Yeah, I've got nothing...

Tuesday morning and nothing great to report. Had a productive day yesterday, work,  rode the bike with Asia running,  unclogged a couple of drains, mowed the lawn and other than that, just took it easy.  Melissa is gone for the next week so I have lots of free time (read boredom) to get things done around the house. 

I had planned to get up this morning early and run before work but when the alarm went off at five for the life of me I could not remember why I had set it so early.  After turning the alarm off and THEN remembering it was to get up and go run I said, "screw that," rolled back over, unashamedly, and without any guilt whatsoever went the hell back to sleep.

Still processing the weekend a bit. Well, that is not entirely accurate.   I am processing the last three races and trying to believe and or deny that any trend may exist that the past three performances may be pointing to.  But to be honest I am starting to really feel limited now in what I might be able to do from here on out.  On one hand I believe it is all BS and that I can still do a lot more but on the other hand I do fear that I might be constrained just by my own biology, talent (or lack of) and age. (Just because other men of a certain age can still kick ass on such a grand scale it does not mean that I get to just because.) Constrained to the point that no matter how hard I work from here on out, or even how smart I work and train, there are factors that just can not be overcome.  Please believe me when I say that I hope that is BS because at this stage of the game, as a person, as a human, I still need and want to have the belief that the possibilities are still there.

I feel in a lot of ways that I am where I was when I walked away from whitewater kayaking.  I was a good boater and I really wanted to be even better.  An excellent boater if you will.  I was 32 or 33 and I realized that the only way for me to become an even better kayaker, I had to start spending WAY more time on the river.  Not just one or two days a week, more like three to four and damned near year-round. As much as I wanted to move up in skill there were other things in life that I wanted more I guess.  It was disappointing but easy to walk away at the same time.  It was a trade off that I took responsibility for and though I miss boating from time to time, a decision that I don't regret.

This situation if you will is similar but different.  Then I knew that I still had room to develop, grow and enhance my skills... now, even that comes into question.  Last year for me was all about trying to prove or disprove that I had the capacity to go sub-25 in Leadville and for the most part everything was indicating that was a possibility.  This year though... crap... everything just feels more difficult, challenging and just slower than last year.  

Am I burned out?  Over trained?  Is there a way to regroup and come back at things from a new and more fresh perspective?  Why was I running so much faster and stronger in January compared to now?  What changed?    Anyway, this is why I am really backing off this week.  Not only to give myself a break but also some time to look at these types of questions and hopefully come up with some meaningful answers and then move on.

On the subject of shoes and tactical errors from this past weekend in Fruita, I wore the MT110's the first 25 miles of the course.  If I were only running  the 25 mile option of of that race sure they would have been fine I guess but that super rocky terrain is not a good surface for those shoes, at least not for me.   Mostly I just felt a lot of foot fatigue, no blister issues or anything like that but they just did not provide enough protection from the rocks for my liking.  I still think it is a great shoe that would probably do well in SJS50 and even a good part of Leadville but not for super rocky courses.  For Desert Rats, my Crosslites would have been a more wise choice.  Lesson learned.

This turned into a much longer ramble than I planned.... One last thing, as I was talking to one of my best friends yesterday William pointed out that I did not DNF in Fruita... it was more like DNHF... Did Not Have Fun.  I thought it was pretty funny myself.

Short run today to get things moving again...  it will be easy.  My left ankle still feels a bit tight and sore from the weekend. Not sure what is up with that.