Three Months Later

It is hard to believe it has been a solid three months since I finished this feat. Running 350 miles in 7 days along the coast of Oregon. It still boggles my mind.  But at the same time it feels like it has been much longer. I knew it would take a great deal of time to process what I had been fortunate enough to complete and I am still not there yet.  As soon as I finished this endeavor I went off to conduct a running camp in Colorado, began the moving process (not so ironically to Oregon) was in a bike crash that has thrown my summer off and a myriad of other things.

I was at a Fourth of July party of a friend who had offered me some support along the way of the 350 (which I hadn't really been able to use because of proximity.) At that party one of his friends said "You're the guy who ran the whole coast, right?" After saying I was, I was brought back to the whole endeavor.

My crew (basically one person - my doctor, Shannon Mitchel) was watching a movie on Karl Meltzer's Pony Express run. She said the movie really showed some of the grittier sides of this  fantastic endeavor.  Now whether it was that gritty or if it was edited as such is not known. (They do fantastic things with movies to create drama.) Regardless, she mentioned that all of the bad things she saw in the movie were what she fully expected to happen to us along the way. Yet, even with the nasty weather we experienced, and the pounding my feet took (which I am pretty sure I am still feeling) we were very fortunate.

Also fortunate for me was how my state of mind has been.  When I completed the 202 miler back in 2010, I rested for a few weeks and then jumped right back into life.  With no major side effect prevalent, I thought I was fine.  I didn't realize how much the effort had taken out of me. As such the remainder of the year was rather lethargic.  This time, however, I knew about this and how "recovered" was from from "recovered".  People would ask me if I was back from the 350 yet and I would tell them I couldn't even guess for a few months.  Now with the setback of the bike crash, I still am not sure. If anything, I am hoping a little "down" time, even though it has hurt me in many other ways, will be helpful in the long run.

However, even if it takes me longer to come back then I would like, I have this to remember. "This" being something that was not only physically challenging but mentally taxing. An effort that I was unsure if I could do but knew the only way to find out was by taking that one foot from the California border and heading off toward Washington.

This is all we can do in life. Nothing is guaranteed but failure if we do not try. It didn't take me three months to figure this out but rather just one stride into 350 miles of running.