Pride or acknowledging your greatness

It's not always easy having confidence in your abilities and even harder to have pride in them. I get asked pretty often why I run and have some good answers depending on the crowd. What I still have a difficult time with is when people are impressed by what I do. All I do is put one foot in front of the other; I just do it longer than some people and cover a few more miles. In all honestly, this type of attention and praise makes me really self conscious and slightly embarrassed. Being in front of groups is never something I've struggled with when it comes to presenting or giving speeches. When the center of attention is about me specifically it is really hard to put off that same air of confidence.

I don't win races, I don't win my age group (unless it's a 5k in Bentonville Arkansas), and, as with my 50 miler last year, sometimes I just try to get to the end in enough pieces to count.

Catt and I post Quad Rock. I'm wearing one pant leg, one shirt arm, one shoe, and my knee is bleeding...Enough pieces to count says my finisher mug.

Nothing that I do as a runner will show up in my college alumni magazine or get me a running sponsorship. So perhaps it's uncomfortable for me to receive praise when I don't feel like I've done any of the things that warrant it.

We are our own harshest critics and I was reminded of that this past weekend in Vegas. Trouble in Vegas is a low stress, have fun, be silly, drink beer, and get no sleep tournament for the post college teams. It's pretty much the opposite of playing at Nationals, Fright Flight might be the only tournament more opposite than that. So again, this is a tournament that doesn't matter with teammates who put more emphasis on funny groupme posts and eating ground fruit than winning all the games. So it's silly that in one of our games I got down on myself. I dropped two discs in the endzone. Which is uncharacteristic of me. I was so mad at myself. I had to take time on the sideline and throw/catch with a teammate to reset. But my frustration did not go unnoticed by one of my teammates. So now I was in a position on the sideline having to listen to someone tell me, remind me, that I'm a great player and to get out of my head.

Why is it so hard for us to acknowledge our greatness when things go right? Why is it so important for us to acknowledge it when things go wrong?

These knuckleheads won a spikeball set and your hearts!

I feel fortunate for having a new friend/teammate remind me of the bigger picture of my role on the field. It's so important to acknowledge your greatness when things are going horrible in ultimate for two reasons. First: if your opponent sees you down and mentally out of the play that's a big tasty weakness to exploit. Second: if your team sees you down and mentally out they worry about you and not about the right here right now moment of the game. Two drops over the course of two days, 9 games, hundreds of points, cases of beer, is actually pretty good. We won the tournament. Not despite the fact that I dropped two discs, but because I was a fully engaged member of my team. You can't be perfect, but you can be your fabulous self. It's hard to accept praise and harder to do it when you feel like you don't deserve it, but it's so important to acknowledge your greatness and allow others to do the same.

This tournament helped me remember the bigger picture of my role in running and races. A lot of ultra running, especially getting to the finish line, is convincing yourself that you can do it. Convincing your legs, feet, head, arms, stomach, that everything is ok and you just need to keep moving. Unlike ultimate I have no opponent I'm trying to outwit or a team I'm trying to support. I am the opponent and I am the team. I can't let me see a gap to exploit to not keep going. I can't let me see doubt. It's ok for people to be excited, amazed, and impressed by what I do. It's not easy and I work hard to accomplish my goals.

I will still feel uncomfortable being the center of attention and hearing someone tell me how awesome/amazing/crazy it is to run. I come from the land of powder milk biscuits; they help shy people get up and do what needs to be done. But I'm working on being more confident and proud of myself and I can see that only benefiting me in the long run.

Wow you run ultra marathons? Damn right I do, I finish them to, usually in one piece.

Running is just controlled falling

Running and walking is just controlled falling, at least that's what I've been told many times. It makes sense, we propel our body  mass forward only to catch it with our feet, absorbing the shock into our joints only to do it again with the other foot. If you have ever watched the start of a sprint race (think 100 meter dash) you will see the athletes barely catching themselves, driving their knees forward just before they would actually tumble to the ground. It's actually a really cool thing to watch in slow motion. Here's a video I found, look at how far forward they lean into the start!

Sometimes I'm better at the falling than I am the catching myself.

I am not sure if I would say I'm "known" for falling a lot. But a few friends have made the comment once or twice that I do seem to fall a lot when running. I wouldn't say that I fall a lot, but I do fall on occasion. I remember telling my friend Ryan that I was proud when I fell for the first time on a trail run at Salida. I felt like a real trail runner. Many races later I feel less like the graceful video above and more like this:

QWOP just do it, for your country.

If you haven't played this game yet please try it. You will get a great ab workout from laughing.

No I don't fall constantly, but I do fall sometimes. Falling and faltering are just part of the game. Thankfully I haven't fallen and been unable to continue. That's something I can really thank running for showing me. Life can really trip you up and knowing that you can fall, gash your knee, and finish a race is actually a pretty big deal. 

You have to have the courage to put yourself in that position. Yeah, yeah you have to sign up for a race and all that jazz. But it's more than that. You have to take some risks. If you recall from my Quad Rock Re-cap I had a pretty epic fall at the end of the race. I was tearing down this downhill section feeling pretty confident and then ate shit on a rock on the flat section. I didn't think much about it at the time, but I was charging that hill pretty hard and tried to keep that rolling. I can think back to me running even a year ago and I would have been much more tentative and careful on that type of terrain. This time I put myself out there, literally, and went for it. So I fell, I also got up and finished the race faster than I've ever run it before and...didn't shed one tear as the EMS people cleaned out and taped my knee back together. Sometimes you have to take a risk in a race like charging up a steep incline early in the race risking blowing up at mile 18. Sometimes that risk pays off and you kill it. Sometimes you fall, but you finish, you dust yourself off, you feel bad for what happened, but you finish.

So you have to keep going. Falling sucks. It hurts. I fell at a snow shoe race last year and spent 10 minutes trying to untangle myself on the side of the trail after my snowshoes somehow knotted themselves together.  That wasn't physically hurtful, but it did a bit of damage on my ego. But I eventually got up and kept going and finished the race. 

Sometimes I do wish I wouldn't fall so much. But, I'm so glad that I'm the type of person that can put myself out there and risk a fall. 

In 2015 I will...

I'm not really one for making New Year's resolutions. Primarily because why would January 1st be any different than any other day to make a change in your life? There's something symbolic, I suppose, about the "first of the year". It's a bit easier for us to take a moment and think about what we want to do better or how to be a better person. Maybe we get hopeful and ambitious because a lot of people are spending that day in their pj's watching football and you have to do something productive after you've seen that Skeletor car commercial for the 10th time.

Magic 8 Ball will I buy a Honda in 2015? Sources say No

I don't have any New Year's resolutions. I have goals, as I do most years.  Goals for running and life. But an article I recently read, Finding your Life Purpose, made me think about goals and resolutions a bit differently. There are a lot of gems in this article and I encourage you to read the whole piece. I'm going to focus on one piece that stuck out for me, especially as I started looking forward to my race calendar for 2015; what will you give up?

Any resolution you make, or goal you write down means something has to give. There are only 24 hours in a day and assuming you spend some of that sleeping, some of it working, perhaps a bit of it blogging, there are not many hours left for the other stuff. So when you take on a new hobby or want to excel at a current one it's going to take the spot of something else.

So I challenge you not to focus on some abstract resolution for 2015. It's too easy to  just make a list : lose weight, get a better job, find a life partner, buy a house, run 100 miles, etc. If there is something you really want to do better or new, whether you decide January 2015 or October 2015 really think about what it is you're doing, how you're going to do it, and if what you have to give up to accomplish it is worth it.

I made a commitment to myself about 3 years ago that I was going to run a 100mile ultra marathon. I've been working towards that goal ever since. Although sadly I just found out I didn't get into Leadville (I'm woefully behind a posts but will devote one to that rejection at some point). Leading up to that decision I found I really had to think about how doing this would affect me. Not just physically the day of the race, but leading up to and after the race. Running Leadville meant: not playing ultimate frisbee at the club level, missing a wedding of two of my good friends, foregoing a lot of ski weekends to run, foregoing a lot of everything to run, likely not being able to do much after the race for a month or two. I was at a new brewery down town talking with some of my good friends about this goal. That day I had drafted a training plan and doing that really made the whole "running is your life" doctrine sink in. It really is just a shitload of running. I looked at some weeks and did rough calculations of how many hours a week I would be running and in all honesty some weeks equated to a second full time job.

If you are one of those people who like to make new years resolutions go for it. I am 100% behind anyone and everyone striving to be a better person in the upcoming year and if the date 1/1 helps you vocalize it then do it. Just make sure you take that hopeful exuberance and pepper it with some real world allocation of that precious resource called time.

Whether we sign up for a race or get a gym membership writing down that "goal" is just one part of the whole pie. It does take a lot of courage to admit to yourself and your facebook friends that you are going to do something. It takes a lot more boring day to day planning and sacrifice to actually accomplish it.  Just because I didn't get into Leadville my goal is still alive and well. It just means that my training plans have shifted to more 50 milers this year and maybe more happy hours too.

I want to delve more into the concept of choices in a later post, but since January hasn't ended yet I decided to sneak this post in while I can still call it a "new years resolution post".

2015 Race Calendar

As I worked on my potential Leadville 100 training calendar it helped me look at and lay out the races I'm going this season. I'm excited for some of my favorites and some new ones in the mix. Luckily a lot of the races correspond really well with training, allowing me to do some long runs as races which means aid station support. Here's what 2015 is looking like:

Winter Race Series
Littleton, CO along the Platte River trail
December 20, January 17, February 21

I'm excited to do these races with my friend Jill. The first one was this weekend and it's a 10k. I'm pretty pleased with my time. I did a fast 5 mile run the night before so I was a little tight going into this race but I felt pretty good throughout the entire course. I finished in 53:21. The January and February races are 10 miles which will be good fun fast road runs.

Salida Run Through Time
Salida, CO
March 14

This is one of my favorite marathons in one of my favorites places in Colorado. I've already signed up and I'm pumped to try and beat my time from last year. My tentative Leadville training is a good motivator to get me out on trail training runs more which I feel was what my running last year was lacking (among other life events).

Platte River Buckhorn Exchange Half
Littleton, CO
April 12

I did this race 4ish years ago. It's a pretty fast half along the Platte River Trail. I'm excited to run it well since I doubt I'll be out until 1am drinking the night before. Sorry Shelly, this time you won't be able to tell me I smell like a bar when I run by.

Quad Rock 25
Fort Collins CO
May

I just signed up for this race. I learned so much on the course last year and this will be a great race to work on my uphill speed walking. I also hope to not add a matching scar. Hoping Kate will be around for this one cause no one touches the King's Eggs*

Grandma's Marathon
Duluth, MN
June

This one is a maybe and it's only if my sister decides to run it. I told her if she signed up for it I would run it with her. I'm a little apprehensive about this since it is so close to some other runs. I want to heed the advice from Ryan about not doing anything stupid to compromise my training so I will have to play it by ear. The race never fills up so I can make it a game time decision, but I'm keeping it on my radar for now.

Northfork 50k/50mi
Pine, CO
June

So much depends on if I get into Leadville or not. If I don't then I want another go at the 50 miler. If that's the case then I'll have to disappoint my sister and bow out of Grandma's. If I do get into Leadville, I'd like to do the 50k as a training run. It falls right in the middle of a 30mi/10mi weekend set so I think it would be good to get an aided trail run in for that.

Leadville 100
Leadville, CO
August 22

So that's the tentative calendar. Really the results of the Leadville lottery will determine a lot of what my summer race calendar looks like as well as my ultimate calendar. I'm playing a few fun tournaments (New Year's Fest in Tempe over Super Bowl weekend, Poultry Days, and Master's Nationals which are in Colorado this year!!!)

Idiots out wandering around

Training summary for December 14 - December 20

Recap of last week:

Well I didn't succeed in all of what I wanted to do last week. I got up a bit late on Saturday so didn't get a run in before the first official meeting of the Bagel Trust. It was ok though, I got some killer bagels and rugelach. I did get out on a run later that afternoon, 6 miles on the road so not the trail run I had hoped for.  So I could be mad, or I could just be happy that I got a good night sleep, good bagels with good friends, and a run in. Not too shabby.

Total Miles: 24

Week 2:

Sunday - eek, didn't get a run in. I have no excuse except for being out late on Saturday night, drinking a bit too much, and then going to a boozy brunch Sunday. I did get a heck of a lot done on Sunday, but none of it involved running shoes.

Monday - Mondays and Fridays are technically my "rest" days. But, understanding that life happens I know that sometimes I need to do runs on those days. So I pumped myself up as I left work on Monday and geared up for a longer run. I had a new podcast to tryout, Risk! and it was a great fit and something I'll add into my road run motivation set. I did a little over 8 miles and felt pretty good about myself after my lack luster weekend performance.

Tuesday - Hill Repeats. We did a little under 8 miles. I am still a lot slower than everyone else running, but I feel like I've got so much faster compared to last year. I ended up finishing the workout by myself which was ok. I forget how beautiful it is to be on top of the mountain and over look Denver and it was a nice sight to take in by myself after a hard workout. When I got back to the parking lot I was pretty happy to see that Ryan left me a Ninjabread in my car door.

Wednesday - Trivia! I didn't run I went to trivia and the Japanese Honey Bees pulled out a last minute win by rocking the Christmas Carol final category.

Thursday - eek, another missed day. I was going to run at lunch, but I've been on the struggle bus every morning and ended up rushing to get myself to work on time. Therefore I did not pack stuff to run at lunch. After work we had a stitch and bitch so I was busy cooking and hanging. No run, but it was a fun night.

Friday - I knew I had to run today. 3 days off is no good for consistency. I did a short 5 mile run in the neighborhood. Not a lot of miles, but I'm super excited by my pace. When I do my afterwork runs I just try to get the miles in and not worry too much about my pace. I went into this run wanting to take it pretty fast and I did it.

Saturday - Santa Stampede!  Jill and I are running the first race in the winter distance series!!! I'm super pumped for it, we get a  Santa hat you guys! It's a 10k so I'm excited to run it as fast as I can.

I'm planning on a longer run Sunday, I don't know if the weather will be cooperative to get in a trail run but that'd be my preference. I think it will be a great challenge to run the 10k hard and be tired for my Sunday long run.

Idiots out wandering around

Now that I officially put my name into the Leadville 100 Lottery I need to get some serious training in. To help keep myself more accountable than my kitchen calendar, I'm going to update the weeks training hopefully each Friday. I won't be linking these posts to social media (other than this first one) so if you're super curious about my training you'll have to come here by your self.

I have some newer posts in the queue that I'm working on, so have no fear my philosophical musing on running will reappear once I get my writing and editing on.

Leadville 100 / 2015 Running Season Training

WEEK ONE
December 7 - 13

Sunday: I was in Minnesota for my cousins wedding. Sunday's training consisted of eating brunch, taking a nap on my sisters love seat, going out to a fat italian dinner at a place my mom called "pantaloonees", and watching A Christmas Story the Musical. Yep...successfully training for the day after Leadville. (Author's note I did run 4ish miles on Saturday so that's not too bad for vacation)

Monday: I flew into Denver at 6:50am and went straight to work. I took a nap in my car. Came home and helped my mom set up her new iphone. Fell asleep before 9pm. Hey rest is important for good racing!

Tuesday: HILL REPEATS! 8ish miles up Rooney Valley trail followed by 10 shorts (5 running hard downhill 5 running hard uphill). The weather was amazing. I felt good overall, not much knee pain on the downhill which is a bonus. I'm still way slower than everyone else, but it was nice to have people at the top to run with.

Wednesday: 4ish miles during lunch. It was a struggle, the day after hills always seems harder and lunch runs are tough for me. I had some commitments after work so I wanted to make sure I got a run in even if it was a bit shorter.

Thursday: 6miles, normal loop in the hood. Felt a lot better than Wednesday.

Friday: Today is a rest day, I've had two cups of Denver Bike Cafe coffee so I'm pretty jittery.

Saturday: My training sheet says 18miles, but I haven't built up my mileage enough for that. To avoid injury the current plan is to try and do 10-13 miles on trail and then eat a lot of cookies and drink delicious beer at the ugly sweater cookie exchange party.

Shortest Fat Season Ever

We have a joke at the end of ultimate season that once you play your final game you start "fat" season (or fat week/fat month). It's more of an acknowledgment that you get to take a break from the last several months of working hard, giving up happy hours, and waking up early on Saturday mornings, etc. The end of September was my official start of "fat season" and I indulged it for the first few days. Until I went for a run, and I got hungry for running season. Then I saw this: Leadville 100.

There isn't much time to rest in between ultimate and running season. It's helpful that ultimate season keeps me in well enough shape that I can transition into running a bit easier, but mentally it can be a challenge. I'm basically trading one time consuming hobby for another. Add on the million other fun things to do in Colorado over the winter and the off-season of ultimate can be more of a time drain than the on.

I was lucky though to have a really good run first run so the mental hurdle of starting training wasn't too tall. It did get me thinking and I'd like to revisit a topic I've covered before; how to motivate your self to train when you really just want to sit on your couch, drink a beer, and watch House Hunters International on Hulu.

There are a few things that have helped me get out on a run in the past that I'm hoping to harness over the next few months. With the lessons I learned from the 50miler last summer I know I need to put in some longer hours on the trails and it's a bit daunting to think of the training road ahead. So this post is more of a self motivator, but I hope you can find something that may aid you going forward.

Sign up for a race

A great way to start running again is to sign up for a race. It gives you an end goal in mind, a finish line for training if that's what you need. It also motivates you to run for some higher purpose than just to run. I have a couple races on my docket for next year; Salida Run Through Time Marathon, Quad Rock 25mile. In addition to those I am hoping to get another crack at the North Fork 50miler and of course there's Leadville or another 100mile race. Those are all well and good, but they seem so far away. Even Salida, which is typically in March, seems far enough away that taking training seriously right now is difficult. I am looking into race that fall somewhere in the next few months to get me out and running, but sometimes even signing up for a race isn't quite enough of a push to get out on a Tuesday night.

Incentives. 

I've admitted before that podcasts are my guilty pleasure when road running. On days when I'm feeling really sluggish or unmotivated it's an incentive to catch up on episodes of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. I typically only allow myself to listen to these podcasts on runs and I've found it to be quite a good motivator. I also recently picked up some great beer from Minnesota (Bells Two Hearted and a selection of Surly) with the caveat that I put in some miles before I can truly enjoy them.

Feeling shitty

While it might sound counter productive, whenever I'm feeling bad, especially stomach stuff bad, a run usually helps. I'm sure there's some sciencey stuff behind it, but all I know is if I'm feeling bad running it out often works. It's still difficult to go out on a run, but with the potential of feeling better and being able to do more fun things because you're feeling better is a nice perk. True, sometimes you don't feel any better, but I rarely feel any worse.

Being Weird

I read a quote that was posted by Grandma's Marathon on facebook "The days when you least feel like running are usually the days you need it the most". When all else fails I will sometimes, literally, chant "you're going for a run" in my car as I drive home from work. I don't let myself think about anything else and I just repeat, outloud, that I'm going on a run. I am not sure what people in the car next to me think, but it usually gets me focused enough on running that there is no other option when I get home but to put my shoes on. Perhaps by putting it out to the universe it's harder to say no when you unlock your front door?

Truth be told I'm about 50 parts excited and 50 parts terrified for what I'm hoping to accomplish next year so I'm also trying to harness that into a motivation to run. Right now I'm up to 8miles for a long run which means I have a ways to go, but I'll get there. If anything, I've started a google doc for Leadville so hit me up if you want to join my crew and I'll put your name on the list.