The Suitcase of Courage

Tick Tock

Everyone knows the old adage you are unique and unlike other being in the human race. We all have different genetic make ups, cognitive processes as well physical make ups. I am here today to tell you about the one thing that we all have in common. To start we all live on the same planet together called Earth duh! On this Earth we have a universally accepted way of measuring thing no matter what country or time zone that you fall under and that is called time.  In the most basic measure like that of an atom to our cellular systems we can trace this unit down that of a second.  Seconds make up minutes, those make up hours, and then we have days and so forth.

You hear the old saying “You can control your destiny” Many people shun this and see it as and wives tale.  When you look at the word destiny synonyms are words such as destination and end.  To have an end you must have a beginning and from this beginning the seconds start ticking.  We do know not know when we will meet our destiny but let us live every second that is granted to us with passion and fire that is so strong that it will blaze through the darkest nights and the coldest of times.  If you are reading this you are lucky enough to have a few 86,400’s (seconds in day) granted to you.

 I ask you only to reflect on one of those and say could I have done more one of those instances?  I hope that you can say no, live life with no regrets and a battery charged with nothing less than pure optimism and a willing heart. We all make mistakes it is that of the human nature; after all you miss 100% of the shots you don’t try.  This only brings us closer to our destiny otherwise legacy and I have already decided mine is a success.  Let us on not live in the past but press forward after all you get a new chance every second!

That Something Inside You

I close my eyes and take a look into the past.  I am a child age 11 to be exact.  We are out in the woods behind our house in South Carolina.  You can smell the fresh cut cedar as we race down the single track mountain path bike we had just cleared earlier in the day.

This is not our first trip down but certainly could be our last as the sun is setting and the darkness is closing .  We race into the front yard to wish mother a good night as she leaves for her 3rd shift stint at the hospital.  She echoes “You guys better get inside before it gets too dark and run into a tree!”

My father and I each glance at each other and without having to say a word we pedal back up to the field to do yet another run through the woods as all the light has been pulled from between the trees.

I fast forward to the age of 16 it is 5:30 am on a cold November morning.  My back is sore from the crushing blindside hit I took from Number 5 the night before during our loss to Great Falls in the upper state championship football game.  I wake up early not only to clear my mind and make the most out of my day but to focus on the basketball season which has already begun. Taking the ball I walk out to concrete half court and began shooting 100 free throws like I have done so many times before.  As I eclipse the triple digit mark I did not even hesitate time slips by and I am in the same spot at 9 am.  I walk away from the court thinking why am I wired like this? Why dont I just settle for average? Why not take the easy ride and just get by?  

I did not know at that moment I had decided a theme for my future.  A theme, for life is just a story and a story without a theme is not worth telling. 

Do you want somebody to tell your story?

I had found and realized the drive inside of me.  We all have something that drives us that inner calling that comes to late at night as you have had one too many drinks or early in the morning as you just finished your run to see the sun rise.  May it be to come up with some great invention to change the world or simply to touch others lives through a smile in passing by on the street.   Let us all realize our potential today and speak out our true calling so that we might find our theme in life.  After all that is the first step according to The Secret

My theme:
I want movement and not a calm course of existence, each day to find a new and different sun.  I want excitement and always a chance of danger to let me know that my existence is not mundane or mediocre.  I feel in myself a superabundance of energy which can find no outlet in a quiet life.

Good Mood Food

                My mind began to wonder as I walked the aisles of the local grocery store as I heard a lady vocalize the phrase to her significant other “I never go down that aisle it is a waste of time, it has nothing for me…”  Let it be known that this aisle was filled with fresh oriental cuisine and huge display emphasizing new product.  Those words  resonated with me in the forthcoming moments as I thought to myself that this statement does not just apply to these four walls, this statement can be applied to so many of our day to day lives

                I took the statement as “I am afraid to get out of my routine and try something new, I would just like to pass by and continue with what is comfortable to me.” Now, let us put that statement in historical context.  Let us take the Pilgrims as they would be a prime example for this sentiment.  If they would have continued under the Church of England in 1620 and not entertained the thought of doing something different would we be the established country we are today.  They were not afraid to step out of the box and do something great.  They did not hesitate to go into the unknown and try something new, and for doing so they were rewarded with legendary status and founding the greatest nation of modern history. 

Take away:  If you have a strong enough WHY, you need not worry about HOW. 

                This leads me to my next point, to simplify.  In life we take on so many roles businessman, athlete, lover, writer etc.  Those roles are simply roles WE choose to take on.  Life is about choice and I am all about Pro-Choice trust me (in a greater sense of the word).  You can compare your roles in life to eating at a pizza buffet if you ask me.  The first bite tastes great but every bite after is diminishing returns (not as good as the first) this is the same principle that can be applied to our roles in life.  If you have a newborn baby that wakes you up at 3am to change a diaper then you are not going to be as sharp at your 4pm sales meeting due to overextending yourself.  They say it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at something. We each have a limited amount of hours in our lifetime pick your battles wisely.  Why not simplify and find what your true calling is so that you can give back to society in a larger sense instead of rushing through life and being part the crowd.  A crowd like one at 7 am at the Marble Arch station on the London underground all taking the escalator at the same time even though there is stairs with no one them.

Take away:  Find your freedom, it is only when we are alone that we can find our direction in life, heed all advice but take the path less traveled and tap into your inner spirit to truly find your purpose in this beautiful thing called life.

                Lastly, let us remember that life is beautiful.  It is something that we are privileged with not promised. Let every second serve a purpose and live a life full of optimism and thankfulness.  After all 2 people die every second around the world, if nothing else be glad you are not that person.  In saying that also take the time to figure out who that person really is so that you may leave a lasting impact on those around you. 

Take away:  Wake up in the morning clap your hands and give thanks for being able to see the dawn of a new day.

The Muffin that Cost Me (Ironman Cozumel)

Allow me to start by saying I really don’t fear that much, well besides leading a “normal life” but that is about it.  That being said the thought of doing the first Ironman kind of put fear in my heart for the simple fact that everyone that does them usually ends up looking like death and talking about the demons that they face etc.   I have raced 15 70.3’s and I have saw some dark places on them for sure coming from pushing the bike to hard and lack of nutrition.  The fact that I knew how bad that could  hurt sometimes only led me to really respect the iron distance as I knew it could turn into a loooong day if something were to go wrong.

I picked Ironman Cozumel for the simple fact that I could train all year for the 70.3’s and shorter distances and then with a couple months to go kick up the miles and hopefully knock out a solid race in late November.  I made the trip down with the lovely Kelli King which is always so supportive and awesome athlete herself only to find quite the opposite in temperature from Portland Oregon.  30’s to 80’s and high humidity so I was like this is going to be great.

 We went straight into a run the day we arrived together nice and easy and it felt like death due to the high humidity.  The next day I went out for a bike ride with David Hall and we completed one lap of the three loop course.  This was only the 2^nd ride on the bike I borrowed from my teammate due to avoid outrageous shipping cost from Portland.  I felt pretty relaxed after this and was ready to start thinking about the race.

PRE RACE PREP

1.       Stick to the plan that Rick Kattouf made for me

2.       Get  mentally prepared to eat loads of food on the bike

3.       Remind myself to just have fun

SWIM

I jumped in the crystal clear Cozumel waters 25 minutes before the start to get a spot near the front of the pack.  Treading the water for the 25 minutes before the start was rather fun as I just floated around and joined a group of Germans who kept echoing a pretty cool sounding chant. The gun sounded and we were off 2400 athletes swimming for one buoy fun stuff.  I was lucky enough to get a pretty clean start although I do remember getting smacked in the head a couple of times by this lady.  I pretty much swam solo the whole time as I couldn’t find a pack I really “fit” with.  The swim was amazing except for a few jellyfish stings which were to be expected.  You could see the bottom the whole way and the scuba divers hovering underneath.  I exited the swim in 1:02 which I was pretty happy with considering it was a non-wetsuit swim.

T1

Tossed on a cycling jersey with all my nutrition already loaded into which believe was a lot. I will go ahead and list what I took in on the bike  below in order to get that out of the way.

·         5 Cliff Bars

·         1 Powerbar

·         8 Gels

·         24 Endurolytes

·         1 Gu chomps

·         1 sport beans

·         2 bottles of Heed

·         6 Gatorades

·         Countless bottles of water

·         AND a chocolate chip muffin which I stopped and chomped and the special needs stop

If you were to add that up well let’s just say it is a lot of calories.

BIKE

As I mentioned above the plan was to take in a lot of calories and as you can see on the list above that is exactly what I did in order to have a good run.  I was getting passed the first 20 miles like I was standing still women extra heavy age groupers and all were flying past me.  I just had to check the ego and let them go knowing that I would see them later.

I kept the heart rate in check knowing it could drift later this lead to a pretty uneventful bike it was all flat and the backside stretch of the island was completely open to the wind for 15 miles.  Being that you were less than 50 yards off the beach it meant you were getting nailed with some crosswind/headwind action the whole time.  The last loop of the bike  I began to feel pretty tired of being in the aero bars and pretty much stayed out on the hoods for 50 percent of the time.  I was really ready to get off the bike as I had already used up my special needs bag on the second loop by stopping and unclipping and munching down this amazing chocolate chip muffin Kelli and I found two days before. (5:26)

RUN

Hopped of the bike and the bottom of my foot was so tight I was like man this run is going to hurt well that thought lasted about 5 seconds and it magically got better after the first 10 steps.  I switched into a tri top and running shorts for comfort.  I started the run in high zone 1 knowing that I wanted to build into the run as the day went on.  I did not know where I was in my age group at this time as I had reeled in a couple of my AG’s on the bike but had no clue where I was overall.  I was running around a 7:30 pace and it felt incredibility easy at this time and I was just trying to keep it there knowing I still had about 20 miles to go.  Being that this was my first ironman I wanted to make sure I had the goods to finish first but the HR did not vary a bit and I was already at mile 13 holding the same pace.  The amount of people that I passed on the run was absolutely fantastic and never being passed myself was just icing on the cake.  I even asked some fellow competitors had they seen another 18-24 year old and they replied you’re the first one mate.  I hit mile 20 and felt awesome by this time still running through the over ankle dip water in some sections of the course due to the downpour halfway through the run which made it very humid.  I decided to kick it up the last 5 miles and was able to average like a 7:05 pace for them (my fastest run splits of the day) to close out the Ironman.  The finish line came up and I went through loving every second of it.  This led me to break 10 hours and come in at 9:56 which I was absolutely astounded by for my first ironman.  Big shout out to all those who have helped so much along the way I could not have done it without you all. (3:21)

Notes

Ironman is a long day that you have to be really patient with

I was 2^nd in my AG a German with compression socks on beat me by 1:24 he out swam and out biked me but I put 9 minutes into him on the run.

One spot in my AG for Kona so didn’t nab it this time.

Ironman is a lot of fun

Did not hurt nearly as bad as I thought it would.

Next time don’t stop and unclip to eat a chocolate chip muffin

Eat it while riding :)

“The Piggy Bank of Life”

Life-the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the  power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally

That is the definition of life according to Webster’s dictionary.  The following is a suggestion to develop your life so that you achieve maximum growth from your life starting today.

Do everything that you can do today, so that you can tackle tomorrow’s challenges.  The more tasks you tackle every day the more you can handle the next day.  You can relate this to saving money when you were a child.  Everyone use to have a piggy bank where you would save your change, now remember when you used to add to that piggy bank you would simply just add coins to it nonchalantly until the day came that you needed those coins.  You then would go to that piggy bank count out all of your coins, you THEN and ONLY THEN would realize how much you had so that you may go out and make whatever purchase your heart was set on making.

This aforementioned example can be applied to life as well, when going through life you develop experiences each day some more than others.  In talking with a great friend of mine yesterday (Anthony J. Wisconsin) on the train ride home we noticed a magazine article stating that you need 10,000 hours to become and expert on something. The more we get out and go, the more we live and learn and take each day like an all you can buffet of experiences until we get kicked out on the street and our minds are so full from the knowledge we consumed today that we must sleep for it to be applied tomorrow the BETTER we will become as individuals.

Then, when it comes time to dig into the “piggy bank of life” we can look into our previous experiences be calm and confident and handle any situation that comes our way. The key for us all  is to add to that bank, get out today and escape your comfort zone try one of the following ideas to get you started

1. Make conversation with a complete stranger
2. Research a country you know nothing about
3. Watch a television station in another language
4. Research global news from a different perspective than your home country (BBC, Aljazeera)
5. Look into different religions, we can learn something from them al

Try one these 5 suggestions  each day for the upcoming week and you will add to that bank of knowledge and I guarantee the the next time a difficult situation presents itself you will be a little more confident in this thing called life through the growth of you past experiences and your adaption to the various situations that you have been confronted with.

Take it all in today, so that we can see a new and different sun tomorrow. (Majorca, Spain)

Back in the USA

My short spring break return to the great USA is about to come to end but I thought I would put together a relatively short list of observations before heading back to the UK.

1. Our roads are smooth as ice, and wide as the Atlantic.  We have enough room to fit 3 cars side by side on them plus 2 bicycles.
2. Our food portions are equally as large as the Atlantic, and should be drastically deflated as people are over inflated :)
3. Life is too easy for most and we should be reminded about hard things can be.
4. I love/hate my car.
5. I never see kids outside playing, lose the Nintendo and grab a Nerf gun.
6. Why do we need a military channel really?
7. Waterloo still is the coolest place on earth.
8. Being with family/friends is still one of the most soothing experiences in life.

This is but a short list of recent observations.  I always have so many as soon as I get off the airplane from country to country I will try to start writing these down right away as the truly are a cliffnotes version of the countries culture.

Oh and lastly any triathlon that is sponsored by BMW sure does give away nice prizes.

 

2C or 35F Equals a Cold Triathlon

March 6, 2011 the beginning of the triathlon season for me.  I have always been very fond of early season racing as it gives you feedback on your winter training.  This was the first race I could get my hands on, and in fact it was the first triathlon of 2011 in England as well (Mad March Triathlon). The race took place near Poole about 10 miles North of the South Coast.

Prelude:

I caught the train down with my friend Adam Hope to stay with his sister the night before the race.  Just for the record bike racks on trains are super cool things, the only thing is finding which train car has them and then sprinting to said car within the 40 seconds allotted before the doors close and leaves your butt on the platform.

The next morning we woke up and had a chilly 10 mile ride to the start of the triathlon which we commenced at 4:45 AM.  We were super keen and arrived a little past 5 only to find out my wave did not start till 8:40 well at least we made it with plenty of time. 

I then racked my bike next to this guy that had a brand new Specialized Shiv and 1080’s and he looked the part so I knew I was going to be in for quite the workout.

Swim

The shortest swim ever in the history of triathlon 250 meters (3:15) came out of water tied for 2nd within my group. They had seeded us before hand according to swim time so the last group was supposed to be the fastest.  This made me pretty happy as for me to come out within the top end of the field makes my day a lot easier.

Bike

Hopped on the trusty Scott and was off with Marcus Dodd (Specialized Shiv) right behind.  I then closed on the leader pretty quick Gary Kurth and was able to put some time into him as he is known for being a runner.  I could not shake Dodd over the 10 mile twisty undulating and very technical terrain.  Bike speed avg (24.8)

Run

This is what I was waiting for the whole time, jumped off the bike and the legs felt great.  I forgot to restart my Garmin at this point because honestly I was so excited to run it was crazy.  The first mile was slightly downhill and I took a look at the Garmin about halfway into it and it read 12.2 mph pace.  That absolutely delighted me as that was a sub 5 minute mile and I knew that the finish line was coming very soon.  I was able to polish off the day with a 16:50 for the 5k and put a minute and change into Dodd at the finish line. 

Notes

• Big Congrats to Adam Hope, Thomas Swinhoe, and Nathan Rigsbey for their performances
• The temperature was 34F degrees coming out the water chilly morning indeed
• Missed the course record by 5 seconds…chalk that up to the one beer I had the night before