The only good thing about enduring painfully long bouts with injury. Is that it gives you plenty of time to think about everything that led you to being injured in the first place. As I look back on this year. It's easy for me to find where I screwed up in training. Where it all began to go wrong. I could rattle off a list a mile long but I won't...For everything I did wrong. For every rookie mistake I made. Not listening to my body when I was tired. Blowing right past the warning signs of over training and fatigue. Ultimately ending me up exactly where I sit right now. I would not have done it any differently.
It's rare for one who screwed up their body as I did by over training to not have any regrets. Yeah I suppose I would have liked to have had some kind of a Summer season as well as a Fall season. I wish now, with the cooler Fall temperatures. I could come home from work and head out to the trails for a soul refreshing run. Instead of having to settle for another boring spin on the exercise bike or elliptical trainer. But all that is out of my control right now.
I'm not gonna sit here and complain about what I'm not getting to do. Instead rather I've been reflecting on the positive things I did this year. Everything happens for a reason. Sounds pretty commonplace to make a statement like this. The truth is, if nothing happened then we would never experience any levity or joy. No anguish, no passion. We would never experience anything that would warrant getting our asses out of bed in the morning. Complexity is the spice of life. It's what drives the human race in one form or another. All my injury has accomplished; Is that it's reinforced just how much love I have for this crazy ass sport and the people that make up such a unique conclave of individuals.
To say that I had an "off year", is the same as saying Albert Puhols had an off year. I'm a pretty stubborn individual. Hard headed to say the least. So it's no surprise that I hold myself to a pretty high standard. Though I fell way short of that standard this year. I still feel I had a pretty decent year. If anything I left myself with a pretty good platform to launch from next year. A year in which my goals will be just as high as they were this year.
So what now? What's the plan? I just turned 37 last month but that hasn't stopped me from dreaming like a 25 year old on the doorstep of his prime. I still have a long and winding road ahead with my injury. With another couple tough months of trying to avoid the holiday gremlins.
The first thing, the only thing right now. Is to get myself 100% healthy. Until that happens I'm in sort of a holding pattern. Baring any unforeseen setbacks. The plan is to return to running sometime around the first weekend in January. From there it will be a slow and steady progression towards a Spring goal race at the 50 mile distance. Since I didn't get a Western States Qualifier in this year for 2012. That will be my only focus for the first have of next year.
If I can manage to get through the summer without landing myself in the same boat I'm in now. Then my goal for the Fall is to return to the desert and go for the record on the Kokopelli Trail again. We came within a few hours of it this year! After all the setbacks during the run. Everything that went wrong logistically. I feel confident that the team and myself can fix what went wrong and bring the record back home. For ever how long that might be?
On a more positive note. I did bend the rules somewhat this past weekend and put rehab on the back burner to go down and pace my good best friend Darin Schneidewind down at the OT 100 miler in the Ozarks of S. Central Missouri. He ran one Hell of a race and I won't do his story any justice to re-tell it here. So checkout his report at http://runnerfreak69.blogspot.com/ for the play by play on how it all went down.
