Wow, it has been quite some time since I have taken the time to sit down and write anything. Granted it is now 12:20 and I have an 8 am exam, but I can not sleep so why not take advantage of the time right?
A lot has happened in my life since I last posted. First off, I am no longer running track or cross country for the university. There are a lot of reason for my decision to end my time running competitively for the school. I think that the biggest and probably the deciding reason comes down to my pure happiness in life. Whether it is just running, or school, work my relationships, it did not matter, what I was doing with running was not providing me with a joyful life. I am a firm believer that if you enjoy what you are doing, you will do well in it, and the opposite is also true. I was not enjoying going to practice and grinding out workouts, and my performance was a direct reflection of that. So I am now on my own running everyday and honestly loving the heck out of it. The magic of mileage has reclaimed its place in my life and I am finding myself talking myself out of running more and more, mostly out of fear I will break if I run as much as I truly want to right now.
With running on my own I was lucky enough to have a very unique experience this past weekend. There was a screening of Unbreakable (the WS 100 movie) here in Missoula, and Hal, Geoff and Anton all came up to be apart of the weekend. With this I was lucky enough to get a chance to run with Hal and Geoff, as well as Mike Foote and Mike Wolfe. We went out for three hours on Sentinel yesterday and man it was an experience I will not forget because honestly, it was like running with a group of my best friends that love running on the trails. Despite the following these guys have they are honestly normal people, and very respectable people at that. It was awesome to get the chance to click off 20+ miles with some of the top guys in the sport. But with this weekend, and meeting some more people in the community here, it is growing harder and harder to leave this town.
With my decision to end my time running here, I also ended the funding for my out of state tuition, which means I am going back to Bellingham to finish up an AA at Whatcom. Which has now become a very drastic split for me emotionally. I love Bellingham there is no doubt about it. Bellingham is home, my running group, my family, my work, almost everything I look for in life is there, and I will be done with school in a year max which is awesome. BUT I feel like I am going to miss out on some awesome experiences here. Since being done with the team Taylor and I have really started to experience Missoula for the town that it is. And its a great place. I don't really want to leave. Well I do, but yeah I don't. Obviously if I cant even portray how I feel in writing it shows how back and forth the emotions about moving are. But with moving comes some great running benefits. I'll be back with Pony and the crew running high mileage, even though I am running 110's right now. I am excited to be back in a cycle of mileage, but looking forward to running WITH people everyday in Bellingham.
All in all life has been very back and forth with a lot of changes lately, some good, some confusing but all in all I am much happier in my day to day life and am loving where life is taking me at the moment. I am very thankful to have Taylor here with me and help me figure things out with her as we are both going through this transition in life, and yet running is more rock solid than ever. Things tend to work out the way they are supposed to and I honestly feel that they are so I am excited to head home and get some miles and move up in distance and see what I can do at Chuckanut next year. Top 10? Fastest Whatcom county ever? Only time will tell.
