One Step at a Time

After two weeks of almost doing nothing post race, as far as running and going to the gym, I kicked off another training cycle for my next goal race.  It was a nice break and gave me time to slowly test my legs a few times on the trail before going full bore into another training cycle.

I did my first "quality" workout on the treadmill this past week, which consisted of a few hill repeats.  After the first repeat, I was nauseous.  After the second and last repeat, I had my head in the trash can thinking I was going to puke.  Thankfully, I didn't.  When I, later, told this story to Olga, she just laughed and said, "well, finally, you did a hard workout after all this time!".  It definitely felt good to finish the workout and not reduce the incline or speed on the treadmill.  But, it took a lot of willpower to make myself finish and not quit.  There definitely was no runners' high during that workout, but I felt one afterwards.  I don't think it was a chemical reaction, but just pure relief of making it through the prescribed run.

This year, I'm taking a different approach to running.  In essence, I'm making it up as I go along, in regard to which races to run.  I tend to get ahead of myself and not focus like I should on the near term goal races and, instead, look to far ahead into the year.  It put a heavy weight on me emotionally, which tended to pour over into physical aspects of my training.  But, now, my race schedule doesn't go past the next goal race. This new perspective will allow all my energies to be focused on just one race at a time. I'm still undecided whether I'll run a hundred this year.  Thankfully, that is a decision I don't have to make anytime soon.

I have three different backpacking trips lined up in the early Summer, which have me very excited.  I can't really describe well how much I enjoy being in the mountains in the middle of nowhere, whether it's in an open high meadow with a stream running through it, standing on a high mountain pass where I can see forever in both directions, or on top of a high peak in a dead calm wind with nothing but silence and views surrounding me on all sides.  All I know is it's where I find my calmest hours.