Hiking – Serenity Through Sweat

Make your own kind of music

It was winter break of my junior year of college, December 2007 and January 2008. I was burning the candle at both ends. Flying, studying, surfing, partying, playing ultimate Frisbee. Even youth has is limits.

I had a stress fracture in my shin and arthritis in both ankles at the ripe old age of 20.

I was laid up on the couch and my roommate had given me the first few seasons of Lost on DVD.

The rooftop from our airbnb in Marseille

This was back when we would sit down together for scheduled programming. If we were lucky, it was DVR’ed, and we could fast forward through commercials.

I was two or three seasons behind and the combination of my limited mobility and break from school made the perfect environment for a binge watch.

It’s hard to go back in time to relive the cultural phenomenon that was Lost. Game of Thrones maybe came close, but it was a different time.

The cold open of season 2 episode 1 Man of science man of faith originally aired Sep 21 2005. It brought a swift end to the cliffhanger ending from season one introducing us to Desmond Hume the sole inhabitant of the hatch.

Cathedral Notre dame and beach day in the Mediterranean

We see Desmond go through his morning routine in the isolation of the hatch while listening to “make your own kind of music” by Cass Elliot.

We also see lead character Jack Shepherd meet Desmond in a flash back as they are both doing a tour d’ stade. Running every step in every section of a stadium.

I was hooked on the show and couldn’t wait to catch up and watch weekly with my friends.

This was also the time when I first thought about endurance sport. I remeber watching Lost on DVD in my basement while wearing an air cast and elevating my leg and looking up ultra marathons at the same time.

Boat tour past Chateau D’if and haling and swimming in the Frioul archipelago

I was unable to put weight on my foot without pain, so the obvious reaction for me was, when this is healed, how far can I go?

I have yet to do an ultra marathon, but I’ve done my fair share of tour d’ stade around the country.

Needless to say, the show, and those characters specifically, had a big impact on me. I still like to use Desmond’s line when he leaves Jack to resume his stadium run, “I”ll see you in another life brother” in that dashing Australian accent.

All that trip down memory lane to say, I was thinking about that song, that show, that simpler time in my life, while I was reflecting on my summer vacation with my family.

We had planned to take Speedy and El Duderino on our first big trip once they were both over five. We took months planning a trip to Marseille and continuing on a Mediterranean cruise out of Athens.

The places we visited and the memories we made were magical. I wouldn’t trade them for anything. And yet, there were aspects of the trip that made it feel like a national Lampoons family vacation movie.

Our flight plans changed last minute due to airplane swaps and an ATC strike in France. We ended up flying to Amsterdam and taking two trains with a subway connection through Paris to Marseille. From the end of my work trip to reaching our Airbnb, I think it was roughly 36 hours of travel time.

My father was pickpocketed while protecting Speedy in the subway car in Paris, in almost exactly the same spot I was pickpocketed years earlier on the trip where I proposed to Heather.

At the Airbnb, my father fell down some stairs breaking a few toes. El duderino fell in the pool and got a cut under his chin that probably could have been stitched. Speedy fell off the deck and we were worried about a concussion.

Acropolis tour and getting on the cruise ship

There were wildfires in the Calanques National park not more than a few miles from where we were staying. The smoke was bad enough to close the airport to all flights the day before we were scheduled to fly to Athens for our cruise.

During the cruise, Heather, Speedy, and I all took turns with 2 day colds and fevers.

On paper, it seemed like a comedy of errors. Like one thing going wrong after the next. But that isn’t really how i saw it. That isn’t how it felt.

Sometimes, in a bjj or wrestling match or in a race, things aren’t going your way, but you are in it. You quickly acknowledge the setback or the unfavorable circumstance and move forward. The clock is ticking, and you need to adjust your strategy and keep moving. Sometimes you come out on top, and sometimes you don’t. But you keep moving.

There were certainly times when I felt overwhelmed. Times when I felt like I would be letting the family down if I couldn’t solve the next problem or tackle the next challenge.

But I dont think that is how I will remember the trip. I certainly dont think that’s how the boys will remember the trip.

Sometimes, we get to make our own kind of music. The music can change the way the story feels. The way it unfolds in our minds and our hearts in spite of what is in front of our eyes.

We saw such beautiful places and we did it together. We had experiences, fun, and challenging and new. We rolled with the punches, and we overcame. Together.

I hope that my boys can look back fondly on this first of hopefully many family trips.

I hope that they can appreciate the time spent together in a family adventure.

I hope that someday, they can laugh with me about obstacles overcame and challenges met that they hopefully didn’t even recognize.

I hope they can grow into young men who can meet those same obstacles and challenges head-on with families of their own.

Boat cruise, swimming and Delos tour in Mykonos

I hope they can make their own ki d of music, to whatever beat they find appealing. I hope that they can be the author of their own destiny, writing the story the way they want it to be read. I hope we can all find serenity along the way.

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

Quintessential

The orange light fights to climb over the closest peak. As it crests, it strains to break through the thick mist. The mist, clinging and caressing my skin as I zoom through the winding and undulating mountain roads.

I almost have to pull over and pinch myself. Is this heaven? A dream? Almost. I wouldn’t want to ruin the flow of the wheels across the pavement, and this zen state of movement.

The road is quiet. Just me and the bike and the mountains. Every once in a while,a car will wait patiently behind me before I signal it is clear to pass. I’m more worried about skittish deer than the cars.

Most of the world, (including my family) is still asleep. Maybe that adds to the beauty. This is a private moment.

They will wake soon, and we will go chase that quintessential summer day together.

Camping at the lakefront. Tubing down the river. Soccer and wiffleball at the local park. Take your shoes off and dip your toes in the creek.

There are too many activities to fit in, despite the sun stretching overhead long after to boys bedtime. It feels like a return to simpler times.

People try to tell you, but it is hard to listen. Harder still to understand and change your behavior. Youth is wasted on the young. They grow up fast. The one that stuck with me was, “you only get eighteen summers with them”

I think that might be generous. They probably dont remember the first three or four. And they will have things that seem more important to them by 15 or 16. The window closes faster than we think.

I think that’s why this summer felt so special. Both El Duderino and Speedy were old enough to appreciate it. And every day I was home felt like a new mission. How do we craft the perfect summer day?

It’s a totally unrealistic goal. Unachievable, really. As everyone’s individual preferences clash. Reality sets in, disappointment, frustration, human nature.

But, like a good dose of type II fun, sometimes the joy is in the journey.

So we hiked. We swam and splashed. We camped. We floated. We traveled. I rode my bike every chance I got, often with bleary eyes and to the detriment of my sleep. There’s nowhere else I would rather have been.

Most of the time, I tried to look at the summer as a whole. What can we do today that week add to the overall experience.

But there were two occasions where I shot for the moon.

I woke up well before the dawn, stretching and prepping gear in the silent dark calm of the early morning trying not to wake the rest of the house.

I would drive 30 or so minutes to the base of the larger mountains and scenic highways and start my ride from there.

Winding my way through the scenic highways

40 ish miles with 4000’+ of elevation gain, most of it before my family awoke.

They would meet me later on at the state park I had already ridden laps, around. I would stop and get donuts and wait for them at a picnic bench beside a babbling creek.

After they joined me, my boys and I moved to the playground, swinging and making friends at the nearby volleyball net while my wife ran on the trail around the lake.

We would later hike on the same trail towards a waterfall before finding a serendipitous presentation by a local aviary rescue.

Meeting up at Vogel state park after my longer rides

We finished the day splashing in the lake, me throwing the boys like a backyard WWF exhibition.

Sure, there were disagreements. Maybe even a tantrum. Kids will be kids, and boys will be boys. I think we might have even found a yellow jacket nest and gotten stung on our hike.

In the moment, those things seem big. They appear to take over the narrative. These certainly aren’t things I would pencil in the agenda for my day. But, they diminish significantly time.

What’s left, is arguably the quintessential summer day. It was far from perfect, and yet it was everything we needed it to be.

Like a lot of things, maybe it was a bigger deal in my head. This lofty expectation that I strained for, and probably fell short of. But god damn did it feel good trying.

This is obviously quite a while after the fact. I hope you can all find activities to bring your family together in these dog days of summer.

That you can find joy in the pursuit of that quintessential summer day. And, just maybe, some serenity along the way.

Finishing off some beautiful summer nights in the mountains

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

Better off

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Getting more time on the bike inside and outside

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

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

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

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

Results

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week is want to talk about results. Or, more specifically, a result oriented versus process oriented paradigm.

I recently competed in the IBJJF Pan championships. In the the world of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in the gi, this is considered a grand slam event.

People travel from all over the world to compete and watch this tournament. It just so happens to take place right in my backyard. It also happens to take place during spring break time when I had time off work.

It seemed silly, given those factors, not to sign up and compete. Even though I knew I would be unable to train and prepare to the full extent I wanted to, I signed up for the competition with high expectations.

Having competed the previous year losing my first match 0-0 via a referee decision, I went into this tournament hoping to improve on my performance but also on my results. Two very distinct categories.

I wasn’t unhappy with my performance from last year, but the results were definitely a gut check. They led to a reassessment of my training and preparation.

This year I signed up for a smaller local competition a month before Pans. I wanted to get a more recent reminder of the competitive atmosphere in my memory than the previous loss at last year’s Pans. I wrote about that tournament here.

Through a freak accident to the wrestling coach at our gym, I ended up taking over teaching the class. This meant not only more reps and training, but also much more time thinking about the wrestling and takedown aspects of BJJ competition.

I also took over teaching the Gi class that I normally attended since that instructor had moved out of the country.

Again, this meant a lot more mental preparation and thinking about techniques, even if the amount of time spent physically training was less than I would have wanted it to be.

I felt good going in to Pans. Mentally strong. Physically strong. I had a solid three plus weeks of very clean eating and living in order to get down to the lightweight limit. A roughly 10 pound drop from my normal walking around weight.

I arrived to the convention center early so I could have a long, low, and slow warmup. Waking up the body and the mind, as much as working out the nervous energy, I jumped right out of my jump rope. After about an hour of watching matches and intermittantly jumping, the set screw gave way, and one of the rope ends flew right out of the handle. It was strangely self gratifying in my ability to outlast the equipment.

I made my way to the weigh in and the fighter holding pen. Mutch different from my wrestling days, weigh-ins are immediately prior to your match as opposed to first thing in the morning. The fighter pen is a small cattle herd of metal barricades, keeping in the nervous energy and testosterone, jittering bouncing and going over final preparations for the combat ahead.

I felt the anxiety of the impending competition. Those familiar butterflies in my stomach, even after all the years of grappling. If that feeling is no longer present, I will have to rethink further competition.

Like I have done before every wrestling or BJJ match I can remember, I started my final warmup with an our father prayer. I followed that with my own prayer to wrestle 6 minutes hard. 6 minutes strong. 6 minutes smart. 6 minutes safe. To have a performance that I can be proud of, and that my family can be proud of. To be gracious in victory or defeat. To keep myself and my competitors free from injury.

My name was called along with my opponent for the first match. We shook hands and hugged before walking to the mats.

I bounced and stretched at the mats edge, trying to clear my mind, creating a blank canvas for the match ahead.

I’ve written before about the special place that competitive athletic endeavors have for me. Like walking through a portal, I feel transported. Stepping onto the mat, for those five minutes, (high-school wrestling matches are six and my prayer has not been updated, better to err on the long side anyway) everything else fades away. The canvas is blank to create a piece of art and tell a story, together with my opponent, without any of our other baggage.

We stood wrestling for the first two minutes or so of the match. I felt I had the upper hand with takedowns and pressed my advantage. After a few near takedowns, I saw my opponent gasp for a deep breath and change his stance and posture. I knew my next shot would be successful.

After scoring the takedown, I followed my game plan and won the match on top, threatening to pass his guard and attack his left arm. The match went about as well as I could have hoped for and I advanced to the quarter finals.

I had plenty of time to catch my breath, stretch, and recover before being called up for my next match. Again, I shook hands and hugged my opponent before walking from the pen to the mats.

Already in a better spot than I was the previous year, I knew winning this match would see me on the podium. That was the goal I had set for this competition, make the podium.

The match started similar to the first. We wrestled standing for a minute or so were I felt I had an advantage. My opponent recognized this and pulled guard.

We ended up in his 50/50 guard, a leg entanglement where our respective right legs are interlaced, knees to knee with him laying on his back and me standing.

It is a difficult position to get out of, and comes with the risk of an easy transition from bottom to top. That would give my opponent 2 points for a sweep and in all likelihood a deficit that would be hard to overcome.

I pressed forward, testing the flexibility of his hip and the strength of his lock on the other leg. With enough pressure I could break the lock and potentially attack the knee. I had to be careful to keep my balance, falling backward even if i stayed on top could give my opponent and advantage point that would be hard to overcome.

At one point, I was able to break the lock of his legs and press forward. He recovered, but i felt i was making progress. Before I knew it, the match was over.

0-0 no advantage points given. Under the circumstances, the match would be decided by the referee. My opponent won the referee’s decision.

To say I was disappointed by the results would be an understatement. It is hard to walk away with a loss, without feeling like you were beaten. It is a confusing mental space.

In contrast, I was happy with my performance. I was aggressive. I didn’t make any tactical or strategic mistakes. Every position I found myself in, I had a clear mental path forward. I was gracious in victory and in defeat.

I’m still not sure how to process the outcome. It isn’t a win, but it doesn’t feel like a loss either. Complaining isn’t helpful, nor is beating myself up or second guessing my performance. There are always areas to improve upon, but there was no glaring hole in my game that was exposed by those two matches.

I’m trying instead to shift focus away from the result, and back to the process. I have much more control over the latter than the former.

Focusing on the process is something I can change. I can take the frustration over the results and direct it somewhere positive. There are levers that can be pulled and dials that can be turned. The results, are what they are, and revisiting them is unproductive.

A cold damp run on a Toronto layover. The hairdryer I used to dry out my shoes afterward turned one of the insoles into a shrinky-dink

I can continue to work on my wrestling in the gi, not giving my opponents the chance to pull guard, or forcing them to do so from a place of weakness.

I can continue to develop a style that is aggressive and attacking. I can work to improve positions where I find myself stuck. I can find additional time to train, and prioritize bjj as i approach competitions in the future.

I’m disappointed with the results, but I’m content with my preparation and performance. Resetting my focus back to the process has brought some much needed serenity in the face of uncertainty over those results.

Some higher intintervals and some weight management rides

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.

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.

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.

Rendezvous

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week I want to talk about the building blocks of those truly special moments in our lives. What is it that makes those particular encounters stick out and remain in the ever present collection and archival of our memories?

It think one of the most important building blocks in making memories is you. By that I mean, who you are on that day, in that time, and the context of your own personal journey that you bring to the excursion. Your mental, emotional, and physical state, and your ability and willingness to embrace the experience at hand all shape the memory.

Scampering up to double arch as a family

I have a very distinct recollection of a conversation with a young lady at a bar (in my single days of course) where I was instantly put off from any further interaction. She was lamenting the lack of things to do in Melbourne FL as compared to NYC.

She insisted that without the plethora of new restaurants and activities the city had to offer, she was doomed to a life of boredom. I tried to persuade her that new experiences were just as much about your mindset and approach as they were about the venue itself. Needless to say she was not persuaded and we went our separate ways.

I was training for Ironman FL at the time, and covering the same miles, finding the familiar cracks in the pavement and passing by the same landmarks each training session was still new, in spite of the familiarity and repetition, because I was a different person than I was the day before.

I think the next building block of those special memories are the people that are with you. There are some things that must be accomplished and experienced alone, and these become a part of who we are, but by and large we are social animals, who share experiences.

I relish in my individual athletic pursuits of triathlon and grappling, and I very much appreciate my solo time on layovers (especially since having children), but one my most powerful memories is the Canadian Schoolboys regatta in 2003. I believe it is so powerful because it was a collaborative effort with my best friends in highschool.

The five of us crossed the finish line in St. Catherine’s exhausted and anxiously awaiting the results, as the crew from E.L. Crossley had closed the gap in the closing meters of the race. In our depleted state we misread or misunderstood the results illuminated on the LED screen on the tower above us, and lamented our loss in the home stretch after having led most of the race. Our despair was short lived as our coach shouted from the overlooking cliff “(friend’s last name) you idiot, you won”. That collective reversal of despair to elation, shared amongst friends and brothers in competition, etched in my mind a memory that is powerfully potent all these years later.

Arduous sunrise trek up to delicate arch

One of the final building blocks of those raw and visceral memories is the what/where factor. There are some places and events that have a special effect on us. Scarcity has always been a driving force in value, thus remarkable landmarks or events that are one of a kind, or happen infrequently become inherently more valuable.

This past week my brother and I set out with my mom on an adventure for her birthday. We covered some 900 odd miles of driving, 15+ miles of hiking, and 6+ miles of paddling across the American southwest in three days, during a record heatwave.

Brotherly competition knows no age limits

The special combination of beautiful landscape, present company, and my own mental/emotional headspace made for a trip I will always remember, and be forever grateful for.

Being with my mother and brother, sharing in the picturesque natural phenomena, and momentarily suspending the rigors of work and the demands of being a father and a husband, created a consumate canvas on which to make a masterpiece memory.

Thank you both for the remarkable rendezvous.

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

Enough

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I just finished Primal Endurance by Mark Sisson and Brad Kearns, and wanted to talk about one of my biggest takeaways from the book; when enough is enough.

As a niche follow on to their previous work The Primal Blueprint, Primal Endurance eschews the same values of the earlier work onto the hard charging, type A endurance athlete.

In a space where more milage is always thought to be better, and training consistency is key, the author’s urge a more simplistic and intuitive approach as seen in the quote below.

I remember an almost identical quote from Altered Carbon which I wrote about back in March of 2020 (Dystopian Shopping). The rebellion leader Quellcrist Falconer tells her disciples to “Take what is offered, and that must sometimes be enough”

The thought that too many of us are pushing beyond what is safe, sensible, or strategically sound, is a common thread that most endurance athletes can agree on, if we are able to step back for an honest assessment.

The same holds true for aviators who are required to make that same assessment before each and every flight. When is enough, enough?

I can look back at my career as an aviator and as an athlete, and pinpoint the times when I failed to address this question properly. Each time I asked myself to deliver more than I had to give, mistakes were made, and consequences ensued.

Some mistakes were small, imperceptible even. Some where larger and embarrassing or painful. Some of the consequences were minor, while others were dire. Thankfully these are experiences I have been able to learn from and share.

As athletes we are encouraged, whether by a team, a coach, a culture, or even ourselves, to push the limits and test the boundaries of our own achievement. And while I believe this to be one of the noblest pursuits to engage in, it is easy to get carried away.

El Duderino’s new rug really ties the room together and testing the capacity on the new youth sleeping bag

As aviators we tend to be mission driven, and that makes it even easier to take more than is offered in the name of mission completion. While our track record as an industry is impressive, most of us can attest, (I certainly can) to going to the well too often.

I think this trend extends into parenthood sometimes as well. There is a cultural feeling amongst American parents that you are only as good of a parent as that which you sacrifice for your children.

I love my boys deeply, in a way that is impossible for me to simplify into a few paragraphs on a blog. I know that this love has, and will continue to, drive me to take more than I would be otherwise willing or able to give from myself in service to them.

It isn’t even a choice on a conscious level, but one that I think is already a predetermined guiding principle in most parents. That makes it even more important, to respect when your body has given enough in the other aspects of your life.

Building aerobic base, trying to trust the process chewing on the bridle of restricted heart rate

With training volume increasing ahead of Ironman FL 70.3 in December, flying schedule ramping back up, and the demands of fathering two young boys, I have a lot on my plate. I have a creeping feeling of anxiety, that I’ve bit off more than I can chew, and what I have to offer won’t be enough.

I have tried to cultivate habits and a lifestyle that maximize my potential, and facilitate challenging pursuits. I am still learning to respect my own limits, and take only what my body has to offer each day, letting that be enough. While it is difficult for me to relinquish attachment to the outcome, I’m finding serenity in the struggle, and hoping and trusting that it will be enough.

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

The Trinity Nature of Serenity Through Sweat

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. Today I want to talk about what SerenityThroughSweat means to me or realistically all of the different things it means to me.

I grew up Roman Catholic and one of the main tenants and most difficult to fully comprehend is the nature of the Holy Trinity. Without getting into to much Dogma, Catholics believe in three essences with the same being of God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but all one God.

I feel very similarly about Serenity Through Sweat. To me the Trinity of Serenity Through Sweat is a momentary feeling, a journey, and a destination.

The momentary feeling can show itself in a lot of different forms. Some might call it a runners high. For others it might be the quiet solitude and mental clarity after a workout. It might be a PR or a technique you hit in a roll for the first time. The point is, it is fleeting feeling. Part of the beauty and the allure is that it is fleeting and it leaves you chasing more.

Which leads us to the journey. If you chase enough of those fleeting moments, you can eventually find an appreciation for journey. The habits and relationships formed while seeking the moments, become a source of pleasure, especially if you can already them in the present, and not just in retrospect. Finding joy in the journey also helps deepen the appreciation of the moments.

Finally, we have Serenity as a destination. This idea constantly eludes me and I find it a bit ethereal and hard to pin down a definition. The characteristics of the destination tend to shift and change with my mood as I think about it. Most of the time I think about a mental state of peace (hence Serenity through Sweat). I should clarify this doesn’t mean a state without struggle, but rather a state that embraces and appreciates, rather than laments the struggle. I think about a mental state of Zen whereby the path to the mental state of serenity is paved with our sweat, physically mentally and emotionally. I’m not sure if this is a mental state or destination that is actually achievable, or if it is more of a “shoot for the moon and you’ll land in the stars” type of destination.

All three parts are separate and have their own important place, but all three parts also build off of each other to make the whole idea greater.

Today’s Serenity Through Sweat was an 8 mile hike in the Bay’s Mountain recreation area. Last night I stayed up to watch the UFC card and ate at Buffalo wild wings while watching. As a result, I spent the better part of the hike doing some epic butt clenching to avoid what would have otherwise been an explosive situation.

I did have a really cool moment where I stumbled upon some friends. I say stumbled because I hiked with one headphone in and one ear open. This let me catch up on some JRE as well as be somewhat in tune with my surroundings. I had just finished listening to Adam Curry, and had just queued up Gary Clark Jr and Suzzane Santo who were jamming when I heard a very faint rustling.

There were seven of them in total and they weren’t the least but phased by me being there. I took a few moments to appreciate how lucky I am to have these cool experiences, especially while at work on a layover. Another moment of Serenity, another brick laid on the path.

Thanks for joining me and stay sweaty my friends.