November every year is my time to plan my racing calendar, its a ritual I have kept up since I got into running in 2004.
These events are my anchor for the year, big part of my lives revolves around them, it fuels life and helps with other aspects of life, I love training, a daily, weekly and monthly routine builds up for a fruitful time rest of the day. For 2022 I mostly had 4 races which I was looking forward too.
1. Mt Charleston Marathon: Attempt to get a BQ
2. Scout Mt 100: Redemption from 2021 DNF
3. BigSeki : A Big loop of fast-packing covering Kings and Sequoia NP
4. BigFoot 200M Race: A 200M footrace in Cascades, pacific northwest.
I was pretty charged up to say the least, I started off training for a BQ M in Jan on the 1st run itself, I injured my hamstrings and I was off running mostly for next 2 months, March 1st week I made the decision to drop out of Charleston M since I didn't see myself running fast enough and more importantly, I thought I would jeopardise my others 3 events. I changed my focus to finish the unfinished at Scout mountain 100M, Training for a 100M hilly run and fast marathon are quite different, during 100M training one can getaway with slow long runs unlike marathons.
I started my training in March and got a nice 10 weeks Training block with Miwok and Quicksilver 100k as my big training weeks, finally started tapering 3 weeks prior. Scout 100 was much different than last year , it was 20 degrees cooler and I got chance to work on some of mistakes I made last year. I managed a good finish, things worked out as planned for most part and finished in 32:32Hrs.
Next inline was BigSEKI loop in July, but during our visit to Grand Tetons and Yellowstone NP we got infected with COVID, which drained me quite a bit, I found running much hard and I lost all motivation to train as well, which was much bigger concern. BigSEKI was looming and I wasn't recovered yet, so had to decide on cancelling it by Jun end. my 2nd event was dropped out.
I was still hopeful of bouncing back to BigFoot and kept it open for 2 more weeks of long runs on Jul 2nd and 9th, but those weekend runs seemed pretty hard on my, it would take much longer to recover and I didn't have motivation to train again! I made the decision to differ Bigfoot by Jul 9th. There went my 3rd event of the year. I was pretty unmotivated and dull, I had lost my anchors, but I kept showing up for my runs and gave myself time to recoup.
Eventually Jul 26th weekend long run I did bounce back, I felt back to same old self and started enjoying my runs, my moods were much better, I started planning for some adventure runs instead of long Ultras. Life seemed good!.
These past 6 weeks phase of my life was mostly rebuilding myself out of COVID, mostly digging myself out of a dull period. getting that joy back of outdoors feel rejuvenated. I am in gratitude to get to back to this Endorphin Rush, I missed it badly. Ultra mindset of just hanging in-there in low phase and keep chugging along helps to climb out to brighter phase.
Next I am looking forward to a adventure run and works towards it...
