I have been waiting for this day forever. Readers as you might notice the pattern that I have slow down my posting. It was a bit intentional on my part. I have been soft inting.
I have mentioned many posts ago maybe around November that I was tilting… It became a hard tilt. I messed up big time. (gamer term). It might be even gg. (game over)
I didn’t have much interest in running since. I usually only blog when I run — that just what I do. I find lot of energy and passion when I run, but when I don’t run my creativity is just not there. I stopped running that much for the last three or four weeks, so fewer blogs were posted. It was a hard tilt I am telling you. (gamer term)
So here it is Day 400: A summary/highlight of the past 50+ days.
You can check Day 350 for comparison. (love the search function and finally my day numbering is able to pull up the entry fast instead of scrolling to it).
See my Day 396 for the review of the year. I will try to avoid doing the same thing. Same for the Top 10 pop-offs. If you have been following, there is not much new here.
There were a lot going on as well as also not much going on. So ya hard to explain. I don’t write much about my down time. Winter is my down time because I am too lazy to run in the cold.
Let focus on what I was hyped first. The biggest run I did was the Seneca/Stone Mill run. This has been mentioned in a few posts already. Looking back, it was not that scary at all. Fifty-miles is still a lot with Stone Mill being my second attempt at 50 but it came out to be a piece of cake. I was freaking out before the race, feeling I was under-prepared and was stressing about the hills and all. I only specifically trained for it the two/three weeks leading up. However, I ended the race feeling pretty strong. There were a bit of “weak” or low points during the event, but my strength came back every time. I saw people left and right were peeling away after the first 20 miler…but I kept getting a second wind and a third to out sustained them. The race was safely in the bag. Hey, I was not first or second or anywhere near the front pack, but I felt I won the race. It was just an awesome experience. Yo man, I wish I could run like that all the time.
The next race after was the Devil Dog. I was hyped to be able to get an entry. It is one of highly sought after in our area. DC area does not have ultras. This one is it besides Seneca. This year they limited the number of participants. But I got myself an entry. It was just a 50k, but I might say, this was harder than Stone Mill. I enjoyed the challenge. There was grit and all the grind to get the race to the finish. I highly recommend this for those who love slugging it out. This was the race. Their real distance is a 100 miler, so some day I got to attempt the real thing, but the 50k gave me a feel for it the Devil Dog it was.
Gettysburg was a fun one. A marathon. I think was the only fall marathon I did. It was short, fun, picturesque. I went up to Pennsylvania one early chilly morning to do it. Duh, the famous Gettysburg. I did not have much memory of the event. It was small, peaceful, and a successful run. I love running marathons. This was one of them. I have done so many, so this one was one of the low-keys (not that it was not good, but I had so many super good ones, and a normal marathon seems to be normal-boring and does not stand out). It might be the last ever because the race organizer told us they won’t be able to get the permit for us to run in the national park any more (I think also neighbors didn’t like us running on their roads too). That is the rule for most/all national parks, i.e, no organized sport event. So I kind of feel fortunate to be able to have done it. Last time of running through the hallow ground. They said they will try to still have the race next year but without going through the park. I still would recommend people to do it.
I also had many spectacular personal runs besides races. Signal Knob was one. I ran on Bull Run Trail. And Waterfall Mountain. Spent many weekends on the Senecca Trail. You guys just have to go back to read them. I am kind of lazy in linking them or to tell you why they were great. I think they were memorable because they had to do with slugging it out. A run might seem super hard at first, but in the end, I did it. Overcame!
I did some group runs with the Virginia Happy Trail people (VDM1/VDM2). Rock N the Knob was good too. Well that was a race. It had the social vibe. As well as hard. I love hard runs.
All these might not make any sense now to me since there was a big gap in time. I tried to think of I had learned, maybe something profound in this period, such as did I grow in my running?
Runners struggle too. I try to think what motivate us to get out on a cold and nasty day to run? And usually by ourselves for a long extended time. Sometimes when everything click it does not need that much motivation at all. But there were times even when the weather is pleasant, I can’t seem to push myself out of the door.
I call that the big tilt of 2020. I seem to gloss over what went wrong. One was after getting a speeding ticket, I didn’t want to drive out to the country side any more. I felt I was being (unfairly) picked on and there was just a fear it would happen again. This fall I had switched from running on the road to running on trails, and when the trail was not available, there was very little incentive for me to run. I have been staying in the last 3-4 weeks.
A Second problem I had was with time management. If you want to do something you had to do it quick and early or else other things would be unendingly get in the way.
And if you want to do something, you have to do one thing a day and only one thing. This should be my philosophy.
However, I started sliding when I tell myself there is still much time left in the day. Yet time flies! I felt cheated each time I look at the watch and it shows like 5 minutes to the hour. Reason is my mind divides the hour into 100 units instead of 60. However, 50 minutes is not halfway, however, my brain thinks 50 is halfway. Before I knew it, hours go by and daylight becomes night and when it is dark outside I don’t feel like running. We only have about 8 hours of daylight. My mind always think we have 24 hours or at least 12. Noo, only usually got 8. And useable hours is usually only 2 or 3 hours “personal time”. So unless I run, those hours can easily disappear, Even on weekends! No especially on the weekend. Don’t you feel weekends are always so packed?
Hence, only should try to do one thing and one thing only. And Start early! TL;DR
Also, usually by the time it gets dark, I also get hungry. By the time I cook, and eat and clean up, it would be time for bed. Every day I went through that same cycle and was unable to get myself out the door for a run. A big tilt! Yes, if I have a schedule,…, and follow…, then I wouldn’t waste time. Still I think motivation has something to do with it. A bog word but very hard to pin down. Where is my motivation?
I have been seeking that passion to re-ignite the flame in me. So that once I run, I don’t ever want to stop. I know I have it, but hard to bring it to the table sometimes.
Outake? My Raccoon 100 is coming up in a few weeks. Yes I need to get hype up and so do my prep.
Hope this post isn’t too long. Next post (Day 450) will be about the raccoon race and where I’ll go from there. Maybe more on motivation stuff. Until then PIZZAA (peace-z-out)
p.s. see, it is Saturday here my time, but instead of writing what I’ll be doing today as I usually would, I was reflecting…see more tilting on the way
