The Sacrifice it takes to make the cheese.

Sometimes its hard to stay focused on the goal.  In order to get my training in I have to get up at 5am at the latest.  Most days I get up and run for at least an hour.  Then I quickly eat, shower and head off to take my son to school 1/2 hour away and then try to get into the shop before 9.  Then after working all day I get home, eat and pass out on the couch.  Hopefully I get to take the family out to eat if Amy hasn't made one of her awesome home made suppers, which is even better.  I usually watch about an hour of TV, or work on the computer finishing emails, writing my blog, answer company emails, etc. 

Tomorrow my schedule looks like this.  Get up at 4:45.  Get out onto the trails by 5:15 at the latest.  It is supposed to be 1 below zero with 10 mph winds.  Its also very dark in the woods at that time for at least an hour before the sun comes up.  That means my world will consist of a little beam of light focused on the 3 feet in front of my feet for that first hour.  My hands will be cold.  For the first couple miles my feet will be cold.  My eyes will water.  I will be uncomfortable. I need to run 15 miles, or a little bit more than 2 hours.   When I get home I need to quickly shower, eat and get on the road.  I will drive for 3 hours to CT where I will attend a repo auction for Harleys.  I'll be on my feet all day, bid on about 200 bikes, drive the 3 hours home (if there is no traffic) eat a quick dinner and get to bed early so I can get up on Thursday at 5 am and run 7 miles and do a strength training workout.  Lord knows when I'll actually get a chance to stay up an extra hour (ok..3 1/2 minutes) and make love to my wife.

The point is, you have to have passion and drive to do the work if you really want to achieve your goals.  It takes sacrifice on your part and understanding and support of the people around you.  As Cypress Hill says in "Rock Superstar" "Show the sacrifice it takes to make the cheese."

This shit doesn't happen by accident.  You have to want it and then commit to make the sacrifice.

Motivated!!

What an awesome week this was.  I'll get to my running update in a little bit, but first I want to talk about some other things going on.  First, the shop.  We are kicking ass.  I mean really, seriously kicking ass.  I have such an incredible crew of people who bust their ass and care about the shop as if it were their own.  That's why we are doing so well.  I am so thankful for all of them.  I believe that the economy is turning around and people are sick of not spending money.  And whats better to spend money on than a motorcycle!

Second, I met with a customer of mine this week that owns a company that does motivational speaking.  I recently attended a seminar that she put on and after she invited me to speak at an event that she is putting on March 4th.  I am the only non-professional speaker at the event.  I am psyched to be speaking because that is one of the reasons that I have decided to tackle this challenge of running 5 100 mile races in 5 months.  I want to share with people how I have gone about doing things like building the business and running 100 miles.  I realized a while ago that I used the same system to achieve these big goals and I've also realized that I might be able to help others do the same.  I am going to speak about how one person showing faith in my abilities completely changed my outlook on life.   You can read about what happened here.  I will give the details of the event and the time I'm going to be speaking as soon as I get it.

OK, so on with my weekly recap.

2-14-2011
Monday AM - 6.5 Miles (56:38).
Ran on the snowmobile trails.  My notes say that I was a bit stiff at the beginning, but loosened up quickly.

2-15-2011
Tuesday AM - 7 Miles (1 hour).
Treadmill. Easy. Also did 30 min of strength training.

2-16-2011
Wednesday - 15.2 Miles (2:12:13)
Beautiful day. The snowmobile trails were as hard as pavement and super icy. Had to be very careful on the downhills.

2-17-2011
Thursday - 7.5 Miles (1:04)
Ran the snowmobile trails. Did 3 Hill Sprints, both up and down on a .10 mile very steep icy hill. 

2-18-2011
Friday - 12 Miles (1:42)
Treadmill easy running at 8:30 pace. More watching "Weeds" on Netflix.

2-19-2011
Saturday - 7 Miles (1 hour)
Easy treadmill run.

2-13-2011
Sunday - 20.1Miles (2:59:19)
What an awesome run. Although the wind was pretty gusty as time it was nice out. Wore my yacktrax and felt very efficient in my stride. I'm not tired and nothing hurts.

Totals
75.2 Miles
10:54 Hours running
30 min strength training

Fatass 50k and Weekly Summary Feb 7 - 13th (with Video)

This week was great.  I managed to get in 82.2 miles and still feel excellent.  On Saturday I ran 31 miles on the Rockingham Rail Trail and had a blast visiting with some old friends.  This is the first time I have run over 20 miles since the Manchester Marathon in October and I couldn't believe how easy it was.  This is the first time I have ever run 50k without any soreness or fatigue at all.  It is a huge mental boost for me to think that this slow base building I've been doing has put me in the best shape I've been at this time of year. 

The absolute best part of this run was when we stopped at the half way point and were hanging out in the Dunkin Donuts parking lot.  John had micro spikes on his shoes and didn't want to go inside to use the bathroom because they are pain to take off.  So he deciced to go pee next to their dumpster.  His back was turned to the parking lot but some guy who was going through the drive through thought it was offensive to his kids to see somebody peeing and freaked out.  He yelled at John and said "THINK!, I'VE GOT KIDS IN THIS CAR!!!".  John stayed calm and  just smiled at him when he was finished.  Unfortunately when he was finished getting his order he decided that he should be a tough guy and yell at John some more.  He opened the passanger window and yelled over his wife at John.  Again, he said that John should THINK.  John said that everybody pees and he should mellow out.  The guy said that he could call have John arrested for indecent exposure.  John laughed at him and said that his back was turned and he and his kids couldn't see anything.  Then John said the funniest thing I heard all day.  John says "Its not indecent exposure you moron.  You didn't see my penis did you?".  You could see the guy freak that his kids just heard the word penis and he was about to get out of the car when his wife convinced him to leave.

It was hilarious.  Every kid goes pee outside.  I'm sure if the guy didn't make such a big deal out of it the kids wouldn't even have noticed.  Instead he made an ass of himself.  Nice example.  The only thing he could have done better is to have gotten out of the car and actually got in a fight with us.  Pretty stupid. 

I never fail to have some type of memorable adventure when I run with this group!  It was a fun day.  Below is a recap of my training for the week.  Keeping with the tradition of last week, I took a video of my Sunday training run to show some of the trails that I'm running on. 

2-07-2011
Monday AM - 6 Miles (51:31).
Ran on the treadmill at 8:35 pace. Again, skipped my strength training because I was worried about getting to work in time to be prepared for our weekly meeting.  I think I'm going to move my weights day to Tuesday.

2-08-2011
Tuesday AM - 6 Miles (51:30 min).
Treadmill. Easy.  Also did 45 min of strength training.

2-09-2011
Wednesday - 12 Miles (1:40:15)
Treadmill again.  Watched some episodes of Weeds.  Its hard to run when your laughing your ass off.

2-10-2011
Thursday - 7.1 Miles (1 Hour)
Ran the snowmobile trails.  First outdoors run in my new Merrell Trail Gloves.  Awesome shoes that have the same feel as my VFF's but no individual toes.  They are extremely well vented and it was 8 below zero.  My feet were freezing.  After a 2.5 mile warmup I did two hill sprints, both up and down, on a .25 mile steep section of the trails.  This is the beginning of my more specific training.  Up to this point all my runs have been very easy base building runs.

2-11-2011
Friday - 10 Miles (1:25:46)
Treadmill easy running. More watching "Weeds" on Netflix.

2-12-2011
Saturday - 31Miles (6 1/2 hours)
Joined my friend "Sherpa" John Lacroix, Josh, Leah, Dan, and  Julie for a Fat Ass style 50k fun run.  Josh, Leah and Dan bailed at the 1/2 point and me John and Julie did the full pull.  I ran a lot slower than I usually do on my Sunday long runs and had an absolute blast.  Felt awesome, zero soreness or fatigue.
2-13-2011
Sunday - 10.1Miles (1:27:50)
Snowmobile Trails.   I couldn't wait to get out this morning.  Had an incredible run in the Merrells and felt great.

Totals
82.2 Miles
31:47 Hours running
30 min strength training

Weekly Summary - January 31 - February 6

1-31-2011
Monday AM - 7 Miles (1 hour).
Ran on the treadmill at 8:35 pace.  Still working on easy running to keep ankle safe.  Feels super easy, like I'm not even working out.  Was supposed to do Strength Workout, but in a rush to get to work.

2-1-2011
Tuesday AM - 6 Miles (51:33 min).
Treadmill.  Easy and boring.  Watching "Weeds" on Netflix.  Love that show.

2-2-2011
Wednesday - 15 Miles (2 hours 8 min)
Ran at St.Pauls School with my friend Ron who is training for Boston.  The track is a .10 mile track.  We did 150 laps. Ron feels it is easier than the treadmill.  Ron's going through a tough time in his life.  I enjoyed our conversation and being there for him.  I have so many friends that have helped me when I was in a tough place its nice to be the one who can listen.  Ran in my Five Fingers for the entire 15 miles.  Felt great.  Nice track surface.  Felt very easy and relaxed.

2-3-2011
Thursday - 7 Miles (1 Hour)
Treadmill. My notes say "Feels great running so easy on the treadmill"

2-4-2011
Friday - 12 Miles (1:43)
Treadmill.  More watching "Weeds" on Netflix.

2-5-2011
Saturday - 7 Miles (1 Hour)
Treadmill - Warm up for workout
45 minutes Strength Training on Bowflex machine.  Also did push ups and sit ups.

2-6-2011
Sunday - 20.06 Miles (3:12:05 - 9:34 pace)
Snowmobile Trails.   Did not want to run this morning.  Overdressed and was sweating a bunch.  Ended up being a great run, but tiring as the snowmobile trails were pretty soft and sucked the life out of me.  Brought my flip cam and took some videos.

Totals
74.1 Miles
10.54 Hours running

It was a great week for me.  My training went well and we are super busy at the shop.  One very interesting thing happened to me.  On Tuesday I attended a seminar on becoming a public speaker and ended up getting invited to give a motivational speech later this month.  I will give more details here on my blog as I get them. I am really looking forward to it!

January recap and Upcoming Plans

I figure since I am going to document this process of getting ready for all these 100 mile races I should regularly share my training.  I am going to make it a weekly habit to post my training. 

For January I ran 295.3 miles.  For those miles I ran 32 runs and took 44 hours to complete them.  I also biked 2.5 miles (it was a warm up for a strength workout), snowshoed for 3 hours and strength trained 7 times.

I am feeling really good at this point in the season.  I still have some lingering pain in my right shin.  It is some leftover tendinitis from my attempt at a fast marathon in November.  To heal it I have been doing a lot of my runs on the treadmill at a slow and easy pace (8:35 minute mile - 7 miles an hour).  I also jumped on the bandwagon right after the marathon and started to use minimalistic shoes.  Dropping my heal to be more level with my forefoot took a lot of pressure off my ankle and has been part of the process of healing.  It was pretty hard on the calves at first but I have been adapting really well.  Its kind of like starting over but I'm having fun concentration on my stride and becoming more efficient.

So far I have signed up and paid for Western States, Vermont and tonight Leadville.  Leadville has decided to cap the race at 750 entrants.  It is the first year that they have set a limit on runners.  From what I understand around 600 people have already signed up! 

This is going to be really tough.  We are super crazy busy at the shop right now and I am seriously looking into opening another location.  Some days, like today, I feel like I am so far behind I don't know how I am going to commit the time to do this 100 mile challenge.  But I am not going to let that stop me.  I know that I will make it happen and I know that I have the support of the people around me.  That is a huge help! 

If anybody is actually reading this and has suggestions on what I might add to my updates please let me know.
Nate

Slammed down!

In my last post I revealed my decision to enter the Grand Slam of Ultrarunning.  Four 100 mile races in four months seems like a pretty good BHAG to use to illustrate the process of getting what you want.  I made that post a few hours after I made the mental commitment to do it, but it seems that I was a bit premature.   The fourth and final race of the slam is the Wasatch 100 in Utah.  It is probably the hardest of the four and to enter the race you have to submit your name (and entry fee) into a lottery.   I had briefly looked at their website and saw the part that said that Grand Slammers would be allowed to run the race even if they didn't get into the lottery, provided that they had finished the three previous races and their quest to complete the slam was still alive.  What I didn't notice is that the deadline to enter the lottery was January 9th.  The lottery is being held on February 5th. 

I emailed the contact link on the website and explained that I had just decided to do the slam and was wondering if I could still put my name in, even though they closed the entries 13 days earlier.  I figured that since Grand Slammers were allowed even if they don't get picked that they would extend me a little latitude.  I was wrong.  Way wrong.  After many emails back and fourth it has become clear to me that there is no way I am getting into the race.


Ronda Sundermeier's 2007 Slam Trophy

At first I was pretty bummed.  I really want that finishers eagle trophy!  I want the prestige that comes with doing something that very few people have done.  Then I remembered why I decided to do it.  I want to document the process.  I want to share the ups and downs that happen when pursuing a dream.  At this point I have two choices.  Quit and chalk it up as it just not being the right time.  I can do it in the future when I get accepted into Western States again, right?  OR...I can just use it as the first obstacle getting in the way of making my dream reality.  That's the reality of pursuing a dream.  It never goes exactly as planned.  I have learned that lesson many times in growing my business.  Sometimes the best things come out of a twist in the road. 

With this in mind I am in the process of picking a fourth race.  It will be equally as difficult and within a week of Wasatch.  At this point I'm leaning towards "the Bear", also in Utah.  I'm even toying with the idea of running a 5th race the month after just to put an exclamation point on my Super Slam.  Maybe I'll even organize this new slam and come up with my own trophy.  Maybe others will want to participate.  Maybe it will turn into something great.  The only thing that matters is that our attitudes towards life's little twists make a huge difference in what we get out of this life.  I am still bummed about not doing the official Grand Slam, but its not going to stop me from moving forward with this dream.

Grand Slam!!! BHAG of 2011

As readers of my blog will know, I've often said that there is a system for getting what you want out of life.  For me it starts with an idea, then that idea becomes a burning passion.  Then I decide to commit to the idea and pursue it with everything I've got to turn it into reality. 

Last year my BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) was to run the Leadville 100.  It was a huge goal and like all big goals it took me way out of my comfort zone.  The thought of running 100 miles through the high altitude Colorado Rockies kept me training hard and in the end I had a great race and a week in Colorado with my family that I will never forget.

This year, like last year, I entered the lottery to run the Western States 100.  This is the race that Dean Karnazes wrote about in his book Ultramarathon man.  It is considered the "Wimbledon" of Ultramarathons.  It has a ton of media coverage and one of the most competitive fields in all Ultra Running.  The race starts at Squaw Valley California and ends in Auburn CA.  It is a point to point race that has everything from snowfields and cold temperatures in the morning to 100 degree canyons in the afternoon.  It is known as a quad fryer as there is 18000 feet of climbing and 22000 feet of descending.  Incredibly, after only my second year trying, my name was picked for one of the 200 spots available out of the 2000 people who applied. 

Until earlier this week I had made the WS100 my BHAG for the year.  I also entered the Vermont 100 which is only 3 weeks after Western States.  I love the VT race and was sad to miss it this year because of an ankle sprain.  It was my first 100 three years ago and I've never run more than one in a year.  

On Friday I had a thought.  I love what I have done with my company, National Powersports.  But I don't think that on my gravestone I want "Here lies Nathan Sanel.  He owned a great Motorcycle Shop".  I really want to do more with my life.  I want to help people achieve their dreams.  I want to show them that there is a process and a way to get whatever they want out of this life.  If my tombstone says "He helped people realize that this life is magical and can be whatever they want" I'll die a much happier man.

If I really want to help people realize that they can do anything that they want I need to take myself out of my comfort zone again.  I want to show how it works and what the process is. 

Running a 100 mile race is something that I am familiar with.  I know what to do.  I know how to train for it.  I have done it before and am comfortable preparing for it.  It is not the unknown.  If I want to document the process of achieving BHAGS I need to set one for myself that scares me. 

I have decided to put my name in for the Grand Slam of Ultrarunning.  The GS is running four of the oldest 100 mile Ultras in a 4 month time period.  It starts with the Western States.  Then 3 weeks later the Vermont 100.  Then Leadville 4 weeks after that.  And if that is not hard enough, the Wasatch 100 in Utah is 4 weeks after Leadville.

I'm scared.  I love being scared and biting off more than I can chew.  I never feel more alive than when I am tackling a challenge that I don't know if I am going to be able to complete. But this is an incredible opportunity to show how the process works.  I made the decision 3 days ago.  I'm going to share with you every step of the process.  I'm not sure of exactly how as I have a few ideas, but I am going to commit to you that I will post once a week at the minimum.  I think that sharing the process from now until I finish in September will give you a view into how I go about changing my life and hopefully it will inspire others to take their life into their control and realize that they can do anything that they want.