My Life from December 2010 to April 2013

This is a brief overview of my life for the past 2 1/2 years.  At the end of 2010 I started doing a running/comedy podcast with my buddies Carl and Russ called 3nonjoggers.  We had a blast doing this.  Coincidentally my running life and my health and outlook on life started to take a turn for the worse about that time.  I have always had a lot of nervous energy and running long distances in the woods always alleviated this and kept it under control.  Starting at the end of 2010 running no longer was helping me with this issue.  I started experiencing really significant anxiety and physical fatigue which was quite puzzling to me.   I basically started to run less and less, not because I didn't want to run, but because it was not stress relieving anymore but instead was very difficult and exhausting.  Mentally and emotionally I wanted to run but it was just not providing the rewards it once did.  I got to a point in 2012 where I didn't run for more than 6 weeks.  I have never taken more than a week or so off  for the past 25 years so this was not normal for me.  I spent a lot of time sleeping more and resting more and when I went back to running a little bit after the 6 week break I didn't feel like the break really helped.  I was just as tired and exhausted.  Since then I have continued to run some, about 15 to 20 miles per week with the hope that some time in the future I will feel better and ready to run more.

So starting at the beginning of 2013 I decided I would just try a little experiment.  My plan was to add a minimum of 1 mile per week and slowly increase my running over the course of 2013.  I started running a 12 mile week the first week of February and have increased to 28 miles run week ending 4/14/1013.  So far so good.  I am still having the same issues of being overly tense and physically very tired but I have decided that I am going to figure this out and solve this issue.  I am attacking this from two angles.  Physically, which includes nutrition, and spiritually/mentally.  This blog will mostly cover the my journey from the physical/nutritional angle, but I will mention certain aspects of the spiritual/mental side.  I think that anyone who has run a 100 mile race in the mountains knows that it is very much a spiritual experience.  I want to experience crossing the finish line of a 100 mile mountain race again and this is my journey back to that point.