Tour De France – Serenity Through Sweat

Tactics

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This is one of my favorite (and incidentally my wife’s least favorite) time of the year. It’s tour season.

The Tour de France that is. The grand daddy of classic bike races that spans 21 days of self inflicted punishment across the natural beauty of the French countryside.

There is a special place in my heart for endurance athletes, fellow sadists, doing objectively silly things solely in the name of glory. Who really needs to ride that many miles in the name of personal aggrandizement?

But within any challenge or any game there are tactics. And the best tacticians can adjust in real time as it becomes necessary and suits them.

I’m enjoying a store picked single barrel bourbon from Lexington that I picked up on a layover a few weeks ago. There is an undeniable similarity between the bourbon and the the tour replay I’m watching. The smooth pedal strokes of the professional cyclists dancing up the Col du Galibier, (The highest pass in the TDF), match the smooth amber liquid. Yet, there is a subtle burning that lingers in the background. The natural beauty passing through the French Alps . The confluence of nature from the corn, rye, barley, and charred oak. The internal struggle as the lactic acid accumulation begins to burn. The ethanol’s pungent reminder that beauty is not without it’s cost

As I’m watching this stage on my short La Guardia layover, I’m reminded of game nights with my brother and my father. I come from a family that plays a lot of cards. Euchre, hearts, and pinochle, and board games like risk, monopoly, and anything else where variable strategies and adjusting tactics are rewarded.

The ability to start with a a tactical plan, and adjust those tactics based on real world scenarios is a skill I admire In the professional bike riders. It is also a skill I sought to develop in those family game nights. It is an aspect I look for when buying new games. (Which I do frequently, much to my wife’s chagrin)

A strategy is the plan of action, where you want to go. Tactics describe a procedure or set of maneuvers engaged in to achieve an end, an aim, or a goal. tactics are the individual steps and actions that will get you there.

In the middle of a battle, bike race, or board game or card game as it were, your strategy doesn’t change, your tactics do.

The Tour de France is broken up into 21 stages. The overall leader based on cumulative time wears the yellow jersey. Within each stage are sprint points and mountain climbs. There is also a competition for the best cumulative time for those riders under 23. Plus each stage is its own race. There is a level of prestige reserved for professional cyclists who win a stage on the tour de France, even if the don’t finish the whole tour.

This leads to the necessity of variable tactics. There are races within races going on. In order to maintain your strategic goals, your tactics might have to change based on how any one of those individual races with the tour is unfolding on a particular day.

You might be trying to protect your lead in the King of the Mountains competition, and end up having to battle the Yellow jersey competitors to do so. The sprint point might be in-between two large climbs, or at the end of a stage. Your path to an individual stage win might risk the attention of the overall competitors chasing you down to keep their overall rankings intact.

The point is, these athletes are able to adjust in real time. Roll with the punches. Start off with one tactical plan, and have the awareness, despite days of self inflicted suffering, to adjust those tactics as necessary.

We talk a lot on this platform about tools. Having the right tool for the job. Tools that I want to equip my boys with. Being able to adjust tactics as a game, competition, (or life for that matter) unfolds, is certainly one of them.

It is one of the many skills I am happy my parents passed on to me, largely through games. It is one of the many reasons I love the Tour. As my toddlers melt down when their “plan” for bedtime routine doesn’t match up with reality, I realize we have a little more work to do towards variable tactics, and serenity.

Knoxville River run and treadmills in LaGuardia

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

Better Humans

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. As I draw to the close of my Sober October physical challenge, I’m reminded of a pro cyclist interview I read from the 2019 Tour de France.

The article was published here in Business Insider on July 9th, 2019 and is an interview of Canadian professional cyclist Michael Woods. Woods, at the time was competing in his first TDF and is now the only person to have ever completed the race and also have run a sub 4 minute mile.

The point in the article that stuck out to me is the prioritization required to get through the tour. A grueling 21 day event, the tour demands all of your energy and focus.

“When you finish a three-week race, you’re a better bike racer but a worse human being. Over this Tour I’m probably going to walk 5 kilometers over the course of the month — that’s it. And that’s not healthy. That’s not healthy from an impact-adaptation perspective. Humans are meant to walk — they’re meant to move around.”

I’m not trying to imply that swinging a 54lb kettlebell is in anyway the same as riding Le Tour, but I empathize with the singular focus and lack of fitness diversity in this challenge.

There have been a number of benefits to be sure. My core looks and feels stronger, my grip has gotten some much needed and often ignored attention, my posterior chain is firing better and stronger, and my posture seems improved and more natural, rather than something I am fixating on to keep correct.

All of those things are tangible, but my running has definitely suffered, and despite twice daily mobility sessions, there is a tightness that I can’t seem to escape because the challenge presses on in monotony. Beyond that, this challenge has not been particularly stimulating, but rather more of a trudge through the reps.

In addition to the sheer volume of reps, part of the challenge is maintaining focus and determination throughout a task that is mundane and monotonous.

Just as Woods said, and despite the benefits I have experienced, as I approach the end of 4 weeks and 10,000 kettlebell swings, I feel like I’m better at swinging a kettlebell but a worse human. I miss the diversity of jui jitsu, triathlon, archery, and other kettlebell and sandbag lifting. The combination of these activities together serve to be both mentally and physically challenging and invigorating.

I appreciate the 10,000 kettlebell swing challenge and it’s likeness to other monotonous and mundane life tasks, but I am excited to be done and get back to work on being a more diverse and better human.

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

Shut Up Legs

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. Albeit a little later with all of the craziness that is 2020, this is one of my favorite stretches of the year, Le Tour. Hundreds of riders hammering the pedals across miles of the world’s most spectacular countryside is awe inspiring and motivating in a way that is hard to compare.

One of the color commentators on the broadcast, a former pro cyclist Jen’s Voigt, is famous in the cycling community for his remark Shut Up Legs! It is his brand, the title of his book and the name of his company and website. It is also something that all cyclists at some point or another can relate to.

Music man on our visit to Grammy’s house

SerenityThroughSweat for me has always been about finding peace, in large part through exercise. I think the ability to feel discomfort and then push through it. To realize the discomfort is only temporary and it is superceded by whatever the goal is, is a gift given to us by exercise. It is also what Jens so eloquently states in much fewer words when he says, shut up legs.

Anyone who has found themselves in the saddle, legs burning, and contemplating quitting knows the internal struggle that goes on. There are always an endless number of good reasons why calling it a day is a justifiable decision. Miles already ridden, lack of proper sleep/nutrition/hydration, inclement weather, other obligations at home. Honest self assessment, especially in times of discomfort, is a true virtue.

Getting ready for our upcoming mountain adventure

I try to think about it like Tyler durden would. “These are your burning legs, don’t go to your cave and find your power animal, what you are feeling is premature enlightenment.” Recognize the source of your discomfort, stay with it, not blaming it or hiding from it, and then say shut up legs.

The uncertainty I (and much of my aviation family) face is no different. Our metaphorical legs are burning with the threat of furlough and a long arduous climb of industry recovery looms on the horizon. We can unclip our pedals and call it a day, or we can say shut up legs, and take on the long hard climb ahead.

It doesn’t make the climb ahead any less daunting, or the burning feelings of uncertainty any less scary, but facing it head on saying Shut up legs! and progressing forward is the only sure path I can see for my family.

I hope that all of my brothers and sisters in the industry, as well as anyone else who is facing Covid related job loss, will join me in saying Shut Up Legs, and hammering forward in a way that would put the peloton to shame.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends. (And Vive Le Tour)