Where it all started

my first real road bike - Nishiki International

I remember watching the Tour de France as a kid; I’m not sure what year it was, 1984 or 85? or maybe even 86. I just got my first “real” road bicycle, meaning it was something I would not flip the handlebars around and ride wheelies with, or jump, or basically beat the crap out of like every other bicycle I have owned. This was a real bike, meant for going faster, longer, harder, with toe clips that meant falling over was a cumbersome affair to untangle oneself. I even had some cool Avocet shoes that offered a harder sole to increase pedaling efficiency and grooves to hold my foot into place; this was a real frigging bike. And Hell NO do not forget to loosen your toe clips at a red light, there is no last minute twist of the foot to unclip with those damn things! I was ready to haul some ass.  Give me some spandex. A cool EURO La Vie Claire jersey and some matching Look shorts. Damn that was badass! As bad ass as you can be in spandex anyway.

It was the first day of the tour, and the prologue was it’s typical crazy short self, maybe 4K or so.  The pros did it in whatever time they did it in, I can’t remember. But I do remember hopping on my bike, hitting start on the cyclometer, and then pedaling my ass off around the neighborhood to see how close I could come to the winning time. Only quickly to realize that stop signs, other cars, and whatever other neighborhood hazard there is around to slow me down that it wasn’t a fair comparison. Sprinting up  to 29 mph, staying at  that speed maybe 5 feet, basically hyperventilating, then completely falling apart all within the first 400 yards.

Long slow rides with friends, stopping at Burger King to refuel, those were the food and fun days I remember from riding. Nowadays I am just getting back into the same type of riding I did as a kid. Getting lost, running out of food, exploring new areas, just riding without a distance, time, pace, or specific destination in mind. Having fun again and just being a kid on a bike. And I may not be  a bad ass in spandex, but don’t most superheroes where spandex? I may get to that point at some time. 

A few photos from biking and hiking Zion

One thing I have been realizing lately is I don’t take enough pictures – of the things I do. I take tons and tons of pictures of the kids, whether it is baseball, a little hike, the playground, jumping on the hippity hops at home, go carts,  or whatever our adventures entail. But when it comes to the time I am not with them I hardly ever take pictures. I have ridden at probably 10 different trail networks this year, and I’m pretty sure the only place I took pictures was in Utah. This year I have ridden in Anacortes, Kettles, Woodinville, Lord Hill, Galbraith, Chuckanut, Lake Padden, Salt Lake City, Jem trail loop in Zion, and Gooseberry Mesa at minimum, I’m probably missing a couple places. Amount of pictures I have taken in Washington…..ZERO!  

Hidden Canyon was a cool hike. Hiked along 300 foot cliffs which is pretty brave (for me).

   I need to change that – even on my road rides I see so many cool things, spending a couple hundred miles per week on a bicycle is such a cool way to see the world. Single track or some back road that not many people know about it filled with interesting things and memories and views that most people will never see. Sure, I took a picture of a canyon wall a thousand feet high in a national park – but 1000’s of those pictures already exist that are basically the same. Seeing an owl waiting patiently before it dives for its prey is indescribable, but not having a camera to capture the owl perched and waiting is inexcusable. So many amazing sunsets and full moon bike rides I keep forgetting to capture – I need to do better.

Waking up to this every morning was pretty cool.

Sunset was amazing each night.



4/7/13





This week I definitely crossed the line from riding my bike “just to have fun” to actually training for races. I rode about 215 miles, not crazy high mileage or anything, but the fact that I am constantly pushing myself to eke out another  .2 or .3 mph to my pace, or push my cadence a few revs quicker means the little switch got flipped. Oh, and I can’t forget about the amount of rain I rode in this week. Seriously, I got dumped on each of the last 3 rides – crazy amounts of wind and rainfall which is not too fun to ride in. I am not quite doing 5 hours rides in 38 degree downpours anymore, but 2.5 hours at a strong tempo in a deluge would not be happening if I wasn’t trying to get my ass back in bike racing shape. I know that I am enjoying the pedaling because I don’t even bitch to myself during the rides how shitty it is to be out in crap weather. This past Thursday it completely dumped on me for at least 90% of a 42 mile ride and not once did I internalize the fact that this weather sucks and I don’t want to be out here. Nope. All I thought was “Hey, I’m starting to feel stronger on the bike” and “Damn I love pedaling my bike and no one else is around, this is so peaceful and even the bunnies are hiding so hopefully I won’t have to worry about running them over and wow it feels good to be riding a bike again.” Yep, that’s what I think about when I ride. Just my cadence and bunnies.

Randumb Tuesday thoughts....

Random thoughts running through my head…OK, it’s not all running related, but I’m sure I can get it there,  but running is really such a small part in my life, and the most meaningless in my hierarchy of needs – or at least to what’s really important in life.  It’s a good thing when I am able to think about running or training or racing, because that generally means everything else is going ok. But just because the opportunity is there, it doesn’t meaning the running is going to go smoothly. For something the human form is supposedly Born to Do  (see what I did there?) it is also the most frustrating at certain times.

I stopped and thought about this while at physical therapy one day. I have no less than 8 people that I work with keeping me running. I have numerous physical therapists, athletic trainers, massage therapists. That’s a lot of people’s talents and education and hard work all trying to keep me running and happy and healthy. And yet I am still broken. I have had 3 separate issues in the past 10 days which directly impacted my running. My ongoing knee, blah blah blah, that’s fine if I avoid the trails, my calf / Achilles – but that’s no big deal. And now my foot. Seriously! How the fudgsicle do I get a knot in the tendon of my foot? I am getting really close to just hanging up the running shoes for a while. I have lots of bicycles that are needing some love thrown their way. But man, bike riding is such a massive time suck. And I still tend to ride a bicycle like I’m 20 at times; meaning I’m not always smart enough to slow down to go faster, instead hucking myself into some precarious moments which include bouncing off the ground at 25 mph or more.  Dirt hurts. Pavements is worse.

Why do all these girls wear those tall boots? Nearly everywhere I look they all have them. This is perhaps the largest most blatant evidence of the term “group think” that I can ever remember seeing. Even cattle when out in the field stray from one another now and then. . Do they all shop together? Because one girl got some everyone has to have them? Sorry but they look stupid. Maybe it’s the old punk rocker in me or some innate individualistic gene I possess, but those things just look plain silly when everyone looks the same. Why do all these women want to look like everyone else does? Don’t these women know that tryouts for ZZ Tops video “Legs” already came out 30 years ago.   Move on….

A quote I came across the other day stuck in my head…”There are two kinds of people in the world, the ones who go into a room and turn the TV on, and one that enters a room and  turns the TV off.” I am definitely a turn the TV off person, although living (mostly) by myself it’s never really on. I generally cannot sit still long enough to watch a movie, nor do I care to for the most part. But I can sit still and read a book. Not really sure what the difference is although culturally it is more acceptable to read a book -   for whatever reason sitting on your ass reading is better than sitting on your ass watching a movie.  Am I making myself smarter? I don’t know about that.  But watching TV seems like a passive thing to do in life, and I tend to take a proactive approach to everything I do. Nothing ever got done just talking about it. Or watching it unfold in some electronic form. But reading tends to enlighten and inspire? I dunno about that. I’ll just go outside and do something hoping that will satiate whatever desire I have to feel like I did something with my day.

Teeter-tawtering




This is all the motivation I need



It’s a boring and conflicting time of year. Fog. Cold. Wet. Dark. Motivation sometimes rises and falls with the amount of sunshine, and then all of a sudden with no warning it is off the chart again.

One day I am in the middle of running 27 miles and feel completely burned out, then the following week I run 82 miles and just want to keep running.

Not sure what triggers this – but am just glad I am going all out again with seemingly unlimited (sometimes too much) motivation to run.

Lance has finally admitted the 30% truth, because really, with his arrogance and narcissism he must think we are all a bunch of idiots to believe he is telling us the complete story. I could write forever about this dude, and compare and contrast him with other people that I once knew, and that would be so much fun. I would love  to write it, but I won’t waste my time on him or anyone else that is either too dumb, too arrogant, or too callous to even get it. I wasted enough words on that, but did I mention how fun it would be? Go rot in obscurity after making amends with the lives your ruined – although that’s not really possible.

Call me pessimistic, but do people really honestly believe there is no PED use in ultrarunning? Really? Again. Really? And how long did it take you to understand that Lance was NOT clean. Or Marion Jones. Or Ben Johnson. Or...(the list goes on). I hate to pat myself on the back, but I think I had been a non believer since at least 2001. Add the facts up and sometimes things that are too good to be true are just that. I would never name a name without proof, but some of these times from 2013 are just plain crazy fast.  And the amount of improvement people make from year to year is astonishing. Hours improvement in a single year? I’ll remain skeptical about a lot of these runners and really just hope I’m wrong.

Back to my running. Mine mine mine. My running. Like it is a physical object that I can wrap my arms around or something.  The truth is far from anything like that – I have never been able to settle all my running riddles, and currently I am in a huge one. Patella Tendonitis…patella tracking issues…whatever. The only thing I know is that I CANNOT run downhill without pain. And it’s not a little bit either, it’s the stride altering kind where I run like I have a peg leg, but nope, it’s just my leg, no peg. Physical therapy gets me to cross train, I have always been such a slacker in that regard, and avoiding elevation does seem to help.  But gosh darn it, I miss the single track. If I was ever patient enough I would just go to Tiger Mountain and walk to the top of it, and gingerly walk down.  At least I’d get some single track back into my soul. But I know I would end up peg legging downhill – and of course the knee would be stressed.

Oh! Did I mention with this injury I am still able to run 80+ miles per week? Yep, I cannot understand this one either. Although I think someone should just permanently attach whatever kinesio tape job is always on my knee. Riddles. I like easier riddles. Like I’m hungry so I should eat. Or I need to be here so I need to leave at this time. This one is above my knowledge base, and I’m not quite sure the people I have been working with are entirely successful in decoding my knee dilemma.  I have eight weeks left to train for a 100K – I’m not worried about running 62 miles, I’m worried about the descending and climbing within that 62 miles. I could always powerwalk it, uphill no big deal but it would be so painful (mentally) to have to walk or run gingerly  downhill.

  Maybe I can find a run across Nebraska? Or Kansas?



 

The Waiting Game



Zion. Coming soon
 to a run near me.

 
 

“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.”

Rumi

Wait is defined as “to postpone or delay something or to be postponed or delayed” (Dictionary.com).

Someone once asked me to wait for them. A week turned into a month which turned into many months. Then a year. Then more months on top of that. All hiding behind lies and self fulfilling agendas. I was going through a lot of stuff in life at the time besides this. I became hugely depressed. Most days I didn’t even want to wake up, and there was no denying that I was at a point where that was a distinct possibility. It turns out that person is a liar. A user. And a piece of shit that I am thankful things didn’t work out with. I was at a point where I was no longer me, but I let that happen. Lesson learned though - so I take some positive from that.

Another person asked me to wait for something just recently also. I couldn’t get an answer to what in fact I was waiting for. So the answer is no – I’m not waiting. Life doesn't wait, and most often I won't either.

How does all this tie into running? Or life since for me the two are so closely intertwined? I don’t know if I can explain it clearly (or concisely) but I’ll try. I’ve had people ask me how I am going to feel when I’m crippled at 70 years old from all the running I do now. Again – am I supposed to wait for that to happen through natural causes or osteoporosis, old age, arthritis or atrophy? Am I supposed to save my knees, hips, ankles, and whatever else I’m supposedly wearing out so I can win the weekly mall walking lap race against the other old geezers? Would that entail sitting around doing nothing now? Only to save myself for that time? So I can be an able bodied old bastard I should let present life pass by? Where is the sense in that? I don't see it.

The only thing I have figured out for myself is that life is about now, today, in this moment which I am in control of - as I get out of each day I wake up and think how awesome each moment within this day will be. I am not going to live for anyone outside of my kids and people close to me.  I am going to be there for them from the moment they were born to the moment I die, and come hell or high water there is nothing that could ever stop me if needed. And in between I am going to experience life to the fullest extent I can. I am going to see all parts of the world that I always wanted to. I look back and think of all the places I have seen a sunrise or sunset, in all different mountain ranges and all time zones. My own picture book in my head could be it's own Ansel Adams gallery. And it is still growing because I am still living for now because tomorrow is not guaranteed. Sure, I have regrets and many wasted days in the past, but the fact is I have learned so much in living life so far it makes me realize that even the bad days weren’t completely wasted because they brought me to where I am now. In a good place, seeing so many new things and meeting so many interesting people from all parts of the world and life.  It’s a pretty amazing journey I’m on right now, and this ride is just getting good. I can’t wait for it to continue. And I’m not going to either. And I still have many miles left to run.

Grand Ridge 50K

There is no flat trail once on the single track.

Grand Ridge 50K – I ended up winning but didn’t feel as if I ran well. I saw little Megan back there (hi : ) and man, I didn’t want to get beat by a little girl, I’m sure that time is coming soon but not quite yet please. The rocks killed my wimpy feet too. It sure sucks getting older. But in all seriousness, I think it’s the fact that I really haven’t run many trails this year.  With so much going on all the time and running so many miles I didn’t always have time to drive and run 20 miles in a single day.  In hindsight it may have been better to run 15 miles on trails as opposed to 20 around town. The race started off as most 50K’s start off, 5-6 people going way way WAYYYYY too fast. I don’t know if they just wanted to lead a race, or they were feeling so well so early, or what it was. But I thought I had a 4:50 in me for this run, so I just ran the pace I thought I needed to which was 2:02 for each lap and then whatever on the short 5 mile loop. First lap easy – 2:02. Second lap I was actually pretty good, lost some time when I needed to pig out at the aid station, and drink a bunch. But I think it was maybe2:06 or 2:07. The last lap was pretty bad. I took a couple minutes trying to get food in me before I set off on the last lap, and also had to drink because the preceding aid station had a line for the fluids which I did NOT want to wait for.  Anyway, to make a long sob story short, I sucked on the last part of the 3.5 miles of climbing before the downhill. I was still “running” but it was pathetic. Shit hurt. Whenever I get like this I get a Phil Ligget quote in my head that he said one time about Jan Ullrich as Lance was dropping him in the mountains, “It’s like his brain told his legs, bridge to engine room more power, but there isn’t any.” The last 2 miles was a complete bonk. I dropped my last Clif Blok on the ground, and that was it. It fell in cinematic slow motion too, it was pretty  amazing. Or maybe I was just running in slow motion at that point, it was hard to tell. Luckily it was mostly downhill to finish so I shuffled my way there in a complete cement shoed bonk. It did down pour for the last ½ mile or so, but I was too hungry to care. Made it to the finish, stood under the EZ up, and then saw pizza and muffins and attempted to eat my weight in food. Yummy. I also won a choice of Rudy Project sunglasses and then a case of muscle milk for the win. Yum yum. Time to seriously get my old ass into shape though. OK, I do realize I’m in decent shape, but not exactly the race shape that I want to be in. But as always, it is so awesome to run in the woods and enjoy the solitude and clear thoughts of nothingness as the ground blurs beneath my feet. That’s a good happy place to be.

Oh Sh!t

It's funny how sometimes you take the ability to run 20 or 30 miles every weekend for granted, and then follow that up with another 10-20 miles the next day. No problem right? That's what we do. And we sandwich it around going out with friends, chasing kids around the playground, mowing the lawn, and everything else people do in life each day. But then one day you are in the middle of a longish training run and it doesn't work out that way. That happened to me this past Saturday.
   So I was supposed to run 50 miles, although it didn't quite turn out that way. It was not even 30, and it completely sucked. I headed out to Duval to run 50, and decided to do a double out and back just so I could get enough liquids. So anyway, I start off nice and easy running 8:30's which generally feels like a walk, nice and easy and the heart rate is barely even elevated. It's a little warm, a little humid but nothing too crazy. I start running and by mile 3 I am already feeling hungry. OK, no big deal, I eat a powerbar as I shuffle along. And drink my Nuun out of my camelbak every so often. I think I'm doing just fine as far as nutrition goes. Whatever, I'm just running relaxed and everything is as easy as it should be for the 1st 12.5 miles. I turn around and continue back down the trail toward my car - just taking a little detour at about mile 16 to stop at a store and get some water and refill my liquid. All is still well. I continue running and pop some clif bloks and continue to drink.
   35 minutes later I am walking. I am trying to figure out what is going on and I cannot. My legs really don't hurt at all. But I feel like all of a sudden I am in survival mode and it happened in the blink of an eye. Fast. i walk for a mile and eat and drink, and slowly start to jog and I just don't have it. If I were on a bike I would say that I lost all my power. I can still run, but it is an embarrasing slow shuffle. Only 2 weeks ago I won a 50K and was running sub 6:00 pace at mile 31. Now it is remarkably flat and I'm barely moving. I eat some more and drink some more, and try to keep running but it is obvious that whatever I did just wans't working for me this day. I eventually recover enough to run the last hour back to the car @ 8:30 pace - but it was ugly and felt worse.
  It's not like I haven't ever had this happen before. But usually it's in a race after running for 9 or 10 hours - not after 2.5 hours of pretty flat terrain at a sedentary pace. I decided to just cut this run short as i know forcing the distance can take a lot out of oneself, and training is not the place to wipe myself out for a couple weeks.
   I got home and jumped on the scale and said "oh shit!" That lies part of my problem. My weight is coming down from running 70-80 miles per week, but there is no way in hello? that I should weigh 164  pounds -not yet anyway - after a run and drinking the 25 minute drive home. So I would guess the root casue to be: A) I just didn't drink enough B) i didn't eat enough in the days before the run.
On the bright side my legs were fine and I ran 20 the next day  @ 7:45 pace which was comfortable and relaxed.
  The moral of the story is yes ultra runner type people can go out and run for a long time fairly comfortably, but we need to make sure the tank is full before we leave. I don't want to have to suffer again like that needlessly, and after all the years I have been running or riding bikes or whatever I should damn well know better by now. I just need to remind myself every so often.

Intermittently

Recovery from Echo Lake was only so-so. I am not running much elevation this year, only a few thousand feet per week as JJ doesn't have all that much. The 50K I ran nearly had as much as the 100 miler - it would sure be nice if I could run the same pace for the hilly 50K as the flatt(ish) 100 miler, but I guess that is not going to happen. And although my recovery wasn't exactly as swift as I would have liked it to be, in retrospect a 50 mile run week with a 23 mile run just below 8:00 pace isn't exactly a recipe for recovery for mere mortals like me but it works. But the 23 was a pretty simple easy run, I could feel the race seep back into the legs at about mile 21 but overall it was a relatively chill little run. I have an epic day planned this Saturday so hopefully that goes pretty well. But I am happy I am still feeling like my fitness is in a good spot, I shed some pounds, and running long once again puts me in a happy zen state.
  To repeat again - I must say that it is sure nice to be "in training" again and have my head completely wrapped around a race, yet still do other things in life to have a balance (as much as you can have balance while running 90 miles in a week, going to work, being a dad, and other little nuances in life), not to mention other social (non running) aspects of life and it's a pretty sweet spot I'm in now.

Echo Lake 50K

It was so nice to have friends drive to a race for a change, more so on the way home so I could sit on my ass and fade in and out of being awake if I needed it. Some of the races in the past were pretty sketchy staying awake after a long race, White River and Waldo were absolutely the worst, the WA DOT could have used me as a test driver as the rumble strips were put to good use in keeping my sorry ass awake after those. Also,  It’s a good way to catch up on a million and one text messages and emails; a good way to pass the time as texts can often turn certain ways to become very entertaining/amusing. Plus it’s always fun to talk about running with your running friends, because really – no one else gives a shit – which is quite ok with me.  And having not raced in 7 months - last year my body just plain sucked as I suffered from IT band crap all year - I had no idea how the body would  behave and was anxious to find out. Sure, I did a lot of mileage in the past couple months, probably averaging over 70 miles per week with the heaviest weeks approaching 90, but most of that carried little elevation change as my utmost goal is a fast 100 @ JJ which is a fairly flat course. So anyway, off to the races for the first time (healthy) in about 18 months.

   We rolled into the Chelan area with tons of daylight to spare, set up some tents, stared at the ski hill and instantly thought back to Waldo which also started out at a ski area (albeit a mountain) but was nonetheless thankful we didn’t start running straight up that like @ Waldo.  Not much really to do after that except pay attention to nutritional needs (donuts – why don’t they have donut flavored gels?) and fluids (water = Nuun). I was good to go. Tried to go to bed at a decent time and read for what felt like forever, but then learned I drank way too much water. Off to the bathroom. What a pain in the ass that is when spending the night in a tent. But the stars were absolutely amazing. I have not seen the stars like that since I ran Waldo in 2010, some events or nights for some reason just hang out in the clearest parts of my memory, and that night did for the pure beauty of the night sky and the simple things in life that we often miss or forget to take in – myself included. It was also the last time (before this race) I showed up at a race not completely stressed out about life and divorce and kids and other stupid crap– but hey, you gotta screw up big time to learn a big lesson. And running is always there for you, and the people that love you, blah, blah, blah. : ) You can watch Oprah for the rest.

  Read 2/3 of a novel, eventually fell asleep, woke up, fell asleep, woke up, fell asleep, noticed it was light out so I just got up and B was already up for the start of the 50 mile. I thought of doing it and could have probably done ok, but I wanted to see where I was and didn’t want to jump in the deep end quite so soon. After that it was hang out and relax, a gentle rain began to fall and then I had to get ready to run. Eat more food, lube up, tie my shoes, run a couple miles to warm up since we climbed a 900+ foot climb from the get go, and then it was time to start.

 I swear the rain stopped as soon as the dude sent us off. We had about ¾ mile on fire road and then it was all single track after that. My goal was to run the first 10K @ 8:00 flat pace since it had 1000 feet of climbing, and somehow I nailed that just by relaxing and running easy up hill, and not banzaing back down. I stayed around 6:10-6:20 pace while the leader was closer to 5:30. I already drank 3 bottles in the first 10K and noticed that he didn’t  even have a bottle – though he picked his up after the first 10K. There was one more guy that was kinda staying close to us and I noticed he wasn’t carrying a bottle either. The weather forecast was 82 and sunny, and with 4 hours of running planned for the day I was going to come prepared. The guy in front would gap me on the down hills about 15-20 seconds per mile, but I would always close up without even exerting much effort. I knew that running without a bottle as the sun came out and the temperature rose would greatly reduce the power available to my 2 running companions as the day wore on. I just tried to run relaxed, and felt like I was more fit (and possibly more experienced) then the other 2. When we got to mile 11 we had some flat terrain for a while and I let the one dude lead and he wanted to run 7’s for a while, and I was fine with that. If solo I would have saved more energy but this is generally  a comfortable enough pace to live with. We did a 7.5 mile loop of the course with a few short climbs @ maybe 7:15 pace which brought us to mile 18 or so. I was just sitting and more worried about myself than the race. I came here to train and see where I was at, if I won then that’s a bonus, if I didn’t -  I didn’t care as long as I learned where I was and got in some race miles. And no, I didn’t say I was going to win the race to Steve from SCRC, that was his spin on stuff to make me look like an arrogant ass in weekly email to the run group. Thanks Steve!

  After a while I decided it was time to test my current fitness level. So on a longer climb I pushed myself just a tiny bit and as the terrain flattened out I dropped the pace to maybe 6:30 for a while to see what the other 2 guys would do. They didn’t respond, I was alone so I just ran my own race for the remainder. At around mile 22 it got really warm on a longer climb as the heat started to suck some life out of me. I dragged ass up this maybe 7-8 minute climb, and then it took maybe another mile or so of sucking (as in sucking air and running slow) before I recovered. I just continued to drink and pop clif bloks and although starting to get tired I was ok considering it was almost 30 degrees warmer than anything I am used to running in. And sunny. There was another climb at about mile 26 that sucked (I passed the marathon at I think 3:44), survived up that (barely) and then got a rhythm going and with 900 feet to drop in the last 2.5 miles ran about 6:00 pace to finish in 4:26. Overall it was an ok day, I knew my legs would be not so good on the parts they weren’t, but I also know my fitness is coming along. This course is probably harder than Baker lake and I was a good chunk of time faster than I ever ran there in definitely warmer temperatures. So hey! That’s a positive. Fitness is coming along, and it’s all just building blocks to AZ for the JJ100. So I’ll just keep building. And I got a free bottle of wine for winning. Ha ha. As always has been the case I give the alcohol away to friends – but it’ll be appreciated at least. I don’t even like the stuff. I have no idea what race is next, I am trying to find one that will fit in a schedule of kids birthdays and travel plans, and whatever else gets  in the way, but until then I will keep adding to the weekly mileage so I can finally run a 100 miler I can be proud of. I don’t have any time predictions for a 100, but I know if I will be satisfied or not once I look at the clock upon crossing the finish line.

   And after that, bigger things await.

My update

I have a race in 10 days. I still cannot tell if I am back or not. It seems like one day I can go out and run 10 miles at 6:30, and other days I just plain suck and the legs do too. I only sleep 4 or 5 hours a night so that probably has something to do with it. My mileage has been somewhere between 50-60 miles per week for the past month, which isn't too bad. The good thing about racing again is I think it will get back into the groove of things. It will be nice to be in a race atmosphere and hang with all the other ultra people for a Saturday.

I'm still not sure about running a 100 this year, I would really like to but there is just so much stuff that needs to be taken care of it is hard at this time to commit myself to training for one. And to be honest with myself I don't know if I am mentally capable of doing that now - although I would guess a lot of that has to do with the weather. Last year was easier to motivate myself because I ran Rocky Raccoon in February, Chuckanut in March, Capitol Forest in April, 12 hours in Redmond in May, Kettle Morraine in June, White River in July, Waldo in August, p2p in September, Baker Lake in October, and Ron Herzog in November. One a month like clockwork. And lots of miles at Tiger Mountain too. By the end of the year my fitness was amazing and now I feel like it is quite opposite of amazing. If I wanted to have a good August and September I am in the perfect position to do so. I would really like to run Waldo again, and am thinking about p2p even though the course was kind of lame - but the area and town are really cool - as are the people which is what makes running ultras so cool anyway.

I'll figure it out. I just need to keep running and eventually I'll get into the swing of things. Good weather will help.