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| Playing with my dogs in a KC snow storm (2/4) |
Okay, so it isn't technically mid-year yet. I know that. This year, it seems appropriate this year to do my mid-year breakdown slightly differently than I normally do. Usually, it is a summary of what has gone on from Jan-Jun. Makes sense, right? Well, this year on 6/10, I moved from the Kansas City, KS area to Pensacola, FL. That is so close to mid-year that it seemed logical to me that I do my summary as the part of this year that I lived in Kansas. That said, this is going to seem like a list of failures since I had some tough times with my running during this period for various reasons. But don't think that I see this part of my journey as a failure. I learned a lot, I worked hard, and I made sacrifices for what I want. That makes all of it a success.
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| Katya & me at Run Toto Run |
The first part of the year was the conclusion of my training for the Run Toto Run 50k and the subsequent race. The training was amazing. I worked very hard, lost a ton of weight, gained a ton of speed, endurance, and even managed to adjust to running in ridiculous cold. I felt like unless the conditions on race day were unbelievably bad, I would be set for a great race. Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened. Just a couple days before the race, we got about a foot and a half of very powdery snow. The type of snow that doesn't pack down, rather it gets even harder to run on as people trample it. At the race, I ended up twisting my ankle countless times, and I ended up dropping out after about 21 miles.
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| The awesome workbench my dad & I built at my house |
After that race, I took some time off running very much to work on getting the house ready to get on the market and to recover physically and mentally from the rigors of the race and the tough training that led up to the race. This time was pretty good for me. My body recovered pretty well, and getting the house ready for sale took up most of my time. Once we finally got the house back on the market, showings took up most of the times I would plan a run. I ran very little for several weeks. I wanted to be able to run a little more, but I needed to relax my desire to run in order to accomplish my desire to move to Florida. It was a worthwhile sacrifice.
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| Coming to the finish after pacing Will at Prairie Spirit |
Eventually, I got back to running. It started with pacing my friend Will at the Prairie Spirit 100. He's a very inspirational guy, and joining him for the last 50k of that race was a true joy and pleasure. I was honored that he even asked me. He accomplished a huge PR at the event and was able to honor a family friend of his that had passed away at a young age due to cancer. The things that Will does to honor and support other people is so awesome. The world needs more people like Will. I really enjoyed the hours we spent on the trail together in the dark working our way toward his goal. When others slow down so much at the end of a 100 miler, he keeps trucking along so strongly. Incredible.
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| After pacing Adama for a few miles at Free State |
I then was going to run the Rock On! Lake Perry 50k. It was a bit of a last minute decision to run it, I signed up about 4 weeks before race day. I had a couple pretty good training runs, but knew I'd taken too much time off after Toto. I figured I'd give it a go anyway and just see what would happen. After doing a pretty nice 20 mile training run with my friend Sophia, I decided to run the first half with her. She's a pretty bad ass runner, but I figured what the hell. Running the first half with her would either get me a huge PR or kill me.
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| Rock On! Lake Perry |
We did start out together and we were having a nice run and some good conversation, as we always do. Within about 6-6 1/2 miles, I knew that I was not going to make my PR and I dropped back from Sophia. She was actually running even faster than her planned pace and ended up having a heck of a race. No way I could have kept up. By the time I got to the half way point and picked up my pacer and amazing friend Janee', I was exhausted and overheated from going out way too fast at the start. I did the best I could to keep moving, and Janee' did a great job encouraging me, but we both new I wasn't going to make it, so I dropped out at about 21 miles. I didn't mind dropping this one too much since it just meant more time back at the start/finish line spending time with many of my great friends, who I would be moving away from soon.
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| Justin Chockley & me before Rock On! Lake Perry |
I spend the next few weeks getting in runs with my friends whenever I could and getting the house ready for our move. I wanted to spend as much time out enjoying running with my friends as I could. Race-wise, the first half of my year was pretty much a failure, but in reality, it was a great success. I finally accomplished my goal of moving to Florida, I spent time with friends, and I got in some pretty good training. I'm pretty pleased with how it went and what I did. Now, as I'm writing this, I am living in Florida and training for the Pensacola Marathon and maybe even the Croom Fool's 50 Miler early next year. As many of you know, I'm a business analyst, so here's a bunch of data & graphs that probably none of you but me will care about...
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