Day 17: Bogotá, Colombia —> Armenia, Colombia (Coffee Triangle).

Today Marc and I left Bogotá for the Coffee Triangle, where we will be spending Christmas. It was a very quick and an easy flight to get there, which was nice. We were picked up at the airport by the place we are staying and were surrounded by mountains and lots of different crops. It was pretty and a change from what we have seen so far on this trip.

Side note on Bogotá: We will be back. I was a bit bummed that we didn’t have more time to explore, but I really liked what I saw and experienced. Really cool vibe, lots of parks, good layout of the city and excellent food. 

When we arrived at the hacienda, it just felt so peaceful. The layout seemed very traditional and has lots of flowers, places to chill and beautiful views to take in. The staff was really warm and friendly, and had our room ready to go plus our itinerary for our stay. Unpacked, had a nice lunch by the pool, and also applied bug spray (yep, we’re now in a place where the bugs are “friendly”).

Our guide came to pick us up at 2:30pm for a tour so we could learn more about what is grown on the property. We went through a bamboo forest, where we were chased down by cows (kind of reminded me of this incident on the ‘Australian Walkabout’) - literally they followed us and blocked the entrance out of the forest. Fortunately our guide had a good distraction and we escaped unharmed. 

Guillermo, our guide, is in the process of becoming an official ‘Coffee Taster’, which is a rigorous course of study similar to the ‘Court of Master Sommeliers’ process. As the non-coffee drinker of the couple, it was interesting to see how some of the process parallels to winemaking. If you’re interested in the comparisons of coffee, wine, cola, tea, spirits and beer, Marc and I can’t recommend this book enough.

We then learned some interesting facts about Colombia from Guillermo. Colombia is a country that straddles both the Atlantic (via the Caribbean) and the Pacific Oceans. It also has 2 different mountain ranges, 3 glaciers and 2 deserts. This leads to 86 different microclimates and the weather forecasts being about 50% correct (hmmm). They also have 1900+ species of birds. We are now at 3600 feet of elevation in the Coffee Triangle as opposed to the 8300+ feet of elevation we were at in Bogotá.

We looked at cacao plants and talked in depth of how the plant grows, is cultivated and then how the beans are extracted so they can be sold. This set us up well for the cacao tasting that we had later on in the afternoon. Amongst the cacao plants were lots of banana trees. We learned that the bananas take lots of moisture out of the soil, which helps the cacao plants. Also for those who were always curious about the difference between plantains and bananas - the former is a veggie and needs to be cooked. The latter is a fruit and does not need to be cooked. 

Marc and I then went to our chocolate tasting class, which had similarities to the one we took in Peru. This one was more in-depth and was led by the chef of the property itself, Ruben. Guillermo stayed on to translate for us. The main delta between today’s experience and the one in Lima was around the grinding process. In Lima, we skipped the step of grinding roasted beans until a smooth paste. Ruben ground them into a chocolate paste in the shape of a ball so the output was less chunky than in Lima. Basically it was ground down until the cocoa butter was separating from the rest. 

We also learned that Peru and Colombia have many similarities around cuisine and gastronomy, but the main difference is that Peru has done a better job of promoting it. As we were talking to Reuben, we started discussing how cassava and yuca being used in Colombian cooking fairly frequently as a starch. It dawned on me that I might have better success with the cassava flour that we experimented with earlier in the year as a thickener. Arrowroot is a gluten-free thickener used in Paleo circles, but it doesn’t always work how I would like in my dishes. I am excited to try this when we get home! 

After the class, the property prepared a special Christmas Eve dinner outside with really nice lighting. It was a set menu and they had more chocolate treats than Marc could ever ask for. It was a beautiful setting to watch the sunset with a cocktail or two. All in all, a wonderful start to our chapter in the Coffee Triangle.

Day 11: Galápagos Islands (Isla Isabela), Ecuador.

Gosh. It was a full day even though the itinerary didn’t make it seem that way when we went through everything last night.

Because we have a decent amount to travel on the boat today, we got off to an early start with a walk around Urbina Bay on Isla Isabela to hopefully see some land iguanas and tortoises. Marc and I got out on the 1st boat so it meant we would be 1st on the trail before the other 3 boats. We had a wet landing for this morning’s walk, which means no dock, and while we were getting out of the zodiacs, we saw some more penguins and pelicans. 

Not 5 minutes into the walk, we see a tortoise come out of the brush. It was a “small” one and our guide guessed it weighed about 80 lbs. In last night’s briefing, they told us that if we see a tortoise on our walk that we needed to be very quiet so they didn’t get alarmed. But our guide was talking so loud because she was so excited, we were kind of worried that it would retreat. It actually kept it’s head out for a long time as we were standing there so we snapped a bunch of photos.

Along the way, Marc and I spotted a few land iguanas, which are more colorful than the marine iguanas. All in all, we ended up seeing about 10 of them on this hour long walk, which was pretty cool. Some of them were well camouflaged into the habitat so it was hard to get good pics of some of them. As we came around the bend, our guide saw a massive male tortoise walking away from us. She guessed that this one weighed about 400 lbs. 

This was one big dude. We knew we needed to get past the tortoise at some point to

finish our walk so we had to wait for an opportunity where we could pass on the side. Our guide was pretty stoked. We continued our walk, saw a couple more tortoises in the distance and then as we turned another corner we saw two tortoises walking towards each other - a huge male and a female. We didn’t know if this was going to be a mating thing or what, so we all were watching with a fair amount of anticipation.

As it turned out, the female wanted nothing to do with the male and just “scurried” past him. I didn’t know tortoises could move THAT fast but hey - we are learning. We definitely got lucky with how many tortoise sightings we had and our guide said that we were one short of her record. She was psyched at the different sizes of tortoises that we saw. It was really a great walk and it was only 9:30am when we returned to the boat.

After we got back, I decided to improv a workout on the top deck. Jumping rope on a moving ship is a bit of a challenge but I didn’t kill myself, so that’s a plus. Then they had a movie for us that is hard to explain called “The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came To Eden”, which is based on a book. Somehow Marc and I got sucked in and then it ended at a weird part, so now we are committed for part 2, which they are showing tomorrow. This movie definitely falls into the ‘you can’t make this stuff up’ bucket. 

After lunch, we had some time to relax so I finally started one of the books I downloaded to my Kindle - “The Bettencourt Affair”. So far, it has been an interesting read - it’s about the family who founded the L’Oreal company. Then we went out for a deep sea snorkel at Vincente Roca Point, where you jump in the water from the zodiac and not the beach. We saw more sea lions, turtles, penguins and tropical fish. Others saw sharks, but we didn’t see them unfortunately. Then we had a quick turnaround for a ride on the zodiac to see more wildlife. We were expecting to see more flamingos, marine iguanas, penguins, etc.

If we have an activity that mostly everyone opts into, we will have 4 zodiacs out on the water with a naturalist and a driver for each one. They do a great job at keeping us safe while ensuring that we have fun. As we are out on the water, they are typically communicating with each other in Spanish via walkie-talkie about timing, conditions, etc. It’s generally pretty measured in terms of tone..... until this afternoon.

All of a sudden, lots of loud chaos is coming over the radio and I’m trying to make it out since I was sitting right next to the naturalist. I thought I heard “orca” but I wasn’t sure but all I know is that in a few seconds that all 4 zodiacs were heading in the same direction past the boat. And then I saw why - we were in the vicinity of not just one killer orca whale, but two killer orca whales! 

The drivers of the boat did a great job getting us close, but “mostly” not too close. At one point, we were about 20 yards away from one of the orcas in some decent chop so it was not a dull 15 minutes by any stretch. We got some great pics and one of our fellow passengers captured an awesome video of a poor sea turtle and one of the killer orcas (watch carefully). 

Everyone was pretty much buzzing when we all got back to the boat after that whole

sequence of events! The way the guides were acting reminded me of this episode when we were in Tazzie on the Australian Walkabout in 2013. And we still had our official “Equator crossing”. Yep, we crossed over the Equator into the Southern Hemisphere before dinner and had the opportunity to watch it all from the bridge of the boat. Super cool. We had crossed the Equator a few times on this trip, but this time we were actually awake for it! After that, cocktails, wine, dinner, laughs and some more bevvies under some starry skies.

What a day. More pics posted here.

Trust The Plan.

Every year, I set goals for myself - both personal and professional. It generally requires putting together a plan on how I am going to achieve these goals with some interim milestones so I can stay on track. 

One of the goals I set for myself was to be able to execute some basic movements that I have eluded me at CrossFit and at yoga for some time. And while I do have rheumatoid arthritis, which puts some physical limitations on me, I have always tried to figure out a modification for a movement I cannot do. But sometimes that obfuscates other issues. 

As I started thinking about goals for 2018, I wanted to re-visit some of the struggles that I have at CrossFit and not worked through. Then make them goals for 2018. One of those things is around safely executing overhead squats. I can get my rear below parallel on front squats with a decent amount of weight but nada for the overhead ones. Another challenge I have is around my wrists and hands, and being able to stay in plank or 'downward dog' for awhile during yoga practice. 

I went to Dr. Paul Molina and Geneva Bender at Kinetic Sports Rehab in mid-December and told them that I wanted to build towards overhead squats and being able to stay in certain yoga poses for an extended period of time. We started on the latter and I have been doing the assigned exercises for 2+ months on my own focusing on my fingers, wrists, forearms, lats, thoracic spine, and shoulders.

I was getting frustrated because I could not notice any meaningful progress based on one of the exercises I was doing. Truthfully, it's hard to see progress when you are doing it every day. I felt a couple of things getting easier at yoga. I did PR a couple of movements at CrossFit this past month (105# clean and push press and 30# dumbbell snatches), but I was focused on those darned wrist rockers. But c'mon Jill, trust the work you have done!

I went in to see Dr. Paul for a check-in. He performed some quick tests on my hands/wrists and informed me that my extension passive range of motion increased around 25 to 35 degrees and my active range of motion increased by 10 degrees. WOW! I was pretty shocked but very happy that the work I was putting in to this was paying off. Dr. Paul also told me not to use the wrist rockers as a litmus test for my progress as it is just something that is hard for many people even without the issues I have. 

Point taken. I should have just trusted the plan I had in place for doing my exercises and had faith that the work I was doing would pay off. I need to come up with more helpful milestones that truly indicate where I am at. So now we are working on the mobility and flexibility issues related to overhead squats and I hope to progress on that as well. Making progress on that front should help my running and my hiking too. Stay tuned as I continue to work on achieving these goals. 

And I'll start trusting the plans I have in place for other aspects of my life.

[Side note: For my 2013 broken hand rehab from the Australian Walkabout, I found a physical therapist named Andrea Bulat. She spent a fair amount of time educating me on what my range of motion should be and to focus on it during my workouts. Andrea was an immense help to Team Beck on a number of fronts, and we were sorry to see her move to Portland. I made so much progress in understanding how I could be a stronger athlete for the long-term thanks to her. I probably never would have had the awareness to set these goals without her help. Same with our friend, Zack Finer, who moved to Boulder - uh oh, is there a trend here? Hmmmm.]

You Can't Hit What You Can't See.

How did we get to the end of January already? Wow. 

Let's start off by commemorating what would have been Grandma Mollie's birthday today and also celebrate the 47th anniversary of Harv and Yvette along with Lisa's birthday, both of which are tomorrow. Good stuff and we will celebrate all of them "west coast style".

One of the things that I have done for most of my adult life was to write down my goals - personal and professional - every year. I wouldn't call them resolutions because I tried to build upon progress from the previous year as opposed to just starting a new behavior from scratch on January 1st. Plus resolutions in January tend to be broken by this time for most people so it just seemed like an exercise that was rooted in setting myself up for failure.

Why do I write down my goals? You can't hit what you can't see. For me, they become much more tangible when I have to look at them regularly and assess my progress on them. 

I didn't track my goals in 2013 because I was starting the 1st quarter of the year in Australia and the point was just go with the flow. And when I came back, I had the whole "unknown broken hand" thing so that just put everything into a chaos. Then for 2014, I was so consumed with launching and growing Upower that I just didn't think I needed to do it. That was a mistake.

So in 2015, I set out some goals which included winding down my involvement with Upower and what I was going to think through during Patagonia Caminada. Things were moving along until mid-April when Marc's "dandruff ball" reared its ugly head and then everything was thrown into chaos on many levels. 

5 months later, I was able to resume getting back to my working towards those goals. I tweaked a couple of them given changed circumstances but they mostly remained intact. What was shocking to me was that when I wrapped up 2015 that I actually made decent progress on what I was trying to achieve. Now how I got to the end point wasn't what I quite envisaged when I set everything out that January, but somehow I got there.

One of my goals last year was to read more books and I succeeded in that. It does help me relax. I finally was able to finish "Hamilton" by Ron Chernow after seeing the play over Thanksgiving. It was a LONG read but worth the effort. I learned quite a bit about that time in American history. I wouldn't say you need to read it before seeing the show but it probably wouldn't hurt given the musical nature of the performance.

Another book I recently wrapped up was "The Time of Our Lives" by Peggy Noonan. It's a series of columns she has put together over her length career as a speechwriter and as an author. One of the columns that was included was about the Challenger disaster 30 years ago and at the time, Noonan was Ronald Reagan's speechwriter. So she had to write a speech rather quickly for him to address the nation with. It was interesting to read the process that went into crafting those words in what was, essentially, on the fly.

[Side note: Another interesting piece Noonan had in her book was around gathering facts when Mt. St. Helens blew in 1980. It was a laugh out loud moment reading how she was able to piece together firsthand accounts.]

All of the news leading up to the Challenger and the story of how Christa McAuliffe was on the shuttle motivated so many people back then to dream big and set high goals. That's where you learn to set goals.... by being inspired by others.

As for how I am doing on my 2016 goals? I'm pretty happy with my progress this far. I know it won't all be upward progress throughout the year. Plateaus will happen due to other priorities or taking time to realize that I need to find a new gear. I'm ok with that. I'll just keep plugging away.

BTW, if you are interested in learning more about the post-mortem surrounding the Challenger disaster, I would encourage you to read this. It's a long read but well worth it.

Adele, Jennifer Lawrence & Emma Stone Follow The Becks

Oh yes. It's true. Read on.

We don't like to travel around Thanksgiving. Generally getting anywhere is a hassle and is way more expensive so why bother. But circumstances from earlier this year surrounding Marc's health forced us to change our travel schedule for the year and so we ended up in NYC for the entire week. 

The line-up of restaurants was pretty deep but the list of people we were seeing was even deeper. We had a pretty ambitious schedule since this was our only trip slated for 2015. We had plenty of family and friends to see, and we were so grateful for the many who could work with our crazy schedule. In terms of catching up with folks, I was inspired on multiple occasions by the risks that some of them are taking personally and professionally. 

As someone who has taken their fair share of risks with mixed results, I know what is involved in making these decisions. Putting yourself out there as a founder/co-founder, trying to execute a career change or making a big life decision is hard work. And even after you make the decision, it's not uncommon to second guess your decision. On my end, it has been a somewhat tumultuous year on a number of fronts. But fortunately over the past 2 months, I've experienced and now see bluer skies ahead.

OK, back to the food and wine. I'm asked regularly on how I find the restaurants we eat at. A few are old stand-bys, a couple are recos from others and the rest I source from either Eater and/or Zagat.

We really didn't have any misses on this trip with respect to the restaurants, although Gabriel Kreuther is a challenge for anyone who is a picky eater. While they did accommodate us without a complaint, they didn't seem to have as many options as other places. I enjoyed the food and the wine, and thought the menu was innovative. The service was excellent.

My faves from this trip were The Modern (Dining Room) and Cosme. As it turns out, Adele, Jennifer Lawrence and Emma Stone were at Cosme the day AFTER we were there. Aren't we just the trend setters? Seriously the food at Cosme was excellent thanks to their signature dish of duck carnitas and if you know me, you know I love duck.

Other places that are worth recommending are Rebelle, Wallflower, Fuku and Orient Express (cocktails). We did enjoy the Todd English Food Hall at The Plaza Hotel, and Toloache. Volare was always Volare. And the breakfast sandwich place, aptly named BEC, was pretty tasty.

The wine list at The Modern was probably one of the best that I have ever seen in terms of diversity. A friend of ours that we met in Sydney, Australia is now the Wine Director there and really recommended some standouts. Well done, Michael, and congrats on all of the accolades.

Thanks to this article in Food and Wine, I was able to bring something different to Mom's Thanksgiving table from The Lobster Place. Score. 

We were very fortunate to get tickets to see "Hamilton" and I was worried that it wouldn't live up to the hype. I was wrong. The lyrics were so well done and the acting/singing was really well executed. I hear the waiting list is LONG to get tickets. It's worth the wait. Go see it. And by the way, I learned some interesting things about Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr in the process. 

Now I have to read Ron Chernow's book on which the musical was based on. Good thing I just finished my last book on Whitey Bulger yesterday on the flight back. Other recent reads include The Forgotten Man by Amity Shales and Enduring Patagonia by Gregory Crouch.

About the Wine We Tasted on #PatagoniaCaminada....

One of the topics we were consistently asked about during #PatagoniaCaminada was about the quality of the wines that we tasted along the way. As with the #AustralianWalkabout, we focused on drinking wines from either Argentina or Chile during the trip. In particular, we tried to focus on Argentine wines in Argentina and Chilean wines in Chile.

Malbec is king in Argentina. At least that is what you hear outside of Argentina. Our experience supports that. Now they do produce other Bordeaux type grapes such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Verdot and some Merlot, but Malbec is the main varietal - particularly in Mendoza. We tasted a couple of wines from Patagonia, which is way south of Mendoza, and they weren't bad. But the best wines we had on the trip were Malbecs from Mendoza. It's not close. Mendoza is also at a pretty high elevation but many of the vintners use vineyards from different elevations. Interesting to see how that impacts the winemaking process and how specific wines age.

Now we also were inadvertently exposed to a white wine, which we both enjoyed known as Torrontes. It's definitely on the sweeter side but technically is considered a dry wine - not a dessert wine. For someone like me, it has plenty of sweetness. For Marc.... eh, not so much. That said, we will be sampling more of these back home.

We had a pretty good idea of where we would be tasting in Mendoza, so while trying wines in restaurants, we wanted to focus on producers that we heard good things about from our friends but not visiting onsite. After a trip to the Rhone in 2004 (where Marc had his "I get it" moment about wine), Marc and I also make an effort to focus on learning about vintners that we can get in the States without too much difficulty as opposed to trying the most esoteric wines but are a nightmare to get imported to Seattle.

We absolutely enjoyed the wines from Catena Zapata, Zuccardi (the lunch at Zuccardi was beyond epic), Achaval Ferrer and O. Fournier. Yes, these are some of the "big dogs" of Mendoza production but the wines were of high quality and very enjoyable. I don't know how much I would age them but they were tasty. And of course, all of these wines went very well with the components of an Argentine 'parrilla' - read: RED MEAT.

On the road, we tasted wines from DiamAndes, Cheval des Andes, Dominio del Plata, Salentein and Alta Vista that were standouts. Most of these, we should be able to get stateside.

As for Chile, it was very hit or miss.... more often a miss. Part of the problem is that we were in remote towns for most of our stay in that country so the caliber of the wines available wasn't super strong. That said, we feel pretty strongly about trying wines from Chile so we have already picked up some wines from a local wine shop to start seeing what we like and do not like.

While we are on the topic of wine, I found some other articles worth reading.

Marc and I have a special affinity for Greece and it seems like their wines are starting to really take shape. We need to try more of these for sure. The title of the linked article is *SO* 'The Wall Street Journal.

I still miss Dottie and John, but Lettie Teague has done well here with some myths about wine in this piece. No question is dumb, so ask if you don't know. Real professionals want to make you feel part of things as opposed to making you feel stupid.

Thinking about joining a wine club? I agree with much of these sentiments. You need to do your homework. I did enjoy the selections from Italian Wine Merchants, when I was a member of their club. It really helped me learn about the types of Italian wines that I am a fan of, plus it helped Marc learn about some of the varietals he was interested in.

The best wine club we have been a part of was from the Sonoma Wine Shop in downtown Sonoma. They customized their selections for each member and really were proactive about taking feedback with respect to style of wines you enjoyed/disliked and price point. 

We outgrew their club but we still recommend it when someone asks about learning about wine. Obviously cultivating a relationship with your local wine shop/grocery store (depending on the state you live in) also can bring great finds.

Questions? Please ask. We're not proclaiming that we are now experts on the wines of Chile and Argentina, but we are just relaying what we observed and learned.

1 Mar: Cerro Aconcagua (ARG).

We woke up to very blue skies and no clouds to be seen, which seemed to be a good omen for our day trip to see Cerro Aconcagua. Aconcagua is one of the 'Seven Summits' and is the highest mountain outside of Asia at almost 23,000 feet. Marc and I actually summited one of these peaks in Australia known locally as Mt. Kozi.

The road we took connects the Atlantic (Buenos Aires) with the Pacific (Valparaiso, Chile) so it is actually well paved (a luxury in Argentina) and heavily traveled by tourists, truckers, etc. We stopped off at Puente del Inca, which is a natural arch that forms a bridge over a local river. The rock formations have some really interesting color combinations and we heard some legends associated with the arch.

Side note: CrossFit always talks about functional fitness. Well on this trip, it has been quite functional when using banos (aka toilets) on the road. The movement I am referring to is the squat, which requires you to shove your rear end back and not push your knees forward. Using some of these "facilities" has required me to really leverage those squatting skills picked up at CrossFit. I know many of our friends are competing in the CrossFit Open, but I have my own competition going on the road....

OK, back to the tour. The Andes in Argentina have 3 sections and they all have different elevations, characteristics, etc. The clear skies made it ideal to appreciate the differences. After 3 hours, we arrived at the Aconcagua Provincial Park at just over 11,000 feet. The skies were still very clear and the mountain had snow on it. It was a gorgeous backdrop.

We did a relatively easy 2 mile circuit, saw some horses bringing supplies down from one of the base camps, and really enjoyed the views. Definitely lucky on the weather. And yes, 2 miles at 11,000 feet is very different than at sea level or even half of that elevation.

After our walk and snapping some photos, we headed back to Mendoza, had more meat (because that's what they do in Argentina) and laughed about the playlist from the driver's CD collection that focused on 80s love songs. Think Peter Cetera, Debbie Gibson, Billy Joel, Spandau Ballet, Michael Bolton, Christopher Cross and Air Supply. I started to get disappointed that I didn't hear any Barry Manilow. We also spent part of the ride back monitoring how our 5 friends (and running buds) were faring in the Napa Marathon. Gotta love technology.

We walked around Mendoza after our tour and it was pretty quiet. The 4th largest city in Argentina pretty much shuts down on Sundays. Marc and I then had dinner at a restaurant called Nadia O.F. within a few blocks of our hotel. For whatever reason, we were the only people there and we left after 11pm. The food was great, the courtyard was pretty and the service was excellent. Our server was able to tell us more about Mendoza and the wine scene, so bonus for us.

Dessert came and Marc spotted a liquer that he was keen on trying with his chocolate, which seemed similar to one of his faves, Nocello. Marc enjoyed the wine to the point where we are going to be throwing out some clothes so we can fit these 3 bottles in our respective backpacks for the trip back home. I stuck with my new favorite "faux dessert wine" - Torrontés.

23 Feb: Torres del Paine National Park (ARG).

In light of yesterday's wonderful discovery around having brown water at the hotel, my first words of the day to Marc were "do we have clean water yet?" Unfortunately the answer was no.

Today's hike was expected to be challenging as we were targeting a vantage point of the Paine Towers that had a final ascent similar to our Laguna de Los Tres trek last week. The weather was cloudy with light rain but anything can happen weather wise in Patagonia, which could be good or bad.

Marc hiked for the 1st 90 minutes to a great viewpoint of the valley and then returned down to the hotel to rest up and continue reading "Ready Player One". I continued on with the rest of the gang. The weather was toying with us for most of the trek out to the towers. Rays of sunshine, rain showers, wind gusts, etc.

Our guide didn't think it made sense to go to our initial target because of the conditions but he did want to take us to a spot to *MAYBE* see the towers without too much difficulty. Low and behold, we caught a glimpse of them in the clouds. Score for us.

Heading back to the Refugio for lunch, we saw the sun shining in the direction of our hotel but not in the direction of the towers. The Refugio is a place where campers stay, shower & eat. It also is a place for day hikers like our group to take a break. By the time we made it back there, we found 2 of our crew engaged in a serious game of Jenga.

The wind picked up quite a bit as the sun continued to come out in the Lake Nordenskjold Valley near the hotel. I went ahead as I wanted to see how Marc was faring at the hotel.

In case you are wondering, windy conditions at your tail as you are going downhill with narrow paths/large drop-offs are less than ideal. I was making progress when I saw the sign for a shortcut. Ahhhh..... Some other word was also on the sign but I knew our hotel had a campground, so I figured it was the same place......

About 10 minutes in, nothing looks familiar but I tell myself to stick with it. Another 10 minutes in, I see my hotel down in the valley but the path I am on is not heading in that direction. I should turn around, right? Sure, but I don't. Now I am almost 40 minutes into this "shortcut" and I am now assessing if I should continue on the path and hitch a ride to the hotel (probably not), head back up the trail to the sign and head down the right path (smart) or identify a way between both paths to see if I can cobble something together (hmmmm).

Note the handwriting in red on the map, which was my "foolproof" plan. :-)

Obviously I went for the brilliant plan of looking across a huge swath of land to see if I could trek down to the proper path without killing myself or getting eaten by a puma. When I started, I gave myself about an 80% chance of success. I immediately thought I was making some progress since I found some horse tracks (aka horsesh**). My logic was if a horse could walk this, so could I. Flawless, right?

I get about 60% across and I am bush whacking trees & branches. No more horse tracks though. I am walking on top of lots of bushes. More swashbuckling brilliance. I then run into a bunch of trees and can't see a thing, so I decide to get to a higher point (slightly going backwards).

I now see that I am about 85% across, so this is good. Progress. Now what about those fighting guanacos or the wild puma that could attack me? Hmmmm. Stay positive, Jill. The other hazard was that if there was an unknown chasm that made it impossible to cross but wasn't visible from my earlier vantage point..... Oh boy.

Fortunately I started hearing familiar voices, which ended up being one of the couples from our tour so I knew I was close. I find a spot to pop out of to get visual confirmation and I traverse some more bushes to get to them. When I yelled out to them, they said, "Where did you come from?" Ah yes....

So thanks to some literal horsesh** along with some schmuckitude, I saved myself from a very dumb move around a "shortcut". We got back and we're talking to a couple of Brits about fitness. She starts talking about burpees and I tell her that she should try CrossFit because why not? The discussion then shifts to me explaining the "shut the car door (with your tush)" as a way of improving squat technique. The gal loved it and then we went our separate ways.

I get back and see Marc. He is in good spirits and looks well rested. I immediately ask to see the map of the park. Then I really got to see what an idiot I was for taking a "shortcut" from a sign in a language that I didn't completely understand.

I guess I should've have listened to my Dad because had I followed his tried and true advice around "staying with the group", my little detour probably would not have happened. Oops.

22 Feb: Ranch --> Argentina/Chile Crossing --> Hike --> Hotel Las Torres

I am writing back-to-back entries because you really want to hear Jill's voice for February 23. Trust me...

We had to get up around 6am so we could eat something before a long day of driving with a departure at 7am. This surely pleased the other guests at the estancia who got to hear several rolling bags echoing through the accommodations but I guess this is something the tour company can manage. We drove 90 minutes on dirt roads to El Calafate where some business got taken care of including Jill mailing actual post cards to some lucky recipients.

The next adventure was crossing from Argentina to Chile via a bus of 12 tourists, a guide, and the driver. The approach to the crossing was gravel road for a while and we arrived at a couple of shacks to exit Argentina. We all filed out of the bus and into one of these shacks without power so we could get the exit stamp placed inside our passports. This wonderful facility lacked visible bathrooms (translation: bring your own TP and go behind the building) and power is from solar panels. But they've been overcast recently and today were working in the dark.

We then drove a couple of km to the Chilean facility which was a fairly modern building with bathrooms in full view of all people waiting to get the entrance stamp in Chile. In addition, we sent all of our bags through a screening machine so you know they had power. They also had some friendly dogs sniffing bags for fruit and other items. Finally, the road became paved beginning right here. The border crossings are definitely indicative of the current situations between Argentina and Chile. Go figure.

After lunch we got to Torres del Paine national park and were given a chance to walk about 4 miles (which took us about 1.5 hours) with some decent elevation gain and then loss along the route. Jill and I witnessed two guanacos fight each other about 30-40 meters from us and then one was chasing the other straight toward us. It avoided us and jumped a fence we were walking near and the chaser stayed on our side so we were pretty close to both of them at this point. Fortunately, they were staring at each other so we slowly walked away along the trail. We certainly didn't need another danger point where "animals were jumping us".

Jill asked about the consumption of guanacos because they seem to be similar in numbers to kangaroos in Australia. Our guide, Claudio, responded that hunting season for them is very limited and mostly not allowed in Chile.

My health meter was about 2/3 before the hike (lots of hacking cough) but dropped to about 1/2 by the end of this little journey. It took a bit out of me. I want to thank everyone for the well wishes in the past few days. I feel like I'm getting better, but I'm also on a strenuous hiking tour that is gonna take something out of even a healthy individual.

Jill brought some books with her (I went all digital on my tablet) and keeps offering them to me before she donates them to wherever we are staying or one of the other tour members. I've read the first chapter of a couple but she handed me "Ready Player One" by Ernest Cline and I got enough to keep going. The number and detail of 80's references in this book is astounding and it's a pretty good read so far (I'm close to halfway today).

We got to the hotel and I decided I needed a shower before yet another late dinner. I ran the water for a while and it was basically light brown - lots of dirt in the water supply. Yay! I needed a shower too much so I just took one.

We had a decent buffet dinner with the group in the restaurant with a good variety of interesting stuff. And the Molten Chocolate Cake was pretty good too for a buffet.

Jill has two compartments locked on her suitcase on travel days and the smaller side compartment was locked but she could not find the key when we arrived here. She basically cleared out all bags and looked through everything trying to find it. After giving up, we asked the front desk if they had bolt cutters and they said they did.

Someone eventually showed up with something resembling pliers with a tiny area that might cut some wire, but not a bolt. The maintenance guy said "un momento" and walked out. This was a long moment (about 10 minutes) but he returned with a real cutting instrument about as long as human arms (NOTE: He was about 2 inches taller than Jill) and had to be careful to cut only the lock and not a good chunk of the entire bag. But he succeeded. And yet, another example of "you can't make this stuff up".

21 Feb: A Day at the Ranch

Despite being sick, I got up for breakfast intent on at least starting the hike. I knew it was up the hill from where we were staying so I could turn around at any point. I think everybody was happy to see me out there. So we started climbing...

It was as steep as two days back (19th) for the optional 2K up/down portion except we had no trail this time. Just tall weeds and loose rocks everywhere. After about 50 minutes straight up, the group was hopping over a fence to continue up the hill. This is where I opted out as I was very tired. I was hoping I had gotten at least halfway up the hill as the hike would go along a ridge eventually and then down and they'd return to the ranch a different way.

I stood and looked at the view for 10-15 minutes and then SLOWLY made my way down, taking almost as much time going down due to all the loose stones that made every step a guess.

The group continued on and Jill referred to it as the same kind of hike that we did on Bluff Knoll a couple of years back in Australia. Just 2+ hours of straight climbing. Apparently this walk also had some false peaks, meaning you thought you were close to the top but were not....

The views ended up being great and someone in our group whipped out a harmonica as they took in the sights from the top. What a cast of characters.

After I got down, I read a book for a while in the lobby and took a short 15-20 minute nap. Jill returned at lunchtime and we all had lunch at the ranch.

The afternoon was our first optional time so we took a short, flat walk while taking some photos and then caught some members of the group going for a horseback ride. I took photos of the group on multiple cameras for them.

We then went back and slept for a while (I slept 2 hours)... 

Jill started packing and then so did I so that we could make the journey from Argentina to Chile the following day. Some folks went to see a sheep shearing while we hung in the lobby for dinner. The restaurant for the evening was in a different building on the property. They roasted a lamb for hours before we got there and the food was fairly good although the lamb was overcooked.

And I went to bed hoping to see health improvement by walking out my cough and then napping a lot. I was also hoping the down day mostly driving would give me some time to recuperate as well.

16 Feb: Ushuaia (ARG) --> Faro del Fin du Mundo (ARG) --> Ushuaia (ARG).

Warning: We have a long one here - all for good reasons, we promise. And a pro travel tip towards the end.

We woke up to find that it had snowed on the glacier that we had hiked up yesterday. I know that most of our readers are in the Northern Hemisphere where snow is normal this time of year, but it is summer where we are. We were told that even though we are 600 short miles to Antarctica that this was abnormal.

Our schedule had us booked for a boat tour of the Beagle Channel. It was unseasonably cold and wet, plus the boat was late. Not a whole lot of reasons for optimism. About 30 minutes into the ride, the skies cleared to showcase clear blue with snowcapped Andes in the background. Score! What stunning landscape! Our guide for the boat trip spoke excellent English. I asked her where she learned the language and she said it was from watching the show "Friends". Whatever works because she was handling all sorts of questions without any problems.

We were cruising on the Beagle Channel, which splits up Chile and Argentina, while connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. Ushuaia is roughly halfway in the channel. One of our stops was to "Faro del Fin du Mundo", which translates to something like "the end of the world". Along the way, we saw sea lions, cormorants and kelp geese. Fun fact about the comorants is that if the female decides that she doesn't like her male mate that she "can fire him" while the male doesn't have that same option. Interesting concept.

It remained pretty clear as we headed back to town, so we have a ton of amazing pictures from the cruise. For lunch, I had more of the centolla but with a local preparation called 'Fuegian' which had paprika and bechamel. Yum! Lots of local seafood in Ushuaia, so I am taking advantage before we head back inland. After we lunch, we met our hiking guide for the afternoon in Tierra del Fuego (TdF) National Park.

Martin, our guide, has spent a few summers in Seattle. Small world, eh? He has done plenty of local hikes, told us about how he loves Walrus & Carpenter and El Gaucho. As we start hiking, he tells us about watching the Fremont Solistice Parade. Then Martin tells us that he got out of a parking ticket that he received at REI by explaining to the City of Seattle that he is from a small village in Argentina where penguins roam the streets. Apparently it worked. Marc and I were laughing a lot at this stage. We're clearly in the world of "You Can't Make This Stuff Up".

The border between Argentina and Chile is pretty tight in this area, so while we didn't venture into Chile, we learned that one side of Cerro Condor is in Argentina and the other is in Chile. We hiked up to the end of the Pan-American Highway, which starts in Alaska and goes almost 18000 kilometers! Guess we have to go to the other end at some point. Martin explained that the area of Tierra del Fuego started out as a prison colony for Argentina, similar to Tassie in Australia. That said, they never sold prison uniforms as souvenirs in Tassie as they did here. Weird.

As Marc mentioned yesterday, we weren't expecting a challenging hike yesterday and were caught a little flat footed without our trekking poles. I have new ones for this trip but 'Frick' and 'Frack' from the Australian Walkabout are back for fun and adventure. The new trekking poles have been christened 'Lucy' and 'Ethel'. You will be seeing them a bunch over the next 10-12 days.

The southern provinces in Argentina have a complicated history due to the Islas Malvnias conflict with Great Britain and the zig-zag border with Chile. Martin explained some of it as we traversed 6+ miles of the park. Then he starts talking about how early we eat dinner in Seattle. Basically his routine was eating dinner with friends at 6:30pm and then calling Pagliacci Pizza for a delivery at 10pm since they are the only ones who deliver "that late" in Seattle.

Given Marc's history as a Gaucho from UCSB, he has been very keen to hear more authentic stories about Argentine Gauchos. He asked Martin about it, who responds with telling us about a festival that is like a "Gaucho Lollapalooza". Ha! We hadn't heard that festival name in a LONG time (yep, we're old). More laughs. Sadly, we had to say goodbye to Martin as we went off to dinner but promised to keep in touch in the event he is back in Seattle. I should have added that both of us tried the local Argentine bevvie of mate (mah-tay) today. Not bad but I prefer tea and Marc will probably stick to coffee.

We grabbed dinner at a highly recommended place called Kaupe and I tried a new fish called hake served ceviche style. Very tasty. Marc had a epic dessert by his standards, which of course involved dulce de leche. I agree - it was really good and I am not a caramel fan. We tasted our 1st Syrah from Zonda Valley and we also had a dessert wine made from Malbec grapes, which makes sense since we are in Argentina.

The restaurant summoned us a taxi and the lesson to be learned here is that when you are traveling in a region where you do not speak the local language, you should learn how locals pronounce the name of the hotel you are staying at. We went back and forth with our very nice taxi driver because we misplaced the stationery that had the hotel's name and address. Finally I pointed up the hill in the direction of the hotel and said the name again along with "ascenscio". Maybe that was a Harry Potter magic command? Who knows, but it worked. [Late update: it was - oops.] We were back at the hotel in under 10 minutes.

What a fun day all around.

10 Feb: San Pedro de Atacama (CHI).

Gosh, that alarm going off at 0430 local time hurt. We're 5 hours ahead of Seattle, slept little on the plane & didn't get to bed until late. But we had to go meet our guide to watch the sunrise at El Tatio, the highest geyser field in the world at 14000+ feet.

The sky was full of stars until we crossed the cloud line at roughly 12000 feet. The 2 hour drive was all dirt road so pretty bumpy with no lights. A true adventure. Glad someone else was driving even if Rocco, our guide, thought stop signs were optional being from Italy and all.

Our intrepid efforts were rewarded with an epic sunrise over the Andes. Rocco picked a spot that was pretty quiet while all of the bigger vehicles went to the other side of the park. It was a balmy -1C so I chose to jump into the thermal pool after the sunrise. Seems crazy but I expected it to be colder!

That said, when you get out of the car to walk around at that altitude, you feel it. I didn't get sick but I did feel lightheaded. The geysers don't have the power of Old Faithful at Yellowstone, but it was still an impressive sight. We saw vicuñas roaming the area, which was an added bonus.

We had some brekkie and Rocco wanted to show us a more remote geyser field that is closed to the public (or at least the signs saying 'peligro' made me wonder). "Mud Geyser" lived up to its name. Beautiful, remote and muddy.

On the way back, we saw some llamas, local birds & flamingos walking around. We grabbed lunch, rested a bit, and then hit Salar de Atacama and Chaxa Lagoon for some more wildlife watching. 3 different types of flamingos were out flying around. They are differentiated by color.

Then we had a flashback to Australia when a herd of sheep randomly crossed the road in front of us. We also stopped by a neighboring village, which had a historic church with many artifacts brought over from Spain.

The weather was crappy in the evening for the 2nd night in a row, which was putting our visit to Valle de la Luna in jeopardy. This location was the main reason we ventured to Atacama! I suggested to the guys that since the morning weather has been clear that maybe we should go against convention & try for sunrise.

Rocco & Alex thought it was worth a shot so they agreed. After dinner, we ventured back & I stayed up way too late reading a book "I Am Pilgrim". Let's hope the lack of sleep & sunrise at Valle de la Luna work out for us on Wednesday!

Wait, Jill Is Doing Yoga And Liking It?

Over the summer, I noticed a couple of my friends trying out the new yoga studio in the neighborhood. Now these friends are people that I workout with at CrossFit so I was intrigued. Yoga and CrossFit? Running too?

As a runner, I have always known that yoga could help me because I may be the most inflexible (hey now, I was talking physically!) person on the planet. But the one time I tried it in 2003 just made me feel like a loser with no hope of making progress due to my rheumatoid arthritis.

Last October, I asked my friend, Lissa, about it and stressed that "I wasn't into the whole kumbaya thing. I just wanted to stretch and stuff." As good friends typically do, she agreed to meet me at the studio one morning and she showed me the ropes.

The instructor that morning was one of the owners and was briefed on my very novice status. He was gracious and helpful, but made it easy for me to understand in a full room of participants. I sweated in class. I looked like I went swimming in my workout clothes. Rookie mistake was not bringing a change of clothes because it's hot yoga. But I was intrigued.

What if? What if I gave it a fair shake and tried to use it to get warmed up before a lifting session across the street at CrossFit? What would happen?

Well I started enjoying that I had to totally focus when executing poses. I liked that the instructors would come over & subtly give me a modification to help me get more out of a pose. I am still adjusting to the non-verbal interaction in the practice (aka class) so I need to remember questions to ask afterwards.

Oh, I started to lift more weight. I crushed 6 previous PRs at CrossFit that I had trouble working through in 2014.

And then some of the yoga instructors would talk trash before/after class even though they are Canadian (that's for you, CP).

I never thought I would be a person who would look forward to the silence & focus of yoga, but here I am. I'm one of those people. But I still love running with my friends and I still love lifting weights. It's fitting it all in that is the problem!!!

Next week, Marc and I are off on another adventure. It won't be as long as the Australian Walkabout but we're hoping it will be just as fun! We're fortunate enough to do these things every once in awhile. It's also the reason for dusting off the blog. I'm trying a new tool for blogging from the iPad.

Go try something new & test yourself. You may not love it. That's fine. At least you could say you tried it. Then again, you never know what you can get out of it if you give it a go.

Nah-mah-stay.

Bringing 2013 To A Close (Oh, and Becks Are Now Employed).

It is amazing that 2013 is almost done. Fortunately for Marc and I, it was mostly a pretty phenomenal year and we are incredibly grateful for that.

We had the Australian Walkabout for 3+ months, which was an awesome experience and way more worthwhile than we ever could have hoped for.

We watched our parents get healthier and defy their respective ages. We also made our brother-in-law a CrossFit convert after he resisted for so long. :-)

We hosted another successful "Open That Bottle Night" (after we did one in Australia!!!) and JDRF dinner, and we had "Beck The Halls" storm back into our lives with a vengeance! Our families and our friends continue to make us chuckle and to be supportive of our endeavors.

We had visitors from all over, including 4 of our nephews and nieces. We got to spend Thanksgiving in NY and Christmas in SoCal, both of which were so much fun.

We mostly remained injury-free to pursue our fitness activities around swimming, running and CrossFit.

The decision to close Purple Teeth Cellars. Yes, this is a positive thing because we were able to close the business down on our terms so we can focus on other projects going forward.

We both found jobs that we are excited about (more below). It was worth taking the time off and then taking our time to find opportunities that we are passionate about.

And most importantly, we are both healthy and very thankful for that.

Some of the "not so great" things in 2013 include:

The broken hand and recovery with the "purple claw".

3 of our close friends being diagnosed with some form of breast cancer. Fortunately they all seem on the road to recovery. But HUGE dislike here.

The Yankees and the New York Giants 2013 campaigns (ok, this only negatively impacts one of us for this one and truthfully - not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things).

So in reality, it was a very good year for the Becks.

I'll let Marc decide if he wants to talk about his role, but he is happy and excited which is all that matters to me.

About 3+ months ago, I asked a close friend if she wanted to move forward on an idea that we had only talked about in passing. She said yes pretty quickly, which was pretty exciting but a little scary.

Reason it was a little scary was that this is a completely new space for me. We have created a non-profit called "uPower" that will focus on getting underprivileged kids in Seattle to after-school fitness activities. My role is "Executive Director" - aka the "GSD" person. The initial emphasis will be working with local CrossFits here in Seattle and pairing up with local schools.

It's been a busy few months trying to get this off of the ground, but we have made a ton of progress. You won't find a website yet as that is still in development, but behind-the-scenes... trust me, I have been busy working with my co-founder on building the best infrastructure we can so we are hopefully in a position to scale this concept properly. 

I am fortunate to have an awesome Board of Directors to help me out so we can move this concept forward. We are lucky to have a network of people who can connect us with experts as we get more educated on a myriad of topics. And yes, it's a whole new subject matter for me but I am embracing the challenges ahead.

So with that, onward to next year. Hoping for all of you to have a wonderful 2014!

Purple Teeth Cellars Update.

[NOTE: This post was entitled "All Good Things Must Come To An End" on the Purple Teeth Cellars website.]

When you have something special to you, it seems as though the most important thing is knowing when to move on to the next chapter. And with mixed emotions, we're announcing that we have completed the process of closing down Purple Teeth Cellars.

Words cannot express how much this venture has taught us. When we started this in late 2006, we wanted to make wine that we would want to drink. And we succeeded. We also went into this project knowing this WAS NOT going to be our exit strategy from our "day jobs" because we wanted to have fun. We achieved that.

When we started promoting our wine to our family and friends in different channels, we quickly realized that we were becoming a resource for many who were just learning about wine.

We resolved to stay true to the advice we would have given if we weren't making and selling wine. We did that and strongly encouraged folks to "drink what YOU like", not what the experts TELL you to like. Hopefully we accomplished that in your eyes.

We had the opportunity to understand what being an entrepreneur really means with our names essentially being "on the letterhead". We also learned how incredibly hard it is to make high quality wine in meaningful quantities year-in and year-out. We were able to donate some of our revenues to JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation), which is a non-profit that we strongly support. And we had the "pleasure" of selling wine during a recession where plenty of supply was available. Fortunately we were able to sell all of the wine that we wanted to sell. Obviously we held some back for ourselves.

We would like to thank folks like "Z", Kian and Gifford for their tireless efforts in getting Purple Teeth Cellars off of the ground. You always answered our "dumb questions" and really understood the meaning of customer service whether or not the problem was in your job description. In what is no surprise to us, "Z" went to university with some of the best winemakers in Australia and thanks to him, we were able to meet many of them on our recent trip there.

We would like to thank our family and friends who provided feedback to us as we were starting off, particularly as we were struggling with our logo. Special thanks to Jill's former manager, Chris, who gave us the most value-added and direct piece of feedback on the logo. This then led to Jill's sister coming up with an idea that we were then able to pass off to cousin Andrea to play with.

We would like to thank the countless industry professionals who were very supportive of our venture, but still provided very constructive feedback on our offering and how we could improve what we were doing. The time, energy and passion that they spent on Purple Teeth Cellars was incredibly instrumental in some of the decisions we made.

And most of all, we would like to thank our customers who bought from us time and time again. Without you, we wouldn't have been able to learn as much as we did. Your business, your feedback and your support really is what made this experience worthwhile.

Closing this chapter enables us to focus on new adventures, one of which was a wonderful 3+ month trip around Australia. No need to fret or be sad for us. 

And please don't forget to flaunt your PURPLE TEETH!

Thanks again and happy holidays.

-- Marc and Jill Beck

"Green" by R.E.M. is 25 Years Old.... Wha????

Yes, that awesome album/CD/tape (whatever format you had when it came out) is now 25 years old. How the heck did THAT happen? Wow. It's 5 o'clock somewhere, right? Of course I will age myself some more and indicate that this brings me back to the years of Massapequa High School... Oy!

Many of our regular readers are baseball fans. And almost every baseball fan complains about how absurd the scheduling is for their respective team. Great little "30 for 30" on the husband and wife team who did the scheduling by hand.

I wouldn't say that I am a huge NBA fan. I lost interest in the Knicks thanks to the idiocy of James Dolan and his blind loyalty to Isiah Thomas. I know some of the players, particularly the ones on the marquee teams, like the Miami Heat. I was pleasantly surprised to come across this article by Chris Bosh in WIRED about the virtues of being able to write code. He also mentioned an interesting non-profit called 'code.org', which has some really interesting ideas about incorporating programming into education. Check it out.

Remember the adage "don't run 1/2 marathons on back-to-back weekends"? You don't? That's probably because most people do not need someone to tell them that. They just are smart enough not to do it! Unlike moi. Yep, ran the Snohomish River Run the week after the Nike 1/2 Marathon and let's just say it was a fight the whole way. Legs had no mojo and missed my PR by ~40 seconds. A bit disappointing, but given that I was sick for most of October and the hard 13.1 the previous week (even though it wasn't race pace), I can't complain too much.

Final races for the year seem to be a 5K in about a week and a 4-miler about a week later. Then I think I will be good. I look forward to spending some time building up at CrossFit and working on a project that has been in the works for a few weeks.

We have been doing some fun things on the home cooking front. Picked up a new cookbook from "Gramercy Tavern", a long time favorite of mine in New York. Then I do some experimenting with a cookbook from a wonderful place in Sydney that we ate at called "Quay". 

One of the birthday gifts that Marc picked up for me was "Modernist Cuisine At Home". Interesting take on cooking because it is written as if cooking is more about the science as opposed to some of the art involved. I like a little bit of both. We actually went to an exhibit currently showing at the Pacific Science Center showcasing some of the photography used in the book. Definitely unique.

Even with all of the science, I have been able to use the cookbook on a few recipes over the past couple of months and look forward to using it for a dish in celebration of a close friend's birthday. Lucky me!

Nike San Francisco Race Report.

Considering the "Australian Walkabout" and the subsequent "broken hand incident and recovery", my expectations for racing this year were pretty low. A friend asked me when I came back if I wanted to throw our names in the lottery for the Nike 1/2 in San Fran and for some reason, I said "sure, why not?" 

Yes, you get a Tiffany necklace at the end instead of a finisher's medal, and it is handed to you by a very handsome member of the SF Fire Department. BUT there are hills. And they are steep. Oh, the course is congested because 30,000+ people get accepted into this race. I thought that we are never getting in. Until. of course, we did in late June. OK, time to get real about training.

Training was going pretty well thanks to TN until late September when a cold/sore throat came and still hasn't completely left. This impacted some of my training so Coach and I made a call to make Nike SF a "training run" and use a local race the following week as my "A" race.

Thank goodness I met up with one friend running the race the day before as she informed me that the race started at 6:30am, not 7am. OK, now that would have sucked. But yeah, early start. Got up at 5am so I could chow a Kind bar and drink a bit of water. Always helpful being a 1/3 of a mile from the start. Easy walk over. Bit cool and dark since race started at 630am. Took a gel 5 mins before go time, sipped some water, etc. Had 2 water bottles with me, and the plan was to meet Marc at mile 7 for 2 more bottles. Had 3 more gels with me.

I've never not raced a race (double negative, I know) before, so I was curious to see how I would rise to this challenge. The goal was to run it, stay in z2 and work on some fueling, tactics, etc. Be conservative in those 1st 7 miles, recover on the downhills and don't skimp on the fueling. As a side note, when people asked me my goal, I said that if I got in under 1:55 that I would be ecstatic but 2 hours would be a solid effort. This is not a PR course by any stretch so getting that expectation out of my head was helpful.

CP and I started slow. It's a mob scene with 30000 other runners and the whole Team in Training thing makes things worse since they let slower runners go first. But we tried to stay conservative and not weave in/out. I made a conscious decision to go on feel, so I did not check my HR. 1st 4 miles were pretty easy. A couple of spurts here and there based on little climbs, etc. My splits seemed reasonable.

At the end of mile 4, CP slowed down as she had a plantar issue and I pressed on. Mile 5 was a bit quick since there was some subtle downhill, but I didn't feel like I pushed harder. Just tried to maintain effort. Popped in a gel a 30 minutes to prep for the hill.

At mile 5.84, the big climb started. Yes, I took note because I knew it was a mile of straight uphill. With about a 1/2 mile left of the climb, I started to walk a little. Popped in a gel. I tried not to pay attention to pace on the hill. CP caught me and I dropped her off with Marc, got 2 more bottles and went on. BTW it was foggy and the weather was really perfect for racing.

I got over the hill and saw my split was 9:55. I was pretty happy about that. To get through that with a walk break under 10 minutes was pretty darned good. I saw plenty of people going crazy on the downhill and thought "suckers".... they are going to get crushed in about 10 minutes. Yep, passed them later on. That advice about using the downhill to recover just like we practiced in track really paid off. I used the down time to start doing the math on getting in under 2 hours. Before I knew it, it was time to climb again through the rollers in a gorgeous neighborhood known as Sea Cliff. 

I kept pushing and again, on the final big hill, I took a walk break and popped in my final gel. Again back to the downhill, more steep, but I kept it under control. A tiny bit faster than the last one since the next uphill wasn't too bad, etc.  Sub 2 was definitely doable if I pushed a little on the next uphill. I knew I could pick off people in miles 11-12 as people were going to be tired, displeased about a subtle yet annoying hill and their legs were going to be pissed off from going nuts on the downhill. The last mile is mostly downhill, and I went in seeing if I could get in at 1:57. Ultimately, my calves cramped up at 12.5 so I just tried to remain steady and finish strong. I did that. I felt good from a cardio perspective in the last 3 miles, which I imagine was a result of the conservative 1st half and not being stupid on the downhills.

Official time: 1:58:19 -- a 14+ minute improvement from when I did this same race (same course) in 2008. Not bad for a tune-up race. And I placed pretty well. Hit 5% in my age group and 7% overall. Not bad, Beck.

And now I get to do it all over again in 6 days. Stretching will be my mantra this week.

Phil the Thrill.

I wouldn't say I am a huge golf fan, compared to say baseball or football (US), but after taking up the game once I moved to Seattle, I definitely started to appreciate it more. I never was a fan of Tiger Woods. He just always seemed to be arrogant and a poor sport, especially given how much success he had playing golf and how much money he made as a result. The events in late 2009 only cemented my disdain for him. His conduct on the course has finally become a topic for discussion, which was well overdue since it seemed like sportscasters just kissed his rear for fear of angering Tiger. Oooh.

My beloved grandmother, Mollie, was a Phil Mickelson fan. I remember watching the US Open with her in 2002 on Father's Day when it was played just down the road from us at Bethpage Black. I somehow became a Phil fan on that Sunday afternoon even though he lost to Tiger. He just always seemed like he knew that he had it really good and knew his role was to golf and entertain the fans. And he played to win, and not just collect a paycheck.

Phil can be maddeningly frustrating to watch. Winged Foot. Merion. But when he pulls something out of nowhere, you get just as rewarded. His win yesterday at the Open Championship was a shock and thoroughly enjoyable. And he has done something Tiger hasn't - Phil knows how to win majors from behind. 

I have no idea what Phil is like in private, but I know that he realizes his job is to be with the fans and thank them for supporting the game, in addition to golfing. I like that. I LOVE that he doesn't slam his club down when he hits a poor shot, swear incessantly after a mishit, and doesn't treat interviewers like garbage when he has a bad round.  So congrats, Phil, and I know Mollie had a celebratory G&T "upstairs" in your honor.

Of course we have the other side of the spectrum in bad behavior in Ryan Braun, who finally admitted to taking PEDs. I hope the sample collector who Braun demonized and caused to lose his job sues the pants off of him. Braun was so adamant about the collection process being flawed and blaming this person that one can hope that karma comes back to Braun's checkbook. Speaking of reformed cheaters, I always wonder if Lance Armstrong ever apologized to Emma O'Reilly after making her life miserable?  

Moving back to being positive, I had a good week on the running front. I actually hit my assigned paces/HR zones on my runs this past week, so I am incredibly pleased. The work is paying off, but we have so much more work to do to get me where I need to be for my race. My stretching program is helping and more routine, so that is good. I definitely got inspired watching my former coach race and place 2nd in her age group in yesterday's Lake Stevens 70.3 Ironman.

Moving on to food, we were able to hit Crush for dinner -- one of Marc's faves. We chatted with Jason (chef and owner) about his new restaurant, our visit to Quay in Sydney and the awesomeness of the Big Green Egg. Really great restaurant with the food and service, plus we opted to sit at the bar so we saw some of the interesting prep they do in the kitchen.

I signed us up for a Gluten-Free Doughs class (focused on pasta) at the Pantry at Delancey. It wasn't Paleo-oriented but it was good to learn a few more tricks when working with non-traditional flours when making pasta/dumplings from scratch. We only wished that the class started at 5:30pm instead of 6:30pm because we didn't eat until 9:15pm, which is a tad late for us. I don't think we're at the "early bird special" stage yet, but still... we're not in NYC either. That said, I am somewhat inspired to experiment some more on this front with Paleo "doughs". Stay tuned for more in this space after last year's sweet potato gnocchi (success after FIVE attempts!)

I also attempted some other dishes in the kitchen last week. Two of them are Paleo versions of existing recipes from 'Avec Eric' by Eric Ripert and 'Simply Ming One Pot Recipes' by Ming Tsai. A third night consisted of a meal from 'Practical Paleo' by Diane Sanfilippo so obviously no versioning required to make it Paleo.

My Australian Summary

Great time and I'm sure I forgot some things.

* +Jill is now known as "Aussie J". That was her nickname on my temporary phone over there.

Best (no particular order)

  Days

    * Great Ocean Road

    * Great Barrier Reef

    * Wilson's Promontory

    * Cradle Mountain / Dove Lake

    * Flight over SW Tasmania and boat ride while out there (wow!)

    * Whitsunday Islands - 3x snorkeling in single day

  Nights

    * New Years Eve

    * Open That Bottle Night

  Wine Regions

    * Barossa

    * Margaret River

    * McLaren Vale

  Sights/Tours (not already mentioned)

    * Ferry system in Sydney Harbour

    * Pinnacles

  Pools (in order)

    * Andrew Charlton Pool (clean)

    * North Sydney Olympic Pool (view/location)

    * Icebergs - Bondi Beach Pool (stunning but cold)

Worst (no order)

  Days

    * King's Canyon --> Alice Springs via Tour Bus (talk about boring and trapped)

    * Fraser Island --> Mackay via car (too long with last 90 minutes dark and animals lurking)

    * Fraser Island (not that great in general other than Champagne Pools)

    * Mount Kosciuszko (drenching rain & no visibility == miserable)

  Nights

    * Fraser Island (salty starter AND main for dinner. yuk.)

    * Daintree (mosquitos)

  Wine Regions

    * Mornington Peninsula

    * Heathcote (there is good stuff here)

    * Grampians area

    * Tasmania

  Sights/Tours (not already mentioned)

    * MONA in Tasmania

    * Bike tour in Melbourne (too much bike WALKING)

2 Apr.: Sydney (NSW) --> "Back In Time" to what should be DFW (US) and then --> SEA (US).

It's time.

Yes, it is that day that we weren't necessarily looking forward to but has arrived. The day when we go home to Seattle. Of course, we are a little blue for our "Australian Walkabout" to end but we are so lucky that we have memories to last a lifetime. We can't complain.

We have definitely been doing much thinking about things around favorites - hike, run (Jill), swim (+Marc), restaurant, wine, city, wine region, best FB comment (the usual), etc. The list can go on and on. We agree on some and differ on others, which is to be expected. But it's fun having that debate. Anything you want to know a favorite of (keep it PG-13, kids... we have a diverse set of friends on here)?

Today actually got off to a great start for us in different ways. Marc went for a swim at the North Sydney Olympic Pool, where he first swam and got to see the sunrise as he walked over the Sydney Harbour Bridge (save the suspense, yes more Sydney Opera House photos). 

Somehow when we "closed out the rum bar" the other night, +Jamie and I hatched a plan to go for an early morning run today. I mentioned randomly that I wanted to check out a run course mapped by a local magazine going along Sydney Harbour, and Jamie jumped out of his chair (well almost) saying that is his regular run that he does to/from work and would take me this morning. We started at his place in Bondi Beach and went all the way into downtown Sydney going along the water much of the way. The skies were blue and the sun was shining. Fabulous way to bring this to a close.

As we sit on the plane waiting to leave, we want to thank you for tuning in on this adventure. It has been more than we ever could have hoped for and we have gotten so much out of it. A separate thank you post will go out upon our return to the many people who helped us out near and far.

It's time to go home and we're very keen on reconnecting with family and friends. Thanks again for tuning in.

Signing off from 'Down Under',
Marc and Jill

P.S. -- We'll see you on the other side.