Serenity Through Sweat

Output

It is somewhat fitting, Equal parts ironic and opportunistic that my last post was outcome. I recently competed in my first bjj tournament at black belt, and in the lead up to that competition, I was constantly reminding myself to focus on output rather than outcome.

The main t ake away from Output, was that outcome is never certain. It can be out of your control, even with the best of preparation. But output, is always in your control.

So that is what I tried to focus on going into this competition. Control the output. Deliver a performance I could be proud of. And, let the chips fall where they may.

View from the sauna and view from tbe chair

That is easier said than done. Especially in something so personal and ego centric as one on one, hand to hand combat.

The day of the competition was my 38th birthday. My matches were scheduled for later in the evening.

Maybe I was feeling my age. Maybe it was harder to get warmed up at a time when I would have otherwise been eating dinner. Maybe I am finally losing my appetite for cutting weight after three decades.

Whatever the reason, I followed my normal warmup routine, but I didn’t feel the same fire. I felt prepared. I felt ready to compete. But just without that extra edge.

In the aftermath of previous competitions, I realized I had relied too much on my wrestling and not gotten a chance to really test my jiu jitsu. I vowed to change that.

I had a game plan going in. A few wrestling setups and takedowns I felt confident with, all attempted within the first 30-40 seconds. If those were unsuccessful, the plan was to get into guard and get into my jui jitsu game.

The first part of the match was a perfect execution of may gameplan. A few takedown attempts, not successful, but enough to make him think. Then straight into a guard I felt comfortable with.

I played my guard game, moving, adjusting, attacking. Everyting going to plan. I wrestled up from my guard attacks finishing a takedown and ending on top.

So far I was executing the game plan, and the game plan was working. I continued to apply pressure from top position, looking for a place to attack.

I found an opening for a knee bar and trasitioned quickly. Another part of my game I was focusing on from previous competition was being decisive and explosive when the window was open, knowing that windows in high level bjj close quickly.

I didn’t finish the knee bar, but I was thrilled with my recognition and quick, decisive action. Again, sticking to the game plan and improving on past performance.

We scrambled up and I ended up wrestling back down to mat, taking his back with one hook in and attacking his lapels for a choke finish.

As time expired, I was delighted with my performance. My game plan was solid, and my execution was everything I could have wanted. Explosive, aggressive, opportunistic. I used my wrestling to set up my jiu jitsu, and my jiu jistu to set up my wrestling.

When the referee had to go have a conference with another referee before coming to announce the decision, I got a sinking feeling.

The scene from Cinderella man started playing in my head. “They take this long to make a decision, they’re gonna decide to screw someone”

The referee talked with my coach before coming back to the center of the mat and raising my opponents hand.

He had been given credit for a sweep when I attacked the knee bar. I only had one hook in on his back and was not awarded points. The final score was 2-2. even though I had a dominant performance, his points coming from my aggression and attacking without any real advantage to him, he scored last, and that was the tie break criteria.

It was a weird feeling. I couldn’t feel happy. I lost, and that win would have put me in the finals. On the other hand, if I could have scripted my ideal performance for my first five minutes competing at black belt, it would have unfolded very much like that match.

The outcome was not what I wanted, but the output, was almost perfect.

I tried to mentally reset and get ready for the consolation match, hoping to win and be able to compete for 3rd place.

If I was in a weird space before my first match, this was even weirder.

I came out a bit flat, and my opponent was aggressive with his take down, taking advantage of my slow start.

No matter, I got right to work in my guard, again using my jiu jitsu to set up my wrestling and wrestling up.

We scrambled and ended up back in my guard, and I found myself attacking an ankle lock that I feel very confident in.

This is a movement I train every day in the gym and have a great deal of success with.

This time however, I felt and heard a crunch in my left rib cage. I knew something wasn’t right but I continued to attack the ankle lock.

My opponent had to defend, and I took the opportunity to again wrestle up. There was no power though, any tension through my core caused my rips to pop back and forth like a snap bracelet.

I tried to establish my guard for another 30 seconds or so before deciding that discretion was the better part of valor and tapping my opponent, signaling he won and would advance.

Two weeks later, I am still struggling with my rib. Two losses, and an injury on my birthday. Not the outcome I was loking for.

But the outcome was never really in my control, never entirely anyway. But the output. In just over 7 minutes, less than a match and a half, I covered almost all of the positions and techniques I wanted to test at this level.

I transitioned seamlessly between my wrestling and jiu jitsu. I was explosive when the window opened. I tested myself rather than trying to rely on an older and more proven skill set.

It is taking some time, and the rib is a constant reminder that the outcome was far from desireable. I am struggling, but, I am finding peace, knowing that the output was something I can be proud of.

SerenityThroughSweat, earned, struggled for, fought for. It isn’t given, and the outcome is never certain. But, you control the output, and you always have a fighting chance to find it.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Outcome

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. Normally this time of year, I am thinking back on my somewhat ill-advised tradition of the christmas half marathon. This year, I want to talk about a different tradition.

For almost as long as I can remember, Christmas time around my house has come with fudge.

Growing up cutting weight for wrestling during the holidays, there were many years where I was less enthused with this tradition.

I still partook of course. It just meant a few more sprints, and envy as I handed out whole tins of fudge to teachers, coaches, and relatives who could enjoy it without thoughts of the scale nagging at them.

The fudge recipe has been passed down through at least three (and now four) generations on my moms side of the family.

My wife and I received the recipe along with some tutorial batches this christmas.

I have always watched my mother make fudge, even helping from time to time over the years. Licking the spoon counts as helping, right?

What struck me most about this tradition is a small line at the bottom of the recipe. I cannot share the recipe as it is a family secret, but I think sharing this part is ok.

“It is truly a learning experience, and even after 40+ years of making fudge, the outcome is not guaranteed.”

Now, this particular quote talks about some of the steps in the recipe that are more art than science. They require some judgment and experience rather than just blindly following steps.

It made me think about some of our other traditions, how they, too, are not guaranteed.

It would certianly be easy to skip my annual half marathon. There have been many years where it was a struggle to fit it in. Years where I wanted to walk (or hobble) away in the middle of it.

Even just getting together as a family, especially with the amount of time I spend away as a pilot, is never a guarantee.

What makes it a tradition, what makes anything a tradition really, are a few people’s stubborn dedication to make something stick.

And not just to make it stick, but also to make it meaningful. To make it something we look forward to. To make it something that we associate with that holiday or time of the year.

I’m grateful for the many traditions that we have in my family. Even more so now, because of the appreciation for how easy it is to let them fall by the wayside. The outcome is not guaranteed.

It also gives me a sense of hope, for those traditions that have lain dormant for years. That maybe with that same stubborn dedication, they can be revived.

It gives me a renewed sense of purpose. One of our main roles as parents is to be teachers, mentors, and examples for children and other younger members of our family.

Maybe that is a bit too much philosophizing over making fudge, but I think we could all use some more stubborn dedication to family values.

The pursuit of passing on what is important to us, to the generations that follow, knowing that the outcome is never guaranteed.

13th annual Christmas half marathon and the first run of the new year

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Progress

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. A few weeks ago, I earned my black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and I wanted to reflect on that today.

I started wrestling when I was 5 years old. I have been grappling in one form or another for most of my life. For all intents and purposes, I have been throwing other people around, and getting thrown around myself, for longer than I have done any other activity in my life.

It’s kind of weird to think about it that way. I went to school from kindergarten, all the way up through a masters degree, but I have still spent more years on the mats than in a classroom.

I’ve only been working a real job (if you can even call flying an airplane a real job) since I was 18. Again less time than I’ve spent manipulating sweaty bodies.

Earning a black belt was never something I sought out or aspired to. In fact, growing up as a wrestler, I thought they were kind of a joke.

Every martial artist thinks their art is the toughest, and their gym is the best, and wrestlers are no exception. But, wrestling doesn’t have any belts, so the idea always seemed silly to me.

Even when I transitioned to Jiu Jitsu, the idea of belts seemed less important, and mote symbolic than anything. With so much wrestling experience, my white belt in Jiu Jitsu quickly became a point of frustration for my training partners.

Even as a blue belt and a purple belt, I would have lots of frustrated peers in the gym comparing themselves to my belt color without the understanding that thousand of hours of wrestling weren’t factored in to the rankings.

I started teaching and instructing as a brown belt, and any of those misconceptions that had existed before, melted away quickly.

Even when I received my black belt, and I knew the honor was coming, I wasn’t sure what it meant to me. I knew I would be asked to speak, and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say.

I said some thank yous to my coaches, my mother, my family, and my teammates and training partners. I talked about how wrestling and Jiu Jitsu have been a release for me. A safe place to de stress and decompress. To get out of my own head and out of my own way. Serenity Through Sweat.

I felt that my remarks after receiving my black belt were inadequate. I was unprepared to explain not just what it meant to me, but what grappling has done for me, what it has taught me, and how it has shaped me.

Thankfully, I have this space, to explore and share those thoughts. I also have, hopefully, many more years on the mats to share those thoughts and the knowledge gained with anyone who will train with me.

My biggest takeaway from grappling, the thing that I learned on the mats through blood, sweat, and tears across three decades, that yranslates so well to everything ends in life: progress is not linear.

If you put in the work, really put it the work, doing the right things, you will make progress.

Sometimes, that progress comes in leaps and bounds, slowly and then all at once. Those are the magical moments we remember. When something finally clicks and we level up.

Sometimes progress does come in a steady trickle. You grind out the reps you are supposed to and are rewarded in kind.

A lot of the time though, certainly more than we would like, progress is infintecimally small. What seemed at one point like a steady climb becomes filled with plateaus and false peaks.

It is easy to feel like you are treading water or stuck in a rut.

I can’t tell you how many times across my grappling career I have felt stuck. How many times I didn’t know if I could improve or how. How many times i thought i had leveled up, only to be humbled and feel like I was starting from scratch again.

My senior year in high school, coming off championships the previous two years, I didn’t score a single takedown on my main training partner in the practice room all year. Not one

I still went on to win the state championship that year and advance further than I had previously. A whole year of treading water in the practice room. Feeling like I wasn’t making any progress, but my persistence was rewarded in the end.

Im reminded of the scene in Catch Me If You Can (obviously a favorite of pilots who wished they looled half as cool as frank abagnail jr strutting through the terminal flanked by attractive young flight attendants)

Frank’s father gives a speech about two mice thrown into a bucket of cream. One mouse struggles so hard, he churns the cream into butter, and crawls out.

Treading water, but making progress. It certainly wasn’t linear, but rather slowly, and then all at once.

That’s how I feel about my black belt, and that is the lesson I hope to pass on to other grapplers, and to my boys, wether they choose to follow me ontonthe mats or not.

Progress isn’t linear. But, if you keep struggling, keep churning, keep climbing the mountain through the false peaks and plateaus, you will find the summit.

The journey is a worthy endeavor, and there is plentynof serenity to be found along the way.

Thanks for joining me. Stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Thanksgiving

The crisp air felt refreshing, rather than the typical dry ragged burn of icy dryness down my throat. The sun came in blinding flashes through the trees, still clinging to the last leaves of fall. The horn section of the ska track greeted me with enthusiasm despite the combination of running earmuffs and headphones chaffing my cauliflowered ears as I bounded through the park.

Sometimes, the music just sets you up for the right kind of day.

I flew into JFK this morning and meandered my way through heavy traffic both, vehicular and sidewalk, to get to Central Park.

I’m not sure what it is, but there is something special about running there. All the other people enjoying the outdoors. The protected green space, surrounded by a concrete jungle. Running fast enough to pass all the horse drawn carriages (and avoiding stepping in their steaming piles).

It got me thinking about all the things I’m thankful for. The list is long. I am very blessed. But, at the forefront, I’m thankful for a life of adventure.

Raising kids is an adventure. Choosing a life partner is an adventure. Traveling to new places and actually exploring those places leads to all sorts of adventures.

These past few months, in particular, I have been seeking out more and more of those adventures.

Part of it was training and preparation for the six gap century ride, (a grand adventure in its own right). But, I think that training also reawakened in me the thirst for adventure.

What started as a way to get in some extra miles morphed into something beautiful. Opportunities taken, not squandered, and approached with reverence and appreciation.

I’m eternally grateful for these opportunities. To travel, to explore, to interact with these new and familiar places in new and exciting ways.

I’m grateful for the physical health and wellness that enables me pursue these passions.

Riding 90 miles around Lake tahoe, knowing I have an early morning and a long day of work ahead tomorrow.

Fumbling my way on a rickety hotel bike to a trailhead for a hike in Montana

Racing ahead of my new group ride friends on unfamiliar roads so I can get back in time to drink wine with my wife

Struggling up a sandy logging road in the back hills of Boise during wildfire season.

Riding through the fall foliage in Roanoke on the blue ridge parkway late enough in the season that it is closed for cars.

Taking Speedy and El Duderino on a boys weekend trip immediately after returning from a red eye.

I’m grateful for the joie de vivre, that gets me out of the hotel and out of the house to explore. Grateful that it is something I get to do, not something I have to do.

I’m grateful to both of my parents for instilling that sense of wonder and adenture in me. I hope that my words, and more so my actions, instill that same sense of wonder in my boys.

That they can see the plethora of adventures that await them. That they can see all the joy waiting for them to reach out and claim on their own paths.

I hope that they get a chance to explore the big, beautiful world i am just starting to explore.

I hope that they see the value in adventure and are inspired to follow their own passions

I hope that they find their own serenity, even if only for the briefest of moments, and maybe they even get a little sweaty along the way.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to watch them in that endeavor, for as long as I can, knowing that tomorrow is not a guarantee.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Better off

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. Tonight Americans will make their voices heard at the polls. This blog has always tried to steer a clear line around politics, and will continue to do so. In that light though, a common question asked around elections, are you better off now than you were two, four, whatever political term limit years ago?

Frankly, I find the question offensive, especially in the context in which it is asked. Our lives are so complex, and measuring something as open-ended as “better off” is really hard to pin down and subject to interpretation.

So, right off the bat, it is a bad question that is hard to define any real answer to.

Add to that the context, whereby the question implies that whatever politician is directly responsible for your bounty or misfortune.

Now, if you ask yourself that same question, putting the onus on yourself rather than some distant bureaucrat, it’s a totally different story.

Are you better off than you were four years ago? Are you better off than you were a year ago? Are you better off than you were a month ago? Yesterday? Why or why not?

Life has thrown a lot at all of us in the last four years. But skilled sailors are not made by smooth seas, as they say.

Have you grown? Have you changed? Have you gotten healthier? Have you learned and loved?

Politics have little to no impact over most of those things. And, those are among the most important things.

Make your voice heard at the polls. Vote for the ploicy direction you believe in. But also, vote for yourself.

Vote for your health. Vote for your relationships and your loved ones. Vote for adventure and experience. Vote for growth and knowledge.

If you are better off than you were four years ago, what is your personal platform for the next four years?

If you aren’t better off, no one is going to change it for you. You are running unopposed and have no red tape to cut through to implement change.

Regardless of the election results, you will have a super majority to make changes in your own life.

Getting more time on the bike inside and outside

You likely won’t have to convince anyone other than yourself.

I hope you are better off now than you were four years ago. I hope you are better off tomorrow than you are today. I hope you are better off four years from now.

Unfortunately, hope is not a strategy. You get to be the architect of your future, whether that leaves you better off or not. May you find serenity along the way.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Auto pause

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. A few weeks ago, I completed the six gap century ride and I wanted to reflect on that experience.

It was not the ideal backdrop for the 104 miles and 11,000+ of climbing. Hurricane Helene had just pushed through north Georgia and western North Carolina. Roads were wet, trees and debris were all over, and the forecast was for rain and fog in the mountains.

A lot of the participants, including some of my friends and teammates, were delaying their departure, thinking the event might be rescheduled or canceled.

It’s difficult to explain the mindset leading up to a big event like this. Most of the time, it is something you haven’t done before. The most miles, the biggest climb, the longest day, maybe all three, for this particular event.

All the training and preparation lead you to this moment on the starting line for something you’ve never done before. The uncertainty of the outcome and the uncertainty of the circumstances combine to test your resolve in a strangely invigorating way.

It’s important to go into any event with a plan. But, the longer the event, the more likely it is that the plan is going to blow up at some point. So, it is important to be able to pivot and be flexible within your overall framework.

I gave myself plenty of time to wake up, stretch, and drive to the event parking area, even leaving in some extra time for the unexpected.

The unexpected came in the form of my third trip to the port-a-potty and my new bike computer failing to load the route within the final minutes before the starting horn. Better to get it out beforehand, I suppose.

Two thousand of my new best friends and I started through the quiet streets of Dahlonega, a parade of multi colored lycra and flashing bike lights.

We climbed and descended, weaving our way through small mountain towns, making our way through the foggy peaks and fall foliage.

The steepest of the climbs on the day, Hogpen gap came 37 miles into the ride. Averging a 10% gradient with parts of the climb above 15%, it was a slow and quiet climb.

The road had been closed off to vehicle traffic, which made the climb eerily quiet. The slow clicking of pedals and deep rythmic breathing echoed off the trees and the damp cliffside rocks.

Not having the route on my bike computer, I didn’t know how far into the climb I was or how much I had left. (The precise feature I had purchased this bike computer for, c’est la vie)

Looking down, I noticed that the computer was paused. I had not turned off my auto pause feature. This is a feature, (usually helpfull for Florida training rides), where the bike computer realizes you aren’t moving and pauses the activity tracking. It auto resumes once it detects movement again.

So if you stop at a traffic light, or break to eat or refill a bottle, your training stats are not affected by the pause.

The trudging dance of pedals up Hogpen gap was slow enough that my bike computer thought I wasn’t moving at all.

That was a little deflating.

But, the bike computer doesn’t know the struggle. It doesn’t know the experience. It is binary. Above this speed is moving, and below it is stopped.

The whole thing made me think of Einstein. One of his many famous quotes, coming from a letter to his son, was, “Life is like riding a bicycle, to keep your balance you must keep moving”

Even when it looks like you are standing still or treading water, struggling to keep your head afloat, the movement is what saves you. The movement is what balances you, literally and figuratively.

I made it over the top of Hogpen gap with lots more miles and lots more climbing still in front of me. I kept moving. It wasn’t always fast, and it wasn’t always pretty, but it was always forward.

Every bike I have had since I started racing has had a name. This bike was purchased with the six gap ride in mind. It had to be nimble up the climbs and fast and stable down the descents. I struggled to come up with a name for the first few months I had it.

Her name came to me while listening to this Shawn James song on a training ride, looking out over the mountains.

“So you think you got it all figured out?
All this money in the bank and the women all about. Well, now what you gonna do when your ship starts to sink?
Caught in a monstrous sea and you won’t be able to think. Yeah, and it’s there you’ll learn what I know. That all of this world will fade You gotta learn to let it all go, oh And flow like the river”

Flow like the river. Always moving. Always forward. Changing course if something blocks its way, but constant power and movement.

One of my favorite TV/movie combos is Firefly/Serenity. It features a rag tag bunch of outlaw space adventurers defying the odds aboard their shuttle ‘Serenity’. The story centers around a character named River.

Constant movement, serenity, an incredible cinematic journey, some funky blues guitar, it all lined up perfectly for what I wanted this bike to be.

Flow like the river

A reminder of why I keep coming back to new endurance challenges. To keep growing. To keep moving forward. To find serenity. To flow like the river, whether the world thinks you are on auto pause or not.

Thanks for joing me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Here it is your moment of zen

Recalibrate

Sometimes, ego gets in the way.

My heart rate strap, the large puddle of sweat underneath me, and my own intuition after thousands of hours on the bike were telling me one story.

My power meter was telling a very different one.

The same course and roughly the same intensity, with a recalibrated power meter.

I knew something wasn’t quite right, but I didn’t know how to fix it. As much as I tried to ignore it, the numbers on the display are there to be used, and when they are not right, it can be disheartening and distracting.

The whole experience reminded me a little bit of my days as a college flight instructor.

I can remember the flight instructor meeting vividly. Sitting in the conference room, a bunch of type A personalities in our matching flight instuctor polo shirts.

Having just sat through a training presentation on the new avionics suite that would be installed in our new Piper Warriors, one of my friends asked what our students would be expected to know and be tested on.

“So, air data goes in, and pretty colors come out?”

This was almost all of our first experience with a “glass cockpit”. All of us had learned and instructed on mechanical flight instruments.

A knowledge of how those mechanical instruments were built and how they functioned was critical to understanding the data they were giving you.

It was also important to understand the limitations of the mechanical systems. To learn any potential fail points or errors. How or why might the instrument give you bad data? What could you do about it?

So when those instruments are transtioned from mechanical devices to data computers, the fundamental knowledge of how those instruments were doing their respectively similar job went down.

Back to my sweaty bike trainer on the back deck, I knew something wasn’t right. I suspected my power meter, but my understanding of the decice was similar to that of the new air data computer. I push on the pedals, and pretty colors and numbers show up on the screen.

Why was I getting bad data? Was it bad data? How does the tool even work? Is it something I can fix? Am I just being a wimp? (The power data being shown was tragically low compared to what i was expecting/used to seeing)

Taking all the jerseys and bumping up the FTP numbers

These were all the questions going throughy my head. I decided to phone a friend and found that my pedals just needed a simple recalibration.

By recalibrating the pedals to a new zero set point, they immediately started showing the correct (and much more reassuring for my delicate ego) power numbers.

But I still didn’t really understand what I was measuring, or more accurately, how I was measuring it.

God bless the internet. What a time to be alive.

A power meter, measures torque using an electricity sensitive strain gauge. Basically, an electrical mesh is placed inside of whatever surface or tool is being strained. A small computer measures the electrical resiatance in the mesh. When torque (twisting force) is put on the surface or tool, the electrical mesh feels some of that force and the electrical resistance changes. The computer measures those changes and then transmits them to another device for display.

I had a basic understanding of pedal harder more power. Push on the power meter and pretty colorful numbers show up on my bike computer. Only the numbers were less pretty and more disheartening.

Even the idea of recalibrating, while it made sense, left me with an unfinished feeling. That went away once I researched how the power meter worked.

I think that’s an important part of the recalibration process that gets overlooked. Something is broken, or something isn’t working right. We recalibrate, and the issue is resolved, but we don’t know enough about why it was giving us bad data in the first place.

Without that knowledge, without that insight into the why and the how, we are left with input->computer->pretty color display. When things break down, that becomes painfully insufficient.

I try to remind myself of this silly lesson whenever I need to recalibrate. We all need a reset sometimes. Underatanding the why and the how, and getting back to baseline can help on the path to serenity.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

What could go wrong

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I admittedly got away from writing over the summer, and it is well past time to rectify that.

I used to fly quite a bit with a captain who would always end his briefing by saying, “What could possibly go wrong?”

It was said jokingly, of course, but with an all to telling note of seriousness. There are always things that don’t go to plan, especially when flying airplanes.

There are just too many balls in the air. Too many moving parts. Logistics that can seem insurmountable. And yet, flight after flight, day after day, we find a way to make it work.

We thin1k about and brief the things we think may go wrong, and how we plan to react. We train for processes and procedures for responding to unexpected problems. We maintain an awareness of where we are and where we want to go.

The question, though, is ever present. Nagging, like a fold in the sock under your foot. Just enough to remind you with a slight discomfort every step. “What could possibly go wrong”

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, but not as it relates to aviation. That nagging feeling has been with me my entire adult life. I’ve been thinking about the question with my upcoming bike race.

I have spent more than my fair share of time on a bike over the past decade of competing in triathalon, but over the last few years, most of that has been on an indoor trainer.

The indoor trainer is safer and more efficient. It is far more versitle than what I would have access to in my local area in terms of terrain. It allows for precision training without concern for traffic, weather, time of day, and road condition. It solves a lot of potential problems.

I’ve signed up and have been training for the 6 Gap Century ride. The race runs through the north Georgia mountains covering 103 miles with more than 10’000 feet of climbing. Needless to say it will be a long day.

Over the summer, I was able to scout out the course with some friends. We rode about half the course, including two of the biggest climbs.

Leading up to the ride, I had been simulating lots of climbing on my smart trainer, but descending down steep and winding mountain roads, would be another thing entirely.

Six gap scout ride with a special mountain top surprise

What could possibly go wrong?

The scenic highways in north Georgia are beautiful. Winding roads cut into the majestic mountainsides with spectacular vistas. They also feature very little shoulder, impatient drivers, and a small piece of fabricated metal between the edge of the pavement and a very long fall.

I dont think nervous is the right word. I would get nervous as a kid before riding my bike down a big hill. Knowing that soon, the exhileration would push that feeling aside even if there was a chance I could get hurt.

The calculus has changed a bit from those days. It is still just a hill (mountain) and a bike. But I’m not a kid anymore. I don’t recover the way I once did. I have a family to support, bills to pay.

So, without having ridden my bike not on a stationary trainer in more than a year, and on flat ground in FL at that, I set off with my friends for this mountain adventure.

What could possibly go wrong?

Despite some challenging weather and road conditions, nothing went wrong. We all had a great and very memorable day.

But that nagging feeling was still there. All it takes is one mistake. One unforseen problem. You hope that if something happens, it will only be a minor consequence. That isn’t always in your control.

I have continued my training and preparation throughout the summer, rediscovering my love of riding outside. Especially with the new challenging terrain.

I took advantage of some opportunities to train while on long layovers. With those incredible opportunities came added concern. Not just my health, and my family, but now this is an activity with inherent risk while I have an obligation at work.

What could go possibly go wrong?

I had dreams about it. Not nightmares per se, but the thought of crashing my bike while going down a steep hill is something my subconscious likes to remind me of.

So, it was a pleasant surprise, and a welcome change when my thinking shifted.

Flying down highway 50 at 40 miles per hour, with nothing but open road, cresting mountains, and the clear blue waters of lake Tahoe filling up my view, I had to remember to breathe.

In fairness, I frequently have to remember to breathe when descending. My senses are so enhanced and focused knowing that the stakes are raised. But the truly awesome natural beauty took my breath away.

I remember thinking to myself that I needed to snap out of it. To focus on the road. To avoid any myriad of potential mistakes that could prove catastrophic.

And I did snap out of it. But I also started thinking, I know what could go wrong. I’ve thought about it, dreamt about it, worried about it. But what could go right?

That is a much more powerful question. Even a harder one to answer, I think. We are wired to look out for threats. It is a survival mechanism. It takes a freeing of those powerfully ingrained survival instincts to think about what could go right.

There will still be nervous energy and hightened awareness as I approach each mountain crest, knowing the gravity of the potential consequences that lie ahead (figuratively and literally).

But more and more I find myself thinking, what could go right? It is a powerful shift. It just took a little push down a hill to get there.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Rules

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I’m working my way through the second book in the Wheel of Time series and wanted to share a quote that I found particularly appropriate for Father’s Day.

I was first introduced to the Wheel of Time when my wife and I watched it on Amazon Prime last summer.

After we put the boys to bed, we would wade through the magical world that Robert Jordan created one episode at a time.

A broken world, doomed to repeat itself, cycle after cycle as the “wheel” turns each age. The only inhabitants of this magical realm who seem able to exert any control over the fate the wheel has laid out for them are the Aes Sedai.

The Aes Sedai are a group of women able to channel the magic of the “one power” to do incredible things.

The Aes Sedai are split into factions (ajahs) denoted by their color. Each faction slightly different in their methodology, beliefs, and purpose.

Each Aes Sedai has a male guardian, a warder, assigned to her. They are bonded to each other till death. The relationships are complicated, and while they are reciprocal in many ways, the warders are subordinate.

In ages past, there were male Aes Sedai who could also wield the one power. Theirs was slightly different than that wielded by the women.

Opposite powers but complimentary, male and female, yin and yang. But at some point ages ago, the male side screwed it up and broke the world. Now, the women are left with the pieces, trying to hold it all together.

The Aes Sedai of the red ajah do not have male warders. Their mission is to root out men who may try to channel the one power.

One of my favorite layover runs in Roanoke

Any man who tries to wield the one power will cause chaos and destruction. Reaching out to the source of the one power will, in time, drive a man to madness.

The women of the red ajah find these men and “gentle” them. Cutting off their ability to touch the source so that they won’t cause any harm. The men still end up going mad.

Some Aes Sedai, particularly of the blue ajah, believe in a profecy of the dragon reborn. A man who will be able to channel the one power and will restore the world from it’s broken state and win the eternal battle against the dark one.

This was the back story given in the Amazon Prime show and tracks fairly well with the books.

Beautiful day for some miles on my Traverse city layover

The world created by Jordan and the characters that populate it are rich and enticing.

Both the books, and especially the show, have a significant feminine lean. Men break the world. Men cannot control the one power. Women are the saviors. “Gentling” bears a striking resemblance to castration. I was worried this would put me off, but i was pleasantly surprised.

The warders seem to be excellent male role models. The main characters who are male while still defering to the Aes Sedai, are anything but subordinate.

Lan, one of the warders, is training Rand, a simple sheep herder but also the dragon reborn, in swordsmanship. The scene has them practicing atop a castle tower, with the warder getting the best of the sheep herder and talking to him about the challenges that lie ahead of him.

“There is one rule, above all others, for being a man. Whatever comes, face it on your feet. “

The scene came right at the end of the chapter, and it just hit me a special kind of way.

Maybe it was that I wasn’t expecting much in the way of masculine advice based on my experience thus far with the show and the first book.

Maybe it was the elegance and simplicity of the statement and the stoic and thoughtful nature of the character it was coming from.

Maybe it was the added irony from my time in Jui Jistu, where I face obstacles sitting on my butt or laying on my back.

Whatever it was, the scene, the quote, the moment created in the story, it felt significant. It resonated with me beyond just a story in a book.

The past few months have come with no shortage of challenges. I haven’t always risen to them in the way I would like. But I haven’t run from them either.

Some of my proudest moments, after the happy events of life and the triumphs and successes, have been some of my failures.

Not because of the failures themselves, but because of the way I was able to face the failure. To own it. To feel it. To grow out of it and through it.

Just like a triathlon, you put one foot in front of the other and keep going. Sitting down doesn’t get you any closer to the finish line, and there is no one coming to get you.

I wrote in this post about The Martian. You solve one problem, then the next, if you solve enough problems, you get to go home.

I think that is what Lan is trying to say. You don’t take whatever life throws at you lying down. Stay on your feet, nimble, agile, ready to adjust course. If nothing else, you go down swinging.

It’s easy to feel helpless. It’s easy to feel like you are steering into uncharted waters with strange currents. It’s easy to feel ineffective.

I hope that I can show my boys the alternative. Demonstrate for them Lan’s first rule of manhood. Cultivate in them, the attitude and ability to face the many challenges of life on their feet.

Find your footing, dig in your heels, put on a brave face for what may come. There is surely serenity in taking charge of your own destiny.

Lots of miles getting ready to ride in the mountains

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Mistakes

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. In the last few months, I’ve been reading more about investing (as well as watching old seasons of ‘billions’ on Prime video), and I wanted to share something that stuck out to me.

I came across this quote from Warren Buffet from his 2023 Berkshire Hathaway investor meeting. It reminded me of advice that my mom has been giving me for the last three decades.

“Thanks to the American tailwind and the power of compound interest, the arena in which we operate has been – and will be – rewarding if you make a couple of good decisions during a lifetime and avoid serious mistakes.”

From the investing standpoint, you want to maximize your upside potential, while also minimizing your downside risk. The problem is, those two things are often not possible simultaneously. Generally speaking, in order to have a large potential, the risk is inherently greater.

Making a mistake in that risk/reward equation, or in the way you evaluate an investment, will have monetary consequences. If you can learn to impartially evaluate those mistakes, to make sure they are small mistakes, not life changing ones, there are incredible lessons to be found.

If you can learn from those lessons and at the same time avoid the big mistakes, you are probably going to pretty well for yourself. In investing and in life.

Mistake in this context casts a very wide net. It can be moving your body incorrectly, and having a jui jitsu move not work. It can also be moving your body incorrectly, having a jui jitsu move not work while also tearing your knee apart. The tricky part about a lot of mistakes, is that it is hard to fully comprehend the potential outcomes before you are already committed.

Mistakes are an interesting subject. They are a critical part of the learning curve. Our brain needs to understand the wrong way to do something (the mistake) in order to properly wire in the correct process. Small mistakes create neuroplasticity and learning.

As long as those mistakes are not catastrophic, they are an important part of the process. (Doing the BJJ move wrong 5 times before getting it right the 6th, while avoiding that whole tearing your knee apart thing)

But what about mistakes of omission, or mistakes of substitution? What we’ve talked about so far is investing in the wrong company or moving our body in the wrong way. What about things we opt not to do, or things we should do that are replaced with so thing else?

We all know we should eat healthy and move more. Skipping your morning workout or walk and replacing it with idle scrolling would hardly be a “serious mistake” in the sense that Buffet or my mother cautioned about.

That kind of choice, (replacing healthy movement with idle screen time) certainly wouldn’t have the catastrophic effect of tearing apart your knee or drastically altering your family finances.

But, what happens when that small mistake becomes a habit. When momentum shifts from healthy choices to frivolous ones.

I’ll admit I’ve felt a bit stuck in this loop. Building momentum in healthy habits, only to falter back into less productive choices. What is the cost of these mistakes? Are there enough good choices and tailwind to stay ahead of the consequences?

The magic of compounding is dispassionate and directionless. It can work for you just as easily as it can work against you. How long before those small mistakes compound into a serious one?

Most small mistakes, especially in a first world country, are relatively harmless. They are also easily dismissed, and almost mindless. It is precisely these qualities that make them so dangerous. You ingest the poison without any immediate or significant consequence. By the time the dosage has built up it is too late.

As I write this on my phone, I know that the same device is a large source of my small mistakes. Rushing back for innocent seeming dopamine hits, while neglecting the things that truly matter.

Worse still, my limited ability to recognize this mistake. My occasional stumblings into a more mindful existence, leave me feeling ashamed and guilty rather than refreshed and relieved.

I know that this is a natural human tendency to focus on the negative over the positive. To be ashamed of the mistake rather than celebrate the recognition and correction of it. Again, a loop I am often stuck in.

But that’s the battle right. To identify those mistakes. To fight in order to shift the focus from the guilt to the mindful acceptance. To take advantage of the compounding and the tailwinds on good habits.

Avoid the big mistakes. Cut off the loop on the small ones. Establish habits that can take advantage of the magic of compounding. And, maybe find some serenity in the process.

Lots of elevation getting ready for 6gap

Thanks for joining me. Stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.