Close on the horizon my "baby" girl is graduating from college this spring. This is something I have yet to wrap my head around since quite clearly she can't have come so far so fast. But setting all fatherly bias aside, here is one of the most amazing and bright young women I have ever known and the vista ahead for her is bright and sunny and full of promise. Watching her as she figures out whats comes next gives me such excitement and confidence for the future.As I write this I have settled on my big goal for the year; running 50 miles to commemorate that same number of years chasing my own adventures. It hardly seems that long... the list of my birthdays.. not the distance of the run. Supported by friends and family running parts of the journey we will start where the Navarro River dumps into the Pacific and wind our way along Highway 1 south through
Pt. Arena, the coastal towns of Elk, Manchester and Gualala before ending on a particular bluff that has become one of my favorite places on the planet. This expedition of sorts has been dubbed "The Coast N 50".. my very good friend Alan prefers "The Ed To Bed".. but he does have that wry British humor.To get there, I have refocused my running from "how fast can I finish".. to "I just have to finish" ( I think this is where Alan is getting the Ed to Bed comment). I am upping my miles and undetaking my first ultra event this spring. The Sunsweet Tehama Wildflowers 50K in April will be my first step towards my 50 mile fall goal and I plan on at least one more this summer.
As if things couldnt get better... I was invited to be part of the local Fleet Feet inagural coaches training program! We get all kinds of more formal training on nutrition, hydtration, biomechanics and gait analysis, training philosophys etc. Now aside from getting to mentor through participation I can really get involved in helping people reach their goals. It's really amazing and emotional to be there when someone runs their first mile, or 5K non stop. Last weekend several people in our current group ran their first 10 miles! I read somewhere that some people never run a total of 10 miles in their entire lives and here these folks have worked up to being able to do in a couple of hours.
So this looks to be an action packed year. Lots of stuff on the horizon and hopefully some tails from the trails as I chase down ultra running!
Tight laces
Ed
