Roz – Page 20 – Serenity Through Sweat

Internal Dialogue

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the Serenity Through Sweat blog. Today I want to talk about our internal dialogue, or the types of messages we tell ourselves repeatedly.

I remember as a really young kid the toy that almost everyone had, or had used, was the Fisher Price See n Say. You pull the handle, the farmer spins around eventually landing on an animal, and says “the cow says… moo” or whatever animal it lands on.

This is a great toy for children’s early development. They can associate sights and sounds that go together, and there is some randomness as well as repetition.

Eventually children can remember the sounds that various animals make and reproduce them on command. After a few months my 2 year old son was able to list off the sounds of most common barnyard animals and that is pretty age appropriate and common.

As someone who works on the road, my family and I spend a lot of time on the phone. While this isn’t ideal it is far easier to have a relationship with your family while being away through things like cell phones and FaceTime than it was even a decade ago. Young children tend to model the behavior they see, and even before cell phones were around children have been pretending to answer the phone.

My son pretending the remote is a phone and answering it

To my son anything with buttons is a phone and can be held against his ear and he can have a conversation. I asked who he was talking to and he replied “Daddy”. It was now my picture up on the proverbial See N Say and I was curious what he would come up with when I asked, “what is daddy saying”. His response was “I love you”.

Now besides melting my heart a little bit and being absolutely adorable, this isn’t really a surprise. One of the most important things we can tell those close to us and especially our children is “I love you”. There are no guarantees in life and we only get one time around so I try to use the phrase early and often.

Now in his slightly more than two years on this planet, and slightly more than one of them being verbal, he has figured out that mommy and daddy’s message is “I love you”. That’s what he hears the most (despite the many repetions of “we get down feet first” and “we put our pee-pee on the potty”.

If you had to spin the See n Say and it landed on your picture, what would it say. What is the message that you tell yourself the most, your internal dialogue. For most of us, especially as we get older, I think it is easier and easier for that message to slip away from something positive.

Part of the journey towards Serenity is how we talk to ourselves. Are you encouraging yourself through one more set, one more roll, one last interval? Are you making yourself and your well being a priority? Or are you telling yourself that your diet isn’t important, your sleep isn’t important, your feelings aren’t important, or your time isn’t important.

This internal dialogue can be obvious and loud, even audible (if your a little zany and talk to yourself like me). But it can also be insidious and hide behind the scenes. Our internal dialogue reinforces the habits in our lives whether they are positive or negative.

Next time you spin the wheel and it lands on your picture, what are you going to tell yourself?

Thanks for joining me and stay sweaty my friends.

Today’s Serenity through Sweat, 5k stroller run ending with a trip to the playground

Travel Tip Tuesday: Teton Seat Cushion

All alliteration aside thanks for joining me for another edition of travel tip Tuesday. This week I’m talking about the Teton seat cushion.

As someone who spends a lot of time in decidedly uncomfortable aircraft seats (our cockpit seats are less comfortable than coach) this thing is a real lifesaver.

Trying to get a workout in after a full day of work is hard enough, adding a sore back and legs in to that equation isn’t necessary. On the other side working out in the morning and then trying to recover on a stone hard seat is equally no bueno.

This was a Christmas gift from my wife and after two four day trips with it, I notice a huge difference in how I feel after a day of flying. Super bonus, it is an added insulated layer for those aircraft that spend the night in Minneapolis when your Florida butt is not conditioned to sit on those overnight frozen seats.

I haven’t gotten a chance to use this outside of work, but I can already think of plenty of other places where it will be great, camping, tailgating, and I’m looking at you, gym bleachers at a Jiu Jitsu or wrestling tournament.

This also packs down to about the size of a small water bottle and can easily be attached to the outside of a bag with a carabiner clip on the draw string.

Next to a 32oz Nalgene for size comparison

If you find yourself a little achy after your next flight, or you spend your weekends in uncomfortable gym bleachers for your little one’s activities I would highly recommend the Teton seat cushion.

I am in no way affiliated with Teton sports, and am not receiving any compensation for this post. It is available at

TETON Sports Seat Cushion; No More Hard Stadium Seat Pain; Office Chair; Car https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009L1MXE0/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_i_r4sfEbKW21526

Thanks for joining me for another Travel Tip Tuesday, stay sweaty my friends.

If you drop the cake…

Happy New year, and thanks for stopping in to Serenity through Sweat. I hope 2020 finds you all in good health, happy disposition and appropriately sweaty.

I was training Jiu Jitsu with the owner of my gym the other day and he said something that has stuck with me well beyond our roll

Brad is a business owner, a black belt masters world champion, an incredibly gifted athlete frequently training with people half his age, and he likes to talk. It’s not uncommon for our training rolls to be 60% rolling 40% talking. And most of it is pleasantries or whatever the topic of the day is, but this particular comment has me thinking about its value beyond a grappling context.

Brad had asked our new head instructor Alec (new to our school and fresh off an ADCC competition) about how to escape a position and Alec replied (I’m paraphrasing) “sometimes if you drop the cake you don’t get to just pick it back up, you have to go back to the kitchen and make a new one”

From a grappling context I totally understood the idea. The best defense for some positions is to never be put there to begin with. We need to learn to sense the danger in positions before it is too late, and if we don’t, then you tap, reset, and try to learn for the next time. But what about outside Jiu Jitsu?

How many times in my personal or work relationships have I “dropped the cake”? And then my initial reaction is that everything is fine, I’ll just pick up the cake off the floor. I know when I screw up, especially if I’ve hurt someone I care about, I want to fix it ASAP. But the cake is on the floor and baking a new one takes time and effort, (plus I’m not a great baker so probably some more practice)

On the same note, if someone I love “drops the cake” am I giving them the opportunity to go back and make a new one, or am I kicking them out of the kitchen?

With the arrival of the new year the majority of us probably have some resolutions to better ourselves, improve our relationships, etc… How are we going to respond when we inevitably drop the cake on one of our new resolutions?

Forgiveness is a tough ask and a two way street. Whether you are forgiving a friend or co-worker, or even forgiving yourself, or you are asking for forgiveness, at some point we all drop the cake. Finding serenity is a much easier journey if we can learn to forgive ourselves and others, (and stay out of any leg reaps).

Thanks for joining me, and stay sweaty my friends.

today’s Serenity through Sweat was 30 minutes with RobinNYC on the Peleton and then some one handed 24kg swings

Redefine the relationship

With New year’s right around the corner I’m thinking about New year’s resolutions. Most perennial gym members hate this time of year. The gym is full of fresh faces that often lack gym knowledge and/or etiquette and will most likely be short lived members. And while this is a real source of frustration, I would urge you to use this time to redefine your relationship, not just with your gym, but across many areas of your life.

The idea of redefining the relationship came to me earlier this year while participating with Joe Rogan and his buddies in Sober October. If you aren’t familiar with that tradition, basically abstain from booze for the month of October and then generally make better choices about your health and well being. The idea being at the end of the month you can look back and redefine your relationship with booze, food, fitness, etc…

For my sober October I decided to refrain from drinking but also anything with added sugar for the month. I then called off the month with a 24 hour fasting period.

For me it’s not uncommon to have a beer with dinner and another while winding down after my son goes to bed. It’s also not uncommon to have a small piece of chocolate or a mini Klondike bar for dessert (I know they are garbage calories but they are so good, and as the saying goes there is a long list of things I would do for a Klondike bar). The first 10 days or so without beer or sugar I felt somewhat grumpy and irritable at night. Like I was entitled to something for making it through the day and now it was being taken away.

The beer I would normally have wile winding down after my son went to bed I replaced with hot tea, this gave me something of a nightly ritual and something to look forward to, instead of just removing items I was replacing them. I also noticed I was sleeping better, and my resting heart rate was about 2-4 beats per minute lower on average over the course of the month.

October came and went (the 24 hour fast was not a great idea but more on that later) but at the end of the month I no longer felt like I was owed a couple of beers and dessert every night for successfully adulting through the day. I still enjoy craft beer, and my wonderful wife made me an advent craft beer calendar, but celebrating and counting down to Christmas feels different than popping a top because I finished a day. I still enjoy dessert (probably more often then I ought too especially during the holidays), but it feels like my relationship with both has changed after taking some time away from them.

Back to New year’s resolutions. They are what you make of them, and even if you only stick to something for a short time, maybe it can help you redefine your relationship with it.

Hate exercise but made a resolution to get in shape, maybe you can find an activity you enjoy and change your relationship with fitness. Have a sweet tooth and want to stay off sugar for a week, a month, a year. Maybe you don’t make it all the way or you slip up occasionally, but redefining your relationship with sugar is progress.

Maybe you you are that perennial gym goer who is angry at the world because someone is doing curls at the squat rack. Can you redefine your relationship with your gym peers. Maybe take someone under your wing in a helpful and non-condescending manner (I know that’s a tough ask if they are curling in the squat rack but come on we are all trying to get better around New year’s)

I hope the new year brings all of you happiness, health, success, obviously some serenity through sweat, and a positive paradigm progression. All alliteration aside thanks for joining me, happy new year, and stay sweaty my friends.

Today’s Serenity through sweat, 4 miles on the sand in Panama City beach.

Travel Tip Tuesday: Christmas Spirit

Merry Christmas and welcome back to another round of Travel Tip Tuesday. All alliteration aside this will be a little different than the past few iterations which were very gear heavy. I love gear as much as the next guy and with Christmas here hopefully you found some heartfelt and useful gifts for your loved ones. But this week’s travel tip is about the Christmas Spirit.

I’m finishing up a four day trip and I’m very excited to be home with my family, even if only for a about 15 hours over Christmas. On this four day trip I was flying the last flight of the night from Atlanta to Charleston. Everything was moving on schedule and we were ready to push around 11:30 at night.

Right before we started our push, the captain and I saw someone doing that very familiar “I can’t believe I missed my flight” dance at the gate. We sent a message to the gate agent and told her to bring the jet bridge back and put the delay on us.

For those of you not familiar, everyone at the airline has a job to do in order to get flights out on time, and often times those metrics are tied to performance pay. So by us (the pilots) saying to put the delay on us, we were relieving the gate agent of feeling like she might be penalized for the aircraft going out late.

The jet bridge was brought back, the three passengers (two more made it up breathless in the time it took to get the jet bridge hooked up and the door opened) all made it on the aircraft and we’re extremely grateful.

What surprised me was the response from our flight attendants and one particular passenger in first class. The flight attendants were annoyed that they had to repeat their safety briefing over again. (The aircraft I fly kicks it old school without screens so the flight attendants actually talk and demonstrate). The first class passenger scoffed loud enough for me to hear from the open cockpit door and said “I can’t believe we are letting them on” I assured him that we would still be on time in Charleston

The flight proceeded without incident, we arrived at our gate two minutes ahead of schedule, and we got three more people to their destination for Christmas than we otherwise would have.

All it took for us to make these people’s Christmas as little better was a little bit of attention to recognize the situation, and a little bit of empathy to make the right call. One of the best things you can travel with all year round is a little bit of Christmas spirit.

Whether it is helping someone fold up their stroller in the jetway, giving up your seat in a busy terminal gate, helping someone get a bag in the overhead, or just having an overall cheerful attitude in what can be a stressful situation, we can all use a little more Christmas spirit in our travel experiences. A little bit of empathy and compassion will help all of us on our journey towards Serenity through Sweat.

Thanks for joining me for Travel Tip Tuesday, Merry Christmas, and stay sweaty my friends.

Today’s Serenity through Sweat, the 8th annual Christmas half marathon through the Carolina North Forest and around the UNC campus.

Mastery of the Aircraft

Whenever training on a new aircraft, pilots are put through a rigorous training program consisting of aircraft systems knowledge, training procedures and flows, and ultimately both normal and emergency operations in a simulator. There is a whole slew of things that evaluators look for including ; knowledge, skill, good judgement, proficiency, and mastery of the aircraft. That last item, mastery of the aircraft, is obviously a subjective term, but I think we all know it when we see it, someone who is calm and in control regardless of the scenario, and who can think a few steps ahead.

I was listening to JRE episode #1392 the other day with ultra runner Zach Bitter and it got me thinking about this concept as it applies to athletes. How much training and experience does it take for a pilot to be the master of an aircraft, and how much time do we devote as athletes to being masters of our own bodies?

On the podcast zach talked about his recent 12 hour and 100 mile record breaking performance, as well as his diet and training plan leading up to it. The thing that surprised me the most about Zach was his training based on perceived effort which is an arguably more subjective criteria as opposed to something more objective (like heart rate zone training)

The difference of course is that Zach has put in the time, energy, and effort, and has the discipline to be a master of his body and can honestly and accurately assess his training based on perceived effort. How many of us age group traithloners, or casual BJJ practitioners, can say we have the discipline and understanding to do that?

Yoga practices often remind us to be aware of our breathing and tune in to what our body needs. I’m relatively new to yoga and after about twenty minutes in the hot room the only thing I feel tuned in to, is how much longer I can hold chair pose before my yoga mat has transformed into a slip’n’slide. (Incase the blog title didn’t give it away I’m a pretty sweaty dude) I can’t tell you how many interval runs or rides I’ve done where I’m unable to maintain my interval pace through the final interval. Even with a wrestling background and a lot of competition experience, I still remember going out way too hard in my first BJJ tournament match and almost running out of steam.

Part of the journey towards Serenity through Sweat is being aware of our lack of knowledge of our own body and working to better understand this vehicle we have through life. Working to develop the discipline and putting in the effort to become masters of our “craft”. For me anyway, that journey makes me a better husband, father and friend, and it’s a journey I’m happy to share with all of you. Stay sweaty my friends.

Today’s Serenity through Sweat was my first time through Pavel tatsoulini’s Simple and Sinister kettlebell workout followed by 15 min on the spin bike.

Travel Tip Tuesday: Morsel Spork

All alliteration aside, here is another installment of Travel Tip Tuesday and this week it’s the Morsel Spork.

If you have tried to get an iced coffee or any other cold beverage with a straw lately, I’m sure you are aware of the war on single use plastics. This seems to be slowly making its way to cutlery as well, but even when plastic cutlery is available I can’t tell you how many times I’ve snapped cheap plastic forks or knives and been left with a nub to finish my lo mein.

Enter the Morsel Spork (available at https://morselspork.com). As with previous posts I am in no way affiliated with Morsel and am receiving no compensation for this post. (but feel free to hit me up if you are interested in sponsoring the blog) The Morsel Spork is just a cool gadget that I carry with me on all of my trips and highly recommend.

Size comparison between Morsel, Morsel mini, and a toddler fork

I originally bought this thinking it would be great for my then 1 year old son. The rubberized edges are great for oatmeal and yogurt but I thought would also be gentle on toddler gums. However, since it is ideally designed to get the last morsel out of camping pots, it was a little big and unwieldy for my toddler.

The mini is the perfect size to bring in a lunch box or meal prep cooler. The Spork side is tough enough for raw veggies and even has some light serration to help with cutting. The rubberized side has different edges to help getting every last drop especially from odd shape containers (I’m looking at you Nutella jars)

The Morsel for me has been a great tool for eating everything I meal prep for my trips, from oatmeal and peanut butter, to salmon and veggies. I don’t have to create extra waste with single use plastic cutlery, or risk shrapnel injury when cheap cutlery inevitably snaps. It has also come in handy in our tailgating kits, and I’m excited to take it with us on our next family camping trip.

With Christmas right around the corner, the Morsel Spork is a great stocking stuffer for anyone who is eating away from home. It is something I have been using for over a year now and highly recommend. Thanks for joining me for Travel Tip Tuesday, and stay sweaty my friends.

The Lion and the Sheep

We just got done running the Christmas Cookie 5k here in Orlando. It was a beautiful fall morning and the temperatures were perfect for running especially in matching elf costumes.

We ran as a family, my son in the the jogging stroller with me pushing, and my wife setting the pace at 24 weeks pregnant. My son was very excited by all the costumes, the Christmas music, and the promise of cookies at the end. As we bobbed and weaved our way through the crowd, he would alternate between saying walking and running. Personally I won’t try to analyze the word choice of a two year old, and I’m sure there was no malice in it, but, I understand why my wife said she felt bad for people we were passing, who had to watch a pregnant woman cruise past them while her toddler said “walking”

*WonderWoman with baby elf on board and Santa’s helper El Duderino dancing to some Christmas carols to warm up*

My first reaction was very Game of Thrones, “the lion does not concern itself with the opinions of sheep” there is no reason for my wife to feel bad for going out and running her race regardless of the other people around her. (She is my Wonder woman and she is pretty freaking awesome)

At the same time, comparing yourself to someone else and going to a negative place is not productive habit. In some races, or in some gyms, you might be the lion, and in others you might be the sheep. But you can always work to get faster and stronger, and control your reactions to those training around you. You can choose to be negative, or you can choose to be inspired.

Finding Serenity through Sweat is a much more rewarding journey when we feel good about ourselves and when we celebrate the accomplishments of our peers, and the two are not mutually exclusive. Thanks for joining me, stay sweaty my friends.

Travel Tip Tuesday: Zendure passport

All alliteration aside, welcome back to travel tip Tuesday where I break down some things I’ve learned while living out of a suitcase.

This week I want to talk about one of my favorite travel accessories the Zendure passport. I am in no way affiliated with this company and am receiving no compensation for this post. I received this as a gift from my wife and I don’t leave for a trip without it.

The Zendure passport has 4 USB ports plus the option to plug in another charger

When I travel for work I have an iPad for charts and work documents, a backup battery so I can run that iPad all day in the plane, my cell phone, and then a set of wireless ear buds for workouts. If you spend any time in a hotel, good luck finding enough places to charge all this stuff, plus not forgetting it when it’s plugged in all over your room. The Zendure passport has 4 USB ports so everything can charge at the same time and in the same place. It also has a built in surge protector and 4 different power adapter settings so you can use it anywhere in the world.

4 different adapter settings for use wherever your journey takes you

My wife bought this for me when it was a Kickstarter product but they have their own store open now at https://zendure.com/collections/power-adapters/products/passport-30w-travel-adapter-white

If you have ever found yourself frustrated with your charger situation on a trip I highly recommend checking out the Zendure passport. Thanks for joining me for Travel Tip Tuesday, stay sweaty my friends.

Sweat through the small $h!t

I remember as a kid one of the first times I flew looking down and thinking how small everything was. And then my next thought was once you’re up in the air, things on the ground don’t really matter anymore even if only for that short period of time.

Looking back on that memory helps me understand what keeps me coming back to aviation and why I look forward to going to work. Being both something I’m passionate about and enjoy as well as a space for me to compartmentalize all the other drama away is almost like a mental vacation, how many people can say that about their job. As aviators we tend to be very good at compartmentalizing our problems to complete the mission, but those problems or worries are always waiting for us on the ground like a checked bag you wish you didn’t have to lug through the parking lot.

The very heart of Serenity Through Sweat, is that most of the time once I’m done exercising, that drama is gone, or at least toned down. The blood starts flowing, the heartbeat elevates, the sweat drips and then whatever background bull$h!t that seemed important before is lifted like a morning fog to reveal a beautiful day.

Last night I got sucked in to a super negative conversation. Every time I tried to exit I got pulled back in and kept slipping further into the weeds. I didn’t sleep great (the hotel bed didn’t help), and I was thinking about it almost immediately when I woke up.

Getting on the bike first thing was the best mental therapy I could think of. After a few tabata intervals everything else is background noise and even if it does come back it comes back muted. I was able to find Serenity even if only for a few moments through sweat. I hope you can all find your own moments of Serenity, stay sweaty my friends.