Finally

My past year of racing has had many highlights but more or less all of the training and racing that I have done since I dropped out of the Iditarod Invitational last year has been with an eye toward being ready to tackle this race again this year. It's a weird feeling to have this race finally come back around. I'd like to say that with another full year to prepare that I'm much more ready for it then I was last year, but the reality is that I'm a serious procrastinator and I'm pretty much in the same place right now as I was one year ago. What I have this time around though is a better understanding of just how much this race has to do with mental strength and how little it has to do with physical strength (provided that you have the basic physical fitness required for a race like this). I have several doubts about whether or not I'm really ready for this race, but more and more over the past couple days I'm finding a higher level of optimism and excitement about giving this a try once again. More than anything though I'm just really excited to be out there on the trail living the simple life of just moving forward one step at a time whenever possible.

Thanks everyone for the comments and emails of support.

I'll put up a post tomorrow, or Sunday morning, with all the relevant links for those interested in following along with my "race".