Roz – Page 2 – Serenity Through Sweat

A team

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog.

This week is a little different. It is more of a writing exercise than an informative post.

While spending a lot of time in the car with the little ones, I had to switch up my Pandora radio stations a little bit.

Tacos after Speedy came with me to Jui Jitsu

At 5 and 3, El Duderino and Speedy will soon be ready for the gospel of Wu Tang, and the back country twang and blues of Tyler Childers. But, for now, those are lessons best saved for another day.

So, as I found some more age appropriate jams that were still in my wheelhouse I stumbled across this song from Ed Sheeran.

Here is a link to the YouTube video, as it is worth a listen before you continue on with the rest of the post.

I really love the way Sheeran communicates his story with incomplete sentences. Two word snippets that paint an incredibly vivid picture. All done in a rhythmic and rhyming prose that suits his strumming and falsetto.

The words and the melody make you feel something. That is incredibly powerful, and only compounded by the fact that it is done with such an economy of words.

It seemed like a fun idea. Can you distill your feelings and a story into small two word snippets? Make them fit into Ed’s style of prosidy? I thought I would give it a try.

Below are two verses of my A-team rendition. One verse about flying and one about triathlon.

Hotels, new place, dont forget a brave face, try to sleep, and re trace.

Find food, work out, kids at home to think about, rain storms, self doubt.

And they say, he’s a little bit crazy. Stuck in his daydream, been this way since eighteen, but lately. His patience, is slowly sinking, wasting, crumbling like pastries, and they scream, the best things in life come free to us.

Cause we’re just under the management, and go mad just to pay the rent. We don’t wanna be away from home tonight. But we love the way that we pay the bills, and can’t easily transfer our skills. It’s a tightrope walk each night, for all those that fly.

Legs burn, dry throat, another lap to stay afloat, wheels turn, bike home

Run some, feet sore, training can feel like a chore, calm mind, worth more.

And they say he’s a little bit crazy, stuck in his daydream, been this way since eighteen, but lately, his patience is slowly sinking, wasting, crumbling like pastries, and they scream, the best things in life come free to us.

Cause we’re just under the training plan, no matter how much we already ran, and we just want to rest tonight. And in the morning we ride to another jam, transport to another land. Mental clarity is worth the price, for a few more miles tonight.

I had a lot of fun with this post. Trying to find the words and the rhyming pattern for complex thoughts was an interesting exercise. Parsing them down into two word snippets forces you to assign value to your thoughts.

What is most important to you? How do you convey that to the reader in two word snippets? Does the whole say more than the sum of the parts?

Economy and value are often at odds with each other. If you are forced to truncate your ideas, the quality of the message can suffer. But, when it doesn’t, it feels like that much more significant of an accomplishment in communication.

Running mountains on one of my favorite layovers, Roanoke Va

I think that is the true beauty behind A team. I think there is a lot to be gained from distilling our thoughts down to their most elemental levels.

I hope you enjoyed my own rendition. Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Fear

“I must not fear

Fear is the mind killer

Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration

I will face my fear

I will permit it to pass over me and through me

And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.

Only I will remain.”

This is “The litany against fear” from Frank Herbert’s Dune. If you watched the recent movie, you hear Paul Atriedes (played by Timothy Chamelet) recite it.

It was taught to him by his mother, the Lady Jessica. A member of the Bene Gesserit, lady Jessica has total control over every muscle in her body, down to facial reactions. She can influence and control others through the use of voice (sort of a Jedi mind control). She has access to all the memories and opinions of all of her ancestors and her fellow Bene Gesserit ancestors. She has a significant portion of human history at her immediate disposal.

Despite these awesome powers, the Lady Jessica finds herself in need of this most basic Bene Gesserit teaching (the litany against fear) frequently throughout the story.

She teaches these skills as well as the litany to her son (which is forbidden knowledge for males). They live in dangerous times.

I had to go searching for the exact quote. I remembered reading it. I recalled the general message, but the actual words have a powerful calming essence. As they are supposed to.

I could feel the fear welling up inside of me. I could sense that it was enough to take over. I would be able to contain it temporarily, but not stop it.

I had to find a safe place to permit the fear to pass over me and through me. This isn’t how I expected my Wednesday afternoon to go.

El duderino had been showing signs of near sightedness. I needed glasses at his age and wear them now. He probably would as well. It is exceedingly difficult to escape the gravity of your genetics.

We asked the pediatrician at his normal check-up to evaluate his eyes. They used what looked like a cell phone camera to take a picture and said he was good to go. I remained unconvinced but temporarily placated.

I’ve started my morning the last few weeks with a cold plunge. Working my way down now to 46°

As his vision deficiency became increasingly evident, we decided to schedule an appointment with a pediatric ophthalmologist.

The standard methods of testing eye sight have been the butt of many a joke over the years. Better 1, or better 2? Is this more blurry, or less blurry?

These methods seem even more humorous when applied to si eone whi is still learning their numbers and letter, (and cant see well).

I think the book containing the color blind texts was older than I was. Its pavés frayed and tattered. It looked like something from a museum display rather than a tools at a cutting edge medical facility

Congratulations to the happy couple. My second wedding of the month on a layover

I watched proudly as 5 year old El duderino squinted and squirmed his was through the exam. Just knowing the letter and number, and his ability to articulate throughout the process was impressive, even when he was wrong.

And he was wrong a lot. Some of it was age and knowledge, but a lot of it was clearly eye sight. Again, I had glasses at his age and expected him to need them as well.

So I was shocked when at the end of the exam the doctor said glasses wouldn’t help him.

The doctor told me, in a very matter of fact tone, that El duderino had cataracts and would need surgery on both eyes.

El duderino happy as clam playing superheroes

I’m not sure I fully understood what he was saying. But after having to wrestle him like an alligator just to get in the dilation eye drops, I knew that multiple eye surgeries were going to be a hurdle.

That meant anesthesia. That meant multiple procedures. What were the complications? What were the risks? He’s only five year old, what a shitty hand to be dealt.

I don’t approach most things in my life in terms of fear, but in terms of risk. Risk can be mitigated. Risk can be assessed. Risk can be managed. Risk is never fully removed, but it can be weighed and measured against the potential rewards.

Some layover training getting ready for the last triathlon of the season

I didn’t see this situation as a risk, I only saw fear. I felt my complete and utter inability to change the situation, to protect my first born, to prevent any pain that may come.

There was no assessment, no mitigation, there was only fear. I tried not to spiral in the office. I tried to be present and ask questions of the doctor. I scheduled the follow up appointment and tried to put on a brave face for El duderino.

Thankfully, in spite of how smart he is, he either didn’t hear or didn’t understand the exchange we were having right in front of him.

I found the litany on my phone in the parking lot. I recited it a few times and took some deep breaths. We still had a 45-minute drive through rush hour traffic on I4 (the worst road in the country for accidents) in order to get home.

El duderino was none the wiser, and happy that we were out of the office and his dilated eyes were returning to normal. I called my wife and told her I would fill her in on the appointment when I got home, but that I would need a few minutes.

I set a ten minute timer for myself. Then, I sat quietly in my closet and cried.

One of the reasons I am particularly drawn to the litany, is that it gives you power over fear but doesn’t tell you to fight it or ignore it.

Feel your emotion, don’t fight it or hide from it, but rather, allow it to pass over you and through you.

Fear cannot be managed, or mitigated, or assessed. It is an overwhelming and irrational emotion. But it can pass over you and through you, and you can remain.

One more day up in the canyon. Putting in miles in salt lake city

I don’t know how El Duderino’s diagnosis and treatment will play out. I am still afraid. I am comforted by the words in, and the ideas behind the litany. I am trying to see the situation as a set of risks, rather than something to be feared. Even if my ability to manipulate those risks is minimal.

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

Frequency

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. Last week I mentioned that we would be talking about the Baader-Meinhoff phenomenon also known as the frequency illusion.

I first heard about the Baader-Meinhoff phenomenon while listening to the freakonomics podcast. They had put on a three part series on the history and economics of whaling. Now they were noticing whaling mentioned seemingly everywhere.

Yes, I listened to a three part series on whaling. Yes, it was quite interesting. Yes, you should read or re-read Moby Dick. Yes, you should find more ways to work “Thar she blows” into everyday conversation.

Now that we got that out of the way.

The Baader-Meinhoff phenomenon, also known as the frequency illusion is a type of cognitive bias.

When you learn a new word, important piece of information, or focus on a new hobby, you start to notice it more often.

You may even notice yourself noticing it more often. The question naturally arises, was this (word/thing/hobby) always mentioned this much, and I never noticed it. Or, am I aware of it now because it is gaining in popularity and being mentioned more often.

The phenomenon works through mechanisms of selective attention and confirmation bias.

Our attention is a valuable and finite resource. We have built in hardware that gives us some indication of what is important, so that we can focus that limited resource. (Not to say that those mechanisms can’t be hijacked)

Novel information tends to become a focal point for our attention. Especially if that novel information resolves a significant amount of uncertainty. (See my post on uncertainty here)

As the new focal point of our attention, we are more likely to notice the knew information, than we would have otherwise been before. Our selective attention is now trained and better able to detect it.

Confirmation bias is a form of cognitive bias whereby we actively seek out information that matches our preconceived ideas.

If you think pickleball is the coolest thing since sliced bread, you will find articles, people, and various other sources of information that will confirm that.

Neither of these mechanisms, or the Baader-Meinhoff phenomenon itself is particularly harmful. It is just a nice thing to be aware of.

Where it can get you into trouble, is not recognizing it for what it is, and making subsequent decisions based on perceived popularity.

Investing in a meme stock that you just heard about and are now seeing everywhere. Self diagnosing with some rare disease or syndrome you just learned about. Following a new fad diet that just popped up.

These are all examples of things we may do based on their perceived popularity that can be aided by the Baader-Meinhoff phenomenon.

In researching the phenomenon, I found it’s backstory interesting and worthy of sharing.

I assumed that the Baader-Meinhoff phenomenon was named after a pair of scientists or researchers who either discovered or inspired the discovery.

There is no shortage of this naming convention in the sciences. The Pythagorean theorem, Bernoulli’s principle, Newtownian physics, Chomskyian grammer.

The Baader-Meinhoff phenomenon, however, was a term coined by Terry Mullen in a letter to the St. Paul Pioneer Press in 1994.

Terry describes the phenomenon of having printed news (in the days before internet and algorithms) reflect topics he was discussing with friends, regardless of their perceived social relevance. In this case, the Baader Meinhoff gang from west germany

From dictionary.com, “A group of left-wing West German terrorists, active in the 1970s, who were dedicated to the violent overthrow of capitalist society: Also known as: Red Army Faction”

Terry had been talking to his friend about the group in the early 90’s, (well past the peak of their activity or reporting on it) and was surprised when his friend directed him to a pri Ted news article about the group the next day.

He noticed the phenomenon continuing to pop up and coined the term using the terrorist group as the name.

There is debate as to whether or not this phenomenon has increased in its frequency in modern times. This could be due to the higher volume of information we consume. Same percentage of a much larger pie. Or could be artificiially increased by social media, data mining, and algorithms. A much larger piece or an also much larger pie.

Either way, I thought it was an interesting backstory, with actionable information. If you are aware of and seek out things that are happy, productive, and helpful, the Baader-Meinhoff phenomenon says you should continue to see more of the same.

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

Formidability

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I found this study scrolling through my news feed and wanted to share and reflect on it with you.

It seems like there has been a recent push in our culture to think about gender and gender norms. Maybe that is the Baader-Meinhoff phenomenon (the topic of next week’s post). Or maybe it is a genuine societal interest.

Since becoming a father to two boys, it is something I think about in the context of explaining masculinity to them. What does it mean to be a man? Is there even a good working definition.

The study by Mitch Brown and Ryan Tracy was titled “Preliminary evidence for neck musculature in shaping functional stereotypes of men’s relationship motives” the article covering the study was titled “Men’s neck musculature informs perceptions of parental abilities and interest in long-term relationships”

The researchers sought to find out how men with muscular necks are perceived as compared to their less muscular counterparts.

Matt brown said, “I became interested in this particular topic in two ways. First, I had a growing interest in the signal value of men’s formidability and how it shapes perceptions of their social value. With a growing understanding of parental motivational systems, I thought it would be pertinent to understand the possible tradeoffs associated with formidability that we see in other domains, particularly related to the protection of offspring at the expense of nurturance,”

He also said, “For neck musculature, I became interested in the topic both after seeing data from Neil Caton about the evolutionary value of neck musculature and some of my own me-search. I’m a former wrestler who has tried to have a beefy neck my whole life!”

As a nerd who reads and blogs about scientific papers, a fellow grappler with a beefy neck, and a father who is looking to teach his sons about perceptions of masculinity, this study checks all the boxes.

The researchers presented a series of images to a group of college students from a university in the south eastern United States.

The images were all of the same man, but, were digitally altered to vary the size of the trapezius muscles. This minimized variables, which may otherwise confound the participants perceptions.

Participants were asked to rate their perceptions of the men (varying i.ages of the same man) on fighting ability, interest in long-term vs. short-term mating, and effectiveness at protecting and nurturing offspring.

Men, or the computer enhanced version of this particular man, were perceived as better protectors and more interested in short-term term mating the larger and more muscular their neck was.

The counterparts with the smaller trapezii (I don’t know why, but I really like that word) were perceived as more nurturing and long-term mating partners.

Brown again, “Men’s neck musculature is informative in shaping perceptions of men in terms of their relationship preferences, Namely, large trapezius muscles connote greater interest to perceivers in promiscuous mating strategies and a disinterest in the conventions of biparental investment (e.g., monogamy, offspring nurturance).”

The study seems to have been well carried out. There are no glaring flaws in the methodology, the data analysis, or the conclusions.

This was a study focused on perception. I like to think that with a few exceptions, perception is reality. But, like the top button of my work shirt clamped around my beefy wrestler neck, those perceptions chafe a little.

The size of the trapezius muscle was used as a metric for formidability. The researchers’ previous work showed an inverse relationship between perceptions of protection versus nurturing offspring with changes in perceived formidability.

It has been a stereotypical and archetypal role for males to be protectors. There are obvious exceptions to that rule, but biological sex differences make that an easy principle to understand.

I would argue that nurturing falls under that role. Without nurturing, your children will never be able to protect themselves. Isn’t that the ultimate form of protection we want to provide? To teach them to do the job and pass it on to their kids after we are gone.

These are obviously stereotypes and perceptions. The best way to change them, is to confront them head on. To be the nurturing dad with the beefy neck.

Collecting jerseys on this round of zwift

I wrote a piece a while back that I think talked about formidability in a round about way. “In order to be peaceful you must be capable of violence. If you are incapable of violence, you aren’t peaceful, you are harmless”

I think for both mental and physical well-being, being peaceful is essential. That would mean being capable of violence is essential. Wrestling and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu are my outlets for violence.

The word has such a negative connotation, but thought of in the context of formidability, protection of offspring, and a necessity for peace reframes it nicely, I think.

I don’t want to be in a cultural discussion about gender norms. Rather, I want to be an example. For my boys, for their friends, for the other parents in our social circle.

Musculature (around the trapezii or otherwise) and being a good father are not mutually exclusive. Perceptions may be reality, but they can be changed, one sweaty, beefy, good natured parenting neck at a time.

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

Science

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week, I want to talk about science.

What is science? Why is it important? How do we verify or approve the results? Is all science good science? These are important questions. Questions, which may not have definitive answers. Just like good science, the answers and insights are not fixed, but rather, continuously evolving.

I take in a lot of salt. That might go against some of the established medical advice regarding blood pressure and heart health, but I do so deliberately and with “scientific” justification.

So when I read the following study, I wanted to share it and explain my thoughts and interpretations. You know, for science.

The title of the paper reads, “Middle-age high normal serum sodium as a risk factor for accelerated biological aging, chronic diseases, and premature mortality.”

The study took blood draws of participants in middle age in years one and three. The blood draw was taken after 8-12 hours of fasting. The blood draw was measured for average serum sodium levels.

The thought process behind this methodology is that average serum sodium levels taken two years apart would provide a baseline for hydration.

Your hydration is regulated to a very tight range by two primary mechanisms in the body, thirst and antidiuretic hormone (ADH).

When you lose water through sweat or fail to take in enough water, the concentration of sodium (among other things) increases in your blood. This triggers the release of ADH which results in less volume and more concentrated urine.

This has led to the guidelines from health organizations to check the color of your urine to gauge your hydration status.

The study followed up with participants after 25 years to assess all cause mortality, biological aging, and chronic disease. The participants were broken down into three categories based on their average serum sodium levels, (a proxy for hydration) optimal, high and low.

So far the authors of the study have a solid hypothesis, (based on previous findings done initially in mice) a good methodology, and an easily identifiable and measurable variable to track.

However, the results (raw data) and the interpretation of those results, start to go a little off the rails.

“Lowest mortality rate was among people with 137–142 mmol/l serum sodium (26.2%, n = 8604), with increased mortality in 135–136.5 mmol/l (39.3%, n = 122) and 144.5–146 mmol/l (34.5%, n = 397) groups.”

“Kaplan–Meier survival analysis gave similar results showing increased mortality rates among people with serum sodium less than 137 mmol/l and greater than 142 mmol/l (Fig. 1e). In Cox proportional hazard time-to-event analysis adjusted for age, sex, race and smoking, serum sodium 135–136.5 mmol/l was associated with 71% increased risk of all-cause mortality, and 144.5–146 mmol/l increased risk of premature mortality by 21% in comparison to the 137–142 mmol/l group (Fig. 1f).”

“Interpretation:
People whose middle-age serum sodium exceeds 142 mmol/l have increased risk to be biologically older, develop chronic diseases and die at younger age. Intervention studies are needed to confirm the link between hydration and aging.”

Lets start out by saying that everything they said in their interpretation is factually correct according to their data.

However, the data suggest a higher risk of all cause mortality, in the low sodium when compared to the high sodium group. (39.3% vs. 34.5% and 71% vs. 21% respectively)

71% vs 21% is a huge difference in your likelihood of all cause mortality. Their own data indicate that the low serum sodium group was at significantly higher risk than the high serum sodium group when compared to the optimal range.

Over hydration, or lack of the required sodium intake, seems to be significantly more hazardous than under hydrating or over consumption of salt. Obviously the optimal range is optimal, go figure. The study results focus on the high sodium side, which was more hazardous than the optiMAl range but an order of magnitude less deadly than its lowernsodium counterpart.

I am a heavy sweater, as you may have guessed from the blog title, my closing remarks, and most of the topics covered. I also know that my sweat is very electrolyte heavy. This can be measured in a lab, or anecdotally, by seeing salt crystals on your workout gear after your sweat dries.

Appropriate hydration and electrolyte replacement are essential to everything I do from triathlon and jiu jitsu, to flying and parenting. You aren’t going to get very far physically or mentally if you are dehydrated or your electrolyte balance is off.

Like we mentioned earlier, this study started off with a good hypothesis, methodology, and the right variables. The data set was robust, and the study should be repeatable. These are all hallmarks of “good science”

I would classify the interpretation as somewhat missing the point. Mayne the the reporting omitted the more important or the more significant finding, maybe it was biased toward a specific outcome.

I don’t know the authors. I dont know the editors. I dont know their advisors or bosses. I don’t know their funding, their political leanings, or their personal inclinations. Frankly, none of that matters. Science is not partisan. It is cold, unemotional, and calculating.

While I believe you should “trust the science” (as we have heard so often these past few years) I also believe, in the wise words of President Roosevelt, you should trust but verify.

In this case the science was good, the interpretations less so. Knowledge is power, and sometimes that power needs to be mined with cognitive effort, ingenuity, and a little sweat. (As long as you replenish fluids and sodium 😉

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

Uncertainty

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week, I want to revisit one of the main language characters we visited a few months back, Claude Shannon.

It’s somewhat odd calling Shannon a language character. I was first introduced to his world reading about lifespan and longevity. His work was used as an analogy to demonstrate a point, even though he did do some work in genetics.

Shannon was a mathematician, an engineer, a teacher, and a tinkerer. He is considered the founder of the modern technology age. He did work in World War II on code breaking, and on communication, but he was not a language person in the way we typically think about language.

Shannon was more concerned with the idea of transmitting and receiving messages, more so than actually constructing them. (As language folks tend to obsess over).

Shannon’s breakthrough work was the mathematical theory of communication, which broke down sending information digitally. I’m not a mathematician. Most of the original work (which I purchased) is gibberish to me. But, I can understand the concept, and it is profound in its breakdown of communication to an elemental level.

I talked about one of the aspects of his world in a post from last November (Noise). But this week I wanted to talk about uncertainty.

Shannon starts with the idea of flipping a coin. The outcome is either head or tails. This communicates to us a binary choice. The answer to the question, what happened in the coin flip, can be be expressed as a binary digit or ‘bit, one of two options.(yes the bit you are familiar with if you’ve used any computer technology in the last 40 years is Shannon’s idea from the 60’s)

Shannon quickly noted though, that the coin flip is perfectly random, unless the coin is weighted. In which case one outcome is more likely than another.

He then went on to show (all of this mathematically of course) that most of our communication is very heavily weighted. Because of our rules of grammer, syntax, phonology, and morphology, the next letter and the next word is highly dependent on the one that precedes it.

This was a highly useful realization and skill when Shannon was working in cryptography as a code breaker, but I think it means a lot to us as everyday communicators.

“for the vast bulk of messages, in fact, symbols do not behave like fair coins. The symbol that is sent now depends, in important and predictable ways, on the symbol that was just sent: one symbol has pull in the next.”

“As Shannon showed, this model also describes the behavior of messages and languages. Whenever we communicate, rules everywhere restrict our freedom to choose the next letter and the next pineapple*” “Because you’re completely aware of those rules, you’ve already recognized that ‘pineapple’ is a transmission error. Given the way the paragraph and the sentence were developing, practically the only word possible in that location was ‘word’ “

So much of what we say is predetermined, by custom, by ritual, by routine. When it is time to actually say something outside the norm, it is easy to falter. To struggle to find the right words.

As I mentioned earlier, Shannon was an engineer. He was concerned with designing a system to effectively and efficiently transmit messages. In pursuit of solving that problem, he taught us a valuable lesson about constructing messages.

“what does information really measure? It measures the uncertainty we overcome. It measures our chances of learning something we haven’t yet learned. Or, more specifically, the amount of information something carries reflects the reduction in uncertainty about the object”

“Why doesn’t anyone say XFOML RXKHRJDFJUJ? Investigating that question made clear that our “freedom of speech” is mostly an illusion: it comes from an impoverished understanding of freedom. Freer communicators than us, free of course in the sense of uncertainty and information, would say XFOML RXKHRJDFJUJ. But in reality, the vast bulk of possible messages have already been eliminated for us before we use a sentence or write a line.”

If information reflects the reduction in uncertainty, that should be one of, if not the primary focus of our communications. Especially those novel ones that break from ritual and routine.

Think about 20 different people practicing basketball individually on a court. There are bound to be some collisions, some balls bouncing off each other at the rim, and maybe even some injuries. An aviation training area can be very similar. Multiple individuals, in a confined area, with different agendas.

In aviation, we make position reports both procedurally in certain airspace, and in high volume uncontrolled areas. Those reports need to resolve a lot of uncertainty in order to avoid disaster. A good formula is who you are, where you are, and what your intentions are.

If you know John is working on 3 pointers from the corner, and Phil is practicing layups, you can now decide how and where you want to practice, without disturbing, or being disturbed by, the fellow ballers. A tremendous amount of uncertainty has been resolved. That is valuable information. Much more concrete and actionable than, John and Phil are playing baskstball.

Last few runs before returning to the Florida heat

This, of course, is a task much easier said than done. To make all, or even most, of our messages precise enough to overcome the maximum amount of uncertainty, requires a novel concept. Thinking before we speak.

What information do I have? What information does the receiver of the message need. What do they expect to hear? What uncertainty needs to be overcome?

There is no shortage of uncertainty in our world. Overcoming even a small amount of it will lead to happier humans. And I’m sure there is serenity to be found along the way.

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

Generalist

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. Two very different books that I’m working my way through brought up an interesting concept that ties in to a lot of what we talk about here. I wanted to share it with you.

From the book Peak the new science of athletic performance that is revolutionizing sports, Dr. Marc Bubbs introduces the idea of the expert-generalist.

“In the wake of overspecialization, let’s consider the expert-generalist, a term coined by Orit Gadiesh, chairman of Bain & Company, to describe ‘someone who has the ability and curiosity to master and collect expertise in many different disciplines, industries, skills, capabilities, and topics”

Gadiesh highlights that the expert-generalist can draw on a pallete of diverse knowledge to recognize patterns and connect the dots across multiple areas. Rather than diving deeply into one subject, the expert-generalist casts a wide net across multiple disciplines, expanding the breadth of their knowledge rather than simply plumbing the depths.

The context for Dr Bubbs, is that it is difficult for the athlete to be a true expert in their individual sport or discipline, and also be an expert in nutrition, hydration, sleep/recovery, training/programing, etc… But, an expert-generalist, can have a breadth of knowledge across those many disciplines to maximize athletic performance.

The second book is The Storm Before the Calm by George Friedman. A geopolitical forecaster, Friedman’s latest book examines the history of the US through the lense of institutional and socioeconomic cycles.

Below is Friedman’s theory on the issues plaguing the current institutional cycle that will need correction as it reaches the end of its useful life.

“The second problem is that the expertise that won World War II and built the postwar world is now encountering its own problem of inefficiency—diffusion. Diffusion is the distribution of authority among several departments or agencies. At a lower level, it is the diffusion and fragmentation of knowledge among individual experts. Knowledge of what is happening is diffused rather than integrated. Diffusion ties in with the problem of expertise. Expertise is needed. But experts are experts in different things, and when entities are constructed with specific expertise, barriers are built between entities that are sometimes dealing with the same issue.”

“Instead of creating a single perspective on a problem, experts have perspectives on different parts of a problem, and the entity they represent has parallel responsibilities for fragments of an issue. This creates diffusion with the federal government and frequently contradictory directions for entities. What had begun in World War II as an effort that was highly focused on war and tightly controlled turned into a highly diffused undertaking frequently lacking a center from which it can be understood. This is not unique to the federal government. It happens in all, particularly large, organizations. Expertise has this inherent defect. But in the federal government, the problem is the size of the defect.”

Being an expert in just one area can lead to a myopic view. This leads to errors when the project or problem spans across multiple domains.

Triathlon immediately comes to mind. It is impossible to be a true expert in any one of the three disciplines, without developing shortcomings in the others. Throw in, hydration, nutrition, recovery, strength work, and being an expert generalist is the only reasonable path forward.

Mixed martial arts is very much the same. There is too much to learn, to many holes to plug, that it is impossible to be a true expert in all of them. Even Brazilian Jiu Jitsu on its own, has so many different unique positions, that you are starting to see experts in very specific “games”, rather than well-rounded expert-generalists.

Hell, even just being a parent nowadays requires being an expert-generalist. There is no instruction manual. Trying to keep up on what is healthy, what will nurture and promote proper development, what will keep them safe, is a full time job. Too narrowly focusing on any one aspect will inevitably lead to overlooked and mismanaged areas.

We rely on experts for advice, and that is important. But taking too narrow of a focus can lead to missing the forest for the trees. It is sometimes better to know a little about a lot, rather than a lot about a little.

There are two built in benefits to embracing being an expert-generalist that jump out to me right away.

Before you can learn a little about a lot, you have to have a natural curiosity. Being an expert-generalist inherently promotes continuous lifelong learning.

It will also lead you to a lot of situations where you don’t know the answer. Getting comfortable with not knowing is a difficult but worthwhile pursuit. It pushes you to learn. To be comfortable in uncomfortable situations. To go out and find the answers. (Coming full circle to curiosity and lifelong learning)

If Friedman and Bubbs are right, embracing an expert-generalist mentality should help us be better athletes, better parents, and better people. I’m sure there is some serenity in there along the way.

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

Merriam-Webster

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week, I wanted to share another interesting story I found while researching my linguistics project.

The history of dictionaries may seem like a boring subject. You write down words, and you define them. How hard could it be? There are actually a lot of questions that must be answered when deciding how to make a dictionary.

“What is the relationship between words and phrases? How far should a dictionary go in recording nominal phrases? (Fire escape, forest fire)”

“How strictly should a dictionary confine its inventory to recorded usage? Can a spelling form be shared by more than one word (record as a number and record as a verb).”

“How much attention should be paid to etymology? (Weave intransitive vs transitive verb)” Weave in and out of traffic, and Weave clothes on a loom come, from different origin words as an example.

Making a dictionary becomes a little more complex than just a book to check when you don’t trust your scrabble opponent.

One of the most popular dictionaries in the US, is the Merriam-Webster brand. Their story was featured in the chapter I was researching, on the history of lexicography.

“The Merriam dictionaries trace their history back to the American Dictionary of the English Language dutifully compiled by the polemical lexicographer Noah Webster in 1828. It contains no fewer than 70,000 entries”

“Webster was an indefatigable collector of words with a rare gift for definition writing.”

“Unfortunately, his etymologies were influenced by his belief that modern languages, including English, are derived from something called Chaldean, which he believed was the language used by Adam and God for their conversations in the Garden of Eden and the immediate precursor to Hebrew.”

“After his death, his successors-including his son-in-law, Chauncey H. Goodrich, and the redoubtable Noah Porter, president of Yale College- quietly abandoned the Chaldaean hypothesis and brought the etymologies into line with the findings of Germanic and Indo-European scholarship.”

That is a lot to unpack for a book that has been mostly superceded by online reference checking. But recall that for generations, the Webster dictionary reigned Supreme. It is eerie to think about how much power definition holds, and how that power was held by a religious fanatic.

I grew up Roman catholic, and considered myself fairly devout until after high-school. Even I had never heard of Chaldean before.

After some very preliminary research it seems that the Chaldean people were in Mesopotamia around 11-12 thousand years ago, and were assimilated into the Babylonians. You may recognize that name from it’s own biblical reference the tower or babel.

Apparently there are multiple references not only in the Bible, but also from other renowned scholars, (Pliny the elder and Cicero) to Chaldean knowledge. There appears to be multiple references to their expertise in astronomy, astrology, vibrations, and numerology.

Some or all of that may be nonsense. I don’t know. And frankly, I don’t know how to know if any of it is real or not. Either way, it is fun to think about next time you have to check the dictionary when your five year old asks the difference between gunk and sludge.

We base our lives on definitions. How we identify ourselves, each other, the occurrences of our day to day experiences, they all depend on agreed upon definitions. The ability to set those definitions is a great power. And, as Uncle Ben would say, with great power comes great responsibility.

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

Presupposition

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. In continuing research for my linguistics/communication project, I found this interesting back story that I wanted to share with you.

I am a sucker for a good academic cat fight. For one thing, academics, especially linguists and philosophers, have a way with words. Their ability to feud with civility, yet use absolutely scathing remarks, is truly a hidden treasure. Sadly, it is one that often goes overlooked. Because, well, you have to be a nerd to read these papers.

This nerd was reading and researching about semantics, and came across the theory of presupposition. Presupposition in interpersonal communication is very easy to take for granted, but it is critical to an effective transfer of meaning.

Putting some more focused time on the pool

Here is a quick example. The sentence “I have lost my keys”, presupposes “I had keys before” and “I do not have my keys now”. While that seems obvious, think of all the things we say to each other every day that require significant amounts of presupposition.

Now imagine talking to a hunter/gatherer. Someone who has very little in shared cultural/societal experience. Even if they understood each of the individual words and their semantic and syntactical significance, there is a good chance they would not have the same presuppositions.

Presupposition has been explored a few times in the history of modern linguistics, but its first recorded (however, often unattributed) explanation goes back to the time of Aristotle. This leads us to our academic feud.

Easing into some recovery rides after the half iron man

The story starts with Aristotle’s bivalent theory of truth. Aristotle’s truth theory states: (a) that every proposition is by nature either true or false, without any possible middle or any possible third truth value, and (b) that a proposition is true just in case it ‘corresponds’ with reality and false otherwise.

Eubulides came from the school of the Stoa, and taught philosophy at Megara. He came up with several paradoxes to challenge Aristotle’s truth theory. You can read about them here.

The paradox of the horns lies at the basis of presupposition theory. It is illustrated by the following fallacy: “What you haven’t lost you still have”. “You haven’t lost your horns.” Ergo: “you still have horns.” (How fun is it to say ergo, right)

The statement is obviously silly and false. It does however illustrate presupposition quite well. You have to have had horns in order to lose them. So the sentence cannot be true in the Aristotelian sense, hence the paradox.

This is all great, a bunch of linguistic and philosophical shenanigans, but the story gets better. There is some evidence that this specific reference, was not only a challenge to Aristotle’s intellect, but also to his manhood.

The reference of a man having horns comes from a historical reference of the man as a cuckold. So now Eubulides is playing word games, whilst telling the world Aristotle’s wife is stepping out on him, all in a philosophy class. Shots fired.

There are several different theories about the horns referencing cuckholdry. This article from the BBC shows a more recent instance of the insult between Portuguese government officials in 2009.

The article gives a fairly succinct summary of the gesture, and it’s history. The etymology is from the cuckoo bird that would lay its egg in other birds nests. Thus leaving the chick to be raised by the unsuspecting other bird.

And of course Chaucer’s the miller’s tale gives us, “For she was wild and young, and he was old, And deemed himself as like to be a cuckold.”

In Roman times, horns were given to returning soldiers as a symbol of success on the battlefield. They took on the unintended meaning of cuckholdry when it was discovered a significant number of soldiers returned to errant wives.

Celebrating summer and the end of school

The gesture is more recognized, as well as more offensive, in certain countries and cultures. I had no idea it was even a thing, but latin countries such as Columbia, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Mexico, and Italy seem to take the most offense at the gesture.

From the article again, “This is a Latin country. If you say to someone, your wife did this, it is humiliating.”
“It is a great thing to do if you want to start a fight.”

Playing operation: it’s easier to win when you cover up the light

I didn’t think I would end up exploring insults to manhood between government officials when I started my research on pragmatism, but life is full of winding roads and uncertain paths.

I hope you enjoyed wandering down this one as much as I did. Thanks for joining me, stay safe, and stay sweaty my friends.

70.3

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. last weekend I raced in the Ironman Gulf Coast 70.3 event and wanted to share my experience.

I have been in the sport of triathlon for over a decade now. With the exception of the full Ironman race I completed in 2013, I have mostly trained intuitively. That is, without a coach or a training plan.

I have a rough idea of what I need to do in order to be prepared. Benchmarks to hit along the way. How to set a reasonable goal that will be achievable but still lofty enough to keep me motivated.

With all the other demands in my life I want to put out a performance that I can be proud of, and I want to find the minimum effective dose of training that will help me achieve that.

With those parameters as the goal posts, this race was a huge success. It was my fifth time racing the 70.3 distance and I set a PR (personal record) by a pretty wide margin.

I did so, with less training volume than all of my previous attempts. To be fair, I have better equipment, more base fitness, and more time and knowledge in the sport than those previous races. No two races are alike. Each one presents their own unique story that unfolds on race day.

Trixie, all cleaned up and making friends

I think I swam maybe 4 times in the build up for this race. Not exactly ideal, but I like to tell people, you can lose the race on the swim, but very few people win the race there. Minimum effective dosage indeed.

The swim start was, like most all open water ocean swim starts are, abrupt and violent. You charge, full of adrenaline, down the sand and into a body of water that is actively opposing you. There was a strong quartering onshore wind from the left resulting in choppy conditions with a significant drift. The buoys were very difficult to sight. The jellyfish were up early and were active.

Knowing you have close to five hours of work Infront of you, the last thing you want to do is let your breathing and heart rate get out of control in the first ten minutes. Everything about the first ten minutes of the swim leads to exactly that. The waves and wind disrupting your stroke and your breathing. Constant contact with other swimmers. The anxiety of the amount of work still ahead. Jellyfish stings. I am a strong swimmer from years of surfing and countless hours in the pool. The hardest part of every triathlon swim for me is calming down and finding rhythm. The quicker I can do that the better I can perform.

I know I swam pretty wide of the buoy line after the second turn of the rectangular course. The wind and the waves made the buoys hard to see and the current was now pushing away from the course line. Despite the self inflicted extra swim distance I was on track for my overall goal getting out of the water and getting on my bike.

It was a beautiful day for a bike ride. I bought a new bike (Trixie) back in November and did all of my training except maybe 4 or 5 rides inside on a smart trainer. One of the more recent joys of racing for me, has been riding outside with the added comfort of some traffic protection. I have almost entirely given up on riding a road bike outside anymore because the dangers of being hit outweigh the value and pleasure it brings.

Trixie was fast. I knew she was fast but I was delighted with how the bike segment went. From a training perspective, I spent more time in this buildup working with power zones and my FTP (functional threshold power). FTP is the most amount of power you can sustain for a one hour all out effort. That number can then be scaled and adjusted for various intervals, race distances, and training sessions to optimize performance. It’s not perfect but it is a much more targeted approach than I’ve utilized in the past.

Power training and racing is also extremely reliable and relocatable. Your heart rate or pace might be different day to day, and course to course, but 200 watts is always 200 watts. I wanted to average 200 watts for the 56 mile bike ride. I estimated that would put me at about 22mph and set me up in striking distance for a sub five hour finish.

My bike segment went about as flawlessly as I could have hoped. I averaged just over 200 watts of normalized power and just over 22mph. My hydration and nutrition plan left me feeling fresh when it was time to dismount and lace up the running shoes.

The run was hot. There is no way around it. Running in full sun, in Florida, in mid May, is a recipe for cramps, dehydration, and a rough afternoon, if you find yourself prepared or unequal to the task at hand.

Thankfully, my nutrition and hydration on the bike set me up for success for the three loop course in the sweltering heat. I was targeting a 7:30/mile pace. While I fell a bit short of that, I had built enough wiggle room into my goal finishing pace that I felt comfortable my goal was still very much achievable.

I could feel my feet start to blister somewhere around mile 5. I knew that they weren’t going to get any better with 8 more miles to go. The mixture of sand residue, layers of dried sweat and the fresh water I was dousing myself with at every aid station were only making the blisters worse.

My shoes squished and squeaked noisily with every step. This new pair of racing shoes is significantly different than the minimalist trainers I tend to prefer. With a huge foam platform and a carbon plate meant to act as a sort of spring, these felt more like moon shoes. Still, I tried to keep my feet moving and focused on a high cadence. Repeating a mantra I had read about the most successful ultra runners. “Be a prancy pony”. Keep those feet moving, high and fast.

The aid stations would shimmer in the distance like a desert oasis. Volunteers crowding around to help weary travelers. I doused myself with water and dumped cups of ice down my back at every one. Small moments of relief. Short lived as the sun continued to beat down.

I’m very proud of my race performance. Like I wrote about in my last post, I was able to stay present for the experience. These are my burning legs. These are my aching lungs. No far off caves and power animals. I was able to remain calm in low points, and have overwhelmingly positive self talk throughout. I finished in 4:58 just under my goal of 5 hours.

Every race is different. What you take away from from every race is different. Those 70.3 miles, more than anything else, gave me gratitude. Gratitude that I was able to perform and push myself, especially with my “minimum effective dose” training. Gratitude that I was able to race safely on a beautiful course and a beautiful day. Gratitude for a weekend together with an old friend. Gratitude that I was able to race at all. Not everyone is so physically blessed and lucky. Not everyone can afford to indulge it what is a very selfish, time consuming, and expensive activity. And, that my wife indulged my selfish habit, taking care of our boys and the house while I play exercise as sport.

There is a beautiful and profound sense of peace at the end of a hard effort like that. The training, the scheduling, the opportunity cost of it all, and the race itself, leaves a huge wake. In that vacuum, is serenity, in the most essential form I am familiar with. SerenityThroughSweat, if only for the briefest of moments.

This is where the wheels started to fall off the post race “recovery”.

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