As many of you know, starting informally in 2009 and then officially for the 2010 and 2011 running seasons, I was a part of the U.S. inov-8 ultrarunning team. While I still am passionate about the brand and exclusively wear inov-8 trail shoes, I decided in November to not apply for the 2012 season. The team has meant a lot to me over the past few years enough that not applying was a difficult decision.While I have loved representing the brand and being a part of the team, I had made some major changes in my life where running was not as important as it once was. For a long time I had a very ‘me first’ sort of attitude and was very selfish and self centered. This was pretty destructive behavior and being in a sport where we are celebrated based on our individual accomplishments, it was feeding my issues. I had to make some tough choices last year but they have really helped to give me a more well balanced life where God, family and friends come before me and running now has its place. To tell the truth I enjoy running so much more now and it seems like like a job! Everyone in my personal life has benefited from the changed me and I have become more of the person I want to be, not the person I was.
Being a part of team where the majority were national, if not world class trail and ultra running men and women, I always knew the value that I provided to the team. I raced very often and did moderately well in those races, but I also blogged a lot on my race results and along with team mate DeWayne Satterfield, feel proud that we helped to put inov-8 on the map through product promotion in Huntsville. Knowing that I couldn't do it as fast as the other people on the team, I thought that I had to do it very frequently to justify my selection for the team, which was probably just senseless self-induced pressure. In turn, I ran many races that I normally would not have, or races that I was not running for me, but for the team. Again, no one ever said a word about this to me, nor was it ever suggested that I needed to race frequently for the team, but it was just something that I felt I needed to do. Looking back now I see that this was just pressure I put on myself that did nothing but cause internal struggles and stress.
In the last few months I have gotten my life figured out, including my priorities and I just can’t devote the time to train for running ultra distance races like I used to. I am still running trails and racing ultras and plan to keep promoting inov-8 as much I can. Being a part of inov-8 has been a great experience for me and I hope that I made the team and brand proud over the last two years.