Barry Mayfield (Papa Bear) The best Dad and Grandfather EVER. When I was ten I went away to summer camp for the first time. I took the first intrepid steps onto the school bus and waved goodbye to my parents as I watched them from the window. I remember coming home and couldn't wait to tell them all about my experiences. It was the best week of my entire kid life. Then when I was fifteen I got a job as a camp counselor for that same camp. My parents would drive me to where the buses would leave every weekend. I waved goodbye just like I did when I was ten. Eventually, I was driving myself to the departure lot, leaving every monday and spending entire weeks during the summers working as a counselor - hiking, swimming, backpacking and rock climbing in the Sierra Nevada every single week until I was in my early twenties. I hugged and kissed my mom and dad and said goodbye week after week, and just like when I was ten, I was excited to tell them all about my adventures on my ret...

Relentless forward movement. Take the challenge one step at a time. Make small goals. Breathe. Little did I know how literally I would be taking my own ultra advice again less than two months after my first hundred miler. But this time I'm not the one running the ultra. My dad is. And its not an "ultra" in the running sense of the word. In fact, a hundred miler would be easy compared to the challenge that my dad and our family is enduring right now at this very moment. About two weeks ago, my dad underwent a stem cell transplant in hopes of being able to extend his life after being diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma (a rare blood cancer) just a little over a year ago. He weighed his risks, his age, and his health and got the OK from his doctors to do this procedure. A gambler by nature and a very bright man he took a calculated risk. He knew what he was laying on the table when he decided to go through with this. Today he is in MSICU in critical condition. Fight...

Even cougars need a little motivation sometimes. I was thinking the other day - maybe a little too much. I was thinking that pretty much every tiny thing we do each and every day requires some sort of motivation. Am I right? If we couldn't motivate ourselves to take care of our daily shit the entire world would be populated by a bunch of couch slacking losers. Really. EVERYTHING we do - every simple, boring, stressful, easy, stupid, big, small, tedious, difficult or fun task requires us to get off our asses to do.  Ok... with the exception of activities which we literally have to sit on our asses to do and may not have total control over like, well, pooping. Yeah. I said that. Pooping. That shit is controlled by its own processes. Literally. The only motivation you need is to find a toilet. But really, when it comes down to it even dragging your ass out of bed in the morning requires some level of motivation. Some of us are better at this than others but I have yet to meet...