Rabbit Holes

Several months ago, while I was sitting in the lobby of the orthodontist's office waiting on my daughter, I read an article in the December issue of Outside magazine on downhill ski phenom Mikaela Shiffrin and was overcome by envy. Not of her ability, mind you, but of her single minded focus. She trains, she sleeps, and she trains. Yes, she has God given ability too, but it's her focus on the sole goal that is important to her is what sets her apart.

Oh, to have that focus...

Life would be so simple.

So here are the updates on my life and all the rabbit holes I have gone down lately.

Running. It's been an on again, off again relationship. I didn't run for several weeks after Monumental. Then the holidays hit as well as the cold gray weather and I just stopped worrying about worrying about when I was going to fit a run in. Come January, I looked at the calendar and saw I had 13 weeks til the Carmel Marathon so I ran 3 miles on January 2nd. Then I got sick.

Running hit the back burner again as I felt crappy, had to work, plus G started auditioning for summer dance programs. I didn't run again until January 16th. 5 miles on the treadmill.

The treadmill. I started listening to podcasts a while back to break up the monotony of running on the treadmill. I think it was a link I saw on an MSN page last Fall, but somehow I had ended up on the Mad Fientist webpage, a site about Financial Independence. There were podcasts there that were fascinating. Good investment strategies as well as my first introduction to travel hacking.

Travel hacking. What is it? It's traveling for free using rewards points. Of course I fell down this rabbit hole! What's it's relationship to financial independence? Well... seems like many financially independent people travel the world. The key is owning credit cards which offer high value sign up bonus points as well as point offerings for your spending, which in turn can be turned into either airline miles, hotel stays, or, depending on the program, simply redeemed for any travel related spending. Most of these credit cards though require an excellent credit rating (like above 800) and you need to meet minimum spend requirements to get the bonus points. Of course you also have to have the income to pay off your balance every month to make this work but it makes for a very attractive game for the financially independent.

What I've discovered through travel hacking... the hardest way to accrue airline miles is by actually flying them. The luxury lounge passes, the first-class upgrades... they are all free with points. Makes one wonder who actually pays the ridiculous fees. I earned 1000 United Airlines miles by spending $1 for a trial subscription to the Wall Street Journal. In contrast, if I wanted to buy 2000 miles (which is their minimum buy) from the United Airlines website itself, it would cost me $70... or, if I wanted to earn 1000 miles by flying them, I'd have to fly to the West Coast (Denver is 987 miles by air from where I live), at a cost of several hundred dollars. Since I discovered travel hacking in November I've accrued enough airline miles for at least two round trip tickets to Europe plus some free lounge passes. Now to find the time...

The other way I have found to make the miles go by on the treadmill is to watch TV. Not a whole lotta channel choices at the Y but it's better than staring into the middle school parking lot across the street. So... earlier this month I ended up watching the last couple minutes of the Dr. Phil show. His guest was a woman who had lost 80 lbs last year on his 20/20 diet.

The 20/20 Diet. I've needed to lose a couple extra pounds for some time now. Five pounds became ten, then ten became fifteen... and then I actually weighed myself the other day and found myself the heaviest I have ever been. My excuse has always been after this next race as it's tough to reduce your calories while trying to fuel your training. Problem though is I've been eating like I run 40 miles a week when I haven't been running at all. I checked out the 20/20 Diet from the library. What appealed to me is that it was very structured. It told you exactly what to eat for 30 days and the recipes were simple. For the first 5 days there are only 20 foods you can eat. Sounded good to me as anything else so I decided to try it. Day 1 was February 1st. I'll report how it goes. I read the book cover to cover. It seems to be geared toward people who can't see their feet and can't walk more than 15 minutes at a time so we'll just have to see if it works for me.

Minimalism. My wanna be minimalist soul is still working on it. Most of the house was decluttered two years ago and I'm happy to say it has stayed that way. It's the photos and mementos in my office that I'm still working on. Then of course I came across a YouTube channel about a minimalist.

Zoey Arielle. I admit, some of her videos are somewhat ludicrous to me. Unrelatable really. She's a 20-something Canadian that now lives out of two suitcases and travels. Sometimes she talks about her makeup or her outfits and I turn the video off. She's introduced me to some new concepts though. She's a digital nomad. Digital nomad. A term I'd never heard before. Digital nomads make their living working online doing whatever they do, whether it be marketing, designing, coaching, blogging, etc., thus it frees them up to live and explore anywhere they want in the world. It's a very compelling concept.

What I do like about Zoey's videos though are her minimalist views and her goals for herself. She uses her videos to make herself accountable... and I can relate to that. One of her goals this year is to read two books a month and she presented a reading list. One of the books on the list was Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown. I found it at the library. I'm halfway through it now and I love it. One of his recommendations was to journal... so here I am, back to blogging.

I find it ironic... I find a book about pursuing less and focusing on what is important down a YouTube rabbit hole.

So what's next?

I'll be rooting for Mikaela Shiffrin when the Winter Olympics start on February 8th.
I'll stick to my diet by reporting on how it's going. My goal is to lose 20 lbs.
I'll run the Carmel Marathon on March 31st. If I'm in BQ shape by then, so be it. If not, I'm OK with that as my priority right now is to lose the weight.
I ran 10 miles the week of Jan. 14 - 20.
I ran 28 miles the week of Jan. 21 - 27.
I ran 31 miles the week of Jan. 28 - Feb. 3.

Onward.