Upheaval

It's been some time since i've posted, mainly due to laziness, and partially due to the fact that i' haven't been doing too much since october.

I had a good bought of fatigue and general lethargy which forced me to re-evaluate a lot of my ambitions over the past 8 months.  I did one final long run in october:  a group of good friends and i enjoyed a rim to rim to rim crossing of the grand canyon.

After finishing that I put all physical activity on hold from december through mid march.  Around which time i decided to ease back into things.  I adopted the playground approach, which is exactly what it sounds like, i've reverted to my playground days, focusing on enjoying the process instead of focusing on goals.  If it sounds like fun and offers potential to put a smile on my face, i'm in, if it's something i start begrudgingly, I'll pass.

During february i was still feeling like i needed to accomplish something.  I signed up for a very ambitious summer:

1. the leadman series out in leadville consisting of:
1. leadville trail marathon June 29th
2. Silver King (a 50 mile mountian bike ride on saturday 7/12 and then run the same course on sunday 7/13)
3. Leadville Trail 100 mtb August 10th
4. Leadville 10k Run August 11th
5. Leadville Trail 100 run August 17th
2. Alaska Mountain Ultrarunning Camp July 27 - Aug 2nd
3. Angeles Crest 100 Mile Endurance Run August 3rd

One of the problems I have is poor planning, another problem i've been facing is i just didn't know what i needed to accomplish.  This makes it incredibly difficult to pursue, kind of like running around in the dark looking for and undefined something.  even you find it, how do you know you've found it since you don't konw what it is.

Sometime around march i was able to let go of this need to accomplish anything this year, except enjoy it.  I've thrown out all goals and ambitions for this year, reduced my physical possessions to a much more manageable collection:

• clothes
• 3 bikes (of course i need 3 bikes:) - cross bike, track bike, mountain bike
• some camping/hiking gear
• books
• eating and cookware
• my truck

packed up my things and sirius and i headed to colorado to our new playground.  I did a couple 50k's on minimal preparation and found they weren't so bad, some of my endurance managed to survive my vacation form activity, and the fact that i was taking it easy from the beginning made the finishes a bit more comfortable and enjoyable.  I'm a bit slower than in the past, but that's ok, i'm not currently racing.

I got a great wake up call this past week.  Had an incredible time at Geoff Roes' camp, took a ridiculous number of photos and met some great people that helped me further put things into perspective.  I felt better during every one of the camp runs than i have in the past year, and i am pretty sure i had a smile on the entire time.

It was tough to leave the camp especially knowing i was going to try and run ac100 the next morning.  I'll do a more in depth right up of both the camp and ac100 in the coming weeks, for now, just realize it was a humbling experience, and really helped me appreciate the group of friends i have.  I had some really good stretches and had to dig out of some really tough places, which would not have happened without my friends there to support me.

I am now enjoying an easy week during which i'll spend some more time enjoying nature and not worrying about training, but focusing on recovering and getting in the right mental state to fully enjoy the next 2 weekends.