Balance is Bullshit

I've read a hundred blogs about ultra runners and balance and I call B.S.. Sure, if you work from home or don't have an 8-5 job, balance can be obtained as an ultra runner. Everyone else just stay with me.

As we are all excessive runners, we strive to keep the balance in our lives. I think about it on a daily basis and although my wife is uber supportive (so she tells me), I strive for balance. So much so that I will do absurd long runs on my treadmill. I lie to myself and think that as long as I'm home I am keeping the balance. Don't get me wrong, I'm selfish with the TM too, I live in a flat area and need it for hill training. Two birds with one stone!

I'm fortunate to have a wife that supports my crazy. She comes to races, crews me on 100 milers, and listens to me go on and on about socks, shoes, poop, etc.. Every time I'm asked (every weekend) what my wife thinks of me running so much for training, I reply with "I'm lucky". We have a 17 year old son and a 5 year old daughter. My son is obviously ok at this point, he's a man, but my daughter is young and my wife deserves me being there to help. I try. When not working my "8-5" or running, I fully expect the responsibility to fall on me. This is where my guilt comes in. My work and running takes time! Although I feel I'm present, I know it could be more.

When I first got back to running I was also a high school football coach. In my mind that required more time than ultra running since I was always watching film when not at practice or in a coaches meeting. The big difference was that I was pretty much always home on the weekend. I might have been watching film or planning for the next game, but I could always pause the video or stop the planning and I could be totally present. Running does not work that way.

But.......I was stressed and it showed in all aspects of my life. My life was consumed with the importance of my job and the football team. My co-workers and my coaches and players on the team relied on me to help with success. With my type of personality, nothing less than 100% would work. That meant all non-working hours dedicated to planning. Although I loved coaching, the fun had left. My attitude was all business, enjoyment was minimal. And the worst thing possible, my family felt it also. To be clear, the boys I coached kept me coaching. To have a positive impact on young men was important to me and they kept me coaching the last year. To this day they call me Coach Welch and give me a hug....I beam with pride.

Insert running a lot. Insert running on trails with glorious views. Insert sunrises and sunsets. I'm freaking happy all the time! There's no stress to it, even when I'm training. Sure it hurts and I question what I'm doing but all I know is I'm happy. And my family's happy! My wife has commented numerous times on the change of my being. My kids see a happy dad and a healthy role model. My sanity is restored with suffering, weird huh? When I taper, or take time off from a big race, I'm in everyone's hair at home. I'm up early and act like everyone needs to be active at 6am. My wife now groggily looks at me and begs me to go run. So the next time I worry about balance (every day), I'll remind myself of the asshole I once was.

(Tonights rambling brought to you by Knee Deep Brewings Batch No. 138 IPA)

The Introverted Extrovert

This past Saturday was amazing! It started with a trip up to Foresthill for a run on the Western States trail on what is both the most brutal part of the course and at the same time the most beautiful. Let's call it brutiful! Saturday night was bitter sweet, we drank beer and danced until 1:30am for a send off of one of our groups favorite guys as he got a great new job in the Los Angeles area and will be moving south.

The runs was part of the The Canyons 50k/100k. The race director organized a group training run on the course and it quickly grew to 85 or so people. We started at 7:30 and it was pretty warm for a January morning in the Northern California foothills. I was in shorts and a t-shirt and it only took about a half mile to get the early morning chill off. I ran with my buddy Ben for about 3 miles and then he shot ahead at our first big climb, I'm nowhere near his speed. Besides a half mile downhill with Maggie around mile 11, I was solo all day. And you know what, that was perfect! I love being trapped in my own head, there's so much stuff going on in there. Sure I saw various people I knew, especially on the way back, but even with 85 people you get very spread out in those canyons.

I quit using headphones and music a couple years ago and although I love running to music, I really love working things out in my head. That is definitely my introvert side. Running is the one part of my life that it's just me and my thoughts, good and bad. I'm fairly screwed up in my old noggin but that's for another blog...maybe. Seems like when I'm home, besides being a husband and a father, I'm on the computer and/or my phone. Don't get me wrong, I love social media and the interaction but it's definitely not therapeutic. Except for the funny people, laughing is always therapeutic.

After 4+ hours on the trail I was back in Foresthill with friends and beer (insert extrovert). Not only is good craft beer the nectar of the gods, it makes conversation fantastic. You don't have to drink beer for good conversation but it definitely is an ice breaker. We sat there for a few hours just BS-ing as we waited for our friends still out on the trail. We talked beer (of course), trails, beards and the likes. I can talk about those 3 things for hours. The only missing conversation was sex and baseball. Throw those 2 things in and I might have never made home from Foresthill that day.

Once I was home from the trails it was time to get ready and head out with the wife. There is no party like a trail runners party. We clean up nice and the conversation gets even better. At the pub we pretty much took over numbers wise. There was a slide show going with what seemed like all of Billy Goats adventures. That dude lives life that right way, from completing the John Muir trail to last year running UTMB in Europe. It was an awesome! Really, we'll all still see him quite a bit but it won't be on a weekly basis. Plus now we have a place to crash when taking our adventures south.

As it got later, and the early birds headed home, a handful of us already had plans to head down the street to the dance club and dance to an 80's cover band. Holy crap the band sucked! The music selection was awesome though. The beer, liquor for some, kept flowing and we danced to the wee hours. Dancing all night after a long run in the canyons, talk about being sore! It was a perfect send off for Bill.

From my introvert times on the trail to my extrovert times with my friends all I can think is, damn it feels good to be a gangster. Cheers!

(Rambling on this blog brought on by Stone Go To IPA)

So This Is A Blog

What better time to start a blog than fresh off a runners high post injury? 2015 started w/ a calf strain on my first Saturday long run of the year. I honestly thought it might be a tear with the level of discomfort and how it didn't just feel better after a few days. I went in to instant freak out mode with races fastly approaching on my 2015 calendar and my first "A" race a little over 2 months away. To try and compensate for not running I hit the weights hard, really fucking hard. It was almost like I was punishing myself for being injured. It was actually pretty awesome. I always lift weights in my training plans but the last 2 weeks were strength training on crack. And you know what, I'll bet it will be beneficial in the long run. Being a bigger guy I would not be the runner I am without weights.

Even though I was off from running a lot of cool running stuff happened over the last week. I submitted an application to be an ambassador for Tailwind Nutrition (http://www.tailwindnutrition.com/). I've always had mixed feelings about being an ambassador because 1st: I won't promote something I don't like just to get free shit and 2nd: I have people that I follow on my different social media accounts that drive me nuts with over promoting their companies. Tailwind was a no-brainer since it's the only hydration product I use besides good old fashioned water. Plus, the last question on the application rocked- "If you could be a zoo animal what would you be and why"? I said a monkey because who wouldn't want to be a monkey? My answer was short and probably not what they were looking for but seriously, being a monkey is the only answer in my mind. I also found out that I'm on the Singletrack Running (http://singletrackrunning.com/) racing team. Although the race director is a good friend of mine and I run the Twitter acount (https://twitter.com/singletrackrun), it is a fast team and I wasn't sure I would be invited to represent them or not.

So there it is, my first blog. In the future I'll add pictures of weekend adventures and probably talk about beer because, well, I really like beer. Cheers!