The Best Laid Plans...

Much has changes since my last post over 2 months ago.  And I will offer processing and dealing with those changes as a feeble excuse to my absence from this blog.

In summary and straight to the point, I don't live in Colorado anymore.  The nickle version of the story is that in the world of defense contracting, and given the current state of defense spending, my contract went away in Colorado Springs.  That in and of itself wouldn't have been so bad had my previous company had a contract I could have fallen back on.  But when we lost a contract competition that we couldn't possible lose, I had to resort to Plan B. That plan involved energizing my Virginia connections from my first company after leaving the Army.  The end result was a long drive from Colorado to Virginia in late January and playing geo-bachelor until the end of the school year when the family will join me.

The impact, of course, is that my goal of getting to the top of Pikes Peak on successive weekends now has to be changed.  Traveling back to the Springs in August isn't logistically possible, and now living at sea level (more or less) would be something off an additional challenge.  It's a hard pill to swallow because with the exception of the week or so between Christmas and New Years, I was getting out and pounding the pavement on a regular basis.  I had also registered for two half-marathons and was working towards a qualifying time for the Pikes Peak Ascent with a half in the first week of March.

Like I said, the best laid plans...

It's kind of unfortunate because I was getting to the point where I was starting to really enjoy my evening run.  On a couple of occasions, I had the opportunity to run at night with the snow falling.  Those were very cool runs, with the snow reflecting in my headlamp and the ambient noises muffled by the snow.  If running is ever peaceful, it's at night when the snow is coming down.

However, in change there is opportunity.  Until my family joins me this summer I'm living with friends of ours in Fredericksburg.  The wife in this couple is preparing for a figure competition in April.  We are having our own  friendly "biggest loser" competition.  It's provides us both with motivation since we are a bit competitive.  It also makes eating right rather easy since the house is more or less devoid of food that is bad for you.

I found a Crossfit gym here in Fredericksburg to go to.  Adam is the owner at RARE Crossfit and along with running the gym (the "box" in proper Crossfit parlance) organizes endurance events such as mountain bike races and 10k runs.  The gym also has a group of folks who go and compete in endurance events together.  In fact, just this weekend a group ran in a 50k ultra-marathon here in the area.

So, while the ultimate goal of the Pikes Peak Ascent and Assault on Pikes Peak has changed, their are other goals and motivation out there.  I'm looking forward to an adventure race with my brothers-in-law in March, and other events in and around the area as long distance goals to work towards.  I also look forward to going over to RARE every evening and having my butt handed to me by the trainers.  The cool thing is that everyone their despite their fitness level has their butt handed to them.  The shared suffering leads to camaraderie and makes being separated from the family by 1600 miles a little easier to handle.

So the journey continues.  And while the finish line might not be at over 14,000 feet in elevation anymore, there are still plenty of goals to work towards, even if I'm not sure exactly what they are at this moment.