FluidFlex

I've worn Montrail Mountain Masochist on nearly every run that I've done in the past 4 years. They are by far the best shoes I have ever worn. I have tried several other shoes in this time, but my feet and my body have become so adapted to the Mountain Masochist that I find pretty much everything else fairly uncomfortable. I've found a few shoes here and there that I use for very specific conditions. For example the Montrail Badrock, with their really wide toe box and huge lugs on the outsole are perfect snow running shoes. On well over 90% of my runs though I have worn the Mountain Masochist.

I wear them on the most rugged, gnarly trails and I wear them on roads. Wet, dry, hot, cold, mud, sand, snow - pretty much every condition and every surface. It's been really great to have a shoe that I trust so much and feel so comfortable in, but I'm also aware that I've adapted so much to this one particular shoe that it's nearly impossible for me to wear anything else. As long as Montrail keeps making these shoes, and making them the same way, I have nothing to worry about. The reality though is that four years is a really long time in the running shoe industry. The Mountain Masochist are one of the few shoes in existence that are more or less the same as they were four years ago. Lucky for me. It's been a good run (sorry for the silly pun, I couldn't resist). For all I know Montrail might make the Masochist for another four years, but I'm not counting on it.

Enter my current health issues that have pretty much eliminated all running for me over the past 7 months. I try to find the good in all situations, and one thing that has been nice about not running for so long is that my body has essentially reset, thus I am no longer adapted so entirely to one shoe. I'm sure I will do a lot of running in the Mountain Masochist in the future, but it's been nice as I begin to run a bit more (I've been running one or two days a week the past several weeks) to explore some new shoes and actually be able to have a more natural response to them, rather than just wishing that I was wearing the Masochist. Through this process there is one shoe that I have become really excited about: The Montrail FluidFlex.

I've worn them on the last 3 or 4 runs I've done and absolutely love them so far. I've run in 4 or 5 shoes in the past that are less than about 8.5 ounces, and these are the first ones that don't feel too minimal to me. They pretty much feel like the same amount of support and stability as the Masochist, at 3 ounces lighter per shoe! I'm sure some of this is a result of the dynamic I mention above, and if I tried these shoes after I had just run a couple thousand miles in the Masochist over the last 7 months (instead of zero) they might feel a lot different. This said though, I have also been running a bit lately in the Montrail Rogue Fly, and although I like these shoes a fair amount, they feel like they support my feet and my body so much less than the FluidFlex (even though they are the same weight).

To make a long story short: if you haven't yet tried the FluidFlex I highly recommend them. Another good thing about them: at $90 a pair they are a steal compared to so much else that's on the market nowadays. For some reason, as the average shoe has been stripped down more and more the price has skyrocketed. Obviously this has everything to do with the demand for minimal shoes, but it's cool to see that Montrail isn't playing the game of charging $125+ for a pair of minimal shoes that so obviously uses far less materials and technology than other, more traditional shoes.

48 for 48

The Iditarod Trail Invitational to McGrath is now over (8 or 9 racers are continuing on the full distance to Nome). 48 people started the race just over 10 days ago now, and every single one of them finished within the 10 day "limit". Of all the amazing things that happened in this race this year, this is by far the most mind boggling. From my 3 times starting this race I feel like in any given year the odds of finishing the race are probably somewhere around 50/50. Last year the majority of the field dropped out without even making it 100 miles. Obviously the trail conditions are everything in this race, but 350 miles is really damn far no matter what the trail is like. I have never heard of a 100 mile race in which every starter made it to the finish. To have this happen in a 350 mile race, in Alaska, in the dead of winter is nothing short of amazing. Good work to everyone out there. Sure wish I could have been a part of the "fun".

ITI Analysis and Other Observations

It's been quite some time since I've posted anything on here. Not a whole lot is new with me. Still far from recovered, but slowly getting a bit better with the passing months (with some definite bumps in the road along the way). As my health improves I'm becoming gradually a bit more active, but my main focus lately has been on things other than running. It's easy for me to go for a hike or a bike ride and take it really easy. With running though it's not so easy for me to keep it mellow. For this reason I've mostly been avoiding much running, as a means of avoiding overdoing it too soon.

I took a trip with Elle out to southern Utah a couple weeks ago. Forgot how much I love it out there. I'm not sure exactly what it is even, but I can be anywhere in the Utah desert and just walk off into the landscape and explore for hours on end. Most places I've ever been I need to seek out things within the landscape that interest me: creeks, mountain viewpoints, interesting plants, etc. In Southern Utah though, I can be anywhere and just walk off through the land and be entirely captivated by the simplest things: sand, rocks, juniper trees, pine cones, etc. Even in Alaska, where I love the land so deeply, it isn't as intriguing to me on a micro scale as is Southern Utah. Corle and Elle have spring break in 3 weeks, and I'm counting down the days, because we're taking off to Utah as soon as they're both out of class for 9 days.

The past week I've spent closely following the Iditarod Trail Invitational. It's been a crazy year for this race (I guess every year is a crazy year for this race). The top 7 or 8 bike finishers all broke the previous race record. The interesting thing about this is that they really weren't riding any of the stretches any faster than many previous years, they just didn't take any rest. They were certainly aided by a trail that didn't seem to have any serious bad stretches (unlike last year in which the entire trail was pretty much "bad"), but more than anything I think there were just so many strong riders that they just kept pushing on with no rest. This seemed to break a few of them, but many of them were able to hang on to the end, going more than two and a half days without any legitimate sleep! It will be interesting to see if this is a trend that continues into future races (when the trail is good). My approach to this race has always been to rest a little more than most people, and then move faster when I am on the move. This is in the foot division though, in which you pretty much have to sleep because you are going to be out there well over 4 days no matter how you do it. On a bike though, it seems like this year's race may open up a door in which riders at the front of the pack essentially ride the race with no sleep. Of course this all is dependent on trail conditions, and in well over half the years to come it just won't be an option at all to finish in under 3 days (at which point you almost certainly need to mix in a more substantial amount of rest).

In the foot division, Dave Johnston went for it right from the start and made the first ever serious threat to Steve Reifenstuhl's race record of 4 days 15 hours. In the end Dave came up about 4 hours short, but his run could have changed some things for the way this event is approached by runners in the future as well. Until this year I think most people (myself included) thought that Steve was essentially a maniac, and that no one would ever make a serious attempt at doing this race faster than he did on foot. I can put together the pieces in my mind to see how you could do this race in about the time that Steve did, but this would be absolutely best case scenario, as soon as one thing goes wrong that sets you back 2 or 3 hours you are not going to make it. My thought has always been that over the course of 350 miles something will have to go wrong. For this reason I have always thought of Steve's record here as the most impressive performance I am aware of in endurance athletics. I still feel this way, but it was really cool to see Dave come so close to cracking the puzzle. Can't wait to hear Dave's perspective on it. My guess is that he can easily pick out some areas in which he could have made up 4 hours, because that's just the way racing is.

Beyond this I was super stoked to see my good friend Joe finish as strong as he did. He tied for second in the foot division, and his time is certainly one of the fastest ever on foot for a rookie in this race. Normally I don't take much credence in the idea that being a rookie is a huge disadvantage in a race. Even in a 100 mile race you really don't need to have much knowledge of the race and the course to have a great race. You are going to go out and run the entire course in one shot, it will typically be marked quite well the full distance of the course, and at the end of the day all you really need to do is go out and run the thing as fast as you can. Course knowledge might be able to get you and extra 10 or 15 minutes, but when people talk about past experience on a particular course meaning anything much more than that I think they are over dramatizing the  situation. In the case of the ITI though, I do think race experience is a huge factor. You aren't doing this race in one strong push as fast as you can go. You are constantly making decisions about when to push on, when to rest, when to push hard, when to take it easy. You go through several different phases over the course of the race in which you are so worn out that you can't continue to move. You rest and then move on. The management of these cycles is the most important part of doing the ITI quickly. As Jeff Oatley, one of the most accomplished ITI cyclists told me: You are constantly making decisions about what to do at a given time in the race based on where you will be and what you will be doing 50 or 100 miles down the trail. If you have never seen what lies in the next 50 or 100 miles you will have a much harder time making the most efficient decisions. Yes, it could be said that this dynamic exists in any race that you do, and to some degree I suppose it does, but in the ITI you go beyond a tipping point in which this kind of knowledge and experience can go from making a 10 or 15 minute difference to something more like a 15 or 20 hour difference (or more). All of this said though, I'm pretty sure Steve Reifenstuhl was a race rookie when he set the race record in 2005 (which either debunks my whole theory here, or makes his performance all that much more impressive - probably a bit of both).

I've Come A Long Way, But I've Still A Long Way To Go

I've been plugging along getting ever so slowly more and more healthy. At times it's been really hard because it's most certainly not been a continuous path of improvement. Over the course of weeks and months I have had definitive improvement, but I have stretches of a few days at a time in which I feel worse than I did previous to that. It's these phases when I have the hardest time staying positive and upbeat about my health. Luckily these "bad" stretches never seem to last more than a few days at a time.

This said, I have been able to start to be a bit active most everyday. Some days this means just biking to the store and back or doing a little 30 minute strength/balance/flexibility routine at home, but on good days I'm able to get out and run for 30 or 40 minutes or bike for 10 or 15 miles. I still haven't had a single day in over 6 months now in which I would say I've felt 100%, but it's nice to finally be in a place where I can at least do a little something with my body most every day.

As I start to get a little more active it's been interesting to begin to notice just how out of shape I've gotten. It's been so long since my muscles have been as weak and undeveloped as they are right now. It would have been great to never sink as low as I have, but at the same time I feel like I'm being given a great opportunity to do the whole getting into shape thing all over again, and with a lot more knowledge and experience than I had the last time around. Should be fun to see where that takes me.

Currently I'm in Alaska for a short one week visit. Got out yesterday on a 4 hour mountain snowshoe on a ridge line that I've never been on before. After a couple month stretch in the fall in which my health was so compromised that I thought I might never run in the mountains again it feels so nice to be back to the point in which I have the health to head up into the mountains and explore new places and absorb the energy of remote, largely untraveled places. It might sound dramatic, but I certainly got pretty emotional about being able to do something like this yesterday, after not even having the option to do this for 6 months. I still have a long ways to go to get back to anything resembling "normal," but yesterday was a huge step in moving closer to where I want to be eventually.

In other news, I was recently interviewed for the current Talk Ultra episode. Some stuff about Western States 2010 (as well as my thoughts on Western States this past year), Iditarod Invitational, and my current health struggles (among other things). Click here to listen.

Also, a little update on this summer's Alaska Mountain ultrarunning camp sessions:  we are still taking applicants for both sessions. There are 3 or 4 spaces left in each session so if you want to join us for a week in running paradise this summer try to get the application/deposit to us soon to guarantee your space. Click here for all the info.  Also, we are still taking applications for need based camp scholarships until the end of February. Here's the link for that.

That's about all for now. Spring is just around the corner. Get out and enjoy these last several weeks of winter, all the while gaining a little more energy each day with the lengthening days, the warmer weather, and the promise of a new season. I know this is what I'll be doing these next several weeks.

A Vacation In Photos

Just returned from a 3 week "vacation" to Juneau. I felt pretty good most of the time I was there so I was able to get outside more than I have since last summer. Couldn't have asked for better timing to have three weeks of good health, because there is simply unlimited stuff do in the outdoors around Juneau. As wild and remote as some of these photos look the vast majority of these were taken in places that you can walk to in an hour or less from the center of town:

2013

Happy New Year everyone. I know it's cliche to say, but I'm looking for 2013 to be a new beginning for me, maybe more than any of my 36 years to date (more about this in a future post when I have more time). Hope you all have lots of things you're looking forward to improving on and moving toward this year.

As promised, the Alaska Mountain Ultrarunning Camp Scholarship applications are now available over on the camp website. If you are interested in applying for one of these scholarships please get the completed application to me by the end of February. We were able to raise enough funding for 2 full scholarships (all camp fees and up to $850 in travel expenses). We also have a limited amount of funding in addition to this which will be offered as partial scholarships or, if not accepted, rolled over into funding for the program in 2014. Thanks again to everyone who contributed to this program. You're support is generous and deeply appreciated.

One Last Reminder

One last reminder for anyone interested in contributing to the Alaska Mountain Ultrarunning Camp Scholarship Fund - the deadline for contributing to the 2013 fund is coming up (Dec. 31st). Certainly we will very much appreciate any contributions made after the end of the year, but those donations would be applied to the 2014 scholarships and not the 2013 scholarships.

The response to these scholarships has been very positive. Thank you so much to everyone who has contributed already. I will be tallying up the total funding available next week, and announcing the number and dollar amounts of scholarships that will be available for 2013. For those of you interested in applying for one of these scholarships please check out the camp website sometime after the first of the year where you will be able to print off the application and send it to me by the end of January.

Serious Stuff

As the year winds down my health continues to improve ever so slowly. I'm still needing to take things really easy, but I have been able to get out and live a mostly normal life much more consistently than I was able to for most of the Autumn. Even skied for almost 90 minutes yesterday. By far the most ambitious physical thing I've done in months. 

I'm back in Juneau for a couple weeks for the holidays and the timing couldn't be better. For the first time in months I'm able to get out and be a little bit active pretty much everyday. There's so much that I always want to get out and do when I'm here in Juneau, and it's really nice to actually have the physical health to do some of these things. Had I been here a couple months ago I think I would have driven myself nuts not being able to get outside in the mountains each day. In Boulder I'm right in the fast pace of the city and it's much easier to detach oneself from the surrounding nature. In most cases this is a drawback, but it's been one thing that has certainly made it easier for me to be more at peace with how easy I've needed to take things these past 4 months. Now though, I am emotionally craving more nature. Being here in Juneau with perfect sunny and cold weather couldn't have occurred at a better time.

With each passing week in which more and more tests come back "normal", and as I continue to feel slowly better and better with more rest, I come closer to definitively settling on a diagnosis of overtraining syndrome. At this point I feel almost certain that my health issues these past 4 months have been a result of pushing my body too hard for too long. It's only the more acute symptoms that go back 4 months, in reality this is something that has been affecting me for at least 20 months. For most of this time I have felt a little "off", but I kept fooling myself into thinking that I could just take a couple weeks off here and there and things would improve. Typically they would improve for a few weeks, but then I was back to feeling the same sluggishness once again. My recovery was taking twice or three times as long as usual, and my ability to perform at a high level was steadily dropping. It's so easy now to look back on all of this and realize how much I was over doing it. At the time though, I was able to find just enough energy to get out and do what I love to do: run for a really long time in the mountains. In the end my intense enjoyment of running in the mountains was so high that I just kept pushing through so that I could be out doing what I love.

I'm excited now to move forward with the knowledge and experience that I have now. I have no way of knowing how effectively I'll be able to recover from this, and if I'll ever be able to run anywhere near the level that I once did. I do however know that I'll always run a lot smarter than I ever did before. This alone will likely be enough to make me even faster than ever before. It's just going to take a lot of patience for the next several months and beyond.

I hate to preach to anyone, and certainly everyone's experiences are very unique from mine, but if you are like I once was and you feel like overtraining syndrome is somewhat of a myth and only something that happens to people who run 150+ miles a week or race 20+ times a year, I encourage you to take this as a serious possibility for anyone. Especially if you feel like your performance and recovery ability seems to be inexplicably diminishing. It's a tough thing because it's quite hard to definitively diagnosis, but there are some pretty serious markers which should be setting off alarms in your mind. Had I known everything I know now I feel entirely certain that this is something I could have nipped in the bud a year or two ago.

I guess we all live and learn, and come out the back end a lot wiser than we went in the front end. I know I've learned more from this than anything else in running.

Patience

Things have continued to improve ever so slowly for me. This illness/condition has certainly required more patience than anything I've ever gone through. Sometimes I feel like I can't even measure the difference in how I feel from one month to the next, but when I think back to how I felt in August and the first part of September the difference is huge.

At this point though, I've essentially forgotten what "normal" feels like. I do however have some very distinct markers that show me that things are slowly getting better. I have only even tried to run 5 or 6 times in the past 4 months, and each time this has made me feel quite a bit worse for a few days. This week though I decided I was feeling good enough on Monday to go out for a short run. 20 minutes at a snails pace, keeping my heart rate below 120. A month ago this run would have wiped me out for the rest of the day, but this time it actually made me feel better. So I tried the same thing again the next day, and then again yesterday. All three times I felt better after running than before (maybe that's been the problem all along, maybe I just don't run enough :). I'm very aware at this point that this is only 3 days, and it's very likely (based on my patterns the past few months) that I've still got some days ahead of me in which I feel like I can't do a 20 minute run, but this is certainly the most cause for optimism I've felt in a few months.

I still have not come to any specific diagnosis. I have found some things in various tests that are out of whack, but nothing that has likely been the cause of everything, more likely just some things that have been a result of some unidentified underlying cause(s). I did find (and treat with antibiotics) a parasite in my system, but my doctors thought it was most likely benign, and unlikely the root cause of all of this, but since I've had such widespread symptoms, with nothing else to point at as the cause, it is it least possible that this was the root of everything (keeping fingers crossed for that).

At this point I have begun to move forward beyond putting a whole lot more energy into finding a diagnosis, and have begun to try to treat symptoms and correct things that are out of whack. This currently consists of acupuncture, dry needling, deep tissue massage, various supplementation, and a hugely modified diet. I did an extensive food sensitivities test a few weeks ago and am now only eating the dozen or so foods that I am the least sensitive too. After a week of this I will begin adding foods back in (one each day) more or less in order of sensitivity. In this regard it will be a few months before I attempt to add back in (if ever) any of the foods that showed up as moderate or high sensitivity. It's only been a week, so it's hard to make too definitive of a statement about this, but certainly my GI symptoms have been pretty much non-existent this week.

At any rate, my slightly improved health, and especially my ability to go for a few short runs this week, has boosted my spirit a lot. For the first time in a couple months I've paid some closer attention to what's going on in the world of trail running, and have thought a bit about running in 2013, and what that might look like for me, as well as for the trail running community as a whole.

I really enjoyed following The North Face Endurance Challenge this past weekend. It's never been my favorite course, but certainly the competition at this event is super exciting, and has drawn me to it more than any other ultra. It would have been great to be there mixing it up with everyone, but with how the weather turned out (and the subsequent course modifications/difficulties) I guess it was a pretty good year to miss out. Congrats to everyone who finished that mud fest.

Looking forward to trail running in 2013 the thing I'm personally the most excited about is the third season of Alaska Mountain Ultrarunning Camp. I still have no way of knowing what my health will be come next summer (not that we ever really do), but my slow improvement over the past several weeks has me more and more confident about being able to do these camps once again. The good thing is I have so many great, and knowledgeable running companions in Juneau (as those of you have attended camp have seen), that I could essentially pull these camps off next week if I needed to, even if I was only able to do a few of the shorter runs. This said, next June is still a long way away, and I intend to be running strong by then, but I do intend to put on the camps even if I'm still less than 100%.

It's becoming less and less likely that I'll race at all in 2013. Even if I feel fully recovered fairly soon I intend to ease back into running VERY SLOWLY, especially racing. There's a really good chance that the past 7 years of racing virtually every month is what got me into this hole, so I'm certainly going to give my body a huge amount of time to get out of it. That patience game will probably be even harder than the one I'm playing now, but it's one I'll be happy to "deal with". It's also entirely possible that I'll never really develop the desire to race at a high level again, even if I do regain full health, but that's not something I need (or care) to decide now. That's something that will have to come about organically as I ease back in. I'm excited to see where that goes.

This said, there is a time of year in 2013 that I think is going to be more exciting from a racing standpoint than any other time: September. The Run Rabbit Run 100 is going to be back in Steamboat for it's 2nd running, and my guess is it's going to be even a lot more exciting this year. There's a really good group of folks involved in this event, who are determined to make it better and better each year. The large prize purse will be back, the course will almost certainly be improved (from the sounds of things it was already a pretty awesome course this year), and based on how much of a well oiled machine their 50 miler has become, you can guarantee that the aid stations, course markings, etc (i.e. race day logistics) will be totally dialed in. All these things combined make this what I think will quite likely be the most exciting 100 miler in North America in 2013.

Two weeks after RRR will be the 3rd running of UROC 100k, this time in central Colorado, from Breckenridge to Vail. If you haven't heard the news, UROC will also be the Skyrunning Ultra series finale this year! The move to Colorado combined with Skyrunning is going to elevate this already exciting race to a whole new level. Again, I highly doubt I'll be running either of these races (much more likely in 2014), but I most definitely intend to be there, following the excitement. It'll be interesting to see how many folks decide to run both. I know I would if I were healthy, but then again maybe it's that mentality that got me in this mess in the first place :)

I guess that's all for now. Time to go out and stretch the legs on a short bike ride. Hope you all enjoy your weekend.

Health Update

October has now come and gone, and still no running for me. My health seems like it has continued to improve, but so slowly that at times I can't actually tell if I'm getting better, or if I'm just getting better at functioning at less than 100%. The good days aren't so bad, but the bad days are still fairly regular, and are sometimes fairly difficult to deal with. I've done my best through all of this to remain as upbeat, forward thinking, and positive as possible, but at times this has been quite hard too.

I've seen a total of 5 western medicine doctors (sports medicine, nuerologists, internists), as well as an acupuncurist, a massage therapist, and a somatic experiencing practitioner. I've done extensive blood, urine, saliva, and stool testing, as well as MRI, X-rays, and a lumbar puncture. These tests have almost certainly ruled out many of the more sinister and/or specific diseases/conditions which fit with some of the symptoms I've had (MS, Lupus, Vasculitus, Neurosarcoidosis, Hypothyroidism, Lyme disease, Celiac's, etc). If I have a fairly well understood condition then I almost certainly have an unusual form of it that isn't showing up the way it "normally" would in tests.

What this leaves me with then is the possibility that I have some kind of excessive physical stress induced fatigue syndrome (i.e. over training). Although I'm very aware that this is a very real thing, and a very real possibility in my case, I'm not certain I'm to the point just yet of accepting this as a diagnosis. I'm currently waiting on a large wave of more tests that the most recent doctor I saw told me would, if not diagnose, at the very least, paint the picture as to what I need to do to get healthy in as short of a timeframe as possible. I'm also planning to have another brain and a spine MRI in a couple weeks.

Once all of these tests are back there really isn't much else I can do if everything still looks more or less "normal." At that point I would simply need to move forward with getting healthy, aware that I may never know what has been the definitive cause of all of this. Although I would much prefer to know exactly what has been the cause of all of this, I'm also feeling myself getting closer to the point of not really caring anymore. Not to say that I don't care about my health, and that I'm not doing everything I can to try to get better, but that I am beginning to feel myself ambivalent as to what disease/condition I'm dealing with. Certainly if I do have some specific disease/condition I need to find out what it is to best treat it, but as more and more testing makes it less and less likely that I have a specific disease/condition (at least one that medicine currently recognizes), then it becomes less and less necessary to be able to put a name to all of this. It then just comes down to getting healthy, and that is something I very much look forward to working toward.

At any rate, I may be getting a bit ahead of myself in thinking much about this before I get the results of these next series of tests. I have found through this whole thing though that it helps very much to have a bit of a mental plan in mind for what to do if a bunch of new tests come back "normal", as this is now something I've had to deal with at least a half dozen times. In this current case I think I may finally be to the point that I'm ready to move beyond the testing and the searching for a diagnosis, and ready to simply move toward being as healthy as possible. This actually feels like a very liberating and refreshing shift. Of course, if this plays out like so many things in life, it'll be now, that I'm willing to stop searching for answers, that I'll find what I've been looking for the whole time. That would be OK with me too. I guess time will tell.

Camp Scholarships Now Available

If you missed the announcement over on IrunFar, I'm super stoked to say that The Alaska Mountain Ultrarunning Camp will now be offering scholarships based on financial need. I've put the first $1500 down on this program, and have begun taking contributions to hopefully raise enough funding to cover up to 3 full scholarships. Thanks to those of you that have already contributed. If you're interested in any of the details of the scholarship program please check out this link:  http://www.akultracamp.blogspot.com/p/scholarships.html

You can find details at the above link on how to apply for a scholarship, how to nominate someone for a scholarship, or how to contribute to the scholarship fund.

Heading up to Oregon for the weekend to hangout with a couple friends who are running the Lithia Loop trail marathon. Looking forward to getting out of town and checking out a race I've never been to, even if it is from the sidelines.

Reflecting On Two Seasons Of Alaska Mountain Ultrarunning Camp

Things came at me so quickly in August and September this year: the combination of moving from Juneau back to Boulder for the school year and coming down with health problems at this same time didn't allow me the time to reflect on the second season of Alaska Mountain Ultrarunning Camp. With my life slowly seeming to come back to "normal" I finally feel like I have the space to recap what was another incredible summer of camps.

When I came up with the idea for these camps I had no idea what to expect. I didn't know if this would be something that people would want to do, and if they did choose to do it I had no idea if/what they would get out of the experience. I still feel like there are some things about camp that fall into the "unknown" category, but after having now completed 6 sessions I have been amazed at how satisfying, worthwhile, and valuable these camps have been - both to me and seemingly to everyone who has come to take part.

It's actually hard for me to find the words to describe what the experience of these camps has been. Each camp has been very different from the others, but the one common theme of all the sessions has been that there have always been so many great people with very open minds. Running in Juneau is very different than running almost anywhere else in the world. For virtually every participant the unique aspects about running in Juneau have been challenging. I don't think there has been a participant yet who has ever run somewhere quite like the running we do during camp. This could of course go really badly. People tend to like things that they understand. However though, people tend to learn the most when they step out of their comfort zones and challenge themselves. To some degree I think this kind of growth has occurred in everyone who has come to camp. Seeing the smiles on people's faces when they complete a run that they never thought they could do has been one of my favorite things about these camps.

Another thing that has been more enjoyable then I ever expected about these camps has been all of the non-running moments. Getting to know so many new people and spending time at the cabin sharing stories, recounting the days run, playing games, eating and drinking. In short, just getting to know so many unique people has been such a pleasant "side effect" of these camps. I've always been a firm believer that people are inherently interesting, intelligent, and fun to be around - and that when they don't come across in this way it's usually a result of the specific circumstance under which we're interacting. I feel like these camps have done so much to solidify this notion as every person who has been at camp has been interesting, intelligent, and fun to be around.

There are of course aspects of these camps which feel a little bit like work, but for the most part doing these camps feels like being on vacation. It's basically the greatest job in the world and I can't wait to do it again 3 more times in 2013. Check out the camp website if you're interested in joining the fun.

Also, if you are interested in coming to camp in 2013, but are hesitant to sign up now because of the health issues that I've been dealing with, I recommend signing up now to guarantee yourself a spot. I am feeling better and better each day, and am more confident than ever that I will be back and running strong well before next summer. However, should my health necessitate the cancellation of any camps you would receive a 100% refund of all fees paid, including the deposit. In other words, if you want a spot for next summer I suggest signing up soon, as nearly one third of the spaces are already filled up for next summer.

Looking For A New Pack?

If you've read my blog for awhile you're probably already aware that I'm not much of a gear junkie. Certainly I talk about gear on here a few times a year, but for the most part I don't get to know the technical aspects of any gear enough to really say all that much about it. I like things that work, but I don't really care why they work, I just want them to do what they are intended to do, and I want them to do it well. When I find a piece of gear that does this I stick with it. It's really that simple for me. More than three years ago I found a pair of shoes that works really well for me and I've worn them on almost every run I've been on since then: Montrail Mountain Masochist. I don't really even know (or care about) all the technical aspects of these shoes, I just know that they perform really well.

On the flip side to this, if I don't like a piece of gear I keep trying something new until I find the piece that I like. An example of this for me would be running packs. In the past 5 years I have probably used a couple dozen different running packs. There are some that I liked a lot more than others, but never one that I felt like I wanted to use on every run. Not until this year anyway. Mountain Hardwear has made huge strides in their running specific clothing and gear in the past two years, and I think their biggest contribution to this point has been their new running packs. The Fluid 6 is a pretty awesome pack if you're looking for something with a high carrying volume for overnight runs or extremely poor weather runs when you need lots of extra gear. However, for those day in and day out 1-8 hour runs, the Fluid Race Vest is the best pack I have ever used! Again, I'm not enough of a gear junkie to go into many of the technical aspects, except that this pack is a close to perfect as anything I've ever used. There are a few very minor things that could use a little tweaking, but the good thing is that the great folks at Mountain Hardwear have already made most of these adjustments and you will see these changes coming to market very soon, if not already. I literally ran a few hundred hours in this vest this summer and can't see myself running in an other pack for a long time (except on runs when I need larger volume). It really is WAY BETTER than anything else I've used.

A Lovely Walk

As the weather turns over to autumn here in Colorado, I've been stuck in pretty much the same holding pattern with my health. The good news is that I'm feeling gradually better and better, but I still have had no luck in pinning down any kind of definitive answer as to what has been ailing me. It has now been almost 3 months since the first symptoms began to appear and in that time I have had more odd sensations, pains, and fears than the rest of my life combined. The past 6 weeks has pretty much felt like a never ending bad dream.  The reality though is that it hasn't really been that bad, and as I've begun to feel a little better, I've been able to start living a somewhat normal life again. I even have some good days now in which I feel almost completely healthy. The problem is that after one or two of these days I seem to almost always relapse back into a bad patch. This past weekend was without question the most I've done active since early August. I even went for a 15 minute run on Friday! First run in nearly 6 weeks. We then had a birthday party for the little one on Saturday and went camping Saturday night and Sunday night. I would've been excited about having the energy to do this much under any circumstance as of late, but considering that I also had a Lumbar Puncture on Friday afternoon I was pretty stoked to be able to do much of anything at all. This coming weekend I'm hoping to take a trip out to Utah if I'm feeling up to it.

I've noticed in the past week or two that my mindset has shifted in all of this. For awhile I was more scared than anything. So much so that I was probably being too patient with seeking advice, care, and testing. Now though I have moved much more to a place of just wanting to heal in all ways possible. I don't feel scared anymore of what I might find out, or that I might not ever find anything out. I've also been fortunate enough to be accepted into a financial assistance program through the local hospital so I can afford to be much more aggressive in terms of testing and/or procedures. I've already had an MRI, the lumbar puncture, and a few thousand dollars worth of blood work (all out of pocket), but at least going forward I know that if I have any more major expenses I won't be footing 100% of the bill. This combined with having a few really good doctors trying their best to help me figure this out, has me now not feeling so helpless, the way that I did 6 weeks ago. I've also come to a better understanding of how important it is to integrate numerous approaches to medicine/healing when dealing with something like this. I truly believe 100% that I have some kind of specific biological condition which is causing my health to be compromised, but it's been cool to realize that western medicine might not be the only way to approach this kind of situation.

At any rate, this is a running blog. Where am I at in terms of my running? Well, of course, I want to run. I miss it dearly at this point, but just being able to get outside quite a bit in the past few weeks has been so helpful in all of this. I've been going out fishing a little bit lately, something I haven't done in a few years, but which has been a large part of my life in the past. I've also been really enjoying the simple act of riding my bike a few blocks to the market or to school to pick up/drop off the little one. One thing I do dearly miss here in Boulder (as compared to being in Juneau), is being always positioned right up against nature. On some of my bad days I hardly have enough energy to go out for a 10 minute walk. If I do that here I am only walking through the city. In Juneau, no matter where one lives you can go out for a 10 minute walk and 8 or 9 of those 10 minutes can be in the natural world. In this sense I have been cherishing our weekend trips to the mountains. I've always loved the feeling of waking up in a tent out in the natural world, but never has this had as much of an impact on my life as it has in the past two months. This past Sunday I spent the entire day outside in nature, and it was without question the best day I've had in several weeks.

It's been fun to observe things going on in the "running world": Run Rabbit Run, Wasatch, UROC, Cavalls, Bear, etc. It seems like there's been so much going on. I've been content to keep most of my focus in my little world here at home and trying to keep moving forward toward better health, but I'd by lying if I said it wasn't really hard to not even be able to do something as simple as go out for a short run. I miss the racing, and the culture of the races for sure. Each time I follow one of these races online I find myself imagining what it might be like to be there. Who I might have the opportunity to meet, and what landscapes I might have the opportunity to run through. Much more often than this though, I find myself missing the remote landscapes that I haven't been able to take myself out to on a daily basis at home. There are dozens of places in Juneau, and a few here in Colorado, that I can't even think about without crying. There are a lot of things that I value very highly in this world, but somewhere right near the very top of that list are all the amazing places I've traveled over the years under my own power. Whether it's been on bike, canoe, raft, or foot I can't possible find the words to describe how lucky I feel to have passed through all the places that I have. The views and the splendor in these places has been beyond anything imaginable, but even much larger has been the impact that these experiences have had internally. The list of ways in which I am in part defined by these experiences could fill numerous pages on this blog. Through some of the most difficult times in the past several weeks, I have felt like my strength has been lower than ever in my life, but never once have I not felt an intense desire to endure, to heal, and to get back into my strength. Without question this optimism and forward thinking has been hugely fueled by my running- past; present; and future, and by my vast experiences in nature over the years.

Today is a near perfect autumn day here in Boulder. I'm not feeling very good today, but I have the energy and the excitement to walk to Elle's school to pick her up from school. Never would I have imagined that I could experience so much and look so forward to walking 4 blocks, but right now I'm really excited for this walk. It's not quite the same thing as running for several hours in the mountains, but when your perspective shifts the way that mine has right now, it's not actually that much different. And I need to find the magic and value in these short walks before I can even begin to imagine running for several hours in the mountains again, something which I have every intention of doing thousands of times again in my life.

A Couple Exciting Things

Thanks to everyone for all the well wishes about my health. This has been an incredibly challenging time, but I'm still moving forward slowly but steadily. I still haven't pieced together a definitive diagnosis, but I have been feeling much better the past few days and I'm definitely moving closer and closer to having an understanding of what's been going on in my body. The good thing is that I've ruled out most of the more sinister things, and I'm beginning to feel confident that this is something that I'm going to be able to bounce back from as strong as ever.

And for this reason I'm super excited to officially open entry for 3 sessions of my Alaska running camps for next summer. These camps have been beyond anything I ever expected in terms of what I've been able to take away from them. I can't wait to do it again next year. Check out the camp website for all the info. Don't wait around if you're wanting to join because they are likely to fill soon.