run this amazing day

It's been nearly two years since I stomped a marathon in Boulder. I haven't set foot on the vast majority of the run course since.  Maybe (probably) I'm overly superstitious, but it's been easy to avoid.  There are squillions of places to run in Colorado where I don't have to face my ghosts.  Because that's truly how it has felt since then.  Haunted, by grief and failure both. The month after Santa Rosa brought another one of those little stormy seasons in training, the kind that only lasts a few weeks but when you're in it, feels eternal.  The crick in my neck flared out angrily in every direction until I ended up parked in bed with my laptop, working between muscle relaxers and people diagnosing me with too much stress.  I am fortunate to not have had too many of these train-screeching-to-a-halt injuries in the last six years but this one came all too soon on the heels of a rough 2016.  It took a while to sort out the root cause, then a few more days

As far as race weeks go, this one wasn't great. My neck/upper back freaked out.  It started as, weird, maybe I slept  wrong  and pretty rapidly degenerated into, that's cool I don't need to look left or right or up or down ever again.   I had some life stress going on so it wasn't exactly a mystery as to why it popped up then.  I wasn't even sure if I was going to be able to go race, but by the time Thursday rolled around, it had calmed down enough that I packed up the bike and got on the plane. I landed in San Jose to spend the weekend with my remember-that-one-time-when-you-rode-your-bike-straight-over-me good friend Ashley (and her four ounces of new kitten).  I built the bike, got it checked over by an awesome friend-of-a-friend who fixed all the little things that I may or may not have noticed (tires on backwards?) & we drove up to Sonoma.   The logistics Friday were relatively easy.  I woke up and went for a short run; it felt as awful as I would

I've been sitting here for a while. Alternating between staring at the blinking cursor and tabbing over to answer emails, adjust schedules, other normal work tasks. Because when so much time has passed without diving into this space, it's hard to know where to begin. The remainder of my trip to New Zealand was amazing.  It's easy to reflect on how hard I raced by measuring how many days pass before I get the itch to move again. Ironman was Saturday and by Tuesday night I was ready to jog a local 5K with my friend which answered that question:  not hard at all.   I found a 33-meter pool nearby and swam a bit between consuming mass quantities of chocolate and coffee and before too long, it was time to return home. My first stop in the US was a doctor's office, where I had a very minor medical procedure done that left me with sixteen stitches, a slew of inappropriate jokes and nearly a month off the bike when all was said and done.  That turned out to be a good thing

I am a good friend. I don't do a lot right in life, that's for damn sure.  People make me nervous, awkward; if I don't know you I am highly likely to stuff my foot down my throat at the first opportunity.  There's still a lot of that shy kid that didn't have any friends until the seventh grade left in me and I don't make new friends easily.  And I have a lot of flaws as a human in general, but friendship, I know how to do that right.  I am fiercely loyal.  I am trustworthy; if you confide in me - and for whatever reason, plenty of people do - it goes in the vault.  I am thoughtful, although sometimes in quite the belated fashion, I will remember your birthday but it will probably take me five months to mail you a card.  I will drag you on random adventures that you will agree to because I don't give you the chance to say no, I will surprise you with baked goods instead of actually saying, you matter.    If we are friends, I will have your back like no one