minutes on my bike trainer. I know I was supposed to put in an hour, but I laid in my bed for an extra 20 minutes trying to talk myself out of getting up. Seriously, the only reason that I did get up was that I didn't want to have to write a failure post in this blog.Stephen Covey, in his book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People says that checking things off of your to-do list gives you a small endorphin rush each time that you do it. That leads you to want to check off more things. I can tell you that checking this one off my list was definitely accompanied by a smile and a feeling of accomplishment.
I did 36 minutes of a Chris Carmichael training video (http://www.trainright.com/) that actually lasts an hour. I had to cut it short in order to get to work on time. It is a great workout and always leaves a puddle of sweat under the bike.
Now, on another subject, my brain.
Yesterday, I got a comment on my blog on Facebook from one of my craziest friends, Suzy Degazon . She's an ultra athlete that has completes some of the most insane races on the planet, example: Ultraman, which is a 3x distance Ironman, here are the distances and yes they are staggering 7.2 miles swim, 336 mile bike, and a 78.6 mile run. She is amazing and also an example as to why you should be careful as to who you associate with.
Her comment was, "what are your ultra plans for 2009?"
Now, I had set a goal of completing a 50k this year, but I hadn't really considered getting serious about it until later in the spring. Suzy changed that. She called me out and made me announce my goal to someone other than my inner voice. So here it is. I am now in training to go back and slay the course that beat me in December of 2007, the Northface Endurance Championship race in San Francisco in December. It is a 50k race ( 31 miles) with about 7,000' of climbing in the run. It has some of the most beautiful scenery, and here's the kicker, there's a 50 mile option. So, don't be surprise if in my postings you start to hear me try to rationalize that I can finish that distance.
But here's a look into what goes on inside my head that disturbs even me. The next part of Suzy's reply was that she was doing the Calico50k next weekend as a training run. My response should have been something like "awesome, you go girl". Instead, I immediately start thinking, "I could do that and that would be fun". Then the rational part of my brain says, "You haven't run over 8 miles in the last few months and your still blistering on your instep from breaking in the orthodics that your physical therapist has you in after the last knee injury". Then the little devil on my shoulder says "yeah, but you didn't blister last run, you can do this. Go ahead check the site, see if there's a 30k (18 miles). You can run that in your sleep". The smart angel on the other shoulder says " Stop it, we're talking 18 miles of trail running, with elevation changes, and oh, by the way, we're not sure if the knee is going to hold up". "It hasn't hurt you lately, the doctor fixed it". "It's $80 and going to be super cold at 7 am in the high desert". "Cold is great for running, and you could walk 18 miles you wuss, do it".
See, that is what goes on in my head. You may be asking, are you going to do it? And as of last night I would have said no because I had talked myself out of it, but then I was telling my thoughtless wife about this whole thing and she acted like I should do it. Urgghhh....
Stay tuned, I am still not sure where this is headed. Perhaps some long runs this weekend with some time to think and suffer will help this play out.
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