Thru Endurance We Conquer!

 I was fully committed on Tabeguache this year. All in, nothing else on the plate. Just train for and hopefully complete the entire trail from Montrose to Grand Junction. And yet... I still have 30 miles to cover and was once again unsuccessful in reaching the Lunch Loops terminus of the trail. I made it significantly further then back in 2022, but still was not able to put the full puzzle together again.  I made it 117 miles, deciding to pull the at the end of the Cactus Park Segment. And like last year, the questions swirl in my mind. What could I do differently? Where did I go wrong in the training that left me short of the goal. I don't have any good answers for that. I thought I was doing the heat training I needed to handle the sun along the Dominguez Trail and Cactus Park sections. I though I was making sure to work on the hiking as well as the running. There were definitely things that went wrong - from not getting enough sleep in the days leading up the attempt, to se...

 At some point in any big event, there comes the risk of failure. Of stopping before you reach the finish line. Sometimes, that moment is clearly defined and the choice is made for you. You miss a cutoff or something else happens to force you to stop. Other times, you have to make that choice yourself - a decision between you and your crew. Stop now and live to fight another day or keep pushing and risk even more. After stoping at mile 75 last year on the first FKT attempt on Tabeguache, I was hoping that I would not have to make the choice again this year. I knew there was always something that could trip me up and I trusted both my judgement and Nick to determine if I had to stop. At mile 115, over 30 miles shy of the finish in Grand Junction, I felt like I was headed into dangerous territory. I couldn’t put my finger on why. I just knew things were shutting down. Something was wrong and I was nearing the end of the day. Nearing the point where I was no longer safe making forward...

 It’s so easy to believe and we frequently get trapped by this - the fallacy of more. If X worked well, then Y must work better. Usually Y means more - more miles, more long runs, more long races, more MORE. After all, X left you fitter and faster so Y will only build on the successes. At least that’s what we tell ourselves. I’ll be honest - I’ve fallen into that trap a few times over the years. It usually happens when I’ve been close to a desired time in a race or had a good but not satisfying event. I look back at my training and identify areas that I thought limited me - lack of speed workouts, not enough to goal volume, lack of long runs. Then instead of modifying to address the weakness, I try to cram more of everything into the schedule.  And it always, without fail comes back and bites me. I either get injured or I am too exhausted from the training that the taper doesn’t touch it. Before the Austin Marathon in 2004 when I was seconds away from an OTQ time, I tried push...