Taper, Taper Everywhere, Not Just Time to Waste

"...because something is happening here, but you don't know what it is...

Do you Mr. Jones?"

-I think Bob Dylan said that-

With 9 days remaining the impossible has happened again... I am out of training days for Goblin Valley. The training cycle is a thing of the past... a memory! What I have accomplished to this point in the way of physiological adaptation will be my physical tool box come October 24. When the line is drawn in the desert sand, I will toe it knowing what I know right now... I am fit and ready. I am confident and... I am hoping to not blast from the start as I have recently fell prey to.

The 50k distance is a blend of endurance and speed, a great reflection of a runner's balanced training diet. It is more than simply a long Marathon in that something in the distance lends itself to a more patient approach. The steps of a 50k build as if a wind in the desert. From a small rustle, brushing along the sand they build. After time, the momentum is tangible and capable of shaping our landscape, of literally moving the earth... of obscuring the view of what was reality and creating something new from virtual emptiness.

As a runner, if I can create something out of mere steps, an incarnation of my self at that moment, then I consider that run a success.

This trip out west will return Lynnea and I to the place where we grew together and decided that this was a life we wanted to share. I will return a changed person from the one that left 2 years ago... with smiles, optimism and hope; a couple of concepts that were obscured in a pool of bad decisions. I can only wonder why Lynnea stuck by my side in those times- except for that one great reason of Love.

So, as Lynnea enters her first race in Goblin Valley at the 8k distance, I will run one step at a time to create something wonderful. To run with a spirit of love for her, for myself, for what we cultivate each day... as a tribute to what she did for me in the most trying time of my life. In this way, I know that the run to come is already a success in that it is essentially a celebration!
Taper, Taper Everywhere, Not Just Time to Waste

With these 9 days until race day, all that is left to do is remind the legs and lungs (and all of my 2000 parts) of what they are tasked with while not fully allowing those parts the full satisfaction of a long hard effort; just intermittent hints. In starving these parts, I hope that I will be eager for the epic, ready to fill the void of the large vessel that has been created in this thing called the taper.

This is a time to reflect, to set the mind, the body right; with a goal of purifying the soul by way of complete physical and mental depletion. There is meaning here. Do you see it?