Life and Stuff. And a Race on the Horizon.

So. It’s been a while.

I suppose it’s fitting that the length of time between posts is almost same as the length between my last and next race. I may have been dormant here, but I’ve at least been {moderately} training for a half marathon… that’s next Sunday! It’s amazing how a race tends to sneak right up on you regardless of how long you’ve known about it.

So let’s recap the last few months shall we?

– Post-Squamish 50km I was recovering and trying to prepare for a second 50km race, Oregon Coast. With only 7 weeks or so between them it was optimism, and FOMO, at it’s finest.

– Oregon Coast, while not utterly horrible, wasn’t great. Here’s the mini-recap since I never wrote a post: I was under-prepared. We drove – and drove and drove – down to Yachats, OR, the day before the race; Portland traffic was apparently Portland traffic (re: SLOW). Race day morning was windy with sideways rain. The first 10km were on the beach and I was last from the get-go – I expected this so not much of an issue there. The sweep decided he would stay close enough that I could hear the shwoosh-shwoosh of his shoes on the sand, but not close enough to run with me; this was mentally draining. The sun started to peak out by the time I was off the highway and into the woods. At 16km the short course runners started passing by and I had to urge the sweeps to pass me since I was going to lose my **** on them otherwise. This is where I wanted to quit. It was a mudfest. The downhill is where I started to have fun. I got an awesome race picture taken. Passed the point of no return for the loop portion. Sucked it up and did it even though it was hard. Passed one person (hey – I’ll take it!). Met up with a friend who was having a rough day. Had fun on the downhills knowing I would drop at the next aid station. Actually got cut for time, but was a-okay with it. Ate all the grapes as they were packing up the aid station. Caught a ride back with the drop bags. Watched friends finish the 30km and 50km race. For an off day I at least got in ~36km. Can’t say I’ll ever do it again, but it is what it is…

– Post-Oregon Coast I did nothing. Some fun runs with friends. Some volunteering at races. Nothing taxing.

– Christmas was a blur.

– Started training for a half marathon. It’s a road race. If I’m honest it’s the first road half that I’ve seriously trained for since 2010. And, to be more honest, my training is still mediocre. Not effort, but runs/week.

– Trying to plan out weekends is crazy. Colin and I both run so it’s a lot of “who’s running when?”. Most of our weekends are booked until September!

– Immediately after my half I start training for the Squamish 50 MILE. Since I still haven’t gotten around to getting my training plan (yup, really need to do that!) it’s not 100% real. Except for my name being on the official registrants list. I’ll have one race in July, Buckin’ Hell 15km, but other than that it’ll be train, train, train some more.

So that’s about it. Things are crazy busy, but we somehow seem to balance it out.  

How’ve you been?