Catch Up

   Where does the time go? Here we are at the last day of February. It seems like it was New Year's day just yesterday!. How's it going out there my friends? Here, it's been super crazy. Like I don't have time for anything crazy! I've made time today though, to fill you in on what's been going on in my world.

  

   After two months I'm starting to finally feel like I'm over this incredibly strong chest cold and sinus infection. It's been so long since I haven't hacked up a lung or had to blow my nose every 15 minutes that I've almost forgotten what it feels like to be normal! I haven't been this sick since last summer's bout of bronchitis. It appears that the antibiotics that my doctor prescribed me did the trick. I'm not anxious to ever repeat that anytime soon! It just plain sucked!

   With the return to normalcy has come a resurgence in my energy level. I'm the kind of guy who likes to go full speed most of the time and it's nice to feel like the batteries are fully charged again. It's pretty hard to train for my first ultra marathon if I don't even feel like getting out of bed.

   I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts the other day, the Slow Runner's Club and my friend Eddie was talking about his new approach to becoming healthier, loosing weight and improving his running. One thing that he said that stuck with me was that he's looking at everything in his life and asking himself the question, "How does what I'm doing right now contribute to my recovery?" Now, he's not talking about recovering from alcohol or some other addiction. What he's talking about is taking a more holistic approach to how he lives and applying it to what those things can do for his health. I thought about that. Like I said earlier, full speed all the time. That means shortchanging myself on sleep quite often, training too hard, eating convenient things instead of healthier options and probably drinking a little to much coffee and adult beverage. So, starting this Monday I started embracing this holistic approach in my own life. Thanks Eddie! It was difficult at times. But, already I feel slightly better than usual. The experiment will continue and I'll keep you in the loop.

   The running has been going really well now that I feel better. With the newly found energy reserves back on line and more attention being paid to time on my feet versus distance, I feel like I'm getting stronger. Strange how taking the focus off distance has made the running seem more rhythmic and relaxed. I reconfigured my cross-training exercises around and what do you know, took the boredom out of my workouts. It's nice to feel motivated to hit the gym again. With the changing of some of the exercises and reintroducing pigeon pose back into my stretching routine, I've seemed to make some headway with regards to my hamstring pain. It's not completely gone. But, it feels like it's mending for the first time. What a pain in the butt, literally.

      I was screwing around with a day counting app on my iPhone this week and discovered that the Canandaigua 50K race that I was going to use as my first ultra marathon was most likely not going to happen. Apparently, their pre-registration was filled. I mean really? The race is in late October people. I was super disappointed. I put my name on the lottery list and will hope for the best. I searched around the internet for a bit and discovered that there's another 50K race that's near me called the Mendon Trail 50K which is held about a month later. Registration wasn't posted yet for this year's race. I emailed the director and he got back to me the next day. Apparently registration for their race didn't fill up until about a week before the race last year. So, it may be a better option than hoping I win the lottery for the other. Wouldn't it be amazingly cool but idiotic if I won the lottery for Canandaigua and ran Mendon too? I've run two marathons within six weeks of each other. But nothing that far or close. Whenever I do something, I do it big. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

   My little man turns nine tomorrow! All this week I've been looking at him thinking to myself I used to push you around in a tiny little running stroller. Where the hell has the time gone? He's grown up so fast. He seems more like a teenager now than an eight year old. We're going take him out for dinner tonight and then have family over tomorrow. Next week's the big party though. Five nine year olds over the house for a "spooky" sleepover! Good thing I'll be on vacation. Because I don't think sleep will be in my future. Looking forward to messing with them and scaring the living daylights out of the whole lot of them!  

   Other than that, everything else is going along nicely. I hope that all of you are doing well and getting off the couch. It's still freakin cold as the artic out there. But, Spring is just a mere 20 days away. It can't last forever right? Hang in there, put some miles into your life and have a great day!