 And here we are, man. Oh my goodness. Another day on this glorious earth and blue skies today going out for six miles. I'll talk about that later, what the game plan is for this week. But I was thinking to myself, wait a minute, what am I feeling right now before the pike's peak ascent? And when you're watching this, I believe I counted on the count. I believe we're 12, 12 days out. And so I was just thinking, wait a minute. I need to stay calm. And yes, keyword is calm. I'm a big fan. And this definitely comes from my coach in college, Mark Wetmore, not getting over excited before a race, especially 12 days out. So I needed to refresh my own memory. Wait a minute. How do I stay calm before a peak race especially? Like the Jackson Hole race, I was not, you know, worried or nervous about that race at all. But for pike's peak, like I've been thinking about, actually, I've been thinking about this race for two years because last year I was unable to race and because I was at a wedding in New York. So I've had two years, because two years ago I did well, much better than I expected. I ended up in third place. So bottom line, I'm excited, but I know I need to remain calm. So today we're going to talk about my top five action items that I place into really the last two weeks of the taper, last two weeks of the training block, leading up to a peak race in order to remain calm. Because when you're over anxious, when you're nervous, when you're maybe thinking too much about a race, it can throw you off. And so, and oh my goodness, we could get into like actual on the starting line, like a lot. Okay. All right. Side story real quick. Mark Wetmore, my college coach, he always talked about us staying calm on the starting line, not doing chants and cheers and rah-rah and even listening to like too much loud music, just remaining calm because in order to, literally in order to keep our heart rates down and not, yeah, to keep our heart rates down and not to, anyway, get over anxious. So I've really implemented that into my life and my racing and my training leading into a peak race. And we're going to dive into it right now. Number one, here we go. Set the phone down more so than you usually would. So this is tip number one. I don't, so my social media is filled with running content. Instagram, YouTube, Facebook. It's like running content everywhere and it just, it's that reminder like, oh my goodness, I'm about to race a hard race. So in the next 12 days, you're going to see me a little less on, so actually I'm going to try even more so quite, I'm going to still upload every day, but quite a bit less on social media just to remain focused on the task at hand and not let social media drive my thinking and instead, again, focus on the task at hand. So that's my tip number one. And okay, and why not? Question of the day. How do you remain calm? Give me, give us one or two tips down in the comments. How do you remain calm the last two weeks of a training block leading into your most important race of the year? Maybe it's state, maybe it's your marathon that you've been training for. Maybe you've got into New York City or Berlin, a big marathon, or maybe it's your first 5k of your life and you've never raced before. So just share some thoughts on that. That's the question of the day. Okay, I'm rolling out. Then going to go run in. Yes, I'm actually going to go to a grass soccer field back to my soccer fields, run around them in the Ultra Timps. Even though this is a trail shoe, I just want that zero drop stretch out before tomorrow's workout and get a little more midsole cushion. So I'm going to take the Timps out for that. And I love you. Thanks for being here. Oh, you guys are crushing life and your crushing training and your crushing supporting this channel. It's all incredible how we're connected. Anyway, all right, let's do this. Yeah, yeah, no, no, that's okay. Perfect. Well, I will I'll try later and I'll I'll get that logo emailed over to you just so you can see it. Yeah, that's great. All right. Well, I appreciate your time. All right, thanks. Bye. There, there we go, folks. All right, I'm just cruising around. Yes, getting tasks done. And what is my tip number two for staying calm before peak race? I don't know about you, but when I'm training above, well, for me, like, let's say above 70 miles a week, I'm tired. I'm hungry. I want to sleep. I want to get off my feet. I don't want to do as many of the daily tasks that need to get done just because I'm tired, you know, because I'm tired. Therefore, one way that I, you know, it's a little bit of a distraction tactic is to catch up on life. For example, I'm going to the bank today, going to the hardware store, going to fill up the cars with gas, vacuum out just like those little daily tasks that I've actually been putting off for the last two to three weeks, because I was so focused on the task at hand of training, recovering all of that. So I just got off the phone with a gentleman local here and I'm so excited. So remember my rabbit singlet that I customized last week by cutting off some material? I'm going to attempt to put seek beauty work hard and love each other on the singlet for the Pike's Peak Ascent, but I've been putting it off and putting it off for God. Well, ever since I bought the singlet a couple weeks ago, just because, again, I was so busy. So that was the phone call I just got off of. Hopefully, he can pull it off in a timely manner in the next, well, 12 days. All right, let's roll off to other tasks, other errands. Struggle it on the color combo today. Really struggling on the color combo, but that's okay. Not sure what you were thinking, Ultra. Holy smokes. Yikes. Oh my my. All right, see you in about 45 minutes. And I'm back from the run, back from the gym. Okay, another way that I stay calm before a big peak race is do another hobby. That's right. I know as runners, hold on, just put this down correctly. I know as runners it's a little hard to think, oh my goodness, yeah, there's other things to do in this world, but in fact, there are. Like grilling. And this is one way that I relax and just chill out and stay calm is grill. So that's what I'm doing tonight. Grilling some steak, some chicken, some corn on the cob. Oh yeah, butter my bread. So that would be my tip. Number three is just doing outside hobby leading up to a peak race. You know, maybe it's, maybe you like to play the piano or maybe you like to paint. Oh my goodness. That would be a cool one. I wish I knew how to paint, but all right. Now we're getting the chicken out here by the bang by boom. Oh my goodness. It's gonna be tasty everybody. It's gonna be tasty. Good. We've got plenty of it and I'm gonna leave the other one on because it's a little thicker. We got explosions in the mouth everybody. Do you guys want to split a corn? My goodness. Delicious dinner. Oh, that meat was divine. No other way to say it. It was divine. All right everyone. Today's run was six miles, 10k, 830 per mile approximately. And the reason I say approximately is because my Sun 2 5 watch is not syncing with Strava right now. So I actually don't know exactly what my pace was, but I glanced down oh probably once a mile and it was basically right around 830 per mile or 515 per kilometer in the ultra temp 1.5 and I must say it is a fun easy day shoe stretch out the calves. I think we'll get to 50 miles in them, but it might take a little while. I've had them for over a month now. So just patience actually after Pike's Peak I'll probably get them to 50 miles. So okay two more tips that I use for staying calm in the last couple weeks leading into a peak race and again keyword calm. Let's see which one to start with first. I think I'll start here and I'm trying to be very uh practical and tangible and action item oriented so you can maybe not do exactly what I'm doing but at least again plant seeds in your mind like okay Seth is doing this um I don't really want to do that exactly but I'll maybe I'll pivot this way because of the because of the idea that he pitched like getting those daily tasks done. In fact this afternoon like I didn't think about Pike's Peak at all. I was just getting errands done like it was like I was focused on other t- it was amazing. It worked. All right so tip number four here we go setting down the phone. Remember that was number one trying to just disconnect a little bit and especially for me those last like two to three days before the peak race I just really like to focus and remain calm as I've already mentioned but the other way I remain calm is to read a novel that's right not an article not a newspaper article or a magazine or nothing on a tablet or on my phone remember none of that electronic business a real physical book that's right they still do exist and my go-to novelist is John Steinbeck. I love John Steinbeck and one of my favorite novels is East of Eden from John Steinbeck. I'm not sure if I will read it this time. I might do the Pearl or something shorter. What's the other one travels with Charlie across America so anyway that is my tip number four is just read a book and specifically I'm just gonna say a novel for me really helps me like just kind of zone out frankly and just enjoy the mo enjoy the story. So anyway that's tip number four and tip number five keeping everything in perspective. So my senior year cross country we're talking 2004 here so it's been a little while my team our team was pretty darn good and we were gunning we were gunning for the state championship as a team class 3a here in Colorado and we ended up in second place and I was frankly a little dead I devastated I mean as a I wanted that team state championship so bad and we were working so hard for it and so with peak races I always strive to keep everything in perspective now racing is really important it's it's important for our lives for our drive for our goal orientation but at the end of the day having that perspective for me in the bigger picture always helps me prepare for whatever happens on race day alright so that is my fifth strategy perspective and I already gave you the keyword a couple times question of the day I believe I already asked and I love you guys thank you for being here thanks for watching and gosh it's it's just exciting it's exciting thanks for working through me through the injury and this summer training and the mountains and it's crazy right it's crazy that we're that we're all moving together in 2019 toward our own individual goals um can yeah it's just it's unbelievable frankly that there's so many of you here so I'm humbled I'm humbled seek viewed oh yeah if you want to watch some more vlogs check out either one of these boxes on the right or the left both of them are from within the last two months vlogs that have done very well because you all are interested in the topic all right seek beauty work hard and love each other see you tomorrow