Chris Werner

“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!