Taper musings

     My summer training for my first 50k is over.  The race is several days away and I'm in the middle of tapering for the big day.  I enjoy training for sure.  In reality, maybe I just enjoy running.  I especially enjoy trail running.  Trail running gives me time to be away from people and offers me a form of meditation.  The solitude of nature is my escape.
     I'm looking forward to the 50k as an adventure.  Traveling to a different state to run different trails and running the farthest I've ever run before is more appealing.  I'm not interested in beating anybody.  I want to conquer the distance not my fellow runners.  Last year my emphasis was on running both far and fast.   I think my past emphasis on times and placing brought out competitiveness that I am trying to avoid at this stage of my development as a long distance runner.  Being competitive led to nothing but injuries for me last year.  I have too many plans coming up this fall and being injured is not one of them.
     I'm holding onto the idea of this event as as adventure.   I want to appreciate my surroundings while running this new distance.  Running farther than I have ever run before has been my focus and fascination this year.   Running in Ohio and Kansas and around Indiana has been a blast while pushing myself physically as well as mentally has been fun.  
     I have been reading about different Buddhist philosophies and experimenting with meditation.  Incorporating these thoughts and ideas into my life and running has been fun and challenging. The last few months have been an experiment of discovering things that have been useful.  The months have also been a time of scrapping the things that haven't been useful.  All of these things I've been learning, discovering, and inventing are puzzle pieces that I have been trying to fit into a picture of what I hope will make me a better person and runner.  Hopefully, the journey to Michigan and the 50k experience will help me discover more pieces of the puzzle that will help me understand what I have been developing and searching for.