Hi all,

(Congrats to all of you that did the Flight of the Vampire on Saturday. Sorry I wasn't there to cheer you on. I chose to do a trail race out of town that day.)

The weather is getting colder, the holidays are going to pounce on us soon, and the time is about to change. This time of year seems to spark a whole list of excuses for not staying active. I try to set a race in December or January each year in order to not allow the cold to become an excuse. I also force myself to head outside for a run on the first day the temperature drops below freezing so my head can accept that my body is not going to hibernate just because its cold.

In my quest to find a race worthy to motivate me for a long term goal, I found myself gravitating towards what I know and am "comfortable" with. The on-line search started with researching races that were Western States qualifiers. The vast majority of these type of races are in the Midwest and west. A lot are in the cold and at high altitudes. I've never been at high altitude and have no idea how my body would respond. Its also been years since tackling a race distance of 50 miles or more, so then that fear sets in. The search went from Colorado, Utah, and Oregon until I found myself back to the terrain I know here on the East Coast. Fear has a sneaky way of keeping you from expanding your comfort zone and stunting any possibility of personal growth. After catching myself drifting back to what I know, I made a commitment to take on a challenge each year that scares the crap out of me and in a place/on terrain I've never touched. Once I commit to something out of my comfort zone, I become invigorated and flooded with a sense of excitement that leaves me so excited I can't sleep at night. When you are that excited, you train whether its cold, hot, or wet. You keep the ultimate goal fresh in your mind and it makes the realization of the goal all the sweeter when its accomplished. What it also does is force you to embark on a journey, and the journey makes life amazing. Steps with purpose transform you and those around you.