Welp, That Was Unexpected
When I last updated this thing the world was shutting down. Amanda and I were trying to figure out how to ethically fix up a house that was a disaster with the storm clouds of the pandemic descending on us all. I resolved to continue chasing The 444 but had to pause training to be an adult for a while. Nights and weekends over 10 weeks Amanda and I logged 750 hours putting a rental house back together before turning it over to a wonderful family to make their home. It actually made the shutdown a lot more bearable when we got to be by ourselves spread between 2 different places, but it didn't really advance any of my athletic goals for 2020. By the time we got to May 1st it was clear that things were getting better, but I couldn't see anyway that The 444 was going to happen. Let me clarify that, I didn't see anyway that I was going to participate in The 444. It seemed like the race would happen, but I couldn't see asking anyone in my life to come crew for me. It didn't matter if they would say 'yes'. I couldn't get past the idea that asking for a commitment to travel to Tennessee and then crew for me as I biked continuously across several states ending at the Louisiana border in the middle of a pandemic was just too much. I contacted the race director right away. There was still 6 months to prepare. That would be plenty of time for someone that wanted to take my spot to get ready. He was able to register a replacement cyclist and while I don't know who it was I hope they had the time of their life.
I probably should have updated the blog when all of this happened, but it was just too much. I don't think I failed, but I did decide with plenty of time left on the calendar to not even try. It made the wordplay behind naming this blog tri2bike bite just a little bit harder. Besides, there were way more important things going on in the world and writing about some athletic goal just didn't seem to matter anymore.
Not trying left me without any direction on how to spend my now ample spare time. Amanda was still chasing her goal of biking a 100k for the Tour de Cure and while it had gone virtual there was no way that she was not going to follow through on a thing that she had registered for. I got to have some joy helping her train, despite the occasional swearing as she was convinced that I had intentionally added extra miles to our planned route. Nope, just missed a turn. Really! I promise! She kept changing and growing as an athlete in ways that I don't think she ever expected. By the time the rescheduled virtual 100k was on the calendar we had ridden 100km+ on several occasions just to have the experience of exploring new roads together.
While training with Amanda I also did enough running to make sure that I could get through the 2020 Virtual Boston Marathon in September. There was no motivation to run fast, just check the box to increment the streak. I've now officially completed 7 Boston Marathons in a row. The 2021 race is in limbo. I expect it will be virtual again, but however they decide to approach 2021 I can at least be confident that I'll be allowed to register and increment the streak to 8 in a row. Pardon the brag, but it is awfully nice sitting on a BQ-24 minutes. In the midst of writing a hard post it is a gift to be able to think back to the last real marathon I ran and smile at just how damned special it was to pull of the big PR and run 2:56 in Chicago. I'm a very lucky guy.
The 2020 Virtual Boston Marathon should have gotten a race report written, but it didn't. The run wasn't that great. I decided to do a point to point 26.2 on the canal path that started in Medina NY and ended next to my home in Adams Basin NY. The run had its moments and it might have gotten some good laughs writing about the 2 million times I had to stop and pee, or the lost dog that wanted to play and come home with me, or the KOMs that I picked up near Albion NY, but really it was just a run. A 4 hour solo marathon that somehow had 30,000 other people around that I couldn't seem to find. A melancholy moment when I did a thing to increment a streak of things that my heart just wasn't in. Then I got on the bike and rode 30 miles back to the start line to retrieve the truck. Can anyone say bike/run brick?
Along the way I got talked into the Can Lake 50. It seemed like a great way to redeem 2020. It wasn't a bike ultra but it was an ultra. I've never run an ultra. I was in decent shape. I've got the course record for the 25 km edition the first year it was run. (not that impressive, small race, only held twice) The race was close enough on the calendar and still taking registrations that it seemed like it would actually happen. I became convinced it would be run when I saw all of the changes they had made to make it COVID appropriate. It was fun trying to set goals and test that I was ready for it. I liked having a reason to run and a motivation to design a training plan that would help me get the most out of my body in the time I had left. The last couple of weeks of running before Can Lake 50 was cancelled were tough. Runs are great because the solitude provides time to reflect on things. I've solved many an unsolvable problem while on a run, but now the opposite was happening. Every run gave me a chance to think about life in very negative ways. Those last couple of weeks of run training I finished almost every run mad. It doesn't matter what I was mad about, I just was. With a race to prepare for so close I needed to keep grinding out the work and I did right until the Can Lake 50 was cancelled. I was relieved. I no longer had a reason to run.
I needed focus. The kind of focus that isn't optional. The pay attention or something really bad could happen kind of focus. I'm really lucky to have met some great people in the last year or two and one of them, Jake, took me under his wing and helped me brave that scary room at the Y where all of the heavy stuff was. I'm also lucky in that I had an old, unused set of heavy weights stored at home. There had never been a time when I was lifting weights at the Y where I was able to think about anything other than the exact task at hand. I built a rack out of wood in our garage and got to work. It. Was. Awesome. It was a challenge. It wiped me out. It kept my focus. It gave me a path to improve at a thing that I'd only just started to see big benefits from before the pandemic changed everything. This part of the story is going to get its own posts soon that include how the rack was built, the addition of the world's most overengineered mirror and the mistakes/successes that I've been able to have chasing completely new types of fitness.
The tri2bike blog is done but in the short time that it was a genuine thing I liked the format of keeping a public diary of sorts. There were several times this year that I wanted to share a story but couldn't bring myself to come out here and push past the fact that The 444 and all other events like it are nowhere to be found in my plans anymore. Avoiding the writing of the obituary of my 2020 dreams is not going to stop me any longer.
The year is almost done and while I have no idea what next year is going to be like it will include some occasional navel gazing for anyone that cares to take a look. I'm mulling around a few different challenges in 2021 (ACFT, Solo Charity Ride, Clydesdale Nats, Something Else?) but without a specific purpose to document I've renamed the blog Couch2Boston. Sometimes when we are trying to figure out where we want to go we need to be reminded of where we have been. The name Couch2Boston, or just 'Couch' for short reminds me of many great years posting on The Runner's World message boards where I got to know some incredible, inspiring athletes. The name 'Couch' is one I always wore with pride after the epic year of 2012/2013 when I started running, lost 80 pounds and BQ'd in 371 days. I'm a former couch potato that managed to get healthy and stay healthy for 8+ years now. That journey is something I'll always be proud of that can't be taken away.
Goodbye 2020, time to find new ways to chase joy in 2021...
