I am guilty of doing this much more frequently than I would like to admit, but it's the truth. It takes different forms. Sometimes I'll call it a rut, or a funk as if giving this malady different names changes its form. In reality, it's a holding pattern. I settle into the same routine, wash, rinse, and repeat until something comes along to snap me out of it for a few weeks. I'm making this out to sound more dramatic than it really is, but every year around the "end" of the summer I find myself in the same spot. Waiting for fall like I'm in the passenger seat then enjoying my favorite time of year and then waiting for the new year, a trip home, winter to pass, et cetera, et cetera. Not this year. I'm not doing it.
My goal for this summer/fall whatever you want to call the time between mid-August and December, I'm focusing on not doing the same old same old. Of course, I'm still going to end up running my same everyday loop a bunch and there will be plenty of days that seem very similar, but I'm all about mindset right now. Yes, my everyday seven-mile loop will still show up on my Strava more often than not because it's convenient, but I want to push myself to try and find a way to work some microadventures into the margins of my days. A busy work schedule certainly plays into the whole holding pattern thing, but at the end of the day, that's an excuse more times than it's really a cause-effect situation.
It doesn't take much effort to get out to a different spot to run a day or two a week. That's an easy place to start. This is all really just me trying to psych myself up to be more efficient with my time and cut out some of the lazy hours that I have. Shoot, maybe I just need to start my day with a cup of coffee instead of waiting until after I run. I don't know, but I'm going to give it a shot.
I'm not sure exactly where I was going with this stream of consciousness, but it's gotten me to the point of starting to piece together my fall from a run/race/trip/event standpoint and I think that's a good place to start.
Fall Planning
As usual, Fall planning will start with the XTERRA Georgia schedule. There are four races stretching from late September to early December and with fewer two-day work trips this year (more on that later) I think I should be able to make it to most of them. Dirty Spokes also has two-night races this fall, one coming up on September 15 that I am planning on racing instead of the usual downtown Atlanta stadium 5k that I normally have done in September.
The night races are really fun and different and after doing Iron Hill and two night Ragnar legs last year, it's definitely something that I'm looking forward to doing more of. Based on my work schedule, there is one sort of "big decision" I have to make. Do I run the Atlanta 10 miler or do the Old Grey Barn cyclocross race?
Both fall on a Sunday that we don't have a game (we're at home on a Monday night that week). If you had asked me after Peachtree, I would have said 100 percent, I'm doing the Atlanta 10 miler, but now I'm not so certain. I just don't love road racing. I'm still a better road runner than I am a trail runner, but I'm just not sure that's how I want to spend that day. We'll see, maybe I'll feel differently after getting back into the swing of things with track workouts.
On the other hand, CX races are fun. There is zero pressure because I stink, so I just go out and ride as hard as I can and try to have some fun. I haven't been able to do one the last couple of years, so I'm thinking this could be a fun way to mix things up. Plus, it's in late October and it's in north Georgia near the one random county where they can grow apples, so CX + apple picking might be the winning combo.
Work Road Trips
We have 10 work-related road trips per year...minimum...11 if you count the combine in March, which you shouldn't because Indianapolis in February...no thanks. This year we got a little bit of a tough draw for trips. Green Bay in November. Cleveland, not my favorite running spots. But that's a bad attitude and I'm not into the whole negative energy thing right now. Regardless of where we go this year, I am excited about trying out IGTV. I made a couple of short videos of runs I did before training camp started and I made one for our preseason trip to New York a few weeks back.
I'm challenging myself to try and make a 2-3 minute video of a run from each of the cities we go to. There are a couple of factors at play, namely time, but I think I can do it. This is where the fewer two-day trips thing comes in. Last year, we had a bunch of two-day trips and that freed up a bunch of time for me to go and do these cool two-hour runs and explore a bunch. I'll have the chance to do that a couple times with night games but it will be a challenge to figure out how to make this happen on days when I don't have a ton of time to run, but that kind of ties back in with what I started this blog off talking about. I'll have to remember to read this when I am laying in a hotel bed at five in the morning in Cleveland thinking about how I don't want to get up to run before work.
Some of these videos are going to be cooler than others. Speaking of which, I started this off with the leader in the clubhouse for the best run of the season when I got in 16 miles on Manhattan before our first preseason game.
Rad Run // Central Park
Central Park is huge. I don't know if you guys know that, but it's big. Real big. On our last trip to New York, I ran to the Brooklyn Bridge, a place I had never been to. Honestly, it wasn't the greatest run I've ever done, but the Brooklyn Bridge was very cool. It made the less cool parts worth it. With another trip to NY this year, I once again decided to run somewhere that I had never been, Central Park. I haven't been to New York more than a handful of times. School trips or swinging through on the way to somewhere else. I'm not a big New York guy, you know, the whole Boston thing. I have to say though, I've come to enjoy it on my last few trips. My plan was to have a write up of the run here but it was getting long winded, so maybe it'll be a separate blog. Anyway here's the short video I made for IGTV.
What I'm Reading/Liking/Listening to...
Dan Whitehead // YouTube Channel
I came across Dan Whitehead's youtube channel while surfing through the recommended videos that came up after watching Ginger Runner and Mountain Outhouse and it's quickly become my favorite channel. Dan is an Australian ultra runner that just recently finished up a 100+ day trip to Europe that included the Lavaredo Ultra and the TDS. I'm admittedly a newb when it comes to this ultra stuff, but it's been really cool to follow the experience from the perspective of an everyman runner. I think that's what's interesting about Dan, I don't know his times, but he presents himself as a mid-packer and I think we can all relate to all of the different ups and downs he's gone through on his trip. I'm all caught up on his Europe trip, but I've been going back and watching a lot of his older vlogs. Even if you aren't a big runner the cinematography in his videos from the Alps are amazing and worth a look.
Ryan Petry on the Mile High Endurance podcast
Ryan Petry is a pro mountain biker that I have been following for a while now. If my memory is correct, I found out about him through Instagram. I think he liked a photo that I put up from my run up Green Mountain in Boulder a couple years ago, and because I'm team follow back I have been following him since. Like I said, he is a pro mountain biker and just a good all-around athlete. I remember seeing his name pop up on the GoPro Mountain Games episode of Boundless which was pretty cool. I'm sure Amanda was super impressed when I said, hey I think that guy follows me on Instagram.
Anyhow, the podcast dives into his impressive second-place finish at Haute Route Rockies, the broken wrist he is trying to bounce back from, and his prep for the Leadville 100 mountain bike race.
side note - I was daydreaming the other day and thinking that would be a cool bucket-list race to do and then I remembered being out all day during the Fools Gold 50 a couple of years ago. Woof.
One of the things I found very interesting was when the discussion turned to CBD oil. Petry said he is a regular user of CBD oil and said that he won't be surprised if it begins to take the place of Advil and other anti-inflammatories for many athletes. I've been looking into CBD a little bit because I have heard that it has a variety of benefits. My mom actually used CBD oil during her cancer treatment to help with pain management and sleep.
It's not something that I'm ready to dive in on yet as researching it can be a little bit of a wormhole and it's hard to pick out what is fact, what is hypothetical, and what is false. Also, there are apparently two different kinds of CBD, one derived from hemp and one derived from marijuana. In Georgia, the kind derived from marijuana is only legal for medical use with certain conditions. The hemp variety is legal, but I don't think that's a game I want to play unless I know for sure I can trust the source. That was a little bit of a ramble, but it's an interesting topic. In the previous episode they had the co-founder of a company called iKor, which makes hemp-based CBD oil, so maybe I'll give that a listen too.
Tracksmith Journal // Lofty Goals
Tracksmith has another lookbook out. These things are absolutely gorgeous. The photography, the copy. I love it all. It's a little silly but flipping through their fall lookbook actually made me a little bit homesick. I'm so ready for the humidity to break here and for cool morning runs. As soon as football season starts it's fall in my mind. We have to endure another month or so of summer temps here in Georgia, but looking at these photos from Tracksmith's camp in Vermont had me longing for cross country season. I guess it's a good thing that fall doesn't really start down here until October (the best month of the year) though. I told myself I can't buy anything from Tracksmith until then. The lookbooks are awesome, but they aren't so good for my bank account.
What's Poppin' on IG
