Am I Going Over to the Dark Side?

I know many of you have seen this video already. It's actually responsible for almost wrecking my laptop. I was watching it and my son was standing behind me drinking orange juice, he laughed so hard he had a monitor spew moment and I ended up cleaning orange juice off my keyboard for an hour. It's very funny for precisely the reason that there are so many little elements of truth in it.

But as I thought about it after (okay I admit) multiple viewings, I started to wonder which character I most identified with. And to tell the truth, I'm not quite sure. I think I might be going over to the dark side of ultra running. I haven't worn my watch on a run in ages. I seem to gravitate toward trails and now hate to run on the streets. I've started thinking "A 50k run really doesn't sound all that bad". My bike hasn't been off its rack since my last half-Ironman in September.

Now a lot of that is just because I'm training so hard in karate right now, I barely have time to get a couple of runs or swims in during the week. When you add in the snowy/sleety/hailing/nasty weather we've been having, getting the bike out is less than appealing. And I may have some exciting triathlon news to share (soon) about some upcoming races.But in the meantime, I feel torn in two. I'm coaching people who are training for races. We're doing track workouts and pool workouts and using heart rate monitors and GPSs and gadgets and here I am wandering in the opposite direction, going for long rambling aimless trail runs. No periodization, no goals in sight. I guess we'll just have to see when the warm weather hits whether or not the hardcore triathlon bug will bite me again, or whether I'm beyond hope.