Purpose & Process

    One mental knee-jerk I know lots of athletes hear in their heads from time to time is: "Whats the point?!" When a race goes poorly after tons of preparation, or nothing is clicking in training for months on end, or if it just has not seemed "fun" for longer than you can remember. I certainly heard that familiar exasperation two weeks ago when I wrenched my ankle. I had been putting in good work and thought in the moment it was all down the drain. 

    Setting aside the obvious catastrophizing of setbacks and non-perfects that this lash out often represents—its a valid question. What is the point? For great elite athletes, a class I never achieved, the point is partly that it is your profession. Like any other job or career the work either earns or invests in payoffs that are your livelihood. Most athletes though really enjoy their sport. Some people don't enjoy physical exertion but most at least enjoy being outdoors, a good workout, or the satisfaction of accomplishing something. Many of us, elite or amateur, also have some kind of goal that we are working towards and that provides motivation and excitement about the process. 

    For me, "what's the point" usually visits when something happens that feels like it has snatched away the goal I have in my head or made it feel unattainable. So when I wrenched my ankle, "whats the point" was both asking about the work I had put in but also the goals I had set for myself. For example, "whats the point" of shooting for a good result at events this year if it can just be snatched away in an instant? When I was younger, I think this reaction jerked more often when I had bigger athletic goals and even smaller disappointments like a bad workout might have me frustrated and questioning my choices. But I have also always had another thread raising the issue of purpose separate from achievement. 

    I have been consuming a lot of war poetry lately (which likely holds a tie for my favorite genre with natural observation of spirits like Mary Oliver). Classics spinning hyperbolic frenzy around the thirst for battle and glory, contemporaries zooming in to inject the visceral reality into your veins or hold the space to recognize the valor but acknowledge the folly. I have a line of warriors in my family, but it was never my calling. I do, however, feel some constant tug towards contributions to a greater good. So my mind also questions often whether I am serving a higher purpose . . . making the world a better place than I found it. I rarely felt I was with athletics. However, later on in my racing career I did feel like I was helping other achieve goals from time to time which was gratifying. But it was hard to justify the pursuit internally because I knew it was not going to change much in the world for the better. 

    So training still has this stigma, as it were, in my head. It is self-indulgent to some extent. When I was younger I had a lot more trouble giving myself permission to do things I enjoyed. But that has changed a lot over the years. I feel less now that I have to justify the things I like doing and allow myself to enjoy them more. With how busy life has been over the past eight or so years, this has been key. It is good to have a hobby with daily, weekly, and monthly goals and processes. It gives me things to look forward to and something to focus on if I need respite from other things. Additionally, in the long term, I really want to remain as healthy as possible for as long as possible because I so look forward to the future my family is building. 

    My foot is healing up much better than I expected. But in the past two weeks I found that the habits I have developed over the past couple of years of exercising regularly really helped get me over the dejection. Usually something like the sprain would have had me out moping and not doing anything for weeks. But this time I stuck to the icing and elevation, and set up my stationary bike so I could at least keep up my normal schedule of activity. I told myself that I would let the February and April events go if I was not healed up, and I still will. But I kept up the work with what I could do on the stationary and at the end of this week got a couple of runs in that showed promise that my aerobic numbers have not dropped off too much. 

    So maybe I can shoot for my original December goals in the next couple of months or maybe not. But I enjoyed the challenge of finding different ways to maintain what I had built up, and I really enjoyed being able to get some hard aerobic work in on the bike. The affirmation though is that I have established a life and a routine that I enjoy. The process being something that means as much to me as any accomplishment at this stage in my life. I may not be doing something monumental or legendary but it is good to me so maybe that is enough. 

Plans & Goals

    I started up writing again in part because the progress I had made brought me to a place where my brain was thinking of glory again. What kind of glory? Who knows. From a young age my athletic drive was pushed along by some deep seeded drive to be the best. The best at what? All sorts of things. Racing professionally for an number of years really put that in check. I was a very good athlete, which got me in the race. But when you race with the best it becomes very clear how far they sit above the rest. Even at my peak, I was still getting crushed by the top women and the lead men were half an hour ahead at the big events. In some ways this was really good for me because I was able to let go of the fantasy of being the best. I got to see how good I could be and learned that I was not world class. 

    Despite perspective, the drive never really died. With some of the good runs I had in the fall of 2023, something in me was again seeking. Seeking to break through, break free, break away from the rest. I don't really know what I want to accomplish, who I want to beat, or where I am trying to get to. But the drive is there. 

    This year has gotten off to a rough start. There has been a lot change going on at work and a continuing frenzy of busy life activity. I put in a lot of good training in during December to build on the racing fitness from cross-country season. That work put me in a great spot to attack some spring events. I had already registered for the The Kook Run and the Carlsbad 5000. I was really looking forward to these events and in my mind's idle time I was thinking about ways to improve on my performances from last year. Thinking about what I might be able to pull off. Daydreaming about times and clicking off miles at powerful paces. I even started thinking about the USATF SD Road Series, which these events are part of, and looking up past results to see how I might rank. And maybe those mental musings are tied to the subconscious drive that seeks glory in some way. But analysis aside, I was excited. 

    I went out for my long Sunday run which is my favorite activity of the week by far on January 6th and was feeling good. Then, in a moment I came crashing down. I stepped off the curb at a bit of an angle to start crossing the street and must have stepped on a wet uneven patch or something. Immediately I felt my left ankle wrench violently, yanked back under my leg as my weight shifted over the top of it and to the ground. I fell and the searing pain of the ankle being heavily torqued and I grabbed my leg to prevent anything from hitting it. I crawled out of the street and sat on the curb for some time. It has been quite a while since I had a bad sprain, and this one was almost as bad as any I had felt. I could feel my body going into shock, and despite it hurting like crazy I knew I had to get home to get it up. I limped home a couple of miles and have been in resting and icing mode all this week. 

    But on the walk home, and for the first couple of days, the upending of my planned training and the goals my mind has been concocting was brutal. Having that all yanked away in an instant just flipped my mind upside down from what it had been doing for the past couple of months. I had been building and making progress. And now everything was up in the air and uncertain. At first I was not sure if it was bad enough that I should go to the hospital and I thought the year of work on getting fit again was just all out the window. This week has been good though. Lots of elevating my foot and icing seems to have done wonders. Riding the stationary bike was also painless so I was able to get some cardio workouts in which hopefully will prevent too much loss of capacity. 

    I think in the past I would have been much more devastated, as if the injury were the end of the world. But life is much different now. I got to put my foot up and my kid brought me blankets and stuffed animals to feel better. And not being able to do some of the training I want is less of a letdown because I still get to spend time with my family and that brings so much joy as well. I also don't think the hobby is as important as it was before. Sure I may not get to run hard for a couple of weeks, but none of us have to look that far for lives that have been upended far worse, and people that have lost much more in an instant in recent times. 

    So I am healing up well, which is a pleasant surprise. But I am also not that dejected and am still happy despite having hit a pretty bad pothole in the process. This is the better surprise, and it is definitely because the other things I have in my life provide the center for my happiness. It is not tied so strongly to accomplishment in narrowly defined arenas drawn by the partially irrational sense of glory, despite that still being a part of me. I hope to be back on my feet soon as my foot seems to be healing well, and still plan on doing the Kook and C-Bad 5000. But I am glad to have found I don't need to be on track to some great achievement to be settled.

Energy & Drive

     Since deciding to dedicate more effort to squeezing some performance out this quadragenerian vessel, I have set a slightly more demanding load in place. I increased the volume by about 10-15% on what I was doing before and on my more challenging workouts I am pushing small margins over the effort I was putting out before. So this really only means a couple of extra total miles a week and maybe a 5 second per mile increase in speed over numbers I have been holding consistently for the last year or so. I also have been setting my alarm 25 minutes earlier and doing a yoga regimen focused on core mobility and strength. 

    I am just shy of three weeks in on this increased regimen and I think I am already feeling a bit strained. It is hard to tell if it is the additional workload, however, because this lat month has also been very busy. With holiday parties, events, decorating, gifting, and general merriment . . . we have been pretty busy. That and a new role in my job has meant everything non-exercise related is extra busy as well. Needless to say, I am tired. This morning I got up early for my long run which I have been pretty excited about the past couple of months because of good progress I have been seeing on those. Despite a fine double espresso, I had that old familiar feeling/though that "I don't want to do this." Mostly just because I was tired and I kind of felt like I was dragging myself out the door. 

    Nonetheless, the run went well and I am glad I went and did it. But it was definitely noteworthy that this is the first time I have felt that way pre-workout in a long time. I have also been generally tired and although it is not making me non-functional, it is more tired than I want to be in my actual day to day life. I know it is early in the game with the increased workload and this month is much busier than others. So I am hopeful that the increase in tiredness and dip in motivation is not a sign that the additional training is too much for me to handle. 

    I think this level of drain is probably a bit beyond what I would prefer. So, if my energy levels don't normalize after the holiday craziness dies down and I have a couple of blocks on the new regimen, I may reconsider whether it is worth it. Since I want to make sure I have enough energy to engage in and enjoy my real life, it is not worth it to me to be overcooked form training all the time. I guess this is an element of the process I will just have to pay attention to. 

Back at It

    Although I regularly joke about being "retired" from endurance sports, apparently there may always be a part of me that just craves the burn. After a couple of years of limited activity during law school and while getting off the ground in my career, I fell into a decent routine of regular weekly workouts again which brought back some decent fitness. With it came the ever-creeping thoughts about goals and glory: "I should really try to [this or that]." "Maybe if I add a bit of [this or that] I can get to [insert performance aspiration]." But life has also changed in the eight (IS THAT RIGHT?!) years since I stepped away from professional racing.

    With a young family and a both of us working busy, full-time jobs there is little time in a given day for hobbies. Also, wanting to spend as much time as much time with family as possible, I definitely feel like athletic goals should remain just that, a hobby. So I guess the question becomes, once again, what is the right balance of the time and energy spent on athletic endeavors to be able to remain present in my family as much as I want to while also developing as a professional in my field.

    I figured I would start writing again because that always seems helpful in flushing out the answer, or at least bringing clarity to the process in these sorts of things. It became apparent that this might be useful because I actually had some big athletic successes this year but did not get much of a sense of accomplishment from them. In May I finally did my first run to the summit of Mt. Diablo from my childhood home. This has been something I have been wanting to try for quite some time and it really was quite the adventure. I started before dawn and summited above the fog without seeing anyone along the way. The upper slopes were majestic in the early morning with the air still and quiet while the sun backlit the summit rising over the central valley. 

    

    It was a great run, and I had some other good, big runs throughout the year which made me think I should take a crack at some of the Dirt Dog Cross Country Series races. The increased consistency and some bigger base runs, I thought, might give me a strong foundation to put up decent times at these shorter events. 

    I ended up racing three events in the series, and performing pretty well for my average weekly volume. A few weeks out of the year we go on vacation and I am able to get in 40 to 50 miles a week sometimes. But my usual routine involves short interval workouts of about 5 miles at lunch M/W/F, an easy treadmill jog at the office T/Th, and a longer easier run on Sundays of 10 to 12 miles. So an average week is probably around 30 miles of running (plus a swim on Saturday morning). This is a great regular routine, and I am definitely healthier and fitter than I have been since I quit racing. However, at the cross country races the lead masters (40+) runners have an extra 5-10% on me and I just can't hang. Even though I am running good times, which are probably only 10 seconds per mile off what I could have run at my fittest, it is still disappointing not to be able to contend. This also seems silly, given that IT IS A HOBBY, and I am able to perform at a level most people would be very happy with. But such is my brain. 

    After Dirt Dog, I channeled the race-fitness to one last block and focused on the Encinitas Turkey Trot 10k. This is a spectacular event with thousands of people, many in costume, turning out on Thanksgiving morning for a fun run on the PCH. I felt good in the lead up, and toed the line tuned up to go fast. Just like the Dirt Dogs, by the end of the first mile there was a small lead group of 7 or 8 about 15 seconds up the road and I was in no-man's-land time trialing alone. That group just slowly pushed away and I ran most of the race alone. This is what I am used to and I have my numbers dialed well enough to be able to just follow what my watch is saying to stay on the rivet without blowing my stack. Without people to push with I probably left something on the table in miles 4 and 5, but came home strong and finished in about 35:26. This is a big post-law school, post-covid PR, but far off my personal best. 

    Again, I did not feel much in the way of accomplishment, which I should. I have worked really hard to get healthy and fit again, and my Dirt Dog races and this result showed great progress. But something about being just out of contention bothers me. I think I also have a taste of progress again which is enticing my old self to think big things. I don't want to get into a cycle of doing more and more, then not feeling like it is enough no matter how well I do. But it is nice to have goals that are just for me and just for fun again. I have also plugged back into some old friends through the events and the process which has been really nice. We all got a fair bit of isolation during the pandemic, and the bustle of life the past couple of years has also meant there just is not as much time to catch up with friends and go to events. 

    I don't want to set any big goals and I don't plan to go to any major events. I am glad that we live in a place where there are things you can do close to home throughout the year so it does not take much time away. But I do want to see if I can't produce some good performances with a bit more training where I can squeak it in. So I am writing again to create some accountability in my process of seeking while also staying grounded. 

The New Normal

The one thing my wife and I kept finding ourselves saying throughout her pregnancy and for baby's first year was "WOW! Well this is weird..." Little did we know that life was going to get even stranger this year. The pandemic obviously has changed every part of normal life in some way or another, but then again so has being a parent. So learning to be nimble and flexible has been a big theme lately. 

Three and a half years of preparation for the California bar exam left me in pretty terrible shape, at least by my unnaturally inflated standards. It has been a bit of a haul getting back into shape with the the bustle of a new career and new baby, but this year I was hoping to get fit and do some events for fun. Unfortunately, there are no events this year...but when I came up with some alternatives that I really enjoyed. I got a Finish Line Productions email about some Santa Cruz events going virtual I thought that would be a fun goal to shoot for.

The Santa Cruz Firecracker 5k & 10k  also seemed like a good place to start back because the distances are relatively familiar and manageable to go it alone. So I signed up and set about planning routes and prepping with targeted workouts. Since the Carlsbad 5000 was canceled, and that was going to be my first event for a while, I used its course as a template for a nice flat course.  The Firecracker set up a 14 day window to complete your event so I planned on doing the 5k on July 4 and then the 10k as a double loop on July 11 — back to back Saturdays. 

The 5 K

Training had been pretty consistent for a couple of months, and my heart rate data indicated I could rely pretty well on a targeted threshold for these distances. So despite not having anyone to run with I had my watch and a couple of BPM bookends to keep me honest. I got a very early start and it was nice and overcast but very humid. It was strange getting warmed up for a race where there is no race going on, and the strange looks from people out trying to get the good spots on the beach for the Fourth while I ran by full speed made me feel a bit awkward. But it was worth it to put some decent work to the test.

Overall, I was pretty pleased with the effort and the outcome. My lungs were having a bit of trouble keeping up with my legs, but that is a good sign and afterward I was definitely looking forward to trying to stretch the effort to a longer distance. 

The 10 K

I was pretty pleased with my 5k numbers and felt confident about taking a little off the top and being able to repeat a similar strong effort the following weekend at the longer distance.  I took it pretty easy during the week and just tried to keep the my legs and lungs stimulated and fresh.  Our daughter was not feeling well this week and things were just not flowing generally, so by the time Saturday rolled around I was feeling pretty flat.  But I went out under my normal routine and just id my best to stay up in the target zones I was looking for and ignore the feeling that my body was made of refried beans.  

Despite not feeling great, it was a decent output for running alone.  I definitely think that on a good day with the fitness I have now I could probably run around a minute faster, so I am definitely pleased with it. 

It has been nice to have some goals to work toward, especially without having the ability to train with others.  This is such a strange time, but I feel luckier than ever to have the support of family and everything that makes our lives manageable despite the present state of things.  We are certainly privileged to have the life we do and it is hard to be disappointed with things that don't work out perfectly when you know how hard many of your fellows have it. 

Onward.