Week 4 was light on trail running, because I'm letting my irritated left Achilles tendon settle down, but it was still a pretty good training week. I logged 34 minutes of max intensity intervals on an elliptical trainer, a new weekly high for me. I also did the usual yoga, weight training, pool exercise, and some biking.

• 4.5 miles running

• 10 hours, 3 minutes all training

• 36 ft D+ running

The highlight was a long ride along creeks and rivers in Fort Collins and through the valley trails of Lory State Park. I'm getting more comfortable on the steep road descents between my house and Horsetooth Reservoir and am feeling more fit on the steepest climbs. I didn't set any records climbing up from the Blue Sky trailhead or up Centennial from the reservoir, but I was able to stay below my aerobic threshold. Last fall I was blowing apart on the same climbs.

I just noticed that the original URL slug for last week's recap blog post was "beer-training-weeks-1-2-recap.html". "Beer" instead of "bear". I'm fixing that now. I'd be down for a beer mile, but not a beer 100 miler.

In week 3, I got two interval workouts in, but developed a knot in my left calf and some Achilles tenderness. I ran twice, and did long bike rides instead of long runs. They were quality rides, though, and so I still got a good mix of intensity and long easy effort.

• 11.3 miles running

• 11 hours, 50 minutes all training

• 476 ft D+ running

The highlight of my week was a long Sunday ride on the Poudre River Trail east of Fort Collins, stopping by a taco truck and tap room, and ending up at Hoedown Hill, which might be Colorado's easternmost ski hill. It's a bar and restaurant on top of a 200-foot tall butte, with a north-facing slope beneath.

It's time for the first training recap of my 2025 season. I'm training every day, but only running 2-3 days a week because I'm cautious about stressing my Achilles tendon too much. When I do the numbers, I'll report running distance and elevation gain, and the time for all training, including cycling, weight lifting, elliptical or stationary bike, and yoga.

Week 1:

• 11.3 miles running

• 5 hours, 40 minutes all training

• 1,112 ft D+ running

The first week of my 32-week season was a little light. The highlight was running at Cougar Mountain Regional Park in Issaquah, Washington with my sister-in-law. Even in winter, it's green, with moss and ferns everywhere.

Week 2 was complicated by back pain. Instead of skipping workouts, I did a lot of chugging indoors. Going easy on my back early in the week let me recover and get out for a solid long run today at Bobcat Ridge, my longest run in seven months. In all, this was one of my biggest weeks since April, 2024.

• 17.8 miles running

• 10 hours, 18 minutes all training

• 3,199 ft D+ running

As a side project, I'm doing some physical therapy on my left hip flexor muscles, which are much weaker than those on my right side. I do seated single-leg raises, supine marching with a resistance band, and Joe Uhan's skaters. I'm making slow progress.

Hi, my name is Sean Gillies, and this is my blog. Blog is short for "web log". I write about running, cooking and eating, gardening, travel, family, programming, Python, API design, geography, geographic data formats and protocols, open source, and internet standards. Mostly running and local geography. I live in Fort Collins, Colorado, and sometimes in Montpellier, France. I work at TileDB, which sells a multimodal data platform for precision medicine. I appreciate emailed comments on my posts. You can find my address in the "about" page linked at the top of this page. Happy New Year!

Gardening looks like a fun and satisfying activity, does it not? And a source of fresh and tasty ingredients? It really is, and it’s something you can enjoy for the rest of your life. You have probably seen older relatives or neighbors puttering contentedly in their gardens. That could be you someday!

If you don’t have a garden, and want to try one, how do you get started? I’m going to try to answer that question and point you to better and more complete gardening resources.

I know very little about commercial farming, but I do know about growing fruits and vegetables for fun. I grew up in a gardening family. My parents were students and hippies and our household budget was super tight for a few years. A big backyard garden was part of our subsistence plan. After a teenage hiatus, during which I lived on M&Ms, Doritos, and Mountain Dew, I returned to gardening and have been at it ever since. I even had a little container garden when we were living in Montpellier, France.

Currently, my garden is pretty small, 18 square meters (190 square feet) in 6 raised beds and a strip of soil adjacent to one of the beds. It provides all the basil, beans, cucumbers, lettuce, scallions, and zucchini that my family can eat from June to September, plus half of our annual garlic consumption, and some novelty melons and peppers.

During the growing season I spend about 30 minutes each day watering, weeding, and whatever [1]. Much of that time is pure enjoyment. I could garden more efficiently if I wanted to. Preparing the garden for planting in the spring takes a couple weekend afternoons of hauling compost and digging, but not more than that.

Let’s presume that you’re interested in gardening in soil, on the ground. It’s a practical starting point and I’m not qualified to give advice about hydroponic or container gardening. With that, your basic requirements are soil, sun, water, and seeds.

If you can, start with accessible, flat, non-compacted ground, that is mostly free of rocks and weeds, and is close to a water source. Pull and dig out the existing vegetation and mix commercial compost into the top 6 inches. A 1.5 cubic foot bag per 10 square feet is a good start. Ground that has seen a lot of foot traffic or has had cars parked on it will need a lot of treatment before plants will thrive in it. Water tends to run off sloped ground, and scattered seeds will, too. From a gardening perspective, turf grass is a weed, and a chore to remove. I installed raised soil beds in my backyard instead of removing our turf, but that’s pretty expensive and I don’t recommend starting this way. A small garden won’t need any herbicides. Just pull the weeds by hand or dig them out with a trowel.

Plant growth is powered by photosynthesis, and fruiting plants, such as cucumbers, beans, and tomatoes, enjoy full sun. Leafy greens like lettuce and spinach will tolerate partial shade. Sun might be the limiting factor in an urban or suburban environment with buildings and trees. You can’t add more sunshine, but climbing plants can get more out of limited light on the ground. In some cases you may want to filter photons. My neighbor has found that our Colorado Front Range sunshine is too strong for her favorite tropical peppers, and hangs sheets of fabric to give them a marginal amount of shade. This is an advanced gardening scenario, however.

Photosynthesis converts carbon dioxide and water into the sugar that fuels a plant’s growth. Water will be one of your most important considerations. Your garden’s water needs will be determined by soil drainage, but mostly by the growth rate of your vegetables. If plants are wilting, they are not growing. That’s the signal that I look for in my garden. It’s fine for the soil to be dry on top as long as the plants look perky. It’s hard to over-irrigate in sunny and dry climates, so I’m not very skilled at recognizing the signs of a waterlogged garden. I water by hand with a hose and a sprinkler wand attachment. This is a perfectly adequate way to start.

Choosing what to grow and when to put it in the ground is a fun puzzle. In any climate there is a good variety of plants to try. Since most will require 60-90 days of growth before harvest, there is some commitment involved. Assuming that you’re not trying to grow all your food, I suggest beginning with a limited variety at a time. It will be more rewarding to pick a bowl of green beans than to pick a handful of beans and one tomato. In a mild climate, you can easily grow one spring/summer crop and one summer/fall crop. For example, snap peas or spinach early in the year, and chard or winter squash later. And, there’s always next year to try something new.

My only recommendations on what to begin with are cherry tomatoes, basil, pole beans, cucumbers, lettuce, scallions, and summer squash. Cucumbers, beans, and squash will rapidly outgrow most weeds, thanks to their large seeds. Pole beans let you exploit conditions where light is scarce on the ground. Many Asian cucumber varieties thrive when trained vertically on a trellis. Cherry tomatoes do well in large pots or other containers and can climb if you provide structure like a wire cage. These are all great when you have limited space.

Scallions, or bunching onions, are perennial, cold-resistant, and tolerate some shade. Plant them on an edge of your garden, as they will spread when they have established, and you may never again have to buy slimy supermarket green onions. Lettuce is also good for cool weather and partial shade, and you’ll be able to pick leaves in less than 6 weeks. Sow lettuce seeds generously and thin them as they grow larger.

Fresh-picked basil speaks for itself. I like to grow both the Genovese and Thai varieties.

With the exception of the beans, lettuce, and scallions, which should be planted directly into soil, I start these seeds indoors in peat pots filled with general purpose potting mix, 6 weeks before their outdoor planting date, 3-4 per pot. Once it’s clear which is the most vigorous, behead the others with a pair of scissors, and let the favored plant take over the peat pot. After your last frost, stick the plant and its peat pot into the ground. Roots will have no trouble penetrating the pot as it breaks down.

Buying young vegetable plants in small black plastic pots from a garden store is an option to consider. They will probably be larger than plants that you would start at home in your first try. They’ll be more expensive than starting from seed, of course, and you won’t find as much variety as you will in a seed catalog. Still, you’re very likely to find good cherry tomato plants. Get some red Sweet 100 and sweet yellow plum tomatoes and plant them in 5 gallon pots.

Locate some flat, sunny ground, and add compost. Choose and start some seeds in peat pots or source some vegetable starts. Plant them after your last frost, water them regularly, and watch them for flowers and fruit. These are the basics of starting a garden. There are lots of little details, of course, but you don’t need to know all of them before you begin. A printed gardening bible, like Southern Living or Western Gardens, will fill in many of the details. I refer to Western Gardens often. Your local State University’s Ag Extension program will have tons of information about gardening in your particular climate. Colorado State’s is very good. I checked this blog post against CSU's Plant Talk as I wrote it to be sure that I was not contradicting the experts.

Lastly, here’s a brief shopping list for 2 5 x 5 foot garden beds, a nice small beginning garden.

• Short, D-handle shovel: $24.99

• Hand trowel: $8.99

• Watering wand: $19.99

• 5 bags compost at $8.99 each

• 10 pack of 3” peat pots: $4.99

• 4 quart bag of potting mix: $9.99

• Seeds of your choice: $2.99 per packet

That’s less than $130. If you harvest 30 organic cucumbers, which 4 plants can easily produce, you’ll break even. Of course, this does not include water, which might be $40 per month, or more, and your time. Don’t expect to break even. Instead, look forward to developing a different appreciation for the weather and the seasons, and to the pleasure of enjoying your own homegrown cucumber or tomato.

[1] This expression is from Farm Days, by William Wegman.

2024's gardening season was warm, dry, and long. Long enough to grow potatoes, followed by green beans, in one raised bed, and garlic followed by basil and peppers in another. Long enough to grow ripe Chanterais and watermelon, even with a slightly late start. We had the usual good amount of cucumber and zucchini.

This was my best melon harvest yet. More than a dozen small Chanterais (a smooth-skinned canteloupe) and five large personal-sized watermelons. One of them weighed 4 kilograms!

We had 3-4 cucumbers a day in July and August and were still picking one every other day in mid-October.

August, September, and October were all about beans, beans, beans. So many bean pods.

Our long season allowed all my sweet peppers to fully ripen. We grew yellow Corno di Toro and red Carmen peppers and cooked them into piperade and similar dishes.

I planted Shishito peppers this summer and neglected them for more than a month. Summer went so long that there was time for them to revive, flower, and produce a pretty good crop of fruit before the first frost. I'll grow these again next year and take better care of them.

For our raised beds, the only change I'm planning to make next year is to not grow potatoes and plant some other vegetables instead in the early half of the season. More spinach and mustard greens, perhaps. I got a Kitazawa Seed Company catalog in the mail on Saturday and am looking forward to browsing it for ideas.

The other major producer in my backyard was our Damson plum tree. I made over a dozen pints of jam, which I've been eating regularly, and a liter of Damson liqueur, which I've been holding for the new year.

We compost all of our household vegetable waste. Coffee grounds, egg shells, potato peels, banana skins, etc., and also fallen leaves and soiled straw from the chicken coop. Every year we transfer the mature composted matter into our raised beds. Despite this, we seem to be running a small nutrient deficit. Plants languished in my one bed where I have not planted a late summer crop of beans, and I resorted to using a fertilizer solution to wake up the Shishito peppers. I'm considering the removal of some tired soil and replacing it with commercial compost.

2024 was an uncomplicated year for backyard gardening here. Access to tap water, of course, means we're always gardening in easy mode. We had no hail, no late or early freezes, and plenty of sun. 2025 could be different. We will have to wait and see.

2024 was a bust, but I like my plan and am going to reuse it for 2025. That means my A race is the Bear 100 Mile in September and my B race is the Never Summer 100K in July. I'm already registered for those two events. I'm still looking for shorter events for April, May, and June.

My long range planning spreadsheet looks like this today. 32 weeks of training in four phases. It's modeled after the one on page 230 of Jason Koop's book (2nd edition) and begins with eight weeks emphasizing speed work and weight lifting, with plenty of active recovery and bike riding.

My oldest kid is signed up for the Bolder Boulder 10K in May, and I'll be supporting her there. Maybe I should sign up for it. I have never run a paved 10K.

My friend David Bitner, who got me into ultrarunning, is coming to Colorado for Never Summer and I am super excited about that. It'll be a good time.

2024 was a tough year. I was injured most of the time, started no races, and realized less than half of my running volume goal. Lessons learned include:

• Don't try to run through an arthritis flare-up. Switch to lower impact activities.

• Be conservative about increasing training volume. 10% a week is a healthy limit.

• High intensity training in a pool is fun and useful.

• It's good to make friends with elliptical trainers and treadmills.

I had a moment of decent fitness in June and enjoyed running in the Alps during my family's summer vacation. One day I ran up to a gondola station below Mont Blanc, four miles of 20% grade trails, one of the steeper runs I've ever done. It was a nice to grab a coke, an espresso, and a brownie at a café before heading back down. Definitely a highlight of a difficult year.

I've decided to try to ride a bike for exercise more in 2025. Run harder, but run less, with more active recovery and low-intensity outings on a bike. At least until June, when I need to start building the running and hiking endurance that I will need in September.

I got a new bike to make this more fun. It's a Rocky Mountain Solo C50 and I bought it from my favorite local bike shop, Drake Cycles, last Saturday. The first thing I did was pedal it from home up Spring Creek Trail to Pineridge Open Space and ride some laps around the pond. It sure beats riding my commuter bike on dirt and gravel. I haven't bought a new bike or any new bike components in 10 years. Electronic shifters feel like magic to me.

So far this week I've done two rides from the barn where we keep our horses while Bea has been doing her equestrian stuff. One at sunset and one at sunrise. I've been three miles east of the barn and seven miles north of the barn, following roads on the PLSS section grid.

In the neighborhood of the barn, the ground is completely free of snow and quite dry. Passing trucks raise medium density clouds of dust. There are scattered homes out here, and vehicles going to and fro periodically. There are large construction sites, too, which can mean a wave of large rigs pulling trailers.

I've got a lot to learn about this kind of riding. The right tire pressure for road and trail conditions, for example, and how to get in and out of the drops smoothly. How to descend and corner safely, and how to survive washboard surfaces. Dressing, too. I'm riding at a low intensity and don't generate as much heat as I do when I run.

One of my favorite things about riding further east is the panoramic views of the Front Range peaks. I can see Pikes Peak, Mount Evans, Longs Peak, and the Mummy Range, a span of 200 kilometers, from the top of every rise.

At last, I'm less than 1% injured and am getting back into regular and productive running. We've had a long stretch of mild and dry weather here, which makes it easy to just lace up and go. I ran four times last week, including a nice hilly run in Lory State Park, and will run three times this week. Thursday I did some harder running and a bunch of strides for the first time since June.

Some faint numbness lingers on my left quad, but my hip, butt, and leg are otherwise just fine. My doctor prescribed a course of prednisolone in early November to calm down my pinched nerve and that seemed to banish the last of my Achilles tendonitis as well. My right heel and calf haven't been pain-free in a long time. It's really nice to feel good.