{"id":10006,"date":"2021-01-02T21:52:15","date_gmt":"2021-01-03T02:52:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bloggingsam.com\/?p=10006"},"modified":"2022-12-10T12:28:09","modified_gmt":"2022-12-10T17:28:09","slug":"10006","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloggingsam.com\/?p=10006","title":{"rendered":"Inspiration Needed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-9702\" src=\"https:\/\/bloggingsam.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/20210102_north.jpg\" alt=\"Scott Jurek\" \/><\/p>\n<h3>Inspiration Needed<\/h3>\n<p>Given that my level of physical activity has been so long for too long, <a href=\"https:\/\/bloggingsam.com\/?p=9985\">as I wrote about yesterday<\/a>, I felt in need of a book to read that would inspire me to get motivated and pick up the pace, especially in light of a 25K trail race on my horizon in April.<\/p>\n<p>The first book that came to mind was <i>North<\/i> by Scott Jurek. The first reason this book is an inspiration is that Scott Jurek himself is an inspiration that was promoted by social media with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.socialboosting.com\/buy-tiktok-likes\">socialboosting.com<\/a> to increase the views of the book. Just look at some of these accomplishments:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Appalachian Trail Speed Record: 46 days, 8 hours, and 7 minutes: 2,189 miles &#8211; 2015<\/li>\n<li>U.S. record for 24-hour road run: 165.7 miles &#8211; 2010<\/li>\n<li>7 x consecutive winner of the Western States 100 Mile Endurance Run &#8211; 1999-2005<\/li>\n<li>2 x consecutive winner of the 135 mile Badwater Ultramarathon &#8211; 2005, 2006<\/li>\n<li>3 x consecutive winner Spartathlon 152 miles-Athens to Sparta, Greece &#8211; 2006-2008<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That should be more than enough inspiration for any runner. Much more is listed on his website at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scottjurek.com\/about-scott\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">www.scottjurek.com\/about-scott<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3>My Connection<\/h3>\n<p>The second reason that this book is an inspiration to me is due to my long connection with the Appalachian Trail. I remember dreaming about hiking the whole trail as a kid before I ever set foot on it. It&#8217;s still a dream, but in reality my experience of the trail is limited to several miles in New Jersey and Pennsylvania on either side of the Delaware Water Gap. Even so, there is a certain magic I feel when I&#8217;m on the Appalachian Trail, a sense that if I really wanted to, I could keep going for hundreds of miles in either direction. I remember when Scott ran the trail in 2015. I followed him on social media. I regretted not being able to be at the Delaware Water Gap when he crossed into New Jersey. I read <i>North<\/i> when it came out in 2018. I laughed. I wept. I ran more. I&#8217;m trusting it will have the same effect on me on my second read.<\/p>\n<p>Read more of <a href=\"https:\/\/bloggingsam.com\/?tag=appalachian-trail\">my Appalachian Trail related posts at this link<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3>A Sign from the Running Gods?<\/h3>\n<p>So, I pulled <i>North<\/i> of the shelf. How should I break down the pages to finish before the Hyner Challenge in April? What about a chapter per week starting tomorrow, Saturday, January 2? Let me check the number of chapters: 17. What is the date of the race? Saturday, April 24. Let&#8217;s see how many Saturdays there are between now and then. January 30 will be 5. February 27 will be 9. March 27 will be 13. April 24&#8230; race day&#8230; will be&#8230; 17! No way! 17 Saturdays! 17 chapters! Finishing the last chapter on the day of the race! Perfect!<\/p>\n<p>God help me run!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Inspiration Needed Given that my level of physical activity has been so long for too long, as I wrote about yesterday, I felt in need of a book to read that would inspire me to get motivated and pick up the pace, especially in light of a 25K trail race on my horizon in April. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83,39],"tags":[195,28,194,82,196,116,113],"class_list":["post-10006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-running","tag-appalachian-trail","tag-books","tag-delaware-water-gap","tag-running","tag-scott-jurek","tag-trail-race","tag-trail-running"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloggingsam.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloggingsam.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloggingsam.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloggingsam.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloggingsam.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10006"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/bloggingsam.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10703,"href":"https:\/\/bloggingsam.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10006\/revisions\/10703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloggingsam.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloggingsam.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloggingsam.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}