Fall is my favorite season, and it has been a glorious long fall. Some years winter comes early, (like the big September snowstorm last year) but not this year. I’ve enjoyed the early aspen changing in the high country, a trip to New England for the fall foliage, and the brilliant fall colors here on the Front Range. So often we get cold snaps that kill the leaves down here before they have a chance to turn. I don’t remember the last time we had such gorgeous fall colors at home.

Beyond the spectacular colors, fall is a season for change, and this year has been no different. I’ve always been a person that gets antsy when things are static. I need growth, travel, and direction.

Growth

There is a lot of research out there on the effects of personal growth in maintaining happiness. Whether through gaining knowledge, challenging ourselves physically, mentally, spiritually, socially, professionally, whatever it is, I think growth provides a lot of satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment. My growth in recent years has mainly been focused on recovery, but this fall I started back to school. I enrolled in an Applied Animal Behavior certificate program through the University of Washington. The program is online,  and  I am managing it with an app called Speechify that reads the textbook to me. I still struggle with prolonged reading, and after recently trying to read for 90 minutes straight I have reconfirmed that without the app, I probably could not get through the program. They have many narrator voice options, but with the premium version, Gweneth Paltrow is one of the voices, along with a man they call “The Narrator”, who sounds like David Attenborough, making my textbook sound like a nature documentary.

Travel

In the middle of October, I checked off a bucket list item with a visit to New England in the fall. We headed to Boston, drove up through New Hampshire, across the Kancamagus Scenic Byway, over to Bar Harbor, and down the coast of Maine back to Boston. We stayed at B&Bs, did some hiking and trail running, rented bikes and explored Acadia National Park, hiked up Cadillac Mountain to be the first people to see the sunrise in the country, and toured Boston. It was a whirlwind trip, but we had a great time.

We also managed to squeeze in a quick trip to Phoenix. I got in a couple of HOT desert long runs and spent some time visiting a dear friend that I didn’t get to see last year (thanks COVID). Josh met up with a group of Brand Ambassadors for PEARL iZUMi, who have become friends. They enjoyed a couple of nights out and mountain biking at Browns Ranch. Although not planned that way, it ended up being a bit of a going-away party, because Josh started a new job as soon as we got home.

As of a couple of weeks ago, he is now with TrainingPeaks, which is a local tech company. They have an app we have used for years to track our workouts, fitness, and training plans.  He will be doing more marketing strategy work, and so far it seems like a pretty sweet gig. I’m excited for him to be a part of a bigger team where he can offer his expertise while also learning things from coworkers with different skillsets. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I think growth is important in maintaining both job and life satisfaction.

Direction

I’m a pretty goal-oriented person. I like to look ahead and see where I’m going, so I can figure out how to get there. COVID really killed my training and racing mojo. Yes, I’ve still been running, and yes I ran Bryce Canyon 50 miler in May, but that was rolled over from the previous year, and I was pretty loosely trained to get that done. After some nice time away from structured training, I’m diving back in. I’m signed up for the Black Canyon 100k in February because I love desert running in the winter, and also to get a solid early season base for a potential late-summer 100 miler (stay tuned).  My coach of 5 1/2 years retired though, so I’m on my own for now.

Before I sign up with a new coach I need to figure out if my brain can actually handle work, school, and training. If the last couple of weeks are any indication, the answer is “no”.  Ironically I got a question from a reader recently asking if I still ever have “bad days”. I told her emphatically, yes, and I have been having those.  Coming back from Phoenix I spent 90 minutes on the plane reading for school, and then I had to hold onto Josh walking through the airport. I had an episode of vertigo and nearly fell off my reformer at pilates last week. I’ve been having daily vertigo, nausea, and double vision. Last week I had to leave work early. Wednesday, I was completely overwhelmed in the grocery store and started crying because I couldn’t find the dishwasher detergent pods. Thursday night Josh had to drive me to physical therapy because it was an evening appointment and although I’ve been driving in the dark, I couldn’t that night. These setbacks, where I feel like I’ve regressed 3 years, are incredibly frustrating and emotionally difficult. Josh constantly reminds me that I am challenging myself, and I need to be more careful with my time…as in I shouldn’t be spending all morning writing this post, or spending hours on the internet earlier this week trying to plan a spring vacation. Yes, he is right. He is basically always right when it comes to telling me I’m overdoing it. There, I wrote it down for the world to see.

I have 3 more weeks of class, and then we will have winter break. It isn’t that the coursework is all that difficult, but it is the cumulative effect of added cognitive load that I think is making everything unravel. Hopefully, the break will allow for some time to reset and recover. And now Josh just told me “don’t forget to take a break”, and I’m annoyed when I should be appreciative because he is looking out for me. Once again he is right, and I’ve cooked myself this morning, so I’ll listen to him and wrap this up for now.

3 months until TBI to 100K.