A Good Year

Over the holidays Kendra and I visited Prince Edward County, Ontario - where they have over 40 wineries.  On the wall of Hinterland Winery is the cross section of dirt and rock shown above.  The point of it is to show what is important to making good wine.  Good soil is important - but even more important is having good rock.  A quality vintage is one when the roots of the grape have plunged into the rock - bringing the taste of minerality and complexity that people enjoy in their wines. 

What causes the roots to penetrate rock?  Struggle.  It happens when conditions above ground are bad.  Usually that means there hasn't been enough rain.  The plant struggles to survive by spreading it's roots deep and wide - searching for water.  The best vintages are therefore marked by years when the plant comes closest to failing.

Anyone who knows my last year might have thought the title of this post was the exact opposite of 2014 for me.  The year started with me coming very close to having to give up on my dream to become a PA.  I fought to stay in my program, and in the end they ended up giving me another shot.  Not only that - they changed the rules, so that anyone who was in my position would be given a second chance.

Those first few months of 2014 were rough.  Like the vine - I was searching for something to give me sustenance.  I was trying to remind myself of what I had of value to offer the world.  That was probably the biggest reason that I self-published part of this blog as a book.  I've always been amazed that anybody reads this blog - but some folks who I really respect have told me they enjoy it - so, I decided to organize my posts from my training for the Boston marathon into a book.

I started writing again too.  While my future was still up in the air I decided to get out of Dodge.  I started driving South to Texas and then West to New Mexico and Arizona.  When I came back from that trip I wrote a lot. 

Around the time that I found out that I would be given a second shot in my program I received an e-mail from a stranger who read my blog.  His name is Glen - he asked me to write out a training plan for him and to coach him.  I had been an assistant coach for my old high school in my early-mid twenties - but I had never coached someone online before.

Glen is in his early-mid forties.  He was a decent runner - but he wanted to break through to the next level.  Glen was a 5k and 10k runner - his main goals were just to get better at those distances.  He had never run more than seven miles.

Glen was the perfect student.  He ran pretty much everything that I planned out for him - even though I'm sure he wasn't 100% confident in my plan at the beginning.  The result was his first Army 10 miler in DC - which made him feel so confident that he decided he needed to do a half-marathon a month later.  And now he's decided he will do a marathon in March - where he hopes to qualify for Boston.

It's been a lot of fun experiencing the joy that Glen has had in his improvement and performances.  As for me - I wasn't sure what I was going to do a the start of the year.  The "good" news was that I had a lot more time for training.  I even contemplated another Ironman - but I decided to focus on running for the first half of the year.  I hadn't run an "all out" half marathon in quite awhile - so I signed up for the Lincoln Half. 

The main thing I added to my training was intensity.  I ran several of the "No Frills" races during the winter - and then I added some tempo workouts in March and April.  The result was my fastest half in quite awhile - I ran 1:13:35 and came in 11th place out of 8900 finishers.  I was excited to see what I could do in my half Ironman scheduled for early June.  Unfortunately, I had an accident with my bike on a rainy day only one week before the race.

There was simply no way I could swim - I had sprained my AC joint in my shoulder.  I had a hard time even sleeping for about a month.  Oh well - that's the kind of year that I had.  I tried to stay in decent running shape and out of the blue came an interesting opportunity.  A group in Iowa was trying to set the world record for a 100 X 5k relay.  They had a few guys drop out - so they needed a few fill-ins.  I didn't run all that fast - but we did break the record.

I haven't written any posts since August - as I've been focusing on school.  The one event that happened since then is my grandfather passed away.  There were a lot of great things about my grandfather - but maybe most notably for this blog, he was also my first running partner.  I remember when I was in early grade school stretching with him against the fender of his 1979 mustard colored Mercedes.  He had a mile long route around a man made lake in Ann Arbor.  Many people don't like running because the first time they do it is when they're being punished while practicing for some other sport.  I think one reason I like running so much is that my first experience with running was while getting to spend time with my grandpa.

I don't know what exactly 2015 will bring.  I did sign up for the Lincoln full marathon this morning.  Probably a foolish thing to do when most of my waking hours will be spent studying - but I figure I need something else to think about other than school.  The other new thing is that my wife is going to start writing a blog!  Which is called "The Multisport Hybrid Vigor". 

Will 2015 be a "good" year?  I might be a wimp - but let's just say that I hope it's "good" in a very different way than 2014.  Although it's going to include nine months of constant studying - so it's not exactly going to be a breeze.  Regardless - I'm sure it will be interesting.

 

 

 

 

 

Unrealistic Dreams

On Grand Avenue in Detroit there is a house that spawned some of the greatest music of the 20th century.  In 1959 the garage of that modest house was converted into a studio - the kitchen became the control room.  From 1961 until 1972 there would be over 100 top 10 hits recorded in that studio.  Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, The Four Tops, Marvin Gaye etc.

How did the son of a Detroit grocer start one of the greatest record labels of the 20th century?  First of all Berry Gordy was a great business man.  He also knew how to recognize and develop talent.  Probably, most important, he was a perfectionist.  He knew what he was good at - but he also knew where he needed help.  He found great song writers, choreographers - even a woman who taught his talent the importance of good manners.

This fall my father starts his 40th year as a music teacher at a school less than an hour away from that house.  He has led a high school department that won a Grammy award as one of the top seven high school music programs in the United States.  A student who was a Presidential Scholar (there are only two per state) and scored a perfect 1600 on his SATS selected my dad as his most influential teacher.  The student became an engineering student, but felt that his music teacher influenced him most.

As a child I assumed that my dad somehow lucked out finding the perfect career for himself.  Whenever I saw him teaching it seemed as though he was made for it.  And yet, over the years, I heard stories of him struggling along the way.  How he almost failed a piano class in undergrad - how he almost had to beg for his first teaching job - how he would come home and sleep for several hours in those first few years while he was teaching elementary school classes.

Even though he had great mentors and education at the University of Michigan - it took him some time to come into his own.  He had develop new skills.  Most of all he had to keep moving forward even when things got tough. 

Reflecting on his career and on a place like Motown made me think about how initially their dreams probably seemed unrealistic to the people around them.  In fact they were unrealistic.  The paths that they started out on weren't necessarily how they found their success. 

Not everyone can have the same success of Motown or even what my father has done.  But we certainly can learn lessons from them.  Success comes from a combination of going after our dreams and understanding what the world needs from us.  Motown was successful not just because they had an incredible number of talented young people signed to their label - but because they understood the kinds of songs that people wanted to hear.

The same is true of running.  Success comes from having a strong dream - but then understanding the basic principles that help you to run fast.  Success comes from not being afraid to fail - it comes from listening to mentors, but also finding your own way.  Most importantly I think it comes from having a combination of both confidence and being humble.

Many times when we look at successful people we see their lives as intractably leading to the point that they are at.  But when we look closer we see false starts - even failures.  Their lives may seem inevitable now - but like anything in history they most likely didn't seem that way at the time.  As I start on my next beginning I try to remember that.  I try to feel confidence that I can be successful and the yet be humble enough to know that I can't do it alone.          

Caleb

The first time I met Caleb was at a race.  Actually it was during a race.  It was a winter racing series 10k at a nearby lake.  It was in January or February - so, I wasn't looking to run a personal record - I just wanted to have a nice hard effort.


After the first mile Caleb and I were alone at the front.  In that situation my competitive instincts took over - I no longer cared what month it was - I just wanted to win.  So, I increased the pace a little bit to see if I could get a gap on him.  Unfortunately it didn't work - he stayed step for step with me - although I noticed that his breathing was getting pretty labored.  So I made another little push - but again he stayed with me.  Now I was getting annoyed - this guy, who I didn't even know - was apparently taking this race pretty seriously.  Finally I was able to gap him at around the 4th mile.


It might sound like I'm bragging that I beat him - but really I should have beat him.  I was a D1 collegiate runner - whereas Caleb had not run a step until a few years before we first met in 2012.  Not only was he not a runner - he had weighed close to 250 pounds, was addicted to alcohol and drugs, and was even homeless for awhile.


What I recognized that day - and have seen him demonstrate since then in numerous workouts and races is his tremendous will.  Most people who come to endurance sports after college are unable to push their bodies into the same zone of pain as those of us who competed in college can.  Caleb is the rare exception to that.  I don't think I've been in any workout or race where I felt like I was working harder than Caleb.


Caleb did something very brave this last winter - he told his story to a reporter at the Omaha World-Herald.  In February they did an article on his struggle to overcome his addictions and his accomplishments as a triathlete.  I remember talking to him briefly before the story came out.  He was actually ambivalent about the story coming out - not because he was worried about people knowing about his past - but because he didn't want the focus to be on himself.  I'm glad that he did that interview though - I'm sure there are a lot of people who need to hear that it's possible to overcome those kinds of problems.


I decided to write about Caleb because he has had an incredible string of performances in the last month.  He was second in his age group at a large triathlon in Minneapolis, then he got second at the Omaha triathlon, and then yesterday he won the Cornhusker State Games triathlon.  These are not trivial accomplishments.  He is going up against the best triathletes in the area and beating them.  That's pretty incredible for someone who was a prisoner to drugs and alcohol less than a decade ago.


People like Caleb are very rare.  I can't say that I've met anyone else like him.  I'm proud to call him my friend and fellow triathlete.  He reminds me of why I enjoy endurance sports and competition.  It does something good for the soul.  I can't speak for Caleb, but I know that for myself being an endurance athlete is most important when I feel weak.  When I feel like life is beating me down I can go out on run and feel strong. 


Caleb has survived and endured much more than I ever will need to in my life.  But Caleb does not revel in his accomplishments.  He talks about all the poor decisions he made that led him down his path.  He takes personal responsibility for where he ended up.  We all make bad decisions - luckily for most of us they don't have such terrible consequences.  Caleb is a great reminder that we can take responsibility for the mistakes we make in life without allowing them to define us.  And if we dig deep - we can find a strength that we didn't know was there.  Keep it up Caleb!  You are an inspiration! 

The Importance of Play

This morning I heard just a little bit of an interview on NPR of Stuart Brown, a medical doctor, psychiatrist and researcher who specializes in the importance of play for people of all ages.  His main findings are that "play" isn't just goofing around (above is his TED talk).  It's an important part of developing our cognitive and physical abilities so that we're able to take actions that are important to our survival. 

However, play isn't just for kids.  His research has found that adults who don't play are more likely to have rigid thinking - which makes them less able to react to changing environments.  They are also more likely to be depressed and have a pessimistic view of life.  He even found that lack of play in a person's life may be a major indicator of future violent actions.

I love studies like this - mostly because I'm 37 years old and I still like to act pretty childish from time to time.  Yes, I know that I write a blog about running and triathlons - you would think that I have no doubt that these activities are good for me.  Actually though - one of the main reasons that I started this blog was to determine why I still felt that running and competition were so important to me even though I was supposed to be "all grown up."

I sometimes worry - is it all vanity?  Am I trying to fill some hole of self-doubt by continuing to compete way into adulthood?  Shouldn't I have moved on to something else by now to fill my spare time?

So, thank you Dr. Brown - for giving me a well thought out and researched model that makes me feel better about keeping doing what I like to do.
 

 

Lessons in Anatomy

For the second time in my life, I find myself in a basement laboratory, spending countless hours dissecting a human body.  This is an experience that I really would have preferred to have only once - but since I have this opportunity I thought I should at least write something about what I've learned.

1) You can get used to anything.  Let me start with the obvious.  Most people probably cannot consider anything more disturbing than spending time with a dead body - especially when you are cutting, picking, and digging in order to find the important functional parts of the body - namely, muscles, nerves, and arteries/veins.

Really, it's like anything that seems daunting initially - you just focus on what you're supposed to be doing and eventually it kind of seems normal.  You even find yourself getting weird looks from people in the cafeteria as you discuss your dissection - forgetting that most people don't talk about such things when they're eating.

2) What we have under our skin cannot be duplicated.  We are not just some kind of fancy robot.  Even with all of the incredible strides that we've made in technology - there is simply no way that we can come close to building something that moves like us, much less, thinks like us. 

Over hundreds of generations our ancestors lived and died.  We are borne of the survivors.  No matter how difficult of a day you had today it doesn't compare to anything that a direct ancestor of yours dealt with 10,000 years ago.  Our bodies were engineered to be active - because the only way to survive throughout most of human history was to be active.  And regardless of whether you're rich or poor we all get to own something priceless - our bodies.

3) What appears to be soft and weak eventually reforms that which appears hard and strong.  When you look at the inside of a skull one of the more interesting things is that there are branching grooves formed by arteries on the bone.  The shapes of all bones are impacted by soft tissue to a certain extent.  Tendons pull on bone - which makes bumps that we call processes, tubercles, and tuberosities. 

Bone is constantly being reformed.  Constant pressure - even by something as soft and small as a blood vessel changes the shape of the bone over time.  This reminds me of why endurance training needs to be so organized and consistent.  As Andy Dufresne knew - anything can be overcome eventually through the power of "pressure and time." 

BIG NEWS - Today I received two e-mails - one from journalist/podcast producer who wants to interview me about my blog.  The other is from a sports related site asking me if I wanted to be included as one of their bloggers.  I will post more info once things become final!

Que Sera, Sera

Are our fates up to us or are they out of our control?  Most people would agree that there are some things we can control and some we can't.  As Tolstoy wrote, "a being uninfluenced by the external world, standing outside of time and independent of cause, is no longer a man. In the same way we can never imagine the action of a man quite devoid of freedom and entirely subject to the law of inevitability."  However, strict determinists would say that "free will" does not actually exist - that all of our actions are dependent on variables completely outside of our control - such as our DNA, where we were born, when we were born, education, who are parents were etc . . .

The last several chapters of "War and Peace" are actually a philosophical discussion by Tolstoy about free will.  In the end he declares that the control that the outside world has on our own actions is similar to the motion of the earth - we do not feel the earth move and yet using math and reason we find that it does move. To claim man has free will feels right - just as claiming that the earth is immobile seems right - because we don't feel the earth moving.  But both conclusions are wrong because if they were correct, they would break laws that we know to be true.   

It's interesting that he ends there.  Obviously there are many moral consequences of that attitude.  For example, can anyone be held "responsible" for committing a crime if free will doesn't exist?  Why make any kind of an "effort" in life if I'm not really responsible for what happens to me?  From what I remember of my philosophy classes, the argument is that eventually you will get hungry or have some other kind of desire.  And in order to be fed or clothed you will need to take some kind of action.  As for criminals - we all want to live in a world that's relatively safe and where there is justice - therefore, even if free will doesn't exist we still need to hold people accountable.

So what's putting me into this rather fatalistic mood?  It appears as though my fall on the bike last Sunday is going to keep me from racing at Kansas.  My shoulder is still so sore that I can't sleep on my left side - so, there's no way I can swim 1.2 miles.  I tried to run on Wednesday and even my hip tightened up.

Luckily I've had a pretty decent spring with my running races - so it's not like all of my competitive eggs were in one basket.  It's a bummer for sure - but with everything that's happened over the last year it's not that big of a deal.

Next week I start a six-week Anatomy refresher - so that I can have a better chance of success in the Fall.  In the end - running and triathlons are hobbies.  In my case, they might be hobbies that border on obsession at times, but I recognize that there are things that are much more important in my life - even more important than whether I become a PA - like my relationships with my family and friends. 

There was a time 3-4 months ago where it seemed like the foundations of my life were crumbling.  I would not want to recreate or go through that again.  However, the whole experience has taught me what is strong in my life - both internally and externally.

Fate seems strongest when either something really good happens or really bad happens.  In both cases we think about how much luck contributes to our condition.  But the same uncontrollable causal elements are acting on us every day - we are just less likely to think about them on a daily basis.  Just as we don't normally think about the movement of the earth as we take the trash out.

So, I'm going to take this time of being injured to see if there are any lessons I can learn.  If nothing else it will remind me to be thankful when I'm healthy again.

Tales of a Reckless Moron

There's a reason why most of the women in my family have a constant ache of worry for my health and personal safety.  I do stupid things sometimes.

When I was in early grade school I had a lot of energy.  There were times when my mother would tell me to "go run around the house."  Apparently I thought this was a great idea.  I would leap out the front door and go sprinting around the outside of our house until I was fatigued enough to reenter civilized society.  One time we were visiting friends of my parents.  I got hyper and my mother, probably slightly embarrassed at how crazy I could get, proposed my normal cure.  I leaped out the front door.  Unfortunately I somehow assumed that this house would have the same relative proportions of our house.  Looking back I probably should have done a lap to scout our the lay of the land.  But I just started running as fast as I could.  One detail that could have been helpful for me to know was that they had a dog house in their back yard.  It was positioned in such a way that when sprinting around the house you couldn't really see it until you had turned the corner - and there it was.  Luckily, all I got was just got a pretty good gash on my cheek (the scar is still there). 

Not long after that I decided it was a good idea to go across the monkey bars at recess when they were wet from a morning rain.  I got a fractured wrist for that one.  Or the time that I dove a little too close to a patch of gravel trying to catch a baseball and ended up with stiches.  Or the time in college I ran out on a pier in Lake Michigan during a winter storm and got swept into the water by a big wave.

The most romantic of these mishaps was probably the time I rented a motor scooter in the Amalfi coast of Italy.  First, let me just say that it is probably the most beautiful place I've ever visited.  After a few hours of riding around the narrow roads overlooking the Mediterranean I started to fantasize that I was Italian.  I had witnessed how nimbly they ride their scooters in the cities of Rome and Florence.  I thought I could do the same thing.  After taking the picture below of Positano - I hurried back to Sorrento where I had rented the scooter.  I didn't want to be late - so I went a little faster than I should have.  Luckily I didn't fall off the cliff into the ocean - but I did take a round-about a little fast and ended up falling and sliding across the pavement - scratching up myself and the scooter in the process.  I hurt my knee and couldn't run for almost a month after that one.

More recently there was the marathon I ran in Drake Well, Pennsylvania.  I actually ran it to prepare for the 2010 Chicago marathon.  (Yes, I know that sounds crazy - just stay with me).  I ended up running faster than planned - because I found myself in 2nd place half way through the race and I got a little competitive.  I won the race (there were only about 200 people in it) and then drove six hours back to Virginia right afterwards.  A week later I couldn't run - I somehow pulled my hamstring and caused some major inflammation.  Not only did it mean I couldn't train properly for Chicago - but I had pain from that injury that lasted for over a year.

There are several other stories that I could go on with - but I think you get the point.  One of my behavior traits seems to be recklessness on a moronic scale - and sometimes I actually have to pay consequences for my ill advised actions.  I guess it's just good I haven't hurt anyone else.

Yesterday I added to the list.  I had a three hour ride planned - I knew there were some thunderstorms coming - but it seemed like they would hold off long enough for me to get my ride in.  Well, it came about 30 minutes too early.  I saw the wall of blackness coming behind me as I rode east.  I think I actually thought I could outride it at some point (which makes absolutely no sense).  Finally, when I was getting pelted with debris (apparently the winds got up to 60 mph) I found sanctuary in a Jimmy Johns.

I called my wife and said "I might need to you to pick me up - but let's wait 20 minutes and see if it lets up."  About 10 minutes later I looked out the window and observed a) there was no lightning or thunder b) the wind and rain didn't seem all that bad anymore.  So, I rode home.  When I was about half way home it got worse.  I was drenched and tired from fighting the wind.  I was crossing a street about a mile from our house - I glanced back to see if there was any traffic - which led me to not see the seam in the road in front of me.  My front wheel caught it - and with the road and my tires being wet I went down hard.  There were two cars behind me - which thankfully stopped in time.  I did the "I think I'm ok" hand wave sign as I gathered my water bottles from the road.

At first it didn't seem too bad.  I landed on my left side - so I got a nice road rash on my left hip, left elbow, and even a bit on my ankle.  I'm most worried about my shoulder though.  The most common injury in cycling is breaking your collar bone.  It doesn't feel like anything is "out of place" - but it's pretty sore.  I can put my arm above my head - but it doesn't feel great.  That's not exactly what you want when you have a half Ironman in less than a week.

(Sigh) When will I learn?.