Living the Dream

Many things worry me. Climate change worries me; food worries me; large-breasted females worry me. But what worries me the most is the Internet. I am highly conscious of what I put onto the Internet, because lots of people I don’t know get to learn about me. So I started a blog, and here you are reading it. But in starting a blog one has to make all kinds of complicated decisions, the most stressful of which is naming the blog. This decision is absolutely paralyzing, since the title represents the blog and the blog represents you. Right? Right. So last year I came up with the fantastically creative “Living the Dream”, the stupidity of which I subsequently spent many long hours agonizing over. But you know what? I chose correctly. Since moving to Silverton solely to train for Hardrock, multiple people have told me that I really am “Living the Dream”, the “Dream” being something along the lines of living in a house with another runner and staggering up massively huge mountains every day. So as far as true honesty in the public eye goes, I feel like my blog’s title is pretty accurate.

But it seems I am alone in this sense, as a quick comparison of other runner’s blog titles will clearly show. For example, not many people would say offhand that Geoff Roes is “Fumbling Towards Endurance.” Given his unbroken record of 100 mile wins and two Ultrarunner of the Year titles, he seems to have endurance pretty well figured out. But perhaps he’s merely referencing his Zen approach to training, which we all read about and are like, “Yeah man. Riiigght?” Before rolling our jeans up and going slacklining. Ol’ Nick Clark is well known as the “Rocky Mountain Dirt Runner”, but I think we all know he’s not being 100% truthful. For one, he’s not even from America. You don’t see me going over to England and calling myself the “Ben Nevis Fen Jogger”. And dirt? Ha. With a low 2:30 marathon and serious American River training taking place just this spring, he spends about as much time on dirt as Anton has spent running this year. And as for Tony, here’s a conversation that will never happen: “Tony, dude, you really had a good race today. It was like you were ‘Riding the Wind’ or something”. The clearly elitist snob Bryon Powell likes to let us know that “irunfar”. Not “yourunfar” or “werunalotandencourageotherstorunaswell”; it might as well be “Bryonrunsfartherthanyou”. And for that matter, Dave Mackey is just “Dave Mackey”. Talk about conceited! Apparently he’s so fast he doesn’t even have to think of something clever. And who even knows what Kilian’s blog is called, the damn Spaniard….

Clearly I’m the ultrarunner most in touch with reality. It’s certainly tough being alone on the front lines, but that’s just the way life is when you’re this famous.