I signed up for Ironman Canada at the end of 2023. I had big plans for getting there.

Alas, it was not meant to be, and I focused myself on Ironman California in October.

In September, I attempted to resume running but quickly ran into persistent challenges, including tweaking my knee when standing up from my desk at work.

I had little choice but to stop running, focus on the other sports, and hope for the best day of. I continued to attend Taekwondo, which may not be the most helpful for recovery, and I did a lot of walking.

It turns out it wasn’t something that rest and physical therapy could ultimately help.

I had torn the medial part of my left meniscus. The doctor said it wasn’t from a particular moment per-se, but rather just wear & tear given my activity level and age.

It is the most common form of knee injury for athletes.

So after three months of PT and two months of rest, an X-ray, and an MRI, the fix took less than two hours - and supposedly the entire procedure was only 20 minutes for the doctor.

I felt completely at ease as I lined up at 5th and Harrison to start the 2023 Seattle Marathon: my only expectation was to have a good time.

Two weeks prior I had strained my right calf while hustling down a steep section of Discovery Park’s loop trail; I blame it on the two would-be Arizona Iron wo/man at my heels.

I hadn’t run in two weeks and had no idea what my calf would do; I had not “tested it” (although I lightly jogged from the car to the Westin to pickup my packet, and felt great.)

After several years using Google’s firebase, I’ve decided to return to S3/Cloudfront.

Ultimately, I never took advantage of any of Firebase’s capabilities, and now it’s easier for me to lean in on what I use regularly then have an odd ball.

https://www.nick.org and https://www.kirsch.org/ are both CloudFront’d again.

It took a long time just to start typing this … as I realized that I’m not sure what I want to talk about.

Why am I talking at all? Who are these words for?

One clear beneficiary is my future self. My older self. Will you find me naive or prescient? How many other things will you wish I had talked about?

My children. They certainly don’t look at this now, but perhaps someday they’ll have questions about me that this could answer?

I briefly described the shock of realizing that Zack was moving to California.

Two years later, and … he’s back!

It’s not quite the same, as they will be living in Woodenville and not three blocks away - but it’s still thrilling to have the opportunity to see each other more than 2-3 times a year.

• Get the kids together
• Attend the recitals and the big games
• Celebrate moments together
• Sneak out for a few nights on the town
• Meet up for a rainy, muddy run
• Family camping

The list is endless.