High Five By 55

Yesterday I got a reminder of perhaps the skill I most need to work on. A skill that a have bizarre mix of real strength and profound weakness. A skill that will really determine if I'm able to finish this project or not. The skill: mental strength. What do I mean by this? In the context of the High Five By 55 project, I mean the mental strength to continue to endure. Endure in the face of adversity. Endure in the face of pain, of boredom, of fear, of uncertainty. Just like the physical training is designed to build the capacity to physically endure the demands of an adventure like High Five 100, I was reminded that I need to mentally train to mentally endure the demands of the same adventure. Yesterday, I ran a fitness test to try to gauge my current fitness as I really begin to dive into training for California International Marathon. The test was a simple one: after a 5 minute warm up, run 25 minutes at a pace roughly between half and full marathon pace, then without any rest ru...

I have never used a coach for running or any of the mountain ultramarathon adventures I have taken on. I haven't done it for a variety of reasons. Chief among them, this is just a hobby and I don't really feel like spending that much money on a hobby. Coaching seems an expensive extravagance for a hobby. I've had a couple informal coaching relationships here and there, but nothing robust and nothing paid for.  I've also found (and had confirmed to me by people that really know) running is a fundamentally simple sport to engage in and even do fairly well at. The concepts and building blocks of a solid training plan aren't tricky to grasp. Applying those fundamentals is not overly challenging. Sure, there are absolutely behavioral aspects that a really in tune coach could help with. It would absolutely be helpful to me to have someone says "just sit this one today out, Nathan." But the building of a training plan and understanding the purpose of the differen...

One of the things on my mind as I think about the High Five By 55 project is putting together a list of skills it would be helpful to build before I try running High Five. I'm not sure what needs to be on this list. I have some items I can think of right away, but more wondering about those things I don't know that I don't know. Wondering about those is what will keep me up at night. So, I'll try to figure out what those unknown unknowns are over the next several years. And I'll get started by putting together my Big List Of Skills that I want to or need to develop. The list so far: - Wilderness safety - my thought is to take a NOLS Wilderness Safety course. Unfortunately, those are not really offered locally, so I'll have to do this during some travel - Understanding rock quality - for the two class 3 climbs, I think it would be helpful to be able to identify between good rock and rotten, crumbly rock - Reading the weather - it'd be great to be really stron...

For the most part, I try to do "all the things" in my running and training. I run consistently, try to sleep well, eat well more often than not, and so on and so forth. I'm not a zealot about all things. For example, I am a bit spotty on keeping up with strength and core work, but do try to make that a habit. I do occasionally pig out (THANKSGIVING!) or eat just for pleasure. But mostly I do just about everything to train reasonably well for a hobbyist. Except recovery. I don't really do much of the recovery stuff. Yes, I am very particular about following a long or hard effort with a really easy one. After my Sunday long run, I try to stay off my feet and eat a bit extra. But that's about it for recovery. I have never tried any of the other recovery things. No sports massage. No compression boots. No red lasers or yoga (okay, maybe yoga for a short while) or recovery drinks or meals. No ice baths. No cryotherapy. No ART. No special supplements. None of it.  I oft...

One of my desires as I pursue this High Five By 55 project is to have a larger impact than just what I get it out of it. I'm not sure what I even mean by "larger impact", yet the idea bobbles in my head. These types of adventures are fundamentally selfish endeavors. Time training. Time away from family. Money spent on gear and to travel and to race. All for me. For me to pursue something. For me to push and find my limits. For me to experience places. Me. Me. Me. And I often struggle with that notion, the selfishness of it. Yeah, there are ancillary benefits that aren't totally selfish. I'm healthy by doing these things which means I should be able to be around for my family longer. My mental health is improved and I'm a nicer and more patient person when chasing big goals and wearing myself out with exercise. I get to help others as they pursue similar goals and projects. But at the end of the day, the pursuit is a pretty individual and selfish one. I'd l...

I skipped my morning run today. It wasn't a big run. Just 30 minutes at a recovery pace. A run of pretty low consequence in my training plan. But I skipped it, and that bugs me like crazy. It'll bug me all day. I'll think about where I might squeeze in a 30 minute run into my work day. And I shouldn't do that. I should just skip the run, let it slide, and move on into my track workout this evening. Why'd I miss the run? I woke up in the middle of the night with an absolute cracking headache. An absolute whopper of pain. I was eventually able to get back to sleep after a heavy dose of ibuprofen kicked in, but then woke up to my alarm still with a background headache and extra tired having lost an hour or so of sleep. It was no longer that same initial pain, but enough to feel really uncomfortable and not at ease. So, a bit tired and a bit uncomfortable, I decided to skip the run. A few minutes of extra sleep. Some moments to try to feel a bit better. Had it not been ...

There has been a small wondering. What if I do this whole High Five By 55 thing, spend the next 7 or 8 years collecting Hardrock lottery tickets, volunteer at Hardrock to boost my lottery chances, and still don't get picked in the lottery? What if demand for Hardrock continues to skyrocket and a 5-10 year window for likely selection becomes 20 years? Will this all have been a failure since it all began with the idea that I wanted to get into Hardrock and run the race, not just volunteer and crew and pace? No. Definitively no. Absolutely no. Purely pragmatically, if I've run 7 or 8 years of qualifiers and have done all the learning I hope to do, I should be absolutely ready to run and finish High Five 100 irrespective of whether I run Hardrock or not. I could simply jump into Ouray 100 in place of Hardrock for that final preparation race, and probably wouldn't require that anyway. So no, this will not have been a failure from that perspective. But far more importantly, no. N...