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My Thursday turned out to be an extremely awesome day. At work things seem to take a positive step and coaching at Fit2Run last night was enlightening and productive, but the best part was all the cool stuff I received without notice.
I went to Fit2Run last night just to mainly help out with the Half Marathon groups. There are runners that are training for all the races coming up; the Clearwater Holiday Halfathon, the Clearwater Marathon, Disney Distance Weekend and the Princess Half, Gasparilla, Best Damn Race and the Rock n’ Roll Half Marathon. Thursday’s are speedwork days for these runners and Eric planned numerous one minute sprints with one minute rest in between. I have no idea how many we did, but I was tuckered afterward. Of course I can’t help but put in my own two cents as a coach with runners when I notice issues in their form. One runner I spent about fifteen minutes on his form and things changed immediately for him and he was so grateful. That is the best gift I was given, but they just kept coming.
I was leaving for the night when Eric caught me and told me the Brooks representative sent gifts for us. I got a brand new pair of Brooks Green Silence which are incredibly light. I haven’t run in them yet but I am totally looking forward to it. They sure look cool, am I right? I did try them on and they are so comfortable, that I am aching to get a run in them tomorrow. With the Brandon Half Marathon on Sunday I probably won’t do too much but I it is going to be fun.
The gifts didn’t stop there. Eric handed me two more packages from Brooks. This really awesome running jacket and a pair of shorts. James said that he is getting all sorts of compliments on the jackets and the models are not even out yet so he can’t put them in the store yet. What an awesome night. Speed work and then early holiday gifts….what could be better than that?
I will tell you, a package arriving with the new Nikon Coolpix S10 that’s what!
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| Taken with my 3 mp camera phone |
Pretty sweet right? The camera fits perfectly in that little change pocket in your jeans and can be taken anywhere. I was thinking it would be perfect for this blog. It takes pics from 2-10 megapixels, has a flash, a 5x optical zoom, virtual stabilization, HD video the works. I was so excited as I was playing around with it, unfortunately, I am sad to say, as a Nikon it does not live up to my expectations. I am going to write a full review as a posting later on, but the gist is that the pics are grainy when the light is not optimal.
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| Taken with the Nikon Coolpix S10 |
As you can see, this was in decent light with a flash and my beautiful little Mikali looks grainy. I took a bunch of pics with different settings and this was the best one. *sniff* *sigh*
I have repackaged it up and I am returning it to Amazon. It sucks because the camera is just perfectly convenient. This is the first version of this camera, so it’s obvious I have not learned my lesson on buying the first generation of electronics as of yet.
I have signed up with the ladies to do a picture a day holiday challenge, where I post one photo a day that coincides with a word for that day. If you see anything in the area that makes you think of the daily word let me know, or take the challenge yourself. Just take the pic and post it on Twitter with the hashtag #Holidayaday.
My intention for re-starting this blog was to write more often, but the more I want to write, the more I find I have less to write about. I have been reading a lot of blogs lately. I enjoy reading them when I have the time, the only problem I am having is I am having way too many “A-HA” moments. I read a great post and think to myself, “I should have written about that”, or “that was a great idea”, or the famous “I was going to write about that too.” The issue I am having is being original and unique. What does this mean exactly (as you may be scratching your head going, ok Goof, get on with it already)? It means I have two choices. As I peruse the new group I have been welcomed into, The Tampa Bay Bloggers, I notice two distinct kinds of blogs, the knowledge based, and the journal. While both can provide very interesting information, I find that the latter can become a little monotonous. Now for me, it doesn’t matter because I know, or am getting to know, most of the journal type bloggers and I enjoy reading those, but if I wasn’t associated with them, would I really want to read them? I am not quite sure.
My struggle is that I want my posts to be creatively amusing while being interesting in a way where one of three things comes out of each post for each reader. 1) You laugh (or at least smile), 2) learn something, or at least remember that you learned it, or 3) you are emotional moved to some sort of action. I don’t care if you end up being incredibly angry or even angry at me, if you are moved in some way I think I may have accomplished my goal. Now is this too much to ask?
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| Susan & friend at WHM 2012 |
Regressing back to the title of this blog “Catching back up with the Goof”, let me give you the latest chronological items.
I was ecstatic to see my friends run the Women’s Half Marathon the weekend before Thanksgiving. I had the opportunity to go out and cheer once again for a certain group of running and tri peeps and then being surprised to find even more women I knew that were running. Kudos go out to Kat from Sneakers n’ Fingerpaints, Beka from Rebecca Roams, Anderson, Sarah, Jessica from Jet City Espresso, Elisa, Caitlin from Live, Sweat, Sleep, Repeat, Susan, and all the others out there I am probably missing. It was a race that was a pleasure to watch and not just because there were a lot of fit and hot looking women in spandex(get your mind out of the gutter), but because the energy was higher than really a ton of races I have been a part of. Maybe there is something to this “Girl Power” thing. Can we harness it as a natural resource? Can we use it in our cars? (Hey – get your mind out of the gutter I said.)
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| At least my sister, Millie was happy to see me. I think. |
Thanksgiving was very uneventful. Thursday I worked out and hung out by myself for a while and then had dinner at Amy & Erik Eck’s home (my friend and coach). I had the honor of hanging with a lot of great people to include the little new Godsend, Bennett Erik Eck whom is now just a couple of weeks old. He is getting to be pretty adorable, if I do say so myself, and I am not being biased because I happened to (almost) be there at his birth. That may be a whole other post I may need to write. (Note to self – see paragraph 1.) There was plenty of delicious Paleo based food and a few dishes that were not so much, but everything was amazing. After a long walk to help the digestion process I headed home and to bed due to my departure from Tampa Bay International Airport on the 6am flight to Chicago and my family’s belated Thanksgiving. Needless to say Friday, family came over, there was conversation, there was food, there was more conversation, everyone went home, and I went to sleep. The End.
Sunday, I was privileged to hang out at Moretti’s Pizza & Italian Restaurant with a very good friend from my high school years whom my influence had/has steadily increased his appetite for triathlon(patting myself on the back). We have been continuing to keep in touch through email, phone and text, sharing information on races, plans and techniques. He started swimming last year at this time right after the Chicago Marathon and last March/April timeframe competed in his first indoor sprint triathlon, followed by a couple more and finishing with his first Olympic in September. Needless to say I was pretty proud of Big Guy last year. Yes, his nick name was, and still is “Big Guy”. Mine was “Bagelman”…go figure. (Pause for laughter) Anyway, it was great to hang out eat a little pizza, watch the Bears kick some royal Viking butt and talk triathlon.
That left getting up at 3:30am on Monday for a 6am flight home to be able to put in a full days work. I really didn’t think we had to leave as early as we did, but I was totally 100% wrong. I made to the gate with barely 5 minutes to grab some McDonald’s coffee and ascend the jetway before taking off. Security on Monday was brutal, but the flight was uneventful. Thank you Southwest Airlines.
That is all I have for today. I do have ideas vetted out for future posts and maybe some new developments in my coaching career that are starting to take shape. All that and more to come.
I mentioned yesterday I am planning on having a regular column called Tribute Tuesday where I will select someone in my life who has had a positive influence on me in some way or another. Most of the time these people will have coached to increase my athletic prowess (which is actually pretty easy), challenge me intellectually (which isn’t really all that hard either), and/or inspire me to be a better human being. My first Tribute Tuesday subject has done all three. With no further ado I would like to introduce my coach, and friend; Amy Eck.
This is a kind of crazy picture of her, but it does really give the best possible introduction to her personality. She is a wild, and free spirit with the most positive outlook on life I have ever known in a human being. She refuses to believe there are limits to anyone’s potential, including her own. Just to give you an idea, this woman has competed in the Kona Ironman World Championships, the World Xterra World Championships, numerous ultra running and mountain biking events, and was a competitive wrestler in high school and college (yes I said wrestler). I credit her incredible coaching to my 47 minute reduction in time for my PR at Ironman Augusta 70.3. There is nothing Amy cannot do and her energy is uber-contagious. She gets so excited when she is able to help and/or see someone succeeding that she turns bright red. I cannot believe she doesn’t get muscle cramps in her cheeks.
Now she and her husband Erik are training for her biggest event ever, the birth of their first child. As you can see her pregnancy hasn’t taken an ounce of her positive energy away. She continues to enjoy life and even with all that drag she still beats both me and her husband in the pool. Obviously she doesn’t let anything conquer her competitive side. She was brought here to Florida due to Erik’s mobilization as a Reserve Navy Officer to CENTCOM, so the only negative thing I can possibly say about Amy is that she will be leaving to return to her home and coaching practice in Hawaii. (It was impossible to find a photo of her where she looks “normal”. In most of the pictures she is either in a superhero costume or in race clothes, but it’s…well…it’s Amy)
Grew up in: Arlington, Texas
What is your favorite motivational quote?
Notice the title of this blog is not Psychology of the finish which I could probably write another full posting on. This is “the end”, because within this life we have a number of endings. Some of them open new doors, some of them just mean we have more to go. In triathlon, we end each event just to start another one. I have noticed a few things about myself that I need to overcome and maybe they may just be similar to what you may be going through. Some of the tips and tricks I have learned may help, and if they do great, if not you have another tool in your bag to pay it forward to others.
The idea for this posting hits me every time I am in the pool. As I stated numerous times in early posts, I am not a good swimmer by any means. I try though. What I notice is when I am in the pool, I speed up a bit when I see the wall coming up. I end up a little more winded than planned and I stop after 100 m. Interesting enough, I do make my turn at 50m, but the 100m wall I want to stop. This is what I reference as the end, not the finish. In the beginning of the workout I have many more laps to do, but I end up grabbing an extra breath and a few seconds of rest at each 100m turn. I know it psychological, because in open water I can just keep going. Do I change strokes occasionally to check the distance on my watch? Sure, but I continue on in just a few seconds. So why the difference? Is it discipline? Yes, that’s part of it, but it is also, the idea that the wall is right there seems to put the idea in my head that it is the end, so automatically speed up and my breathing changes. Obviously, this is probably not a common problem because I see a lot of triathletes swim lap after lap after lap.
Swimming isn’t the only event where the psychosis of the end comes into play. Have you ever gone out on a run knowing you are going to do six miles and at the end you are exhausted even though you might have run conquered much longer distances? I personally see the end of the workout and something kicks in and I am ready to stop for at least that portion of the session. I am not talking about a tempo run or a track workout. I am talking about just your basic run workout. Different workouts obviously dictate different intensity. For example, a 6 mile tempo run will require and higher intensity level then a long slow distance run, just as a track workout has a higher intensity level than even a tempo run.
The question is how can this obstacle of the end be broken? I have started coming up with a few ways to break through the end in order to keep going in the pool, do the optional mile after a hard track workout or even do that insurmountable transition run after a long hard bike session.
1) Swim – Learn to do flip turns if you don’t already know. My last workout I started to incorporate flip turns. I still am learning how to do them correctly, but because I took my 1000m continuous swim to learn to do them, the wall became an opportunity to practice the flip turn, and the 50m swim became the time I assessed how I did, and what I needed to make them better.
2) Run – there are three ways I usually get through this:
- The optional mile becomes not optional
- Fake it – no matter how slow you end up going do not worry just get it done and after a while your body will learn to expect it
- Give yourself a little extra time for recovery. In our speed workouts the coach gives us a pre-determined amount of recovery prior to the optional mile. Sometimes I need more, so I take it and then run the extra mile on my own.
3) Bike-to-Run Transition run – I have only found one real way to get through this myself. Have your running shoes (and socks) ready to go when you get back and in full eyesight when you either open the car or even pull up. My friend Nick sometimes trusts his shoes right under his car so he can hang his bike and go. If you trust that they will still be there this is the best way. When I personally see my shoes there ready and waiting, I would feel guilty if I didn’t run. Of course guilt is a more negative emotion, but sometimes the negative emotion can be used for a positive outcome. In my experience, if I decide to wait, I usually end up cooling down and I just have no desire to run. If I jump into my shoes and start the run, I feel like I am already running might as well work it the best I can.
In life I have had numerous endings that have also opened new doors to experiences that I would not have had if I didn’t recognize it. The end of my military career brought me to the corporate world where I have been succeeding. I had the choice to either stay in the military and continue my career or leave and start another one. I may have never started on this journey into endurance running and triathlon if I didn’t move on from the military. At the same time I have been offered numerous times after I finish a project to stay at the same location. Almost every time I have decided to move on and my following project has always given me the opportunity to learn something new.
In each of our lives there are “ends” to experiences, jobs, education, friendships etc. I believe the secret lies in recognizing whether it is actually an end or a finish.
It happened even before I realized it. I was on the ground with a burning sensation on my chest and both of my knees. “OUCH! Son of monkey’s uncle!” (edited for content). I face planted during a sub eight minute mile during a run on Davis Island this morning. (Pause for laughter) (Pause for more laughter) It’s ok I’ll wait.
I hope everyone does laugh because it is funny. Here I am, Ironman, Running Coach and motivator, on the ground bleeding for a full 10 seconds. What makes it even more funny, is that I teach two major aspects when I coach form. First is to raise your knees in order to make you lighter like a gazelle, second is to look five feet in front of you. Well,obviously if I was actually following my own advice this wouldn’t have happened. (Pause for more laughs)
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| Ouch! |
There I am. I scraped and bruised both hands, my chest and both knees. Needless to say the shower hurt and of course the Hydrogen Peroxide “bath” stung as well, but nothing compared to my ego. Don’t get me wrong it was still dark, and the curb was one of those six-inch step ups, but I still should have seen it.
1) Use a reflector belt when running in darkness. They are light and you can just put them around your waist. I was required to have these belts in the military and I hardly remembered they were there, but I also could see the people around me. 
