A Rush Of Blood To The Head

As I type this it's officially Christmas here in my home town of Toledo, Ohio. Being back home with my mom Laura, with the familiarities and comforts has helped me relax and enjoy being alone and out of Portsmouth. Recently, I've find myself in a weird period of my life. A time where I'm questioning everything and anything that has taken up these past couple years. I've been so caught up in things that can waste a whole lifetime to realize these are suppose to be the best years of my life. Having some time away makes you slow down, enjoy the peace and quiet, and have time to think and reflect.

It's easy to let yourself go and get too deep into things like the pleasure of being loved or wanted, or what you look at as "a good night out", that you almost loose yourself entirely. You change your personality, your looks, anything in order to fit this role, this image you make up in your mind. It can get so deep that you might not even know its happening until you convince yourself this is the "new you" by forcing yourself to accept it. I want to become my own person so bad, and I feel that there are a lot of things in my life right now that are holding me back. Being Independent has been something I've strive for my whole life, and I'd like nothing more then to grow and develop as my own self.

I tend to enjoy the easy, most pleasurable, small attributes that life has to offer that have no particular meaning or value, and honestly I hate that about myself. I wish I could be someone who gets straight A's, someone who is considered the perfect collegiate well rounded successful athlete who is gonna do something with his life. Sometimes, I feel like what I'm doing will lead me no where, or that I won't be successful at anything. On the other side, I feel like life is a gift that I don't plan to waste a minute of it. I say fuck the map, a life planed out is a life filled with limits. I want to make the best out of what I've got and to enjoy every second, because you never know what will happen a year from now, tomorrow, even a minute from now. Nothing is determined, the only thing that will make the future become reality is the choice you make and you have to be willing to accept and learn from your decisions. Pray that these decisions you make in life will be the right ones, and will lead you into something so beautiful so peaceful you'll look back and smile knowing that what you did was the right thing.

Not a lot of this makes any sense to you select few readers so I'll try to sum it up into something I'd like for you to take from this. Never change who you are, never be someone who you think people will like and be able to accept. Be who you are, not what you think you should be. There has been some changes in my life recently that I will write about later, but right now I'd like to leave on a quote by John Mason...

"You were born an original, don't die a copy"

Out With The Old In With The New

(2010 Cross Country Goals)

After a short two weeks off from running, things seem very lost to me. It's hard to put things into perspective and find meaning in the things I do on a daily basis. These past couple weeks, I find myself quickly falling off task, always questioning "what" and "why", and not enjoying much at all. I've learned that without structure in my life I tend to loose focus and get off task very easy. 

This past season was the most I've learned in my running career. I don't really wanna talk much about certain races or what times I've ran. Mainly, I'd like to just sit back and try to find the positive aspects. Above you will find a picture of my 2010 Cross Country goal poster board I made at our annual team meating in August. Looking back, I acomplished a lot from that list, and I'm very happy that I got to be apart of such a great group of men. Like I said, I've learned a lot what to do and what not to do. Next year it's going to be a whole different scene with Myself, and Galan Dills being the "Leaders" and are considerd the upper classmen. I'm looking forward to using what I've learned this season and trying some different stuff out as well.

So, the future... Tomorrow is going to be my first day back since the east side thanksgiving turkey trot on November 24th. I'm really excited to put in some really strong base mileage this winter, and I'm going to try and focus on strength and speed. I've started a tough lifting regiment called P90X last Monday with Blake Jones. It's a great way to get in shape and get ready for track season. It has different lifting workouts, Plyometrics, Abs, and even really intense Yoga session. These past two winter/spring seasons have been anything but nice to me. I've dealt with two different injuries both my freshmen and sophmore year, that have left me with nothing more then a couple track races and a few indoor races in the past two years. I'd really like to have a healthy season, and do all the "small things" that come with being a sucessful runner.

Tomorrow is also the first day of finals. I have my Chemistry final at 10am, my Mineralogy final and 6pm, and on Tuesday I'll have my Music Appreciation final at noon. Then Its nothing but running and working till school starts back up in January. I feel like I'm finally over that black cloud of bad training and being completly broken down. I'm back to my normal healthy self, and I'm more excited to train then ever!

-BJW