Traction

They say it takes 3 weeks to create a new habit.

They say habit begets habit.

They say esteemable people take esteemable actions.

They say fake it until you make it.

I do not know who they are. I do not know the science or math behind these things I have said. Here is what I say:

No one is going to do anything for you if you are not prepared to do it for yourself.

It is impossible to do the right thing wrong or the wrong thing right.

Run with your heart and your legs will follow.

What does any of this mean? Do I just write things out to write them? Perhaps. I have come to realize that my blog is 2 parts journal for each part training log and this becomes pronounced when I meet someone who reads it and they are disappointed that this loud writer is a quiet speaker. I am introvert by nature, proven by a body of evidence built over the years, but most recently in a Myers-Brigg personality test. The first sentence said it all: Introverts are drained by dealing with people, Extroverts are charged by it. I like people. Well, that isn't true. I like the people that I like and there are plenty of them. I don't like the people that I don't like, and there are more of them. I wish this wasn't true but I have learned over the years that it is one thing to judge those I do not like, it is another thing to condemn them. I have also learned that one thing about being particular with the quantity and quality of the people I surround myself with is that I end up being fiercely loyal to them. Another curious thing about my friends, I like the underdogs and I like the truly quality people.

What does all of this have to do with anything? There are parallel things happening in my training and personal life. Week 3 of marathon training and week 3 of my job search. When I launched each of these endeavors, motivation was low. I was coming off a month of sloth, cheese-eating, beer drinking and limited movement, the notion of 4 months of progressive training was not at the front of my mind. And the job search? I have never had to search for a job in my life, so buckling down, making calls, informational interviews, applications and rejections, well none of these really appealed either. There are parallels in each; both are arduous and there are no shortcuts in either, but I am starting to feel the traction in each.

The job search has produced little tangible results but the act of doing it has gotten my moving and thinking and producing again. The marathon training, on the other hand, has already yielded visible results, the high point being a 10 mile run at 6:48 pace last night, faster than marathon speed. The weight loss is its own self-propelling cycle, too, because the more weight I drop, the more I can run, the more I can run, the more weight I lose, the better I eat, the more weight I lose and so on and so forth.

So there is traction in goals and inertia in my journey. The job search and the current climate can be disheartening. It is tough to go from making a ton of money at jobs I never applied for to dealing with rejection at jobs that pay 1/3 of what I used to make. I am constantly telling myself (and being told by my friends) to let go of my ego in this process. I try. It is hard. I am not used to this. I am also not used to being totally broke. It is a tough place to be, it is tough to not know if you can pay your bills on the first, it is tough to choose which bills to pay, it is tough to pass up on some dinners with friends because the price is too high, all of that is tough. Regardless of the tough or the irrational fears or the ego drain, the very last thing I want to do is to make a decision based on fear. That leads to short-sighted decisions that backfire in the end. So I persevere.

I guess to close the metaphor, there comes a point in every distance race where you want to quit and this would be very easy. And there are days in this job quest that I feel the same way. There are days when I want to take a short cut or where I get really down on myself. But to paraphrase Mr. Lance Armstrong: "Quitting takes a second but you have to live with forever".

Back in the swing

Week 3 of marathon training. Saturday was a 16 miler and it was pouring rain. I ran anyway. It was cold and wet but it ended up being a good one. Ran up and over San Vicente, around the VA hospital then back down SV. At SV & Bundy is the mile 22 marker for the LA Marathon and I was at mile 13 of my run. I picked up the next 2 miles at 6:30 pace and felt strong, albeit totally soaked. I hit mile 15 fast, cooled down for the last mile and went home. It was raining and cold and my keys were not in my hiding spot, so I spent the next hour tracking down spare keys. By the time I got into my apartment I was shivering and hungry. Sunday was a 6 mile recovery run, Monday was 75 minute bike and today was another solid run. I warmed up 2 miles and then did 3 repeats of 1 mile each up and down Ocean Blvd. I managed sub-6pace and this made me happy. I have done a better job than ever of keeping my short runs fast and my long runs slow.

Tomorrow is a mid-distance run w/ 2 1 mile repeats in the middle and Saturday is my longest run to date - 18. It will be slow and steady like the majestic turtle.

Running incredibly fast & painfully slow

Marathon training is surprisingly similar to Ironman training, except you don't bike or swim as much. In point of fact, if you don't want to, you really don't have to bike or swim at all. But it helps.

Week one of training for LA Marathon is in the books. I designed my own program through March 21 and it looks like this:

Monday - Tempo/interval run (6-8 miles)/Strength Training thru January
Tuesday - 60-90 minute bike
Wednesday - Medium - Long run (12-16 miles) @ 80-90% marathon pace/Strength Training
Thursday - Hill run/Interval run (45-60 minutes)
Friday - Off
Saturday - Long run (16-24 miles) @ 75-85% marathon pace w/ last 3 miles at fast/slow/fast
Sunday - "Do something" (recovery run/bike/whatever)

The first week was hard, mainly a matter of pushing the boulder toward the cliff to get it ready to roll itself. In the kinesiology world we call that potential energy, as opposed to kinetic energy. Kinetic energy is energy in motion, potential is just that - the potential for something to happen. I have the potential, but spent most of November eating, drinking, generally slothing and I put on about 10 pounds. In fact last Monday night I weighed in at 176 pounds, the most I have ever weighed in my life. Weight is all bogus anyhow because after a week of training and eating well, I am weighing in at 166. I strongly doubt I lost 10lbs in one week. But I tell you this - I feel every pound lost or gained out there on the run.

Last Wednesday and Saturday were my first quality long runs in months. Saturday I headed 8 miles North on PCH from Santa Monica and 8 miles back. Nothing - and I mean nothing - pisses roadie d bag cyclists off like some tyrannasourus rex lumbering in their bike lane when they are riding 2 wide and veering into the traffic lane. I love their indignance at my presence there when they cannot even hold a line anyway.

I really seek out aggravation and trouble.

Last Thursday I took to the California Incline for 5 repeats up and down. It is short, about a one minute up and down, but it is intense. It is one of those things where you get a surge of energy for the first 15 seconds and for the last 15 seconds but that middle 30 seconds is just sheer determination. It is also one of those things where you hit the top of the hill and want to vomit.

Last night was a key run, one of the best runs I have had in over a year. Nick from Core Performance designed a treadmill workout that he has been threatening me with for some time. Nick looks like this guy in the picture. But, to his credit, the guy can design a workout. 22 minute workout that he put me through twice. 1 minute warm up then 35 seconds at 5 minute/mile pace, 30 seconds easy, 35 seconds at 5 minute/mile pace, repeat 14 times (28 times when you do it twice). The first few were a shocker - very fast. Then I settled into a rhythm of breathing and cadence. But the last 10 were hell. I found myself counting the seconds. By the end I could barely walk and I didn't sleep so hot last night because my heart rate was so jacked. I woke up today and got on the bike for an hour and took at least half that time just to find my legs.

But I am back and eating better and feeling better about my fitness but also life in general. The last two months have really sucked. But IronMax (when will the Iron-ball washing cease?) pointed something out to me when I was right in the thick of my relationship/financial crisis/unemployed/cheese eating malaise - tragedy + time = comedy. Being the mathemagician that I am, that resonated. I am feeling better now that I have turned to many people in my life and asked for help. One friend totally redid my resume for me, several others have hooked me up with job leads and interviews, even my dumb brother has been a real help in terms of advice and support. And things look good. I have to say I didn't know how bad this economy was until I started looking for a job. It sucks. I am ultimately not concerned but when I made the decision to spend the last year getting TNS up and running, all the while knowing I would go back to a steady clock-punching job once it was, I didn't know things would get this bad. Well, it is.

I am at this age - 35 - where I am surrounded by friends entering into the next phase. Here I am, with a fledgling business built around my passion but also a personality that doesn't do well waking up every day needing to go out and scratch out my living and I am seeing two interesting things in my peer group. One, many of them who kept climbing the corporate ladder now want off. They are finding that they got the titles and the salaries and now the trappings of that path have turned into traps. They have mortgages and cars and they aren't happy. So many people want out. I attribute a big portion of this to the economy. I think it was probably one thing to find yourself with a $10,000/month nut when you had $200k equity in your house in the Valley, but it is quite another when you are upside down. Makes it a lot harder to swallow and a lot harder to get excited for each day.

The other thing I am seeing is divorce. This is the other thing I did not do at 25 - get married. I was so convinced that this is how life was supposed to go:

Graduate college - check
Get job out of internship I worked in college - check
Meet girl - check (and check and check and check)
Marry girl - check
Promote in job - check
Buy house with girl - check
Have 2 kids with girl - check
Become boss of company - check
Retire at 50 - check

This was pretty much the map that I thought life was supposed to follow. And then this happened:

Graduate college - check, after 8 years
Get job out of internship I worked in college - check
Meet girl - check
Meet other girl - check
Marry neither of them - check
Promote in job - check
Buy house by myself - check
Have 2 kids - almost
Leave it all (job, girl) behind unceremoniously in 2006 - check
Lose house - check
Travel around the country doing manual labor, "finding myself" - check
Land even "better" job that i hate - check
Make more money than I know what to do with - check
Rack up more debt than I know what to do with doing God knows what with it - check
Spend as much time as possible trying to get laid off - check
Get laid off - check
Spend 6 months redefining myself as an Ironman and coach - check
End up happier - and broker - than ever before - check
Build a business with quality friends, partners and customers - check
Get it up and running, figure out you miss the structure and stability of a job that you resented so much before - check
Go out, get job, do NOT repeat - in process

So this is the path I actually took. The path I am taking. It is not what I thought it would be and the fact that it is not the path that I thought it would is precisely what has caused me so much angst the last two months. Well that and having someone who had known me through the whole thing tell me I would not ever be enough for her because I will never own a private jet. Also, that sucked.

Here is what it comes down to, for me. There are always those who say - do what you love and the money will come. There are also those who say - money is all that matters.

They are both wrong, and both right.

At the end of the day for me it comes down to this - I want to leave the world a better place than I found it. That is it, that is the most fundamental tenet I can live by, the simplest rule. Every day I want to contribute to a greater good. For me, I cannot do that when I am broke because I am miserable. I also cannot do that when I am in a job I hate because it makes me miserable. So I have reached a middling point in my life where I can find happiness in the WHY of what I do as opposed to the WHAT. TNS gives me the what. That is my passion, my dream, my joy. That is the thing that I can wake up every day fired up to do. Charrissa is doing an Ironman next November; I am now excited about something through next November. I think about it every day. I run with Don every two weeks, or more; I get excited about watching him develop. Max, Susan, Lisa Jo, Lesley, Michael, Anthony, I think about these people every day and how I can help them. But the money isn't there yet. We are profitable but I need a full-time job. So the WHY of a full-time job is that if I make spreadsheets or run a company or sell sunglasses, it is just a means to an end.

For me, it took me all this time and a circuitous path to realize that the WHAT of my career is no longer as important as the WHY.

I'm fat, my shoulder hurts and I am running a marthon for real

I don't have a ton of time to blog so I figured I would just put all of it into the title. Like most movies these days.

I'm fat - I hit 176 pounds Monday night after 2 burgers at the Counter, fries and 2 cokes. I have been eating high concentrations of cheese, pizza, burgers, deserts, beer and wine. 176 is 18 pounds heavier than I raced IMAZ and 15 pounds heavier than I raced Vineman this summer. I told Max that I had officially hit my weight bottom. He told me I had officially hit my weight top. Good point.

My shoulder hurts - My left shoulder popped at Malibu in September. It was audible, it slowed me WAY down on the siwm and it hasn't gone away. I sleep like the Bangles "Walk Like an Egyptian" is playing - left arm up, right arm down and I wake up everyday in pain. So I finally had it looked at and I have the impingement syndrome. So disappointing as I love swimming so much, but I can't swim for at least a month. That is sarcasm. I am going to work on strength exercises to get it back.

I am running a marathon for real - LA Marathon 2010. I ran a 3:16 marathon a few weeks on 0 training. So...I am pretty sure I can bust out a sub-3 if I really train for it. Added incentive includes the weight loss that comes with running and the fact that the course ends by my house this year. We run the last miles down San Vicente and Ocean.

Finally - one last congrats to Max for his Ironman and now the 2 week Max Miller ball-washing can come to an end! (Love you man).

Lost & Found

Found: At Ironman Arizona, pure joy. Also found were inspiration, awe, wonder, emotion, new friends, team spirit, an old friendship revitalized.

Lost: Doubt.


I don't really know where to begin with my thoughts on this past weekend's Ironman Arizona experience so I will just begin at the beginning.

It started 12 months ago after I got done with Ironman Arizona and started nagging at Max to sign up for the race. He hemmed and hawed as is his wont, but mainly told me a dozen reasons why he couldn't do the race at this time, but how he wanted to do one eventually. Well, I didn't take I will do one eventually for an answer. I finally got him to sign up after doing Oceanside this past year. I gave him a couple of months to get ready and in June we officially begin our training.

I was asked several times this weekend how I knew he could do this race and my answer was - the size of his legs and the size of his heart. After what I saw this weekend, his legs took him 132 miles of the way and his heart took him the last 8.6.

So we drove Thursday, ate horribly all day - In N' Out burgers, Oregano's pizza, junk food and lots of it. Me not racing meant beers all weekend. And I grew a beard. This was the vacation I needed.

Friday was the first sighting of nerves. We did a little swim, hung out and picked up Sofia around 3. We went over to the expo so Max could check in and shop and I ran one backwards loop of the run course (8.7 miles or so). I did not run backwards as that would be hard on my knees and I would probably trip. I mean I ran the clockwise loop in reverse. I need to get very familiar with a course so that I know the hills, the sprints, water stations, the points of inspiration and desperation and I really wanted to know exactly where to tell our athletes to begin their kicks.

It turned out the check in was closed and Max had his first moment of panic when he thought he couldn't check in on Saturday. For a brief minute he thought he would not be racing. It was an awful moment but then we figured out he could check in Saturday. Friday night was more Oregano's pizza, more beers and more of me being the "funny" guy I usually am, giving the wait staff a hard time, cracking jokes, all of it, which meant that for the first time in months I felt like myself. I have had two months of not being myself, of selling myself short to appease someone else and I was finally feeling like me again. Sprinkle some incredible friendship with Max and Sofia and it was just amazing.

Saturday morning the "T - 24 hours" switch flipped. We were getting down to it. Max and I headed down for the pre-race swim/run brick and met Anthony, his friend Burt Kim and her friends. I had Max work primarily on entering and exiting the weird water stairs just so he would not have to worry about it Sunday. We then ran 1.2 miles down the course and back. Why 1.2 miles? Because this represented the exact distance I would have him sprint on Sunday. On the IMAZ run course the last turn occurs with 1.2 miles to go and then it is nothing but a long straightaway. I knew that he could handle a progressively faster 1.2 miles, so we worked on some 30 second pick ups on that little 15 minute run. Relaxed most of the day, then met our LARGE group at PF Chang's for a pre-race diner. Max's parents, Sofia's family, family friends and the core TNS crazies. Sofia and I presented Max with the book we put together over the last months of training/racing pictures and letters from friends. And boy did he cry. Lucky bastard got saved by the overly loud PF Chang's or he might have started crying about his childhood or a sad movie or something. It was incredibly moving. In fact the whole damn weekend was incredibly moving. So I went out and got drunk for the first time in months. Dave, Charrissa and Eve and I went out and it felt nice to, again, not worry about anything for a night. Really fun.

And then came Sunday. Up at 4, not feeling great but propped up on adrenaline and caffeine. My role was to make sure Max had everything and then get myself into a kayak. Part of advancing through the USA Triathlon coaching ranks is volunteering so I decided to help manage the swim course in a kayak. Turns out the best view of an Ironman swim start is from a kayak. I have never kayaked before, but me being me positioned myself directly in front of the mass of swimmers near the wall. I was overwhelmed by what I saw. Nerves, resolve, tears, fear (not 1 but 2 people asked me if I had goggles. Weird thing? I did have 1 pair. Not 2 though).

BOOM goes the dynamite and away they go. I never stop getting inspired by the mass swim start of an Ironman. It is just inexplicable, has to be seen. About 30 minutes into the swim my role went from security to coach and I spotted a woman who was just lagging. The cut off time is 2 hours, 20 minutes for the swim and she wasn't 1/4 of the way after 30 minutes. So I made it my business to get her to the finish. I kayaked next to her, she would stop every so often and hold on and then keep going. We looked pretty good. With 45 minutes left she had less than a mile which in my book was a slam dunk. She was slow but steady. Another kayaker joined us, then a paddler. We shouted words of encouragement. 40 minutes to go, 1/2 mile but she was slowing. 30 minutes ago, first moment of..she might not make it. HURRY UP! YOU'RE DOING GREAT. Another kayaker joined us. We started to know. But we had a collective hope. 10 minutes to go she hits the second to last buoy, less than 1/4 mile. Now we can see the finish, over 1,000 people standing and cheering. 6 minutes to go she rounds the last buoy, 200 meters to go. Ugh. HURRY! YOU CAN DO IT! We get passed by another swimmer and a few people rowing with her. I am doing math like crazy. 4 minutes to go. I have been lying to her the whole time, paddding by a minute, but now we are really at 4 minutes to swim 150 meters. We are losing ground to the woman who passed us. Everyone is shouting. 3 minutes to go, 100 meters. She stops to say thank you. She looks at me, there is a monent. A moment that ended with me saying STOP TALKING AND START SWIMMING, YOU WILL DO THIS! 90 seconds to go, 50 meters. I can throw a rock and get there. 45 seconds, oh my god no. The woman who passed us hits the stairs. And now I know. COME ON! COME ON! I bang my kayak with my oar, we have an entourage of 20 kayakers and paddlers. The community spirit was at a fever pitch. The hairs on my arm are standing up. 20 seconds, maybe 20 meters, come on! 10 seconds, 15 meters. 5 seconds, 10 meters. Oh my God no. Oh my God no. Please please find it. And then it happened. TIME! 5 meters to go. Clock hits 2:20. It is over. I burst into tears, couldn't help it. She doesn't know it yet. Others are crying and there is a collective exhale from the crowd. This woman, #2400 would be the first swimmer to not make it to the cutoff. I can't explain how that felt, unless I just explained how it felt. I just rowed away, I needed to be alone.

Returned my kayak and found the group. Max and Anthony were both ahead of pace and we would watch Max go by us twice on the bike. Watching an Ironman is a lot of math, at least for me and between the numbers, the feelings, the hangover and the heat, I was feeling a but overstimulated. We headed down to the run course and I finally got to eat, something I had not done since 4am. This did not help.

I will cut to the chase. Max and Anthony were killing it. Anthony was on Kona pace and Max was poised to break 13 hours, no easy feat in your first Ironman. And we waited. I saw Anthony running by to begin his 3rd loop and I knew by math and by feel that he had been on Kona pace and had fallen off. I know him well enough to know by his form that he was breaking down. Instinct kicked in. I ran with him. I jumped in the race and told him that he needed to run a 7:30 pace. He slowed and sped, but he held it. With 1.2 miles to go I told him - after 139.4 miles under your belt, your race, your goal of Kona all comes down to this 1.2 miles. Who gets this chance? No one. I knew he had to pick off 2 runners in his age group to go. With .5 miles to go he caught one. And then the miracle happened and he found a 7th gear. He cranked it up. With less than 200 meters to go he picked off the last 40 year old, sprinted to the finish and is headed to Kona. It was truly inspirational.

An hour later, the next miracle happened. Max ran by for his 3rd loop and was clearly dying. I ran with him and we talked and laughed and bemoaned and got him out of his head. With 1.2 miles to go I told him that I had never asked him for anything for a year of coaching him until now. I asked him to run the last 1.2 miles as fast as he could. At 400 meters to go, I watched a transformation. He sprinted and I mean sprinted. I ran him to near the finish and stopped. I will never forget watching his sprint to the finish. The lights were shining, the crowd was cheering, Mike Reilly called his name out and all I could here was "Thank You". It was Sofia. Amidst all the noise, that's all I heard and I lost it. I had to go off and collect myself because I could not stop crying. It was a day of catharsis and vindication.

But here is what I learned Sunday. I love coaching and I am gifted at it. I got more joy out of coaching those 2 guys, out of supporting every single person on that course in some way, then in racing. I learned that every one has the right buttons to push. Max said to me at the beginning of our run that he was sorry for letting me down, but he would have to walk. I told him to shut up and let's have a nice walk. From that moment on he ran far faster than he had before that. By releasing his expectations and pressure, I set him free. By driving Anthony with numbers and competition, I set him on fire.

In the end, I found the joy I have tried to instill in others.

New in Town

So here we are, night 1 of Ironmax's epic Iron journey 3 days before the Ironman. IRONically the only thing this spacious condo we are staying in does not have is an IRON.

But seriously folks...

6 hours in the car, 12 great conversations, 18" of large pizza and 2 beers later, I just can't believe it has been 1 year since I was here for IMAZ 2008. One year ago Jim, Cortney and I sat in the same restaurant that Max and I just returned from and ate much pizza. The more things change, the more they stay the same, right?

Interesting to use the same experience one year prior compared against itself and I am grateful to be where I am. I spent the last few weeks judging myself by the dollars and status I do not have when I should have been grateful for the friends and experiences I do have. Or put more eloquently by Max during the journey:

The measure of a man is not how much he can suffer but how much he can transcend the suffering and find the joy.

I thought that was pretty cool.

So here we are. Punch drunk, the early onset of nerves creeping in for Max, the rough year behind weighing on me, and in the end both looking forward to Sunday for whatever it means to both of us individually. To make it mean too much is a waste but to deny its meaning is also a waste. It will be what it will be. We have let go of time goals and numeric metrics of success or failure, but both know what he can do.

At this point, as Cortney would say, the hay is in the barn and as Jim would say it is time to stop being comfortable and embrace the pain.

I for one just want to sit in a kayak for once and watch.

Things to do when you are down

Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves back up. - Batman Begins


I am by nature a moody person. I am not a sad person, nor a happy person. I am both. I spent a lot of time trying not to be moody, but then I realized I am just moody and what I can do is to take steps to minimize the downs, maximize the ups and be happy with who I am.

The last month has been a rough one. One of those months where it is just like when is enough enough? A series of individual things that would have been bad enough spread out over a year, all stacked up in a two week period. And it just got to me and I let it send me into a spiral.

I still have my moments, but am feeling much better. I figured I would write down some of the things that got me out of the funk.

1. It's all just temporary. Feelings aren't facts and the facts are that feelings go away. What you feel in one moment in time is not the truth that you will feel one second from now. The things that seem unbearable right now probably will feel a tiny bit better in an hour and the hour after that.

2. Get moving. Everything sort of culminated for me on Halloween and all I wanted to do was lie in bed and stare at the ceiling. Instead I went to dinner with some friends, ate candy and got moving. It was contrary action for sure and I can't see I really felt like leaving my house, but the simple act of getting out and about made me feel better the next day.

3. A little help from friends. It is pretty easy to find friends during the good times, the high times when everything is cool, but is when things are rough that your true friends prove themselves. All of this coincided with my birthday and it was really cool to have so many people to spend time with.

4. Don't take anything personally (from The Four Agreements) - Turns out every person has their own agenda and own schedule and that although they may do things that hurt you, they did not do it on purpose most of the time. Further, people cannot hurt us unless we choose to let them, unless we choose to view it that way.

5. Esteemable people do esteemable things. I spend way too much time thinking about myself. When I am really down, it is often the case that I am in my own head, worrying about my own things. I was feeling pretty low when I woke up the day after Halloween, but I went on a run with Don and worked on his form and I felt better for it afterwards.

6. Try something different. Monday night Max, Sofia and I went to Umami Burger. It was the best hamburger I have ever eaten. I always go to the Counter. It was nice to break out and try something new.

Just some of the things that crossed my mind. You can also run a marathon if you like; that also helps.