In awe

Tag: midterm

  • [633][24.16] Midterm rewind

    Looking back at my last pause, [Day600], about six months ago, I don’t have much to say today.  This one won’t do justice compares to the previous one. Maybe because there is not much time separation.  I know I had a great six months, but it is too much to dive in. The next six months will be even more critical how my plan will turn out. So, I don’t want to brag too much of the first half of the year, fearing the second half I won’t able to reach as high as I did already.

    The year, or my training to be exact, started off slowly.  The main goal was to train for the Western States 100.  This race is in two weeks, depending when this post will be published.  The end is in sight. I have no idea how it will turn out but I was not as nervous as 6 months ago. At least I am confident I have a good chance of finishing it. (Race report will be posted soon)

    As for my other goals (races), I had done well.  I ran many races. Almost in my opinion, since I haven’t counted up, I ran as many races as my entire 2023 in the first half of 2024.  I am happy and as well as tired. More excited overall.  I was not going to go for the grand slam six months ago but as things played out, I am going for it now.  First of the four grand slam races is done.  So, I am going for it. 3 more will take place over the summer.

    My hardest race so far was the Massanutten 100 (MMT), not part of the slam.  Well it was my personal slam (or triple crown, C&O, MMT, and OD).  I trained for MMT last year and I did the same this year. The result was not as good as last year. It was unexpected.  I had the race locked in to finish with a good time but it slipped out of me at the final moment. I still finished but it was tough physically.  It took every ounce of me to reach the end. The race just wore me out.  We could blame the wet weather but to me I don’t think that affected me much during the race. My feet were fine.  I did not have blisters or anything, I was just out of energy. I even had a good crew helping me this year too. Anyway, I will leave the monday quarterbacking for another time. The full report of it already was written. I was grateful, I got it done and had a memorable time. And I was in good health.

    Other major races were, OD100, C&O100, and the Taiwan WJS Marathon. I did very well in all of them.  I ran a bunch of smaller races and training runs too. Unfortunately, many were forgotten at this point. They are written down somewhere, so I can always go back to read them, like Seneca, Bull Run Run, Naked Bavarian, and Mid-Maryland.

    My trip to Taiwan was memorable.  It was my second international marathon.  I was pleased how it turned out compares to my first international marathon.  I did not have a concrete plan six months ago (well I signed up the race in October), but glad everything fell into place.

    Running has kept me busy through the spring. I have not had any time to pause for planning, like what I will be doing next year or even for the fall.  As readers know, I paused my regular marathon race schedule, to make this year focusing on running 100 milers. So, I need to see how to line up my marathon races once again.  It feels like a big task.

    It is easy to pencil in races.  But my way of making decisions is I only run a race if I really have a strong emotional tie to it.  I need a strong draw from the race in order to sign up.  Getting this strong feeling is harder when I am distracted with many other races. Yes, it is a weird way of making decisions. The past six months, I had nothing but constant motion. And it is so little time left for soul searching decision, jk. Yes, making the decision of which races to run is a serious business for me each summer.

    Anyway, I have no further things to say.  I hope to build up my savings again for future trips.  I made a big travel over the spring to Taiwan (and Sydney). It is easy to spend money but took me a long time to save up.  I still want to travel more, such as to do the trek in Napal when I am still physically fit.  Grand Canyon, while I have been there couple times, I will want to go back there again, at least, to attempt the Rim to Rim (to Rim) hike/run in one day.  Not sure if this is a near term of a long term plan.  At first, I did not have anyone to do this with, but now, likely things are falling in place.  Yes, I need to get my finance and time available to do this.  The globe trekkers buddies were itching for a trip too.  I went with them to most of my international trips. Not sure if I will join them, though likely not.  I am nowaday prefer solo traveling.

    Those are some longer terms challenges.  My short term challenges are still the same: train and finish up the year races.  It is like an iceberg.  I did 3 big 100s but there were like 7 more.  I lost count.  My pacer at OD100, tried to help me count them, and came to about 7 races are left.

    Heart.  Passion.  Motivation.  I struggle with this in the past. When I am doing too much, I lost sight of the vision why I am doing them. Along with, I am losing the passion of doing things.  I only do things because I like doing them. And if the passion is not there, I don’t want to do it. I think that is the biggest issue for the next six months and the next year is to keep my passion up.

  • Day532 midterm

    Day500 happened during the end of last summer. I have been putting off a midterm (day 525) review for a bit because it happened close to the end of the year and I already had done various reviews for the end of the year. At the time, I’ve also done a bit and was still pretty much know what I was doing.

    New year came. Since then I am kind of lost as to my purpose.

    I had a great season in the fall. I reached the end of the year finished many big races: Stone Mill, JFK, Devil Dog. I made a couple end of the year reports (EOY, and here) which reflected on those races. I won’t recount them here.

    Last eight weeks, I have been on and off doing some soul searching. My race schedule for 2023 has crystalized. I kind of know what races to run. They are filled in by now. I know I was struggling back in December about what to do (here about ABC). I came up with the new year resolutions for 2023.

    I still am missing something. I woke up everyday asking myself what am I trying to do. January went by before I knew it. We are in February. I always tell myself we die without vision. A reason we want to live is aim for the next thing.

    I still feel kind of lost. It was kind of expected after Devil Dog early in December, because I had no planned races. I ran some local stuff like Red Eye on January 1, but for last 8-10 weeks, things have been quite calm.

    I need stress and excitement to get me going. I need big races to stress me. The good stress that shakes up my system. Now everything is kind of fine and boring. So I had been doing some soul searching over the past week. I did not come away with much.

    This year my schedule is stacked like last year. When people asked me what race am I running. I have no quick answer. I said it is on the web somewhere. I had a collection of races. They seem to be not laser focus as before. It is bad when I could not recall what races I am about to do.

    My races, Here they are: I have MMT coming up in May. I have OBX Blackbear Revenge in March (next month) and then in September I have Grindstone.

    All three races are pretty big deal to me, They were not on the schedule last fall. I was at the time searching for what to do. Now they are. OBX was going to be a signature race for 2023, because I was going to spend some time there for vacationing, but now it is scraped (instead the focus is moved to Toronto).

    Harder Challenges. I want something harder or weirder. This week I looked into if I should run GSER (april 29) a week before my Toronto Marathon. I pick GSER because back in 2020, it was my first and second failed attempt at running a 100 miles. I really wanted to go back to prove myself. This time around though GSER will be a 100K (62 miles). Still I want to redo it. The 2020 race was a special race and an exception. (still considering).

    Another possibility is the Lake Tahoe Marathon. I have been reading up on this. It can be done as a normal marathon, 26.2 miles with hundred others on a Sunday in the fall. But what interesting is it offers three marathons on three days, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and by running all three you would circle around Lake Tahoe. I was at Lake Tahoe maybe 20 years ago and the size of this lake always attracts me. This is not all, one can also run two normal marathons, Friday and Saturday, and then on Saturday night, do a loop around the lake and catch up to those who run the Sunday marathon. This is what I want to do. The total distance is like 125 miles. I consider it is a good challenge for me to do two back to marathon and then with out much rest do a 72 miles under 18 hours. Not likely will do it this year, but it is underconsideration.

    50 states. I was asking myself what am I doing. If I want to test myself, go do it. What was I trying to do? I want to get 50 states. This year though, I am not getting that many states. I may only get one or two. Texas is in play. Maine maybe. New York maybe. Oklahoma also maybe. Or Space Coast for Florida.

    One question I asked myself how on earth do I get all 50 states. At first, I did this without much planning. Doing one or two marathons a year, and hopefully when I reach 70 ish I will get all 50 states. Last couple months, I really wanted to sit down and come up with a plan. I did not get anywhere. Luckily, one of my friends is doing the 50 states too and she is on her 31 states. So all I had to do is copy her. I am taking note. This year’s schedule though is full. Yes, that is one of my problem of feature creep of trying to do too much.

    This week, I had time to catch up — like a mental health day. It helped. It allowed me to catch up on some of the things. I updated my race schedule a bit. It was mostly fine but I have been jotting down race dates and such in various places (calendar, my race spreadsheet, and here on WP) and they were not in sync. Usually they should be in sync. Yet the few months I was kind of lazy and they got out of sync. So during the week, I did some house keeping and updated all the pages/places to the same calendar. So now, here on WP, my race schedule is finally accurate again.

    My life is made up of the things I do for fun. Yes there should be other domains like home, friendship, church, and civic/religion. But for me, mostly I have been focusing only sport (running) and traveling.

    I try to run in all 50 states. I try to do a 200 mile marathon. I try to do an even longer trek across the US on foot.

    So I have been thinking a lot — when I had so much free time this weekend. I kept asking myself what am I doing? I can’t no longer keep all the races in my mind. I am slipping on race dates and all.

    There are some countries I want to visit. One of them was to go to Nepal. Some recent development is I might have to defer the trip for a few more years, instead I am likely will be traveling to Australia soon, which is also one of my goals.

    2023 seems so scratter brain with my so call “planning”. I want to do so much, but it might be I do everything that comes across my desk. I am kicking this till the next report/focus session.

    I did not resolve my anxiety or my frustration. However, when I was out on the trail, I forget them for a bit. In the end, I asked, does it matter if I don’t finish all 50 states or if I don’t reach any of my goals? I think the main thing is I try. We live to struggle for another day! This parallels with races I no longer enjoy when there are no challenges left.

    I know I have been wandering around the topics. Conclusion is to do something fun in your life. Do something meaningful. I validate myself by writing them down afterward.