"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strongman stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."- Theodore Roosevelt, Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

The Weekend.

Ever notice that as soon as the weather gets nice we try to cram more into the weekends?   This past weekend had great weather, and it made the kids soccer and everything else much more enjoyable.   I managed to get out for a a quick 10k of single track in the VFF's KSO treks.  Man, I love the kangaroo leather.   The trail system was nice and soft from all the recent rain so it was easy going.  The weather went from sunny to overcast and drizzle within 30 minutes of me starting out.  I could hear the rain coming from off in the distance as I hurried to finish up before it arrived.  In the mean time there was thunder rolling in, and the winds were picking up....I love this time of year.  It was at that moment I crested a hill to arrive at small pool of water that collected in a low laying area.  Standing in the middle of the pool was a whitetailed deer who had stopped for drink.  It is times like these I wish I had a camera with me all the time.   Running in near silence with the Vff's the deer only paused momentairly to glance up at me but then continued drinking.   I ran with in 30ft of the deer and it did not spook; which I thought it was very kewl.   Over the years of me doing this I have seen some of the coolest animals while out trail running.  Great horned owls, deer, coyotes, and fox to name a few.  Each time I've encountered them it brings back all the years of seeing wildlife while out on a run; and makes each memory that much more sweeter.

Since writing this a few weeks ago I have been running off and on...not as much as I would like; but as much as time allows without negelecting my wife or kids.    Also, I have been trying to figure out what race to run this fall.  I would really like to try to run either the Palo Duro Canyon 50, or the Catus Rose 50.  Both are Texas based events, and perhaps I am more intrigued by running in Texas than any other place right now. 
I would like to run a fall 50 miler in hopes that I can use a successful 50 miler as a training run for a future attempt at a 100 mile event.  In truth, I've always wanted to run a 100 but have never stepped off into the unknown.  Perhaps fear of failure has prevented me until now.  Who knows...The training will continue until then.  Yesterday was a Crossfit Football style workout over the lunch hour; 135 lbs and 50 backsquats as fast as possible.  My legs are killing me this morning and its a good thing.  During lunch today I will be doing an interval run.   All this crosstraining, and interval runs fall along the lines of the CFE protocol ( http://www.crossfitendurance.com/ ) where endurance athletes forgo the grinding miles week in and week out for high insensity runs with a heavy dose of weight lifting.  Its worked well for me in the past, and I hope it will work for me in the future.
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