Hi all!

More than a few of you let me know I didn't send an email last Wednesday. (Happy you're paying attention)

Thanksgiving and Christmas always throw quite the monkey wrench in our routines. Its amazing what a couple of days off from training will do to you both mentally and physically. Anything more than one day off, and I find it VERY hard to be "motivated" to start back. I'm an absolute wreck if I end up with 3 days off! It takes weeks to recover from the recovery. (If that makes any sense....)

I've got a marathon coming up in January, but my heart isn't in it AT ALL. That makes it tough to force myself out of the door this time of year. It gets dark early, everybody around is obsessed with food, all of the travel, and the cold doesn't help either. I am in love with trail running. I don't get the satisfaction from road marathons I once did and certainly don't have the time for that type of training. So, I've tricked myself that this marathon will be a training run for a sequence of trail races that I "want" to do this spring. I think that's working so far and helps take some of the pressure off of feeling the need to run road miles every spare minute of the day. It also means I don't have to attempt to run 100 plus miles per week to prep for "racing" a road marathon. Some may think this is an easy way out. I have convinced myself its not, and actually a means to realizing more goals in a bigger picture. I have rarely (okay.....never) had any success doing a race that I didn't "want" to compete in, but have had success doing races I wanted to do based on DOing a lot I did NOT "want" to do.

So why in the heck would I choose to do the 26.2 in January if I don't want to? Because it will still get me out of the door with my running shoes TODAY. If I didn't, my fitness would slip to a very regrettable state by the time spring pops up with the races/activities I "want" to do.

The key point is that you don't have to "want" to do something to do something. Sometimes the feat of doing things when you don't "feel" like it equates to a better, stronger, and more prepared you for many amazing opportunities to come that you wouldn't be ready for otherwise. This can be applied on a daily basis and even on a minute to minute basis if you truly want to continue growing every single day. Eventually the day will come. Eventually that one opportunity will come that you will "want" to be ready for. Life is VERY short and the years keep on slipping by. The people that feel they have to have all their ducks in a row in order to do something miss the growth that happens by doing the things while unprepared in order to eventually BE prepared. Years keep slipping by, and before you know it, GONE. "NO REGRETS" begins with what you do TODAY.