Saturday, March 4, 2017

The Last Few Months

Well, sorry its been so long since I posted anything, but a lot has happened over the last few months.  I'll try to keep it as brief as I can, but there are a few big changes!

1) Heading into 2017, I'll have a few changes in my sponsors.  I am incredibly excited to be with The North Face this year!  I have always looked up to many of their athletes and now am honored to be a member of their athlete team.  Additionally, I will now be working with VFuel, an energy gel company whose gels I used exclusively at Western States last year.  I will continue to partner with Injinji and Squirrel's Nut Butter in 2017.  I will no longer be with Salomon, so I would like to thank them for all the support they have given me over the last 2 years.  Additionally, my time with Salomon has given me many amazing memories which I will never forget.  There are truly great people at Salomon and I can't thank them enough for all the support they have given me.

2) The biggest change is that I decided to transfer to Oregon State University back home in Corvallis, Oregon this winter.  I am currently attending OSU as a non-degree seeking student (that was the best I could do as I transferred so late).  This fall I wasn't very happy at Northern Arizona University, and I had a hard time figuring out exactly what was causing all my stress.  I'm not totally sure what was stressing me out, but I realized that coming home to Corvallis would be a good choice.  Since I've been home I've been far less stressed and much happier with life!  Jacob is still at NAU and seems to be having a great time.  I've very thankful that he's adapted to the change far better than I did and is making the most of his time in Flagstaff.

3) I got hurt.  This is fairly crappy news, but I've learned an awful lot from it.  I strained my groin in the middle on January after running on slushy wet snow for 12 days.  Apparently the extra strain from sliding around was a little to much for my left groin to take.  In the weeks that followed I spent a lot of time moaning about my situation.  While the injury was frustrating, the obvious lack of balance in my life slowly became evident to me.  I analyzed my situation and found the complete lack of balance to be of far greater concern than the injury itself.  It didn't take me long to realize that for a few years I've been putting a lot of energy into running, but completely neglecting all other activities that I enjoy.  I realized that putting all your energy into one area is not sustainable, and less enjoyable than spreading out your interest over various activities.  So, over the last few weeks I've been focusing on pursuing a wide variety of activities and have been more content for doing so.

With all that said, I'm certainly looking forward to getting back to running.  I'm confident that I will be able to take a far more balanced approach than in the past while continuing to pursue running at the level I want to.  So hopefully in the next few weeks I'll be able to put that plan in action!  I've been walking a few time lately and my groin is feeling significantly better.  I was even able to go for a shuffle on Friday with minimal pain.  Still, patience in the name of the game and while I'm excited to get running, I certainly don't want to delay my recovery any longer.

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for the update. Been kind of following your progress since you won the Bighorn 100 which is right in my backyard here in Dayton. Looking forward to seeing what the future holds for you!

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  2. Heal well and welcome back to Oregon! Ian

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  3. No doubt you'll come back stronger than ever!

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  4. Thanks for all the kind words and support guys! It always means a lot. Hopefully I'll be joining you on the trail sooner than later!

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