2014 Resolutions Recap

When 2014 started, I had set ten goals for myself. Now that the year is over, it’s time to review how well I did at completing them.

1: Run at Least Two Marathons

I was originally planning to go for two marathons in 2014, a 50K in 2015, two 50Ks in 2016, and a 50-miler in 2017. Instead, I knocked out a 50K in February, a 50-miler in May, and still completed two marathons in June and October. On top of that, I ran a trail marathon (Masters of All Terrain in June) in the blazing heat, a trail 50K (Bandit Ultra Trail Run) in California, up and down mountains, and the Chicago Marathon in October, one of the six World Marathon Majors. I call this goal Beyond Achieved.

2: Complete an Olympic-Distance Triathlon

This one was completed back in March when I completed the Greater Cleremont Triathlon. I did better than I thought I would and was hoping to work up to a Half-Ironman Triathlon, but other things got in the way and I didn’t ride my bike for a while. Now it’s got some issues that need repairing before I can start training again. But nonetheless, this goal was easily Achieved.

3: Get Scuba Certified for Nitrox and Advanced Open Water

I got my Nitrox Certification in January and my Advanced Open Water Certification a couple days into February. I followed it up by getting Rescue Diver Certified in July, but blew out my shoulder during the class – an injury I still haven’t recovered from. I think Rescue Diver is as far as I’m going to go with my certifications, especially with how expensive scuba diving is, but I did have some great dives this year, including diving with sharks and diving in Zanzibar. This goal was Beyond Achieved.

4: Go to Burning Man

I quickly decided that I wasn’t going to be able to complete this in 2014 and it wasn’t high on my priority list anyway, so I scratched it. That’s the beauty of having 10 goals for the year and have some very difficult goals is that I can feel perfectly fine in scrapping a few. Therefore, I must mark this goal as Retracted.

5: Go Hiking

The goal was to hike a long trail – the John Muir Trail, the Appalachian Trail, or Mount Kilimanjaro. Well, I completed Mount Kilimanjaro on November 15th (summiting on the 14th) after a 6-day trek. I still need to do a write-up on this hike, but I did post pictures. However, even without the write-up, it’s still Achieved.

6: Travel Outside the Country

Like I just said above, I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in November. If you don’t know, Mount Kilimanjaro is in Tanzania. And if you don’t know, Tanzania is in Africa. And if you still don’t know, Tanzania is another country and Africa is another continent. I also took a trip to the Bahamas for a day for scuba diving, but does that really count? Africa however took 35 hours to fly to and 40 hours to fly home from. I got to travel through Paris and Amsterdam, but never left either airport. The flights out, climbing Kilimanjaro, and most of the flights home I was by myself, which got lonely at times. I was so excited when I finally met up with the rest of our group for the safaris and I was also excited when I got home and could talk to people again. International Travel? Achieved.

7: See My Sports Teams Play Live

This didn’t go as well as some of the other goals. I saw the Bruins play in Tampa in the early part of the year, but that was it. The Celtics suck so bad, it’s not worth the money (and I hate the NBA anyway). The Red Sox had a crappy year and I didn’t make it to Tampa for a game. The closest the Patriots came was Miami, but that was Week 1 of the season. If they came to Miami later in the season I might have gone. Or if they came to Tampa or Jacksonville. Next year won’t be much better, but the New England Revolution will be down to play Orlando now that Orlando is in the MLS. For 2014, I have to mark it as Partially Achieved.

8: Write Something

Erm… So I didn’t even bother posted in this blog for most of the year. I guess I’ll mark this one down as a Failure.

9: Meet New People

I met so many new people this year. I made some friends at karaoke, I made some new scuba diving friends, and I got to meet a lot of people in my travels from Africa to Chicago. I also got into online dating and had a few dates (and some no-shows). I’d say this goal was Achieved.

10: Find Something New and Jump Right In

This was really more of an abstract idea in my mind. I started going to karaoke regularly, which kind of qualified, though it wasn’t completely spontaneous. Traveling around the world was also a big jump, but again not spontaneous. One spontaneous action that I definitely remember from this year however was going to Universal and riding Dr Doom for the first time. A friend of mine convinced me to get an annual pass and we went with some of his other friends. I had never ridden Dr Doom or any ride like it due to my fear of heights. When asked if I would ride it, I said yes and hopped right on. My palms were sweaty and I was shaking like a leaf in a hurricane, but I did it. And then I did it a second time a month later, though I was still shaking like a leaf. Any way you cut it – Achieved.

So there we have it, 2014 contained one Failure, one Retracted goal, one that was Partially Achieved, and seven that I completed successfully (and sometimes went even farther). I’d consider that a successful year.

Keys 100 50-miler

On Friday, the 16^th of May, 2014, my friend and I drove down to the Florida Keys, eventually stopping in Marathon, at a hotel I had booked for the night. The following morning I would be starting a run that would lead me fifty miles to Key West and would cover what I predicted was around twelve hours. Once at the hotel, I rearranged my two drop-bags to make sure that I had what I wanted in each one – one to be dropped ten miles into the race and the other to be dropped thirty miles in. I also packed my waist-pack with energy gels, energy gummies, electrolyte tablets, and an extra bottle of Gatorade.

 

I planned out my clothing for each leg of the race based on distance and weather – a sleeveless cotton shirt for the first ten miles before switching into a long-sleeve white polyester shirt for the twenty miles during the afternoon, and finally a short-sleeve polyester shirt for the final twenty miles in the evening. I also packed an extra pair of shoes, shorts, and compression shorts for the last twenty miles and extra socks at both stops. I ended up not changing socks or either pair of shorts.

Although I was tired from getting up early, I forced myself to stay awake until nine-thirty that night so as not to wake up too early the next morning. On the morning of the seventeenth, I got up just before seven and ate a Pop-Tart for breakfast. At eight, I headed off to the start of the race at Mile Marker 50 and checked in to get my bib and tracking chip. We were required to attend a meeting at nine-fifteen, so I had a bit of time to kill. I found a nice shady spot to sit next to a car that was the crew for one of the other runners. The two girls that were the crew were trying to draw pictures on the windows to decorate the car and after chatting with them, the runner that they were supporting, John, came over and we chatted a bit as well. We were both running our first 50-milers and wished each other luck.

Eventually another runner, Michelle, came over to sit in the shade, so we began talking about the run. She was concerned about wearing a sleeveless shirt in the sun, and noticed I had chosen the same. I told her about my strategy for changing shirts at the drop locations and since she was also running without a crew, she had done the same thing. As meeting time neared, we left to go inside to attend the meeting where they filled us in on any last minute details and went over the safety precautions once more.

After the meeting, the waves started at nine-forty-five, a new wave starting every five minutes to spread the runners out. I was in the fifth and final wave, so I waited by the building as the crowd thinned. Both Michelle and John started in the fourth wave. Eventually it was my turn to line up, so I did and started my GPS as they counted us down. At 10:05 on the morning of May 17^th, I began my race. I started at the back of the pack, as I knew I would be slow and I jogged for the first few minutes before taking a walking break.

After three miles we had to cross to the other side of the road and there was a Monroe County Police Officer there to halt traffic for us as we crossed. From that point, we stepped onto the Seven-Mile Bridge for the next, well, seven miles. I maintained a twelve-minute-mile for the first ten miles, even with a small hill on the bridge that I decided to walk up and down. The views from the bridge were amazing – the aquamarine water giving away to islands in the distance that slowly came into view and were passed by as I ran. I also got to see some wildlife, including a fish jump out of the water – I think it was a marlin, but I only got a brief glimpse from a distance – and what I first thought were rays until one came to the surface for air, so they may have been turtles.

Once past the bridge, I made it to the first aid station at mile ten. I changed my shirt, applied more sunscreen, traded out my empty Gatorade bottles for two full ones, grabbed some extra gels from my bag and a bag of goldfish crackers from the aid station and waited in line for the restroom. I made a quick update to Facebook while I waited, then finally relieved my bladder and was off once again.

My pace started slowing down at this point. I had intended to maintain a fourteen-minute mile throughout the race and came out too fast, but figured I’d slow down on the bridge with the incline and decline (having never seen the bridge, I didn’t know what to expect). I had also wanted to get through the first ten miles as quickly as possible before it got too hot. Being off the bridge and on the island now forced me to run with less of a breeze as it turned to afternoon. The fifteen-mph tailwind was a blessing when I could feel it, but without it the eighty-four degree day started taking its toll. Suddenly wearing a long-sleeve shirt didn’t seem so wise, even if it was protecting me from the sun.

Mile fifteen had a water stop, which after four bottles of Gatorade, was a welcome site. I filled my empty bottle and put in an electrolyte tablet before heading out again. My feet were already blistering at this point and my knee was on the verge of giving out. At some point I passed John, who had stopped alongside the road with his crew. I was surprised that I had caught up to him at all. By mile twenty, I had blisters on the balls of both of my feet. I stopped at the aid station there to get some more water and another bag of goldfish crackers. All I brought with me were sweets, so the salty delights of goldfish were amazing.

I hit the halfway point – mile twenty-five – and stopped one more to refill with more water. I also dipped my hat in the some icewater to keep cool, but my hat was warm again only a few minutes later. I took off my shirt due to chafing and continued on. Once I hit mile thirty, I had slowed considerably, but I was able to change my shirt and shoes, as well as get two fresh bottles of Gatorade from my drop bag. I also got my night gear – a reflective vest with flashing lights attached to both the front and back. I put it on even though I still had a couple hours before it was required – though I kept the flashing lights off.

By mile thirty-five, I was so exhausted that I literally couldn’t run anymore. When I tried to run, it was more of a slow shamble than anything else. Just thirty seconds of shambling made me so exhausted, that my walking pace was slower. By this point I figured that any time I made up by running was being lost by the slower walking anyway, so I decided to just walk for a bit and see if I could regain any energy.

I was still moving at around twenty-minute miles and I kept counting down the mile markers as the sun sank towards the horizon. Of course I had to pull out my phone to take some sunset pictures – no point in wasting a perfect opportunity, right? I tried a little bit more running and though it didn’t fatigue me as much anymore; I was only able to run enough to maybe hit a nineteen-minute mile. I hit the last aid station at mile forty and replenished my bottles once more.

The last few miles I kept catching up to another runner, Marcelo, who would pass me, send me words of encouragement, then stop somewhere to meet up with his crew and I would in turn pass him. The last several miles, he also developed many blisters and we offered each other words of encouragement. Once I reached mile forty-four, we crossed under the road and up on the other side. I grabbed a fresh bottle of Gatorade from my friend and kept going. I was so sick of sugar, Gatorade, and everything else, but I needed the energy and they electrolytes.

Another mile in, I ran into Marcelo again, for the last time before he was off. Another mile down and I reached the intersection where we had to make a left. I carefully hobbled across the road as fast as I could, having to stop at each median along the way to allow traffic to drive by. I must have looked pretty bad because other racers kept passing me and asking if I was okay or if I needed help. I pulled out my phone and mapped my directions to the finish line just to see how far away I was – just under three miles.

I heard shuffling feet coming up behind me and waited to be passed by another racer, but instead it was a local jogger that had run up to me to find out what I was running. He asked how far I had ran and I told him forty-seven miles. He looked confused and asked “today?”, to which I responded “yeah, I started at ten this morning.” He offered me some advise on blisters – using Vaseline before running – and then he said goodbye and told me to be safe. Ironically, seconds later he went to cross the street and almost walked in front of a car.

I was in Key West and on the map it seemed so small – and really it is – but as I was hobbling along at a twenty-five minute mile pace, it suddenly seemed like the longest three mile walk I’d ever taken. I kept checking my phone to see how far I had to go and the numbers slowly ticked away while the predicted arrival time slowly ticked upwards. I had originally hoped to finish in twelve hours – by 22:05. With only a few miles left I had hoped to finish before midnight, but now I was almost at midnight and more than a mile away. If I had any energy, I would have fought through the pain to run the rest of the way, but I could feel the veins in my neck throbbing to pump blood through my body and I could feel my lungs burning just from walking. A few times I caught myself not breathing or breathing really shallow and had to consciously remind myself to breath, forcing deep breaths to try and get some Oxygen.

The clock struck midnight with about one mile to go and shortly thereafter I saw John pass me – or at least I thought it was John. Turns out someone else also had a red sleeveless shirt – shocking, I know, but after fourteen hours of running, the fact that two people could have a similar shirt was too much for my brain to comprehend. I checked my phone – half a mile until I had to turn and then another half mile to the finish line. Finally I reached the turn and looked off into the distance hoping to see a finish line somewhere – but nothing. I kept going – point four miles left and there’s a lot of cars up ahead, that must be the finish. Point three miles left, the finish is definitely up there somewhere, that’s the park where we finish at. Point two miles left – it would be funny if I got to just outside the finish line and collapsed; would they drag my body over the finish for me? Point one miles left and I still can’t see the finish, but I can hear it, it’s just around this building. I just have to get up on the sidewalk – just step up six inches. Wow, my foot barely made it up high enough to clear the curb. Hey look, now I have to step off of the sidewalk – who’s cruel idea was this. I turned the corner and heard “Is that a runner?” I hope you’re not expecting me to use any of my energy to respond to that. I pulled my shirt down over my reflective vest and lights and ran as fast as I could to the finish line – a lovely zombie shamble.

I crossed the finish line and received my medal, I didn’t even look at the clock. I had been so focused on the finish line I forgot to check it. I went over to the food table and grabbed a piece of bagel. I was able to take one small bite and my stomach told me it was done and wasn’t going to let me eat anymore. I grabbed my drop bags and headed to the car.

Once in the car, I finally got to remove my shoes and socks to reveal my highly blistered feet. I had two blisters pop while I was running and loads more ready to go. I would end up having three more pop the next day just walking to and from the car. I ended up popping five more myself when I got home. I checked my watch and did some math to predict how long ago I had finished. I figured my finish time was fourteen hours and twenty-five minutes. The next day once the results were posted, I checked and my final time was 14:25:01 – pretty damn good guessing.

The following week was filled with tender feet, cramping muscles, and sore joints, but by mid-day Wednesday I was feeling pretty good. I even played some soccer on Thursday night, but I was really sore running around the pitch. Now I’m feeling pretty good and I’m ready to start thinking about the next race.

Bandit Ultra Trail Run 50K

Sunday morning I woke up early, ate a Pop Tart and drank some milk, and headed to Corrigan Park on the edge of Simi Valley, California. I had flown out the previous weekend and spend the week visiting various attractions in the area as well as training on mountains for this run. I got to the race site and dropped off my drop bag which had extra Gatorade, gel packs, granola bars, and a change of shirt, shorts, and socks.

I waited as the countdown to the race wore on, watching the moon set over the mountains and chatting with some of the vendors who were setting up their tents. My friend had said she would come out to cheer me on, but that was over a month ago and she had barely spoken to me since then, so I wasn’t expecting to see her.

Around twenty minutes prior to the race, we lined up at the start and listened to a few announcements before getting counted down to the start. At seven o’clock we were off with a mile and some change around the park before the steep uphill climb of miles two and three. Five minutes into the race the muscles of my lower legs were cramping and ended up so tight that ten miles into the race my feet were completely numb. As we made our way up the steep mountain path in the second mile, I had to keep stopping to rest my legs and hope the pain would subside. After the third mile, the cramping went away, but the numbness would last for a full hour.

At around five and a half miles, we reached the top of the first major climb and started a mostly-downhill descent along a single-wide path. This path wound on for a while until it came to a neighborhood around nine miles in. By this point, my knee was almost shot and the downhills were killing me. At around ten miles, we reached the aid station with our drop bags and I was able to change out my sweaty long-sleeve shirt for a short-sleeve one. I also applied some sunscreen, grabbed new bottles of Gatorade, grabbed some gel and food, and put on some sunscreen.

I headed out of the aid station for a mile and a half climb up the mountain with a rolling downhill following, leading to the aid station at fifteen and a half miles. I was able to run on the shallow downhills heading into this half-way mark, but that was the last bit of serious running I was able to do. I rested for a minute at the aid station while drinking water and coke, but on the way out my knee and hip had locked up and I spent several minutes loosening them back up. My feet were also starting to blister, but I had to keep moving forward.

UltraMarathon Training, Rocky Peak Park, Simi Valley, California

I flew from Orlando to Los Angeles on Saturday, the 8^th of February, in order to run the Bandit 50K Ultra Trail Run, which takes place on Sunday, February 16^th. On Sunday I drove around for a bit and stopped at Temescal Gateway Park for a short hike. On Monday, I decided to head to Rocky Peak Park to scope it out, since the majority of the 31.13 miles would take place in the park. I only brought a single bottle of Gatorade with me on the walk and forgot any sunscreen, since this was the first clear day since I arrived. Being such, I only covered about six miles over a couple hours, including taking a wrong path and getting lost for about a half mile (each way).

The entrance of the park starts with an immediate uphill that barely relents for almost three miles. My hike on Monday brought me to the top of that three-mile stretch before I decided to turn around due to being low on hydration and not wanting to get too burnt. It was much quicker descending, though the steep slope made an interesting experience that included running back and forth across the path on the way down, much like skiing. Once I returned to the car, I downed another bottle of Gatorade and that day I stopped by Target to get some sunscreen and Sports Authority to pick up some gel packets. I grabbed six thinking that should be enough to keep me going, along with a pack of gummies and some granola bars. I assume I’ll be sick of all of them before the race is over.

The next day, Tuesday, I packed my bookbag with four bottles – two Gatorade and the two empty bottles from yesterday refilled with water. I also grabbed two granola bars and made my way back to Rocky Peak Park. The night before I used Excel to mark the cutoff times for the race and the minimum pace I would require in order to not be pulled from the course. I had four and a half hours to reach the fifteen-mile mark – a pace of eighteen minutes per mile. I had six hours to reach the twenty-mile mark – also an eighteen-minute mile pace. At around twenty-eight and a third miles, the final check point had nine hours from the start of the race – a pace of just over nineteen minutes per mile. As long as I could keep an eighteen-minute mile for the first twenty miles, I could spend the rest of the race at twenty-one-and-a-half minutes per mile in order to still finish.

Tuesday was all about time-trial training, which I didn’t think would be a problem considering I usually run a twelve-minute mile even during the Space Coast Marathon. However, the first mile going uphill flat out killed me and took over twenty-four minutes. I was already six minutes behind and only a mile in. I figured at this point that I was toast come race time, but since I had fifteen miles to average it out, there was a hope. The second mile felt a little better and took just under nineteen minutes, as did the third mile.

The fourth mile, once the uphills had relented, came in just under fifteen-minutes and was a great feeling. Mile five came in at just under seventeen minutes and mile six came in just over sixteen minutes. I hit the turn-around point at about five-and-three-quarters miles, the last bit of which was a nice downhill, but that meant the return trip started with another uphill. Fortunately, it wasn’t nearly as bad as mile one and was over fairly quickly. It showed in my time on mile seven though, which I detoured a few dozen meters in order to reach the actual peak before coming down and continuing the trail. That mile came in at almost nineteen minutes, but the rest of the trail was easy rolling ridgeline and then the final bit was the long downhill that I had started as an uphill.

Mile eight came in at fifteen minutes, mile nine was almost seventeen minutes, mile ten was just over seventeen minutes, mile eleven came in at almost sixteen-and-a-half, and the final stretch of almost a half-mile came in at eight-and-a-half. My average pace came in at seventeen-fourty-two per minute, just under what I needed for race day. I’m still not a hundred percent confident, but it definitely felt better ending with the target pace.

Come Sunday, I’ll hope to get a good start one the relatively flat first mile before making that tough climb and hopefully I’ll bank some time at the beginning so I don’t fall behind and also warm up my legs so I don’t cramp up like I did on Tuesday. I also need to figure out the water station situation when I pick up my packet on Saturday so I can strategize that. It looks like we’ll have stations every five-and-a-half miles or so, so I should be able to get by with two bottles as long as I can refill each one completely at each station. I can also use a drop bag for miles nine and twenty, so that should offer me good points to refill on carb-loaded treats.

There’ll be two large uphill climbs at miles two and twenty, and about nineteen miles of unfamiliar terrain, but I’m hoping that all the training and preparation pays off. It would suck to have come all the way to California with two goals in mind and to fail them both.

Best of Times, Worst of Times

I had planned to execute a twenty-mile-plus long run today to get back on track and start training for a fifty-kilometer ultramarathon. I had wanted to try an ultramarathon ever since completing the Space Coast Marathon, but I wasn’t anticipating on trying it anytime soon. After hanging out with a friend from California and falling for her, I thought if I could train hard and get up my distance, that I would be able to head out to Los Angeles and complete an ultramarathon there, using it as an excuse to go and see her.

I found an ultramarathon just outside Los Angeles in Simi Valley, the Bandit Ultra Trail Run, taking place on February 16^th – just enough time to train as long as I hadn’t lost too much in my month off from running. I planned to get up early this morning to get a start on the day before the eighty-plus degree weather hit mid-day. I was rudely awakened at two-thirty this morning to the howling of a cat and after many attempts to shut it up failed, I finally left my bed at two-fifty reserved to the fact that I was not falling back to sleep anytime soon. I grabbed a pop-tart and some milk and ate while browsing the internet.

I started popping acetaminophen and ibuprofen at four, every fifteen minutes (two pills each, one pill at a time). I left the house just before five this morning and started my run, taking my phone with me because I figured I would probably burn out at some point and may need to call in a pick-up. As I was running out of my neighborhood, I saw a truck hauling ass through the development and later saw the gate to the development looked like it had been crashed – my paranoia was already taking over as it usually does when I’m tired.

I made it through the first few miles with little problems, but after mile four, I started running down a long path with no lights except for around the occasional road crossings. To make matters worse, much of the path had woods just off the trail on one side and sometimes both sides – woods that I had seen a bear in a few months back and woods near where a woman and her dog were attacked by a bear about a month ago. I spent most of the morning peering intently into the brush looking for shapes other than my own shadow. At one point, as I neared a road and was staring into a tuft of shrubbery, my phone suddenly chimed “six miles” and I nearly jumped straight out of my shorts.

To calm the paranoia and to alert any bears to my existence (they’re more scared of you…) I kept talking to myself and singing to myself, eventually talking to myself about how crazy I was and how paranoid I was. As I heard rustling in the bushed, I would chat with the unknown entity “hello, if you’re a bear please don’t kill me, I like bears, I’m a friend to bears.” As dawn neared, I had one final encounter as I passed a small animal, perhaps a opossum or armadillo that bolted as I stepped a couple feet away from it and scared the shit out of me.

Once the sun rose, my paranoia subsided, but without the constant adrenaline rushes, running became much more difficult and without the need to talk to myself, I wasn’t as distracted either. I had to go to take a crap pretty bad, but without toilet paper, I wasn’t willing to go in the woods, so I kept pushing until I reached a restroom on the trail around ten miles in. As I saw the restroom, I skipped my rest break and made my way all the way to the gate – which was locked. I continued on and reached my turn-around point just after first light, eleven and a half miles in. On the way back, I stopped in a park that had restrooms but found that they weren’t open until eight – it was only seven-thirty. Not only did I have to use the restroom now, but my compression shorts, which had begun to pill after their latest wash, had decided to rub me raw and I was looking to remove them.

I trekked on for many more miles, constantly finding spots to remove my shorts and just wear my outer layer, but other runners and bikers kept being on the path as I passed these changing spots. Finally after a few miles, I was able to strip my shorts and wear just my looser shorts. A few miles later I found a trash bin and bid farewell to a pair of shorts that had faired me well through marathon training (and my marathon too), manning swimming trips in springs, and several diving excursions. I began wearing down near the home stretch due to having no energy and no food – I hadn’t eaten in almost six hours.

I finally made it home and texted my buddy to see what he was up to. I put my phone back in my pocket to do my final minute run and when I pulled my phone back out, I had pocket-dialed him, so we agreed to head out to Wekiva Springs State Park for a quick dip. I grabbed some Oreos to eat, along with some milk and orange juice, and waited for my buddy to pick me up. We headed out to Wekiva for only an hour, but the cool seventy-two degree water felt really good on my sore joints and muscles.

Once I got back home, it was on to step two of my plan, so I verified the date and location of the ultramarathon and spent a long time drafting up the perfect text to provide information while conveying nonchalance. As usual, I started focusing on all the negative consequences that could come from the text and started to panic. A friend messaged me on Facebook to ask me about my GoPro and how I use it when I go diving, so once I finished chatting with her, I took the opportunity to send the text before I got myself worked up again.

“G’mornin. Not sure if it’s obvious, but I like you. I’m lookin’ to run a 50k and there’s one near you on Feb 16. If I come that way would you want to hang out before or after?”

After eleven agonizing minutes of expecting the worst, I finally got a reply.

“Morning! I’d be happy to see you 🙂 I should disclose that I am seeing someone out here. Not sure if that impacts your decision or not. If you come I will 100% come support you in your race.”

We sent a few more texts back and forth about the race and its location, but I had already gotten the answer to what I really wanted to know. Of course, I only have myself to blame – I should have known she’d already be in a relationship. I always get myself emotionally invested in things I have no business getting emotionally invested in. I do it every year with my sports teams and I always get hung up on one girl. I doubt I’ll ever learn from my mistakes, though I’m not sure I should. With the good comes the bad and it’d be boring to never take risks – I may just need to limit how much I invest.

I had to get out of the house to get some fresh air (even though I had already run 22.75 miles and swam for an hour), so I hopped on my bike to go for a ride. I got an alert on my phone just before I left that someone had commented on a post made by Paul, the owner of the local scuba shop. I rode down to the shopping plaza that has the gym I go to along with Seminole Scuba. I stopped in to Seminole Scuba and chatted with Paul and his wife, Kristen Shepard, for an hour about the time they spent living in Africa and their trips going back there.

I had read on their site about Paul living on Mount Kilimanjaro, and since that’s been one of my short-term bucket-list items, I had wanted to pick his brain on it. They have a trip this November to Africa for diving and said they could organize a Kilimanjaro climb for me prior to if I wanted. With all the stories and information, I left the shop and rode back home with more stuff to think about. The trip piqued my interest, but would require the willingness to take a large financial hit and also miss the 2014 Space Coast Marathon, which I had been looking forward to.

I’m also stuck in limbo at work as to whether a new position will be open to me or not and with a limited number of PTO days, I may need to resort to drastic measures to ensure a proper work-life balance. But for now, it’s the divisional round of the playoffs and I have to stay up until almost midnight tonight to see the Patriots game through. It’s been a long day.

Running on the Sun

I was browsing the internet with no goal in mind when I came upon a site talking about Ultramarathons. For the last several years, my goals for running has always ended at marathons – that’s all people talk about anyway. But now that I’ve completed my first marathon, I figure there must be bigger challenges out there, right? I started googling ultramarathons and eventually tried to find the best ultramarathons. Instead, what I found was a list of some of the hardest – including Badwater 135, a 135-mile race from Badwater in Death Valley to the base of Mount Whitney. Upon reading up on it, I found a couple things. First off, the government has put a stop to the Badwater 135 indefinitely while they do research on the safety of it. Second off, there was a documentary made in 2000 about the race. A quick search on YouTube yielded what I wanted – Running on the Sun, a movie following 40 people as they ran the Badwater 135.

I enjoyed the movie and I found myself taking mental notes about what these runners were going right, as well as mental critiques as to what they were doing wrong (or at least, what wouldn’t work for me). Could I see myself doing the Badwater 135? Maybe, but that would be many years in the future. I’m thinking 2015 will be a good year to target for a 50-miler and maybe work up to a 100-miler by 2017. Get a few of those under my belt and if I haven’t died yet and I still want to suffer, aim for 2019 at the earliest probably for Badwater.

I put the movies into a playlist, which I’ve embedded below. You can also just watch it on YouTube.