Week eight was a planned rest week. I spent four days traveling to San Francisco for work, took Friday off to decompress, did some heavier than usual weight training on Saturday, and went for windy, muddy, short run today.

• 1 hour, 26 minutes running

• 6.9 miles

• 856 ft D+

I only ran once in SF, up the Embarcadero and Telegraph Hill, but I did push hard on the steps to see where I'm at. I've been in better shape!

The hotel had bikes and I took one out on two different evenings. On St. Valentine's day I rode to a restaurant on Union Street and back, stopping at Fort Mason for some photos.

I will be running in earnest again next week.

I had jury duty on Tuesday, was sick Thursday and Friday, a light week.

• 4 hours running

• 18.5 miles

• 2,103 ft D+

Saturday I felt better and did an easy run with some strides. Today, Sunday, I did a hilly run at Lory State Park. Everything below my neck feels good, but my head is full of snot.

Next week I'll be in San Francisco for week. I'll be running, but nothing big.

I turned out to be only a spare juror yesterday and was released, my duty done for the year.

Honestly, I think a trial by jury of your peers is a great idea, but also the whole process is run by people very invested in the status quo and who use a good amount of propaganda to keep us all feeling good about participating.

Week five was the first week of my second training block. Still just working on my base. I got back to indoor heated yoga with real humans for the first time since 2020. I'm lucky that the last locally owned big gym in Fort Collins is still holding on.

• 6 hours, 8 minutes running

• 31.5 miles

• 1,827 ft D+

Snow was still sticking around on week six. I went to yoga again on Friday and then did a long run with two good climbs at Horsetooth on Sunday.

• 7 hours, 45 minutes running

• 36 miles

• 4,715 ft D+

I have to go to the courthouse first thing in the morning for jury duty. It might last one day, or three, or who knows how many. I probably won't be able to do any open source stuff for a few days. I'll be running and catching up on family responsibilities outside of the courthouse until my service is over.

Week four was my first rest week. My body wasn't crying for rest, but I want to set a groove early, and also catch up with family and friends outside of running.

• 4 hours, 37 minutes running and skiing

• 18.7 miles

• 2,425 ft D+

We had snow and it's sticking. I skied around Pineridge on Wednesday and took my medicine ball to the barn to work out in the snow while my daughter checked up on her horse.

Sunday I went up Towers Trail to get some hills and sunshine. It's snowy up there. I saw signs of someone skiing (tele, I suspect) the slopes adjacent to Towers.

Here are the running numbers for week three.

• 7 hours, 52 minutes

• 39.0 miles

• 2,402 ft D+

Tuesday and Wednesday I ran after dark, a rare thing for me. Friday I did a speed workout, doubling the volume of hard running from week two. I slowed things down on the weekend with back-to-back two hour long runs Saturday and Sunday.

Next week I'm going to run a bit less, do more strength and conditioning and projects around the house.

I ran five days last week, rode my bike another day, and did core strength workouts twice. Here are the running numbers.

• 8 hours, 24

• 37.1 miles

• 4,669 ft D+

Saturday I went for a big slog at Horsetooth and Lory State Park with other runners who are training for Quad Rock in May. The trails started out in a runnable state, packed powder and a little ice and frozen mud. With mild temperatures and sun the conditions degraded quickly. The last hour or so of my run was through heavy mud and puddles of melted snow. That's just how winter trail running goes around here.

I went to multiple live rock concerts in 2022 for the first time in years and it was all a result of my 17 year-old daughter's prompting. In July she was visiting a best friend in Montpellier, France. Her friend's parents went to see The Smile, Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood's band, in the Arènes de Nîmes. My kid discovered that the band would be in Denver in December 2022 and insisted I get tickets. I did. And then we started looking into which bands were playing at Red Rocks at the end of that venue's season and found tickets to see King Gizzard's long-delayed Red Rocks debut. I got tickets for that, too.

I hadn't been to Red Rocks since the 20th century (Lyle Lovett in 1998, if I remember correctly). All the good things about this venue remain, particularly the views over the plains at thunderstorms or the Moon. King Gizzard was amazing. They took some selfies, referred to us affectionately as "cunts" (they are Australian millenials), invited us to "get fucked up and love each other", and then rocked everyone's socks off for 3 hours. Here's the set list and a full recording of the show. They kicked off with "Mars for the Rich", which is increasingly appropriate.

Getting to Red Rocks and back from Fort Collins is a slog. Denver's Mission Ballroom is much more accessible. I relaxed in the passenger seat while my daughter drove and we killed some time in a River North pub. In the line for the door my daughter and I met a couple from Kansas City who were there for their second show and who had all kinds of stories and advice for navigating the venue. The Mission Ballroom has less than half the capacity of Red Rocks and feels more intimate. We were seated, not on the floor, but could easily see the band. The band played a bunch of yet unreleased songs and treated us to an extra heavy version of Bending Hectic in the encore. We were super satisfied!

These shows were great musically and a great chance to connect with a teenager in the context of different adult audiences. The King Gizzard crowd was young, like 5-10 years older than my kid, and exuberantly high. The Smile's audience was about 10-15 years older than that and much more subtly high. If you're a parent of a high school junior or senior you may know what it's like to go to shows like this. The chance to have candid conversations about partying and intoxication and the consequences is something you have to seize if you can. Find a band you all like and do it!

We don't have anything on our future concert schedule except They Might be Giants in May, but we're looking. The two of us are the more natural late night rock-and-rolling team of the family and are looking forward to more.

Hi, my name is Sean Gillies, and this is my blog. Blog is short for "web log". I write about running, cooking and eating, travel, family, programming, Python, API design, 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 Planet Labs PBC. 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!