Tag: management

Energy

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog.  This week I’m studying up to get back to flying, and I’m thinking about energy.

Flying is in large part a management of energy.  You are moving a couple hundred thousand pounds of people, metal and combustibles at very high speeds and very high altitudes, only to return them safely to the ground.

El Duderino burnout the creative energy at Crayola Experience

Acceleration from standing still to eighty percent the speed of sound requires a lot of energy. Descending, decelerating, and configuring for landing, all demand a lower energy state, so that energy must be managed.

Long days flying multiple missions means I have to manage my energy state throughout the day as well. Add in nonstandard sleep schedules in   becomes another complex problem to manage.

Cardboard boxes are kids energy traps

Most of the decision making that goes into flying an airplane is in one way or another, an energy management decision.  For that matter, so is parenting and fitness.

Keeping your pace in check, monitoring your fluid and fuel intake, relegating your heart rate and breathing through the various sets, rolls, and miles, are all forms of energy management. 

Speedy standing in the spray at the splash pad

Keeping your kids hydrated, eating real food, on some semblance of a sleep and nap schedule, and definitely running around outside to burn off some of that precious energy is a daily struggle (often one of futility)

Managing that energy properly, in every aspect, leads to better outcomes and it is a delicate balance.  Expend too much energy, and you are going to have a hard time slowing down the aircraft and landing, finishing your workout, or dealing with ornery kids.  Don’t expend enough energy and you won’t get off the ground, you won’t make any gains, and your kids will be doing backflips at bedtime.

The boys at dino world and sunset over lake Erie

Everything we do requires at least some of our energy, which makes it a precious commodity and one that should be spent wisely.  Frank Herbert describes energy in Dune Messiah saying,

“Between depriving a man of one hour of his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree.  You have done violence to him, consumed his energy.”

Energy given in the search for serenity

While this might be a somewhat extreme view, the idea hits home, especially as I start to get busier. Energy gives you life and it’s your life, manage it wisely. Thanks for using some of yours to spend this time with me.

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

What Gets Measured, Gets Managed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks for joining me, and stay sweaty my friends.