I’ve decided on a race schedule for the year. It’s many months away, and of course it (like everything else, natch) is subject to change. Change is all we have!
10/16 Palo Duro Canyon 50K (Amarillo, TX) I can’t stay away from the Canyon.
11/20 Ultracentric 12 Hour (Dallas, TX) After what many considered less than stellar race management in 2008, this race apparently addressed several of runners’ main concerns in 2009 (although big names present in ’08 stayed away), and it’s the only 12 hour race in November within an hour’s drive. If nothing else, I can get in a training run for …
12/? Run Like The Wind 24 Hour (Austin, TX) Signed up for this one last year, but after crashing out of the Palo Duro 50 Mile I decided not to try it. Will try again this year, but only if I don’t make …
12/31 Across The Years 24 Hour (Buckeye, AZ) I’m in the lottery and won’t know until May 1 if I “win” an entry.
So, something of a schedule. For early 2011, I’d perhaps like to go back to Rocky Raccoon (Huntsville, TX) for the 100 mile again in February, maybe give 24 Hours of Utah a shot in March, and one more ultra in someplace new to me for April-May.
My primary goal for 2010 is to get the mojo back and stay race-ready until next June, then take a little break. “Getting my mojo back,” for a Zen practitioner like me, means returning to shoshin, or my beginner’s mind. In Sunryu Suzuki’s classic book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, he says: “[In your Zen practice] For awhile you will keep your beginner’s mind, but if you continue to practice one, two, three years or more, although you may improve some, you are liable to lose the limitless meaning of original mind.”
Keeping our beginner’s mind, where there are many possibilities and we are not aware of boundaries, is not easy in Zen or in running. “That is the real secret of the arts: always be a beginner,” Suzuki says. “Be very careful about this point.”
Here’s to rediscovering the mind (and trail) without limits in 2010.
