Let It Roll

We're working on choices...he ALWAYS picks cheese!
Yes that's cheese in his flashcard.

"Don't sweat the small stuff" I think I've heard that saying a million times. I don't know if it was James, just getting old or having seen too many moments being missed in life, but I think I've really learned to appreciate this saying finally. Of course each of us have our own small stuff and big stuff. Last week for me the big stuff was fighting Sephora to stop selling 'Celebutard'. I knew there would be people out there making horrible comments about our kids. Its just part of what happens when you put yourself out there like that. You just have to decide what's worth it. So for obvious reasons I stayed off the Sephora FB page, didn't read the comments on any of the news articles, it just wasn't worth it. Its not that I don't want to fight for acceptance and to end the use of the r-word, but you gotta pick your battles. I knew getting riled up over these comments wasn't going to help James so I left that one alone. All I can do is focus on what I can change. Someday somewhere someone will be mean to James. Its inevitable. Worrying about it now and how we're going to keep James from all these people is not the most productive way to handle the situation. Teaching James to stand up for himself and to be the better person, those are the lessons I want him to learn.

Its funny how this not sweating the small stuff has translated to my racing and really become an important part in being relatively successful. There were so many times I was worried my training run was a mile short from my plan and how that would affect my race. If I stressed out about every little thing during Leadville, or really any other race for that matter, I may very well still be sitting on a rock somewhere in Leadville. There are times when you feet are wet, but stressing out about getting a blister when you're halfway between aid stations isn't going to help. Stressing out because you can't find your perfectly flavored gel in your drop bag, your good gloves have gone missing or your headlamp batteries are almost deal isn't going to change your race. But if you focus on how you can solve the issue that is what will make it a good race. Lets face it over 100 miles something will go wrong. You can either let it destroy your race or deal with it, fix it and move on.

The beginning of the week my running was just off. I felt great, but my times were slow and my legs sluggish. I was beginning to get frustrated that I wasn't running better. Last fall almost every run was a PR. This fall I feel like I haven't had many solid runs. Of course last year my training peaked in the fall and this year my goal was to peak in August, which I was much more successful at doing. But then Friday I went out for my Friday 10 mile loop, as it has become known and I felt good like I had all week. I didn't look at my watch, but as I was turning onto my street I noticed I was actually breathing pretty heavy. Seriously hoping it didn't mean I was coming down with a cold I took it a bit easy heading down my street. Clicked stop on my Garmin and when I glanced down I realized I was indeed breathing heavy because I had just PRd that loop. Saturday the same thing. So maybe I just needed the mental break of not focusing on times and pace and to just have fun. Everything always seems to fall into place when I do that.

So time to stop sweating these damn invoices and go run up Green Mountain!

Week November 4 - 10

Miles Running: 47.5
Hours Hiking and Running: 8.5