20 Questions Worth Answering Honestly

Editors note: This blog turned out way longer than I had anticipated. It's essentially a journal entry for myself, posted publicly so people can critique and support. I suggest skimming unless you REALLY want to know stuff about me. 

Alastair Humphreys has an awesome blog. He's known for "microadventures" which are practical and logistically easy outings that don't take an incredible amount of resources. He's a writer and posts a ton. Some of his stuff is golden and others are frivolous (as are most blogs). His latest post falls into the former category. He poses 20 questions to answer honestly and publicly. I thought it was a great idea, so voila, an interesting and personal questionnaire.

1. Do you earn enough money? Yes. Not really a practical question as I'm not yet completely reliant on myself for income (thank you parents.) I really don't need any more money than I made this past summer to support my extracurricular habits. I anticipate this question to be an interesting one a year from now. Who knows where I'll be and what I'll be doing!?

2. Do you enjoy your job? I suppose my job now is "student" for one last year. I really do enjoy it because it's so much more than just sitting in class. In regards to that part, I either hate a class or love it. I LOVE my urban forestry class and read the supplemental material (gasp!) but I could care absolutely less about my environmental policy and planning class. I'm required to take that, so I just suck up those classes. Moreso than being a student in class though is the social aspect of it. It's tiring, but it's an amazing luxury. Everybody around me is relatively my own age. Everybody's going through the same stuff. Every day is different. Work loads fluctuate. Drinks are cheap.

3. Do you prefer Saturday or Monday? Great question. I'm with probably 99% of the population here still--Saturdays. I'm NOT in the "Mondays suck" or "I have a case of the Mondays" group though. I try to be more positive than that. I can make Mondays better by taking a chunk of my day to do something that I want to do, not have to do. I need to brainstorm an idea to make each day of the week special. Every day should be awesome. At least I recognize that. Work to do.

4. What would you like to be doing one year from now? I'll be realistic. OUT WEST. Colorado, Oregon, Northern northern California, Washington. One of those. I hope to have a job with a company I enjoy working for, doing something where I am NOT looking at the clock waiting to go run. I want a job where I can enjoy what I'm doing and be fully immersed in that for the work day. I had this fantasy to never do a "real job" (AKA be a guide) but I've figured out that's not for me. I want a real job, but a real job doesn't have to have the negative connotation that I associate with the phrase. I'd like to be living in an area where I have EASY access to MOUNTAINS. I'd like to be working for a private urban forestry company gaining experience in that field. I'd like to be worry free, have a group of positive-minded and supportive friends who I can adventure with, and maybe a girlfriend man. If I can make a majority of those things happen I'd be stoked. I can.

5. What would you like to be doing five years from now? Woof. Rough question. My ideal situation would be living in a rural-ish area, doing a small commute (via bike) into a city/suburb to do an established job conducting tree health assessments for an urban forestry company. Geography is obviously a big part for me. I'd like to have had five big trips under my belt. One big trip a year, someplace different, gaining experience, backpacking, running, climbing, exploring, whatever all of the above. I want to still be "funhogging." Healthy. Have a way to remain fit and pushing myself physically, weather that be running or something else. I'd like to be stable financially. Steady girlfriend or a wife. Or just a dog.  I need to make the trip thing a priority. That gets me stoked.

6. What would you do with your life if you were a billionaire? Travel the world and live simply. Buy a huge chunk of land and manage multi-use style. I can live a modified version of that life but in smaller chunks with my one huge trip a year. Smaller trips in between. Buying land would have to come waaay later.

7. How much could you cut your outgoings by? Odd question. Not sure if I understand it. The dude who made this list is British? If I cut my outgoings I'd be a hermit. Gotta maintain friendships even if you don't want to at the specific time.

8. Do you have enough spare time to do the things you really enjoy? Oh yea. College can be mega busy, but its in spurts and not really scheduled. I get out frequently.

9. What takes up a lot of your time but is neither unavoidable, rewarding, nor enjoyable? I'm not sure actually. I'd say Facebook and twitter. But then I wouldn't see these cool lists like this. I dunno. Bad answer by me. Cop out.

10. What mildly pleasant, but pretty pointless things do you fritter too much time doing? Ok, definitely Facebook and twitter. Reading blogs and iRunFar. I'm getting better at not spending so much time though, I don't read all peoples tweets anymore or every word in their blog. I'm skimming.

11. What would you like to do more of? Read. Write :)

12. What motivates you to do something well? Man such a good question. I think doing something well motivates me to do it well? My personality places value on only a certain small number of things, but I focus 100% on them and do it extremely well. Case in point Grindstone. My preparation has been FOCUSED and quality. And fun.... that's not a very good answer though. I need to improve on this question. I used to try and prove things to people. That's so unhealthy.

13. Who do you envy, and why? Envy? Eeek. I actually think I envy happy people. I struggle with "happiness." On one hand I love what I do, but on another hand I feel like there are people out there positive and friendly and happy-go-lucky most times, whereas I'm just melancholy. That's my personality though. Hmph. I envy people who don't care what others think. I think they go hand in hand.

14. If you were 100 and looking back on your life, would you be happy with a life well-lived? Meh. I need to do more things that I enjoy and stop following people. I was always a solo flyer, kind of doing my own thing, but lately I feel like I'm just following the "ultra scene." I need to find something that I want to do, then do lots of it in moderation.

15. What makes you proud, satisfied, and content? Pushing myself and figuring out things about myself. Being at the end of my rope, and ending something with a smile on my face and not comparing my results to others. Making my parents and good friends proud.

16. What makes you frustrated, bored, and unfulfilled? Wasting time. Waiting for other people. Wanting to be social but not going out. Looking for lost things. Buzzwords. Thinking about the past. Comparing myself to others (social media does not help this).

17. What would you do if you had more talent? Play sports professionally. Not go to class.

18. What would you do if you had more guts? Ask more people uncomfortable questions. Ask girls out.

19. What would you do with your life if nobody was watching, judging, or commenting? Live in the middle of nowhere. Ab.so.lute.ly. no.where.

20. What are you going to do about all this? MAKE BETTER ANSWERS NEXT YEAR! haha. Nah. I'm going to look at this a year from now and evaluate where I'm at. I'm going to give away half my clothes. I'm going to go on a crazy trip this year. I'm going to spend less time on twitter and facebook. I'm going to find something special to do each day of the week. Boom.

Rough fall at midnight coming off of Priest

Priest and 3 Ridges. Last big run. Time to rest.

IMTR 50. Feeling!

For two years now I've elected to spend my birthday weekend running ultras. Iron Mountain Trail Run (IMTR) is a quintessential grassroots trail race with distances of 16, 30, and 50 miles. The entry fee is $25, you don't get a t-shirt unless you want to pay extra, aid stations are stocked with the essentials, there's no blow-up banner at the finish line or chip timing, the field is 200 people, the trail is gnarly, and everyone is a friend. It's basically the best race out there, and with less than two hours from VT it's an easy choice for a summer run and a birthday present to me! I'm 22 now. Feeling adultish.

Because IMTR is so awesome it's been on my calendar all year. The timing for it is almost perfect in terms of a very long run in the Grindstone 100 build. August was insane for me in terms of training, perhaps too much, as I became a little sick of running. That's funny because now I completely identify myself as an ultrarunner. It's the "weird thing about yourself" that I tell when you do those "state your name-major-odd thing about yourself" introduction exercises. So school started this past week and it was one chaotic mess that left me grumpy and mad on Friday afternoon. I didn't want to run, let alone run for nine hours. I didn't want to deal with team logistics or mainly people in general. I was so fed up with "the system" of school and whatnot. I just wanted to sit by the pool on a sunny Friday afternoon and enjoy the first weekend of school where EVERYONE at tech goes out for late night fun. I called my mom and elected not to run IMTR. Then I took a nap and didn't set an alarm.

I slept for almost three hours. I woke up and felt better. I thought I should at least try out my gear/nutrition and whatnot, so what the heck, I'll just drive down to Damascus and see what happens. I was considering dropping down to the 30 mile option. But that's long already so why not just do the 50 and reap those benefits. I ended up having a really nice late and solo drive down listening to good tunes with the windows down on a summer night. I slept in my car in a church parking lot and had a dream where I got mugged by a couple of kids in Chicago.

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My intention for IMTR from the start was to just use it as a supported long training run. My teammates had hopes/plans to run fast which was hard for me to swallow because A) when they race, I race and want to beat them (yes, I am competitive deep down) and B) I knew I wouldn't beat them because I've been training hard and I didn't rest this week; I knew they'd be ahead of me. So when the gun went off at 7am, I knew I'd be running a solo race. And I was cool with that for the most part.

I always write too much, so I won't get into it all, even though a lot of nothing happens in an 8.5 hr run. Basically I ran the majority of the race alone and was happy to do so. I sporadically let my ears enjoy the sounds the love of my life makes. I got caught in an INCREDIBLE severe thunderstorm on top of a ridge. Soaked to the bone, jumping in puddles, feeling the lovely solitude, the rain was figuratively washing away all of my cares. I no longer cared how fast I was running, what place I was going to get, how much I was getting my ass kicked by Jordy or Guy, what Horton would think. All that mattered was that I was having fun for myself. I was simply running JOYFULLY. This is why I run. I run to feel free as cliche as it is. To experience the vast spectrum of physical, emotional, and abiotic states. To feel as if nothing else in the world matters besides what I do at a single moment in time right then and there. No pressure exists. No egos exist, no world problems, no money. Just me, feeling. I believe that's the first time I've ever thought about why I actually run these things. I'll take that answer any day.

Feeling happy! (Photo: The Changs)

The Hokies really crushed it. Again! Everyone finished, and more than a few boasted incredible times. Our team is so BA and I love it when we all get together to do these things. And the breakfast buffet that followed this morning was deeelish. We're actually a fun group now, especially when we don't talk about running (what?!).

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Around the marathon mark yesterday I caught up to Joe Dudak who I met during the Catawba Runaround this past March. I think we're at similar states in regards to our running. I told him I felt a tad "forced" on the day although I ended up feeling progressively better as time went on; I finished quite happy and didn't want to stop! What Joe said really resonated with me. I needed to hear it. He looked at me and said, "Relax. Dude. Your race isn't today. Your race is in five weeks (and so is mine!)." Simple but sincere. Advice like that from someone I respect as a person AND a runner is what these things are about. It's so selfish what we do, yet it's so collective. It's just running and we're all in it together. It should be fun :)

August
438 miles running
57,200' vert
83:08:45 total time with loads of Xtraining

Nuts. Also helps when you run a 50 on the last day of the month.