Something we will improve upon
Running. I have the St. Jude Marathon on December 1st (Please go donate to my fundraising page: http://heroes.stjude.org/vonralls ), and I registered for the Sylamore 50K today which will be in February. I’ve really neglected my running for a long time. Look, I guess I’m just naturally good at running a long way. I can run a 4 hour marathon without really training too hard outside of CrossFit. I can finish a 100 mile race without doing too much running. I really want to see how well I can do on these next two races while focusing on running. I’m 4 weeks out from the 26.2 right now so I need to get to work.
Source of motivation
I’ve had an idea for a couple years about an LHRL retreat. There’s a big house or resort at the top of the mountain you can see at the start of the Sylamore 50k. I half-jokingly said a couple years ago that one day we’re going to rent that place out and have a big LHRL event where everyone comes and just hangs out for a weekend, runs and just has a good time. Look, we’re well on our way to something like that being a real possibility.
The Big Hill Pond 25/50K was just last Saturday and we really had a huge LHRL turnout. The Sylamore 50K went on sale today and sold out in 5 minutes. All of the podcast crew and many of our people were able to get registered for the race before it sold out. We’ve already filled up two cabins. I feel like this LHRL thing is starting to snowball bigtime and it’s very motivating. In a couple years we’re going to be looking at a pretty large entity. That’s dope.
Weekly Training Progress & Goals
I’m hanging in there. I need to really sit down and program myself some running. Skill practice, intervals and some mileage. I really want to put some good effort into these next races. I’m not sure I can PR the 26.2 (please go donate to my fundraiser http://heroes.stjude.org/vonralls) but it’s not an impossibility. 3:43 is my best. I REALLY want to see if I can bust 6 hours at Sylamore on the 50k. My best is 6:03 I think.
Weekly Nutrition Progress & Goals
We had two days of Halloween (long story) so there was lots of candy, not going to lie and not going to beat myself up over it. I weighed in at 194 yesterday which is 2 pounds down from the last Wednesday weigh in. Shout out to Elijah Landon for posting the Wednesday weigh in posts on the Facebook group. That really does keep me motivated even though I know sometimes the scale doesn’t matter.
Life obstacle
Organization and structure. I had an epiphany a couple months ago about how things were going, and as a result I figured out how to fix a lot of things and do a lot of things much better than I had been doing them. As a result I’ve been really crushing work and LHRL stuff, and I’ve recognized a lot of other ways I can improve. The problem is that I have no structure so I took a couple of weeks and tried to come up with a solution. I’ve decided to force myself to schedule everything and put it on a calendar. I am going to try to follow that calendar religiously. For example, check in the LHRL app, write the status blog, record a vlog, etc. We’ll see how it goes. If a vlog doesn’t come out by Saturday morning I’m not doing good. Hah!
Life victory
This whole LHRL thing. The podcast, the community, all of it. Just an idea that sparked in my head a few years ago standing at the starting line for the Sylamore 50k. Crazy. I know I hardly do any work for it, but in a roundabout way it’s a victory to see how it’s grown and continues to grow.
Something we are grateful for
I’m grateful for all the people that have put up with me for the last 4-5 years and are still around. When you lose your good job in your late 30’s, open a gym, start a podcast, try to keep training, and try to keep your family going, fed and happy it can be stressful. You can react in lots of different ways and go through lots of different emotions. I’m very grateful for all the people that are still around after all the weird phases I’ve been through and all the dumb shit I’ve done in the last 5 years.
Something we learned from podcast guest
Yo!! We had the man, the myth, the legend, Kevin Leathers on the show this week! This is really special to me. I’ve been wondering why for the last couple weeks and here’s what I think. Kevin is an awesome Coach and a really cool individual. St. Jude was my first Marathon ever like 8 or 9 years ago. If you run that Marathon you know Kevin because he’s there official coach and he’s also very well know around Memphis where I live. I wish I could remember the first time I met him, but I can’t. When I first started coaching I’d randomly send him emails or post on his blog questions about how he handles his athletes and how he did certain things. He always responded and always helped. It really blew me away that this guy would take time to answer my questions. I started seeing him at ultras I was running and other races and he’d make wisecracks like, “Shouldn’t you be bench pressing” as he passed me on the trail. It really made me feel good that he even knew who I was and recognized me.
Here’s what I learned. Your heroes are just people. You can sit down with them and talk to them. Nobody is any more special than you are, you just think they are really cool. We’re all the same. We’re all just human beings and we want each other to succeed.
-Rev