BRIEF BUT IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: I am once again teaching a writing + trail running workshop with the Freeflow Institute this summer in Montana. We’re announcing the dates next week, and if you’d like to be notified when registration opens, please send me an email at brendan@semi-rad.com (you can just reply to this email) and let me know. Last year’s workshop sold out in the first week, so if you’re interested, I’d strongly advise getting on the email list. It’s going to be called “Running to Stand Still” again, and we’ll do a guided trail run every day with Alpine Running Guides to split up our workshop sessions (but you don’t have to be fast—as a group, we average about 15-minute miles when you factor in all the stops and breaks to reconvene). Scholarships are available.
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I kind of did not expect a film that was 95% Google Maps footage to be this powerful, but … wow (video)
Looking for book recommendations? I’m certainly not! If the rest of my life goes anything like the past 25 years have, I will be frantically flipping through a paperback while on my deathbed, every once in a while glancing over at the pile of 8-10 books next to the bed, worrying that I won’t have time for them. And I won’t! Anyway, my friend Kevin just told me about this website Five Books, where you can kill several minutes or hours browsing Top 5 lists of books from all over the world. Sorry, or you’re welcome.
Sure, randomly searching for cities around the world to see what kind of weather they’re having right now is fun, but you know what’s really fun? This amazing world weather map. (via Kottke.org)
So the premise for this new show Outside is doing, “Paddy O Sucks At …” is that Paddy O’Connell tries a new sport each episode, and we laugh. With him? At him? Maybe some of both.
If you receive an email from me, there is a nearly 99 percent chance it’s going to contain an exclamation point, despite serious people’s recommendations otherwise. I haven’t really thought about it that much, but Anne Helen Petersen, who is way smarter than I am, has, and I agree with everything she says in this essay.
I almost didn’t republish my Year of Maximum Enthusiasm essay this year like I do every year, but thanks to two people who called me out on it, here it is. If you read it again and enjoy it, please silently thank Eduardo and Phillip.
You know what, sometimes it’s just about life’s little surprises.
Morgan Tilton at iRunFar interviewed me a few months ago for this profile that just published last week, and it was kind of funny to see an old photo of the van we used to live in on the road, and in the next paragraph, have Jay’s name pop up, as he just turned 18 months old. Time flies I guess.