Back at it

Getting back to town after week in the Yellowstone area with JZ (amazing week, more on that later with pix, etc).  I have been pretty much intersphere dead so I have been nearly completely out of it.  Lots to catch up on … fires in Colorado (who needs site to evac to? contact me … ), Western, SJS, Mount Evans, the OT races, Comrades winner drug ban, how to be a pacer, etc.  I got a few bits and bytes … but mostly I have not clue as to what has happened or is happening.

The last two weeks reinforced for me my general thinking and approach to training and racing this season.  And that approach is pretty loose.  I have called it exercise instead of training… meaning I might get one day and do Green.  The next day might be speed on the track in spikes.  Or, like it was last week, it might be nothing at all.  There is clearly a part of my brain that barks in concern about this approach.  It is that part of me that obsesses over my performances in races being some sort of definition of who I am.  And with that, I can control who I am by being disciplined with training – and hence performances.  It is that part of my brain that believes that if I let it go just a little bit, I will let it go a lot of bit.  It is the concern that if I let it unravel, I will not be able to wind it up again.  But, frankly, that is simply not smart for the other priorities I have – and that I have gladly chosen.  I choose not to be tortured by my training and my performances, but instead look to be balanced and joyful in the pursuit of being a runner, a friend, a father, a husband.  When I have that perspective – it is pretty awesome.

To that end, I with this shift, a natural outcome is that this blog is changing as well.  In its early chapters (almost 5 years ago now), it was about me being public in my commitment to do the best I could at Pikes.  It was all about posting my training and my workouts along the way – to be both accountable to that and to solicit feedback.  Along the way it has been a training blog, a blog about the races I have done, a blog about the guys I have run with, a blog about my family and my travels (mostly due to work), and recently a blog considering about how I age as an athlete.  I realize post training about epic times in the mountains is probably a more entertaining read, but I never really did this to be entertaining. 

So we’ll see where it goes.  I am pretty sure that I will like it.  Some may not. 


Melted myself with a run over Green and Bear yesterday as a way to submerge and cleanse myself after a week in the big park.  Not bad, but it was pretty damn hot out there.  101 was recorded  … and I felt it as I got out mid day … and hence got a good number of those “what the hell is he doing” looks.