Trip Report: Attempting The Express Tour Du Mont Blanc (click here to watch the video on YouTube) We were scarcely eight miles into the 105-mile Tour du Mont Blanc when I narrowly avoided disaster. I had trained all summer for the steep ultramarathon days we planned to put in on the TMB. I came to Chamonix with 20-plus years of experience in the mountains, which I’d like to think amounted to at least something like wisdom. I have calibrated and recalibrated my risk tolerance as I’ve gotten...
1 day ago • 14 min read
Friday Inspiration 509 I think I was vaguely aware of Track Star before my friend Pitt sent me this video, in which Jack Coyne plays songs for MC Serch to quiz Serch on his hip-hop knowledge—but I hadn’t ever watched one. Now I’ve watched a few of them, but I think this one is still my favorite because of the enthusiasm Serch still has for the music and the culture. (video) This is a great story about making time to write, and sometimes making desks to write on, and also about stealing—well,...
8 days ago • 3 min read
Friday Inspiration 508 May your inner physics nerd (and chemistry nerd, too) keep you sucked into watching this entire video from 1987, which just keeps going and going, even though at times it looks like the chain reaction is millimeters away from being upset, and maybe that’s why it’s so compelling. (video) (thanks, Eric) A hundred years from now, when historians are looking back at the communication styles we developed in the first couple decades of social media, I really hope they are...
15 days ago • 2 min read
When You Can Walk Anywhere You Want I don't often re-publish stories I've written, but I remembered this one this past week when I was tagging along on a rock climbing trip in the desert with my mom and her friends. I think this essay, back when I wrote it in 2013, was a sort of expression of gratitude through a story about my grandma (my mom's mom), who was in the last 14 months of her life at the time I published it. I hope it still resonates. -- I flew to Iowa to visit my grandmother in...
16 days ago • 5 min read
Friday Inspiration 507 “Who’s gonna watch a senior citizen grandmother do jigsaw puzzles on a platform where people are competing playing Warzone?” Apparently a lot of people. (video) This math about budgeting at the bookstore of course makes no sense but is exactly what most of us do when we want something, and that is why it is an example of a well-written joke. I finally subscribed to Blackbird Spyplane yesterday after Hilary sent me this piece about creativity and AI and making birthday...
22 days ago • 2 min read
Friday Inspiration 506 Today is the LAST DAY to sign up for my How To Tell One Story online writing course for 2025. If you haven't heard people (me) talking about it before, it is: a six-week, 12-email course designed to help you get one good written narrative nonfiction story on the page comprised of brief emails and assignments (a 3- to 6-minute read plus a 10- to 30-minute writing exercise) proven to be very satisfying according to the 27 people who have taken the post-course survey (and...
29 days ago • 3 min read
Not Really A Time Machine, But Kind Of September 26th was the 10-year anniversary of the first time I ever tried to run an ultramarathon—the 2015 Bear Chase Race in Lakewood, Colorado, at Bear Creek Lake Park. A brief, bullet-point version of how that happened might be: It was kind of a lark, but I got hooked. Jayson and I ran a couple 50-mile races together, then signed up for a 100-mile race, the 2017 Run Rabbit Run, and ran it together. I made a film about the experience (and about...
30 days ago • 4 min read
Friday Inspiration 505 TODAY is a big day—we are re-opening registration for my How To Tell One Story online writing course. We sold out the last round of 25 spots back in July, and I just this week finished up reading the stories the folks who completed the course sent me (pretty much the highlight of my week). If you’re interested in writing, or really, putting together a story in any format, you can register for the course from today (October 10) through next Friday (October 17). We’re...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Friday Inspiration 504 Apologies if you are a longtime fan of ARIatHOME and will wonder if I live under a rock, but I somehow just discovered him this week, and I kept going “no way” every time a new person got on the mic and rapped or sang—especially the two “Brooklyn OGs” who appear around the 10-minute mark. As a commenter on a different video said: “According to these videos, every single person in NYC can spit hot fire at a moment's notice” (video) I loved this collection of photos of...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
