Chris Werner

"Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too; this is why a great and clear mind loves ardently and sees distinctly what he loves."   Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) French mathematician, physist, and religious philosopher.

It has been so long since I've written...and it for a moment it felt overwhelming...then I came to my senses and realized I'm not writing a chrinicle of daily experience, but trying to capture a bit of my journey.

Competiting  The Boise 70.3 Half-Ironman last on June 13th, driving through NorCal, through Lake Tahoe and the Cascades, and then into the high desert through South East Oregon and into Idaho...and experiencing one of the best races I've had in the backdrop of Boise Idaho, a truly incredible place. 

Getting ready for Ironman Lake Placid on July 26th.  Training, going longer, maneuveuring through the setbacks, cherishing the successes, and realizing what living along ultra-endurance envelope does for me as I completely immerse myself in it's whacked out crazy world!

Launching a business, Merchant of Speed (www.merchantofspeed.com), providing the fastest carbon fiber racewheels (amongst other products) to the masses! 

It's coming full circle, life that is.  Living, working, training, experiencing, all inextrcably linked to my passion for ultra-endurance.  Do I call ultra-endurance 'living'? I guess that's the term I use, not just swimming, cycling, running, but a way of attacking life I've adopted that seems, for me at least, to give meaning, to open doors, and reveal the most unpredictable twists and turn along the journey...

...off on 140 miles on the bike today, along with yesterday's 60, that's already putting me at the 200 mile mark for the week - Ironman approaches and Boise 70.3 is 5 weeks away....it's time to drop the hammer!

I will update later this evening along with some awesome pics from Wildflower!

“We are happy when for everything inside us there is a corresponding something outside us.” W.B. Yeats, Irish poet and dramatist (1865-1939)

I was just finishing up running for this morning and I was looking out over the lush green country side approaching Las Trampas Regional Wilderness.  I was on the road, flanked on both sides byrolling foothiils, cow pastures and horse farms, everything green, almost artificial green, like something from a-post-card-from-Ireland-green.  The rain has now subsided, the weather is warm, and this is the period of time before summer, when everything is alive!  

Meanwhile...inside my "psyche" I am thinking about work, training, coaching, various business ventures, to-do lists, blah, blah, blah...and to boot, I'm stuck staring at my Heart Rate (which my coach would not mind me doing, but still, look around, the Garmin LCD screen hardly matches the beauty of the foothills of Las Trampas!). 

I realized looking around, for this 1 hour period of time, I don't have to worry about anything.  If an answer comes to me while I'm out in the moment, somewhere 5, 10 miles into the run, so be it.

I'm actually training, pushing towards a goal...and I'm out here by necessity...but look what, by default, I'm surrounded by!  I could be in a snowstorm in Chicago (where I moved to the west coast from), or under the frigid overcast skies in suburban New York (where I grew up).  It's really amazing.  This is my daily routine!  This is where I live!  (and for those of you in Chicago...if you're running south along the Lake Front...Turn your head right...that's the Chicago Skyline you're running against, if that's not inspriation, you need to book a ticket to Tibet...and it will be just as cold there!).

I read the quote by Yeats above, and it makes sense...in the reverse....if I only took my surroundings as a reminder to let my mind go free, even for just an hour...there would be some harmony! 

I guess it's getting over myself that's at the heart of the matter.  I'm out here for a scheduled training session.  No excuses, I have Iron-distance triathlon training, big races coming up, etc.  I live and work in endurance sports, so I need to be out here doing this.  Why not just get over all the BS and just take it for it is!  A 1 hour trek of inspiration, where I have no requirement to think about anything in my life other than putting one-foot-in-front-of-the-other!

Without going on-and-on, I know some people who are really into ultra-endurance in various compacities, and if they are reading this whilst dealing with life's inevitable personal crises...

...take it for what it is...training is a reprive from anything and everything, for most of you...you're training to race, whether it's half-ironman, Ironman, Western States 100, who knows...and you've got to be out here.

I guess look at the quote above in the reverse, let yourself feel a little bit like the blue skies and green hills for at least a little while!

I'm trying to do the same, so I'm just suggesting this as a fellow crazy, over-worked, over-trained endurance athlete...

...who sometimes doesn't realize how epic a journey this lifestyle really is!

We are happy when for everything inside us there is a corresponding something outside us.  W.B. Yeats, Irish poet and dramatist (1865-1939)

"Crossing at a ford" means, for example, crossing the sea at a strait, or crossing over a hundred miles of broad sea at a crossing place. I believe this "crossing at a ford" occurs often in a man's lifetime. It means setting sail even though your friends stay in harbor, knowing the route, knowing the soundness of your ship, and the favor of the day. When all conditions are meet, and there is perhaps a favorable wind, or a tailwind then set sail. If a wind changes within a few miles of your destination, you must row across the remaining distance without sail."  from A Book of Five Rings  by Miyamoto Musashi (17th century Japanese warrior)

A halycyon time of peace, the sun bright, the air crisp.  I could see out west towards the rolling hills covered with windmills, how small they look...Towards the east I could see the bay, just barely make it out, and see what might be Mount Tam far off in the distance.  It was a moment of peace and clarity.  Alone, I had unclipped from the bike and adjusted my helmet and sunglasses, and I took a moment to take a deep breath and head down.

I had been on my bike for hours, 100+ miles at this point, and I had just climbed Mt. Diablo in the aero position, to check my gut and see if I still had it in me.  It would have been better to keep my heart rate down in Zone 2 and bank some more pure aerobic miles to my base...but I has to see if I could do it again.  I could and it was even less of a challenege than in the past.

It actually made complete sense to me, it was completely clear why the effort was easier...I was armed with knowledge of exactly how my body was responding at the cellular level.

....how my body was recruting various energy supply systems

...how much by products of certain energy supply systems were sitting in my blood, or in reuptake for use as enerygy again.

...it's a confidence that's hard to describe, but I can alsmost see the incredible sypmphony playing, a machine in balance working, from cell, to cell, to cell.  It's a powerful experience.

I was just re-tested again, the same Blood Lactate Test I do every 10 weeks with my coach and his team at Performance Labs in Mill Valley, CA. 

My T1 power numbers (my Ironman bike "cruise" numbers, and my run "race pace" numbers) show that I maintained the base of aerobic fitness from the 2008 season, and that I can now start to build from a base 30% stronger that the year before.  Also, my effieciency in T1 is bettter, my Heart Rate is lower, and my calorie expenditure, my 'burn rate' in T1 is greatly improved.  I will be re-tested again soon, and I need to get out there are contiue to log the long, slow miles it takes to get faster...slower to get faster....slower to get faster...

....so the base is set...and now I have the Boise 70.3 Half-Ironman on June 13th, Ironman Lake Placid July 26th and Ironman Arizona in November out there (thus far) with more races to soon populate the schedule.  The building begins. 

In that moment of peace atop Mt Diablo, I knew inside this season was one of major progression.  In the prossess of establishing myself as an athlete, a coach, and a business person and entrpeneur in the endurance sports industry...I have taken a giant leap into the unknown.

..."it's a crossing at the ford" as the quote so eloquently puts it above.  My  descision to leave the harbor and set sail is more a drive to be out at sea and experiencing life.  It's not a decision I really thought about.  I do know I will not except remaining stagnant, I need to explore my limits physically and in all other aspects of my being.  And in that moment of clarity earlier today I realized I am just embarking on such a journey...