Underdog Endurance

  I made the promise to myself that I would get the next blog post done before my next big event, and by-golly I think I did it. Still a little late, but hey. It’s here. Beginning of September I cycled in the Michigan-based touring event the DalMac, that, depending on your route, can take you anywhere from 2 to 5 days and 73 to 500+ miles.. This was not an event I had planned on, so one day, just kind of on a whim I was looking it up, and it piqued my interest as a new challenge. The only spot left available was on the 5-day East route, straight up through the gut of the mitten. I figured it would be a good introduction to the whole thing since I, A. Had never done a cycling event, and B. honestly just don't cycle very much unless I needed an excuse to escape summer heat so I don't have to run in it. The 5-day East route was sort of middle of the road when it came to the distances and had fewer hills than the 5-day west route, so I figured it would be a nice start. Skip forward...

  I know, I know, this is far past due. Too many times I tried to make time to write this, too many times I laid awake in bed thinking of things to say (and not write down), but mostly too many times I just put it off for another day. But I promised myself that I would get it out before taking off for my next adventure, the DalMac. A 5-day cycling event riding anywhere from 50-100 miles per day (depending on the route). Unfortunately I only got on the 5 Day East route because someone else had cancelled and I managed to squeak in that spot. I hadn’t really planned on riding this, this year but got the hair-brained idea months ago and decided to go for it. So I'll be on the route taking us between 50 and 70 miles a day straight up through the gut of Michigan, except for the last day we are given the option to head west over and ride through the “Tunnel of Trees” and of course I'll be doing that. So not completely up the gut, but damn well close enough. Perhaps next year I’ll have...

  I used to not be very goal-oriented. Or, at least I didn't require big goals in order for me to have progress in my running. It was fairly easy to increase mileage periodically or hit new PR’s in time or length because, well, I had basically just started. So damn near everything was an accomplishment. Not to say I didn't need them, they were just things I knew I would accomplish if I basically just kept doing what I was doing regardless of my diet, recovery, schedule, and other facets of running that I had wanton disregard for. Because I could. And even though I wasn't performing at a peak level I could or fueling my body with the best fuels I could, I was still “getting things done” so it was easy to justify.  This year I've had a humbling realization that I do need goals in order to progress in a proper fashion and to truly push myself. The furthest I've run thus far is a 50 miler and this year I have signed up for my first 100 mile race, the Lighthouse 100. It’...

  My love for winter running is probably best described as sick. And I don't mean the, ”Yo bro, that sick,” sick, I mean the more snow, the more sleet to the face, the more traction robbing powder, the better. There's just something about it. But it's really all about perception. Once you warm up, your face goes numb, the cold wind starts to become refreshing, and it gets as close to any other run as it can be, or at least that's what I tell myself. Granted, the right gear can truly make all the difference in the world (I'm still learning this myself). Bad gear can not only be the difference between it being “enjoyable” and downright miserable, but it can be straight up dangerous. It's easy to get overzealous, especially once you get that first mile down and warm up a bit, and get out too far only to realize that on the return trip you are going to have to walk or slow down, lowering your body temp and chilling all the sweat. I have made this mistake once or twi...

  Now that it's fall, and winter is steadily approaching I thought it appropriate to talk about training hiccups, cold ass days and staying motivated.  I have quite the love/ hate relationship with this time of year. With fall brings leaves changing and all the colors, hunting season and some end of the season feasting. Then winter with its beautiful snow and Christmas. But it also means cold ass days, and generally speaking that means getting motivated for runs takes that much more. Don’t get me wrong, when I look back on winter running there are some runs I look back on very fondly, but I often forget about all the runs in between that I either dreaded or straight up skipped. And especially with being more distance focused on my runs this time of year means I have to admit something very hard to myself, I have to cut my distance back. I am going to be cold for the first five or ten minutes of every run I go on for the next five-ish months. I am going to cough for an hou...

     First and foremost, the biggest reason I have gotten so into running and why I’ve kept pounding the pavement day after day is: I don’t like being in pain. Yes, there are days when my legs are sore, my shins hurt, my feet hurt, and sure, my back hurts. But that's when I know I need it the most. I know that in order to help myself I'm gonna have to suffer a little bit. In order to keep from feeling like there is a grown man shoving his knee into my back, I'm gonna have to lace up the shoes and get out the door. Even if that were the only reason, it’d be reason enough. Being in constant pain is no life; You get cranky, your patience wears thin, you don't want to go to any social functions. You try to mask the pain with other things. So if I can spend X minutes or Y miles running and not feel like that, it's certainly worth it. To me, running is often not a choice, but a necessity. If I take three days off, I am right back where I used to be. At this point I don...

       I’ve never really been “out of shape” but at the same time, I wasn’t really “in shape” either. I was basically always an average athlete in most sports and was never picked first for anything. At the age of 18, I enlisted in the Army National Guard, recruited by my twin brother who had already undergone basic training while in high school at the age of 17. It didn’t take much convincing; I didn’t have any solid plans or much of a future. “You can work on computers and networks in the Army!” my twin told me, and I was sold. A week later I was enlisted. Now at this point, I had experienced some “oddities” with my back but mostly I just assumed these were things that everyone dealt with as I had never been diagnosed with anything or had any reason to believe anything was abnormal. We didn't exactly come from money either and generally speaking we didn't go to the hospital unless it was absolutely necessary. Most of our medical care was done at home (but that’s a ...