Back from my writing hiatus - The H2H is when?

I can't believe I finally wrapped up the first draft of my 50 page PhD proposal. It was a beast to write with hundreds of references. I basically sat and wrote for 6 weeks with little else to offset the academic-induced coma I found myself in. The worst aspect is I basically had to kiss my training goodbye for the summer and hunker down on my project. I knew that it was a matter of time before school pushed ultra training aside for various stints during my program. Alas, I came here to study Geology and leave an impact on how geologists' think about my area of interest. So I had to push my running aside because to run at all would be to take away from time that had to be spent sleeping or writing.

Excuses aside, I am back at it again. The main motivation is I just realized that I am less than 2 months away from the Haney to Harrison 100 km relay race in which I am a member of a 6 person team. I just realized that I am completely out of running let alone racing shape and I have a team depending on me. So I have developed a plan in which I add 3 minutes to my daily runs each day and 15% to my long weekend runs. This should get me close to 1.5 hours of running a day with long runs near 3 hours once a week. Since it is a road race (yuck!!) I have been incorporating flat road and gravel trail into my training to get me into better shape for pounding the pavement.

Even though I have had a two month break I have found my running coming back fairly quickly (for this first week anyhow). The first run was a bit brutal as my capillaries opened up again and I busted the lungs back in, but since I have comfortably found my breath and air. I really need to kick about 12 pounds as well so it is time to chill out on my eating. I am afraid that the pressurized writing scenario may have allowed me to find solace in snacking and late meals to accompany during late nights of writing. The lack of inactivity and overeating was a simple equation for rapid weight gain. I am glad to be back to burning some calories and eating less and more thoughtfully.

Last night was awesome. My 4 year old son wanted to accompany me for a short warm-up run. It was dark and foggy so we each strapped on the headlamps and hit the dark tree choked trails. What a trooper! He cranked out an awesome pace for a little dude and we ran about 1 km in about 9 minutes which was pretty cool. Perhaps the most amazing aspect of it was sharing this aspect of my life with him. I look forward to future running exploits with my family. I love that I don't even have to push him to do it. He sees me running and the joy and passion I get out of it and he naturally wants to run like dad. It is really cool. Who knows he may have a natural talent that can carry him far. I guess the key is I let him do it on his own without me forcing him. After all if I didn't enjoy it I wouldn't want to run.

I guess I have just a short 31 minute run tonight and I am looking forward to it.

In the spirit of my lack of preparation for the H2H I am including a song appropriately named "Not Prepared" by a group called Mesh. It is a classic song. The first time I heard it was on a napster copy of Depeche Mode's Exciter album. This leaked copy of the album included this track by Mesh and also "Pony Tail Girl" by Brian Hazard of Color Theory (another of my favorites). Apparently the person who put the Exciter album up on Napster around the year 2000 thought these two artists sounded similar to Gore and included them with the album, fooling many people (not me I could tell the two tracks weren't Gore). Well now that I am not prepared remotely in any way, shape, or form, for the H2H this song might light a fire so perhaps I can salvage some sort of a slightly below average time and not completely disappointed my team.