I seem to be at a crossroads in my running as of late.  It’s that awkward period after you put forth a huge effort to maximize your potential and nothing is the same as it was before. I’ve tried to put last year behind me, my failure (I know others don’t see it that way but I do) at the Trials, working toward for 3 years, sacrificing 1 year (really much more than that, but who’s counting). I’m certainly not trying to forget it, that’s not what I mean. That was awesome, running as a full time job, a great team, great coaches, a truly memorable experience. I wouldn’t trade it for anything (I would trade the outcome), but it is nice to be back to the way things were before. Or at least that’s what I was hoping. But it’s not. I’m just trying to adjust to how running fit in with the rest of my life before I made the move to Eugene. Work, wife, dog, training, coaching, not in any particular order.

The drive just isn’t there, the motivation to train. That’s the weird thing, I love running, I love racing, I want to keep doing it, I just don’t want to train. They are two totally different things altogether, running and training (yeah, got that from “Once a Runner”). Different mental states, different sacrifices, different sensation of fulfillment… different sensation of pain, training hurts. Right now everything hurts. I just want to stop and rest… but I don’t.

I went through a similar transition right after college. That time I was actually so jaded by running it took a whole year to start running again and two years until I missed it enough to start racing again. That’s a whole other story for a whole other blog. The moral of the story is that I’ve been here before, I did what I needed to do or what my body told me I had to do, and I came through on the other end at another level of running than what I went in at.

Training for the trials last year was hell on my body, as it is for anyone. But I had such a great summer planned that I neglected taking that much needed rest. I ran a ton but it was fun, it wasn’t training. Three and four hour runs in the mountains, running camps, stage races, mountain races, and ultras, oh my! It was one of those rare amazing summers that make much of what comes after a disappointment. It was awesome. Anyway, lately I’ve started to pay for it. October was pretty rough, my feet have PF and some other tendonitis, I was getting dull nerve pain in my glute and hip area pretty bad, and mentally I was pretty worn down.  A great ART (Active Release Techniques) specialist salvaged that part of the year by healing me with miraculous hands (actually I think he has tendonitis in his arm now from working on me, but hey, I’m feeling better). But now that feeling of fatigue is creeping back in, my body is calling for a reprieve. With my site set on XC this year and making the world team I put my head down and dug in to get through the winter. Almost like an experiment, I’ve been training pretty hard but doing the minimum amount I felt like I could get away with but still enough to make the Team. Come to find out I was pretty close, a little too close since I was the last one selected and needed someone else to opt out of the trip to Jordan. By the way, thanks Tim.  The fine line I was sitting on didn’t have a lot to do with my fitness though either, as I do believe I’m in better shape than my races have shown, but mostly my state of mind toward training and racing. It just isn’t there. That fire. The will to hang on to someone during a race way past your comfort zone. Not there at all. If a runner relies on their fitness their whole career they’ll never have a name worth remembering. Anyone reading this knows, running’s a mental game.

It’s been four years since I’ve taken more than five consecutive days off from training. So now I’ve got 6 weeks and a couple races to go, then I’m taking a break. Worlds, American River 50 miler, and my hometown favorite the Pear Blossom 10 miler.  In the meantime, I’m looking forward to the break and the races, hoping to regain some of that youthful exuberance toward racing these last few competitions by approaching them as what they should be and will be…fun.