I ran a 15k!
Here's what I've been up to while I haven't been writing my newsletter š¬ (lifetothemax #28)
Hey! Itās me, remember? The guy with the āweeklyā newsletter you havenāt received since August.
Itās mid-December, the year is officially 95% done, but reader, be reassured. I have every intention of continuing to write this newsletter weekly. I just had a bit of a slip up that lasted 4 months. No big dealā¦
First, let me tell you what Iāve been up to (and some of the reasons why Iām late):
SEPTEMBER
: The reason I initially stopped writing the newsletter was somewhat understandable. The week after my last newsletter, I flew back home to France for the first time in over a year (the longest I had ever been away). Since I didn't take time off from work for the month that I was there (remote work, yay!), and spent all my time off with friends and family, I didnāt have a ton of time for writing. I told myself, it's okay, I'll take the month off, then in October I'll get back to it.
OCTOBER
: Then in October, Charlotte (my girlfriend, if you didnāt already know) and I moved back to NYC. By āmoved backā, I mean we landed in New York, AND THEN began the search for an apartment (with our friend Rosh. Thanks for helping with the apartment hunt Rosh!). We (naively) thought finding a place to live would only take a few days, but then a week turned into two and we still hadnāt found one. We went back to stay with family in Massachusetts while we continued to look, all while I was still working remotely. So yeah, I didnāt have a ton of time to write. Finally, on October 20th, we found a place and signed a lease!
NOVEMBER
: Thatās it right? Back to the old routine? Turns out moving in itself also takes up a lot of timeā¦ Moving all the furniture up five flights of stairs and unpacking many, many, many boxes takes longer than you might expect. So now the ālifeā part of my work-life balance was not spent with family and friends or looking for an apartment, but instead unpacking boxes. (Itās now been almost two months since weāve moved in, and we still have boxes left to unpackā¦)
DECEMBER
: Now, I probably could have found a few hours to write a newsletter, but for some reason, writing a newsletter after so long felt weird. I think part of me wanted my first newsletter back to be a big exciting one, and the added pressure made it hard to get started.
And then something big and exciting did happen! As youāve gathered from the title: I ran a 15k! And it was an actual race!
But before I did thatā¦ I did lots of training for my 2022 marathon.
As you may recall, I announced a few newsletters back (and hence many months back) that I will be running a marathon next year. When I wrote that, I had not yet signed up for a marathon, but that now has changed! If everything goes to plan, Iāll be running the 2022 Paris marathon in April. Of course, not everything ever goes to plan, for example when I injured myself a week ago and havenāt been able to run since. But hey, just a few more days of rest and Iāll be good to keep training, right?
I had been running a lot, doing two short runs (Tuesday and Thursday), two medium runs (Wednesday and Sunday) and one long run (Saturday) each week. Slowly increasing the distances week-over-week, I had gotten to the point where my long run was about 9 miles, which you may have expertly calculated is approximately 15k. The race happened to fall on the right day, so I signed up, and then it was time to run!
I finished the race in an hour and 26 minutes (my best race pace yet, 9:05/mile). It was a beautiful day, and everyone at the race was super supportive. I was really happy with my time, and the progress I felt made me excited for future, longer runs (like a marathonā¦). The weather was so nice out that Charlotte and I decided to walk our dog through the park after the race.
Oh I forgot to mention, we got a dog!
Meet Adobo! Sheās a one-year-old Chipit and sheās an absolute chiller. I mean look at that photoā¦ Also, we have every intention of making her into a social media influencer (just like her dad!), so please check out (and follow) her instagram and tiktok.
Anyway, enough with the catching up. Letās get back to the reason I started this newsletter: goals. One of them was to write this newsletter once a week, so I havenāt done great on that. On the other hand, Iāve been running a ton, and Iāve also done great with reading. I just finished āThe 4-Hour Workweekā by Tim Ferris, my 23rd book of the year. That means Iāve finished 5 books since my last newsletter!
I think thatās enough news for this week. But before I end this newsletter, hereās my plan for the rest of the year: Iāll write one more newsletter about what I achieved and learned in 2021, a sort of āYear in Reviewā. If all things go according to plan, that will be out next Sunday (December 26) as a late Christmas present to you, the reader! (Youāre welcome.) The next newsletter after that will be my plan for next year, the future of this newsletter, my new goals and aspirations, and some more cool stuff (out on January 2nd).
Letās leave it at that. See you next week, and Happy Holidays! (And thanks for sticking around over the past few months ā¤ļø)
Many congratulations on achieving this goal Max. You have become a fully fledged runner now.
PS very cool dog shot
Finally!!