2014 Half Year in Review Pt II

Half Year in Review Pt I.

July

Part two of the best summer of all time started in July. I found myself back in Colorado, this time with a LEGIT base camp in Leadville, thanks to Old Man (Eric Grossman). Grossman & Glove lived in a part of Virginia by Iron Mountain, so our "site" was dubbed "Iron Mountain High Altitude Training Camp," or "I.M. HAT C." All we did was climb 14ers. We were training, but with the sole focus of climbing big, huge, gorgeous mountains with good friends. We never pushed anything and almost exclusively hiked up and ran down. It was pretty hard to not just get up a 14er every day even though Glove and I were still in post-100 recovery mode. Nonetheless, IMHATC was a major success. Evenings were filled with Dale's Pale Ales. We cruised all over the place with no focus. Patrick McGlade, Darren, & Mike Jones were all in the fun too. I believe I tagged Mt. Massive (twice), La Plata, Mt. Sherman, Mt. Elbert, and Long's Peak (just under the summit due to weather). So great. At the end of July I moved into my new apartment in Marin, California. 

August

Like life does, life changed. I started working full time at Bartlett Tree Experts. I kept running and exploring every day, even after my eight hours of manual labor. I was happy learning new stuff at work and exploring after work. Towards the end of August I started to feel a little trapped (as I still vaguely feel that way), like I needed something big, another trip. You can't just cold turkey the dirtbag road lifestyle. I was flipping out and anxious about work all the time, I missed my friends, and I just needed something. So I texted Wyatt to see if he wanted an adventure, and of course he said "explicative, yes." So I signed up for Pine 2 Palm 100 miler. Adventure set, let's go. 

September

I started the month with my birthday and no work on labor day, so of course I ran for five hours. I had enough fitness from the spring and July's 14er expedition that I became stoked on P2P. So the first half of the month was la-la-land of pre-adventure thoughts. I then picked up Wyatt from the airport and we had an extraordinary weekend at P2P 100. The second half of the month was solid, the weather was still nice and I abstained from social media. I took 10 days completely off of running. 

October

The month started with friends visiting! One of my best friends from school and the ultra team and adventure club, Kelly Summers, stayed at my place for a solid ten days with her old roommate. Every day we did something fun right when I got home from work. We ate, drank, and were very merry. I was really happy to have friends from my old life in California and we soaked it up! Not concerned with running, the three of us went hiking a decent bit. We took a fabbbulous weekend trip to the PCT which was SO needed. I concluded I NEED mountains in my life. Marin has Mt. Tam, and sure it's a mountain, but, meh. I like Marin but it is not everything. To be truly happy I need real, proper mountains...Sometime this month I elected to get motivated and run CIM (CA International Marathon). It was nice to have a little bit of purpose in training again, but the training was not intense or full blown by any means. The end of the month was a work trip and a SPECIAL trip to Blacksburg which made my heart just so warm. 

November
I remember starting this month running the roads of Blacksburg, slightly hungover, just like old times. I popped into local delish restaurant, Gillies, and said goodbye to my good friends. The weekend was love. For the rest of the month I don't remember much on the running front. I won the Mt. Tam 30k with a hard effort on a cool course. Staying busy. Rain at the end of the month.

December

Rain, rain, rain, rain. And by rain I mean out of the 19 days so far in December, 17 of them have been filled with rain. Let me tell you that manual labor in the rain is probably one of the worst things. Ever. It is horrible. Terrible. Awful. It's comical for a day or two. But on the 12th day of wearing your never-dry rain gear and slipping up muddy backyards with 100 pound logs in your arms it stops being comical. Needless to say, I currently do not like my job. My mood is almost constantly cranky. I've been off and on sick all month. I tweaked my pelvis from swinging a stupid pulaski all day at work one day, which messed up my stride. I've been going to a chiropractor but it's still not 100%. I honestly couldn't tell you the last time I saw the sun without clouds in front of it. It feels like it was October. I will NOT be moving to the Portland or Seattle office. So I was not motivated to run this month. But I ran CIM in a solid 2:52:07 with room for improvement but happy for where I currently was when I ran it. The rest of this month has been and will continue to be chill, mostly running just every other day. MY FRIENDS COME SOON! Wyatt and Glove and Chrissy and Darren will be here for New Years. We're going to go on awesome runs and get wild. So the end of the month will be about 100x better than the middle of the month.