Music recommendation: This performance by Gallowstreet, a band comprised of seven horn players and one drummer. (video)

You really only need the headline of this story to know that these two ladies are rad, but the story is kind of touching too. Headline: Two women have sent each other the same weathered birthday card for 81 years (gift link)

To balance out the many links to actual poetry that I seem to have been including in this newsletter lately, may I present this McSweeney’s satire piece, The Only Possible Poems, which made me laugh out loud multiple times. It’s kind of like Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey monomyth, but poetry, and funny.

I do not link to every single Substack post that my wife writes, but I was involved in this one: Not only did I say “I think that’s your next Substack post” when Hilary, at the dinner table, said something about the similarities between toddlers and cult leaders, but I am in the same cult as her! Ahem, I mean, we are raising a toddler together. And that toddler frequently gaslights me (even though he doesn’t know what gaslighting is). Anyway: Quiz: Is Your Roommate a Cult Leader or Are You the Parent of a Toddler?

Love this display at a college library: Is it Kendrick Lamar or Shakespeare? (Subtext here: Is Kendrick the Shakespeare of our time? Was Shakespeare the Kendrick of his time? If they met, would they get along?)

If you have ever been young and kind of dissatisfied and kind of wishing you could be somewhere else and behind the wheel of an automobile, I think you might like this essay (which I believe is an excerpt from the new book Plum by Andy Anderegg).

I discovered Andrew Bird’s music sometime in 2008 or 2009, and when I bicycled across America in 2010, I only listened to music when we were not on our bikes—mostly because I thought I would get sick of whatever songs I listened to as we pedaled for pretty much 60 straight days. But one of the albums I listened to pretty much every morning on an iPod was Andrew Bird’s The Mysterious Production of Eggs, so I have a solid emotional + nostalgic attachment to it (but lots of other people also thinks it’s good). Anyway, Andrew Bird just started a Substack, and wrote a post about the recording of that album, which he apparently had to attempt three times before it felt finished. Forgive the overly long quote here, but I love this:
“The Mysterious Production of Eggs started to reveal itself as a concept album — something to do with childhood imagination, conformity, bullying, measuring the immeasurable, arbitrary hierarchies, commodification of concepts like talent and genius.  I always pictured a little kid with a cape and sword, fighting to keep these things from stealing her sacred, internal world. I had some things to get off my chest. I wasn’t rewarded by institutions, though sometimes a teacher would say something like, ‘you are very musical and have a nice tone, but you’re not technical. You need to practice your études and scales, and then maybe you can compete with so-and-so.’ Musicality is a very abstract idea to an eight-year-old.”

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This movie is of course not playing where I live but I am really excited to watch it when it becomes available. I love imagining them bouncing ideas for a title around, and eventually saying, “Eh, let’s just call it ’Secret Mall Apartment.’” (video)

I don’t know what exactly to write to recommend this 45-second video of two NBA players (Kevin Love and Tristan Thompson) hugging each other before a playoff game (and after Love had just lost his father), but if you’ve had the kind of week or month or whatever where you could use something like that, here it is.

If you have a) ever tried to move a photo within a Microsoft Word document and b) somehow not seen this yet, I believe you will feel quite validated, and probably also laugh at this seven-second masterpiece.

I’m not saying I had anything to do with how well this story turned out, but Hailey did take my How To Tell One Story online writing workshop, and wrote this story for her Substack in the process. It’s a really interesting example of weaving together two seemingly unrelated happenings into the same narrative. She said she thinks she needs to do more creative writing, and I agree.

When Zoë Rom and I started talking about the first few guests we’d like to interview on the Trailhead podcast, I immediately suggested Sabrina Little, who has a PhD in philosophy and is a 5-time national champion runner. It gave me the chance to dig into her book, The Examined Run: Why Good People Make Better Runners, which I told her in our interview reminded me a lot of Shop Class as Soulcraft, but for runners instead of people interested in building custom motorcycles. We had a great conversation about running and a bunch of other things—if you’d like to listen to it, here’s the link to listen to it on Apple Podcasts and here’s the link to listen to it on Spotify.

We also have a podcast interview with Steve Magness coming out in the next few weeks, and one of the things I brought up in our interview was this piece that he and Brad Stulberg wrote on their website. If I may try to summarize it, they’re asking, “What if adults who act a little intensely/crazy at their kids’ youth sporting events aren’t living vicariously through their kids—what if their kids’ youth sports games are the only time they really feel something?” And then, of course, how do we fix that?

I was frantically finishing up work stuff on my flight to Phoenix for my writing workshop in the Grand Canyon, and maybe it was in the back of my mind that I wouldn’t be running for 10 days or so, but I put together the below illustration for newsletter sponsor Precision Fuel & Hydration, which is mostly a joke. But I also made myself feel better about my break from running/training by reading this article on the PFH website: Detraining: Will I lose fitness by not training for a few weeks? (<– as always, this link will get you 15% off your first order on the PFH website)

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By the time I toed the starting line of my last trail race, I should have run about 500 miles over the course of the past 16 weeks—if I were following one of several online training plans created by respected running coaches. 

I had run about 320 miles. At dinner the previous evening, my sister-in-law had asked if I felt “ready” for the race, and I laughed, then sighed. I mean, kind of? 

I wasn’t really “toeing the starting line”—I had tried my best to position myself as close to the exact middle of the pack of runners anxiously waiting in the darkness to run through the starting arch, headlamps bobbing. A few seconds before, my friend Majell had said, “Let’s have a day, “ before he hustled to the front of the pack to start. That, to me, sounded like a reasonable goal. 

Majell, who would place second in the race, was thinking about a much different type of day. My goals were simple: Don’t DNF, and … actually, just the one goal, don’t DNF. Maybe also don’t get injured. 

Of course we all want to do our best on the day of a race—that’s what we had in mind when we signed up, right? Ideal Me would have an Ideal Race, preferably with the Ideal Amount of Sleep the night before.

Sounds simple. But that would also entail an Ideal Training Period before the race, and I don’t know if that ever happens for anyone, even professional athletes, and certainly not for me, a dad of a toddler who has brought at least 400 different viruses into our home during the 17 months he has attended day care. 

If ultramarathon runners exist on a sort of spectrum, with one side being “Winning is everything” on one side and “Just happy to be out here” on the other end, I’m pretty near one end of it these days:

I’m not a coach, or a doctor, or an athletic trainer, or even a fast runner. But I did survive that last 50K trail race, and a 50K trail race last September, and another 50K trail race and a 100K trail race in 2023, all since our little guy was born (and three of those since he started going to day care). I thought I might share a few things that have worked for me (and by “worked,” I mean that they got me across the finish line). 

A FEW CAVEATS: 

None of these races was my first ultramarathon
These past four races were my 13th, 14th, 15th, and 16th ultramarathon races. I’d run 4 50Ks, 3 50-mile races, 2 100K races, 3 100-mile races, as well as a bunch of self-supported ultra-length trail runs. 

I live near some very accessible steep terrain
I don’t have a mountain literally in my backyard, but two miles from my front door, I can chug up about 2,000 vertical feet on a trail, which is very helpful in training for steep ultramarathons

I don’t get injured very seriously very often
Luck? Not running very fast? Excessive coffee consumption somehow helps? No idea

So then: 

SOME THINGS THAT HAVE WORKED FOR ME DURING TRAINING:

I focus on weekly mileage as opposed to a specific day-by-day program
Again, I am not a coach or a professional, but I am BUSY (just like you). Things are never the same in my life week-to-week, and sticking to a specific running program equals more stress for me. So instead of looking at a schedule and figuring out when and where I’m going to do the assigned/recommended workouts, I have a weekly number in mind—usually 30 miles per week, with (ideally) 5,000 feet of elevation gain. If the week kind of goes to hell, I can make up a little bit of it with longer runs on the weekend, or if I know it’s going to be a tough week to schedule runs, I’ll try to run Jay to day care with our Chariot/jogging stroller a couple times (it’s about 3 miles round-trip). Do I hit that 30-mile goal every week? I don’t. I get close a lot, and I don’t know if my body knows the difference between a 27.5-mile week and a 30-mile week. 

“Loose change adds up”
This is one of my favorite adages from my pal Jon Acuff’s books, and it’s very complementary to my emphasis on a weekly goal over a daily schedule. Got time for an extra half-mile today? Might as well—it all goes in the bank of weekly mileage. This is also a justification for my “parking lot laps” habit: If I’m getting close to home or the trailhead and my watch says I’m at 5.8 miles or 6.7 miles, I’ll run a few more blocks and end on a nice round number like 6.0 miles or 7.0 miles, and “bank” that extra .2 or .3 miles. (I feel compelled to once again state that I am not a coach, and this practice is not informed by any scientific data or study—it’s just one weird person running.)

Other exercise counts too
Because the races I sign up for tend to be steep, with lots of climbing and descending, I know I’ll be doing a chunk of walking during the race. So I try to make myself walk or bike whenever I can. I really don’t enjoy parking cars, or driving cars, and we live pretty close to a really nice bike path that I can ride to get to a lot of places, including Jay’s day care, so it’s kind of an easy sell, even when the weather isn’t that great. I am not Olympic medalist Nils van der Poel, who famously trained for speed skating by doing non-speed skating training for all but the final three weeks before his competitions, but I think any kind of exercise/ambulation is helpful, even if it’s riding a 50-pound cargo bike with a 35-pound kid on the back on flat bike trails. 

I prioritize my long runs
If my week gets really crazy (or I get sick for a few days), I try to not sweat missing a few days of running. And I try to still at least do my “long run” that week/weekend if I can, or at least go as long as reasonably possible. One coach I’ve recently talked to says this is definitely not something you should do every week (I’m paraphrasing), but it’s OK every once in a while. My thinking is that if I have a 50 km race coming up in a few weeks, I want my body to know/remember what it’s like to be on a trail for ~20 miles, even if it’s a slow slog and I hike a lot of it because I’m recovering from a cold. Again, it’s not science, but when the race gets hard/long in the final miles, I like to think that I have a little bit of confidence I can finish because it’s “only a few miles more” than that training run I did a few weeks ago.

Figure out digestion before the race (WELL before the race)
This is perhaps better known as “gut training,” and the folks at Precision Fuel & Hydration explain it way better than I could, but essentially I’d say it’s this: Figure out how to ingest the calories you’ll need on your big (race) day, and make sure the foods/drinks you use don’t mess up your stomach so you can’t finish the race. A 2014 study by the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that when runners fail to finish ultramarathon races, 16.5 percent of the time it’s because of digestive issues (tied for second place with “injury during the race”—the No. 1 reason was “inability to make cutoff times).

My long runs approximate the same ratio of elevation gain to mileage the race will have
This is also unsupported by any research, but if I’m running a 50K/31-mile race that has 10,000 feet of elevation gain (like The Rut), when I do a long run of 15ish miles, I’ll plan it so it has roughly 5,000 feet of elevation gain. And when I plan my 20-mile long run, I’ll try to make it so I cover 6,500ish feet of climbing. And so on. 

I use trekking poles
Personal preference, but I’ll take all the help I can get, especially on steep climbs (and occasionally on steep descents). I’ve been using the same Black Diamond Distance Carbon Z poles since 2017 (an earlier version of these), and I think they have a few thousand miles on them by now. I don’t use them every time I run steep trails, but I definitely use them for my long runs leading up to races, and during races (if memory serves, these have survived three 100-mile races, two Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim runs, four 50K races, and one 100K race, as well as a bunch of big days in the mountains from 2017 until now). I have still not fallen in love with any sort of device to carry my poles when I’m not using them, so I mostly just use them or carry them in my hands, uncollapsed, but occasionally I’ll put them in my vest or in the back of an Ultimate Direction Utility Belt, which works OK. 

I try to prioritize gratitude
This is not really a training technique, but I think it’s easy for runners to turn racing and training into something that feels like work, or a job, or at least something we put pressure on ourselves to do well. Which, I don’t know about you, but that’s not fun. I take photos during races, and during my training runs. I invite friends on my training runs and don’t worry about how fast we’re going, and I don’t refer to my runs as “workouts” (even though sometimes I try pretty hard while I’m running). Every time I make it to the forest on top of Mt. Sentinel, I try to remember that I’m just happy to be able to get up there and smell the ponderosa pines.

THINGS THAT HAVE WORKED FOR ME ON RACE DAY:

I prioritize survival
Sure, I’d like to go as fast as I can, and I try hard when I’m in a race, but I’m not a professional athlete—I don’t get paid a bonus if I finish in a podium spot, or in the top 10. My metric is getting to the finish line, especially if I’ve had to travel to get to a race, because if I DNF that race I traveled across the country or around the world to run, I will definitely feel like I have to come back and finish it someday. (This is maybe something I should talk to a therapist about?) I think about the advice I got from Vivian, a veteran ultrarunner, before my first 100-mile race, which I paraphrase as “If you feel bad, eat something. If you feel good, slow down.” I think ultramarathons are as much about self-care as they are about running (if not more), and if you can take care of yourself out there (and you’ve trained enough), there’s a good chance you’ll finish the race. I’m not out there like “Death Before DNF,” but maybe “Some Fairly Intense Physical Discomfort And/Or Psychological Adversity Before DNF.”

I wake up plenty early on race day
Sure, sleep is important, but you know what’s more important? Having the time to go No. 2 before the race. I give myself plenty of time to drink a liter of water, eat breakfast, and drink a big cup of coffee, which is everything I can do to (hopefully) ensure that I won’t be waiting in line outside a port-a-potty five minutes before the race starts. 

I always eat the same breakfast
If I’m traveling for a race, I pack the same overnight oats ingredients in a little plastic container, and add 1 cup of soy milk to it the night before: 

• ½ cup quick oats
• 1 tablespoon raw pumpkin seeds
• 1 tablespoon chia seeds
• 2 tablespoons dried goji berries
• 1 tablespoon cacao powder
• 2 tablespoons powdered peanut butter

I am OK with being a slow downhill runner
Literally everyone who enters every single mountain ultramarathon I run is a faster downhill runner than me. I have mostly accepted this. Maybe this year I’ll finally try to remedy this problem, but usually I just step off to let people pass me when they inevitably catch up to me on the downhills. As previously stated, I am just happy to be out here.

I pack as much of my own food as I can carry
This is also personal preference/maybe a control thing, but I know what gels and chews I can still eat when I don’t feel like eating, and I have put enough of them in my stomach while “gut training” (see above) that I know they’re not going to give me trouble during a race. Do I eat aid station food? I do. I also know that Oreos, pizza, quesadillas, Chips Ahoy!, and pretty much every type of Fun Size candy bar seems to work OK in reasonable doses. But I know how many calories I should be consuming per hour, and I know how many calories are in my gels and chews, so the math is easy. So I mostly eat the stuff I’ve packed. 

THINGS I ALWAYS MESS UP DURING RACES:

I always start too fast
Every race day morning, I remind myself that I am NOT going to go out too fast this time. Sure, I go out too fast every time, but this time, I won’t. I get a little nervous, don’t want to get trapped in a glut of people going too slowly for me (but how can you tell?), so maybe I run a bit too fast for the first two, five, ten miles, KNOWING THE ENTIRE TIME that I’m going too fast. Fortunately, I don’t blow up/blow it too badly—I’m usually just a little dehydrated, and have to dial it back a bit. You’d think I would learn! Of course I never learn. But maybe next time. 

I always underestimate the race course
Every time I run a new-to-me race course, I am optimistic. Maybe I’ve read a description of the course, or looked at the elevation profile, and I think, “Yeah, I got this.” And then I start into the actual race, and I find myself thinking things like, “Wow, I didn’t think the trail would be this rough,” or “This climb is steeper than I foolishly imagined it would be,” or “These rocks are really big and/or sharp.” I am forced to a) lower my expectations somewhat and b) remind myself that an adventure, at its most basic definition (according to me), is an undertaking with an unknown outcome, which is what I signed up for. 

I never get enough rest
At my age and amount of weekly exercise, I should be sleeping way more. But have you ever heard of books? They’re great, and there are literally millions of them. I know that I will not be able to read them all in my lifetime, but I can’t stop trying. Literally every night I’m reading in bed, knowing I’m staying up too late and that I should just turn off the light and go to sleep, but whatever book I’m reading is just too damn interesting. 

I look terrible in every race photo ever taken of me
Pretty sure I’m not the only one who this happens to

I always take too long at at least one aid station
Or while digging in a drop bag for something, or changing my socks, or using the bathroom, or something. There’s always some little thing that I could have done more efficiently (or skipped altogether) and finished one place higher, or shaved a minute off my time, or whatever. In the Rut 50K in 2025, I stopped to say hi to my little guy, Jay, at Mile 18, and later, 200 feet from the finish, I picked him up and carried him while jogging the last bit through the finish arch. I would have loved to finish in under nine hours, but missed it by a minute and 43 seconds. But I got a sweet video of us crossing the finish line together, so who cares. 

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If you enjoyed this post, you might enjoy some of the books I’ve written about running and ultrarunning:

Ultra-Something

I Hate Running and You Can Too

Have Fun Out There Or Not: The Semi-Rad Running Essays

This is a year old, but WOW, building a scale model of the timeline of the history of the universe in the Mojave Desert—in a day. (video)

Anton Krupicka doesn’t write very often on his Substack, but the last piece he wrote about why his dad continues to shovel snow into his mid-70s, and about his longtime friend Joe Grant, and about singlespeed bikes, was a great read.

I had a nice chat last week with Tyler Dempsey for his Another Fucking Writing Podcast show, and after we’d finished talking about a bunch of things, including a couple of my favorite books that I think more people should read, he sent me this great essay he’d written a few months back, about darkness, time, and relationships.

I clicked on this Eater headline, “Every Food Collab Now Is Completely Bonkers,” because I often think the same thing when I’m in the grocery store. And I didn’t know this before I read it, but now I know that Taco John’s and 5-Hour Energy collaborated to create a caffeinated hot sauce, because why not, I guess. And this was my favorite line: “Mostly, they make me consider the very nature of reality. What is the purpose of a product? Is hot sauce a beverage? Is a smoothie lipstick?”

Sometimes I’m putting together this newsletter on Thursday, like I was yesterday, and I start thinking, “Wow, I have a lot of essays in this week’s newsletter, maybe I should poke around Reddit and find something way less committing, like … oh, here we go, a 22-second video of a restaurant worker SOMEHOW fitting this giant pile of food inside a tortilla without the tortilla ripping. Yeah. That’ll do.”

I love finding good writing, and I think I kind of suck at describing why it’s good—like this essay by Niko Stratis, whose work I’ve mentioned before in this newsletter. Her essays are always fascinating, weaving together music, culture, and scenes from growing up in the Yukon and becoming a journeyman glazier, and discovering her gender identity. Anyway, her new book, The Dad Rock That Made Me A Woman, came out on Tuesday, and this week’s essay is one of my favorites I’ve read of hers, maybe partly because I also put songs on repeat for an hour sometimes.

We interviewed my friend Mario Fraioli for the latest episode of The Trailhead podcast, and he was a super-good sport when I pitched him the idea for the episode, which I believe was “We Ask A Running Coach Dumb Questions.” Some of them were dumb, and some sounded less dumb than I originally thought they were, but he humored us. And he said yes, I should wear a hat when I run.
Apple Podcasts | Spotify

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AN ANNOUNCEMENT FROM ME: After 150+ people took my How To Tell One Story online writing course this past winter, we’ve decided to offer it only in limited windows for the rest of 2025. The first signup window is May 16 (today!) through May 23, and we’re limiting the number of spots. Why limit the number of spots? Because of one big change: When you complete the course, I’ll give you personalized feedback on the story you wrote during the course. That of course takes some time and bandwidth from me, so we’re limiting signups. All the details are on this page—if you’re interested, grab a spot!

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I heard from so many people in response to the “Maybe Next Time. Maybe Not” photo essay I published a few weeks ago that I decided to turn it into a short YouTube edit (video)

Almost every time I talk to anyone about the idea of starting a newsletter or a Substack, or just writing more regularly, I find myself mentioning my friend Mike Sowden, and his newsletter, Everything Is Amazing, which, as I have said here before, is wonderful. Mike has built a big audience for his writing by being curious, following his curiosity, enthusiastically sharing what he’s found, and also finding ways to share bits and pieces of what he’s found (or edited versions of what he’s found) on social media. A few weeks ago, his Substack readership went over 30,000 people, and he wrote up some advice based on what he’s learned. Oh, also, Mike is an incredibly nice guy, which I think is a very underrated and maybe underreported tool for success.

I just finished drawing up an illustration for newsletter sponsor Janji for next week, titled “Lies I Have Told My Pacer(s),” and I might have been thinking about all the folks Janji had running in the Cocodona 250—several athletes and also their athlete manager, Kyla (!)—out there grinding out long days and nights in probably somewhat compromised emotional states. I also noticed I had recently started wearing my Janji Trailbreaker Hat around the same time, which I’m loving because it’s starting to get warmer around here and I look at that hat and see what they would call “airy mesh” and I would call “big holes for my sweaty head to breathe more.”

Have you ever wondered about the “Strava Tax”—that crushing moment when you’ve stopped running or hiking or cycling when your watch says 6.00 miles or 20.00 miles or whatever, only to find that when your watch uploaded your data to Strava, your Strava page says it was 5.99 miles or 19.99 miles? Well, the folks at Strava have written a piece explaining it, and the “how” is actually a pretty simple technology thing, but a little more complex as to why they do it.

I read Alex Hutchinson’s book, Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance, back in 2019, and have followed his Sweat Science column for a very long time—generally I read his stuff and think things like, “Thank you, smart guy, for digging through the research and validating the practice of positive self-talk during vigorous exercise.” So it was fantastic to interview him about his new book, The Explorer’s Gene: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map, for the Trailhead podcast. (The podcast is, of course, about endurance and ultramarathons, but we spent some time talking about why it’s harder to find new music you like as you get older, and whether or not Alex “explores” much in his regular training runs around his home in Toronto.)
Apple Podcasts | Spotify

I can’t decide if I want to see Friendship when it comes out (I’ve heard it called “hilarious” but also “deeply uncomfortable”), but I did love this piece on The Ringer detailing the history of the bromance in movies—including the film historian arguing that it’s basically an American phenomenon.

When I interviewed a bunch of dads for a hopefully-someday-book project around the time Jay was born (book still coming, I swear!), one of my friends, Chris, said something like, “Having kids is great—you get to eat macaroni and cheese again.” I of course have never stopped eating macaroni and cheese, but Chris was right, in that I do eat more of it now. Hilary found this Three Ingredient Stovetop Mac and Cheese recipe (by Kenji Lopez-Alt) a few weeks back, and I finally made it myself on Wednesday, and I am pleased to announce that it is a) fantastic and b) really easy. Although you do need to keep stirring it throughout. (Of course Kenji Lopez-Alt points out that three total ingredients is actually one fewer ingredient than is used in making a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese)

There are many great things about this Austin Kleon piece on “Questions Without Answers,” including the link to his other piece, “7 questions I ask myself (when I don’t know what to do next),” but my favorite part might be all the comments from readers sharing the best question a kid ever asked them.

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About twice a week, sometimes more, I ask myself if I am truly up for the challenge that day: The Hill.

It’s always on my way home, in the final mile of my run, and I can avoid it by making a left turn during the second-to-last mile, going a different way home—the flatter route, the easy way out. Most days I tell myself a story about not taking that easy way, that the route to personal growth is always the difficult one: The Hill.

Some days, though, I am tired. Maybe it’s been a stressful week, maybe I haven’t slept that well for a night or two, maybe I’m dehydrated, or maybe I just don’t feel like pushing myself. I give myself some grace, let myself take it easy, run the flat way home, along 6th Street. And it’s fine. I don’t beat myself up. I just stop my watch, end my run, walk into my house and go about my life.

The Hill is 17 feet high, according Strava, or 13 feet high, according to repeated measurements on my watch. It’s 0.13 mile long, about 200 meters in track terms, or maybe 200-some running strides. As far as running hills go, it’s no Heartbreak Hill of Boston Marathon fame (which rises 88 feet), or Mile 23 of the NYC Marathon (about 90 feet of climbing in a mile). And it is certainly no Mt. Sentinel, the mountain I usually go partway or all the way up and down on my runs—the summit is almost 2000 vertical feet above town.

I like climbing mountains. I like big ascents. I welcome the challenge of steep trails. But this little, 17-foot-high hill, not even really a hill, more just a gentle incline going up from the river, is the worst part of my runs. It is more annoying than daunting. It is driving all day to get home only to get stuck in traffic a mile from your house. It is those paper towel dispensers where you have to pull with both hands, except your hands are wet because you just washed them, so you rip off pieces of the paper towel three times in a row before you either finally get one out of the dispenser or just decide to wipe your hands on your pants. It is the invisible bump in the floor that you stumble on, spilling your too-full coffee after you’ve just managed to carry it all the way across the coffee shop to a table, GOD DAMN IT.

It is 17 feet, not steep enough to justify walking, confoundingly exhausting to run up. There is no Zen koan/clever reason why it is hard even though it shouldn’t be that hard, and maybe no allegorical life lesson, it is just an annoying little hill I have run up 170-plus times.

It is a small, not very interesting mystery of my personal universe, and I do not understand why I choose to or don’t choose to run it. I will probably do it again today, or tomorrow, and definitely a couple times next week, because that’s just what we do, isn’t it?

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If you enjoyed this piece, please consider supporting my work. (and get a $50 discount on my online writing course!)

Today is the last day to sign up for this session of my How To Tell One Story online writing workshop! As of my writing this on Wednesday evening, there were still a couple spots available. We’ll open registrations again in August, but this is it until then. If you’re curious about writing, or want to write and just need a framework and some “kind and encouraging lessons” (as a past student put it), you can read more about the course and/or sign up at this link: semi-rad.com/courses

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Speaking of creativity and storytelling, I ended up really liking what this video had to say about “original ideas”—not that we shouldn’t chase original ideas (as the title says), but that your specific perspective and effort is what makes something unique, so you might as well try. (video)

Maybe you weren’t staring out the window this morning thinking, “You know what I could use today? A really beautiful poem about onions.” Or: Maybe that’s why you read this newsletter: the off chance you’ll encounter a really beautiful poem about onions.

Trust me: Take 60 seconds, or 90 seconds (OK, maybe more like three to four minutes) and scroll through the photos created by the winners of the Milky Way Photographer of the Year Awards (via Kottke.org).

This is not a new piece from newsletter sponsor Precision Fuel & Hydration, but I recently wrote about feeling lucky to have not had many major injuries in the almost 10 years I’ve been running ultramarathons, so it was interesting to go through Damian Hall’s bullet points in Ultra training: Is it possible to stay injury free? and see if I could find any similarities to my own training. Especially since he wrote it when he was 45, didn’t start running until his mid-30s, is a dad of two kids, and is really fast. (reminder that the above link gives you 15% off your first purchase at PFH)

I have a copy of cartoonist Jason Chatfield’s new book, You’re Not A Real Dog Owner Until… on my desk right now, and sure, I’d advise you to buy a copy for yourself, but I think a better piece of advice might be to buy it for someone on your holiday shopping list and just hang onto it until the holidays rolls around, at which point you will be feeling quite a bit more pressure to find a gift for a person who loves their dog(s) but also loves laughing their ass off.

I have read a lot of essays about AI in the past few months, and no one has made sense of it better than (no surprise) Oliver Burkeman, in this piece about “navigating by aliveness.” A snippet: “I have two things to say about that, the first of which is that I don’t believe it: that aliveness is so central to meaningful human experience that there’ll always be a market for those who can cultivate it, embed it in what they create, foster it in institutions and organisations, and bring people together to experience it.”

I thought the headline on this BBC story about “people stuck using ancient Windows computers” was intriguing, and it was interesting discovering how much important stuff in our world relies on super-old systems, but the real gem for me was about three-quarters of the way through story, in which I learned that Washington State University-Vancouver has an Electronic Literature Lab, which sounds amazing: “Founded and directed by Dr. Dene Grigar, the Electronic Literature Lab (ELL) contains over 80 vintage Macintosh & PC computers, dating back from 1977, vintage software, peripherals, and a library of over 300 works of electronic literature and other media.” As in, there’s no way to view the art pieces except on the computers preserved at the ELL.

I don’t think you need a reason to have holiday lights up all year, but this one is particularly, inarguably, heartwarmingly (is that a word?) valid.

—

I have recommended the 1996 Geena Davis + Samuel L. Jackson film The Long Kiss Goodnight before in this newsletter, so it felt really good to have a YouTube film critic with a large following endorse it as “one of the most underrated and overlooked action movies of the 1990s,” as well as explain why it’s so good (and why Mitch is one of Samuel L. Jackson’s favorite characters he’s played!). (video)

Years ago, I was climbing a multi-pitch route with a French friend who was pretty fluent in English, and we paused at a belay to eat a snack and drink some water. Simon pulled a small stuff sack from his pack and from the stuff sack a few food items, including the most battered energy bar I had ever seen. He held it up and said to me, “Theese ees my friend. He goes weeth me everywhere.” I of course understood exactly what he meant, as I, like every one, had the one bar that I kept bringing on hikes and climbs, but never eating, because I had better options. It was like an emergency ration that I kind of knew I would never eat unless I was on the verge of starvation. If you know what I mean, you will love artist Cy Whitling’s latest comic, “The Eternal Granola Bar.”

I was clicking through Substack yesterday, wanting to find someone who wrote an actual story, a narrative of something that happened in real life. It wouldn’t have to be anything spectacular, just a story. And I found it. It was titled “I Agreed to Help Pick Up a Couch and Ended Up Participating in a Street Performance” and it made my day. If you read it, I am betting you will say to yourself, “Yes, I know or have met someone like Moonbeam.”

If you are from the Midwest or have just spent some time there, perhaps you might enjoy this short poem by New Yorker poetry editor and T.S. Eliot Prize winner Kevin Young, “Ode to the Midwest.”

I have spent some time over the past few months thinking about AI and how it’s going to affect (or is already affecting) our lives, and I am not sure I have much of a measure of understanding of it, except that I am trying to embrace things that make me feel human. And I think this piece, titled “The Who Cares Era,” captures something similar to what I’m feeling. (via Kottke.org)

Many of the links in this newsletter lead you to videos or articles that require a few minutes to fully experience. This Reddit post will take you six seconds to watch and will provide a small bit of wholesome joy.

I have mentioned before in this newsletter that I have been enjoying the live DJ mixes I often find on YouTube, but I think the production of this one might be my favorite yet: camcorder footage, a few different angles, a little bit of video editing, and a bunch of R&B tracks (and some live drumming). Plus the title is “the homies mixing R&B and chilling with a pineapple.”

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I have a million unread emails in my inbox and I’m doing this instead, I say to myself, as I try to not fall off the ladder—or at least remember to let go of the trigger of the circular saw before I do fall off the ladder. 

I also should probably clean the bathroom, start writing that thing for next week, research that other thing, put the new wheel on Jay’s bike, call an arborist about that tree limb, make an appointment for a haircut, and do a bunch of other stuff that would require me to actually sit down at my desk.

Alas. Today, I have chosen to make wood shapes. Or, more precisely, I am creating a small building.

At some point last winter or spring, Hilary and I had a conversation in which I believed she said it would be fun if Jay had a “playhouse” in our backyard. So, I started planning to build one—at first, in my head, and then in April I think, I made a crude sketch in a notebook with some measurements. I then lost the notebook somewhere. 

When I announced my intentions to begin building the playhouse, Hilary was surprised, saying that she thought we had talked about a “stick fort” somewhere in the backyard. Which is a much different project. You say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to.

Here’s what I have so far: 

In the course of owning our house and building lots of Unaesthetic But Functional Furniture in the past five years, I have hoarded accrued a rather large stash of leftover wood. Last winter, I realized that my collection of old wood has started to take up way too much room in our garage, and that I should do something about it. Inside me is a crusty old man who owns a box containing ten pounds of old mismatched screws he has saved JUST IN CASE, because you never know. Leftover screws are one thing, but leftover wood takes up a lot of space. 

So I’m building this playhouse. Jay can play in it until he outgrows it, at which point we can use it to store shovels and garden implements. (I’m building it tall enough for an average adult to stand up inside)

The playhouse looks the way it does because as a hoarder of wood, I am not allowing myself to buy new wood. I am trying to use up wood from my collection, and if I need wood, I can buy it from one of our two local reused building materials stores, Home ReSource and Waste Less Works. 

Am I just procrastinating my real work? Sure. Does this feel more like “real work” than what I do for a living? Physically, yes: My hands are tired, I get the occasional splinter, I get a little dirty. When I finish this project, a small building will exist, and that will be quite satisfying. The audience for the work is one person who is three feet tall. I will not be paid for this work, I will not keep track of “likes,” or any sort of “engagement” or ROI. 

A while back, I was talking to a friend who’s also a dad and he said he wished his kids saw him doing something more concrete—he was working for a startup tech company, when his kids saw Dad work, they saw him sitting in front of a laptop, doing Zoom meetings or clicking and typing. I think about this conversation a lot.

Jay is turning three years old soon, and he rarely sees me work, since his curious/chaotic presence near a computer or iPad is generally, uh, obstructive—and I also hope he grows up thinking life is outside of electronic devices, not inside them, however naive that might be of me. 

Another quote I think about often: My friend Forest saying to me, “No one likes to see someone they respect staring at a phone.” 

I don’t know at what age my job (what I do for a living) will really make sense to Jay, because a lot of days, moving words and shapes around on glowing screens of various sizes doesn’t feel that “real” to me either. But holy shit is he interested in hammers, and nails, and climbing ladders, and using clamps, and handing me screws. 

If you asked Jay right now what his dad does, he’d probably tell you that I run, ride a bike, cook, wash dishes, clean up potty training accidents, and drive a car every once in a while. And if we’re really partying, Dad operates power tools (including Jay’s favorite, the vacuum cleaner), hammers nails, drills holes, cuts wood, and builds a few things. Including this playhouse, which I imagine will be kind of ugly when I finish it. 

But making it pretty isn’t the point. I’m not sure I know what the point is, but I heard this exchange between Austin Kleon and Ryan Holiday on Holiday’s podcast a few months back and I think it validates all the time I’m spending in the backyard with a miter saw, a bunch of old 2 x 4s, and a hammer and nails.  

Austin Kleon: I am just such a proponent of everyone practicing some kind of art form no matter how badly, because I always think that time spent doing something creative, on your own, or as a hobby or something like that just means you’re not out there on the street bothering someone or wreaking havoc. … 

I think you’re looking at a culture in which hobbies have disappeared. Like what do people do? 

Ryan Holiday: They spend it on their phone. 

Austin Kleon: They spend it on their phone, raging on Twitter, or like getting pilled on 4chan, or Reddit or whatever. … I’m just like really interested in this idea of hobbies disappearing. 

Ryan Holiday: Like imagine a world where Elon Musk got really into triathlons instead of Twitter. 

Austin Kleon: This clown needs something to do. My hope for that man is like, get him into woodworking. He’s a middle-aged guy—he didn’t figure out, dude, you’re supposed to go fishing now, or like get deeply into World War II books about history or something. 

Ryan Holiday: Because you still have that manic energy, that obsession, but it will feast on itself. Like you get to a point where it can’t go into more work. And if it doesn’t go into something productive or at least socially adaptive, it will destroy you.  

Obviously the fate of the world isn’t riding on whether I have a “real hobby” or if I spend most of my life online. But if Jay ever draws a picture of his dad, I would love it if he didn’t draw a stick figure staring at a phone. 

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If you enjoyed this piece, please consider supporting my work. 

This video is my first time seeing a sweep boat in action, and my first reaction was “DAMN that thing looks unwieldy,” so it’s really cool to watch someone expertly navigating it on Idaho’s Salmon River. (video)

I don’t know if I’ve previously mentioned the Rotating Sandwiches website in this newsletter before, but I have to believe that if you’re reading this newsletter, you know a) someone who would appreciate the Rotating Sandwiches website OR b) someone who would be somewhat confused but also entertained if you just sent them a link to the Rotating Sandwiches website with no context.

I’ve been enjoying literary agent Alia Hanna Habib’s Substack for a while now, but especially this post, Productive Terror: Ten Very Different Writers on How They Got Their Books Done, and especially this bit, from author Annie Hartnett: “I use a sticker chart and give myself a sticker for every 500 words written. It helps to have a visual representation of how much progress you’re making. We are big on sticker charts in the Accountability Workshops, and we’ll do sticker swaps in the mail. I also eat a lot of M&Ms while I write … I read a study in college that candy helps you concentrate and I haven’t questioned it since. Basically the tools I use to finish a book are the exact same ones you use to potty-train a toddler.”

We had one hot day in Missoula last weekend, sort of a warning shot/appetizer for summer. I am thankful that having a baby (and now a toddler) has precipitated a change in my running routine and made me a morning runner most days, but I’m still reminding myself that summer is about 100 days of warm temps. Two things I learned from this article about heat training from newsletter sponsor Precision Fuel & Hydration: a) your brain can basically rewire itself to make you feel more comfortable in the heat and b) heat adaptation can actually increase your psychological tolerance to heat.  I am using Precision’s PH 1000 packets in my water bottles on most of my runs since I tend to sweat a lot no matter what the temperature is, and if you’re looking for an electrolyte drink for running or biking or hiking without a ton of calories/carbs, I recommend them (either of these links will give you 15% off your first PFH order).

Did I read through this entire list of The 100 Best Sports Moments of the Quarter Century? I did not. I did make it through an embarrassingly high number of them, though, and I appreciate that The Ringer included the prompt “How would you explain this moment to someone who’s never watched sports?” for the writers explaining many, if not all of the moments.

This is a not that big of a deal but it is a very satisfying video of a new bike tunnel under Zurich.

Hilary and I have barely watched any shows since Jay was born (I’m not complaining), but we have made time for The Bear. Maybe because we both worked in restaurants for years, or maybe because it’s a good show? Anyway, Season 4 is coming soon (June 25) and the trailer dropped a couple weeks ago. (video)

If for some reason you want to read a deep dive on the technology behind and the history of air sickness bags (aka emesis bags), like I apparently did on Thursday, here you go. (Largest barf bag collection in the world, 6,290 bags, belongs to Niek Vermeulen of the Netherlands, but that number is from 2012)

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VERY IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT:
We’re doing a limited-run water bottle starting today. It has my “What Does Your Urine Say About You?” Chart printed on the side. Is it a reminder to stay hydrated? (yes!) Is it a pee bottle? (up to you!) Is it a conversation piece? (yes!) Can you get one after June 20th, 2025? No. Pre-orders start today, and will close next Friday, June 30th, so if you want one, or know someone who would love one as a gift, here’s where you can order one (or several). Orders will start shipping the first week of August.

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I happened to catch this wonderful short film about the women dory boat guides of the Grand Canyon when I was at Mountainfilm a few weeks ago, and it was one of my favorites. Very excited it’s now on YouTube. (video)

I’ve been reading Michael Estrin’s substack for a while now, and I often find myself laughing at the situations and characters he encounters while doing normal things like going to Chipotle, or in the case of his most recent post, trying to check in for his appointment at the chiropractor. As my wife charitably says whenever we encounter puzzling behavior, “there are many ways of being in the world,” which is way better than my reaction, which is more of a bewildered look, throwing up my hands, and muttering some expletives.

The video for the Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer” came up in my YouTube feed last week, but I barely glanced at the thumbnail and didn’t click it. And then Hilary sent me the link to it a few days later, and I realized that it was a new video for a 47-year-old song. As one commenter put it: “They waited until Saoirse Ronan was born to make the video. Very professional” (video)

My neighbor poked his head over the fence a few days ago, when the high was in the low 90s here, and said he was surprised that something about me being outside in a long-sleeve shirt. I explained that yes, I am a huge fan of long sleeves in the summer since I spend so much time outside (running). They’re not for everyone, but if I have not used up my lifetime allotment of exposing my skin to the sun, I am damn close, so I prefer long sleeves to slathering on sunscreen (which, if I’m honest, I’m too lazy to do a lot of the time). So I own a lot of sun hoodies, which also protect my neck and ears. My most recent favorite is the Dunescape Mega print one I got from newsletter sponsor Janji—it’s stretchy, the arms are long enough for me to slip my thumbs into the thumb loops and cover my hands, and the pattern means I’m not going to trash it so visibly by wearing it for trail runs under my running vest. It’s available in a bunch of colors in a men’s version and in a women’s version (both M’s and W’s versions have the Dunescape Mega print if you’re into it)

She texted the wrong number asking for advice on what to wear on a first date with a guy, the wrong number guy responded and told her yes, green was as good choice, she wore green, the first date went well, they stayed in touch, and … well, I won’t ruin the ending for you.

I believe Japan does a few things (many things?) better than the United States, and creative manhole covers are one of those things. I was elated but not surprised to see that Major League Baseball collaborated with local artists to create custom manhole covers in honor of the 12 Japanese and Japanese-American players actively playing in the league right now. (thanks, Mitsu)

Look, I am not saying everyone should drink five or more cups of coffee per day, but I’m also not saying people shouldn’t. Anne Kadet, whose Substack is a treasure, interviewed a handful people who drink prodigious amounts of coffee, and it made me feel both happy, less weird, and less alone. And also validated in my choice to make a 9-cup moka pot yesterday afternoon.

Every once in a while—OK, probably every other week—there is a McSweeney’s post that captures my failure to function as a human being in a very specific way, and I read it and laugh, at the story, but more at myself. This most recent one, Welcome To My Well-Stocked Pantry Of Empty Boxes, really hit home just as I was pouring the crumbs of a box of crackers into my mouth while standing in my kitchen.

—

We were interviewing a writer whose work I admire
and he mentioned that someone told him

that we now have the technology
that can write articles for you, super fast

And he said Wait, no, what I enjoy is writing the article,
not holding it in my hand and saying “this is the thing that I did”

I have nothing against minced garlic in a jar
but what I really like is when I have the time

to chop the garlic myself
when I tell myself that it’s important

Important enough to take two minutes
to get out a knife my friend Mitsu gave me,

And the cutting board my brother made for me,
and peel the cloves and cut them into tiny pieces

It is two fingers on my wrist checking for a pulse
and one small, symbolic middle finger

to optimizing everything we possibly can
just because we can

Chopping the garlic is of course objectively harder
than using the minced stuff from the jar

but maybe part of me likes it because I think
it makes the story of the meal I cooked better

Of course, not everything good in life is difficult
there’s eating pizza, of course

and naps and and looking at sunsets
that happen without any effort from me

But everybody has their own list of things
that are, to them, Worth The Effort

Like making your own coffee or taking a photo
or raising a kid or remodeling a house

I guess what we’re all asking ourselves
nowadays, in our Brave New World

(and isn’t it just a Somewhat Braver, Newer
World than last year, and the year before that)

is which parts of being human
we want to fast-forward through

and which parts of being human
we want to keep doing with our selves

I have put skins on skis and skied uphill
right next to a perfectly functioning chairlift

And I have hiked to the top of a peak
that has a paved road all the way to its summit

Climbing using only my legs and feet
and climbing using the aid of a machine

well, most people would say,
those are two different experiences

Or are they two different mountains?

—

If you enjoyed this piece, please consider supporting my work. 

I haven’t listened to a Moth story in a long time, but I somehow found out The Moth had a YouTube channel, and this was the first story I watched. This guy isn’t famous or anything, but I love this story, and his mom sounds like a real one. File under: Suprisingly Emotional Stories About Baseball. (video)

It’s a good question: Is it possible to buy a Bob Ross painting? I mean, it should be easy, shouldn’t it? But no, in fact it is not easy, and it is possible, and there’s a reason it’s difficult. But my favorite line from this whole article is from the gallery owner who finds Bob Ross paintings and buys them from the owners, who are mostly regular folks. He says, “Most families that have these paintings are not millionaires, and the money is very impactful in their lives.”

I don’t know if someone might say this is “political,” but I kind of assume that if you read this newsletter, you probably a) think public lands are a good idea and b) would be opposed to selling them. I won’t type out the details in my own words, but the sale of public lands is essentially back on the table, and you can call your senators and encourage them to not support it. If you have never done this before, 5Calls makes it super-easy (here’s a link to their page on this specific issue: Oppose the Sale of Public Lands in the “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act). If you are hesitant or nervous about calling and talking to a staffer or leaving a message, here’s basically what the conversation is like when I’ve done it:

STAFFER: Senator _______’s office, this is _____.
ME: Hi, I’m a constituent and I’d like to leave a comment. Do you need my address?
STAFFER: Yes.
ME: My address is [street address, city, state, ZIP code].
STAFFER: OK, thank you, what’s your comment?
ME: I’d like to encourage Senator _______ to [oppose H.R. 1, the budget reconciliation bill, and any provisions that authorize the sale of our public lands].
STAFFER: OK, anything else?
ME: That’s all, thank you.
STAFFER: Thank you.

I don’t know how I found the Why Cheap Art Manifesto this week, but something about the typeface and the style and the very simple message of it really hit home for me, and perhaps it will hit home for you too. If you are really into it, there’s a link at the bottom where you can purchase a print of it, which, at $20, I guess is technically cheap art, which is very meta, to support artists by buying a print of a manifesto about cheap art. But of course you can just read and enjoy it for free, too.

I made a pie chart graphic for newsletter sponsor Precision Fuel & Hydration this past week titled “What’s In Your Water Bottle(s)?” and one of the pie chart slices was “stachybotrys chartarum (black mold).” Which reminded me of a trick I learned to keep black mold from growing in water bottles: Store them in the freezer. I’ve been using this method for years now, and I think it’s even more important considering the amount of PFH’s Carb & Electrolyte Drink Mix I am putting in them on a weekly basis. I get home from my run, rinse out my bottles with water, and chuck them in the freezer, and voila, no mold. (If you are interested in trying PFH drink mix, here’s a link that will give you 15% off your first order)

If you are a fan of Bruce Springsteen, or a fan of Jeremy Allen White, and/or a fan of music biopics, you might be excited about the trailer for Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, which just dropped on Wednesday.

I was talking to Mike Sowden last week (on a video call, since he’s in Scotland and I am in Montana), and I have no idea what led to this, but he told me about being obsessed as a kid with the Terran Trade Authority Handbooks, and the way he described them lit up some sort of nostalgia center in my brain and took me back to the library in southwest Iowa where I’d flip through books with illustrations of spaceships, tanks, cars, bridges, whatever, and within a couple hours of getting off the call, Mike sent me this link to a scan of the Terran Trade Authority Handbook SPACECRAFT 2000 To 2100 AD book. Maybe you might enjoy it too. Maybe you, like me, will track down a used copy of the book on a website somewhere and spend $45 of your hard-earned money to own a paperback copy of it (or maybe you’re smarter/less emotional with money than I am?).

This is a very short, very simple essay about how human beings maybe don’t need to be just one thing, and I think it hit home for me because I see a lot of media about “your personal brand,” and I admittedly haven’t worked too hard on that kind of stuff, but if I had to design a business card about my personal brand, I think it might look a lot like the business card in the photo at the top of this essay, and I’m guessing yours would too.

When I put together this newsletter, I try hard to make sure it is not all links to 3,000-word essays on Substack, and does include some stuff you can digest in a minute or two, which I think is necessary in life, even if it doesn’t make us feel smarter. With that, I would like to present this 87-second video this guy made using various martial art techniques  to close a refrigerator.

Perhaps you read this newsletter last week and read that we’re putting my “What Does Your Urine Say About You?” chart on a limited-run Nalgene water bottle? You still have a few more days to order one as a helpful reminder to stay hydrated, for yourself or for someone you know and/or love. They’re available for pre-order through this link in my online DFTBA shop. I put together this fun short video using the sample bottle we made, and the full chart is below the video.

—

IMPORTANT FINAL REMINDER:

If you or someone you know/love would enjoy this water bottle because you/they struggle to stay hydrated (or just enjoy the chart on the bottle), we’re in the final days of the pre-order campaign. After June 30, you will no longer be able to purchase these bottles (even during the holiday shopping season, when you remember that you need to get a gift for your friend Jeff, who probably would have loved one of these). Here’s the link (you can also click on the photo below).

—

I love these kinds of sports-adjacent stories, not necessarily about the usual sports topics we think about, or necessarily about the players and/or coaches—but this guy, who got really, really good at getting on the Jumbotron at the Barclays Center, and how he cracked the code. (video)

I don’t know how this was done, but it’s super-cool—a guy mapped the geographic movements/migrations of more than 4,000 of his daughter’s ancestors, dating back to the 1600s, and put together this map animation. It’s such a cool visualization of how many lives and decisions were involved in one person being here now.

The folks at Injinji reached out a few weeks back, and asked if I was familiar with their socks. And of course I have been, since 2019, when I battled the most painful blisters of my life for the final 30+ miles of the Hellbender 100, and my friend Canyon said, “Yeah, you gotta get toe socks.” So I did, and I’ve been wearing them for long runs ever since, each of my toes happily in its own little compartment. Injinji is coming on as a sponsor of this newsletter, which is great because it’s a perfect fit, but also because if you’re reading this newsletter, this link will give you 20 percent off a purchase at Injinji.com if you order before midnight PST July 11. (I am a longtime fan of the Trail Midweight Crew, if you’re looking for a recommendation)

I am increasingly interested in the American loneliness epidemic, and maybe it’s not the most uplifting content, but The Pudding put together this short video breaking down the data of who Americans spend time with, and it hits pretty hard—I think in a way that inspires me to try to reach out and spend more time with friends in person. (video)

If you have ever seen Christoph Niemann’s art and design work, you will probably not be surprised at how interesting and accessible this interactive piece he put together about artists and AI for the New York Times is—the first time I read it, I scrolled through it on my phone, which honestly worked just as well as viewing it on my laptop. It really covers some ground. Here’s a gift link to see it. (thanks, Fitz)

I don’t surf, but I loved William Finnegan’s Pulitzer-winning surfing memoir, Barbarian Days, which I think will be a far different book than David Litt’s new memoir about learning to surf as an adult, It’s Only Drowning. I mean, when your book has blurbs by Laird Hamilton, Judd Apatow, and the former U.S. Treasury Secretary, it probably comes from a unique perspective. This excerpt of the book on LitHub did not disappoint.   

I missed this when it came out—just before Father’s Day—but I now wish I had seen it and sent it to everyone I know who’s a dad and would laugh at it by the time they read the fifth sentence. So I guess belated happy Father’s Day to you if you click on this McSweeney’s link: Congrats, Dipshit, You’re A Dad Now.

This is not something I’d say has, uh, depth? But it had me laughing within a second of reading it in the replies of this post on Bluesky, and then I realized I couldn’t share it with anyone who wasn’t on Bluesky, so I tracked down this 2022 tumblr post, which I’m not sure is the original, but at least it’s visible, and maybe you’ll giggle at it while reading “Donkin Dunnts: Amurica Runn No Dundun” like I did. (Also, if anyone knows the origin story of this graphic, please let me know)

Finally: If you read last week’s newsletter and called your senators to encourage them to oppose the selling off of public lands, thank you. If you’ve been following the news, you might know that the Senate parliamentarian rejected the plan to sell 3.3 million acres of public lands, which is great news. BUT, a new proposal to sell off 1.2 million acres of public land is now on the table, so, basically, we all have to call again. Here’s the link to the public lands budget reconciliation page on 5Calls.org, which makes it very easy to call your congressional representatives.

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NOTE: I’m publishing this week’s post on Thursday since this Friday is July 4th, and lots of people/Americans do other things on July 4th. Please feel free to read it on Thusrday, Friday, or whatever day suits your needs.

This is a bit longer than the videos I usually include here, but I got sucked into this guy’s adventure on “America’s Worst Rated Train,” and honestly, it delivered. About halfway through, I wasn’t sure it was good press for Amtrak, but by the end of the video, I thought, you know, yeah, maybe it is good press for Amtrak. Kind of. (Although I do think it’s a little strange that he says “There is one train route that exists all the way from Miami to Alaska,” when the final, quite significant, leg of the trip is quite obviously on a boat?) (video)

I don’t know how I found this essay on youth sports (and also about parenting and coaching), but I kept stopping while reading and going, “huh, yeah,” and wondering if over the past couple decades, we have been (at least partly unintentionally) making sports less and less fun for the kids who participate in them?

When I mention newsletter sponsor Precision Fuel & Hydration in these posts, it’s usually some sort of personal endorsement from me, a 46-year-old mid-pack ultrarunner dad, which I hope has some value (and authenticity). LIke hey, I’m a regular person training and running, and this stuff works for me, not just for super-athlete types who bound up mountains and barely break a sweat doing it. I was going to do that again this week, but then I saw the results for the Western States Endurance Run come in over the weekend, and realized that five of the top 10 men were sponsored by Precision Fuel & Hydration. (Including four of the top five, which included Missoula’s own Jeff Mogavero). So I guess take it from me, this stuff works for super-athletes too. Here’s a link to the PF 90 gels, a favorite product my both myself and Caleb Olson, who won Western States.

We are pretty lucky in Missoula to have a great local coffee roaster in Black Coffee, and maybe even luckier that Jim Chapman, one of the co-founders, is a creative guy who loves writing and photography. So when I get emails from Black Coffee (besides the ones that inform me my monthly coffee subscription just shipped), I usually open them. The most recent one—“My 5 Favorite Methods for Camp Coffee”—was an easy sell, too, because Jim knows a ton about coffee, and isn’t a snob when he discusses it (I appreciate that he includes instant coffee in his list, because in my opinion, there’s a place and time for it). Anyway, don’t take it from me, a mere coffee enthusiast—take it from someone who’s actually an expert on coffee, and camping.

I can’t even remember the first time I bought a pack of Field Notes pocket notebooks, but I vividly remember the 15 or so minutes I got to spend talking to Aaron Draplin at an event we did in Chicago in 2017. Being charismatic is one thing, and being down-to-earth and funny in tandem with being charismatic is a whole other thing. I have been rooting for Draplin for a very long time, and it’s really cool to see this article about the phenomenon that is Field Notes (as well as this link to a page showing part of Draplin’s vast collection of vintage pocket notebooks).

It’s crazy to think that it’s been 15 years (!) since The Social Network came out, and I can’t say I think the material for a sequel is exactly uplifting, I am cautiously optimistic that Aaron Sorkin will make another good movie (especially if he can convince Jesse Eisenberg to participate again?).

I’m not trying to put a link about AI in every issue of this newsletter, but I knew when John Oliver tackled the subject, it would at least be entertaining. And of course he went at it from an angle—only talking about AI slop, which, in the span of this 29-minute segment, had me laughing, a little sad, laughing, disappointed, laughing, a little angry, laughing, and then applauding at the end.

Because that’s how the PhotoshopRequests Subreddit works, you have to scroll through the replies here to see all the wacky edits people did to this photo of this guy tossing his baby in the air, but I think it’s pretty rewarding scrolling per centimeter of thumb travel.

Last weekend, I was in Wisconsin for my niece’s graduation party, and the morning of the party, I ran down the street from their house to a county park and ran three 1.05-mile loops around the road that circles the park before heading back to the house to pick up my nephew to run a couple more laps around the park with me. To my great surprise and mild entertainment, I got an email from Strava informing me that the first three laps had given me the “Local Legend” title for the most reps on that loop in a 90-day period. I have always found Strava’s Local Legend feature to be humorous, because I every time I’ve gotten a notification that I’ve become a Local Legend of something, it’s always some obscure short segment that I’ve never consciously tried to run a lot of reps of. And it’s usually called something like “Unnamed Rd Climb,” which for some reason is really popular in the Missoula area (and I guess a few other places). So, that’s a long story, but: We made a coffee mug. For me, I guess, and you, if you’ve ever been a Local Legend of Unnamed Rd Climb or something else obscure. OR, even better, if you’d like a gift for your spouse or friend or running partner who would get a good chuckle out of having a dubious honor displayed on a coffee mug. Here’s a photo, which you can click on for more information:

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