Thru Endurance We Conquer!

It's taken me a bit to sit down and think about 2017. One things for sure, it was a memorable year, filled with ups and downs. It was a year of remaking identity and rebuilding. There were the highs of riding across the Continental divide with Amber during the Breck Epic and the lows of finding myself in the snow within seconds of a race start. There was the thrill of descending Canyon Creek in the dark and the disappointment of having to pull out of three trail races. How can such a spread of emotions be compared?   Sunsets aren't the end - they are the start of a new chapter One of the best memories I have of the year is week of the Breck Epic. It's truly something that should be shared with another rider and I was lucky to have Amber as my partner. Racing Breck Epic was her ides, reaching the finish line at the end of six hard days her primary goal. And so we climbed mountain passes, picked our way through rocky descents, and worked together to reach that goal. I a...

I have never been happier that I'd decided to race the shorter distance. For the 2018 Rescue Run,  I wanted a different challenge. Shorter might take less time, but that never means easier. When I signed up for the race, I had no motivation to tackle the 10k. So the 5k was the perfect challenge, a mile and a half straight up, and then a mile and a half downhill. I've never done the 5k course at Palmer Park either, which made it even more appealing.  And then I woke up at 11:30pm, full fever flared, coughing up my lungs. Ouch. I wasn't planning on seeing in the New Year awake, but that's what happened. Racing the next morning seemed unlikely. Maybe just running and having fun, but not racing. I felt marginally better as the morning dawned. Maybe racing would be possible. I would decide during my warm up. We showed up at Palmer Park lateish - with just enough time to jog a little. Not ideal for a 5k effort, but given how I was feeling the short warmup was okay. I wou...