The Ascent! Photo by @mikenhike541
Over here at Woodlands world headquarters, we're smack in the middle of one of those inevitable human eras where things are uncertain, our routines have been chucked, and we're having a John Wick-style battle with our egos that SO want to go back to "normal". Regardless of age, experience, and your nature, when the inevitable oh-shit roller coaster rides take off all of us start grasping for roots. Family, food, ancient wisdom, sport, alcohol, a beach vacation, passion projects, deep cleaning your bathroom, therapy, trail therapy - when it gets 'real' real some people get real and some escape the real (both are cool by the way).
Now, the benefit of age and experience is you recognize uncertainty when it strikes, so it matters less and less what flavor it is because you know what to do. This is where the rad gift of running, of being part of a community like ours comes in handy. First of all, a hot take: our sport has the BEST metaphors for difficult times because we are the weirdos who deliberately put ourselves in situations of suffering for fun. We drop a car payment in cold hard cash on an entry fee to get our asses chafed in the woods while double fisting Lays and Chips Ahoy for fuel. We do this because we know that with great suffering comes great love, great joy, great friends and views and snacks, and arcane glimpses into the universe within. Off the trails, we now know that suffering comes with all that juicy goodness as well so we can face it like the buffalo trudging towards the storm-humans that we are. We can gather our team and say to them, "I'm 50 miles into a 100 today, I need you to make my decisions" and they will get it. Awww, isn't running just the BEST (oh, and also the worst - sometimes it's the WORST, but also the best? I don't know. Another metaphor for life? *shrug*)
Our sites are set for some fun/suffering/joy/friendship extravaganza at our final SOB training run this Saturday at 9:00 AM up on Mt. A, as well as our Tuesday and Thursday night group runs. Cheers to doing hard things with master crew chiefs and loving every minute of it.