Update on Life In The Zona

     I am sitting at a Starbucks in Fountain Hills, Arizona. I had a tough day at The Javelina 100 Saturday- but I am feeling good today and ready to head out on the next great mission soon enough. For now I am going to rest, bring my training down a notch, and try to let my body heal for a month or two. I have had a epic year and I think my body is just a little tired. In the mean time my mind and heart are 100% in tact and I cant wait for the chance to go run again- as my friend Caballo Blanco used to say "People run because they are happy"

  The rest of  what follows here is just an update for my friends and family on whats in my head and where I am going for the next few months... in case you were curious. If you could care less, please go back to my Facebook page for some llama pictures, random nonsense and trail running speak ;)

   I am feeling pretty damn good about life in general right now dispute some circumstances that would seem stressful. On one hand I am an unemployed 41 year old divorced dad with no money to my name- but I am also the richest man alive in almost ever other sense of wealth. My sobriety, my kids, all my amazing friends, my loved ones, my work at The Hero Foundation and a general sense of gratitude keep me as close to "balanced" as I could imagine.
  I have had my head in two different worlds for the last several months and I see big things coming in the future. One world is the work that we are trying to do at The Hero Foundation/ The Superman Project. It is difficult to communicate the emotions I feel when I hear from people all over the country who have been affected by addiction and have heard about who we are and what we do. I am inspired again and again by the human spirit and the will of people to not give up and to fight for a brighter day. In my mind I see the huge impact we can have on the world if I am up to the challenge of getting the word out and building our group into a viable large scale resource. But the selfless help that I receive from my friends in the form of time, thought, donations, and genuine support is what has kept the wheels turning and will ultimately build this organization- I know I cannot do this alone. And if you are curious- in response to the momentum we have built to date we are going to double up our efforts and charge forward with an aggressive agenda in 2013 to touch more lives.
  The other docking bay for my focus has been trying to get all of my thoughts written down in an organized format- I guess you could call it "writing my book" but the more I write the more I realize that I am still healing, and this is just another part of my recovery. I have been writing for about a year now and its coming down to the last stretch. There have been times when the writing stopped abruptly and didn't continue for months- other times when the words fly effortlessly. The first part of book, the "drop into the gutter" you might call it, was actually much easier to write than I had expected- it was emotional and painful, but it all came out so fast I could barely keep up. It was an outpouring of all the horrible days, hours and seconds that ticked off as I brought myself closer and closer to the brink of death by way of my destructive behaviors. I had thousands of horrible low points to choose from, I only had to select the ones that seemed the most vivid and recall what I was feeling.
  The second part of the book, the more "inspiring' part if you will, is a different beast. I have found it hard to tell the tale of my climb out of the gutter and this is what I figured to be the easiest part of the process. The difficulty in writing may in many ways be because I feel I am still climbing out. I haven't reached the summit of my rebound and the truth is I never will. This recovery of mine and this life is always about moving forward, and always about climbing higher; never about arriving. The truth is, I feel I was unprepared to tell anyone about the second part of my story as there was so much of the first part that I have left out- in even my own memories. So much I was unsure about myself and my past. I know many people think that I share way too much as it is, and maybe they are right, but it was time for me to take a real hard look backwards before recording my current status for posterity. It should be no big surprise to know that I have been running for years before I ever put on a pair of trail shoes. 

  So here I am now, I have tackled some more of the demons of my past. I have grown up a lot over the last year or so, and I am finally ready to finish what I started in terms of writing down my thoughts and experiences. I have parked for the time being. I have drawn the finish line for my story and I will write about how I got to that place (which is the finish line of the 2011 Leadville 100 if you are curious) I think the reason I couldn't finish my book sooner is because I needed to be farther ahead in the road to get perceptive on where I am and where I was. Looking back now I am finally ready to write my wrongs.

Dave.