Every year, instead of relaxing over the holidays — which I think we all say we plan to do — I end up taking on some massive project. This year, it's moving my new newsletter off of Substack. I'll write more about the why and the how, but tl;dr Nazis. The move was also prompted by lunch I had with my friend José and a good discussion of "owning one's domain," of the necessity (or not) of the social media hustle. (We ate at Flor de Mayo, which José introduced us to when we lived here last.)

Elsewhere in food, I made cocolate chip cookies and homemade ice cream; Cornish pasties (well, I thawed and baked the remaining two I'd made a few weeks ago); Kin was out on Tuesday night so I just made some quinoa with scrambled egg and cheese and sriracha — I don’t eat so well when it’s just me cooking for me; grilled cheese and soup (from a can, but whatever); tomato and white bean soup; and almond miso noodle soup.

Elsewhere in work, I passed my RRCA test with a 98% and am now a certified running coach.

Kin took much of the week off from work, as Kaia is here. We've done some Broadway — Sweeney Todd. We've eaten at L’industrie Pizza, Milk Bar, Baekjeong, Breads Bakery, Cheeseboat, Absolute Bagels, Gray’s Papaya, and Yakitori Torishin. The two of them have done the tourist-ing, with trips to the Met and the NYPL, among other things.

With Kin off work, we've done our morning dog walks in Central Park, which of course Poppy loves.

I finished reading Faster Road Running; we're still listening to The Upcycled Self; I finished Meb for Mortals; I finished Roar; I started Outlive. The last three are a good sampling of how mainstream health and fitness books frame the conversation around health and fitness for what I call the "airplane book" crowd.

Elsewhere in training, lifting wasn't great this week. I'm almost to the end of this training block, so lifting in sets of 3s. But the Olympic lifting area was closed at the gym, forcing me on Tuesday to lift in what I call the "bro zone," the area of the gym where the machines are. On Thursday, I ignored the "closed" sign and went to the Olympic lifting area anyway. It wasn't a good session, even without the bros looking on. Karma or something. Cycling also was a struggle, as I wanted to do a longer bike ride on Tuesday but the wind was awful, and I was, admittedly, underfueled after weightlifting. Swimming too was frustrating, with the dreaded command from the pool supervisor to “circle swim” instead of do laps. This week was the last of the NYRR sessions — Turnover Wednesday had us doing a ladder progression that was fairly tough, and considering how bitterly cold it was, I could have used a lot more time to warm up before launching into an @9 RPE interval holy shit. Friday was a progressive tempo run. On Saturday I did 6 easy miles; and on Sunday, my regular long run.