Life Happens!

A light week for posts but a monster week for work, well that’s what a new job will do! Suddenly my commute has gone from, oh a casual walk of 30’ across our lounge to up to and hour and a half and 38 miles one way; that’s LA traffic for you! Add in the mix solid 9 or 10 hour day and suddenly your day is rapidly disappearing. What does this mean in the long term, well pragmatically what it does mean is that I need to refocus and rebalance things and that means that something needs to give and that has to be my second training cycle of this year. Additionally throw in the mix that my wife has passed me her climbing pass for Mt Whitney; she’s been sick and doesn’t feel up to tackling the altitude (14,505') and after the last weekend’s fun in the sun (not!) at the Valley Crest Half Marathon, more on that to follow, the revised plan is to delay things by two or three months (probably three) and miss the heat of summer July, August and September, get to grips with the new job and refocus on a winter 50 miler.

A quick look on the internet uncovered that there are several 50 milers that I can tackle in the cooler winter months; Twin Peaks in Orange County or Catalina Island’s Avalon 50. During the summer months I can throw in a couple of century bike rides and bag a few half marathons and training trail runs while keeping the wheels turning with some running in the evenings etc and move up to 50k during the fall. As for climbing Mount Whitney that’s scheduled for three weeks, to that end this weekend I am off to Palm Springs to tackle San Gorgonio (11,499’) this weekend…that should be fun, I was told this week that it is still snowcapped...pass the crampons!