mr. Jimmy's, which is a giant cliff with many climbs. Along the way us noobs discovered from the pros (CK and EP) that southern Illinois is peppered with awesome climbs. Who knew?!? Certainly couldn't tell from the FLAT CORN-NESS that is Illinois.

We started with a route called "Luscious Babes" (5.8), moved on to "Venom" (5.10a), "Chicken Shack" (5.6), "Chimichonga" (5.8), "Deetle Dumps" (5.8), and "Meanest Flower" (5.9). For those of you who don't know rock climbing lingo, the 5.x levels rank rock climbing. A 5.1 is akin to a steep hill that you walk up, a 5.4 is probably scrambling over boulders, 5.6 is vertical but pretty easy, and apparently nobody has done more than a 5.15 here before. Below are some of the routes that we did (I didn't take pictures for others), so you can imagine what the rating system is like.

5.8 - "Luscious Babes"

5.8 - "Chimichonga"

5.10a - "Venom"

5.6 - "Chicken Shack"

Since it was the first time that I had climbed outdoors, I was nervous as hell and not sure what to expect. Mostly I was afraid of failing and having others laugh at me. But luckily enough, it wasn't so bad! I guess all those hours in the ARC climbing wall paid off after all! I was able to all except one of the climbs that the others could do, and it was amazingly fun. The difficulty levels seemed easier than the ones at the ARC, the holds were almost always easier to hold onto than on the artificial rock wall, just because they are real rocks, and I loved being able to just go up a wall and not have to worry about, "oh this rock belongs to this route and that rock is off-limits." It did make for a very interesting phenomenon, where everybody would get up a route using different methods, and get stuck at different spots because of that.

This was also the first time that NS and I tried lead climbing (in addition to top-rope), another technical jargon. In rock climbing there are many types of climbing. "Top-rope climbing" refers to the fact that your anchor rope is all the way at the top of the route, so when you are climbing and fall, you stop immediately where you are. "Lead climbing" refers to a method where you are starting your climb without any anchors. There are various anchors scattered throughout the route on the way up, and you clip your rope into these anchors as you go up. It is scarier than top-rope because if you fall, there is the possibility of you falling a longer way down, since you will fall underneath the last anchor that you clipped into. An analogy of these two styles would be the concept of respawning in a video game. Top-rope climbing would be analogous to the situation where if you die, you "restart" at the exact same spot and continue on. Lead climbing would be akin to a "checkpoint" system, where you respawn at the last checkpoint you passed. We are very thankful for CK and EP for teaching us how to do lead climbing, because we had been curious about it for awhile.

It got quite hot out as midday came and went, and it got progressively more humid until we were sweating even just standing in the shade. However, we did not let it bother us too much, since we were armed with our chalk bags. We stayed out there from 10am until 7pm, when it began to get dark out. In the process, everybody got in ~6 climbs and we had a blast. Ended the day at Steak n Shake with burgers and milkshakes. It was an awesome day. =)

-FCDH

My First Marathon!

Hi Readers,

This past weekend, I officially ran my first marathon! On April 30th, I participated in the Illinois Marathon and ran 26.2 miles! It was super exciting and it wraps up my last goal of finishing a marathon during my years in college. I can't believe that I only started running a year and a half ago. In my view, it is one of my biggest accomplishments in college, to overcome the physical barrier that had stood in the way of my running all during high school.

So to start off, I didn't put in anywhere close to the amount of training that I should have. Even for last year's half marathon, I put in a lot more training than I did this year. Thanks to the 20 credit hours that I am taking this semester, I really didn't have the time to run as much as I could. In the month and a half before the marathon, I only ran twice, and those were 13 and 6 mile runs respectively. So you can understand that I was really worried about the marathon as it approached: being able to see it coming, but not being able to run due to some homework or project that I had to work on. The only good advantage that I had this year which I did not have last year was the sleep I got the night before the marathon. Last year I carbo loaded so much the night before that I couldn't sleep the entire night because I was just pulsing with energy. This year I didn't carbo load too much (I went to a pasta dinner at Willard's house, which was nice) and because of that I was able to sleep for about 5 hours.

So the morning of the marathon I woke up feeling really worried (and tired - it was 5:30 am). Showered, got dressed, ate oatmeal for breakfast, and then I started the longggggg walk to the start line. The walk took me about 40 minutes, and I barely had time to drop off my bag at the gear check. Then the marathon started. Because I was so unsure of the time I would be around, I decided to stick with the 5 hour pace group. It might have been good because I could have started way too fast and died halfway through. It might have been bad because I could have gone at a more normal pace and not worn out my legs as much from each step. But I guess we'll never know which one.

The rest of the marathon (from mile 0 - 14) was a blur. It sounds so weird to say it, but they passed like nothing. Even by mile 14 I was feeling fine, as if I had not been running for about 2 and a half hours already. Granted it was at a horrendous pace (11:27 mile) but I was surviving! And then things started to go downhill (figuratively only, of course) from there. The sun came out and it became scorching hot. My feet started to hurt at around this point, and our pace group began to dwindle. We originally started with probably around 20 people, and by this time we had probably around 10 left.

There was a lady who really inspired me at this stretch (from 14-22 miles). She said that she had never been able to run past the 18 mile point, and that it always had been a wall for her and that she really wanted to push past it. So the entire group took it as our goal to get her past the 18 mile point. The last glimpse I saw of her was around the 22 mile mark, when I turned the corner and lost sight, but she was still running at that point! I was so proud of her.

By mile 20, every additional mile was a struggle. Each mile from mile 20-25 seemed to double in difficulty. There was a small uphill incline at around mile 24 that just killed me. But this was also the part when I started going ahead of the pace group. At this point my legs were beginning to cramp up from the slow pace that we were going (which put more stress on my thighs), while my hamstrings still felt fine. So I picked up the pace and began to use my hamstring muscles more. The last mile really flew by in a whirl, since I was running hard for much of it, to try and finish strong. If not for the strong headwinds that prompted me to walk right as I came into sight of the stadium, I would've had a much better time.

When I crossed the finish line that was like a huge sigh of relief for me. I got the medal (as everyone else did) for completion of the marathon. I finished in 4 hours and 57 minutes, which isn't a good time by any means, but leaves me plenty of room to improve in future marathons. I hugged my pace group leader for all his help to get us across the finish line (at around mile 24 there were only 3 of us left in the pace group. Everyone else had fallen behind).

I can't believe that I actually managed to do it. To me that seems like an incredible triumph. The willpower that it takes to do something like this is so hard to muster that I doubt normal people would be able to do it. Even though I say that everyone should be able to do the half marathon (and I still believe in it), not everyone can do the full marathon. But everyone SHOULD try and do the full marathon! Because the sense of accomplishment you feel afterward is so huge.

The outer arch of my right feet is still hurting from the marathon, I think because of my form. I will try to let it rest as much as I can in the meanwhile. Finals are done! Next post coming soon.

-FCDH

The Excitement of Snowboarding

Hi Readers,

After coming back from my recent snowboarding trip to Chestnut Mountain with some friends, I thought I would write a blog post about snowboarding. I snowboarded for the first time in grade 10, and since then I have really fallen in love with it, much more so than skiing. I have my own board and all the equipment, which are currently a thousand miles away in Vancouver (grr). I really miss the mountains in Vancouver - I never thought about how convenient it was to live by so many ski hills until it was all gone, to be able to have a choice of three different ski resorts to go to within an hour's drive from my house. Now I have to drive at least 4 hours to reach a ski resort that is much less in caliber than the ones I had. Such is life.

I'll start off by saying that snowboarding is hard. Period. I haven't yet met a single person who has gotten through their first day of snowboarding without lots of bruises, sore knees, and butts. It may not seem like it, but there is a very big difference between having your body face the direction that you are traveling (ski) and having your body perpendicular to the direction your are traveling (snowboard). It makes for a lot of face plants at first, especially when learning to turn. There are two ways to orient a snowboard so that it is parallel to the slope (for gliding). The regular style means left-foot forward (so left side of body is facing downhill), and it is called regular because most people fall under this category. The goofy style is for right-foot forward, and is less common. To determine whether a person is regular or goofy, the first time they snowboard, an instructor will often shove them without any warning, and take note of which foot they step out with first. It will become their leading foot.

Unlike skiers, snowboarders do have an easier time with stopping. To stop, all a snowboarder has to do is to put the board perpendicular to the slope and push down hard on the edge, so that it pushes the snow downhill. Since there are two possible ways of putting a snowboard perpendicular to the slope, the terminology of toe-side and heel-side edges refers to the side of the snowboard that the pressure is being put on. Heel-side is the more natural way, where a snowboarder faces toward the bottom of a hill and puts pressure on their heels, while toe-side is where the snowboarder faces uphill and puts pressure on their toes to stop.

Snowboarders generally start learning with zigzags down the hill while alternating between regular and goofy style, as well as how to stop toe side and heel side. After this is done, they begin to learn how to turn. A turn is basically a move to go from toe-side to heel-side or vice versa, and when done properly, it looks like tracing a semicircle down the slope. The notion of "turning" is the key focus of snowboarders and is basically the precursor to carving. Skiers can carve by transferring their weight between the right skis and left skis between turns, and snowboarders can carve by transferring their weight between toe-side to heel-side. Snowboarders can carve simply by joining turns together to form an S-shape maneuver, and eventually by making the S-shape narrower.

It's during turns that snowboarders are most likely to fall on their butts. In the beginning, switching from toe-side to heel-side is fraught with dangers of falling, especially to knees and butts. I'm usually a regular style snowboarder, but I've been trying to learn carving goofy-style, and I've been falling as much as a beginner has. Regular and goofy style really are not transferable between each other, so I've come to love the pain that accompanies my attempts at goofy-style.

Despite its intricacies, I feel like snowboarding is really not that hard to learn. The first day is the worst. I remember the first day I learned snowboarding. Despite being tired as hell that night, I could not fall asleep because my knees and butt hurt so much. In my opinion, snowboarding is most easily learned when several consecutive days are spent learning snowboarding. That way no progress is lost and you can progress quickly to carving. Once carving is mastered, snowboarding becomes so much more fun than skiing. Plus it has the "cool" factor.

I'm pretty sure that I will not stick around in Illinois for graduate school. Wherever I may end up, I want to make snowboarding a part of my life there for the next 5 years. There's just something about it that makes it so much fun. Perhaps it's the thrill of flying down the hill on the edge of your control, while constantly pushing the boundaries of that control. Knowing that the control may disappear the next second and you might crash and generate a huge puff of snow, but living for the present all the same. It's how I want to live my life.

-FCDH

Running in Circles

Hi Readers,

I've been very busy, so I haven't been posting many new posts. I am hoping to post a myriad of posts tonight covering everything I wanted to post on in the past 2 weeks. Hopefully it will give me time to sleep and wake up in time to go ice skating and/or rock climbing tomorrow.

One of my life goals has always been to advance myself athletically. In high school, I kind of stayed away from sports of all kinds (except swimming), and I was definitely not good at anything. Therefore, I adopted the goal during my college years as a measure to develop some athletics that I could enjoy and be good at as I head into the future. A more specific goal was to run a full marathon - a goal that was unimaginable and laughable for me in high school, but a goal that now is looking more realistic.

For those of you that don't know, I ran the half marathon (13.1 miles) last year in May. I started training for it last winter, and successfully did the half marathon at around a 9 min mile. Before that training, I could only run around 3 miles non-stop before I had to stop to catch my breath. My training and improvement in running and rock climbing really helped advance my self confidence. It's a source of pride for me, and it has helped me lose weight that I carried into college from high school.

For the marathon (26.2 miles), I started training a few days after finals ended and winter break started. I tried to find some running buddies on Craigslist at first - which didn't work out. I decided to screw finding running buddies, and instead run by myself. So after New Year's Day, I began running every single day that CRCE was open. I improved quickly - my mileage increased quickly from 3 miles to 11 miles, with my best runs being two consecutive days with a 9.5 mile run at 7:30 mins per mile, and an 11 mile run at 8:16 mins per mile. I am putting up both a mileage and a pace that the me a year ago could only have dreamed about.

My daily schedule has fallen into a predictable schedule. I wake up in the morning and go to work at the study abroad office. After work is finished, I nap for an hour, and then go to CRCE and run around in circles on the indoor 1/8 mile track.

I don't feel bored when I run. I constantly feel energized. At the beginning of the run, I randomly hum 6 notes, and then my minimalist mind will take it, loop it, and expand it into a symphony worthy of zoning out to. It is almost like techno - except sometimes the 6 note sequence forms themselves to the tune of "Silent Night", or other Christmas songs that were stuck in my head. It's not the most glamorous way to run, but it's definitely the cheapest. Although it doesn't make much difference to me personally, I feel proud of myself when I see other people with their iPods or other mp3 players strapped to their arms, because I know that I didn't have to spend any money on it.

I keep an active inventory of the runners on the track as I am running, and I can constantly see - nobody is putting up the mileage I am. Some runners may pass me, but they stop a lap or two afterward and go working out. For all runners that are doing distance running, I tend to run faster than them all. I am wary about the fact that I may be getting too over-confidence and will need a reality check soon on just how much more I have to improve, but as of right now - I am constantly on cloud nine when I run. It gives me satisfaction, that I am able to do this only a year after taking up running seriously.

It really shows the power of human will. It gives me hope about accomplishing things that I set my mind to. And finally, I have an athletic skill in which I may rank as "above-average". The next challenge will be to keep up the running and the mileage as classes start. I am looking forward to it.

-FCDH

Notes from Mother Nature

Hi Readers,

I recently just returned from a 3-day trip to the Ozark Mountains. Me and BR backpacked through the Bell Mountain Wilderness area, and the Ozark Trail. We traveled 42 miles in 3 days, which is a pretty nice pace for us. We camped for two nights...both nights were windy, but it rained very hard on the second night. Overall, the trip was characterized by fatigue and the difference in time perception. We had expected to run into some other people while hiking the trail...but we were wrong. The only people we met were 2 people who looked like they were living off the land illegally (hunting, etc.). Aside from that, we saw no other human beings for the entire duration of our hike. And if my cellphone had not turned on by itself in my pocket, I would not have had any other communications other than with BR. As it is, I got a lovely text from JM about joining for a movie night with chocolate popcorns, and immediately felt hungry.

In the beginning of the hike, BR and I talked a lot on the trail. As time grew on, our pace grew faster, our physical separation began growing apart ; we began getting more and more out of breath, and we began talking less and less, until we probably spoke an average of 10 words to each other every half an hour. Under such conditions, I began humming music to myself to entertain myself on the trail. With this method, I discovered a surprising thing on the second day of my trekking: for me, classical music dulls pain.

At the end of our second day, we had to hurry back from Council Bluffs to Big River in order to reach a suitable campsite (that was not in a flash flooding zone). I was leading, so it was up to me to set a fast pace in order to make at least 2 miles in an hour. It seems like a distance that you can scoff at, but once you're out there trudging through the leaves and rocks, you'll realize how difficult it is. Especially with a 40-50 lb bag on your back. Anyways, my shoulders and feet were aching really badly at the time.

And then I put on Beethoven's Spring Sonata in my head.

It wasn't instantaneous, but within 5 minutes I had gotten really into the music, and the pain had all but disappeared. I could feel a blister on my feet, a persistent force on my shoulder, but none of it hurt anymore. Because of this, I was able to set a pace that took us 2 miles in 50 minutes, giving us enough time to refill our water at Big River and set up camp before it got too dark. This was really weird for me, so I decided to test it out more the next day.

So the next day along the trail, I hummed music in my head the whole way. Had some Nelly Furtado, Coldplay, Radiohead, Rihanna, even Katy Perry. For the first hour, that was all I really hummed. And my feet and shoulders were killing me by the time we took our first break, an hour into the hike. For the second hour, BR (who was leading) set a daunting pace through a part of the trail where it must have ascended 150-200 feet without stop. I put on Rachmaninoff's 3rd Piano Concerto and blazed through that section, and by the time we reached Ottery Creek, everything had stopped hurting and I felt even better than before we had started walking.

I used Rachmaninoff's 2nd and Prokofiev's 1st Concertos to crank out a 3 mile/hr pace on the uphill section from Ottery Creek to Bell Mountain. Still didn't feel any pain. But my ultimate proof of the power of classical music came in the last mile of hiking. It was entirely in darkness, and since I have a fear of the dark and BR is apparently afraid of raptors coming out of the dark a la Jurassic Park 2, both of us were on edge. And since BR and I were talking to ward off our fears of the forest at night, my shoulders and feet were beginning to kill me again. At the point when I couldn't stand it anymore, I put on Rachmaninoff's 2nd concerto again.

The pain disappeared.

The case is closed. Classical music is apparently my panacea. I think it may have something to do with the fact that the brain cannot focus on so many things at a time. I'm not complaining...I'd rather enjoy a grand concert in my head than the pain from my body. Though I tend to get so engrossed in the music that I start waving my arms around as if I'm conducting the music ("like a maniac", according to BR)...but I'll accept the weird WTF thoughts going through BR's head rather than the pain as well.

-FCDH

Glide Away

Hi Readers,

To those of you that don't already know it, I've taken up longboarding. My friend lent me his old longboard, so I've been practicing with it for the past month or so. The entire experience, from the first time I stepped on a longboard till now, has been quite amusing. Let me walk you through it.

I remember the first time I tried it. I had obtained the board on Friday night after rock climbing at the ARC. I woke up late on the following Saturday morning...like around 3pm late, and I immediately thought about trying it out. I took the board to the back entrance of Siebel center, where there was a slight incline. I stepped on the board, and gently nudged it forward...and about 3 seconds later I jumped off and the board flew away and crashed into...something. What exhilaration! Over the span of the next hour, I gradually moved from going downhill, to learning how to use my feet to propel myself, to going uphill. Granted I was still very unstable at this time, but hey I could stay on a longboard! Another goal accomplished =).

Within a week I was longboarding from home to the EWB office. There was a gentle slope downwards on the way, so I didn't have to propel much. Granted curbs and pedestrians freaked me out, but I managed it alright. The only time I've fallen has been at 2am with my backpack. Scraped my hands a little but it's fine. As time progressed, I've gotten more comfortable. Soon I'm boarding from the office to home...then from the office to other offices, to meetings, restaurants, or even walking with friends. Looking back now, it's hard to believe that a month ago I was still freaking out when the board tilted.

Boarding offers you a new angle on life. From a perch about 4 inches off the ground, you glide smoothly and majestically (or with cacophony and bumps over sidewalk cracks) as scenes and people fly past you. Moving from point A to B is no longer a mindless task ; now it's an exercise of dodging pedestrians, accelerating heartrates whenever there are bumps (which there always are), and planning out your trajectory from 15 feet away.

And you must always have an emergency plan in mind. What happens if that car doesn't stop at the crosswalk, of if that Korean girl gets the deer-in-headlight body freeze, or if the delta impulse from the extra-high sidewalk crack on the board-man momentum sum is enough to reverse the sign of the momentum on the board but not on the man.

Longboarding offers more than a danger of skinned elbows and bruised egos. It offers uncertainty and unpredictability, which is in short supply in our lives... and the tantalizing taste of failure, when you are only accountable to yourself and no other. We all need a taste of failure in our lives, so we can realize our vulnerability in the vast world. Nothing is guaranteed, and planned routes can fall apart at a single wide-eyed glance from a person frozen on your trajectory.

So swerve around, step beyond, and glide away.

-FCDH

Saying No to Alcohol

Hi Readers,

You may or may not know that I received surprising results from my health checkup in Taiwan this summer. I knew that something was probably wrong when my doctor kept saying "huh?" when he was looking at the sonograph of my belly region.

Basically, I have a tumor in my liver. To be more specific, there are 3 tumors.

These developed over the span of a year, as they were not there when I had my health checkup a year ago. Quite scary! Although he informed me that it's rare for tumors in the liver to turn malign, he did give me one piece of advice:

Stop Drinking.

I think I'll take his advice. But as I've found out already, it's easier said than done. I feel like it's going to hinder my ability to be social, or to go out with friends. Last night already, I broke the rule and had 2 beers (which I consider to be a very low number). Granted, I don't think that'll do any harm, but it was almost an impulse to drink. I'm not sure why, but a mere 2 years after getting drunk for the first time, the alcohol culture has already become so ingrained in myself that it's going to be very hard to stop.

But I must, for my health. So from this point on, I begin the quest to discover the key to saying no to alcohol!

-FCDH

The Fitness Symphony

Recently, I've been starting to run regularly (weekly). Usually 5-6 miles, but my max has been 8 miles. One thing that I never do, is that I never listen to music on earphones while I am running. Most people don't understand this. They ask me how I can stand the boredom of running around and around a track and not be bored.

Yes, it is quite boring, but it isn't at the same time. When I run, I keep track of my breathing, and I pretty much just zone out the entire run. I've developed a breathing exercise while I am running. I time my breaths to my steps, and I spread out one breath cycle (in-out) to 6 steps, 3 for the inhale and 3 for the exhale. I find that this way, I don't huff and pant while running, but instead I am able to run almost the entire distance without breathing through my mouth once. While adopting this technique, I saw an improvement from 3 miles to 8 miles in a month. The day that I finished 8 miles without breathing through my mouth once, I was pretty undeniably proud of myself.

I find that music tends to interfere with this breathing pattern, so I don't listen to it. Instead, I hum songs in my head while I run, and time the music to my breathing and my steps...so I essentially act as my own MP3 player. My running song is Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto...usually only the 1st and 3rd movements since I can't remember the middle part of the 2nd movement.

Also something else that is interesting. While running around the track, I was quite fascinated by the pulsing of the rhythm of the sound inside the gym. Treadmills, stairsteppers, bikes, all whirring at different rates, but with a regular rhythm. The different echoes as the track curves around the gym make this quite a unique soundtrack. "Modern Music" being as it is, I can imagine that somebody can quite simply tape the sounds that one hears as they run around a track, and call it contemporary music.

With that said, I really don't understand the appeal of treadmills and ellipticals, when a physical track exists right there. Nor do I understand watching TV or reading books while you run / bike. When I run, I don't distract myself with other things. I let my mind remain as empty as possible, because it's really the only time that you can let your mind relax and take a break from constantly being bombarded with thoughts. In that way, I can run and not be bored...I simply stop thinking, instead of trying to find things to think about while I run around and around the track.

I'm so proud of the progress I've made in these 2 years, both for running and rock climbing. It just goes to show that the mind can conquer the body. Half marathon and 5.10 routes, I'm progressing towards you.

-FCDH