Roz – Page 19 – Serenity Through Sweat

Average Americans

One of the habits I’m building as part of Serenity through Sweat is continuing education. Reading materials that are intellectually stimulating, whether it is physical education, history, finance, trying to balance both pleasure reading as well as books of substance. With a contract negotiation ongoing at work, I figured it would be a good time to dive into economics, and I had heard about John Maynard Keynes and Keynsian economics, so I figured I would give it a try.

I’ll say first off, that I am not particularly mathematically inclined, and a large portion of Keynes’s formulas from The General Theory of Employment Interest and Money went right over my head. The book was a beautifully written compilation of intricate math formulas, new (at the time of publication) economic theories, and scathing critiques of his fellow economic theorists, all backed up with his aforementioned formulas.

Since the book was written in 1936, there is an eloquence in the prose that doesn’t exist anymore, but some of the critiques remind me of the sensational internet “burns” that we are accustomed to now, (albiet with much better facts and research)

I was also surprised how much I was able to take away from the book outside of purely economic information. Keynes, in order to form his economic theories, had to be a keen observer of human behavior. After all, the theories must be able to hold true not only in the vacuum of an academic text, but also in the messiness that is human civilization. And, despite the many changes our world has gone through since 1936 much of that observed human behavior and psychology still rings true.

Keynes writes of picking stocks “Even outside the world of finance, Americans are apt to be unduly interested in discovering what average opinion believes average opinion to be, and this national weakness finds its nemesis in the stock market”

This observation on picking stocks in the 30’s is extremely profetic decades later with the rise of social media. It is easy to be concerned with what we think works for everyone else, rather than what works and is best for ourselves. From fad diets, to trendy exercises, to fashion, how often are we true to ourselves, and how often are we more concerned with what the average American thinks? (As an aside this is a slippery slope that leads to Faking the Funk)

Regarding the long term investor Keynes writes, “For it is in the essence of his behavior that he should be eccentric, unconventional, and rash in the eyes of average opinion. If he is successful that will only confirm the belief in his rashness; and if in the short term he is unsuccessful, which is very likely, he will not receive much mercy. Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally.”

When it comes to Serenity through Sweat, we are long term investors in ourselves. It is easy to get caught up in what average opinion believes is the best path forward, but much more rewarding to blaze our own trail and succeed unconventionally.

Thanks for joining me, and stay sweaty my friends.

Today’s Serenity through Sweat, simple and sinister with the 24kg and a 5k while El Duderino was down for his nap with Mommy.

Faking the Funk

I picked up archery as a new hobby a few months ago and I’ve been consuming a lot of archery related information online. YouTube, podcasts, blogs, there is a ton of wonderful information available for free, what a time to be alive.

One of the podcasts I listen to frequently is the Bowjunky podcast by Greg Poole, and Greg frequently says something that makes me chuckle. Used in a variety of situations Greg will caution his listeners against “faking the funk”

All alliteration aside, faking the funk is a fantastic description of the majority of social media posts and fits in with the overall theme of the last few Serenity through Sweat posts. This week we have talked about measuring metrics and data, logging and posting those items for others to see, and now to bring it full circle, based on the content you put out, are you faking the funk?

This concept of faking the funk is something I’ve been aware of and have danced the line of since highschool. My nickname on the wrestling team in highschool was Woody, as a tribute to woody harrelson’s character in “white men can’t jump”. I would show up to tournaments in tye dye pajama pants and a ratty worn down hoody and look like a chump. This was a style all my own and I could back up my questionable fashion choices with my performance on the mat.

In college I continued the trend in my ultimate frisbee days playing on a team clad in Speedos. The message was always don’t take yourself too serious, but be able to back up your bravado. This tradition has continued to be passed down to the team through the alumni group and the message is consistent.

A lot of those same alumni from the speedo teams ventured into the triathlon community, another area rife with people taking themselves too serious and faking the funk. So we’ve come together to form the TriGoodBeer triathlon team and the BadAssRaceFans (BARF) cheering and morale section. This group is composed of some serious athletes with some incredible athletic achievements, but all of whom can have fun with themselves in the moment.

It’s easy to get wrapped around the axle tracking training metrics, logging workouts, and sharing to social media, especially if you have some sort of incentive to do so. It’s easy to start putting out a persona and eventually faking the funk.

That being said, you can’t fake a marathon. You have to put one foot in front of the other until all 26.2 are done. You can’t fake an archery scoring round, you shoot all your arrows and hold yourself accountable for where they land. When you show up to train, only you know whether you trained or whether you sat on the sidelines.

Wrapping up this three post series, measure what you want, and post what you want, but you can’t fake your way to serenity, and you can’t fake good old fashioned hard work and sweat. If you are true to yourself and don’t take yourself too serious, serenity is probably already one step closer.

Thanks for joining me and stay sweaty my friends.

Pictures or it Didn’t Happen

This has become a mantra of sorts for the millennials and has been unwittingly adopted by the fitness community. Whether you choose Strava, MapMyRun, Endomondo, Garmin, Fitbit, Apple… There are endless ways to count and track your activities. It is easy to feel like an activity that isn’t tracked, or that you don’t get “credit” for, doesn’t count. And, if it doesn’t count, did it ever really happen?

For those of you who are regular readers, (first off, thank you) you may find the irony in putting a post about the dangers of “Pictures or it Didn’t Happen” right after “What Gets Measured gets Managed”. Rest assured, both the irony and the order is intentional, there is a method to the madness and an important lesson and balance in both.

Earlier this week I talked about not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts. You can find the post in it’s entirety here (What Gets Measured Gets Managed), but the gist is, metrics help us improve, and hold us accountable, but it is easy to get lost in the weeds.

The same mindset applies to pictures or it didn’t happen. Have you ever not gone on a run because your watch wasn’t charged and you wouldn’t get credit? I definitely have. I used to take my vivofit off my wrist and tie it into my shoe laces so I would get credit for stationary bike rides in hotel gyms. (There were HSA dollars and company wellness incentives involved, buts it’s still a bit silly)

Then there is the gym selfie crowd. If you workout but you didn’t take a gym selfie did you really workout? How else do you show the rest of the world that you earned your #serenitythroughsweat without that picture?

I’ll start by saying this is again something I’m guilty of. There is an accountability aspect, and there is a data/metric aspect, but I would be lying if I said their wasn’t a vain attention seeking aspect.

Just like our metrics, I think that there is a happy balance to be found. Posting that sweaty picture, uploading those miles, showing how tight your arrow grouping is getting after some practice, these are all accomplishments, even if they serve to puff up our egos maybe more than they should.

There is also serenity to be found in miles untethered by an electronic tracking device, in throwing around weights with no one watching, and sweating in solitude.

The choice to take pictures is up to you, but let the sweat speak for itself and don’t feel the need to prove your serenity to anyone other than yourself. Thanks for joining me, and stay sweaty my friends.

Yesterday’s serenity through sweat, some self love middle miles on Valentine’s day. I try to put up my workouts on these posts to be accountable to you the reader that I practice what I preach and actively seek Serenity Through Sweat

What Gets Measured, Gets Managed.

This quote normally attributed to management guru Peter Drucker had me thinking about some of my fitness metrics. But after doing some research it seems that there is some controversy on whether he ever said it and/or what the overall context was. However the similar quote below applies even better.

“not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”

This quote from William Bruce Cameron in his paper A Casual Introduction to Sociological Thinking has been on my mind as it relates to fitness, Parenthood and our lives in general.

After spending years of my life cutting weight for both wrestling and rowing, I realized that I had been living in a perpetual state of dehydration. So starting to count my water intake was a natural step to help make sure I developed healthy habits.

During my Ironman training program one of my most useful metrics was heart rate and heart rate zone. For all my rides and runs I payed attention to this metric to help me train smarter and longer, especially if I was on a two a day schedule. My resting heart rate also gives me some insight into the quality of my sleep and the amount I’ve recovered from training.

Heart rate and water consumption are two easy metrics to both measure and manage, and provide some real insight into your health and well-being. There are countless other fitness and wellness metrics that can be measured and managed and lots of them are useful, but it is easy to get overwhelmed in the data.

If you have been a reader of this blog for a while you might remember the episode on Zach Bitter (Mastery of the Aircraft) Zach is a world record holder for both the 100 mile and 12 hour distance runs, who trains primarily based on level of perceived effort. Now obviously he is doing something right and level of perceived effort “counts”, but it’s probably a little more difficult to formally measure.

As a parent it is super easy to get caught up in developmental milestones for our children, and that can lead down a dangerous rabbit hole. They are relatively easy to measure (is your child walking, taking, counting, potty trained, etc…) By a certain age. But how much do they really “count”?

I think most parents would agree that their top priority is to make their children feel loved, but how do you measure that?

So, how can we evaluate what is worth counting, and what we should focus on that maybe can’t be counted, in all the various aspects of our life?

I think there are some obvious no-brainers out there, do everything you can to make sure your kids know you love them. After that, I’ll refer you to the wisdom of another quote from one of the songs I listened to on every long bike ride I did preparing for Ironman. In her own immortal words Sheryl Crowe says “if it makes you happy it can’t be that bad”. If it makes you happy to track it, and it helps you be a better version of yourself, then rock on, and manage what you measure.

Thanks for joining me, and stay sweaty my friends.

The Toddler Immune System

Cold and flu season is here in full swing, and my family is feeling the effects. Watching my son actively leave the playground so I can help him with is snot bubbles got me thinking about the toddler immune system, and then as my peculiar brain works, training.

I don’t care who you are, snot bubbles are funny, but they do lose some of their humor when your toddler’s mood and ability to listen to you start going down the drain. That said, he has been in good spirits and is soldiering through this iteration of the cold pretty well.

As I watched him play in the sand in between running over to me to wipe his nose on my sleeve (obviously the only place he doesn’t freak out to wipe his nose) I thought about how this is ultimately a good thing for him and will make him stronger.

Babies inherit certain immune protections from their mothers both in utero and through breast milk. After that, they are a relatively blank canvas and they need to build up their immunity through exposure. They are exposed to some sort of ailment, their body learns how to fight it, and then that knowledge and ability stays with them. So, in order to build a strong and robust immune system, they have to be exposed to a lot of things.

Building yourself as an athlete and as a person is really the same idea. You need to be exposed to a lot of different things in order to be strong and robust. This can mean trying new positions or techniques in BJJ or wrestling. Trying new lifts or lift variations when in the gym. Trying new activities that require a different skill set. Maybe you have a background in football and want to try archery. Maybe you have a background in power lifting and want to try yoga. The point is exposure to new activities, just like new germs, provides new opportunity to sure up our weaknesses and promote growth.

As we approach election season, the same idea applies emotionally and intellectually. Honestly and openly exposing yourself to new ideas is the only way to grow as a person. Even if you come out with the same opinion afterwards, you will have grown stronger from the exposure.

So try that new technique, read that new book, talk to that person from the other political party, because ultimately we are all better through exposure.

Thanks for joining me, and stay sweaty my friends.

Yesterday’s serenity through sweat, lift run shoot while El Duderino was down for his nap

Embrace the Middle Miles

There are a ton of different workouts that make up an effective training program. My Ironman training program consisted of runs, rides, and swims of different varieties including: low impact, interval, endurance, and time trial. Each of these individual workouts has their own important place in the training program and each one has smaller goals and benchmarks associated with it. My favorite goal that spanned across all those workouts, and the one that I find myself coming back to, is embracing “middle miles”

It is human nature to take large complex problems and break them down into smaller manageable chunks. Most of us are generally excited to start a new project or training plan, and approach it with that level of enthusiasm and focus. And, most of us can find that little extra in the tank when we see the finish line ahead. But the “middle miles” when the honeymoon period has worn off but before the finish line is in sight is an easy place to get lost or lose focus in.

The middle miles represent the most challenging part of the activity, but also the most rewarding. The Zen or flow state that runners talk about, that’s only available in the middle miles. But, that state is only available if you can maintain focus and form throughout those middle miles. When new personal records are set, it’s almost always improvement in the middle miles that drives those new records, because there is the most room to improve.

Embracing middle miles can apply to activities outside of fitness as well. That college course, that home construction job, that new project at work, potty training toddlers, are all subject to doldrums in the middle. Embracing that plateau and leaning in to it in the middle is a great way to push through and keep making progress or even breakthroughs.

Next time you find yourself in a training plateau, or you are dragging through a work project, try to embrace those “middle miles” and refocus your effort. There is Serenity to be found in all parts of our life, sometimes it’s just requires a little more focus than others.

Thanks for joining me and stay sweaty my friends

Yesterday’s run focusing on some middle miles, and today’s Serenity Through Sweat focusing on form throwing arrows down range.

Performing for the Family

The main focus behind this blog has been a mix of fitness and fatherhood, and how those two intertwine and intersect for me. Writing about fitness and fatherhood is something that I’m passionate about, but there are so many different approaches and levels, it’s sometimes difficult to know where to start. I hope that you can find similar intersections in your own lives regardless of your athletic pursuits or family situation.

Aragorn’s famous speech before the battle at the black gate. “I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day”.

First of all, if that doesn’t get you all jacked up to train I don’t know what will. Second, I can’t think of anything more motivating to be a better person than to be able to meet your family challenges head on and say “it is not this day that my strength gives out”

This week everyone in the house has been down with some sort of bug. El Duderino had a stomach bug and was vomiting all day Monday. My wife and I are both fighting colds, and with her being 32 weeks pregnant, no one is sleeping.

My wife got up early with El Duderino so that I could have some more melatonin assisted sleep this morning. Then he and I went to the library so that she could get a mid morning nap in.

It’s days like this where I appreciate my first and foremost athletic goal: be able to perform for the family. Being a father and a husband is its own ultra endurance event, and it requires lots of training. Every long run, every bike ride, every Jiu Jitsu roll, all of them have a specific purpose, but they also all serve the same global purpose.

From wrangling a squirming toddler, completing construction projects around the house, or even just soldiering through a day with a cold, performing for the family is an athletic event with constantly changing demands. This is always on the forefront of my mindset when I’m training (or working out). Everything I do should be making me better for my family, and I need to have enough left in the tank to perform for the family when I’m done.

The day will come when we are all tested by the rigors of our everyday lives. Getting into a regular training habit is crucial knowing these test days come around without notice.

Build yourselves a healthy routine of mind and body so that the next time you are struggling through a training session, struggling through a rough family day, or just plain struggling, you can find in yourself the courage and strength to say “not this day” and perform for your family.

Thanks for joining me and stay sweaty my friends.

Yesterday’s Serenity through Sweat a low impact ride and some long overdue time with my Tri bike Layla

Smooth Seas

There is an old proverb that says “smooth seas do not make skillful sailors”. When I think about Serenity through sweat, this is something that always comes to mind.

Obviously hard times make hard people. Some might say when the going gets tough, the tough get going. There are a dozen other cliches we can use to say the same thing. The bottom line is, we are made stronger by the challenges we face. Those can be challenges that we take on willingly, or challenges that we are forced to take on.

We are living in the most advanced and prosperous time in human history. Obviously there are still problems, and many of has have struggles, but most of us (especially if you are reading this with on your smart phone with a roof over your head and a full belly) have only first world problems.

With a society suffering from mostly first world problems, where does a prospective sailor go to find rough seas on which to test himself?

I’ve always found a unique sense of fulfillment in pushing my personal limits athletically. From long term goals that require training and preparation, to just grinding out that last interval or roll, pushing our own personal limits is a great way to manufacture rough metaphorical waters. Most athletic endeavors tend to be a controlled environment, with only small sections of chaotic variables, and the result is stormy seas on which to test ourselves without the metaphorical drowning risk.

There is no denying that people coming back from war, refugees forced to flee a homeland, patients who have to fight a terminal illness, are all forced to navigate rougher water in life than most of us, and will probably come out better people for it. But for the rest of us, (the vast majority) manufacturing our own struggle in a productive manner is a safer, and essential step in the right direction towards Serenity.

Thanks for joining me, and stay sweaty my friends.

Modern Ideas of Self Care

I’m very blessed to have a job with a flexible schedule that makes it easier for me cultivate good self care habits. Getting to the gym, finding ten minutes to meditate, reading material that challenges you intellectually, is all easier if you aren’t pressed for time.

As it does for us all at some point, life catches up and gets in the way. There simply aren’t enough minutes in the day to accomplish everything and some things need to be dropped. The question is what are we dropping, and why are we dropping it?

I’ve always been of the opinion that I’m a better person, father, husband, friend, etc… when I am consistently training (or at least working out, if you read my last post). Physically, mentally, emotionally, I am in a better place and better able to meet the other demands of my life.

If you have the flu and the doctor told you that you needed to rest, no one would look down on that decision. But physical exercise, intellectual growth, spiritual/emotional strengthening activities aren’t afforded the same societal ranking.

For some reason reading a book, or taking time to go to the gym, has become classified as an indulgence. I have to go to work, I have to finish the honey-do list, but I might get to go to the gym if I move fast.

Self care is the most important thing you can do and should be elevated in our thought process from an indulgence, to an essential daily routine.

I challenge all of you to carve out a small chunk of your day for positive self care. It could be ten minutes of meditation. Maybe listening to an audio book instead of the radio. You could use an educational app to learn a language instead of scrolling social media. Maybe it’s a couple of push-ups waiting for your coffee to brew in the morning. Whatever it is, make the time to invest in yourself.

It isn’t always easy and sometimes life gets in the way, but changing our perception of self care will be one step closer to Serenity Through Sweat.

Thanks for joining me, and stay sweaty my friends.

Working Out or Training

When I was preparing for Ironman Florida in 2013, I remember enjoying telling people I couldn’t stay out late, or have another beer, or whatever the activity was, because I had to train in the morning.

People that knew about the traithalon community or where familiar with the race understood, but inevitably, someone would ask what are you training for. For me this was a little bit of a way to brag on myself, but it was also a carefully chosen word.

I had a training plan, that was well designed and crafted. I had specific short and long term goals, I was measuring, logging, and assessing key metrics. These were not just a series of physical activity done for their own sake, these were goal oriented, focused, purpose driven workouts.

And there in lies the conundrum. If I was doing an interval ride, or a tempo run, those were both workouts. So when do we cross the line from workout to training? Can an activity be both, or one without the other?

This is a question I think a lot of BJJ practitioners struggle with/can benefit from, and something wrestlers (in my humble opinion) do a lot better with.

In generic terms, here is how I view the two. Workout: an activity done to improve physical fitness. Training: an activity or course of action undertaken in preparation for an event. So the key difference is the specificity of the goal, and I think both are important and both have their place.

Let’s say you are getting ready for the local BJJ tournament. You might set up a training plan that has four days a week in the gym rolling and two days a week with some sort of cross training, lifting weights or running. These could all be considered training because they are planned out, specified, and helping you towards your goal of preparing to compete in a tournament. They are also all individually workouts.

Now let’s look at an individual BJJ class where you don’t have a tournament you are planning for. Based on our earlier definition, it is clearly a workout, but can it also be training? The answer depends on how you approach it. Are you putting yourself in specific positions or situations repeatedly? Then it is probably training. Are you just letting the roll take its own form? Then it is probably a workout. Both are great, just understand what the value of each is.

The same ideas apply to running, riding, lifting weights, etc… Sometimes it just feels good to sweat. (I do a lot of that incase that wasn’t clear, and I’m a huge fan). Other times a more measured and calculated approach is appropriate, and will probably help you reach your goals better.

As January starts to close out, and those new year’s resolutions start to look a little hazier, ask yourself. Are you working out, or are you training? And is that the right choice for today?

Thanks for joining me, stay sweaty my friends.