2023 is going to be an epic year of training, racing and traveling.
I like having big goals and big dreams. But they also completely stress me out. I have moments of pure panic that it’s never going to work, that everything is going to come crashing down, and I’ll never make it to many of these starting lines. However, I can rationalize that it’s just one step at a time and I have to do the work to get to the starting line. But having big, scary goals is part of my DNA.
This is one of my favorite Reels: “Someone asked me how I managed my nerves and I said I don’t. I just do things scared.” Pretty much my life.
I do have moments when I stop and take a high level look at this plan for 2023, and realize – this is how I want to spend my life. I want to push my limits and see new places. I want to be outside running and hiking. I want to meet my friends in cool mountain towns and run races. I’m going to do it all scared.
So there it is. 2023 in a nutshell. See you on the trails.
November did turn out to be the best month in Tennessee as I predicted in my earlier post.
I really like hiking when you can see the landscape around you, and see what is coming around the turns in the trail. I hiked/ran the Cove Mountain trail a few times and got farther each time. Next week when I have a 18 mile run I should be able to get to the top. It’s steepest at the beginning at the waterfall and is gentle the next five miles. I like being able to see Ober Gatlinburg and all the peaks in the park.
Laurel Falls with Melani
I had time to reflect and write, and my next book is coming along.
I walked dogs at the Sevier County Humane Society. It’s good to walk shelter dogs but I have to admit I tried to figure out ways to adopt the ones I fell in love with. But the reality of it, two dogs is all I can handle right now. I prayed a lot for the dogs and cats to find forever, kind homes. I was so happy to see Facebook posts of the adopted ones. There are so many sad stories, but there are happy ones, too. I try to keep thinking of the happy ones.
Please adopt Maddie – she is a good, loving girl.
Please, please please adopt a shelter dog. This beautiful girl has been at the shelter for 2 months and she is a joy, and a lover. She just wants to be loved.
Full on training for my 2023 events is happening. I’ve been sticking to my training plan and doing the miles. I follow so many runners and motivational accounts on social media and the one thing that I’m learning, and finding out to be true, ultra running is about grit and consistency.
What is Grit? A combination of passion and perseverance for a singularly important goal. It is the hallmark of high achievers. It is passion and sustained persistence applied toward long-term achievement, with no particular concern for rewards or recognition along the way. It combines resilience, ambition, and self-control in the pursuit of goals that take months, years, or even decades.
I’m going to keep this concept of grit in my mind and do everything to finish Leadville 100.
Now on to December. I think it’s going to be a good month. Work. Train. Dogs. Walking shelter dogs. Celebrate the season with gratitude and love.
Today I ran 8 miles listening to several Growth Equation podcasts. This is the first time that I’ve ever run to a podcast. I really felt like I needed music. Listening to Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness made me think about so many things that got my mind off running, yet I was listening about other people’s “Why”. Why do they push their bodies when they could just work out for an hour? Why do people continue to compete when they aren’t winning anything? Listening to their podcasts make me feel like I’m on the right path.
But also, the best news is my ankle is 90% better and I ran without pain.
I think November is going to be my favorite month in Tennessee. I love that the forest is wide open now. When I hiked on Saturday with Melani on the Laurel Falls Trail I saw the landscape that just a month ago was a green mountainside of trees. The actual falls lacked a bit of water due very little rain lately but it was a great trail.
I’m officially registered for the Leadville 50 and Leadville 100 for 2023. This is my final attempt to finish Leadville 100 and get the buckle.
In 2019 I spent all my free time training for Leadville. I did everything right, or so I thought. However, I just couldn’t make it past mile 38 on race day. In the fall of 2021 I hired a coach and started training for the race in 2022 and by March I lost all motivation. I couldn’t recover and deferred the race to 2023.
Now it’s Go Time. It’s time to do the work. I live in the perfect place to train – in the mountains. Granted, the true perfect place to train is Colorado, but I’m here in Gatlinburg and will make the best of the Tennessee mountains.
I have no excuses. I have a few things to do:
Do The Work – follow the plan
Lose 20 lbs.
Find training partners
Weight training
I’m a wee-bit still injured from twisting my ankle on the Gatlinburg Trail three weeks ago. My left ankle is still not 100%. I’ve been swimming at the Gatlinburg Community Pool for the last few weeks but it’s closing on Nov 9 for the entire month.
Such a bummer!
I’m also a wee-bit scared running alone in the park with so many trails closed right now due to aggressive bears. Officials are warning people to not hike alone on the trails.
Twin Creeks Trail has been closed for over a month.
This is life as an endurance athlete: there are no ideal conditions. I’ve learned that every day you have to figure it out – how to get the work done, eat right, recover and sleep well. Fifteen years ago all of this seemed a bit easier. At 51, everything is harder: the body doesn’t recover as quickly, I’m slower than ever and the mental game seems to be regressing.
Here are the books I’m reading to help me with the mental game:
I’ll be writing book reviews as I finish them so stay tuned to my blog.
At the end of the day, Everything is Good. Hard. Fun. Difficult. Complicated.
I bought this poster in 1988 when I traveled out west after high school.
Once I got back to NH, after I thought I’d live forever in Colorado, I framed this poster and it has traveled with me every move.
I’ve always loved the quote, and after spending time in the Tetons, and the Jackson Hole Hostel I get it. Keep Wyoming Wild. Keep all beautiful places wild.
I love the composition of the photo: dark clouds over the Tetons, a little bit of light.
There are no beautiful blue skies and pastoral landscapes on my walls. I’m no decorator but the wall hangings in the countless homes, apartments and condos I’ve lived in New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Colorado, Arizona and now Tennessee, all mean something to me. I seem to love dark-ish, black and white photos and illustrations; yet somehow I’m still hopeful.
Tonight, for the first time, I research the writer and the quote and find out this:
“God bless Wyoming and keep it wild” was written in the last entry in the diary of 15-year-old Helen “Becky” Mettler, a Bar B-C guest from New Jersey in 1925. She fell 100 feet to her death in Taggart Canyon.
Ouch.
A girl from New Jersey – out west. Sounds a lot like Pam Houston. A writer who wrote about growing up in New Jersey and couldn’t wait to get out west.
My favorite story from Houston is the one about her dog Jackson in the book: A Little More About Me, the essay Home Is Where Your Dogs Are:
“My dog Jackson died today. He was my first dog, and I bought him at a pet store when he was only eight weeks old. We’ve been together more than fourteen years, which makes our relationship the longest successful relationship of my life.” I get that.
She also writes in this story about a place they lived in Fraser, Colorado. Fraser is a place I know pretty well and it is known as the “icebox of the nation” until a city in Minnesota won a court case. But I digress.
Houston fell in love with the west and wrote about it for years.
I get that, too.
But the poster makes me long to go see the Tetons again. I skied Jackson Hole during my Steamboat stint but haven’t hiked those mountains since 1988. It’s time.
While 2023 is still going to have many racecations, it’s time for some old time hiking and driving the west to see things.
I love the west, the stories, travel, the adventure.
This week, my NH hiking buddy, Ross is out west taking photos of Yellowstone and the Tetons and it got me thinking.
I need to go see these places again.
If I’m not living there I must travel there and be a part of it so I called Mark and made a plan to go there. I told him tonight, let’s go in the next two week or next May. He said without saying it: let’s go next year.
Or revisiting places I’ve been, but want to see as an adult or with a different perspective.
