Surprise! I’m baaaaack. I know, I went AWOL there for a few months – no blog posts, no new Fitness Protection Program workouts, no new articles. Hell, when I write it like that it sounds like I basically earned the “sucked” rating. Sorry about that. I know all 5 of my faithful readers were devastated.
I’ve spent the last few months simplifying my life, running, working out like a wild woman, and learning to be more mindful and peaceful. The only two Big Deals are the way Shauna and I have changed our grocery shopping lives and recently becoming one Tough Mudder.
Shauna and I got all inspired by this family who went a whole year without buying food from grocery stores. So we decided to do a similar thing ourselves. For the last 4 month we’ve gotten all of our food (with only a couple of exceptions) by growing it ourselves, from the farmer’s market, from local farmers, or directly from not-so-local-but-as-close-as-we-can farmers. We now spend only about $30 a month at the grocery store. We eat seasonally, organically, and in a way that’s a hellavalot more connected and, dare I say it, RIGHT than ever before.
One other noteworthy event since I went silent back in November, is that I have now attained official Tough Mudder status. That’s right, kids, I completed the event that likes to refer to itself as Probably the Toughest Event on the Planet. Along with a few of my fellow crazies, I did the SoCal Tough Mudder at Vail Lake in February. And it was indeed tough. It would take a whole separate blog to really tell you about my adventure there, so let me leave you with these few words. Artic Enema (just one of over 20 military grade obstacles) just about froze me to death. I ran the whole thing (11 miles), and I loved it! And I would so do another one!
What’s up for the rest of this year, you ask? I’m going DIY for the rest of the year as much as I can figure out how to. Shauna and I really have been focused on living more simply and in more of a minimalist way. So after we came up with our To Do List for 2012 we looked at how much of it we could make happened DIY-Style.
Tough Mudder was a not a candidate for a DIY Event. I wasn’t going to build 20+ obstacles, so I paid for that one. I had already signed up and paid for another go at Are You Tough Enough (happening in a week).But there were others we could do on our own. Instead of signing up for the Goleta Duathlon, we’re going DIY. We’re training for and putting together our own event – a 5k run, then a 20 mile bike ride, then a 5k run. We almost signed up for the Eppie’s Great Race which is a triathlon that has paddling instead of swimming. Hell, we can do that one ourselves as well. So in June we’ll do our own masterpiece course (which is still top-secret and . . . in production) running 5.82 miles, biking 12.5 miles, then finishing with a 6.35 mile paddle.
We had already paid for a spot in the Big Blue Adventure Race at Lake Tahoe in September prior to our DIY decision. As I think this one over, it would have been cheating to put together our own course anyway. Let’s put all adventure races on the list of events that you shouldn’t try to do for yourself.
What can DIY Event can you do this year? A run of just about any kind works. Just remember that you’d better have some good friends to recruit as your race support if you do longer “races” like half marathons, marathons, or . . . ultras. DIY Tri just plain sounds good, doesn’t it? So that one’s gotta be doable. Put together your own cycling event. Why not? A half century or full century. Make your own route, as challenging as suits you. Why pay a bunch of money when you can do your own? I suppose if you just gotta have a medal, your name listed on the Results page, or an event t-shirt, then the organized events are probably more for you. But me? I’m after the experience . . . and the shirts never fit me anyway!
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