Sweat The Suck Out

As all of my faithful here know I've been running. Ran 3.5 yesterday and 2 more today. Really tiny mileage compared to pretty much everyone out there. 10-15 miles a week for the past couple of weeks has been my mojo and to be honest, that's plenty for me.

I seem to work in a world full of world class athletes and it continually blows me away the distances some of the Montrail athletes run. 50 miles without a blink. A marathon is a warmup for most of them and it's just sort of mindblowing to me. One of their athletes, Geoff Roes, has run seven 100 mile races and has won every single one of them. Absurd.

Our good buddy John 'Frisbee Disc' Dobbe just ran a 50K this past weekend. Fucking insane dude.

I maintain my stance that running tends to suck and that I truly enjoy climbing because of the sheer enjoyment of it. That and the fact that you can get ice cream on the ferry.

I was talking to my coworker Pete and we chatted for a bit about how running doesn't really ever get easy for the sole reason that you're always pushing yourself. It tends to always be this drawn out battle of sorts.

It rarely gets fun.......it just sucks less each time you do it.

I've tried a number of different sports over the years. Soccer for a decade and a half. Hockey for a solid 10 years. Baseball for another 10 or so. I've casually ridden bikes and VERY rarely have I actually run any sort of distance at all. For two years I feigned curling in sort of a haze of booze and gigantic bruises.

Those first three all seemed to end when I started to climb. The others have been a weak attempt of mine to see if I could hold any sort of interest other than rock climbing.

All of these other sports have all but left my life. Soccer got boring and in all honesty I'm much too small for Hockey no matter how good I was or how much I liked it. Oddly enough Baseball started hurting too much. Riding bikes was a quick fascination that I now relegate to the occasional commute and Curling, while fun, just took too much time away from climbing. Plus....it's Curling. I can't even begin to estimate how often I fell on my ass.

And up until now Running has been the furthest thing from my mind. Currently I see it as a means to an end.

I want to climb better. I'll climb better if I'm lighter. Voila!

How long will it last?? Who knows. What I do know is that now I'm feeling just a bit better and just a bit lighter. I feel stronger and have more motivation. Katie and I have trips coming up and it gives us an excuse to get fit.

It's often said that motivation comes in waves. Last year was one huge wave that came and went. This year has been a different story. It's not necessarily a bad thing but rather something that I think we've all noticed.

People come and go, as does the motivation to try hard. I feel my motivation slowly coming back.......It's gonna be a good fall.