Sore Feet

So, I don't think it was the terrain, but my feet are still sore today from the race on Saturday. Weird.

Anyway, I'm back at it tomorrow morning. It will be the kick off to a long day as I'm heading down to Providence for a client meeting that will last through dinner. But I elected to skip today so I have not choice but to do the 4:50am rise for a 40+ minute run before heading out to do battle with Boston area freeways.

As noted last night my next race will be in Hanover, NH on 8/9, the XTerra Stoaked 12.5k. I decided on this one over the 10.5 miler in Oxford, MA by the scientific method of telling my wife about both of them and seeing what she thought. She said that she had a hankering to check out Hanover so that was where her vote went. It actually makes the most sense since it's roughly three weeks away and slightly longer than the race I did this past weekend. From there I'll do the the Moose on the Loose 10 mile race in Nashua at the end of August. That seems to make sense.

Next week we're heading to the Delaware shore for a family reunion of sorts. I've found a state park nearby and I'm hoping it has some trails, otherwise it's on the road or the beach for me. It will be great to head down there and take a week off. I haven't had a vacation of any length in two years and last year my family did a reunion in New Hampshire but I had just moved to Colorado so I missed out. This isn't the best timed trip with work, but it was planned before I started my new job, so I'm not going to miss it and frankly, I'm pretty pumped!

The last trip I really took, was two years ago when I climbed Mt.'s Shasta and Rainier. Amazing, amazing ten days. I got the itch to do another "expedition" so I'm working on organizing a winter trip to Katahdin. I use the word expedition in quotes because by most standards, Shasta, Rainier and Katahdin wouldn't qualify as an expedition. But for my purposes they're about as close as I will ever, or even want to get. I have very little interest in climbing big mountains, and I've realized that most of the fun of those types of trips is planning them, the road trip to get there and the approach to the peak, much more than the actual summit. Heading out west to start on Shasta was just my buddy Gary and I. The flight out, the drive up to Shasta, the subsequent drive up to Rainier from No. California after climbing the mountain; that's where most of the memories from that trip were forged. On Rainier we had an amazing crew and the day and a half leading up to our summit attempt also resulted in some great memories. To this day and I'm sure for the rest of my life, I will be unable to talk about or with these folks without remembering back to the time we all climbed Rainier together.

I've found that I love to be in the mountains. I have a drive to climb them, but it's more for the outdoor experience with friends. Some climb big peaks because they are driven to do so. They wake up in the morning and if they aren't headed to the hills something gnaws at them until they do go. I get that feeling about different things and I'll take care of that part of my personality either trail running or mountain biking. The mountains were meant to be savored. They were meant to be visited with your pals and be climbed with no agenda, and plenty of long photo indulgent breaks. They were meant to build friendships. Cheers Team TBL OP '06.