On a Roll

I'm organizing my life for the next 8 weeks of bar preparation.  My life includes the family.  So, this process involves organizing the family calendar as well.  

Sometimes, the family calendar prevails.  Sometimes, bar prep prevails.  It's a delicate balance of pursuit and sane, reasonable, delightful family life.  Actually, as I think about Marty and my lives, there hasn't been much balancing between pursuit and family; as if pursuit were done to the exclusion of family.  Our pursuits have only been "pursued" to the extent that the family does not suffer.  Otherwise, the pursuit is difficult to justify.

Yes, back to organizing, and pursuits.  I took a minute to organize some running photos and stumbled on this...

Pete and me on Sugarloaf Pass during the 2007 Leadville 100 mile race. 

So, organizing tonight led me to the issue of pursuit once again.  Pete and I are attempting Leadville again in August.  The training is tricky this summer; bar prep, soccer, track camp, wrestling with red faced boys, summer camps, filling holes in the siding dug by hungry woodpeckers, reading my daughter's blogs, bar exam, and lots more.  

In the most recent issue of Ultrarunning magazine, Gary Cantrell wrote about the motivation of ultrarunners who, he says, are notoriously successful people.  Cantrell says that our society abhors failure.  Real life has degenerated into an "endless series of suspense-free slam-dunks."  He suggests that the possibility of failure is actually appealing.  People run long races not because they can but because it's possible to not finish one.   I've been there, done that. 

I can fail at ultras; I can't fail with the family.