As I get older I find myself starting to take stock of my life. I’m 53. How many more career days/years do I have left in me? How many more days of running and hiking? How many more….

I’ve started a number of blogs over the years. Gardening, hiking, cancer…none felt like, well, me.

It is time for me to throw everything in one place. Learn how to tag and categorize and stick with the one truth I know.

Be…well…Me.

I am a lot of things. I love to garden, I love to run, I’m thinking about Xterra, I love my wife and the life we’ve built together. These are all me and continuing to try and keep up separate blogs just isn’t working anymore.

So here we are. Or at least here I am…and hopefully you’re here with me.

I’m now in the middle for training for my upcoming 25K trail run in April. Training has not gone as I had hoped. I had visions of running getting easier the more miles I ran. That the aches and pains would subside. I had visions of getting stronger, faster, better looking…okay….maybe not better looking but you get the idea.

Which leads us to two weeks ago when after a treadmill workout, I was ready to cry, yell, and say to hell with all of it. I don’t know what turned my mood sour. Maybe I was tired. Maybe I hadn’t been sleeping well. All I know is that my head was not in a good space.

I think with this 25K looming in front of me I felt like I should be faster. Why were all my times coming in at a 17’ minute pace? Why did I still feel like every mile, every kilometer, hell, every inch was a fucking struggle.

And then it dawned on me.

You see….I’ve been reading. A lot. Ultra running, marathoning, half marathoning, training, and on and on. I finally came across this nugget:

My only goal for this first 25K is to show up at the starting line, health. Uninjured. If I can make it to the starting line healthy, then I’ve won the battle.

So armed with this, I no longer worry about my time. I’m going to focus and trust the process.

This week I go from running 3 days a week to 4 days a week.

Last Saturday, I ran 6.9 miles. Was I pissed I missed out on the .1 mile that would have given me 7.0 miles? No…not really. I was happy with what what I laid down. I took what the trail gave me that day and that’s all I can ask of this body.

Next Saturday I’m going to shoot for 8 miles. I don’t care how long it takes me. Again, it’s trusting the process. I’m not worried about pace or time.

What epiphany’s have you had when you’ve hit a low point? For that matter, when you do hit a low point, what do you do to crawl your way out of it? Let me know in the comments below!