Is your ultra lifestyle anything like mine? Today for the first time I realized what that means, for me. Blessed with the Memorial Day Holiday, as well as a couple of rest days leading up to the Bryce 100, I decided to organize and “get caught up”. Yikes. Buy pet food, defur the house, write two articles, prep for the Bryce 100, stow the winter ski & running gear, deep deep deep clean the apartment, plane ticket purchases and the list goes on and on and on. HOW IN THE WORLD did I get this behind? My life doesn’t seem all that complex; single guy, a couple of pets, full time job and publisher of a dot com. And then, light bulb! It’s my ultra life. I smiled because I had always wondered if it would ever get to this. I thought only dirt bag climbers and skiers lived like this. I was a runner, I could have it all AND keep up with it all. I didn’t even see this coming. The 2 to 6 hour runs multiple times a week coupled with travel, racing, crewing, pacing and covering ultra marathons have kinda taken over. And when I think about it, I’m not alone… am I? Can a brother get an Amen! I’ve seen the insides of my friends cars and been to their houses; I’ve seen the stacks of mail and pet fur floating through the air.
Now, living ultra for me doesn’t mean completely dirt bagging it in a truck with my dog it and 5 days out from my last shower, but it certainly doesn’t mean keeping up with everything. And you know what? This, I’ve determine, is cool. I’m a mountain west guy now and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. So here’s to not keeping up, not having time to dot every I and cross every T so that we can do what we love, be with the people we couldn’t live without and getting to see the unimaginable beauty of the outdoors.
That’s my ultra life. How about yours?
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I think I’ve got one less hydration pack than you, so perhaps I’m not there just yet… 😉
I’m a distance runner (half-marathon & soon-to-be-again full marathoner, not-yet-but-planning-on-it-ultra-runner) with a day job and an incredibly supportive spouse – and I can give you a rousing amen! All my time is either work, sleep (not enough) running, recovery effort like foam rolling, etc (not enough) and keeping up w/ food shopping & prep, required laundry, bill paying. The rest just keeps sliding on by. But I LOVE running, and I make these choices. Still could use a few more hours in the day or long weekends to work down the pile/list – not catch up, that’s impossible, but less far behind would be good. 🙂