Hibernation

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The star above Boulder as seen from Pearl Street, Christmas night
It's the last half-hour of 2017 and I'm pushing out a post to keep my blogging streak alive. I can't imagine this is interesting to anyone else, but that's never really been what this blog is for. I could write more, and maybe I should write more, but the only goal I've had for this blog for a while is to write at least once a year.

The last week of the year has become what I call my period of "hibernation." Between Christmas and the New Year, I stay home, do whatever I want on whatever schedule I want. This year, that meant a lot of nights staying up until 4 am and sleeping until 10 or 11. Other than trips to get food, I pretty much had no social interaction for the week. I don't know that I purposely take this time as a mental vacation, but that's sort of what it is.

I had several goals for this year's hibernation, but the one I've done best to stick to is physical: pedaling my stationary bike 40 miles each day. There is a Strava challenge this year to ride 500 kilometers in the eight days from Christmas through New Year's Day, so 40 miles each day will get me there. I didn't think much about it, and I don't even keep track of indoor training miles on Strava, but it sounded like the right kind of goal to reverse the decline of my fitness the past few months. Tonight I finished my miles at about 11:30, just before I sat down to write this. The time of day doesn't matter, so long as I'm done with the day's ride by midnight.

Besides the miles on the bike, I've caught up with some TV and movies that I feel I'd been missing out on. I watched Moonlight and Spotlight, so now I'm current with the last several Academy Award winners for Best Picture. The Big Short was more lively than I expected, and I went on a little post-Lady Bird Greta Gerwig/Saoirse film fest with Lola Vs. (nice), Frances Ha (okay), and Hanna (this ain't Lady Bird). Now I'm watching Dave Chappelle's latest Netflix specials and realizing it's 11:57 and I have less than 3 minutes to hit publish.

See 'ya in 2018.
Location: Boulder, CO, USA

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