Pushing the Absolute Limits Part 1

Like to start off once again, by thanking everyone that reads my blog and I also want to reiterate that I would love to hear any comments or concerns regarding anything I've mentioned here or just ask me any questions. Onto the next post. (P.S. I hit a 1k views, so I thank everyone that reads this from the bottom of my cold heart :)

So as you can tell by the headline of this post, that I'll be touching base on somewhat of a philosophy of mine, and that is pushing myself as far as I'm willing to go. Now it's just me, but I feel that maybe most people that don't share the same philosophy are either A: Don't really give enough of a shit to try it or B:They're too scared to. Now I won't really divulge much further into A, but it's a person's God given right to do as they choose and not everyone is going to enjoy doing the same things, so with that said I'll move onto to group B, the scared group, now I'm not scientist (in fact far from it, although I do have a college degree...) but I like to observe a lot thing around me, be it from personal interaction, social media, etc.; and so it sort of gives me a hypothesis, if you will (or an educated guess for those that don't know the definition...ok I'm done sounding douchey) that I see lots of people that are willing to try something, but aren't willing to push themselves to see how far they can go.

For example, I've seen lots of Facebook friends start running races (and that is fanf****ntastic), different races from a half marathon, to a color run, etc. On one hand someone, whom I assume never ran a race beforehand because I'd never seen any other running type updates on my feed, but obviously this person went for broke and said dammit, I'm going to go all out. Now, not to brag, but I feel like that's the type of enthusiasm or philosophy that I have, maybe a little bit of pride sprinkled in to some extent, but the same nonetheless. Now running a race puts you in a pretty exclusive category in terms of percentage amongst those that haven't, but I feel like millions of people have "run" some type of race at least once in their lifetime (honestly I've done no research, but it's more of an assumption than anything), be it a mile walk, a charity race, etc. Now I'm not sure the exact number, but I think you get the message in that it is a large number amongst active people.  Now when you start adding miles to that, the challenge becomes a little more daunting, and some people either step up and face those challenges and some do not.

For whatever reason, I want to push myself as far as I can go without hurting myself. I think that's a bit of a misconception or a foolish philosophy in some people. That pushing yourself to the point of injury or close to death is the norm, it is not. I've heard about people that are addicted to runner's high (I remember seeing a story on Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel about that) which is fine and dandy but is dangerous as hell if you're willing to kill yourself to run. Now that's not what I'm referring to when I say pushing the limits. There's a way to push the limits and be smart and safe about it at the same time.

Well I'm starting to realize how long this post is becoming, so I think it'd be a great idea to cut it in half.

To be continued...

Gearing Up For a Long 2014

Once again I'll start this off by saying thanks to everyone that has taken the time to read this blog, onward we go. So I'm writing this as I'm nursing a slight hamstring strain, which sucks because it sort of sets me back a little in my training. Now it looks like the Georgia Half Marathon may not be an option at this point, depending on how my leg heals. I definitely don't want to really set myself back by trying to be a bad ass and injure myself further by trying to push through this. I had something similar to this happen back in August, but after about 2 weeks or resting it and icing it, it wasn't too bad.

Well since I began to write this post a few weeks ago, my hamstring felt good enough for me to go run on, which felt great, to run again that is. So I'm just really trying to ease back into things, and not re-injure myself or make things worse. With that said, I can definitely tell that the time I missed really didn't help out, but I would rather miss time now than in August and September when it's really down to the nitty gritty in terms of marathon training.

So being that it's only the beginning of the month of March, means that this is going to be a long and arduous journey to prepare for Las Vegas and my first crack at 26.2 miles. I'd like to apologize for taking so long with this post, but I can assure those that read this, that I will do a much better job in the future. With that said, I'll be updating on training as well as upcoming races, the biggest of which is the 2014 Peachtree Road Race on July 4th this summer. I was initially unsure as to whether I would actually sign up again this year, but after reading a book about the race and its illustrious history, I began to think what an honor it is to run in a race that featured running legends such as Finnish icon, Lasse Viren, American marathon legend Frank Shorter, and Don Kardong. I don't plan to take this run as seriously, to me it's more of a fun run, rather than a race to set a PR. The reason being, is that with 60k people, it's really really tough to run and maneuver amongst the hoards of people and not get worn out quickly.

Well I appreciate your patience and look forward to keeping everyone updated.