Serenity Through Sweat

Quitting

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week I want to talk about quitting. That may seem like an odd message for what is typically a more upbeat and positively oriented platform, but hear me out.

Author of The Voltage Effect, John List was on the freakonomics podcast discussing his book and his overall economic philosophy. The book is an economist’s ideas on how to make entrepreneurial ideas work at scale.

The conversation covered a number of cases studies including Uber, Lyft, and K-mart. Specifically discussed was the K-mart blue light special.

The blue light special (along with K-mart) went from being a sales mogul, to a forgotten cultural relic. Lost to the annals of history along with Kodak and Blockbuster.

The blue light special would alert shoppers to a great deal on individual products that were then first come first serve until they were gone. The resulting increase in sales not just for the blue light product but for all products was astonishing.

Taking advantage of excitement, scarcity, and a feeling of exclusivity, the blue light special was a smash hit. Until it was taken over by corporate. individual store managers could set the blue light special for their customers needs in a way that was inaccessible to corporate offices. Not to mention that the shoppers in Boise probably had different wants than those in Orlando.

Among other decisions and macro trends outside of their control, K-mart fell by the wayside. List discusses some of these trends but laments corporate inability to shift from a bad plan. When the desired outcome is not being served by a plan it is time to quit. This is what he calls optimal quitting.

Quitting has a decidedly negative connotation, and especially for the many endeavors that I pursue, grappling and triathlon among others. But within each of those activities are dozens of optimal quitting scenarios.

Abandoning a technique that has been cleverly countered. Switching to a different game plan or overall strategy for an opponent with different skill sets. Changing your race pace or gearing based on race day terrain or conditions. These are all examples of optimal quitting. Real time adjustments when the desired outcome is not being served.

Parenting presents plenty of opportunities for optimal quitting too. Wrestling with my boys is all fine and well until it escalates, or gets them too riled up before bed. There is undoubtedly and optimal time to quit. One that is often times slightly exceeded.

The tools used to tackle a tantruming toddler can vary in their approach. Using one too long may preclude using another. If you use the stick too early, it is hard to dangle the carrot. If they’ve already got the carrot the stick doesn’t hold the same power. There is a period of optimal quitting when changing your tactics with a toddler. One I have yet to figure out.

The point is, quitting is not the end all be all of negativity it is often painted to be. Practice quitting, especially optimally quitting, is worth your time and energy. As someone who has stumbled into doing it correctly on occasion, whether it be grappling, parenting, or grappling with my parenting dilemma, optimal quitting can yield its own form of serenity.

Tour de Zwift, running and some KOT programming

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

Standstill

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. While working on my linguistics project I have come across a lot of universal wisdom disguised as bland academia. Thoughts and quotes that produce a lasting effect well beyond the initial reading. I wanted to share one of them with you this week.

One of the best ways to truly understand a thing, is to study it’s history and development. Things rarely take a linear path to their current status. Those twists and turns are often filled with difficult decisions, decisions which alter trajectory.

The study of language and communication is no different. If anything I have found it to be even more interesting, because there’s is so much we don’t know. Hypotheses rise and fall on new data and discoveries in a never ending change of tides. The Oxford Handbook of the History of Linguistics, tells this story across the millennia and across the various areas of linguistic study.

Our current understanding of language, is in large part due to understanding the process of change. What data we have an ancient languages, and mapping the changes through the years to where we are now.

One of the beautiful things about language is that it is dynamic and mobile. A word’s meaning, connotation, even it’s spelling is all subject to change.

“There can never be in language, just as there can never be in the continually blazing thoughts of men, a moment of true standstill.” (von Humboldt 1836b: 184)

Linguists draw a comparison (which could also be expanded to fit humans) that languages only become static when they stop being used. These are then considering “dead” languages. People are very much the same.

Even the most obstinate toddler (not that I have any experience with those) is constantly being exposed to new information and experiences. They are a bundle of new patterns and changes.

When we stop our continually blazing thoughts, when we stop learning and growing, we reach a mental standstill. We become our own dead language. Something other people have little use for, except maybe a passing curiosity.

Spring emerging from the gloom along the trail in Augusta

The standstill is akin to death in this mental metaphor, which translates well to the physical realm. In grappling sports constant motion is required to set up an technique. Being at a standstill is a surefire way to get beat, or worse, injured.

In endurance sports a standstill is the classic sign of defeat. Haunched over, heaving, hands on knees, halted. The picture of an athlete who cannot progress any further that day.

A beautiful day for a tour d’ stade in Gainesville

Von Humboldt’s words are beautiful, and I think they are accurate. It seems with any judgement of people (and language for that matter too) it becomes necessary to add a caveat. An asterisk.

Never is a powerful word. An absolute. One that begs no argument. Humans, and language, can only find themselves at a true standstill of their own accord. When they fail to forge forward along the path, is when they die literally or metaphorically.

No standing still on the zwift pedals, freewheeling doesn’t work.

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

Exposure

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week I’m reflecting on my 35th birthday. How I feel. How I’ve grown. What type of man I have become and what type of man I want to be.

Listening to Zach Bitter and Aaron Alexander on the Human Performance Outliers podcast, Aaron said something that made me reflect on my last decade.

Zach is very literally a human performance outlier as an ultra marathoner, and Aaron is a movement coach and author of the Align Method. Their conversation covered wellness topic such as mobility, training, breathing, and mindset.

Whenever you wade into the world of endurance sports, the somewhat unanswered, elephant in the room question, is that of longevity and vitality. What are the long term costs of pushing performance? What is the cost of being an outlier? Specifically on your long-term health and wellness.

Looking back, I have pushed myself pretty hard in the last decade. And not just physically. The volume of miles from triathlon training alone is staggering. Jiu jitsu, despite being the gentle art, takes it’s toll on the body. I’ve finished a graduate degree. Changed jobs twice. Found a partner and started a family. Just in the past few years I’ve cultivated new hobbies and habits.

I feel better now than I did at 25. I walk around at a lower weight than I did at the starting line of IronMan FL in 2013. (Which I hope is the lifetime peak of my training volume). I prioritize sleep and nutrition in a way that I was uneducated about a decade ago. I have more balls in the air now and struggle with balance, but find myself better equipped for that struggle.

Despite all of that, the question remains, am I burning the candle at both ends? Will this impact my longevity and vitality? My healthspan?

Aaron said something that I found incredibly reassuring. “your body adapts to what it is exposed to, even if that is nothing”

If you are exposed to nothing, your body will adapt to that as it’s default. The smallest offset can then be momentous. On the other end of the spectrum, if you vary and amplify your exposure, your body adapts. Your level of resilience is directly correlated to your level of exposure.

There are some obvious caveats. My days of thinking “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” are long gone. Lower intensity work, mobility, and less “demanding” practices like meditation and breath work are a critical part of my routine now. Not every session can be a grip it and rip it sweat fest.

El Duderino and Speedy playing in the water

Beyond what I expose my body to in search of positive adaptation, my boys become exposed to fair portion of it is well. They are always watching and listening. Being exposed to someone pushing themself. To someone who struggles, falters, and ultimately grows. I can only surmise what lens they see me through but I hope that the exposure is beneficial.

I’m grateful for all of the beauty, challenge, pain, and struggle that I have been exposed to. I’m grateful for all the ways my body has adapted over the last decade. I hope for continued exposure to push my adaptation. I hope that I find the appropriate level of exposure for my boys as well. In some dynamic interplay of exposure and adaptation, I hope to find serenity.

Zwift, peleton, treadmill, and some mobility work from a birthday week spent mostly on the road

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

Expression

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This past weekend my wife and I celebrated our collective birthdays attending a concert. The opening act reminded me of the beauty of expression.

Not to be confused with the post by the same name from last Christmas, which discussed the variety in expression of beers following the German purity law or Reinheitsgebot. This is all about the beauty of self expression. (To be fair if you express yourself by creating beer that is beautiful and I salute you)

Alan Chapell sat alone on the stage, with nothing but a small electronic keyboard in front of him. He felt accessible. Maybe too accessible. It was a great thing for the audience to feel that close to the artist. But I’ve seen it go wrong with redesigned kiosks, gate agents, and flustered passengers, too many times that I had a sense of unease on his behalf.

El Duderino playing with his pecker (his name for the toy parrot, get your mind out of the gutter)

Before each song Chapell gave a quick four or five sentence introduction. What his inspiration was. Who the song was for. Some small story or anecdote from his life at the time of the song’s creation.

Chapell’s fingers danced across the keys as he sang his stories. Each offering was a small piece of his life. A moment in time. The thoughts and feelings, the interactions with a lover or a friend. Each song a work of art, not necessarily because it was a great music (it was), but because he did such a masterful job of distilling the moment. Taking the complexities of life events and presenting them in clear three minute chunks, with melodies to boot.

Building a dog house for his valentine’s day present

To be honest I’m not sure how much I was enamored with the music, so much as I was captivated by him as a storyteller. I was definitely tapping me feet, clapping, and swaying along. In the end his ability to express his innermost self was far more impactful than his musical stylings.

I recently heard Jordan Peterson on the Joe Rogan podcast say “the pathway to success for virtually everyone, is facilitation of their capacity to communicate” I had to go back and play the quote three or four times to make sure I got it right. Those fourteen words pack a punch.

Jordan Peterson also discussed how music matches the rhythm of our humanity. How moving along with music is instinctual. It is in our DNA.

I couldn’t help but think about the music I listen to. Why I like it, and what it says or means to me. What the artists were trying to express through their chosen medium. How this blog is largely a vehicle for my own personal expression. A facilitation of my own capacity to communicate.

One of the most gut wrenching things I do as a father is watch my boys struggle to express themself. At 4 and 2 respectively, El Duderino and Speedy fight an uphill battle based purely on limited vocabulary and phonetic acumen.

Some mobility work and a 5k in the new kicks while home

But beyond that, all words are inherently abstract. The way we describe our inner feelings are approximations at best. Now we are taking about shared approximations described with abstract symbols to try to convey some sense of meaning. Throw in a societal predisposition (especially based on gender) to close off certain feelings, and it’s a wonder any young man can express himself at all.

I’m appreciative of the opportunity this platform has provided. I hope that someday my boys can look back on it. I hope that they can see the growth of their father. See my mistakes and shortcomings. My desire towards self improvement. When viewed on a long enough timeline, hopefully, an increased capacity to communicate.

Post concert spin bike and some layover miles in CAE.

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

A Thousand Ones

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week I was listening to Joe Rogan conversation with General H.R. McMaster and he made a comment that reminded me of something an old boss used to tell me

While describing the recent US military withdrawal frome Afghanistan, McMaster posited the question, “did we fight a twenty year war, or did we fight a one year war, twenty times?”

My old boss, a man who is largely responsible for my professional and career development, used to ask, “Do you have one thousand hours, or one hour, a thousand times?”

The things you learn in those thousand hours

The thought being, there are components of experience, familiarization, and competence that are gained with the accumulation of hours. But that accumulation only takes place if you learn the lessons rather than repeat the same processes of your first time. In other words, have you grown and progressed?

This seems like it should be a given. If you have flown an airplane for a thousand hours there is bound to be some growth and learning. If you have fought a war for twenty years you should have picked up a thing or two.

Learning is hard. Growth is not automatic. The human condition often defaults to the path of least resistance. This is how you end up with “one hour, a thousand times” without some of the requisite lessons learned.

Sure that might be something of an exaggeration, but the concept is there. That’s one of the primary reasons why we have assessments. Every child in a classroom receives the same number of hours of content, but they are assessed to measure their growth and proficiency.

Pilots have intermediate assessments (stage checks) and check rides. There are defined minimum hour criteria to be eligible for a check ride. The check ride itself is a way of verifying that you have accumulated the skill and mastery of those combined hours. Rather than merely repeating the same hour over and over.

This was something I struggled with in the beginning of my professional aviation career. I was a great student in the classroom, and in the airplane. When told what was important, I could immerse myself and learn. The professional world is not always so cut and dry. There is a reason academics tend to stay in academia.

If you are fortunate, someone in the professional world will take you under their wing (aviation pun intended). They can help you sort through what is critical. What to focus on. Push you to grow.

Without that kind of mentorship. That professional nurturing. You are left to your own devices to accumulate knowledge and experience. The risk of repeating your solitary hour grows.

Daddy made it home and he brought treats

I see that lesson more clearly now as a father. My boys need to “build their hours”. But, I can be there to guide them. Making sure their hours accumulate rather than simply repeat.

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

This week’s SerenityThroughSweat, zwift double headers and a few days at OBJJ

Spoons and Shovels

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week I wanted to talk about the strange relationship I have with efficiency, in fatherhood, fitness, and flying.

I was reminded and inspired for this post by a quote from a Pavel Tsatsouline’s kettlebell book, Simple and Sinister. Pavel’s style of training is to use heavy weights explosively, and do fewer reps for more sets with long breaks in-between.

“Hard style training is also highly effective for fat loss. In a study that compared the energy expenditures in the same exercise performed explosively and non-explosively, the former predictably burned more calories. “The swing is inefficient, which is why it is a great fat burner,” explains Dan John. “The bike is efficient—and fat people can ride it forever.” Yes, you could burn the same calories by doing more reps with less power or less weight…but why? “

“Famous economist Milton Friedman was visiting a construction site in a country with Soviet-influenced economic policies. It was in the 1960s and Friedman was shocked to see only shovels and no mechanized equipment. He asked the government bureaucrat who was giving the tour about it. The latter smugly replied, “You don’t understand. This is a jobs program.” Prof. Friedman smiled, “Oh, I thought you were trying to build a canal. If it’s jobs you want, then you should give these workers spoons, not shovels.”

In many aspect of my life efficiency reigns supreme. I am always looking for the most efficient way to do something. Whether it is a grappling technique, a flight procedure, or just getting the kids out the door.

Aviation procedures after accounting first for safety, are primarily efficiency driven. Small inefficiencies multiplied across thousands of flights a day make a huge difference to a company.

Grappling is all about efficiency in motion. Your ability to generate the maximum amount of force necessitates not wasting energy through inefficient movement. Getting into advantageous positions is often not possible with inefficient or extra movement.

Beauty beyond the buildings in Burlington

In endurance sports, when racing, I’m trying to achieve the best efficiency in terms of speed for power output. The level of efficiency in a pedal stroke, a swimming stroke, or running cadence can be the difference between a personal record, and a really dark and ugly mental slog just to finish.

When training however, I often find myself deliberately seeking inefficiency. Swinging a kettlebell, over-exaggerating grappling movements, practicing a deliberately slower pedal stroke with a higher gear.

These inefficient training methods have a significant impact on strength, and growth in the particular sport or skill.

Fort building with Speedy and El Duderino

The irony is not lost on me that I waffle between maximized efficiency to minimized efficiency. Doing something the most efficient way is seldom the best way to learn.

I’m thinking about this as El Duderino is starting pre school. There are so many things that I do for him, and for myself for that matter, that are driven primarily by efficiency. But is that always the best approach?

El Duderino has been potty trained for a while. My wife was been a rock star with that, starting when he was only 6 months old. But he doesn’t like to wipe his own butt. Efficiency, being the quickest way to get this task done, dictates that I (or my wife) do it for him. The alternative is an existential argument with a four year old. with pants around his ankles, butt up in the air, explaining to us the importance of team work and helping out your family. His argument (especially in context) seems compelling.

At some point he will have to do this himself. It is a question of when, not if. I know that sooner is better than later. But there is a nagging sense of efficiency that rears its head. The desire to complete a simple task and move on to the next, that drives my avoidance of what I know to be my parental responsibility. To help him grow and develop into an independent young man.

It is hard to feel excited about deliberate inefficiency. It is even more painful when that inefficiency can be remedied, but doing so would be detrimental in the long run.

Parenting, along with many other aspects of my life and this blog, can be an exercise in using spoons instead of shovels. At least I’ve got company down in the trenches digging along with me.

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

Debt

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I wrote a few weeks back about Pappyland, a book following the van winkle family and their generational story through the booming bourbon market. The writing even after just a small snippet struck such a chord with me that I bought the book and could hardly put it down. After finishing it, I wanted to share my thoughts especially as they fit in with the overarching themes of the blog.

Whright Thompson spends a few years researching the book getting to know Julian Van Winkle, the bourbon industry as well as the family’s complicated history. The story follows four generations from “pappy”, Julian’s grandfather, all the way to Julian’s son Preston, who is learning at his father’s side.

Maple syrup lollipops from Vermont (what does a father, especially one who travels, owe a son?)

Thompson weaves his own relationship with his father as well as his journey towards becoming a new father into the novel which becomes more about family than it does about bourbon.

“Meeting with Julian and making him talk about his family made me ask myself the same question I’d been asking him: What did I owe my late father? What did I owe a grandfather I never met? What is demanded of a son or a daughter? What was demanded of me?”

Both Julian and Wright’s fathers died of illness before their time. Both sons felt the weight not only of the loss, but of the pressure to live up to family expectations. To succeed and press on in ways that the previous generation was unable to, for one reason or another.

The idea of raising a child, makes you reflect on those questions. If you are fortunate enough, and live in enough comfort to be introspective, having all of your needs met, you inevitably owe a debt to your parents. One that I’m not sure can ever be repaid.

Even if that debt is never tabulated, called in, or otherwise made tangible, it exists. It is an unspoken calling across generations to fulfill potential. To create, and affect, and change, hopefully in a positive and lasting way some part of this world.

In the acknowledgements Thompson writes to his young daughter telling her “let me save you some soul searching: you don’t owe me anything”. He goes on to say that he loves her unconditionally and that the book is for her.

I love his work, and I am inspired by it. Especially as I tackle my own literary project. Still, I think he misses the mark. After his deep and moving coverage of the VanWinkle family, it seems to.me there is always some form of generational debt.

The unconditional love and the debt are not mutually exclusive. If your parents did right by you, whatever their faults and failings may be, a debt is owed. It may not even be payable to them. It may be payable to yourself. But, a debt is owed.

My own feeble attempt then, to answer those questions.

Mom and Dad, I cannot thank you enough for the foundation you laid for me, and especially now for my family. There are lessons that are poignant in my mind, that I feel obliged to pass on. Traditions and relationships that I vow to maintain. An idea, of a fulfilled life that I will strive towards. These are the things I feel are demanded of me as a son.

Speedy and El Duderino, you are loved unconditionally. Your mother and I will support you to the best of our abilities in your endeavors. But you owe a debt, mostly to yourselves, but in a small part to us. To try, to engage, to grow, to explore and experience. In short, to live a life with purpose.

These are broad strokes intentionally. There are innumerable paths you both may choose. Following any of those paths in earnest, with intention, grace, and maybe even a touch of serenity, will clear any debt that may be owed.

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

Reset

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. After a short hiatus for a family vacation I’m back and better than ever, and that is exactly what I want to talk about.

My wife and I drove out two boys nine plus hours from Florida into the North Georgia mountains for a family getaway. A change of pace and a change of scenery. There is something about cresting that first ridge about an hour north of Atlanta, seeing the southern tip of the Appalachians standing solemnly yet inviting in the distance, that raises my hopes as much as it raises in elevation.

I didn’t realize how much I missed terrain, until I moved to a place that has so little of it. Florida has its own natural beauty for sure, but there is a majesty in mountains that is sorely lacking in the sunshine state.

We settled into a daily routine of sorts with the boys. We would traverse the steep and winding switchbacks of the mountain roads each morning, trying to appreciate that aforementioned majesty while also fighting back motion sickness (especially for El Duderino and my wife) each day brought a new hike, waterfall, or state park and a small mountain town to explore.

Ana Ruby Falls, Helton Creek Falls, Rocco’s Swinging Bridge

The boys loved it. There is something magical about the mountains, the outdoors, new places, and the synergy of all three for little boys. My two Florida babies where totally unencumbered by the low temperatures and their embarrassingly bulky winter clothes. The Buffalo native in me would be unable to resist poking fun at the collective family’s attire if my thinned out Florida blood could stop shivering long enough to do it.

I loved it too. I cherished it. It was a special time and place to share with family, but it was also a reset for me. Reflecting back on the month of December and the posts I wrote, there is a sense of melancholy. There is pride, and accomplishment, and desire, but it is somewhat tainted by that nagging feeling that all of these things did not awaken in me a sense of joy or fulfillment that I had hoped they would.

That is not to say that the time or activities from December were without value, or that melancholy is negative in it’s entirety. But, it made me appreciate the reset in the mountains that much more.

This study from Japan, shows significant decreases in oxidative stress, pro-inflammatory markers, and serum cortisol levels (a stress hormone) from a cohort who engaged in “forest bathing”

This study from a University of Utah professor shows an increase in problem solving, creativity, and other prefrontal cortex mediated executive processes, after spending a prolonged time in nature, both hiking as well as disengaging from multi media technology.

There was no shortage of cell phone usage, Disney shows, or championship football (how bout them Bills) while we were in the mountains, but the rejuvenation I know I felt, and I believe my family shared in, was tangible.

I have talked in previous posts about the almost temple like sanctity of a wrestling or jui jitsu mat, or a frisbee field. There can be a special feeling crossing the threshold, like the baseball players from Field of Dreams, nothing exists there but the purity of the game. Everything else melts away. Serenity, even if only for the briefest of moments.

The mountains gifted me that same sensation. Sometimes in small doses, and sometimes in heaping truckloads. It was a much needed and very welcome reset. One I am delighted to have shared with my family, and in some small part with you, the reader, as well.

The kettlebells made the trip to the mountains too

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

Misspent Youth

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This past week I ran the 10th edition of the annual Christmas half marathon and it had me thinking about an old rowing movie.

The Skulls is a movie from the year 2000 featuring Joshua Jackson and Paul Walker. It was popular amongst my friends and I in high school because it featured a very unrealistic depiction of rowing, and there weren’t a whole lot of those on the big screen at the time, or since then for that matter.

Joshua Jackson’s character Luke McNamara is your typical underdog. He comes from an underprivileged background, makes it on to the rowing team where he outworks everyone to earn his way into a good college.

From there he becomes obsessed with gaining social status through a secret society called the Skull and Bones. It is there he meets his Skulls “soulmate” (read frat brother) Caleb Mandrake played by Paul Walker. Drama and crime ensue and the movie is far from a blockbuster, but there are worse ways to spend two hours.

Caleb and Luke come from opposite ends of the socioeconomic spectrum. Caleb is the poster boy from the Creedence Clearwater Revival song, a senator’s son, silver spoon in hand.

There are a pair of matching scenes in which the two “soulmates” help each other in the areas they are each more suited to. Caleb ties Luke’s bowtie, and Luke helps Caleb pick a lock in the respective scenes to which they remark to each other, “the skills of a misspent youth”.

Both characters help their friend, and both skills are valuable in the context of the film and otherwise. There is a tangible sense of regret and envy from each of the characters to the other, feeling that the grass was greener for the way they each grew up.

I ditched the captain, who had invited me out to Buffalo wild wings, in order to embark on my traditional holiday trek. I’m glad I did, and I’m happy with my choice. But, it got me thinking about the skills learned over 10 years of this tradition, which by many might consider, a misspent youth.

What started out as a planned training day while I was on call, morphed into a coping mechanism from being away from home and then into something more. Over the years the Christmas half marathon has taken place at home, in the snow, on a treadmill, and through the woods.

Getting zwifty before heading in to work

It has been a run of celebration, a run of grieving, and a run to stave off boredom. It has been exciting and much anticipated, and it has been slogged through and checked off the to do list most unceremoniously.

More than anything though the tradition has endured. After ten years, all the changes in my life and the world around, all the stress and added activity of the holiday season, this run has been a constant. 13.1 miles of self reflection.

There is an opportunity cost to everything. Time marches on, and every thing that we choose to occupy ourselves with, necessitates a removal of another choice that might have been made.

Endurance athletics in particular carry a high opportunity cost because they are often time consuming solo endeavors. Still, I feel the same way about them as I do about the Skulls movie, and the notion of skills from a misspent youth. There are certainly worse ways to spend two hours.

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

Afterglow

Last week I wrote about race week, and this week I thought it was just as, if not more important, to talk about the post race week.

I wrote a post last year, when I thought I could be working my last flight for a while, about mission completion. How there is an emptiness left in the wake of something that you have dedicated yourself too that has reached it’s natural conclusion.

Getting the boys back to their jet setting ways

This emotional empty space is further exacerbated by the recovery process. Not only am I no longer activily pursuing a goal, but I’m actively refraining from, and trying to minimize my otherwise high octane training.

I know that my body needs rest, and that recovery is critical. My brain, and my hormonal reward circuits are not on the same page.

Finishing my first longer course triathlon since having kids four years ago has left a similar, albeit slightly smaller wake. The hours spent sweating over a bike trainer, the lonesome hotel treadmills, the opportunities that were sacrificed in the name of a training plan, all come to be familiar friends.

It is easy to feel a sense of Stockholm syndrome, you become sympathetic to the captor of your time and energy, and soon come to depend on it, not just for your physical well-being, but also your emotional happiness and mental stability.

SerenityThroughSweat as you might have gleaned, is a journey through my many endeavors from fitness to fatherhood, but it is also my trial by combat against anxiety and depression.

Without the sweat, I predictably find myself lacking in serenity. As my wife is very ready to remind me, “your not nearly as nice of a person when you haven’t worked out for two or three days”

I’m not sure what the answer is, maybe I’m restless (more than maybe). Maybe my ambition gets the better of my appreciation. Maybe I have been at endurance sport and competition in general long enough that my dopamine reward pathway is off kilter.

Sure I was happy to finish. Sure I enjoyed splashing with my boys in the pool and sliding down the water slide with them. Cracking beers while catching up with an old friend and my wife was a great post race celebration. But the satisfying sense of accomplishment that can carry over through the post race recovery period was conspicuously absent. There was no afterglow.

Before I started writing I was trying to think about what it was that I was actually feeling and this everclear song popped into my head. Ironically, this song would come up on one of my Pandora stations that I use frequently during training.

“we never ask ourselves the questions to the answers that nobody even wants to know I guess the honeymoon is over so much for the afterglow. (So much for the afterglow, Everclear)

There are clearly answers here that demand some tough questions. Fortunately I do some of my best thinking while putting in miles and sweating.

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