Some Recent Happenings

Well it has been almost a month since I last logged an update and in that time a ton of stuff has happened. Some good, some not so good.

So let's start from the top...

The weather is once again warming up and this weekend I reluctantly hung the skis up in the garage where they will sadly stay for the foreseeable future. With the exception of a few fantastic days in Utah, this ski season was, well, lets say marginal. I began to lose interest in early February as I began training for my first half marathon.

Billed as "The Toughest Half Marathon in the Northwest" the Race to Robie Creek features a grueling 9 mile climb which gains almost 2,000 ft of elevation before dropping sharply downhill in the last 4 miles. Training for this race consumed much of my free time and as running became more and more fun for me I started skiing less and less.

So after about eight weeks of training I set out on Saturday to tackle the course alongside about 2,500 other runners and walkers. I had been struggling with a cold for much of the week before the race but by Saturday morning it had completely cleared up and all I wanted to do was run.



I cleared the course in just under two hours which was better than I had hoped to do. The great part about this particular race is that at the finish line free food and beer is provided to participants - which turned out to be a powerful motivator as I began to struggle around mile 10.


Now I am hooked and am looking forward to running in another half soon. Oh and to see some more photos check out my photostream on Flikr.

Another happening worth noting is that tough times have finally hit home at my paper. Like many newspapers across the country, revenues are down and in an attempt to cut costs earlier this month the publisher of the IPT took action and is imposing a one week furlough on all employees as well as a 2.5 hour reduction on all hourly employee's work weeks.

As you can probably imagine, this was tough to take. However, I will say that I am very happy to still have a job, unlike so many journalists across the country.

Beyond the change in workweek (and paycheck) things are by-in-large still the same. I'm still shooting as much if not more than I have been - which is why I have been away from the blog for so long.

So that's where I'm standing right now. I'll try and come back with a more picture-heavy post later in the week.

As always, thanks for checking in!