Kick Start, Leadville Leadman 2012

The last 11 months have been an amazing journey. What began as a close friend's transformational story into a Push-Up King (120,000 in a calendar year), kick started a fire inside me to go after more. Seven months later, I PR'd a marathon, finished 3rd in my first 50 mile run race and achieved even more satisfaction through motivating and pushing many friends to do even better with their own lives.

I feel so blessed to have the most amazing support structure surrounding my endurance lifestyle. An amazing wife who knows what I can accomplish and won't let me settle, two incredible sons that are now under the impression that running and cycling are my job and a life balance that allows me the flexibility to enjoy my family and fitness.

Reviewing my plan from this last season I needed to determine if I was prepared physically and mentally to take a large step forward with my endurance challenge. I structured last year's race dates and distances to reflect a smaller version of the penultimate goal, Leadman 2012. Looking back I feel like I was able to build the right amount of strength and endurance to physically withstand the test of multiple running and cycling events of substantial distances. By the end of this race season I was tired, but the last 2 months of reflecting, resting and planning have me more fire up than ever.

These 60 days of "off" time I was still able to log 400 miles of running, enjoyable single speed mountain bike rides, mountainous road bike rides and spectacular trail runs. The Lifetime Fitness Leadville Race Series announced the dates that would make up the summer of 2012 race series, a.k.a Leadman Epic Challenge. Plugging those race dates into my calendar was step one, rounding up a team of supporters to fuel my obsession is step two and my final step has already begun, commence this ridiculous fitness training quest. Again, I will start to chronicle my journey as I push myself beyond previous assumptions of my physical limits. Thanks to all for the support, this is going to be fun. Feel free to come along for the ride.

Continually repeating to myself...
"To give anything less than the best is to sacrifice the gift."
- Steve Prefontaine