In awe

Tag: year end

  • [696] Thankful for 2025

    Wow where did 2025 go?  Not long ago, I was writing resolutions for the new year, actually, I did not write one for 2025 but reused one I did not published from 2023 (part1). Now I will be doing again for 2026 soon and maybe also for 2027. They were goals I have been working on for the past few years.  They are still my current goals.

    It is challenging that I have not made much headway into them.  So same this year. 

    Why/why not?  I think I have too many things to focus.  Some were not explicitly stated.  Well they are distractions too, I got pull into many short term goals.  Or seriously, I need time to sit down and decide again what my real goals and priorities are. Better control of what to take on and what to decline.

    This year has been a good year, that I survived.  Last year, I was too hung up with the Western States race and I said this year, I will take a step back and do things I enjoyed the most. I did tame down a bit with my running.  2024 was an unbelievable year in term of achievements and time commitment I gave.  2025, I did not train as much or as hard.

    I did still do a lot of running.  Most of my weekends were around either running my races or involved with Caroline’s races. We said we will do less of them next year.

    Stats:  I did 29 events out of 52 weeks.  A little more than every other week! Many of them required long driving for flying to another state.

    I ran 6 100 milers (2 dnf).  2 Marathons. 4 x 50 mile (2 dnf), 1 x 100k (GSER). 2 x 40 mile, 1 x 70 mile (the Ring).

    I reached 4895 measured miles (life time). Of course many of my training miles were not logged, maybe 4-5 times this amount.  The earth circumference is 24,901 miles.  I’m not there yet, but it is almost 1/5th of that.  The reason I mentioned the earth is with a team of 10, last year we finished running around the world.  It is a distance dream that maybe one day I could do it for real.  I might have already did enough miles to equal to the distance of going around the earth once (if included my training runs over the last nine years).

    Here are some race highlights of 2025.

    My good races:  Grindstone 100, finally finished this after 3-4 tries.  I lost count how many years since I got hook into this race.  Last year was the most brutal DNF.  This year was its redemption. No, I won’t go back there next year other try other than more camping at the Twot.

    Vermont 100 – squeaked by this one.  Hope to do it one more time.  Third the charm they say!  As well as Virginia 100, I squeaked by it, but it was very satisfying.  It will be my motto next year.  The only reason I finished was the song: “He went leaping and praising God.”  I was the lame man whom God made whole again!  The race felt like a meraculous healing. Then, the latest race was the Devil Dog 100.  I just grinded it out.  I was thankful I got it done.  Hope to run it again in the foreseeable future, at least for 2026.

    Massanutten 100 –  I was a pacer to a very good friend at the MMT100 for 2025, the only year I sat out because I was too exhausted.  God is gracious I was able to help a runner that totally aligned with me own goals.  As a pacer, we tried to get our runner to the finish, but ultimately, it was the runner who puts in the work.  It was thrilling we got it done.  I signed up for next year to run it myself. It will be me, myself to be in the driver seat again.  It is a thrilling race to write about.

    Old Dominion and Eastern States 100.  Both, I did not finish.  Old Dominion was harder than I anticipated.  Same for Eastern States.  Eastern States was at the level I thought where it should be.  I needed to work hard at it if I want a finish.  I think Eastern States is easier than Grindstone though and even easier than Massanutten.  Some of my friends disagreed.  Just my opinion.  I felt Eastern States is “rubnable.” But I am strong on hill climbs, so it makes it easier.

    Thank you Caroline for being at my every race this year.  Whether they were successful or a failure, it was a good run.

    Trips:  I was proud of being able to camp out on July 4th weekend on the Grindstone course.  It was my one and only backpacking trip of the year.

    Holaday Lake.  50k++ Nothing to write about the race itself but my time surrounding the race was memorable.  Most of my trips are also races.  We went to Farmville and ran on the High Bridge.  It was my first time to visit Farmville.  I passed through several time but this time, I actually knew where I was.

    GSER – 100k in Atlanta.  I went there almost every year since 2020.  Last year and this year were most memorable.  I got to show the city to Caroline.  Of course she’s been there before.  What so special is we ran 62 miles through the city from Kennasaw Mountain to Stone Mountain.  We rode the train around Stone Mountain and looked at the carving on the rock face. Not sure if I will be back next year, I hope to be.  There will be scheduling conflict with the C&O 100.  Not that I plan to run the C&O, but I likely will be there to help out.  I love my local races anf the Harper Ferry area too.

    Utah – DC Peaks.  I learned a lesson about winter running.  Got to met friend and pacer.  I went out twice this year, one for Wasatch to crew a friend and one for my own race.  Happy Caroline helped me there. The race itself was too short (because I dropped out early).  What we did other than racing left behind better memories.

    Savannah.  (no report) It was a busy trip.  My goodness.  I think the journey what captured my imagination.  We came back when it was snowing and our plane/trip took us to Baltimore instead of DC.  We took the train back to Virginia.

    End of the year, it made me to think about what I accomplished what I set out to do for next year.  I think my one goal this year was to finish Grindstone (and Eastern States, alas).  All other goals were pretty much incidental.  I am happy the year did not broke me too badly. 

    Relationship wise, it has been a roller coaster ride.  I don’t even know what to say.  There are successes and failures.  Not sure if that is appropriate to call them successes/failures like races.  They were Events, high points and lows.  We finished a course of counseling. There were many crying and times of joy.  More laughters than crying.   We trudge on.  Relationship is not like races.  There is no redo.  There are a lot changes in the future expected.  One step at a time.  To me life is like a 100 mile race, there will be slow portion and fast, we go from one aid station to the next.

    What’s next.  That will be part 2.  Somehow, I need to align my current goals with those coming up. I mean for the next few years too. I will be evolving.

    Personally, I already signed up for races: MMT 100, Eastern States, Devil Dog, Vermont, Hennepin (new race for me, In Oct.), and Kettle Morraine (new for me, in June).  It is quite a load.  The one I will be stressing the most will be Massanutten and Eastern States.  I will be perpetually training again.  Also, Thinking of Angela Ivory 100, should I or should not I?  Likely not, but would like to, and that for another day.

  • Day524 End of the year

    Last couple weeks, a recurrently theme and more like a question to myself, was what am I going to do next.

    I do know and at the same time not know. I could fake an answer, but I cannot to lie to myself.

    For running, I have a long to-do list. I always wish I could share it all. I call it my rainbow table because it is in multicolor of order of importance of which race I want to do. I do keep a year or two of races on here, though the list is not as pretty.

    While the list is like the most practical things of when the rubber meets the road, it sometimes does not immediately tell the bigger picture.

    That is – when I look at my list, instead of it giving me excitement, it sends me a feeling of dread and being overwhelmed. Maybe I am doing too much.

    I got to remind myself — The reason why we all do something is because we love it and passionate about something. At 50000 ft, I do love running. Even down to the street level, I do love it – like if there is a weekend 5k or 50k I do it.

    As a matter of fact, this coming weekend, there is a 50k, called Redeye, and I signed up. It is called Redeye because it will take place on New Year day, after a whole night of celebration, and the race assumes no one has time to sleep. I am running it like it is a local 5k. It is local to me. It will be on the same course as one I did my Devil Dog 100. I told my friend Caroline, I had that course memorized. My feet would know where to go. She was wondering if I am ready for it.

    The last few days, the top things on my mind is not so much if my body is ready for a race, which normally is, but much more what I am doing with myself on a more fundamental level.

    This kind of questions pops up to me from time to time, especially right after a big race. Just like last time back in May when I had soul searching questions, I’d reread my older blog posts. They helped. I reread last year vision statements (or new year resolutions – the ABC. They helped.

    What is ABC? it is not an accronym. It is just the name I gave to a series of blog posts at the beginning of 2022. The first one started with A, then B, so forth. I found time and again rereading them, reset me. They made me feel better. The gist of it is as follow.

    I realize something of what kept me going this year and the last few years is hope. My hope rests on that I will improve and I will get to do greater things even though I am not there yet.

    The fact is 2022 was not that great when I planned it. Nor has it been since the start of the pandemic. It is like I could not do anything. Now the pandemic is kind of over, I am asking what 2023 will be like. Could I plan to do something awesome? That I am kind of don’t know any more. Maybe I lost the meaning of what awesome is. Maybe that what 2023 is for me to find that out.

    This is what I thought awesome used to be.

    I mentioned some bigger things I wanted to do — some of them are near impossible, but some are definitely doable. I wanted to run across America, to run across Tennessee, to hike the Appalachian Mountain, to travel to Napal and do the trek there, to visit Alaska and paddleboat there, to run a marathon in Sydney, and maybe some day run around the world.

    Granted I am doing none of these next year or even the next few years. I haven’t done any of them this year or last year. The easiest on the list is probably going to Alaska or Sydney. I haven’t done them because of the cost.

    But I settled something closer to home. I am planning to do a marathon in Toronto. I signed up already. It is set in May. I got one of my friends, well Craw team member, (who lives near there) to join me. Caroline, also excited when I told this to her. Not sure if she is serious about following me to Toronto. I plan to mention the trip to the rest of my Craw team maybe, maybe, they would too, join me in Toronto.

    What is Craw? Craw is (or was) a virtual race in which we run around the world from the comfort of our home. We are about two weeks away from finishing. Since the theme is running around the world, we should at least do some traveling. I set Toronto my destination.

    Back to the bigger picture. When I wrote up my race recap (twice), I came to the question, what will I do next. My answer and I did not want to say at the time, was same old same old. Basically same as we always done. This year was like last year. Next year will be like this year. We race.

    I was asking myself where is my excitement now. Unlike 5 years ago, I was brimming with joy then. It was until I reread my vision statement. Yes, there are bigger goals out there. And doing these tiny goals maybe in some ways gets me to the bigger ones or at least kind of replace them. It is just like doing the Craw — none of us will ever get a chance to actually literally run around the world, but if we imagine it, we do and could run around the world even from our own home. Yes it is not the same, but the illusion could get you pretty close. Doing the small goals, we could imagine ourselves doing the bigger ones.

    I will leave it as that for now. I don’t have the answer. We try our best to find our next step.

    All said and done, I hope this helps me and others to come up with their new year resolutions. By the way, I need to think up some. Happy new year!

  • Day392 slow news cycle cont.

    There is just not a lot is going on with me as twenty-twenty comes to a close.

    We had our first snow this winter. Last week was warm with the temperature up around 60s and this week was freezing cold in the 30s. The snow came but did not stay the next day. I am so jealous as my friend in West Virginia posted nice snowy scenery of their trails. I wish I have snowshoes and join them.

    I hate myself for not running when the weather is nice and only run when it is unbearable outside.

    I have not done a lot of running the last two weeks. I ran maybe only two days. Last weekend I didn’t run … after written up such a nice plan (day391) but in the end, I did not execute it. Often times I don’t like planning ahead like that because once it didn’t happen it is a big let down. I knew it too at the time of writing it up. What happened? I think I was paralyzed with too many choices.

    In gaming term – I am tilting toward losing the game. I did FF (forfeit) the game last week. I need to get back into my running.

    What I have been doing instead of running was watching youtube. Dang it is so addicting.

    Definitely tilting/inting. I am part of a team running event (running around the world). We are closed to finishing Region 2. Yet I can’t able to bring myself to run these days to finish up the region. We are about 400 miles away. I could have chopped that to 300 or even 200 if I have not been tilting.

    I read somewhere that people have a tendency to self-sabotage when they are about to succeed. I think I have that problem (they call it inting in gaming, that is, intentionally losing the game because they are tilting so badly).

    As you can tell I have been watching a lot of videos of people playing video games on youtube. Somehow I found that entertaining. I myself don’t play (no computer).

    I was also hoping to finish the journal for this year, that is reaching day 400 entry, and close it with a summary. Yet it might not happen. I don’t want to write every day just for the sake of ending the year.

    For me 2020 has not even started…I felt still so much left to do. There is something to look forward to for 2021. It will mostly a repeat of 2020. My runs will be the same. I am still training and executing the same plan (for the Laurel Highlands race and Graysons Highland too). One thing different is I have the Rocky Raccoon race in February. My first 100 days will be a bit different because of that. I will start off with a much stronger season than in 2020.

    I am happy 2020 turned out the way it did. There was no way I was ready for those big races I planned for 2020 and the pandemic gave me an extra year to prepare for them.

    10 more days left for 2020…hmm what should I do? That is what I have been up to. Oh my Garmin watch said I ran 2090 miles this year. I reached and passed my goal of running 2020 miles. This I think is more than my last three years combined, and I think in part thank to the pandemic. I am trying to run a few miles more. I might double this number next year…(not a promise), but might able to.

    oh on other news, I am so much better this year than last year, in term of money. Last year I was on the brink of bankruptcy and it was like for two weeks I couldn’t buy food. My boss didn’t fund the 401k (retirement plan) this year … but it didn’t affect me because I increased my own contribution. Cashflow-wise, I probably never been richer in my entire life. I think again thank to the pandemic, my expenses were cut (no more metro rides, and no more eating out, and no more races and traveling, and no more going out). I also didn’t have to buy any new running shoes (no races). I didn’t cut my second phone or gym membership even though I no longer use either of them, this could have save me another thousand of dollars. What am I going do with the money? I can buy my air ticket to Houston for the Rocky Raccoon (and pay for a Covid test if the race requires one). Sorry, first world problem.

    If I don’t get to write another entry before the new year – I wish ya a merry Xmas and happy new year.

    P.S. Amnesia. I thought I wrote about the Occoquan adventure, but somehow did not. See Post 393 on Occoquan and the Waterfall Run.