Case in point - two media based examples that occured less than fourteen hours of each other.

On the way home last night while catching up on Twitter, @johanbruyneel tweeted to an interview that was conducted with Elden Nelson, @fatcyclist about his experience attending @teamradioshack's traning camp in Arizona this past December.

I clicked on Johan's link, a QuickTime window opens on the iPhone, I change the source on my truck's stereo, and the interview starts streaming. It wasn't until twenty plus minutes into the interview that I realized that "Hey! Wait a minute. This interview is being downloaded and played without a glitch in my user experience." It was no different than if I had decided to play a CD, the satellite radio, or something already on the iPhone, etc... The difference whether the content was offline, nearline, or online was unnoticable. I smiled and said to myself, "I live in the future."

Second point, on the way home from swimming this morning, I switched on my Sirius satellite receiver, The Grateful Dead channel, and started listening to an interview of Dennis McNally, Grateful Dead Publicist, conducted by David Gans. I got home, pulled in the drive way, threw the truck in park, fired up the Sirius app on the iPhone and continued listening as I made my way into the house.

As a matter of fact, I'm still listening to it right now as I type this blog post. Once again, I thought to myself, "I live in the future. And ain't it grand."

~namaste~

I pulled over. I quit. I abandoned the race. ...

Not what I expected when I woke up this morn but I can't say I'm completely surprised by my abandonment of the race today.

I'm still trying to figure out exactly what happened. All I know is that at that very moment of the race, it ceased being fun. The goal to PR didn't matter. The shame I'd feel telling those I train with that I quit didn't matter. Completing the race didn't matter.

All I know is that I didn't want to be there, so I just "pulled over".

It's the last race of the season and also what feels like the last opportunity to salvage this years racing season for me.

This year has been quite perplexing. My training runs have continued to get faster, so much so that I expected this to mean faster racing times; however, that has not been the case. And although I set a PR (personal record) in both the Shamrock Shuffle 8K and the St. Louis Half Marathon, both times were below what I expected to run.

Sure weather played a part as runners had to contend with at least 2 to 3 inches of snow at the "Shuffle" and rain fell continuously in St. Louis, where I was on pace to take considerable time out of my previous half marathon only to be forced to take a "natural break". But I train in whatever weather shows up duriing my runs and still felt that my goals were reachable given most conditions; after all, as I once heard "there is no such thing as bad weather, just ill prepared runners."

June brought the PrairieFest 5K, where I was running a 7:10 mile pace at mile 2 only to discover that as I hit the finish line that I gave back almost all of my gains in the last 1.1 miles resulting in time of 24:20 something, about 50 seconds slower than my overall 5K PR (23:32).

I spent the rest of the summer training for a triathlon where my focus on running diminished as I attempted to balance it out with the other two disciplines, cycling and swimming.

October had me racing again in another 5K but for the first time on mostly a non-paved surface. My result was around 23:37, which seemed respectable given the running resistance of an off-road surface and the humid conditions.

So tonight, as well as pre-race tomorrow, I'll be wondering what kind of performance I'll be able to deliver and will it be, at least to me, good enough to justify all of the time that I spend training.

The answer to that question will be known tomorrow sometime before 8:30 AM.

Night all ...

I know many of you are probably doing your best Bob Seger "Live Bullet" impersonation; "I was reading on FrustratedGeek.com last night that the Apple experience is the greatest tech experience in the world. ... I thought to myself SHIT! I've known that for ten years." *CROWD ERUPTS*

Why the switch? It's the experience, dummy!

G'night all

For me, it's never the physical part that is challenging as much as it is the mental part. The whole time I'm on course I have a running mental dialogue with myself. Typically, the first couple miles are positive with me just getting into my stride but shortly after, and especially depending on pace, things greatly deteriorate to internal thoughts mostly centered around "Why am I doing this?" and "You know you can slow down if you like".

So for the duration I spend my time holding a continuous debate with myself, countering each negative thought with why I need to keep going at my current pace. Ultimately, it comes down to one simple argument. The suffering I'm going through is only temporary and compared to the shame I'd feel knowing that I packed it in, it's just not worth it.

Next year I'll be back at the Shamrock Shuffle. Will anything be different? Hopefully I'll put in a faster time. But I also know Mr. Negative Internal Dialogue won't be far behind. However, to tell the truth, I don't think I'd have it any other way.

~namaste~

Chicago 2009 Shamrock Shuffle 8K
Official Time: 40' 20" - Personal Record by 57"

I got up early in camp Christmas morning, had a brief breakfast, and then got out on the trail just as dawn was beginning to break. The hike to the south rim was just a little over a mile and a half.

Arriving at the south rim I could hear the ferocity of the wind, which was quite deafening, but I didn't feel anything but the slightest breeze. As I walked toward the edge of the rim, staring into Mexico, it became apparent that the wind, which was blowing south over the lower mountains, was hitting the sheer face of the rim forcing it to go straight up and overhead. It was an amazing experience with an epic view.

Today was a long day. Just a little under eleven miles, two fourteen thousand foot summits, some class three scrambling along the Sawtooth saddle, and nine and half hours of hiking.

Tomorrow I'll break base camp in Georgetown and head to Moab, UT for a few days to do some camping and mountain biking.

After climbing Bierstadt on Friday to scope out the sawtooth, tomorrow I'll be heading up Bierstadt, then cross over the sawtooth to the summit of Mount Evans.

This should end up being the most technical scramble of the trip and I'm looking forward to the challenge.

Today was a rest day. After logging thirteen miles on Friday, (summiting Bierstadt and hiking to Barr Camp), and then nineteen on Saturday, (summiting Pikes Peak from Barr Camp and returning to the Barr trail head), I figured I have a little downtime to get caught up on my chores and get ready for tomorrows climb.

I also headed down to Idaho Springs to spend a few hours doing a little whitewater rafting on Clear Creek. Going solo does has its advantages, especially when you just want to drop in on an activity that usually requires reservations.

The rafting was enjoyable; although, a little tame by my standards.

Tomorrow I'm back in the mountains.

So here I am in my tent, cell phone tethering my laptop to the Internets, listening to sound of traffic go by on I-80 composing a quick post.

Watching as the time was ticking by, knowing that I was not going to make Kearney, I grabbed a map from a Nebraska visitor center so I'd be able to find a campsite. Unfortunately, my only focus was to make sure that I was close enough to the highway so I could have cell reception without really considering the consequences of being close to the interstate.

I'm just hoping to make it out of here early enough tomorrow so that I can get into Colorado at a decent time.

Well I'm turning in... G'night all.