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Appreciating yourself…

15 May

Life is short. Everyone knows this. We have (usually) 70-110 years on this rock we call home, assuming everything goes according to plan. Why then are we so hard on ourselves?

I’m a big advocate of staying fit and healthy (duh). I’m also a big advocate of changing your lifestyle to get that way. I love seeing people at the gym, or out walking, or cycling, who have made a decision to change their lives around where diet and exercise are concerned. But sometimes I think we get stuck on the improvement, while not appreciating what we have already.

I turn 40 this year. Yes, I know, let the “you’re old, dude!” jokes start. :) But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned to appreciate what I have and how far I’ve come. I honestly like who I am; I couldn’t always say that (a long time ago). I have a wonderful wife, two fun cats, great friends, great training partners, a great job, great family, and my health. I’m fitter now than I was 20 years ago. I’m driven, focused, and have targets in mind for my long-term goals. I’m happy.

I think more people, no matter where they are in their lives, need to take a step back and examine what they like about themselves and appreciate what they have. So you’re overweight? Does your family love you? Yes? There ya go. Yeah, you want to lose 20, 30, 50, 100lbs…but do it for yourself, because you like yourself. And do it knowing that you’re worth appreciating. Love yourself for who you are, not who you want to be. Be happy!

We all have things we’d like to change about ourselves…but that should be secondary to learning to appreciate who we are and what we have right now. You’re breathing? Awesome! You’re walking? Fantastic! Your children got straight-As in school? Outstanding! Just be happy in who you are. You are one of the most amazing feats of natural engineering that ever evolved (or created, depending on your ethos). Simply living should be breathtaking.

So…hug your spouse. Hug your kids. Watch a tree blow in the wind. Pet a kitten. Call/text your parents/grandparents/friends. Watch the sunrise/sunset with someone you love. Celebrate this moment right here and the fact that you’re in it. Not the person you’d like to be, but the person you are now. Because life is short, and we have to appreciate every moment we have.

sunrise
Keep moving!!

 
2 Comments

Posted by on May 15, 2013 in Motivation, Random, Rant

 

Coming under fire…

14 May

Huh…there’s a 1983 Def Leppard song by that title…ok, now that I just dated myself…

Diet
It’s interesting to me how often I get criticized by people for making healthy decisions. I choose to eat well and train hard for my health (and to compete in races…but that’s secondary). Whenever I say “I’m going on holiday, but I’m not eating [insert junk food you'd usually find on vacation here]“, I get the typical “yeah, right” or “whatever” or (my favorite) “you’re on vacation, it doesn’t count”. Well, yeah, it does…for someone like me who’s looking at everything I eat as fuel rather than for fun, it does make a difference.

My goals right now are sport performance-related. I need to put good fuel into my body, so that I can push my limits when I’m swimming, biking, running, lifting, etc. I’ve made the argument before for “food as fuel”, and I get tired of the excuses. Yeah, I used to be guilty of the “I just worked out, I can eat what I want” mentality…but that’s crap, frankly. That logic just is anything but…it makes no sense at all. The occasional indulgence is fine (I had a couple mint M&Ms today), but justifying it because of some excuse (vacation, you “earned” it, you exercised) is a recipe for disaster.

Currently I maintain at about ~140lbs (depending on water weight fluctuations) and 10-11% body fat. I do that because that appears to be where I’m stable when I’m training hard and eating well. It’s also the combination that keeps me training hard and able to push myself to my limits (and beyond). I notice even a couple of pounds or body fat percentage increases in how my runs and rides are…it makes a difference.

The last time we traveled to Reno (for example), most of the days we were there I was well into the 3000-4000kcal range per day; that’s consumed, not burned. Yes, we walked everywhere…for about 10 hours a day, more or less. Yes, I hit the treadmill twice while we were there. Does that justify it? Hell, no. The quality of what I ate was also suspect…buffets are the devil’s work, no doubt. Quite possibly the most evil culinary invention of our time. And you can easily consume your weight in bad food without even realizing it. This is just an example of what some people feel is a justifiable dietary transgression.

Training
If I had a nickel for every person who has told me that I’m training too hard, that I’m going to burn out, that I’m nuts, that I must be suffering a mid-life crisis, blah, blah, blah, I could afford to get my CPT tomorrow. Seriously.

I’m a triathlete. I have three disciplines to train for, as well as cross-training. That means when I’m not spending time with my lovely wife and our cats, when I’m not at work, when I’m not sleeping…I’m training or racing. According to Garmin Connect, that came out to 99 hours 36 minutes last year, and 69 hours 10 minutes this year (so far). Clearly 2013 is going to trump 2012 by an order of magnitude. But why?

Because in 2014 I intend to complete four triathlons (including one sprint, an XTERRA, a half-Ironman and possibly a full-Ironman), three half marathons and two XC mountain bike races. You don’t go into any single one of those untrained, let alone nine high-intensity races. It requires a level of dedication that I’m happy to commit to. I intend to be training and racing at an intensity level higher than where I am now over the next 20-30 years.

Many people, for some reason, can’t understand that. They think I’m foolish, or worse, wasting my time. Judas Priest put it best in their 1988 song I’m a Rocker: I live each day like it’s my last/I never look back. I have one life to live, and I want to use what nature gave me to my maximum potential during the time I have. Multisport racing is how I’m doing that. I’m sure that there are many Olympic gold-medal holders who felt the same way at some point…that they weren’t supported, that they were ridiculed. No, I’m not comparing my athletic level to theirs…those people are gods and goddesses amongst men, as far as I’m concerned. But the principle’s there…people with severe dedication are often criticized for it.

To sum up, I guess I’m just tired of the hypocrisy and the crap coming from people who don’t understand. If you want to complain about your fitness level, fine; but leave me the hell alone, and don’t say that I’m “nuts” for doing what I enjoy, and pushing what I’m capable of.

Have you ever been criticized for your athletic pursuits, or fitness goals?

Keep moving!!

 
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Posted by on May 14, 2013 in Diet, Rant, Training

 

Even Batman has off days…

13 May

batmandarkknight3658Today started out pretty good for a Monday. Got up a little late, no big deal, but got lunches made and out the door so that we were at work on time. The morning was productive, and lunch was occupied by a great chest/triceps/back/biceps routine. The afternoon started ok…and then it started…the migraine… (Dun dun dun!!)

Started getting some haloing in my right field of vision that just would not go away. Tried taking out my contact and putting it back in…made no difference. Had my wife (we work in the same place, thankfully) check my eyes and confirmed that they weren’t dilated evenly. Called my eye doctor and left work early.

They ran through my description and some of the usual tests; the doc had a pretty good idea of what it was just based on my description: ocular migraine. He’s had them as well, and there are years (or decades) between them…my last one was over 18 years ago, and the prior was five before that; you get the picture. He dilated my eyes to be sure that there was nothing else; the rest of my eyes looked fine. He recommended a follow-up with my primary doc (doing that tomorrow), and we headed out.

My headache (behind my left eye, not the one I was having blurring in) was getting worse as we drove home…this was compounded by the fact that I didn’t have my contacts in, and even behind my Oakley Flak Jackets the light was insanely bright. Just made it to the driveway before I jumped out of the truck, ran in the house, and tossed the entire contents of my stomach. Hurt like hell (when does vomiting not hurt like hell?), but I felt a ton better afterwards. Cleaned up, changed into my sweats and sat on the couch for the rest of the evening.

So yet another week’s training jacked up by something beyond my control. Oh well. No lifting tomorrow, but still hoping to do my 1200yd swim in the evening…we’ll see. :) What a Monday!

So yeah…even superheros have off days. ;)

Have you ever had a migraine? Did it completely knock you down?

Keep moving!!

 
2 Comments

Posted by on May 13, 2013 in Pain, Random, Rest

 

My version of “paleo” eating…

10 May

10000bc-sabretothedtigerWhile out on my four mile trail run on Saturday, I was thinking about food. I think about food a lot, but especially when running…usually the through process revolves around what I’m going to eat when I get home.

But I got to thinking about “paleo” eating, or more specifically, “clean” eating. The principle behind the paleo diet is that we don’t eat anything that we didn’t eat 10,000 years ago, when our ancestors were hunting/gathering for their food every day (before the invention of processed foods and grain harvest (i.e. the agricultural age). The idea being that the human machine wasn’t designed to consume or process refined foods…certainly not grains. That’s what herbivores eat, and we eat the herbivores. Makes sense.

But I took it a little further (at about mile two, the gears really started going). For some reason I was thinking about Native Americans and the indigenous people of the Arctic Circle (no idea why…Dances with Wolves was on TV the other day, maybe that was it). I started thinking about what they ate, even as recently as the last 200 years. These people didn’t eat beef…they didn’t have domesticated livestock. They ate birds and other small mammals they hunted (otter, beaver, muskrat, deer), and occasionally the larger wild animals like bison, or in the case of the Alaskans, whales and seals. In the non-meat category, they ate plants and nuts that were native to the areas they lived in. Agriculture is a European invention…these people were purely hunters and gatherers.

So…what does this have to do with me or you? A lot, actually. From Nerd Fitness:

“In short: cut out processed foods and grains, load up on veggies, meat, fish, eggs, fruits and nuts.”

The idea behind this is to eliminate the processed crap we are bombarded with each day. Processed carbs are insanely easy to consume…we’re surrounded by them. If it’s a bread product (baked, unleven, whatever) it came from wheat, and that’s in turn most likely processed in some way. One of the ideas behind paleo is that if you didn’t kill it, dig it up, or chop it down, don’t eat it.

So in regards to my earlier observation about the native peoples of our fine continent: these people didn’t eat processed foods. They thrived for thousands of years. And until the rather unfortunate invasion of their homeland, they would have kept on with this lifestyle for a long, long time.

How am I adopting this? Simple: I’m reducing the amount of processed crap in my diet. Cheez-Its: awesome, but processed and so bad for you. Whole wheat bread: high in fiber, but still processed. Pasta: again, heavily processed. Soda: let’s not even go there… I’ve been eating very clean lately (not “full” paleo, I have limits) and I feel awesome.  I sleep better, I don’t feel bloated after meals, and I’ve burned even more fat off than I had before.

Sure, it’s hard to do…but you don’t have to go nuts with it. Just eliminate a couple things, or at the very least, reduce them. The less processed stuff you put into your body, the happier it’ll be. :)

How do you reduce your processed food intake? Have you cut anything out entirely?

Keep moving!!

 
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Posted by on May 10, 2013 in Diet

 

Is 140.6 the ultimate goal?

09 May

140.6There’s an interesting thread going on over at Slowtwitch.com about triathletes choosing shorter distances, such as sprints and Olympic-distances, or even half-Ironman (also called “HIM”) races, over the full Ironman-distance races (140.6 miles total distance). For a beginner like me, this was a real eye-opener (and continues to be as the thread grows and more people chime in). I thought everyone aimed for Ironman, specifically Kona, as their ultimate goal.

I think many people (age groupers, specifically) believe that a Kona slot will prove you’re really a triathlete (bad-ass, god/goddess, insane…pick your adjective). I think a lot of people lose track of why they got into the sport in the first place when they make getting a slot at Kona their sole reason for training and racing.

Let me be clear: there is absolutely nothing wrong with striving to compete at Kona, or win your AG there, or even just finish (moving forward under your own power for up to 17 hours is an incredible feat, no doubt about it). I admire every single athlete, AGer and pro, who has entered and attempted this race (and any 140.6 distance race) over the last 35 years. It takes guts, determination, an insane amount of training, and a strength of will that your average couch potato will never understand. Simply having the wherewithal to show up at the start line and dive into the water with 1200 other people requires more courage than most people will ever muster…especially for those who are doing so with some sort of physical challenge (amputees, those with debilitating conditions, cancer survivors, etc.).

I would love to earn a slot there someday…but it doesn’t drive my training. When I step out for a run or ride, or I settle into the pool for my laps, I don’t think “this is so I can get to Kona”. I’m thinking “this is so I can do it again tomorrow” or “this is so I can get faster” or “this is so I can maintain a resting heart rate of 55bpm”. While I train to race, I primarily train to be healthy, be stronger, and live longer. Races should be targets, but not the sole purpose for training. You never (rarely?) hear anyone say “train to race”, but you often hear “train to live” or “live to train”.

That all being said, I do have plans for Ironman Tahoe or Ironman Canada in 2014 or maybe 2015 (depending on how my first 70.3 goes in June 2014. But my plan is to complete those races with a good time and without injury, not necessarily to earn a Kona slot. If that happens, I’ll be astounded and surprised (and absolutely go…I’d be nuts not to!). But in the meantime, I’m happier doing the shorter distance races and pushing myself to become faster at those distances. :)

What is your opinion on full Ironman distance races vs shorter races? What do you prefer to race?

Keep moving!!

Note: I know this post might piss off those who believe that getting to Kona is the be-all-end-all of the triathlon world. That’s ok…it’s my blog, and these are my opinions. :) To be perfectly honest, if you’re taking things so seriously that you can’t respect my opinion, you need a reality check anyway.

 
2 Comments

Posted by on May 9, 2013 in Racing, Training

 

Training Summary: April 2013

01 May

I’ve decided to start posting a training summary of what I did each month, to compare over time (and to show you all how completely off my rocker I am). So, without further ado, I give you: April 2013!

Swim:

Count: 8 Activities
Distance: 3.18 mi
Time: 3:13:40 h:m:s

Bike:

Count: 5 Activities
Distance: 86.73 mi
Time: 6:18:17 h:m:s
Elevation Gain: 2,427 ft
Avg Speed: 13.8 mph
Max Speed: 27.7 mph
Calories: 3,852 C

Run:

Count: 11 Activities
Distance: 53.39 mi
Time: 7:57:35 h:m:s
Elevation Gain: 1,497 ft
Avg Speed: 6.7 mph
Max Speed: 10.5 mph
Calories: 5,955 C

Strength training:

Count: 10 Activities
Time: 3:40:00 h:m:s

Monthly total:

Count: 34 Activities
Distance: 143.30 mi
Time: 21:09:32 h:m:s
Elevation Gain: 3,924 ft
Avg Speed: 8.3 mph
Max Speed: 27.7 mph
Calories: 9,807 C

And that about covers it! May proves to be on par if not heavier. :)

How do you keep track of your training each month?

Keep moving!!

 
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Posted by on May 1, 2013 in Training

 

Cardio sucks…

26 Apr

Running is awesome. Cycling is awesome. Swimming is awesome. Trail running…yup, uber-awesome. No, the cardio I’m talking about is the steady-state, boring, repetitive, god-awful, mind-numbing, screen-staring, digitally enhanced gym cardio. The stuff you see the poor zombies doing for hours on end when you walk into the gym. The zombies (people) who were told over and over again by their “fitness” magazines that cardio is good for you and doing hours of it is the only way to lose weight/look like Adonis/Aphrodite. No matter how many episodes of Glee or The Real Housewives they watch, do they ever look happy? Not many of them.

Now, don’t get me wrong…there are some people who love gym cardio. But they’re usually doing it for 20 minutes as a warm-up to something else (like lifting heavy things). I would rather train (properly geared, of course) in Antarctica or Death Valley than spend any longer than absolutely necessary on a treadmill or elliptical machine. I’ll run in the rain, snow, wind, heat…whatever you can throw at me, I’d much rather train outdoors. We’re not hamsters, and we’re not meant to breathe recycled air (gag!).

A friend of mine, who exclusively works out at the gym or at home (i.e. indoors), exclaimed the other day how fed up and bored she was with the gym. Now, this person is interested in losing weight and getting healthy, but unfortunately she’s never been given really good alternatives other than “the gym”. This is what we’re told by a lot of healthcare “professionals” (buncha charlatans…) and all those bloody magazines (Men’s Health, Women’s Health, Shape, Allure, etc.)

Here are some things to try:
1. Walk or run outside…the scenery changes constantly, the fresh air is good for you, and you might see something you’ve never seen before
2. Don’t wear headphones…outdoors or at the gym; being bombarded by music or noise constantly isn’t good for your ear drums. Besides, then you can finally hear the birds, wind, trees, frogs, etc. And safety-wise it’s bloody stupid to wear headphones when outside, especially if you’re by yourself (hit and run, anyone?)
3. Take a friend…get a group together for your training, it’s more fun with friends. You motivate each other and have more fun doing it

But John!!
1. I don’t have the right equipment/clothing!
2. I’m sensitive to sunlight (bloody vampires…)!
3. I don’t want anyone to see me!
4. I’ll melt in the rain!
5. I don’t have any friends!
6. I need my music to pace right!

Those are all excuses…and bad ones, at that. I, however, have answers to each one:
1. You don’t have to break the bank: go to Goodwill or a thrift store…chances are someone has gotten rid of some nice technical clothes due to losing weight or just getting bored; their loss is your gain.
2. Find a good sunblock and wear it; I like Neutrogena’s Ultra Sheer spray. Find something easy to use and hypoallergenic…the last thing you want is a rash or breakout, that’ll kill your motivation fast.
3. Deal with it…no one is looking at you, they’re focused on what they’re doing; get over yourself (sorry, but it’s true).
4. Again, deal with it (see #1 and #3)…it rains, and your skin is designed to be pretty waterproof (amazing, huh?), so wear a light jacket and hat and run/walk on.
5. Everyone has friends; find someone at work to convince to join you, or someone you regularly see at the gym (if you’re the outgoing type). Chances are there’s someone in the same situation as you.
6. If you have to use music to pace properly, you’re screwed. Stop it, right now. USAT, USATF, and WTC rules state that you can’t wear media devices during a race…so get used to it, because chances are if you’re serious, someday you’ll participate in an event sanctioned by one of these entities and then you’ll be up the proverbial creek. Plus, it’s just not safe!

I just realized that this is post is a little more “direct” (ok, a lot more direct) than my usual light-hearted fare. But it’s all true (especially the hamster part). The human machine was not designed to walk or run on a revolving belt for miles and miles. We are one of the most amazing organisms on the planet for our versatility, endurance and durability. Use those factors to your advantage, and get the hell outside where nature intended us to be.

If you need a good article on walking for fitness (and you’re a nerd/geek), check out the Hobbit’s Guide to Walking at Nerd Fitness.

How do you deal with the gym “blahs” or training lows?

Keep moving!!

 
4 Comments

Posted by on April 26, 2013 in Gym, Motivation, Rant, Training

 
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