Perpetual forward motion

Amazing to me that it has been well over a year since I have written in this space. So much has happened. Many things did not happen. My personal life was turned upside down, for the most part by my own choosing. My running life in 2011 was, for want of a better way to say it, inconsistent and lacking in focus. Actually, lacking in focus would be a great way to describe me most times. The 2011 Charleston Marathon was a death march. Again, starting out too fast with a body and on legs that were too beaten and weary to give anything other than basic effort. Snickers Marathon, which was to be run just six (6) weeks later, was a DNS (or "Did Not Start"), the first of my running career. I just did not have it. Nothing to give, no desire to give it. My legs and soul were empty.

Easily blinded by the failures of my past while believing I have been focused on mythical goals for the future - somewhere I became lost. Engulfed in the stratospheric rise of running mileage, the message became jumbled. Love, but not in love. Running had betrayed me, or so I had felt. In reality, I dealt myself a hand nearly impossible to play. Now, the move forward.

Running, I had thought, was the key to everything. It kept me alive in the very literal sense and made me feel alive in a very ethereal way. To date, I have been fortunate to have kept off 125 pounds, which is something I never thought possible. And yet at the same time, I have become complacent. A victim of my own successes and efforts and hopes and dreams. No more.

With the recent changes in my personal life since the latter part of 2011, I have been striving - albeit very slowly - on figuring out what it means to be me. What I want to do "next".  Needs, wants, desires. All of these things are crucially important in the overall development of the self.

On a whim and at the request of some close friends locally, I took a chance and registered for the Myrtle Beach Half Marathon in February, 2012. This trip came at a time when I truly needed the escape from what had been a vicious cycle of pain, both self-inflicted and otherwise. The result after some focused training and a clear mind?  A nine-minute PR.  Suddenly, things were starting to click again.

A string of minor injuries and a dip in running desire once again, and focus dwindled.

Again, at the behest of those same local running friends, I registered for the Air Force Marathon, scheduled for mid-September 2012.

Without anyone else's prodding, I flew off the reservation and registered for my first ultramarathon - New River 50K, set for October 13, 2012. It is as if I just needed something different. Something more, while still being a little bit less in a way.

Why dump all of this in this particular space?  Well, it is for me, a part of my process in self-betterment. The ability for me to openly and outwardly express the inner feelings I have throughout this journey.

There is a sense that I am so close to finding that balance I have sought for so long, yet it seems forever out of grasp. Maybe I am reaching for the wrong carrot. Time will tell.  Until then, it is all about lots and lots of easy miles.

This space will continue to be filled with meanderings. Hopefully more positive affirmations than in times past. My hope is to be the water more than the rock.  That would be the next great stride forward in this journey.