Training – Serenity Through Sweat

Mental muscles

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I’m fresh out of the simulator for my recuurent pilot training and wanted to reflect on the experience.

“Laser beam focus”. “Like moving a toothpick inside a cheerio”. “Just put the thing in the thing and keep it there”.

These are things the instructors say when talking through a single engine ILS (instrument landing system) approach flown without the autopilot. They are referring to the small yellow box in the middle of the photo, and keeping the yellow box centered on the green crosshair.

Even the slightest deviation from the flight directors commanded position can result in an aircraft state that is no longer in a safe position to land.

Flying at 145 knots on approach means moving through the air at 245 feet per second. ILS minimums typically allow you to land at 1800′ RVR (runway visual range). That means you can only see about 1800 feet in front of you.

You need to transition from that laser beam focus on the dual cue flight director, to pick out the runway environment through the fog and haze. At those speeds, you have 7.5 seconds until the ground comes to greet you.

Let’s rewind about ten or fifteen minutes, before your laser beam focus on the yellow box and green cross hair.

You have flown to a safe altitude on a single engine, combating the asymmetric thrust that wanted to roll and yaw the airplane out of control and upside down. You start the process of securing the failed engine in order to prevent any further damage.

Now you have to expand your thinking and start looking at the big picture. What systems were running off that engine that I lost? Which systems were essential? Which were redundant? What operations can I still conduct with downgraded systems? Does the weather permit those operations with down graded systems? How much fuel do I have? Is it balanced?

The list of questions could go on and on, but you are in a pressurized tube moving through space with a finite amount of fuel. Add on to all that managing communications with the rest of the crew behind your locked cockpit door, air traffic control, and your company counterparts on the ground. There is a lot of data input and management at a higher level.

This represents a significant contrast from the task we previously discussed. A singular lazer beam focus on a very small window.

Singular lazer beam focus and birds eye view big picture situation analysis. Both tasks are critical to getting back on the ground safely, and training and preparing for those tasks are two very different operations.

This reminded me somewhat of the physical training that I do. Training for a five minute Jiu Jitsu match is much different than training for a five hour half ironman.

A single rep max deadlift requires a different training modality and approach than a 100+ mile bike ride through the mountains.

And unlike in sport, where you can specialize and focus on only one type of activity if you so choose, that type of specialization and omission is not an option im aviation.

I’ve never been a big fan of that in my training anyway. “Specialization is for insects” I once read. I want to be able to sprint fast and hike for a whole day. I want to be able to lift heavy things and not have my muscles give out at the end of long climb on my bike.

Similarly, I want to be able to have that lazer beam focus for as long as I need to, in order to land safely. I want to be able to calm my heart rate and nerves and look at the big picture analytically. I want to be able to ground my thoughts and be present in the moment without ruminating or fixating.

I want to train and strengthen all the muscles. Type I fast twitch fibers. Type II slow twitch fibers. The heart, the lungs, and all of those different mental muscles.

I’m not sure what the equivalent of deadlifts for focus, or bench press for big picture thinking looks like. But just like you shouldn’t skip leg day, you have to train all of those mental muscles, not just the showy ones.

I’m sure there are plenty of podcasts and researchers much smarter than myself, that can tell you how to train these different mental muscles. Sometimes, the best training is just repetition.

Have a few tasks that require short, intense bursts of lazer beam focus. Have some planning or brainstorming sessions where you can think big picture. Carve out some time to be creative. Engage in tasks that require longer bouts of repetitive motion but also dynamic motor control. (I helped my neice and nephew place individual perler beads in specific patterns)

All of these mental muscles need to be trained, and need to be continually engaged in order to prevent atrophy.

Just like any other training we talk about here, the joy is often found in the journey more so than the destination. And, there is plenty of serenity to be found along the way.

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

Auto pause

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. A few weeks ago, I completed the six gap century ride and I wanted to reflect on that experience.

It was not the ideal backdrop for the 104 miles and 11,000+ of climbing. Hurricane Helene had just pushed through north Georgia and western North Carolina. Roads were wet, trees and debris were all over, and the forecast was for rain and fog in the mountains.

A lot of the participants, including some of my friends and teammates, were delaying their departure, thinking the event might be rescheduled or canceled.

It’s difficult to explain the mindset leading up to a big event like this. Most of the time, it is something you haven’t done before. The most miles, the biggest climb, the longest day, maybe all three, for this particular event.

All the training and preparation lead you to this moment on the starting line for something you’ve never done before. The uncertainty of the outcome and the uncertainty of the circumstances combine to test your resolve in a strangely invigorating way.

It’s important to go into any event with a plan. But, the longer the event, the more likely it is that the plan is going to blow up at some point. So, it is important to be able to pivot and be flexible within your overall framework.

I gave myself plenty of time to wake up, stretch, and drive to the event parking area, even leaving in some extra time for the unexpected.

The unexpected came in the form of my third trip to the port-a-potty and my new bike computer failing to load the route within the final minutes before the starting horn. Better to get it out beforehand, I suppose.

Two thousand of my new best friends and I started through the quiet streets of Dahlonega, a parade of multi colored lycra and flashing bike lights.

We climbed and descended, weaving our way through small mountain towns, making our way through the foggy peaks and fall foliage.

The steepest of the climbs on the day, Hogpen gap came 37 miles into the ride. Averging a 10% gradient with parts of the climb above 15%, it was a slow and quiet climb.

The road had been closed off to vehicle traffic, which made the climb eerily quiet. The slow clicking of pedals and deep rythmic breathing echoed off the trees and the damp cliffside rocks.

Not having the route on my bike computer, I didn’t know how far into the climb I was or how much I had left. (The precise feature I had purchased this bike computer for, c’est la vie)

Looking down, I noticed that the computer was paused. I had not turned off my auto pause feature. This is a feature, (usually helpfull for Florida training rides), where the bike computer realizes you aren’t moving and pauses the activity tracking. It auto resumes once it detects movement again.

So if you stop at a traffic light, or break to eat or refill a bottle, your training stats are not affected by the pause.

The trudging dance of pedals up Hogpen gap was slow enough that my bike computer thought I wasn’t moving at all.

That was a little deflating.

But, the bike computer doesn’t know the struggle. It doesn’t know the experience. It is binary. Above this speed is moving, and below it is stopped.

The whole thing made me think of Einstein. One of his many famous quotes, coming from a letter to his son, was, “Life is like riding a bicycle, to keep your balance you must keep moving”

Even when it looks like you are standing still or treading water, struggling to keep your head afloat, the movement is what saves you. The movement is what balances you, literally and figuratively.

I made it over the top of Hogpen gap with lots more miles and lots more climbing still in front of me. I kept moving. It wasn’t always fast, and it wasn’t always pretty, but it was always forward.

Every bike I have had since I started racing has had a name. This bike was purchased with the six gap ride in mind. It had to be nimble up the climbs and fast and stable down the descents. I struggled to come up with a name for the first few months I had it.

Her name came to me while listening to this Shawn James song on a training ride, looking out over the mountains.

“So you think you got it all figured out?
All this money in the bank and the women all about. Well, now what you gonna do when your ship starts to sink?
Caught in a monstrous sea and you won’t be able to think. Yeah, and it’s there you’ll learn what I know. That all of this world will fade You gotta learn to let it all go, oh And flow like the river”

Flow like the river. Always moving. Always forward. Changing course if something blocks its way, but constant power and movement.

One of my favorite TV/movie combos is Firefly/Serenity. It features a rag tag bunch of outlaw space adventurers defying the odds aboard their shuttle ‘Serenity’. The story centers around a character named River.

Constant movement, serenity, an incredible cinematic journey, some funky blues guitar, it all lined up perfectly for what I wanted this bike to be.

Flow like the river

A reminder of why I keep coming back to new endurance challenges. To keep growing. To keep moving forward. To find serenity. To flow like the river, whether the world thinks you are on auto pause or not.

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

Here it is your moment of zen

What could go wrong

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I admittedly got away from writing over the summer, and it is well past time to rectify that.

I used to fly quite a bit with a captain who would always end his briefing by saying, “What could possibly go wrong?”

It was said jokingly, of course, but with an all to telling note of seriousness. There are always things that don’t go to plan, especially when flying airplanes.

There are just too many balls in the air. Too many moving parts. Logistics that can seem insurmountable. And yet, flight after flight, day after day, we find a way to make it work.

We thin1k about and brief the things we think may go wrong, and how we plan to react. We train for processes and procedures for responding to unexpected problems. We maintain an awareness of where we are and where we want to go.

The question, though, is ever present. Nagging, like a fold in the sock under your foot. Just enough to remind you with a slight discomfort every step. “What could possibly go wrong”

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, but not as it relates to aviation. That nagging feeling has been with me my entire adult life. I’ve been thinking about the question with my upcoming bike race.

I have spent more than my fair share of time on a bike over the past decade of competing in triathalon, but over the last few years, most of that has been on an indoor trainer.

The indoor trainer is safer and more efficient. It is far more versitle than what I would have access to in my local area in terms of terrain. It allows for precision training without concern for traffic, weather, time of day, and road condition. It solves a lot of potential problems.

I’ve signed up and have been training for the 6 Gap Century ride. The race runs through the north Georgia mountains covering 103 miles with more than 10’000 feet of climbing. Needless to say it will be a long day.

Over the summer, I was able to scout out the course with some friends. We rode about half the course, including two of the biggest climbs.

Leading up to the ride, I had been simulating lots of climbing on my smart trainer, but descending down steep and winding mountain roads, would be another thing entirely.

Six gap scout ride with a special mountain top surprise

What could possibly go wrong?

The scenic highways in north Georgia are beautiful. Winding roads cut into the majestic mountainsides with spectacular vistas. They also feature very little shoulder, impatient drivers, and a small piece of fabricated metal between the edge of the pavement and a very long fall.

I dont think nervous is the right word. I would get nervous as a kid before riding my bike down a big hill. Knowing that soon, the exhileration would push that feeling aside even if there was a chance I could get hurt.

The calculus has changed a bit from those days. It is still just a hill (mountain) and a bike. But I’m not a kid anymore. I don’t recover the way I once did. I have a family to support, bills to pay.

So, without having ridden my bike not on a stationary trainer in more than a year, and on flat ground in FL at that, I set off with my friends for this mountain adventure.

What could possibly go wrong?

Despite some challenging weather and road conditions, nothing went wrong. We all had a great and very memorable day.

But that nagging feeling was still there. All it takes is one mistake. One unforseen problem. You hope that if something happens, it will only be a minor consequence. That isn’t always in your control.

I have continued my training and preparation throughout the summer, rediscovering my love of riding outside. Especially with the new challenging terrain.

I took advantage of some opportunities to train while on long layovers. With those incredible opportunities came added concern. Not just my health, and my family, but now this is an activity with inherent risk while I have an obligation at work.

What could go possibly go wrong?

I had dreams about it. Not nightmares per se, but the thought of crashing my bike while going down a steep hill is something my subconscious likes to remind me of.

So, it was a pleasant surprise, and a welcome change when my thinking shifted.

Flying down highway 50 at 40 miles per hour, with nothing but open road, cresting mountains, and the clear blue waters of lake Tahoe filling up my view, I had to remember to breathe.

In fairness, I frequently have to remember to breathe when descending. My senses are so enhanced and focused knowing that the stakes are raised. But the truly awesome natural beauty took my breath away.

I remember thinking to myself that I needed to snap out of it. To focus on the road. To avoid any myriad of potential mistakes that could prove catastrophic.

And I did snap out of it. But I also started thinking, I know what could go wrong. I’ve thought about it, dreamt about it, worried about it. But what could go right?

That is a much more powerful question. Even a harder one to answer, I think. We are wired to look out for threats. It is a survival mechanism. It takes a freeing of those powerfully ingrained survival instincts to think about what could go right.

There will still be nervous energy and hightened awareness as I approach each mountain crest, knowing the gravity of the potential consequences that lie ahead (figuratively and literally).

But more and more I find myself thinking, what could go right? It is a powerful shift. It just took a little push down a hill to get there.

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

135lb hangover

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I spent a large portion of the past weekend traveling. While that is pretty normal for my job as a pilot, this was a different kind of travel. A real, planes, trains, and automobiles adventure.

El Duderino, Speedy, my wife, and I all headed out late Thursday evening on a flight to Atlanta. Arriving well after the boys bedtime, we went to a hotel located a short walk from the airport sky train.

After a restless night of sleep for all four of us we were up and at em, picking up the rental car and out of the hotel before 9 AM. We stopped to pick up a U-Haul truck, and then made very carefully timed subsequent stops at both IKEA and Sam’s Club, enroute to our new home in North Carolina.

We had to stop at the realtor’s office to sign closing paperwork after the two and half hour drive. All of this had to be done before 2PM so we could take possession of the house before the county offices closed for the weekend.

Only an optimist can put together a plan like that. There were so many moving pieces. So many variables outside of our control. Somehow, like a rare celestial alignment, everything worked out wonderfully and we spent the weekend in our new home.

On the two and a half hour drive, winding through the mountain roads in a crosswind catching U-Haul box, I heard Bert Kreischer tell Joe Rogan a story that struck a nerve in me.

Bert was telling Joe how he watched one of his wife’s friends, a middle aged woman whose stunning beauty had started to fade, struggle to get a bartenders attention.

The moment Bert described was probably fleeting. He doesn’t say how long she was at the bar, or how long it took her to get the bartender’s attention. But he gives an eloquent and detailed description of her confusion. The puzzled look on her face. Her inability to process why the bartender is not immediately paying attention to her.

He realizes, this is a new experience for her. As a younger head turner, this was never a problem she had to deal with. And, she has yet to come to the realization that she is no longer that person.

Joe Rogan spouts out a quote from Socrates that he is apt to use in similar situations, “beauty is a short lived tyranny”.

The whole thing made me think about my wrestling. I was very successful and adept as a high school wrestler at 135 lbs. And my wrestling base, and instincts, and movements, have served me very well in life and especially in Jiu Jitsu.

But, there is always a big glaring but. My wrestling in Jiu Jitsu, especially with a gi on, bears a striking resemblance to this former beauty at the bar. Misunderstanding my current place in the pecking order. Over reliant on a skill set that has faded. Unable to recognize the need to evolve and adapt.

Running off the bike, getting ready for IM 70.3

I’m not sure why it took me this long to see it. Maybe it was egotistical denial. Maybe there are enough alternatives in Jiu Jitsu where I could hide the deficiency. Maybe I was able to get away with old habits with less skilled opponents.

Either way, the bandaid has been ripped off. I refuse to be the bombshell at the bar, past my prime and confused about how things are changing around me. It’s time to learn again as a beginner. To embrace the potential for growth and get past my 135lb wrestling hangover.

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

New relationship

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I mentioned last week that I was training on a new aircraft. This week I want to reflect on that process.

Training on a new aircraft is always an exciting and nerve wracking experience. It is very similar to starting to date someone new. There is an excitement attached to the newness. There is anxiety of the unknown. There is a hope of good things to come in the future together.

My happy little corner in the hotel room for the month

Just like a real relationship you show up with your past baggage. After all, you are getting out of a long term serious relationship with your last airplane. You learned what she liked and what she didn’t like. You learned her strengths and her weaknesses. The areas where you had to help her along, and the areas where she had your back, even when you had screwed something up.

You have to learn all of those things all over again. You have to get to know each other. You have to learn how she reacts to your inputs. What can you do to make her happy, and what you can avoid doing that will make her cranky?

In some cases it is like learning to speak a different language. Talking to your new airplane the way you talked to your old airplane is like calling her the wrong name. Nobody ends up happy, and the reaction is going to be undesirable at best.

On this Mother’s Day Sunday, I count myself very blessed to have strong women in my life. Women who set an example for my boys and I to follow on how to interact with the fairer sex.

Despite my interest in communication, and my academic endeavors into language and theory, this is still an area where I need all the help I can get.

The mother’s in my life have always been there with a firm but kind reminder. My mother was always reminding me, “It’s not just what you say but how you say it.” My wife is a miracle worker with my boys and I, making sure we are communicating with each other in a clear and respectful manner.

At the end of the day, isn’t that what the cornerstone of a new relationship is? Learning how to communicate with each other effectively. Falling into the patterns of familiarity where you know the right questions to ask, and the right answers to give. Where you know what is expected of you and your partner (or airplane as it were) knows what is expected/asked of them.

Regardless of the airplane you are flying, monitoring the flight path and ensuring the safety of flight is largely an exercise in those two questions. What have I asked the airplane to do, and what is it doing?

Have I actually asked it to do what I think I asked it to do? Is it doing what I think it should be doing? If it isn’t doing what I want, why not? Did I not ask the right questions or provide the right inputs?

These are questions I am asking myself on a daily basis here in training, with regards to the new airplane. How much of a better communicator could I be if I took the same approach with my wife and kids? Double checking my inputs before executing. Wouldn’t life be easier if you could try out your words in a temporary flight plan page to see how they look first?

Zwift sweat sessions maintaining my sanity and serenity while training

Training on a new aircraft necessarily takes up a lot of mental bandwidth. Maybe after this new relationship is established, it will help bring some lessons learned and serenity to my existing ones.

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog, 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.

Autopilot

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I’m working my way through Influence The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini and he made an interesting connection that I wanted to explore here.

The book covers seven levers of influence that work on a subconscious psychological level to run and manage our behavior. Each lever of influence is discussed in depth with fascinating experimental examples to illustrate not only how powerful these effects are but also how much we underestimate their importance.

I highly recommend it as a read for an overall enhanced perspective as well as increased ability to recognize and combat what he calls “click, run” behavior. Behavior that can be triggered by a lever of influence (click), and then like a computer program, is run almost without our knowing.

In the chapter on social proof, the lever of influence that we are more inclined to do what everyone else is doing, Cialdini likens this neural response to an autopilot.

“the evidence it offers is valuable, with it we can sail confidently through countless decisions without having to investigate the pros and cons of each. In this sense, the principle equips us with a wonderful kind of autopilot device not unlike that aboard most aircraft. Yet there are occasional, but real, problems with autopilots. Those problems appear whenever the flight information locked into the control mechanism is wrong.”

I know a thing or two about autopilot usage. Training on modern aircraft is essentially broken down into two parts, the aircraft systems, and the FMS or the flight management system which is comprised of flight computers and autopilots.

These flight management systems have become so complex, and so integral to aircraft operation, that learning how to manipulate the system is just as important as being able to manipulate the aircraft itself.

In a statistically invalid survey of my aviator friends as well as my own observations, most commercial flights are controlled by the autopilot for upwards of 95% of the flight. This makes sense, the autopilot doesn’t fatigue, is more fuel efficient, is reliable, and consistent. It is also dumb.

By this I mean the autopilot is very good at doing what it is told, even if what it is told will not produce a desirable outcome. It cannot think, it can only execute. This is one of the most common issues with autopilot related incidents, not that the autopilot malfunctions per se, but that in some way the autopilot is not doing what the pilot wants it to.

This generally happens for a number of reasons, including: the pilot puts an incorrect input into the system, the pilot wants to change an input in the system and fails to do so, or one input conflicts with another input and the computer “chooses” which one to follow based on its programming.

Some more concrete examples of the above mentioned improper pilot-autopilot interface are: a pilot setting the altitude to 10,000 feet when they really meant to set 12,000, a pilot trying to depress the button to initiate a descent but failing to depress the button fully and not engaging the descent mode, and a pilot inputting 10,000 feet and engaging the descent mode but failing to realize he also put in a constraint at 12,000 feet where to autopilot will stop the descent.

In each of these examples, the autopilot can fly the aircraft with a higher level of consistency, accuracy, and reliability, than the pilot, and it will do so to the wrong altitude. As pilots, when we interface improperly with our autopilots, bad things tend to happen. The same thing can be said, and is by Cialdini, about the autopilot systems of our brain.

The dilemma with all of the levers of influence as presented by Cialdini, is that they are mostly benefitial to our lives. The sheer volume of information that we process everyday can be overwhelming, and these levers of influence offer real life neural short cuts, evolutionarily proven methods of making the better decision without the costly investment in analysis. “Because the autopilot afforded by the principle of social proof is more often an ally than an antagonist, we can’t be expected to want to simply disconnect it”

A beautiful morning for a run in Green Bay

It is when we have an improper input into the system, fail to engage the system in the way that we truly desire, or have conflicting system inputs, that our neural autopilot causes us problems. As pilots we develop procedures and checklists to help avoid these errors, and when all else fails we disconnect the automation and fly the airplane.

That is the core message at the end of every chapter from Cialdini. All of these levers of influence are based on automatic systems in the brain, and that we need to understand how to manage the inputs, and when all else fails to disconnect the system and fly ourselves.

I know I am often a slave to my routine, and while that makes some of my decision making easier, it also leaves me susceptible to those same autopilot mistakes. Sometimes it is refreshing to click off the automation and re-experience the beauty of operating the machine, whether it is a Boeing or a human athlete.

Putting in some zwift and Peleton miles ahead of the start of my race season

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.

TLAR

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. As I get back to flying after a long layoff for paternity, I find myself falling back into a work routine and relying on my years of training. One of the cornerstone lessons all the way back from my private pilot’s license is TLAR.

TLAR is an acronym for “That Looks About Right”. The idea is with any situation in aviation we have target metrics but we also have a sight picture of what we should be seeing. So you might have a target airspeed +/- 10 knots, a target altitude +/- 100 feet, and a target heading +/- 5 degrees. To go along with those metrics you have an idea in your head of what the situation should look like, again with a +/-.

Tuesday morning causeway miles before work

TLAR gives you the ability to say even with the metrics within limits, if it doesn’t look about right, let’s reset and try it again because something might be off. Let’s get to a safe altitude and configuration, and assess what happened and even if there isn’t a problem that can be identified, safety was prioritized, and the only cost was a few minutes and some jet fuel.

In fact most of the procedures written in to our policy manual include verbiage something along the lines of “pitch or power settings not consistent with situation” as a criteria to discontinue the maneuver. Basically, if it doesn’t look right stop, and then, assess and re-establish.

What makes TLAR work is repetition and training. If you see the same picture over and over again, and you know what adjustments to make to change the picture, you can make decisions about when something looks right and when it doesn’t.

TLAR is a fantastic tool with low cost, and quick utilization time, for all sorts of social, work project, and family scenarios, if you can have the presence of mind to employ it.

I grew up telling everyone I would have a wrestling mat in my living room, and that glorious day has arrived

From a fitness standpoint, I can look at pace, heart rate, and percieved effort level, and adjust for variables such as sleep, nutrition, prior workload and weather, in order to get a picture of my workout. If say my pace or heart rate is way off normal, and one of the variables can’t explain it, (I ate well, slept well, not over worked, and weather is normal) maybe there is something wrong, and I can use that picture to adjust my training accordingly.

I can use the same sort of assessments looking at El Duderino’s behavior. Not that it is perfect or always within our expectations as parents, but rather is it about right given he is a toddler, stuck at home during Covid-19, who just became a big brother and is now sharing attention. Adjusting for variables and conditions, you can look at the vast majority of his behavior and say that looks about right, and quickly point out when behaviors no longer line up with the expected picture.

When a behavior doesn’t pass the TLAR test, I start out giving him the benefit of the doubt, examining variables and conditions first, and then asking him about. More often than not, he knows the established rules and when he has violated them. He knows when is behavior looks about right and when it doesn’t, but being 2 ½ years old, he doesn’t yet have to presence of mind to stop and correct in the moment.

Having the training and knowledge to understand what “looks about right” for a given situation, and the presence of mind to stop the operation and reset as necessary is what TLAR is all about. TLAR is a skill, and like most valuable skills, it requires repetition and dedication. It is also another valuable tool in the tool belt of Serenity.

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

Peaceful Vs. Harmless

Thanks for joining me here at the SerenityThroughSweat blog, this is the third of a three post series that all kind of ties together. The previous posts (Finding Calm in the Chaos, and Fostering Comfort) are available here, and set the stage for today’s post.

To summarize, finding calm in the chaos is a mental skill of being able to relax within ourselves when things start going crazy. The only way to do that is to actively put ourselves in uncomfortable situations and develop a level of comfort there. In today’s post we will talk about testing those theories so they can be managed and improved.

Most of us probably have a friend, family member, or co-worker, who we can describe as calm. But what does that mean, and how does it help us on our way to serenity? The following quote from Stefan Grant got me thinking about our calm and comfort discussion, “you cannot truly call yourself peaceful unless you are capable of great violence, if you aren’t capable of violence, you aren’t peaceful you’re harmless, important distinction”

As a martial artist and a lifelong grappler, this speaks volumes to me, and it is a paradigm that I believe most martial artists have, often times without realizing it. When practicing any technique that has the potential to harm a training partner or an opponent, a certain level of restraint and personal mastery is required. Those that lack this restraint are generally weeded out entirely or exist only on the fringes. This is the heart of the case for being peaceful instead of harmless. Skilled practitioners who are able to continue training without hurting their partners/opponents, are capable of violence, but are also capable of harnessing that violence into a peaceful practice.

I believe the same mindset applies to calm and comfort. If you haven’t fostered your comfort or calm from a place of discomfort, you aren’t comfortable, you are complacent. Only by fostering a sense of comfort through times of discomfort, whether naturally occurring or manufactured, can we truly be comfortable. Just like a man can only be brave when he is afraid, he can only be comfortable and calm when amidst chaos. This is the measure by which we can test ourselves.

I think it is a fair assumption to say that calm, comfortable, and peaceful are all desirable qualities. So in turn, managed and risk assessed, violence, chaos, and discomfort, should be embraced as learning tools and opportunities. I should point out this IS NOT me advocating for violence or chaos in a classical sense. But, it is possible to describe lifting weights in a controlled but violent manner. You can have a training roll or wrestling match that is chaotic. You can have large portions of workouts that are both physically and mentally uncomfortable. All of these can also describe family or professional situations. How many times could you have described your work day as chaotic? These words (violence, chaos, discomfort) are merely descriptors, and can take on different connotations based on contextual intentions.

The path to Serenity through Sweat is paved with uncomfortable, chaotic, and violent scenarios. And navigating that path requires us to find our calm, foster our comfort and maintain a peaceful practice. Luckily for us, the path is long and the opportunities are many.

Thanks for joining me and stay sweaty my friends.