Good Bye Sgt. Hulka

"An army without leaders is like a foot without a big toe. And Sergeant Hulka is always gonna be here to be that big toe for us. I think that we owe a big round of applause to our newest, bestest buddy, and big toe... Sergeant Hulka." - John Winger (Bill Murray)


"You better hit those bunks my little babies, or Sergeant Hulka with the "big toe" is gonna see how far he can stick it up your ass." - Sgt. Hulka

For all the youngsters, the quotes are from Stripes, a classic movie appreciated by millions born before You Tube.


Yes, tears are falling in the Wannabee's house as I watch yet another big toenail give up on life and choose to leave the comfortable home called my foot. The cause? Not sure though my suspicions point to the incredibly lame bike pedal-cages in spin class. How low-class is our Rec Center? Well, not using or even allowing clipless pedals in the spin class was the first sign I might not get the intensity of a workout I was looking for. Dimming the lights so as not to embarrass the 9 out 10 unfit people, one possibly being the spin instructor herself, was the next clue.
First, I am not a road cyclist and only a pretty good mountain biker, though that is seasonal as the winters don't yield many ridable trails for my ability. So spin class is just to develop the biking muscles lost in the winter and get some base time in a saddle. I do not have technique, don't know how to tune a bike and am clueless about my form on a road bike. I can climb 2,000 vertical feet of single track at 10,000ft elevation, hopping over rocks and squeezing through aspen trees and then race down, shocks taking up all 4 inches of travel, like a drunk frat boy hoping to get the last bit of foam out of a keg at the bottom of the mountain. But sitting in a defined position, going for aerodynamics, switching hand and seat positions for extended periods of time, on a flat surface, with no obstacles; and "drafting"? No, those skills, I haven't a clue.

So, when I showed up for spin class a couple months ago at my newly joined rec center, bike shoes in hand, I was not ready to try pulling up the pedals w/ my big toe in a pedal-cage. Yes, like I said, I am NOT a knowledgeable cyclist w/ developed technique so I probably wasn't doing it right anyway. Well here I am now, mourning the loss of a little piece of me I've become quite attached to. If only it didn't make such a spectacle of the whole ordeal, dragging it out for weeks as it waits to completely die.
Just get it over with already, Fall off you punk, you quitter. Get out of the way and make room for a nail that WANTS to be on my Sgt. Hulka!

Ok, I feel better, I've gotten it out. Please save the flowers, no need to send a card, I'll be alright. Just give me some space.

"Trouble Sleeping? You should exercise."

Title of article I came across while wishing I was sleeping, 12am Monday night.

Insomnia sucks.

Despite a pretty good workout tonight, 1/2hr strength + 1/2hr fast run, a good dinner, and part of sleeping pill I took at 9pm, I'm still awake. I'm not stressed about work, an upcoming race or training milestone. I'm just awake.
I listened to one Zentri's podcast a few weeks ago and he mentioned how, when he woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't go back to sleep, he'd get up and do something, anything productive-like. Spin on the trainer, work on a podcast. I'm not quite that ambitious I suppose. Instead I usually catch the midnight episode of Friends (just don't get tired of the re-runs) and then put on some news to knock me out on the couch.
Well, now I guess I can write on my blog, read others people's blog and write on theirs, and read what other bloggers wrote on mine :-)
The agitating part is that I'm actually really tired. But I know, if I go up and try to lay in the bed, I'm not quite tired enough to fall asleep. If I keep rolling around for more than 30min, I start getting pissed.

News, the nice monotone voice of the news anchor relaying the nation's and world's presumably bad news does seem to work. The podcasts of Meet the Press or Face the Nation are 75% effective when used as directed and the copay is nil.

Good Night (he said this morning),
Sleeping Wannabee

Easter Snow

Spring on the front range of Colorado gives you all the weather extremes w/in days. Friday, 70 degF and sunny. Saturday afternoon, I take a 2hr run outside in a nice 55 degF. Back by 5pm and 30 minutes later, clouds cover the skies, wind picks up and snow starts coming from all directions. This morning, Easter Sunday, 32 degF and a fresh blanket of snow. This will melt off by the afternoon w/ a high of 50 degF, getting up to high 60's tomorrow.

LUV IT.










Sarah, Easter AM

HOLY CRAmP

Firsts.

We all have certain first times that stand out. Then there's others that don't really make headlines but they're "firsts" nonetheless.
Here's a couple of mine since I first started swimming 6 weeks ago.

1. indegestion/burping - I felt it building in my chest and wasn't sure how I was going to time it out w/ my breathing; I mean hell, I just learned how to breath and swim concurrently this year. Air comes out when it needs too, I can burp and swim now.
   
2. gas - same genre though a little more off-color. I can see your frown, I know, sorry. Trust me, it's not something you plan for. But (no pun intended) like running on a busy trail and the stomach's bubbling and contorting, these things happen. And unless you have no inhibitions and could care less who can hear, it has to be dealt (no pun) with delicately.
   
3. And the inspiration for my title, the CRAMP. The arch of my foot has cramped while swimming a couple times now. As if it wasn't hard enough trying to remember to kick through the breathing stroke, pull w/ triceps, not shoulders, reach, point the feet and not be sidetracked by other people swimming next to me. Now my foot decides to contract to holy hell in mid-stroke and take me out of my typical piss-poor form into an all out drowning look as I try to lame-leggedly keep swimming through it.
   Then tonight, not only does my foot cramp up a couple times, but my calf decides to join in. Hitting the 650yard mark of a 1200yard set, my right calf goes into full on flex mode, dropping me like an anchor in the ocean. WTF (What The F*&# for all you non-text messengers). That's it, I'm taking my toys/goggles and going home.
   

I did in fact persevere after a rest though the cramp came back off & on. Dealing w/ it somehow helps to keep me far, far away from my vanity. Having to focus on how to get through it, and keep concentrating forces me to tune out everything around me, acknowledge how bad I look and not care. Of course I look like and oil spill, I'm 35 and learning how to swim; just keep repeating that. I will get better. I doubt the words "grace" or "natural" will ever be in the same sentence describing my swimming but "better" is just fine.

Week off? Tri ... again.

ahh.
Spin class last night was wonderful.
The run today, wonderful (despite the 30mph gusts). Yes, I think the week off was a good thing.
Week off?

Oh, let me back up.

6 weeks ago I signed up for swim classes, determined to be better prepared for an olympic xterra triathlon this year. My first and only sprint tri 2 years ago was an incredibly fun and rewarding experience but the pain of getting through it, w/ really poor training and virtually no swim training left a lingering impression on me. Reservoir water does not taste good.

Back up a little more.

2 years ago I was in "good shape". I lifted weights 2x/day 4-5x/week and did spin classes and a kick a$$ strength conditioning class 3-4x/week plus some long difficult hikes and mountain bike rides on the weekends. I thought that would be enough to get me easily through a sprint tri. As for swimming, I thought having all the upper body strength, I could at least pull my body through the water and make it ok.
WRONG ... Maybe I'll stick to running.
Fast forward to last Thanksgiving. Having kicked a$$ on my first half marathon in September and certifiably "hooked" on longer distances I was ready to re-introduce triathlon into my vocabulary. I would love to get into adventure racing; eco-challenges really get my heart thumping. Hold on there cowboy, I can barely afford new running shoes and don't yet know how to correctly swim. Yeah, I can still enjoy watching and reading about adventure racing for a few more years. Let's learn how to swim, get educated about triathlon specific training and set some serious goals.

Back to 6 weeks ago.
I've been dropping the weight lifting and adding in swim and bike progressively more each week. First lesson learned, schedule swim and chest workout on same day. Otherwise I'll be too sore from one to do the other. Second, I hate spin class w/ out clip-in pedals. I think my big toenail is coming off from pulling up too hard in the stupid pedal baskets.
So anyway, things have been going well, some definite muscle soreness in the legs where my bike legs haven't been used for the last 6 months and in my back where my swim muscles never existed. Some days, my legs are concrete; meaning, cut the running mileage down slightly as I add on the biking mileage and STAY AWAY from squats til the next off-season. Shoulders are very sore; meaning, stay away from shoulder exercises in the gym as I increase the swimming workouts. I'm very tired all day; meaning, eat more and, ironically, lay off the coffee.
I am learning, documenting, reading, listening and tweaking every week.

Last week started off strong. Tuesday, I went through a hunger phase satisfied only with chocolate and one piece turned into 12 .... turned into .... lost count.
Hmm, it's 2pm, this should all digest by 5 so I'll go run right after work.
5pm, off and running. Damn my stomach hurts. It's alright Matthew, stick w/ it. It's not like I'm going to feel great every run I do. Just keep going, run through the pain, it's good to know you can if you had to.
6pm, done, wash off in the sink, wife's here to pick me up and off to my boy's kindergarten concert. I feel kinda ok, not near as bad as earlier. Concert .... "entertaining". How can you not smile at a bunch of 5 & 6yr olds singing wildly out of tune w/ the attention span of a rock.
9pm......I DO NOT FEEL GOOD.
I'll omit the theatrics of all the different types of restroom breaks I took all night. Just know that it was not because of my overactive bladder.

Long story short - week off. (of course I can say that now that I've told the long story)

Ok, back in saddle. Pick up where I left off, minus the candy binges.

Consistency

I am consistently inconsistent.

I had some momentum and newness excitement when I started but once things got hectic, logging in was the first thing I dropped.

So, thanks Chaser. I'd probably slacked off a few more days, which very easily snow balls into longer periods off if not for you comment. Time management is NOT my strength. My daily schedule is in a constant state of change and re-evaluated hourly. My wife is finishing her Bachelor's degree online, taking 6-8 hrs a day to keep up; my 6yr old is in school 1/2 day and my 12yr old is in school all day. The crux is getting everyone where they need to be with one car. Luckily I work close to home, but some days are just crazy, trying to get to the gym, pool, or spin class, back to work and the kids to and from school, and still put in an honest 8hr work day and hopefully still have some time to relax with the family.
A few weeks ago I started really tracking my workouts, w/ time and distance. I've always tracked my weight lifting routines, hitting everything based on the goals at the time. I religiously followed my marathon training workout last year and it worked real well until I was injured. But now, I've been getting much more focused on the triathlon training, dropping my weightlifting from 2x/day, 4days/wk to just 2-3x/week and adding in the swim and bike in it's place. I was surprised to see how little time I was actually working out, barely 8hrs/wk even though it felt like I was gone "training" all the time. It wouldn't matter much but while defending my time away from home to my wife, I realized the disparity between my perceived time versus actual training time is in the travel to and from the gym, changing before and after the workout and the inevitable socializing I do while at the gym. Now I've been accused, correctly sometimes, of over-training and being too work-out obsessed. Over the years, I've gotten pretty big into weight-lifting and crazy cardio workouts, going through 6 month phases of 2 and 3-a-day workouts, 5x/week getting up to 190 pounds while maintaining minimal body fat. But I feel like I've really matured over the last couple years as I've tried to get into endurance sports and realizing the bigger I am, the slower I am. Not to mention how much more I enjoy my family time as the kids get older. So now that I've been ramping up my time away from home again, the old complaints have re-surfaced but now I feel justified in arguing that real triathlon training takes a certain amount of time. It's not just weightlifting for vanity anymore. So there I am adding up the time and it's only 8hrs of actual training. Add in all the intangibles of getting there, changing and stretching and the time I'm gone is more like 12hrs/week. Luckily my wife is very supportive and is helping me find ways to fit it all in.
I imagine it will always be an effort to keep it all balanced, but I'm getting a little better every year. The biggest thing I've learned over the last couple years is how far the little things go in helping everyone. Just making the bed every now and then, making dinner for the family, doing the shopping late at night when everyone else is asleep, or taking the kids on a bike ride or to the store w/ me so my wife can do homework. All these things help keep the family running smooth; my wife is less stressed, I get to bond w/ the kids and it feels good contributing, being part of the team.
I've read so much about training; weight lifting routines for bulking up or getting toned, running workouts, cycling gear reviews, diet and nutrition strategies relating to the different sports and types of workouts but very little of it touches on how much time it takes and how to juggle the rest of your life with it. What difference does it make how good an athlete I am if my family thinks I'm a selfish a-hole that never sees me?
Smile, life is good. They do know me, they support me, I value how much my contribution to them is and it feels good when my world is in balance.
I smile today because I can, knowing that balance is fleeting. I think it was IronWil that compared it to the swing of a pendulum on clock. Life IS going to swing, accept it. The goal is not letting it swing too far out of whack, keeping the swing manageable.

Making the Team: 2008

Up til now...Long version:

Grew up in Dallas Texas, played soccer, some football but I was really small in high school and quit. I turned my interests to wrecking cars and getting into trouble so to avoid college and get in shape, I joined the Marine Corps (not the best reasons). Got into shape, but after 2 years, I was all I could be and got out (yeah it's an army slogan but close enough). Failed out of college the first go around, found more trouble and moved to Boulder in 94.

What an eye-opener, I LOVE ALTITUDE. After getting hit by a car, tearing my ACL, I used extreme hiking/ trail running and mountain biking to re-hab my knee. I kept up w/ weight lifting since the Marine Corps, more for vanity than anything and the hiking/biking served as my cardio. My girlfriend moved up, and w/ news of our first child, I decided to grow up and go to college at the ripe age of 23. Architecture was truly my calling and I excelled through school w/ many accolades. What little free time I had was mostly devoted to the gym and the mountains.

Over the last several years, I've summited a lot of 14er's (14,000 foot peaks), some of them technical and scary, others easy and fast; and most of any "training" I did was to enable easy summits. So I did a lot of steep trail running/ fast hiking. I ran the Bolder Boulder (10k) a couple times and it was fun. I definitely felt a high when finished but really didn't enjoy just running, especially on pavement. So, I thought .... I like trail running and mountain biking, I can half-ass swim so why not TRIATHLON, of the off-road variety. I signed up for one in September 2005 and loved it, even though I really sucked, by my standards anyway. A week later, I was asked to sub-in on a relay race. I had no idea what the hell it was or what it entailed, but sure, it sounded fun. The Outward Bound Relay, 10 people, taking turns running from Idaho Springs (right in the middle of the Rockies of Colorado) to Glenwood Springs (North of Aspen), 170 miles in, uh, 24 hours. Man I loved it so much, the camaraderie, the race environment, the challenge. I wanted so bad to sign up for more and more races and for the first time I actually liked running.

But personal life interrupted and 2006 forced a suspension of that enthusiasm. I kept up some running and kicked butt on my first 1/2 marathon last August. Now the stars are aligning to let me continue my quest for longer races. This year, 2008, will hopefully be a great "feeling out" phase as I go for an Olympic Xterra Tri and a full Marathon. My goal is to save money for a road bike and more races to enter next year w/ the ultimate goal of an Ironman in 2010.

How's that for a long version!

HELL YEAH!

Thanks for reading! If you think I should be the next fully-sponsored member of Team Evotri, please write down the URL of this web site and have it ready for voting when you click the EVOTE button below. Thank you!

Slow Learner

Last night, I finally employed the slow training on a run. I've never had a coach but keep reading as much as possible and have seen it more and more about the phases of training and utilizing the slow, low heart rate training during the base phase. But, all the knowledge in the world does NOT imply that one absolutely utilizes and integrates that knowledge. So, that being said, my ego, vanity and mental need for "at least maintaining if not surpassing" workout numbers I've hit before has rarely allowed me to complete a scheduled lesser/slower workout. I've been getting better and after hearing/reading it so many times, it's starting to stick.

I am my biggest obstacle; my ego & vanity, that is. When I'm going for a long run outside or at home on the treadmill, I do allow for a slower pace. Maybe, fortunately, I'm not hampered by technology when outside; being w/out a footpod I can run just to run, the only goal to keep running for an hour and half minimum. It is more difficult at home because it IS boring and I can see and control the pace but, mentally I know I can bail at any time and come back. I just try to focus on whatever I've put on the TV. But in the dead of winter and committed to family events on the weekends, I don't get to run outside as often; and the home treadmill is in the same room where my daughter likes to watch TV so this isn't always an option either. So there I am, at the gym, on the treadmill, in line w/ others, in a place where my display is exposed, my ego comes alive. I compulsively keep upping the pace every mile or two like there's a competition every night, and I must win. Really I just feel slow and more importantly feel like I LOOK slow when running under an 8min/mile pace. Who wants to look slow in a gym? I want to look fast and want others to walk by and say, "damn, that dude's a monster". Again, I am an idiot. I know this, I've been told this, but do I change, no.

So, last night after spin class, I chose to instead seek out a nice lonely treadmill off in the corner, back to wall, display not exposed and, mentally prepared, go for a nice slow hour run. Yes, people were passing in front and walking next to me but I was safe from them knowing or seeing how slow I was (a solid 8:34 min/mile the entire hour). For me, I have to remind myself during the run that staying slow will mean less recovery needed and translate in my being able to workout again the next day and/or go for a more intense or longer workout in the following couple days. So today, I'm a little sore but I can run, not as sore as 2 weeks ago when I first started spinning and running the same day. Luckily today is swim and I love how the pool loosens me up. Tonight I'll run. I haven't decided whether it will be a long, slow run, meant only to add base miles or I'll go for some hill repeats, knowing that tomorrow is rest day, but I don't want to be too sore that I can't go for a long run Saturday (when the weather will hopefully allow some outdoor enjoyment).

I'm still very uneducated about phase training and hope to get schooled a bit more down the road. For now, I'm learning slowly, through trial and error and from the wisdom of others. But more importantly, I'm making a conscious effort to USE that wisdom and overcome my weaknesses, both physical and mental.

First Blog w/ Substance

Note to self, create blog.
Oh wait that's what a blog is, in some context.
This is my first blog and I've been fumbling through how to go about it .....
- What is the ultimate purpose? A diary; a networking forum; is there a hope that maybe others can relate and therefore take something away from it.
- What should be in it, or more importantly what should NOT be in it? Do I stay focused on the athletic related parts of my life; is it appropriate to include my political/religious views; my wife and extended family and friends may/will view this so do I ensure not to offend any of them.
- How much will I commit to it? Daily; weekly; only when I have time; only if there's some major event or thought in my head; what happens if I fall into some long-term depression and drop it all together, or if I'm offended or hurt by someone's comments.

So, as typical w/ my process, I read many a blogs, looked up the definition, read about the history and made mental notes along the way; all in an effort to get organized, and focus in on how I would create a blog. When reading others, I compulsively wanted to comment as I related to their fears and struggles or when motivated by their triumphs. But then it came up, how would my comment be signed? I wanted an identity. A specific, unique label that, if desired, others could respond back to me. And if I was going to do that, then I wanted to put some part of me out there, so that others could have a sense of my background, my goals, and from what perspective my comments come from. Well there in lies the conundrum. How much do I expose. I imagine we all have skeletons in the closet or have things in our past that we regret and would rather not re-live or carry around. This probably wouldn't be a problem for most, but see I'm the type that wears my heart on my sleeve. Bree, my wife, laughs when she catches me tearing up when all the Real World roommates are saying goodbye. I could totally see myself going too deep or too far off subject and end up using this as some means to resolve a childhood trauma or get fired from my job after revealing some stupid crap I did as a teenager. So, after all the mental gymnastics, my only answer is to, as in my desire for racing, just go for it, cautiously, educated and aware that I will mess up but just by doing, I will succeed.

That is my first blog! Feels a little goofy talking/typing to myself but hey, there's worse things to do.

Next, I'll answer my initial questions and put on the table, my background and my goals.