Was Gonna, Why Bother and #GSD

I’m attracted to doers, the kind of people who approach life with an attitude to get shit done #GSD, no matter what the challenges may be. I have limited tolerance for the “was gonna” mindset. This mindset leads to stories that begin with: “I was gonna do [X thing] but [insert bullshit excuse here].” This mindset may also lead to a lot of empty talk about what a person plans to do, yet those plans never get executed. In the failure to try to pursue goals, a “was gonna” mindset presents reasons, excuses that seem perfectly valid. However, I believe …

Today Got Me Thinking About Freedom

When I started my run this morning, I felt as I had during all of my runs from the past 3 weeks. Thanks to moving from sea level to about 6000 feet in Colorado, my lungs work what feels like triple time. I am sluggish and slow. My rating of perceived exertion (RPE) is much higher than normal, for both the pace and the heart rate.  This morning, a bit frustrated with the slowness, I decided to throw in a few 1 minute pickups to at least get some turnover happening in my legs. The first one felt truly like …

Dreaming Big Isn’t Glamorous

I blew a snot rocket, carefully positioning my head with the wind and timing the blow with the rhythm of my footsteps. It was a miserable late winter day, with strong winds and little ice pellets that couldn’t decide if they wanted to be rain or snow. They bounced off the track as they fell from the sky. I dodged little patches of ice on the track, taking note of their location as I looped, then looped again. I was alone with my thoughts and a series of pyramid repeats – ranging from 200 to 1200 yards. Of course, I was …

Why do you run so much?

“Pushing your body past what you thought it was capable of is easy; the hard part is pushing yourself even further, past what your mind wants to let you. That’s what ultrarunning is all about; introducing you to a self you’ve never known.” ~ Rex Pace Running has been a friend of mine since I was about 12 years old. I originally took to running to “burn calories.” I wanted to achieve some sort of teen-tastic, unrealistic image of what I was supposed to look like. I was a 90-something-pound teenager with all sorts of destructive disordered eating habits. I remember hoping …

What have I learned?

No matter how much experience I gain, there is always something new to learn. That is part of the appeal of endurance sport – it never gets boring. After a race or an especially challenging training session, my Coach Steve Pye’s first question was: “What did you learn?” This question is the best one we can ask ourselves each day if we want to make our path forward on this journey meaningful. This season has rubbed me pretty raw emotionally, physically, and tactically. All of that rubbing has exposed some valuable lessons, which I’m finding especially useful as I make the final, …

Crono Vino Time Trial: Fake it until I make it – or just keep faking it

On April 10th, I received this text from Karl, an athlete that I coach: I clicked the link. I read through the event description.  And, I realized: 1) Karl would do this event, and 2) I should probably hit the “register” button as well. If I’m going to think of myself as a “real” cyclist, then I need to do “bikey” things. But, the thought of showing up at an event for really real cyclists scared the crap out of me. Mostly, I was certain one or more of the following things would happen: 1) I would greatly humiliate myself, 2) I would get my ass …

I am a cyclist? I AM a cyclist.

I’m coming clean: I’ve been a hypocrite. I’ve talked a time or a dozen about how central our thoughts are for influencing the way that we act. While I walk this talk in most aspects of my athletic life, there is one area where I’ve clearly been lacking – yes, even hypocritical. I’ve said some pretty negative things about cycling. For example, I take credit for the hashtag #BikesArePoopy. More specifically, I’ve said some not-so-nice things about myself as a cyclist. I may have said a time or a dozen that I suck on the bike. I consider a compliment about my …

Eat the elephant one bite at a time 

I started my run on Sunday morning, and I wasn’t more than 20 steps in when I began to hear the voices. My legs are really sore. Why does this feel so hard if I’m running so slow? How am I going to do today’s workout feeling like this? Was that noise my joints popping?!  Ugh. It’s windy.  You know these voices, right? I bet you’ve heard them a time or a hundred. The day before, I had ridden four hours at a base ironman effort – but with a series of FTP intervals interspersed throughout. Fifty-five minutes worth of …

Asking the Right Questions: Be a Student of Your Sport

John and I were pretty clueless when we first started in endurance sport. How do we train for a triathlon or marathon? What type of fueling works best, what gear do we need? And that list of questions went on and on and on. We aren’t the type of people who like to revel in ignorance, so we asked questions of more experienced people. A lot of them. We bought books, subscribed to magazines, scoured the web, went to seminars, hired coaches, eventually became coaches ourselves – everything we could do to learn as much as we could to prepare ourselves for …