Day 6: Lima, Peru --> Quito, Ecuador

Crazy drive through neighborhoods with hired driver from hotel. He knew where he was going and how to avoid backups by getting off main road for sketchy side areas. But definitely most aggressive driver we've had and slightly scary to experience although having watched several days of traffic not completely on the extreme. Good news when we got to airport his company has special entrance right to the front door. Taxis go with crazy regular traffic jam into lot.

Line to check bags had less people waiting than total places to check it. Super fast! Then international boarding line was about the same - straight through ticket/passport check then maybe 10 people putting bags on belt in front of us. I was amazed given we didn't have TSA pre check option.

This photo was taken at the GPS equator at 4:03 pm. Check out the shadow! You’ll read about GPS precise location and the magnetic location (we visited both - they’re only a few hundred meters apart).

Flight was maybe 85% full with empty seat next to us and clouds covering view of the Andes most of the way (sad for the window viewer in me). Jill found us some Priority Pass food for free (thanks Jill & Amex Platinum) before boarding. Restaurant was right next to our gate and we both chose a decent sandwich. Then we were offered a "coffee break" sandwich on board while flying which was nowhere near as good but I took one and basically ate the ham/cheese inside but left most of the bread alone.

Mario picked us up to take us to Mitad del Mundo - Middle of the World, Equatorial Line. The area next to the Lima airport is chaotic. The area next to Quito is perfectly paved roads and a sense of order.

We started at the reservation that has the digital gps latitude of 00°00'00" and learned a lot on tour there taking lots of fun photos. They stamped our passports at the end of the tour with a special stamp. Then we went to the magnetic monument area built by the French a while ago retaking photos of "the line" and structure for the second time. I preferred the first spot perhaps because of the tour although she shared depressing stuff like head shrinking and fish that swim into your urethra if you piss while swimming in the amazon river. She further enhanced the tour by telling us that when men died they'd be buried in pottery that was burned and if the wife was alive, she was buried with him alive. Very uplifting.

Getting to the hotel around 5:30 as well as going to dinner at 7:30 basically involved sitting in traffic for over an hour to go maybe 3 miles. And you get to breathe high quality exhaust the entire time. Welcome to peak traffic hours.

We went to Osaka for dinner in the traffic. It took us a while to decompress, but the food was delicious. I got a beef nikudito and pork belly main while Jill ordered several items to try and seemed to enjoy them all. Then I got a chocolate volcano dessert that was a good ending.

Day 5: Lima, Peru.

We started out the day with a tour of Pachacamac, which are Incan ruins just outside of the city limits of Lima. On the way out to the site, our guide, Ursula, explained about how bad the traffic is in the city and how it can take her almost 2 hours to go under 20km from her house to where all of the hotels are on a given weekday. We also spent a fair bit of time talking about all of the amazing food to take in while in Lima. She encouraged us to come back to Peru and visit other regions of the country as their cuisine is very different and just as wonderful. Let’s just say I concur.

During the drive, we also talked about the recent elections from Sunday and how mandatory voting has pros and cons. A con is that many people do not care to get educated about the candidates and/or the issues, so they just vote for “whatever is easiest” so they don’t get a fine from the government. We also discussed the complicated legacy of Alberto Fujimori, the former President of Peru, who made a lot of tough choices that benefitted the people of Peru but also got the corruption bug in the latter part of his tenure.



We arrived at Pachacamac and walked around the various archeological sites that have been unearthed to date. The site was first settled around A.D. 200 and was named after the "Earth Maker" creator god. It flourished for about 1,300 years until the Spanish invaded. We saw pyramids, which are not in the style of the Egyptian ones that most people think of when they hear that word. The main pyramid that we were able to walk around was the “Temple of the Sun”, which has sweeping views of the Pacific Ocean.

After walking around that location, Ursula took Marc and I down to the Recinto de Mamacones. The area was an enclosed space in which the prettiest young girls would be trained to be either the wives of nobility, sort of nuns and lastly sacrificial offerings. We saw some men working on drawing sketches of Incan artifacts that had been recently unearthed, which was pretty cool to observe.

We headed back to the car and drove back into Lima, where Marc and I were going to be dropped off for lunch for traditional Peruvian chicken. Yesterday I called “an audible”  our lunch plans for today after Ellie, our guide from a couple of days ago, started talking about Peruvian chicken. I couldn’t believe I didn’t make the connection for our trip because our neighbor makes Peruvian chicken and it is one of my favorites (she actually made it for my birthday this year!). And based on Marc’s epic performance on eating lots of seafood yesterday both at lunch and at dinner and admitting it was “pretty good”, I figured he deserved a break from creatures of the sea. So I switched our reservation to a chicken place recommended by Lourdes, our guide from the food tour on Sunday.

Ursula somehow encountered very little traffic on the way back into town, so Marc and I went for a walk in a residential neighborhood called San Borja with lots of greenways and parks. It was a bit humid but it was nice to still be on our feet and see a different section of Lima. We then got to lunch at Don Tito’s and the roasted Peruvian chicken was epic. The sauces, including the one with aji chiles, did not disappoint. The place had a great atmosphere and I think we were the only non-locals in there and based on our lack of Spanish speaking skills, we were fortunate that the menu is very simple. LOL.

After lunch, it was good that we had about a 40 minute walk back to the hotel. After getting most of our packing done, I decided to head to the gym to torture myself some more. Of course, we then had to test out some of the chocolate that we made yesterday. It’s not easy being us but we try to persevere in these circumstances.

Dinner tonight was at Rafael in the Miraflores neighborhood. Marc and I decided to go “a la carte” as opposed to the “tasting menu” track, and we were rewarded for that choice. We both enjoyed all of our dishes, although Marc said that Sunday’s version of the “arroz con pato” was a tad better than what he had tonight. So we spent time analyzing the differences between the two so I could attempt to replicate whatever he thought was awesome at home. 

We also sat next to a lovely couple from Lima who said that Rafael was their fave restaurant and gave us some pro tips on dessert. I also really appreciated it how when I asked the server for a reco between the ceviche and the tiradito dishes that he didn’t hesitate and chose the former. Plus Marc had some unique choices for rum and I had the opportunity to enjoy a Malamado dessert wine from Zuccardi in Mendoza (for newer members of this blog, Marc and I are very “pro-Zuccardi” - here is why). All in all, a fun evening.  

We are sad to be leaving Lima but we are excited for the next phase of Operation Cincuenta. Plus I have some great inspiration for cooking at home! Thanks for tuning in so far!

For more pics, please click here.

Day 4: Lima, Peru (ChocoMuseum)

We started the day a little earlier with breakfast so that we could walk about an hour before starting our chocolate bean to bar making class at ChocoMuseum. We walked South out of the hotel in the San Isidro area along neighborhood streets heading into the Miraflores area. The streets interconnect at strange angles in places and I slightly lost track of the direct route so by the time we crossed Av Jose Pardo we were further West than I had planned but only 7 minutes too far that direction so we still made it in time to start the class without a problem.

Marcelo was our instructor and was great. He talked us through the cacao plant and where they grow in the world (equatorial regions in South America and Africa). We tasted an opened one that had a gooey white stuff that was slightly sweet. That fruity and sticky white stuff is fermented with the beans for almost a week and then the beans are removed so that they can be dried in the sun. For most chocolate growing regions, this is where they bag and sell the beans to countries like Switzerland and the United States to finish the process into various chocolate products.

So we started the chocolate bar making process by roasting the beans about 15+ minutes constantly stirring until you could begin to hear popping like popcorn. After these cooled on the counter in front of us, there were about 25 beans for me, Jill, and Marcelo. We cracked the roasted beans and put the outer shell into one bowl and the inner bean into another bowl. We used the shell portion to make a tea with. While it was seeping, we used some mortars and pestles to grind the beans. The goal is to grind for a long time into a paste such that you can actually separate the cocoa butter from the cocoa powder but Jill and I were not as experienced as Marcelo nor did we have enough time to just keep doing that. He looks like a paste at least - ours were still just fine grains but we had to move on from there.

So after we drank the tea, which was pretty good, we made two different chocolate beverages with the ground beans. The first was more Mayan traditional. We added honey, chili powder and hot water. The second was Conquistadores style with sugar and hot milk. That one was really good when the bean remnants were strained out.

Now that we knew but didn’t accomplish the cacao butter/powder separation, we heard about the process. That takes about a day. After that, you decide your target chocolate percentage which indicates how much cacao powder is going in. For the 50% range, you have less than half cacao powder, then some of the cacao butter, then some sugar, and the rest is milk powder. For the 70% range or higher, you have about half cacao powder, some of the cacao butter, and the remainder is sugar. The closer to 100% you get, the less sugar involved. 100% is about 90% cacao powder and 10% cacao butter and no sugar. That is powerfully good for you but you generally can only eat about 1 (perhaps 2) square(s) of it a day.

Once your target percentage is determined, you put those into a machine that blends them for 24 hours. This breaks down the crystals in the components to make things really smooth. It takes time! When that is done the liquid rests for several hours and then it is time to temper it so that it is shiny! If you don’t temper it, it will taste just fine but it will be a lighter brown look that appears raw. But if you temper it by cooling it on a marble stone and then mixing in some more and cooling that and eventually refrigerating it, then when you use that chocolate to pour into molds it will hold the shininess and will have a snap when broken.

So we got to the point of choosing 47% milk chocolate or 70% dark chocolate for the bars we would be making and both chose to get the 70% for our bars. Then we had to choose a mold from about 25 options. Jill went with a bar mold while I chose chocolate egg mold. We then could choose any of about 20 fillings for the bars. I went with coffee beans and m&m’s while I cannot even list all of the stuff Jill chose for her chocolate bars. We filled the molds slightly and then made sure the chocolate had covered the interior of every mold. We then had to get the air out by dropping and tapping the mold pans several times. Then we put in fillings as desired. Jill elaborately put all kinds of stuff in there making me proud. I just put a few of either choice in my eggs. After this we covered our fillings with a drizzling motion and had to ensure none of them were “above” the bottom of the chocolate mold when they’d be turned over to remove later. They were put in the fridge for about 20 minutes and dropped from the molds. Nice popping sound coming out. And after 2 hours working with chocolate, we had our own bars to enjoy!

We bought a little from the store and walked 15-20 minutes over to a seafood restaurant that is well known called La Mar. I didn’t see a single thing on the menu that was not some kind of seafood dish. Jill knew this going in. So we ordered a shared scallop appetizer and two other “cebiche” dishes. The scallop thing was ok - perhaps a bit fishy for me but both of the “cebiche” items were actually good and I had seconds of each. Jill was impressed with my ability to consume more than a few bites with the ugly face of yuck. It was admittedly pretty good.

The server talked me into finishing the meal with a glass of Pisco to sooth the stomach. While I went through that, we saw some cookbooks in the back and took one to the table. The one we will get has lots of interesting stuff in it and it is available on Amazon so we don’t have to carry around an extra 5+ pounds to get it back to our kitchen.

We then walked back to the hotel via a different route to see some other parts of the city and ended up walking past the place we will be going to dinner later. So it was a productive walk and good way to burn off some of the chocolate and lunch before we go workout in the nice hotel gym for the day.

We went into the hotel gym which is really nice and started warming up on some bikes before doing our workout. The same guy that stretched us after our workout yesterday was there and he was happy to see us. I went into the room where we can do some Crossfit like moves without machines in the way and he came in there to turn up the music for me again. He doesn’t speak a lot of English, but he asked what kind of music I like. I told him rock. He said “metal?”, and made a guitar motion. I said no just rock. He thought about this a bit then asked for a band. I said Rush. He eventually had me type that. Then he plays Tom Sawyer and he seemed pleased and walked out of the room so a few Rush songs played while I stretched and did some mobility movement waiting for Jill. Eventually we ended up on songs that had the word “rush” in the song but were no longer by the band.

For dinner, we walked to Astrid and Gaston for dinner. I had no idea that we were in for a 10 course tasting menu PLUS 3 courses of dessert PLUS take home box of chocolates. I’m confident Jill didn’t expect that either. They worked around my food restrictions perfectly. At the END of the marathon meal, they brought complimentary bubbles and wished me a happy birthday. I could write AS MUCH about this dinner as about all the paragraphs of chocolate earlier in this post. Instead, I will summarize with the following and if you want more please ask or talk to Jill :-)

Jill thought every course was great which is saying something given the number of courses there are usually one or two “whatever” moments for her. The only exception was the palette cleanser dessert starter that she wasn’t fond of. For me, thinking back to any 7+ course tasting menus I HAVE EVER HAD, I can say with certainty it was the best I have had. My favorite memorable item was course #5 (early) which was a Cantonese Peruvian taco that was simply amazing and not outdone by any savory courses after that. I’m including a photo of the menu and you can click the link to view all of our photos if you really need to see this stuff.

Day 3: Lima, Peru.

Well the day started out with the power in our room going out 2x at 4am. Other than that, the day kicked off normally with some brekkie and then off to meet our guide for the morning, Ellie. Today we focused on the neighborhood of ‘Cercado de Lima’ aka ‘Centro de Lima’. 

Ellie walked us through some of the history of Peru, including the Spanish invasion led by Francisco Pizzaro. He conquered the Incan Empire in 1532 and claimed it all for Spain. Pizzaro ended up being the founder of what is now known as Lima in 1535. Peru ended up being liberated from Spanish rule by José de San Martín and Simón Bolívar in 1821. 

We walked around Plaza San Martin as well as Plaza de Mayor. In between, we walked down a major shopping thoroughfare for locals and learned about how Peruvians love their chicken, cerveza, chocolate, coffee, coca, chifa, ceviche and casinos. Of particular note is that chifas are commonly next to casinos as they are owned by the same person typically. 

They also love their Pisco Sours. So much so that a controversy exists between Peru and Chile over who “owns” the Pisco Sour. I can say from both of the times I was in Chile, I never saw the pride and the ownership on the drink like I have seen in the roughly 48 hours we have been in Peru. So there’s that. In fact, once a year they empty out the main fountain in Plaza de Mayor and fill it with Pisco. And yes, they pour people tiny shots of Pisco.

We then ventured over to the Museo Convento San Francisco y Catacombas. Marc and I both enjoyed the explanations over the course of the tour by Ellie. Unfortunately no pics allowed but saw a fascinating Peruvian-based rendition of ‘The Last Supper’ as well as some really interesting looking “andas”. They can be described as thrones that are used in religious processions. We also walked through the catacombs and learned about the history on who was buried or how people “donated” items to the church so they could be buried there. Check out the pics in the link above.

After our tour, we went to lunch at a restaurant called Osso - known for the meats (BEEF) selection and for being one of the best in Peru. I figured if I am going to make Marc sit through eating ceviche (and many of you are well aware of his “love” for fish), I should at least ensure we get some good red meat.

Osso didn’t disappoint; Marc and I split a steak as opposed to getting something larger after yesterday’s shenanigans. I’d post some of the pics from the bathroom that were very funny but may not be appropriate for a family-friendly blog.

We walked back to the hotel and rested (aka ‘digested’) before hitting the gym at the hotel. It’s probably one of the best hotel gyms I have experienced, which is saying something. I created a “High Intensity Interval Training” workout for Marc and I, and then one of the trainers (who was watching and encouraging us in Spanish) offered to stretch us out after.

It was time to walk to Malabar for dinner. For being one of the “Top 50 Restaurants in Latin America”, it was refreshingly laid back with respect to service and had wonderful food. Since we were now allowed to consume alcohol legally in Peru, we seized the opportunity to try some Peruvian Syrah. Marc and I had some tacos and tostadas that had some unique flavor combos to us. Then I had a “hot ceviche” with the massive corn kernels that are known in Peru. It was just yummy (yeah, I said it like that). Marc had a local duck dish, which had some equally delicious action going on. Wine was good.... better for duck than my dish, but that wasn’t the point. 2 days in Lima has already led to lots of home cooking ideas. Success.

For those wondering about Peru producing wine, the country has 28 out of the 32 world climates within its borders. So not a complete shock that it is producing wine. 

As for dessert, Marc decided to go for something completely different with ‘Chirimolla with Meringue’ which had mangoes and oranges in it. I actually chose the chocolate as an insurance policy for Marc. Both were good, but I really enjoyed Marc’s dessert dish and all of the different textures. Surprisingly, Marc also enjoyed the mango dessert (but I think he was thankful that I ordered something chocolate).

All in all, another fun and stomach filling day in Lima. I’m hoping we will have more of the same as we progress on the trip.

For more pics, please click here.

Day 2: Lima, Peru

We got out of the airport with bags and into the hotel faster than we expected. We got a decent amount of sleep before getting a small breakfast at the hotel. We were going on a food tour at 9:30am so we had to save room....

We started in Barranco at a church built when the Spanish first came. The roof of the church was destroyed in the 1940 earthquake that the government has promised to restore. Our guide, Lourdes, said “they’re working on it”, which is about how it looks. We then walked across the “Bridge of Sighs” while holding hands and our breath. Legend has it that is you make a wish and make it across without taking a breath with your beloved, it will come true. We took some more photos and went for a coffee tasting.

Tostaduria Bisetti selects and roasts their own beans on site. I had an Americano and we got Jill a Mochachino with Peruvian chocolate so she could taste. Jill doesn’t drink coffee so I finished mine and most of hers. We did more walking on Barranco and then went into a place for a shake. It has a Peruvian fruit called lúcuma along with ice cream and sugar. It was fairly tasty!

We used the toilet here since our next stop would be the market and it’s much cleaner here. While Jill was away, I talked to Lourdes about awareness of thieves. She said that they are so good they can unzip a backpack and take something without you noticing. She said someone took her wallet from her front pocket and she did not notice it. She called this “manos de mantequilla”. Hands of butter. So smooth.

We then went to the market. We looked at a veggie stand for a while inspecting at least 10 different types of potatoes. We saw many other veggies with variations including black corn and a white corn with HUGE kernels. We learned there are about 3000 varieties of quinoa grown here although only a few are actually known on the market. We were also shown a bunch of fresh seafood and fish caught today. We then hung out at a fruit stand for a while learning about several variations of some fruits and even saw some raw cacao that with some work could become chocolate with the stuff on the inside. We were then given forks and bowls of several fruits to try. One had this gooey seed stuff we were told not to chew - just scoop onto fork and swallow it.

We then over to Miraflores to do two things: 1. learn how to make a Pisco Sour and 2. learn how to make a ceviche. For the Pisco Sour, it’s important to note that today is ‘Election Day’ in Peru. This means no alcohol is allowed to be served through Monday morning so I’m not naming where we went. We got there before the lunch hour so the staff showed us how to make them and then we got to make our own! It was fun AND foamy good!

Once we got that down, we sat down at a table and made our own ceviche with assistance from the chef. We then ate the “appetizer” and it was good. We still had lunch to eat.

Lunch was at Huaca Puallana right next to some Incan ruins. The restaurant is helping to unearth then somewhat. We had a great chicken dish along with  guinea pig (tastes like chicken) and beef heart (a little tough, but not bad). Of course, they then cleared our plates and then brought out 4 different dessert cups like a shake/ice cream. A couple of them had fruit that were good. 3 of them had some or a lot of chocolate! 

It was all so well balanced and tasty - we were so full..... Great way to start the trip in a food city which I’m sure Jill will be talking about in detail over the next several days.

After this food tour, we headed back to the hotel to rest and digest. Eventually I swam in the pool for about 25 minutes and Jill worked out in the gym.

For dinner we went to La Rosa Nautica - the same owner as the place the tour happened to take us for lunch as our final stop. They had a Perry Como & Frank Sinatra Christmas music on a 10 song repeat loop. We heard it at least 3 times and we weren’t really there that long since the voting prevented ordering a bottle of wine. Jill ordered a ceviche starter and a seafood main while I got a pasta dish in a cheese sauce and Arroz con Pato. That duck was a superb Peruvian dish. Jill’s main came first which kind of confused us and the other dish never came. By the time we got the staff to understand what was missing we realized we had eaten so much today that we should just get back to the hotel. We had eaten 2 days worth of food in a single day.

For more pics, please click here.

Day 1: Seattle —> LAX —> Lima.

This post won’t win any awards for excitement as it was a travel day but I’ll lay the ground work for this latest iteration of ‘Marc and Jill take on a different geographic location’.

Marc and I got up at 3:30am (PT) to catch the 1st leg of our trip to LAX. Other than having to check a bag for the first time in almost 2 years, it was pretty uneventful. LAX is an adventure on a good day when you need to transfer, and it was good we had plenty of time. We landed in a “satellite terminal” and took off from a different “satellite terminal”. In that time, Marc really prepped for the long haul flight by finding all of the chocolate in the lounge. I’m guessing no one is shocked by this behavior.

The flight to Lima was just under 8.5 hours and landed on time, which was amazing based on previous flight history (yay internet!). Then I figured landing at midnight, going through Immigration, picking up checked bags (did they make it?), passing Customs and finding our car service would be a goat rodeo on to its own. I couldn’t have been more wrong. From when we landed until when we were in the car, it took 30 minutes. WHICH. WAS. AMAZING.

We got to the hotel, scored an upgrade with great views and pretty much crashed..... after Marc had some more chocolate that the hotel left for us as a welcome gift. Oh, and we were informed last night that no alcohol is allowed to be served anywhere in the country through Monday morning because of national elections happening on Sunday (tomorrow). Uh, what? This is a thing?

So we will be in Lima through Thursday, and then off to Quito for a couple of days before heading off to the Galápagos Islands for a week. Then we head to Colombia where we will be hitting Bogota, the Coffee Region and the Amazonas province. We’re going to have a little bit of everything on this trip in terms of scenery, culture, food, beverage, climate, etc. We’ll be doing some hiking and hopefully meetIng up with friends in Bogota. That said, the goal is to come back with most of the meds that comprise the “walking pharmacy” in my pack.

Thanks for tuning in. And we have discovered the hard way that Google hasn’t made any significant updates to Blogger in years, so updates from the road will be a challenge.... looking at app options now.

Operation Cincuenta

"Where do you want to go for your 50th birthday?" Jill asked me almost a year ago. We may have come up with some travel interest lists before she asked this question.

My list has some cold places like Alaska and Canada (Banff, Jasper National Park, more) which are better in the summer. So I think I mentioned a couple of finalists including Mt Kilimanjaro and Galápagos.

Then I know I looked more into the Galápagos and found this National Geographic Expedition and the swimmer in me had my birthday spot! We aren't going on that particular boat, but we are going to do well over here on Celebrity Cruises on one of their boats.

After this, Jill took over and basically booked everything including some stuff before and after the islands "while we are over there" (South America).

She has dubbed this whole thing "Operation Cincuenta" -- so come back for more in the next several weeks to learn about the before, after, and in-between adventures.

Adventures in the Kitchen....

One thing that has picked up in earnest has been some adventures in the kitchen. That took a back seat with all of the chaos with the previous job, so it's good to be back at it. 

I had a boatload of fun when ramps were in season. They may be my favorite thing to cook with and this year, I went a little nuts. Roasted on pizza, blended into pesto and chimichurri, sauteed with eggs, grilled with salmon and baked with lasagna. And of course, I pickled some too!

We have also been using the sous vide more because it's actually pretty easy and really ensures that the food is evenly cooked. It just requires a bit of planning, but is really handy when you may not have much time to cook the day of a dinner party, etc. In most cases, we sous vide the meat for a pre-determined period of time and then we just sear it for more flavor, etc.

For the first time, at the suggestion of a friend we tried salmon in the sous vide. It tasted really good but the transfer from the bag to the plate is really challenging as the salmon is fairly delicate. Gotta figure that one out because Marc actually liked it the flavor and the texture! If anyone has any ideas, please send them my way.

This year also had me doing some baking, which is definitely not the normal order of things at Chez Beck. I was determined to prepare a gluten-free version of Thomas Keller's 'Quiche Lorraine' recipe. At the recommendation of a friend, I used cassava flour for the first time. It definitely absorbs a ton of moisture so you have to work quickly. But it came out really well.... after 3 attempts. The recipe is not for the faint of heart though. Lots of steps and the timing matters. But well worth it.

Then I wanted to do something fun for a friend's birthday and she is really into strawberries, which happen to be in season locally around the same time of year. So I decided to opt for The Modernist Cuisine 'Strawberry Panna Cotta' recipe. It's not a hard one to make but the proportions are really important so the panna cotta actually sets properly. So yes, Marc is not the only one in the house that can bake and/or make dessert.

Finally with the weather being nice and all, we have been getting some quality time in with the Big Green Egg. Salmon, Duck, Pork and Chicken. I love that thing. Knows how to keep things juicy and make everything tasty. More food experiments to come soon.

Making Some Changes

As followers of this feed know, Marc and I have been going to CrossFit for almost 8 years. It seems hard to believe that it has been that long, but it has. Over those years, we have had the opportunity to make new friends, challenge ourselves and have much fun. When I was burnt out during endurance training for half-marathons and marathons, CrossFit was a welcome respite. And who knew minions could do box jumps!?!

Honestly, CrossFit was the first place I ever worked out in that had a positive and an inclusive atmosphere. No gym I ever went to prior had anything remotely close to that. I love how it is normal in every local to cheer on the last person finishing the workout. Keep in mind that each location is individually owned so no mandate exists to adhere to a "code".


It was awesome that we would travel to so many places and do a workout, and walk out with a bunch of local recos on how to spend our time in that region. Our family and friends tagged us as part of the "cult", yet a number of them soon followed and become even more "devoted members of the cult". That was entertaining, but it was also fun seeing them challenge themselves to do things they didn't think were possible for themselves. The phenomenon known as 'Harvelicious' is still the stuff of legend.

Over those same years, Marc and I have had some events happen plus, you know, we're getting older. So we recently decided that we needed to change things. Our interests have changed over that time. Marc still swims, but I run less and we do more hiking together. I definitely still run on occasion plus I practice yoga, but little things kind of kept creeping in making us wonder if we needed to change other aspects of our training to meet our goals.

Enter the 'Delaying Decrepitude' room. The 'No Excuses' room is still around, but is definitely used for more stretching, rolling, etc. But the "D Squared" room has some pretty cool things that will allow us to take our high intensity and strength training to the next level that is more inline with our individual goals. Marc has his goals and I have mine, and some of them do not overlap.

We are excited for this next phase and what it will bring. Obviously no change comes without risk. But you can't grow if you're not willing to adapt and adjust. It will require some adjustments to our routine and more planning on our end, but overall we think this will help us achieve our goals. I have no doubt that we will continue to drop in at local CrossFits when we travel, but for now, it's time to focus on 'Delaying Decrepitude'. Stay tuned.

Walk of a Lifetime...

About 2 years ago, I had heard about an area called 'The Enchantments' in central Washington. As we started to hike more and more last year, I became more intrigued with the 20+ mile "thru hike" as I learned more about it. I'm not a camper so I didn't have any concerns about winning the lottery, but figuring out how to day hike different parts of it became an interest of mine.

We wanted to hike to Colchuck Lake for my birthday last year, but unfortunately forest fires engulfed the area so that didn't happen. A couple of weeks after, Marc and I hiked 8 of the 20+ mile trail, and turned around at Upper Snow Lake. The hike was a grind with a ton of switchbacks and not very picturesque until you get to Nada Lake, which is almost 5 miles in. Lower and Upper Snow Lakes followed soon after. 

Then about a month later, some unseasonably warm and sunny weather were on tap. So Marc and I decided to do a day trip to Leavenworth and hike to Colchuck Lake. It lived up to the hype in terms of beauty and views. It was about 5 miles of the 20+ mile trail. It was a steady climb up but lots of nice things to look at along the way. We had such a great day but it was a long day with the 5 hours of driving to go along with the hike. I saw Aasgard Pass from the base of Colchuck and said to Marc that we have to try that next year.

I convinced Marc to do Aasgard Pass as a goal for 2018. Then I talked to one of the coaches at our CrossFit who said that we shouldn't just do Aasgard Pass, see a few of the lakes at the top in the 'Core Enchantments', and then turnaround, which was my plan. The 'thru hike' is a legendary hike here in WA state and if we're fit enough to get up Aasgard, we could and should do the whole thing. Plus Aasgard is supposedly hell to descend. So we did the 1st 5 miles and the last 8 miles of the 'thru hike'. Now we just had to throw in the middle 7'ish miles.

Easy, right? Well I figured we needed some level of training, which involved a fair amount of hiking to get us set with our gear, fitness, etc. Then I figured lots of leg work would be helpful. That same coach came up with a training plan for me, which involved lots of leg cranks (and swearing at this same coach). Yoga helped a great deal. We did some great hikes when we could, while managing avalanche risks throughout the shoulder season. My favorite was getting up to Hurricane Ridge, which is in Olympic National Park and can see from our house. We lucked out with an epic weather day when we decided to head up there.

I was doing a fair amount of stalking of reported trail conditions on the WTA site. Trying to find the optimal week to do this required triangulating amount of daylight, how much snow was on the trail, and decent weather. We also were concerned about the risk of forest fires shutting down the trail, which is a constant threat for this time of year. I booked a few different sets of rooms over July and August so we had options if the snow pack wasn't melting as quickly as expected, etc. But we were hoping to do July to take advantage of as much daylight as possible. 

Things started to align for doing this in the 1st half of July, and we somehow managed to convince one of our friends to come along, which eliminated that whole "how are we going to get the car at the start" problem since it's a point-to-point hike. To say it was great having this person join us is an understatement as Marc and I relied on him quite a bit during the actual hike. 

We had a plan, well because we are planners. Timeline, what to bring, what to wear, maps, etc. I told Marc that we should treat this as I treated race week for when I ran long'ish distances - focus on sleep the week before, hydrate, a little extra salt with meals, etc. The day finally arrived and we started before 4am so we could be on the trail hiking by 5am. It was light enough where we didn't need headlamps. It was pretty warm also for being at a bit of altitude so we were in short sleeves to start. 

Made it to Colchuck on schedule, ate some more, saw some goats who like to hang around humans before we started the climb up Aasgard. So I've been talking about Aasgard without saying why it is such a beast. You go up 1900 feet in about a mile. That is one freaking steep grade to make your way up. We had done some training hikes that would somewhat mimic that, but until you see the real thing.... we knew Aasgard had a couple of false fronts, so we had to keep focused and not get demoralized when we thought we were at the top and were not. 

Aasgard was hard - no doubt about it. It wasn't so much the ascent but the terrain. Loose dirt and loose rocks, which made it hard to get your footing. I kept my poles on my pack so I could use my hands on the boulders. It's a push on whether you should use poles or not. We saw another couple using poles and they were cranking. Others were using their hands. After 2+ hours, we made it to the top and fortunately were able to avoid the sun beating down on us for 80% of the climb, which was a bonus.

We made it to the top and the views were as advertised. Not many people, snow capped mountains, glacial lakes slowly melting, more mountain goats, and blue skies. We had a clear view of Mount Baker in the distance, which was a treat. When you looked down at Colchuck, it was definitely a sense of accomplishment in terms of how far we had climbed. 

It was surprisingly warm once you moved out of the breeze. More bugs than we were expecting up in the "Upper Enchantments". I was a bit wobbly towards the end of the climb so I needed to get some calories in me ASAP. We filled up water bottles in one of the lakes and just soaked in the beauty as we walked through. 


We did have a schedule to keep to because even though we hit the highest point of the hike elevation-wise, we still had 14 miles to go. So we needed to keep moving along. But we were enjoying the views of Dragontail and Colchuck Peaks, as well as Isolation and Tranquil Lakes. It sounds so cliche, but you really did feel isolated from everyone and tranquility was definitely something I was feeling.

My sports medicine doctor had advised of a couple of possible side treks to take but we didn't have a ton of time so we opted to stay on the main trail as much as possible. It still had snow fields to traverse in various places, but the whole time up there, you just knew it was special in the best way possible. We saw the various lakes and the well known Little Annapurna as the trail started to gradually descend. Lots of pics being snapped because it was JUST. SO. DARNED. GORGEOUS. 

We made our way to the 'Middle Enchantments' and saw Inspiration and Perfection Lakes. Plus we had a close-up of Prusik Peak. Sprite Lake was breathtaking. More awesomeness. t was bittersweet because it was so amazing up there, yet I knew our time was limited before we had to head down. Plus the likelihood of doing this hike again is slim.

The descent started to get a bit steeper as we hit the 'Lower Enchantments'. Leprechaun Lake, McClellan Peak and Viviane Lake continued to impress with their beauty. The trail was definitely more muddy at this stage so unlike wiping out in the snow, wiping out here would be less fun. We definitely had some "wet crossings" over rivers to cross that were also unstable for footing. My feet definitely went in the water a few times but it was so warm that my boots and socks dried quickly. 


Oh yes, the weather. The few campers we did see were in tanks and shorts (the Parks Department has a very strict limit on the number of people allowed to camp in the park at any one time and slots are awarded by lottery every year). It was easily 70+ degrees, which is very warm for this elevation (7000-8000 feet) and you were completely exposed in the sun. So we were drinking lots of water and using water filtration tablets/pumps to get fresh water from the lakes along the way. 

The last lake in the 'Lower Enchantments' was Lake Viviane. Somehow we lost the trail as we came upon that lake. That cost us a bit of time and was the start of me using my rear end to get down some pretty steep areas. Side note: Being short is not helpful when hiking and longer legs/arms would be helpful traversing boulders, carrying gear, etc. I was carrying about 25 lbs worth of gear on my frame while Marc who is a foot taller than me had about 35 lbs worth of gear. We made it to the Viviane crossing, which marked the end of being in the 'Core Enchantments' and the start of the true descent down to Upper Snow Lake. Filled up on more water and had about 10 miles to go. 

These next two miles were the ones I was worried about. Not a ton of documentation existed on how you got down from Viviane to Upper Snow, plus going downhill is not my favorite thing due to gravity, having short arms/legs, etc. We had maps, GPS, etc., but in any event, we lost the trail again. These things happen on hikes and fortunately we prepared for this. I have to admit though that I was not in a great place mentally when I heard we had to climb back up some really steep rocks in the blazing sun mid-afternoon and make it across some dicey gaps (thanks, KvT, for saving me on multiple occasions). But I also resolved that when I looked back on this day that I was going to focus on the beauty that we had in the 1st half of the day.

We got back on the trail and I started to think about how similar the roller coaster of emotions I was experiencing were to the ones I had when running half-marathons and marathons. So I channeled that experience and got back to the task at hand since we had about 10 miles to go (if you're a marathon runner, you know about 'the wall' which can strike at any time after mile 16). The descent was as challenging mentally as the Aasgard ascent was physically. It was getting later so then it was just about can we get back before dark. Upper Snow Lake was starting to get closer and closer and we eventually hit the south end of the lake. YAY!

Since we had done that hike previously, we knew that it was a gentle decline to the trailhead except for a boulder field to traverse. Marc and I also knew it was a very boring slog from Upper Snow Lake to the trailhead. After we crossed Upper Snow Lake, Marc changed shoes and the three of us just kept on trekking. The trail had changed since we had been on it with the boulder field, which made it "quicker" but more challenging for me, so I wasn't psyched to say the least. Then we started cranking again. 

With about 4 miles left, I noticed Marc slowing down. He informed me that he rolled his ankle and that he was just battling to to keep walking. His knees hurt from the gradual downhill and his hips were not happy. Ugh. Not good. We just kept moving trying to stay in good spirits as daylight was fading. He was a trooper. We hit the final set of switchbacks (25, in case you are wondering) when some light was still out there. About halfway down, we had to get out our headlamps - thanks, REI, for the "10 Essentials List". We were hoping not to have to use them, but that's why you have those items in your pack.

We finally made it to the trailhead - 17 hours after we started. We were happy and exhausted. Probably more of the latter. It took about 2-3 hours longer than expected. Oh - and we had to go get the other car at the start. YAY! Another 30 minutes. BUT.... as I said earlier, I knew that once we got some sleep, iced Marc's ankle, and ate, that we would look at this day as an epic one. We're not back at full strength, but we're both looking back at the hike as one of our best in terms of pure beauty. I've only attached a small sample of pics from the day. They don't do it justice. Look at more here.

The celebratory dinner may have been delayed, but it is happening this week. Serious food and wine will be had. 

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.]

Contrary to Popular Belief, Napa and Sonoma Are Open For Business....

Some of you may be aware that Marc and I used to make wine under the name Purple Teeth Cellars. While we did shut it down to pursue other interests, we still value and cherish the relationships that we developed with winemakers, vineyard owners, restauranteurs, sommeliers, etc. 

In light of the recent fires in Napa and in Sonoma, Marc and I decided to take a quick jaunt down to the area. We knew the fires had hit during their busiest season of the year for tourists, and had read many of those businesses were hurting due to an unexpected loss in revenues both from visitors and from lost harvests.

Certain areas experienced devastation and the fires exacerbated an already fragile housing ecosystem in the area for residents, but businesses were definitely up and running. While we only visited a couple of wineries while we were in the area, most wineries were open for business. Same for the restaurants. We caught the end of the season of seeing colors on the vines, which was a pleasant surprise. It was actually quite picturesque in early December and the weather was perfect for a hike in the area. OK, I did squeeze in a visit to CrossFit as well [duh - have to burn off the amazing food and wine].

The main problem that we heard from local residents was that business was so slow, which was leading to restaurants laying off workers at times when they should have been throwing money in the bank - servers to meat cutters to dishwashers, as an example. By people canceling trips and not visiting the area, many SMALL businesses experienced an unfortunate trickle-down effect. People are not buying wine on visits because no one is visiting. Then tasting room staffs need to be let go. Things like that.

And while no one prompted me to post this, I'll just say that I believe that the people in Napa and in Sonoma would LOVE IT if you would consider visiting during their "off-season". When your small business is severely curtailed during the busiest season of the year, it can mean the difference between staying afloat and going under. The weather is still nicer than in most places in the US during this time of year and prices are going to be pretty reasonable to stay, to eat and to drink than during "high-season". 

So please consider a visit and I am sure you will be on the receiving end of some awesome hospitality and gratitude.

Happy Holidays!

On The Road Again....

Mixed marriage time: Broncos vs. Giants in Denver

Well, gosh. It has been awhile. I mean, really. Much has happened. Since the last post, I took a job at a healthcare technology company called Change Healthcare, and have been on the road quite a bit. It is not an exaggeration between work and personal travel to say that I have travelled 150,000+ miles in the past year alone (mostly for work, but a couple of trips to Europe interspersed in there). Pro tip: Once you hit 40,000 miles on Alaska Airlines, they give you free chocolate. Who knew? 

So what else is new? Well I am anxiously awaiting Game 7 of the ALCS tonight where my Yankees are taking on the Astros. Really hoping CC Sabathia brings it along with the offense. We went to Denver last weekend to see Marc's Broncos take on my Giants, and the completely opposite outcome happened that we were expecting (Giants won). Speaking of Marc, I'm doing my best to make him a Yanks fan for this fall.

Yanks visit Seattle Let's Go Yankees!

I said farewell to Facebook on Thanksgiving, 2016 as I felt it was way too toxic for me from a political perspective. I felt all sides were too vitriolic for me and the time spent on the platform just left me feeling negative and pissed off. You can find me on Instagram though where I get to look at pictures of beautiful places, funny people doing great things and whatever else my peeps like posting - although anything political gets an unfollow. 

The business travel has been a lot. I know, many of you know me from when I used to do that a lot, but I was much younger. Plus I really like being home, spending time with Marc and keeping to a routine. It is really hard to eat well and keep working out at a regular cadence when on the road. I put some pretty hard rules in place for my business trips when I started the role around exercise in to mitigate the impact of eating out all of the time. Yay for being a runner and for doing CrossFit! Lots of #viewfrommyrun pics posted on Instagram.

On top of Mt. Si. with Rainier in background

Last summer was fairly insane with travel from Seattle to Augusta, Maine every other week, so this summer, I decided to wrestle some control back. This has led to Marc and I getting in some hikes in a number of gorgeous places. Some were pretty technical and on one of them, I was just dreading going down because of how treacherous the trail was [spoiler alert: I survived but it took longer to get down than to go up].

In other news, I continue to brush up on skills around R, Python and SQL because it falls into that whole 'trying to suck less and challenge myself more' thing? While I have no intention of becoming a software engineer, I find taking the time to focus on this kind of thing helps me as both a Product Manager and a Program Manager. I'm reading a book on Submarine Design because someone told me it would be a great way to understand multivariate design as a whole. I'll let you know how that works out but this might fall into 'you can't make this stuff up'.

Top of Lone Cone in Tofino, BC

Marc and I decided to dust off our golf clubs, and the best thing about that from my perspective is that I didn't kill anyone at the range.... yet. 

We will see how long it will be before I post again, but in the meantime, thanks for tuning in and GO YANKEES!

Trying to Suck Less and Challenge Myself More.

Trying to suck less....

Sometimes you just get complacent in life. It could be at home, at work, with your family/friends, etc. It happens and what do you do to combat it so you suck less when the need arises for you to "step up"?

Just over 2 months ago, I read an article on LinkedIn's CEO (Jeff Weiner) talking about it's recent stock price drop. Within that article was a video of the talk in which Jeff Weiner talks about the pace of change in technology aka "the 4th industrial revolution". 

"Historically when there are new innovations, it creates new opportunities, new levels of productivity, new jobs that are created. Historically, though, the rate of change was much slower. People had plenty of time to retrain and retool to take on these new opportunities. Today? Not the case. The world has never seen innovation moving at this rate and is outstripping our ability to train the workforce for the jobs that 'are' and 'will be', and not just the jobs that once were."

Now he was talking about it in terms of LinkedIn's value in the marketplace, but I had a different takeaway. Mine was around my current skillset and what did I need to learn now to position me for the next phase of my career. 

So in taking what Jeff W. said, I thought about 2 tangential areas related to Product Management - human-centered design (HCD) and data science. You see more and more job postings around user experience designers and data scientists, and I feel as though they are playing larger roles in helping to launch great products. 

Human Centered Design

The HCD course was free, which was a bonus, and took place online over 7 weeks. What was also attractive about it was that the course was being offered in partnership with IDEO.org, which is a known leader in HCD.

I wouldn't say HCD came naturally, but it was much easier for me to learn and apply the content without tons of extra study outside of the coursework. Much of the interviewing involved in HCD was similar to the type of work I do as a Product Manager. I had teammates from New York and Brazil, and we completed our project around "Products and Services for the 70-year old". It was a relevant challenge for me, given that my folks are in that demographic. I enjoyed the work and the people I partnered with on the project. 

Data Science Specialization

The Data Science Specialization was not free, but it was attractively priced. It actually is a group of 9 online courses plus a final project. This certificate program was being offered via Coursera through Johns Hopkins - Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHU).

With the exception of the 1st course, all of the coursework required programming in "R". Programming, software engineering, writing code, whatever you want to call it.... not my thing. I'm married to someone that does that very well for a living. I might work in tech, but lots of roles exist that do not require you to "write code". 

Troubleshooting Mom and Dad's PC and mobile phones

Here we are... outside of the proverbial comfort zone. Marc doesn't know "R", so while he could have learned it to help me out, I decided to just tell him about my progress and not ask for help on general "coding stuff". Does such a thing exist?

I created a Github site (please go easy on my coding skills), completed assignments, used coding tools and leveraged sites such as Stack Overflow. Thank goodness for that site!

The programming work brought on a fair amount of apprehension and dread. The course would say that the assignment should take 30 minutes. Well, I took on average of 3 hours per submission. The pic just above is a good indicator of my frustration while completing these.

Part of the Coursera model is that you "grade" your classmates (after you complete your assignment) so you get a scoring rubric to use for evaluation. When I compared my submissions to my classmates, some of them really exceeded the expectations of the assignment. I just tried to focus on hitting the minimum requirements of the exercise.

With the exception of one assignment, I passed each one on the 1st try. You would think that would build some confidence. But I still always worried about if I passed it once I submitted my work. 

Do I see myself coding much as a result of this work? Nah. I learned that while I enjoy working with engineers and have always respected their talent, I do not enjoy programming. Banging my head against my keyboard while trying to troubleshoot code because I didn't leave a space in the right place in the syntax... NOT FUN.

I found out that I passed my final project and received my certificate from JHU/Coursera. It was a huge relief. It also taught me that I could push myself to do something that is very much not in my comfort area, stick with it and see it though to completion. So I'll give myself a pat on the back for sucking less and challenging myself more. Onwards and upwards.

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.

You Just Never Know.

[NOTE: Originally authored for Modo Yoga Seattle's blog. They were gracious enough to ask me to write about my experience with the recent 30-day challenge.]

If you would have told me 15 months ago that I would be practicing yoga regularly, let alone completing two 30-day challenges, I would have told you that you were crazy. But here I am, and I’m better for it.

Some background. I am a Type A person who has the MO of “getting stuff done”. Make a ToDo list, complete it and create the next one. Repeat cycle. Before yoga, I ran and did CrossFit. I still do those and I enjoy all 3 activities for different reasons. [Sidebar: Yes, you can do CrossFit and practice yoga, and not spontaneously self-combust.]

I figured I would do the 30-day challenge in March because I was in between jobs and I had some extra time. Why not, right? My focus during this challenge was to ‘believe in myself’ after I transitioned out of a company I co-founded. I also wanted to continue to ‘be present’ and not multitask, which was a goal I set earlier in the year.

What I learned in the challenge was that “every day is a different day”. Your body works differently at 6am than it does at 5:30pm. Having the same expectation of your body’s capabilities for every practice is unrealistic. Just like life, right?

That 30-day endeavor inadvertently ended up preparing me for the most challenging period of my life. My husband, Marc, ended up having emergency brain surgery in mid-April and the recovery was stressful for obvious reasons. One person that I became friends with during the challenge helped out in a major way on surgery day with a small and simple act of kindness.

The lesson here is that you just never know where help is going to come from when you need it.

We had some other significant “bumps in the road” surface in that timeframe. Our friends encouraged me to keep exercising and set time for myself while all of this was taking place. So I kept going to yoga as much as I could while mixing in running with friends.

We certainly had our share of things that we couldn’t control, but you can control certain things and ‘gratitude’ was one of those I focused on. Someone always has it worse than you and setting that intention in class was huge in helping me remain focused and composed. Marc’s recovery was progressing in a positive direction, so the regular reminder during a tumultuous period was good.

Rose, one of our beloved instructors, had a great quote in a practice that said, “Don’t think about how far you have to go. Think about how far you have come.” We were at a pretty tenuous phase in Marc’s recovery at that point so those words really resonated with me and they still do many months later.

I also learned to just ‘accept’ what I could and couldn’t do on a given day, whether it was at a practice or in some other facet in life. Lying down and chilling for half of the class was surprisingly liberating and I picked that up doing the bingo in the 30-day challenge. Did I mention I like to get stuff done yet?

The quiet in the room added calm when everything outside felt pretty chaotic. It allowed me to prioritize keeping things simple as much as possible so I could take care of both Marc and myself. I still say to people that yoga was definitely a form of therapy as I was simultaneously dealing with multiple crises.

Fast forward to the 2^nd challenge in October, which had a backstory about some “unfinished business” for me (click here). In one of the workshops led by Kylie, she said something to the effect of “if you’re not willing to inspect, you can’t expect”. Another gem of a quote.

In between the 2 challenges, I had done a fair amount of introspection about a number of things going on in my life. I had made some changes, which were starting to yield results on a number of fronts.

By mid-October, Marc was participating in yoga practices 3x/week thanks to Brandon’s help. He had his modifications and the atmosphere at MYS made us feel very comfortable to just do the best we could.

Marc’s determination to stretch, sweat and recover from his multiple surgeries motivated me on days that I didn’t feel like getting out of bed at 5:30am to complete the challenge. But I did. My fellow challengers also motivated me when I was on the fence so we would make a plan to hit a class together. Marc practiced next to me as I finished day 42, which was my goal. 42 sessions in 42 days.

I’ve learned a great deal about myself from when I first walked into MYS in late October, 2014. Participating in the 30-day challenge not knowing what to expect gave me more than I bargained for. I absolutely recommend it and advise going in with an open mind. It’s different for everyone. And jeez, two 30+ day yoga challenges in under a year. Never would have thought that would have been me! But you just never know.

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.

Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life the Universe and Everything

To begin discussing the answer to this question, I must request that those that don't immediately know the answer please go visit Google or Bing and see some immediate results. We'll wait...

Many of you read The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy and already knew this, but now hopefully everyone is caught up. When I turned 42, I had a great birthday party asking guests to come to the party with a plausible question that gets to this answer. Everyone wrote them down on 3x5 cards and I read them all while laughing hysterically at many of them and we gave out some prizes. Tons of fun and I'll list a few of my favorites here.

• In 1889, Washington joined the union bringing the total number of states to how many?
• What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?
• 10! (factorial) seconds is exactly how many days?
• What is the name of space command in Buzz Lightyear?
• How many eyes in a deck of cards?
• What is the only jersey number that has been retired by all MLB teams?

Now let us fast forward to 2015. Jill took up yoga (shocking herself) at Modo Yoga Seattle and did the 30 day challenge in March. Then she kept going and realized that she'd get to 42 days straight of yoga the day before our spring flight to New York and that would end the streak perfectly.

Unfortunately for the both of us, on the evening of day 41, I had a seizure followed by MRI and possibility of an operation on day 42 so Jill didn't complete all 42 days. As everyone knows, I recovered quite well from brain surgery but the seizure also tore two of four tendons in my rotator cuff and I ended up with shoulder surgery a few months later.

The shoulder is doing great because I do everything my PT tells me to do with daily exercises and I have already started swimming once a week just 2 weeks ago. I don't go very far yet, but it feels good to be able to use the shoulder in the pool pain free. I've been going to yoga recently too which has been great for stretching and mobility as I slowly gain strength in the shoulder.

In the meantime, yoga had another 30 day challenge in October and Jill was determined to get to 42 this time. She started early (in September) so that she'd hit 42 at the end of Oct as the challenge ended for everyone else getting to 30 straight days. Congrats Jill on making it!

If You're Not Willing To Inspect, You Can't Expect

I heard the quote at a yoga workshop I took today. Sometimes I will hear quotes and truthfully, they won't resonate with me too much. It's probably more of a slight against me than about the quote. This one did strike a chord with me.

Yeah, it can seem hokey to the many cynics in my life but if you think about it - when have you been able to proactively make impactful changes to your life without taking a hard look in the proverbial mirror? 

The past 12 months have been challenging for me on every front. Personally, professionally and everything in between. It's required me to take some time to look within and see how I can be better. Better as a wife, an aunt, a sister, a friend, a professional and any other role that I have. Getting focused on what matters. Yoga and running have helped quite a bit. Our friends have been awesome. Family members have stepped up. But I found another ally in the aim to be more introspective - reading books.

I find that reading books helps with those kinds of efforts because it requires a focus that reading current events, social media, etc. does not. And I am a current events junkie so it takes a fair amount of restraint to not check to see the latest and the greatest happenings locally, domestically and abroad. That said, the events of the past year have required me to focus and look within more than I can ever remember. It wasn't easy and most of it was not fun or enjoyable.

One of the first things I decided as part of this new chapter is that I was going to significantly reduce multitasking. I started this around 11 months ago after an overwhelming amount of evidence started coming out that multitasking actually makes you LESS productive. The focus on reading books more recently has reminded me that I do have the ability to focus and to concentrate on the critical things in my life that need to be done. 

As I was trying to assess what my next professional move was going to be (outside of consulting for small businesses), I was recommended to read Steve Blank's "The Four Steps to Epiphany". Given that I have been a co-founder 2x and have consulted on and off for a number of years, I was stunned that I hadn't read this sooner. I don't know if it made me feel better but it reinforced why certain decisions were flawed from the start in both endeavors. Let's just say that it was a HUGE EYE OPENER for me and if you're thinking about starting your own business, you should read it. 

On a similar theme, I follow a number of entrepreneurs on Twitter including Ben Horowitz of a16z, a venture capital firm in the Bay Area. I enjoy his tweets and blog posts. When I found out he recently wrote a book called "The Hard Thing About Hard Things", I knew I needed to read it. He wrote very candidly about some of his biggest lessons learned and all of the warning signals he missed as he was making critical decisions. And this past year has been about making hard decisions and yes, some collateral damage resulted which is unfortunate.

A recent read included "On The Edge" by Alison Levine, which recounts her experiences climbing Mount Everest and ties in some leadership lessons. It helped that I had read "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer a number of years ago and then saw the recent movie "Everest" which was based on the same events of 1996 but from a different perspective. As far as quick reads go, "Into Thin Air" was one of them but it was good to get a different perspective of events by Beck Weathers, who was with Krakauer on that ill-fated expedition. 

Another fast paced read included "Orange Is The New Black". OK, I am probably one of the last people in the world to read this book but it was enjoyable and more so because a great friend gifted it to me when I broke my hand a couple of years ago and needed some reading material. I am only sorry that it took me so long to get to it. No, I don't watch the TV show and nor do I plan to. But I did find the book entertaining.

Awhile back, one of my running buddies asked if I had read "The Boys In The Boat" by Daniel James Brown. I mistakenly said yes thinking that they were talking about "The Amateurs" by David Halberstam, which I had read 2 or 3 years ago. Both were about rowing and competing for the US Olympic team but in different eras. 

Halberstam's book was very good. His books were very high quality. I particularly enjoyed "The Teammates", which discussed the friendship of 4 teammates from the Boston Red Sox (yes, this New York Yankees fan just wrote that) - Bobby Doerr, Dominic DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky, and Ted Williams, who remained close for 60+ years. I'm fairly confident you wouldn't see professional sports players roadtripping today as these boys did, which is what was documented in the book. 

Speaking of the Red Sox, a couple of years ago I read Terry Francona's "Francona: The Red Sox Years", which he wrote with Dan Shaughnessy of 'The Boston Globe. Why did I read a book on the manager of the Red Sox team that crushed me in 2004? I like Francona and can't believe the amount of BS he put up with when managing those teams. He always seemed gracious and thankful that in spite of the crap that he thought he was the luckiest guy around.

I finally got around to reading the book by Brown while we were in Santa Barbara last weekend. Absolutely loved it. It made me sad following the story of the main character and his upbringing. It made me happy how much he was determined to overcome the many challenges he faced. Pick it up, download it to your e-reader or borrow it from your library when you have time. The research done for "The Boys In The Boat" was impeccable and was hard not to appreciate as the story unfolded in the book.

In different ways, all of these books have reinforced what I heard in my yoga workshop today about basically looking within before having any expectations - whether of myself or of others. Taking the time to bring life's insanity "down a few pips" by reading helps me get more calm and focus on the goals I have set for myself. I know that being a bit more introspective has helped me achieve some of those goals and am hoping that it will continue to be rewarding for me on all fronts.

Should Harv Start Writing An Advice Column?

Dad has lots of Harvisms. We covered this previously a number of years ago in the blog with the always reliable "take a steam shower, you'll feel better" quote from Harv. It's basically his answer to anything when you are not having a good day. Try it before you mock it. 

This quote surfaced recently when talking to a friend about Harv's latest fundraising endeavor with his local CrossFit on raising money for Barbells for Boobs. She has followed his exploits when Lisa or I quote him on Facebook, and said that Harv should have an advice column. I sighed and said "oh boy", which was met with a response of "he probably has some real gems for advice".

More "oh boy". So this friend happened to be suffering from some allergies so I sent over the above mentioned blog entry as advice that she should take. Needless to say, it worked and now she wanted more Harvisms. 

"Do as I say, not as I do" - this one was generally used when he was driving 90mph in upstate New York going to Oswego.

"Those pants will come back in style" - although this pretty much referred to HIS entire wardrobe. In the case of the picture, we're talking about a sweater that was bought in the early 90s and was worn to a 40th anniversary surprise party in 2008. I am willing to bet that he still has this sweater in 2015. Unfortunately I have not been able to dig up a pic of him in the aforementioned pants. 

This sweater was so 'ancient' that it was featured in the picture collage that Lisa put together showcasing the fun times of Harv and Yvette over the course of their 40-year marriage (now we're at 46 and closing in on 47). 

Since Harv joined the community at CrossFit Rapture, he has come up with new Harvisms at a rapid clip. He actually has pretty much invented his own CrossFit nomenclature. Why call them kettlebells when you can call them 'kettles'? Pull-ups are 'chin-ups'. Hamstrings started as 'hammies' and then went to 'hams'. Perhaps Harv should have some bacon post-WOD? Or maybe he is referring to Hamm from "Toy Story"?

Harv also likes saying post-WOD that he thinks "there's a conspiracy" between Marc, the Brothers Arikian (Dad's coaches and owners of CF Rapture), Lisa, Jarrett and me. I don't know what he's referring to since we're all pretty upfront about what we're trying to achieve at CrossFit.

OK, I found another awesome sweater pic from the late 80s/early 90s thanks to Lisa (see below). Still can't find a pic of him in these infamous pants that probably have gone in and out of style multiple times since the early 70s. We'll get a pic in a future blog post. 

One of my all-time faves was when we were playing soccer and he would yell to one of us "work it, work it, work it" as the ball was being dribbled up the field. Well it turns out Lisa was still playing in Massapequa when 'Pretty Woman' came out. I happened to be home for the weekend to see Lisa play and watched Harv do his thing. So I went behind him and channeled Kit DeLuca with this gem (note you need audio turned on). It generated many laughs from the parents on our sideline. Of course Harv said, "Very funny, Jill! Very funny!" 

I would have bought dinner that night but that would have violated another Harvism. When I was delivering newspapers (before I was legally allowed to because you know...), I would meet him at the local greasy spoon after my route was done on Sunday. The check would come and he would always say, "Don't worry, Jill. I got this. I don't want to ruin your amateur standing." 

Yeah, that's my Dad. He's pretty freakin' awesome. I might consider renting him out for parties... for the right price.

If you have Harvisms to share, please do.... we know many exist.