Well, this is the first of many to come. In about 85 days, I will be undertaking an effort which even a year ago didn’t even seem possible. It’s a 100-mile race - specifically the Greenbrier 100.

The journey to this point has been one of what I would call exponential growth. It started a little over a year ago with a spontaneous half-marathon on trail and then escalated to a 50k. The first felt like an accident - like nothing that I would never do again; but, like so many others, it was not long before I signed up for another. That was the Ironmasters Challenge - a grueling 50k and my first experience with distance over a marathon.

It was a challenging journey leading up to it from the long training runs to finding the balance between life and training. For much of the time when I was on winter break, training was easy - I had ample time and energy. However, when the return to college came around, it became a different story. Training took a back seat and at some points just dissipated to nothing more than when it was convenient. As the race approached, I knew I was in shape, but there was a lingering question of would I be able to do this? Would I end in a DNF? I was able to, though. I got out there and just kept pushing - mile-by-mile till the end. It wasn’t fast but it was a journey I will never forget.

After the 50k, I wasn’t sure what was next. Was it another? Was it a half? Was it a marathon? Was it more? As a hiker, I just kept getting out there and hiking/camping on the weekends and training during the summer. This continued through the fall semester until the same half that I ran last year started approaching. I thought why not but with training this year. I started training and the somewhat dormant flame was reignited. I wasn’t able to run the formal half marathon but found time to run one on my own. With the goal of sub 2 hours on-trail, I set out one morning to do it - and did.

There was some downtime after that, but the complacency started to get to me. I wondered if there was something more, again. I felt the same latent flame that I felt after the previous half. This was when the idea of a 100-mile race began to manifest as more than an idea. I had watched youtube videos on them, read, and found an infatuation. Knowing myself, I knew that if I were to do this it would be both a physical challenge and an emotional one. Having trained for the 50k, I knew the same challenges with that one would accompany this one. This was when I decided to seek out a coach - both someone to provide programming and someone to help maintain the training-life balance. Having found the race, I looked up #greenbrier100 on Instagram and found bdg123, an athlete of Adam Kimble. One thing led to another and before I knew it, I was training remotely with Adam.

That brings us to this post. So far, I’ve been training for a little over a month and have been loving it. There have been challenges from being sick to finding time to train. However, after every run and each week, I find I love each moment of it.

As I had to write this blog for my senior seminar in computer science, I thought why not use it as a tool for reflection in other areas. So, this is installment 0 with the goal to get you up to speed for the weekly training blogs to come.