Opstandelse…

Resurrection

Obviously this didn’t work out too well when I started this last January, so rather than do something different, lets try doing the exact same thing again (the definition of insanity, right?)

A bit of follow up on the last post on my Tuscobia times.  The race can be summed up in two words: Killed It!.  With warm weather, I anticipated a slow race, and times that exceeded 30 hours.  Came in just over 27 hours and felt great.  It was an amazing race and I met a lot of great people.  For my first over night ultra by myself, it was a huge success.

The Arrowhead…not so much.  Did really well for most the race, but by mile 100, I was in pretty rough shape and dropped.  Ended up straining the tendons in my feet, and had a new level of swelling and pain.  Huge hat tip to my race partner The Angry Moose, for continuing on and pulling a finish at 57 hours.   It was amazing to see him come across the finish line.

So, on to the other stuff.  The Arrowhead was my last race, and in the time between then and now, I worked to much and didn’t work out enough.  I have been in pretty bad shape, and have physically felt kind of horrible.  I adopted many of the typical bad habits during a high stress, high work event which included little sleep, liquid crutches (both to keep me awake and to put me asleep), horrible food, and not challenging myself outside of work.  Things have now settled down at work, which is allowing me to focus back to issues that I tried to start the year with: spiritual, mental and physical health.  So that is what I am going to do.

To continue on my journey, I have committed to a couple of things.  First, for the last 6 months I have been singing in a the choir at a local Episcopal church.  This has provided me with an amazing place to build upon my spiritual health from A) the act of singing (which has always been a spiritual experience for me, both secular and non-secular), and B) being part of a community that is all about discussion, scholarship and facilitation.  The folks that I have interacted with have been amazing and have provided me with a ton of resources and conversations to help me explore different beliefs.

Also, I have signed up for 2 races to help kickstart my fitness routine.  I have a half marathon in little more than 3 weeks (eek) and am doing the WD100k again this fall in October.  My goal is to survive the half marathon, but I really want to rock the 100k.  Shooting for a 15 hour completion, which means I need to kick it into gear.  I restarted riding my bike to work, and am trying to run 5 of 7 days a week.  Goal is to hit distance fast.  Still struggling on the food front, but am trying to cut certain guilty pleasures out (cheese quesadillas for example), and really need to reduce alcohol consumption further.

Mentally, still trying to figure that one out.  Thought about brushing up on my French, and Danish?  Piano and Trumpet?  Woodworking?  Not really sure.  Will definitely post when I figure that one out.

So here I go.  Lets see if this will stick this time.  TTFN