The Wild Dog Blog

The Blog

  • Acadia National Park – Bar Harbor, Maine

    Is there a word for the feeling you get when you’re in the presence of something that stood long before you, and will still be standing long after you?

    Reverence, wonder, humility…

    This is where my thoughts went as I hiked beneath the spiraling pines that were likely centuries old and had bark the color of the wood in my grandparents’ house and an aroma that was just as familiar and comforting.

    This is where my thoughts went as I looked up at the big, open faced boulders and never ending rock gardens, laying my hands on the millions of years of mountain history as we scrambled over the stony tangles and edged closer to each summit.

    Magnificence formed, and still forming, over an unfathomable span of time – and somehow we, mere humans, find ourselves in the middle of it all.

  • Keep Your Hand on the Rudder

    What starts as a passion driven and process oriented pursuit with others in mind can quickly become an ego driven and outcome oriented pursuit with only yourself in mind if you’re not paying attention. 

    To be aware is to catch yourself when your hand has gotten lazy on the rudder and you start drifting off course. It’s only human to get distracted, but how soon and how accurately can you course correct? Your ability to stay true to your values and steer your ship accordingly will determine your sense of fulfillment and your potential for impact.

  • The Centipede

    I watched a centipede make its way along the bannister at the end of the boardwalk. It would inch along for a few seconds, stick its head up to look around, and then continue on. It almost seemed as if it were looking for something, but for what I wasn’t sure. 

    Are we any different from that centipede? Try as we might, we’re unable to see what’s ahead of us or maybe not even sure what we’re looking for. We can only move forward in faith that our path will continue to unfold. 

    I watched the centipede fall from the banister and thought about picking it up to return it to its place, but I stopped myself. Isn’t that how we all get to where we need to be? By pursuing a path, getting redirected by failure or the unexpected, and discovering a new and often better path as a result. 

    I sat there, staring at the centipede curled up on the ground, wondering if it could have died from its fall. A few seconds later, it uncurled, stretched its head up to look around, and dutifully continued on its way. It was a humbling reminder of what’s available to all of us – the choice to keep inching along undeterred, no matter how many times the path changes up ahead.

  • Writing as a Teacher

    Writing has taught me to just start and figure out the rest later. It’s taught me to act without a plan and without knowing if what I’m doing will ever mean anything to anyone but me.

    It’s taught me to explore for the sake of exploring and with no outcome in mind. 

    A decade of putting words onto paper privately and I’m just now venturing into what it looks like to share some of those words publicly. I couldn’t have known how rewarding it would be to do so when I bought my first journal 10 years ago.

     It’s a testimony to acting without knowing. What interests or curiosities are you not acting on because you can’t perceive a clear goal or outcome? Act first and let the purpose reveal itself over time.

  • A Test of Mindfulness

    When I first started ultrarunning, I relied almost entirely on grit to get to the other side of long training runs and tough races. I found myself drawing from a deep well of stubbornness and determination to not be a quitter. 

    This is a strength in its own right and I certainly still play to this side of my mental toughness. But to tap into the next level of performance I’ve found myself focusing less on what I want to avoid – quitting – and focusing more on what I want to cultivate – presence. 

    At the start line, I used to ask myself how gritty I would choose to be and now I ask myself how present I will choose to be. Can I allow the ebb and flow of discomfort and accept and move with whatever comes my way? Can I be so focused on each step that the finish line becomes almost obsolete, a forgotten byproduct of the day?

    The gritty side of mental toughness is useful and has its place no doubt, but to make an ultramarathon a test of mindfulness has brought a new layer of meaning and fulfillment to the adventure.

  • To Seek Joy is to Create Joy

    Joy is possible in life but it’s never going to find you or be magically dumped in your lap. I’ve learned that there’s a certain amount of seeking and cultivating that goes into living a joyful life. 

    Understanding this can either add to your resistance and resentment, or it can add to your joy. We’re often more deeply rewarded by that which comes by taking agency than by that which comes by no effort. This doesn’t mean forcing joy or positivity when you’re struggling or enduring something really challenging. It means living in a state of seeking. Is there joy to be found in unlikely places or mundane moments if you look and listen closely?

    To knock is to invite a door to be opened. To seek joy is to create joy.

  • Choose Your Perspective

    At the start of the year, I pivoted from owning a gym and coaching strength and endurance in person to moving my business, Wild Dog Athletics, entirely online and only providing coaching and programming remotely. Even though I was 100% confident in my decision, I found myself feeling a little fear and uncertainty around losing what I had always considered to be one of my coaching “superpowers” – my ability to connect and relate to others. 

    Putting effort into cultivating a personal relationship with each athlete I work with has long been foundational to my coaching philosophy. While this wouldn’t change as I moved online, I was concerned about the organic opportunities for connection and bonding that would be lost when I was no longer seeing an athlete in person on a weekly basis.

    As I moved forward, I realized that not only was this fear unfounded as I came up with new ways to stay connected from afar – but that I could also replace my fear with curiosity. How would my “superpower(s)” evolve in the next iteration of Wild Dog Athletics? What new potential would I discover? How would I be able to serve others in completely new ways? 

    I didn’t have to deny that things were changing to escape my fear – I had to embrace that things were changing because it’s precisely through change and uncertainty that new possibilities make themselves known. That’s not something to be afraid of, that’s something to celebrate. 

    When things change, you can either take the perspective of everything you stand to lose or take the perspective of everything you have to gain. Which perspective will you choose as we enter the second quarter of the year?

  • Stiffness

    Muscles will stiffen in response to unstable joints, as a way of preventing us from moving into potentially harmful ranges of motion.This pattern repeats itself when we emotionally stiffen in response to life’s inherent instability. 

    We fear change, so we resist it through our thoughts and our actions. It feels like we’re protecting ourselves and maintaining control by doing so, but just like the discomfort that comes from muscles stiffening around an unstable joint, all we end up doing is creating more pain for ourselves.

    What big or small changes are you stiffening against, and creating more pain for yourself by doing so? What would it look like to think and act in a way that accepts those changes instead?

    Life is dynamic and ever-changing. We can choose to resist it and stiffen against it, or we can choose to accept it and move with it – opening ourselves up to new experiences and unimagined possibilities as a result.  

  • Raise Your Floor

    At the start of last summer, my goal for running was to “raise my floor.” Living in south Florida means accepting a performance drop over the summer due to the extreme heat. But how much better could I make my hardest days in the hardest conditions? They may not come close to my best performances in cooler weather, but I believed there was still improvement to be had. 

    I was right. I surprised myself with the paces I could sustain in 90+ degree temps while keeping my effort and heart rate under control. I had improved from the previous summer and continued to improve all summer long. I successfully raised my floor. By the time the weather started cooling down in October, I felt physically and mentally fit and prepared to spend the better weather of the winter season raising my ceiling with faster efforts and bigger miles. 

    Surrendering to a challenging season doesn’t mean we lay down in defeat. It means we make the most of what we’ve been handed so when the better weather eventually rolls in, as it always does, it finds us ready and willing. 

    If you’re not in a season of raising your ceiling, how could you be raising your floor so that you’re ready to level up when the time comes?

    Wild Dog Athletics offers individualized remote strength and endurance coaching to help you stay on track toward your goals, in all seasons of life. Go to: https://www.wilddogathletics.com/ to learn more about who we are, what we do, and how we do it.

  • The Best Part of an Ultramarathon

    The finish line of an ultramarathon is not the best part, it’s not the thing to anticipate, to look forward to, or to wish for – the best part is the being out there, the being in it, the journey and what’s discovered along the way. Eyes wide open and let time move slowly, for when it’s done it’s done and I can never seem to soak it in enough.

    Even when it’s hard, even when it hurts – I take heart – because that means I’m still in the best of it, the day is not finished, there is more to the story that has yet to unfold and more to the trail that has yet to be traveled.