Who said it was easy?

Been a while since I posted on the blog. Why? It is summer, and I am busy... Although, life is not always easy. Neither is training for 100 miles and writing about it... The last post was on weight loss. That is always challenging. It was on the recovery from Afton a while back, which was not easy. Then there was the knee. But we all have those times in our personal lives, which are also never easy. It could be the job or the relationships we have in life. Sometimes, a relationship is more complex than running 100 miles. But how would I know? I have yet to run 100 miles. Some would question if I ever had a real
relationship as well.

Relationships can be broken, and one can only wonder if they can ever be fixed. This thought came to me when a fellow blogger recently posted about 1986 and where she was in her life. (Elementary School, and I was a year out of university life - I felt so old!)) I also had just come off my first year of running marathons. I was dating a girl named Lori for three years. It was that interesting
kind of relationship. You know, I was a cocky diminutive 24-year-old who really needed to be slapped. I always told her I was with her for fun (what an ass I was), and she never believed me. The band I was in even wrote a song about that relationship. It was named "I am in love with your body, not your mind." 

Looking back at the pictures, the long hair (perms were used to get those REO Speedwagon curls!)
Then, one day in May 1986, she looked at me and said, "You are not kidding; you are only with me for fun." I said yes, she dumped me, and that was it. I often thought of how terrible I was for
doing that and wondered if I should have worked to salvage a relationship I never thought I had. I did nothing and moved on... My most recent dating experience has that same feeling with roles changed... It makes me wonder if I have come full circle. I once had a friend who said relationships are like a car. You keep them going as long as you can, but they need to end at some point. I'm not sure if I ever believed that, but he is on his second wife and his second car since I met him. I also have a friend with his first wife, who is 23 years old and still drives the 1980s Honda Civic... He loves that car and loves his wife.

Most recently, my real-world job has been difficult. I love my work as a city planner, so do not get me wrong. There are times when several hundred people have opposite desires. It creates a clash
that stresses the old body and makes training hard. I am happy I have been getting close to 40 or more miles in a week and a few hundred on the bike. In my real job, we have
a time-consuming and often stressful redevelopment.

I just finished a lengthy public hearing with hundreds of people over a delicate land use issue tonight. Many legal minds and one of the greatest companies I know were on the opposite side of many
citizens and myself. There are many talented people in this world doing their jobs, but they are fighting people like me and others who make it hard for them to complete the tasks they are hired to complete. But people's homes, neighborhoods, and corporate desires often clash. Many times I am on the side with corporate groups and many times the neighbors. This project is one where I sided with many of the citizens, and I have had some pretty brutal communications calling me incompetent, calling me an idiot, and saying I am not acting in the community's best interest. Either way, I did my job, and I know someone would be upset.

Anyway, after all that, I now have three weekends in a row free and less stress so I can train. Still looking to do a run on the Superior Trail in the first or second week of August. I will send a note on MNDRS next week to see if there are any takers. The more I think about it, I want to leave Minneapolis at about 5 AM and run from Finland to Cty Rd #1. This is where I expect to be in the dark, and I want to see it in the day. Will see what works... Need to get a driver lined up first.

Carry on...