It's been a while since Yellow Dog has had the blogging bug, so he told me to go ahead an take over for a while. We've been living the good life here in Boone for the last year or so doing lots of adventuring and a lot of training for long runs. Yellow Dog has retired from distance running since his knee surgery a couple of years ago. He still joins me for the occasional short run (5 miles or less), but he has been my faithful hiking companion and he can still hike with the best of them. He's been doing a lot of hiking/hill training with me in the backyard as I've been starting to get ready for my next big race: The Leadville 100. I've spent the last 6 weeks or so recovering from the Rocky Raccoon 100. Training for Leadville is going to be a new beast. Up to now, most of my ultra running goals have just been meeting the goal of making the distance. With Leadville, I really want to excel and see where I push myself. I feel like this race is really the "soul surfing" of ultra running. It's a race for grinders. It is a race that rewards enduring suffering, and I really like that. With all that in mind, I've been slowly kicking off my training over the last two weeks and will kick it into high gear over the next few weeks.

I've decided to try my hand at a little training blog, and YD told me to go ahead and use his blog for a while to help me document my training and help me keep track of my thoughts as I prepare. So, for the next few months, my friends, I'll be blogging about my training here.

If you've found this blog or you're a friend who's followed YD's blog for a while, I hope you'll enjoy reading about this journey to see what's possible in the mountains. Because, for me, that's what distance running is all about. It's a time for me to just be. To think about nothing and everything. To turn ideas around in my head, and to get a break from thinking about work and day to day stuff. Mostly, it's a way to explore the woods, explore my limits, and be with my amazing friends who support me by pacing me, crewing me, and running with me as a I train. I also want to start this blog by saying how much I appreciate my friends and family who indulge my running habit. I know it takes a lot of time and I devote a lot of travel time to running when I could be visiting family or friends in far off places. Thank you for understanding- even if you don't understand the drive to run distances like these- I appreciate your indulgence.

So, that's it for now. Short and sweet. I'll be back soon with the first training update. As always, I'm running for my fallen Marine brothers. I hope that my running serves the higher purpose of raising awareness of the sacrifices being made for us by our Military. Every run I do is in their honor and I hope you'll check out the website for Always Brothers . Take a minute and check out the site. If you can spare a few bucks make a donation. If not, please help us spread the word.

Thanks. Hope you have a great day. Semper Fi and Semper Fratres.
Trev