Deck of 51

 Well…I started the march to Ice Age.  Conflicting thoughts on preparation occur continually.  One moment things appear as if you could charge the gates of hell and sometimes in the same day you get chewed up by the events of the day.  It’s pointless to hash those events out on a microcosm of a running blog.  Sometimes it seems the more you aim to clear the deck of items the more you uncover to do, or at least you’d like to do.  This may be the ultimate calling of downsizing, clearing the deck, or I don’t want any stuff anymore. 

 In Ecclesiastes, Solomon summarizes the best things to draw from life are what you eat and drink and the work of your hands.  Chasing all the other things in life are vanity.  A time to cast away stones and a time to gather them together seems to be where I am at.  The older one becomes the less they bother with details because let’s face it, no one else gives a rat’s posterior.

 One goal I have is training myself to get off the damn grid.  I’m not talking about Tedding it up in the sticks.  I mean quit looking up everything on the phone.  It’s cool to look up the habits of the monarch butterfly and discover Pete Maravich was from Aliquippa, but moving forward at some time I just need to become a rat at the library.

Week of January 17 - 23

Mon: Off.  Travel back from Florida 

Tue: AM 3.3 w/ 1.21 at 9:08 pace, PM 5.9 w/ Robert at 11:37 pace

Wed: 5.0 at 12:11 pace

Thu: 6.6 w/ Tim and Robert at 11:48 pace

Fri: 5.2 w/ 1.63 at 8:53 pace

Sat: 8.0 at 12:25 pace

Sun: Off working on house stuff

Total was 34.0 miles

2021 tally

 2021 was a good year, though an Achilles problem limited the miles the final couple months.  I ended up with 2,911.2 miles for an average of a hair under 8 miles a day.  I had a decent effort at the John Dick 50k in February.  Ice Age was moved to September and as the temps rose into the 90s I was able to complete my 19th 50 miler there.  I finished up the year with another 50 mile finish at Glacial in October.  Both 50 mile efforts were very difficult the final 10-12 miles.  Though heat and humidity played a big part, there is no denying other forces are causing an erosion of my abilities to move over the earth at a pace slightly faster than a brisk walking pace.

 Below are the people I cruised the earth with.

Tim - 67 with the 2 time state champ

Dewey - 46 as a bum Achilles took him out.  Looking like he’s back in action in a couple months

Robert - 28 for Da Coach and classmate of Dewey ‘80.

Crawford - 13 for the former 3 time Ice Age champ who also battled injuries this year

Jeff - 13 makes a strong effort on the back end of 2021 as we torched the Monches segment of the Ice Age trail

Donna - 9 for the wife and first time on the list.  We walked some good miles out West 

Chef Mike - 8 tallies for Da Chef earlier in the year before other commitments curtailed availability 

Angela - 4 before she up and moved to Missoula.  What a beautiful area.

Clarky - 3 primarily from just running into him “out there”

Bartz - 3 enjoyable efforts mostly after a big event for him.  Otherwise his candle burns to bright for me

2022 will look completely different as we transition back to Florida in the next few months.  I’m retiring from my current job I started at in 1984.  It will be the wife, our 15 year old dog and the 2 Guinea Pigs making the break.  Come see an old man sometime.

Forget it Jake

 Starting to get really cold.  At -7F this morning, along with the knowledge that I’m old, getting motivated is hard.  Now I have been up since 3:45am so 4 cups of coffee helps.  It has been a long journey and as often as I am still churning out breakthrough training plans in my mind one can also feel the futility of it all.  

 My aim is to average 50-60 miles a week annually.  Not a big number, but always enough to generate the feeling I could launch into something right away if necessary.  Lately some of those miles have included walking which is easily justified when all you really do is try and get in 2-3 ultras a year.  About a week or so ago I finally absorbed the reality that I am way average.  My watch disagrees with me stating that my workouts are in the poor range for my age.  Lately my fitness age was 78.  Thanks…for that.

  But the watch doesn’t lie they say.  Looks like I’m finally going to have to consider moving around less outside.  I do see the advantages of cross training, but that has zero appeal.  I am a runner, despite what that all looks like now.  

 I’m going to work on somehow completing my 20th Ice Age 50 mile under the cutoff this year.  It is the approach I must take.  Somehow I will have to face these realities and coach myself to a goal that is formidable.  It’s not just the running.  Some day, if you have ran most of your life you will share the same experience.  The big question every day is if it is worth it.

Winter 2022

 It was zero today on the morning effort.  Managed 6.5 on the walk and saunter.  Surprisingly the average was 13:17 per mile.  I’d like to get in over 4 later.  We have a holiday today so I am off work.  There are still a couple items to manage.

 Busting down the road ahead with the wife and covered the topics of pets, finance, moving, and getting the basics set up next week when we are in Florida.  There is only so much one can do until we list this house and sell it.  I had 5 items in my conch and they were put in the retirement date (need to discuss with boss this week), buy a house (done), sell this one (open), look for new employment and depth of commitment (couple months out) and funding all this along with the healthcare piece.  There are other significant items like hiring a mover and downsizing, plus acquiring a vehicle for me.  If you are attached to someone then you probably realize the operation runs in concentric circles.

 The 100 probably won’t happen, but it makes me work towards a goal and all that goes with it.  It keeps me wore down enough so I am generally passed out by 7:30pm.  How I would enjoy tearing down the road one more time.  If I ever get fixed then I just might.  Until then I’ll continue to log thousands of miles in hopes of one magic day.

How bazaar how bazaar

 I used the internet for all the knowledge it holds for training to complete a 100 miler.  Quite comical.  If one hadn’t been running for 45 years you just might get suckered in to believing less is probably best.  

Dust on the scales

 In theory it is busy in the Dehart household.  We bought a home in Florida and close January 10th.  We have work to do on our current residence and hope to put it up for sale in February.  Which means I will be retiring soon from my current job of 37+ years.  This seems odd, but that is how it works.  Not sure how the timing will all work out, but time is marching on.  It is time for us and if I had to give one main reason that would be for reasons of health projection.

 I have started a project I should have started 20 years ago.  I had amassed about 120,000 sports cards.  The thrill of opening packs and sets was a big deal to me for 30 years.  People recognized this and many of these came in the form of gifts over the years.  Been chipping away and have probably given away or donated 20,000 cards the last year.  Essentially anything from the 80s and 90s is worthless and that is where the bulk of it is from.  I did list my basketball cards for sale.  I’d should get this down to 30 - 40 thousand cards by the move.  

 I have started doing a little running.  I still cover a good 40 miles a week walking and shuffling.  It makes absolutely zero sense that I am looking at a 100 miler at the end of March, but I am.  Getting out has never been a problem.  Like sports cards (primarily baseball), running has always been easy to get involved in.  Once I grew old, worn, and slow it seemed like giving it up would be easy.  It has not.  The 100 I am looking at is pancake flat.  It seems like a challenge.  The biggest being staying in one piece and the other is the timing is terribly poor.  

 Put in 6.2 on 1/1 with a few folks.  Mostly all running. On 1/2 I managed 8.4 at 14:18 pace with walking.  Again, my problem is me.  It’s hard to hold back.  

The damage done

 I have come to the realization that lining up and finishing the Ice Age 50 mile in 2022 is going to be a real challenge.  As it stands now, there is a no way I can train properly with a bum Achilles.  There is no major pain as I walk about 6.5 miles daily, but the small distances I try and shuffle are slow and awkward.  They also leave the area tender.  It quickly goes away after a day, but I am gun shy to try begin jogging again.  I can’t walk Ice Age in under 12 hours.

 My problem is me of course.  I know What I should be doing.  I also know what other cross training could be considered.  It is hard not to go out daily for an effort and many times twice a day.  We are all told when we can’t do this anymore.  Maybe my time is here.  I have a few ideas to make this work.  Of course I do.  It is not the way I want to go about preparing, but I still want to lick the mustard out of the jar one more time.