Nov 302013
 
What is it about an open fire that prompts introspection?

What is it about an open fire that prompts introspection?

We managed to drag some unseasonably cold weather with us to Virginia Beach, but not so cold that we couldn’t have a fire on the back porch. It had been a busy and intense weekend so far, with incredible football games, frigid bicycle rides, and crushing workouts. So it was nice to sit by a fire, sip my beer and just think about the year that has been.

December is upon us now, and that essentially means my race season is finally over. There are a few more rounds of cyclocross races in the area, but weekend obligations for work and family will take precedence. It’s always a letdown when the season ends, but less so this year. After all, what a year it’s been! I started early, trained hard, and came out swinging in the spring. I raced from March to November, completing some 29 races and events. That’s slightly fewer than I completed last year, but the average distances were much longer. Along the way, I set new personal bests at every distance and course, reached new levels of endurance, and tried out two new disciplines of bicycle racing. More important, I found within myself levels of determination, resolve, resiliency and motivation that I didn’t know I possessed.

I’ve been very blessed along the way with the assistance of some great friends, a year devoid of major illness or injury, and a work schedule that allows for an almost decadent amount of training time. I’ve been blessed by the selfless contributions of others toward my several charity drives this year. I’ve been blessed by the love and support shown to my family members, whenever I’ve featured them on this blog.

And I’ve been overwhelmed at the experience of this project, itself. What started as a bet to do a year-in-pictures project has developed into something much more, which I never would have predicted. I’m humbled and flattered by all of the kind words that you all have expressed about my writing, and my racing, and what it has meant to you through the year. I’m incredibly touched that several people have told me that they’ve been inspired by what I’ve had to say, and are going to take positive steps in their own lives toward improving their health and fitness.

In the weeks ahead, I’ll be closing the book on 2013, turning my attention on conditioning and planning my 2014 season. But for this night, I’ll enjoy the glow of the fire and of the year that has been, and be thankful for all the things I have accomplished.

Nov 292013
 
At the top of a clean.

At the top of a clean.

While we were away for Thanksgiving, Katie wanted to try and drop in on a box to get a workout in. Having already made the decision to try CrossFit for this offseason, I couldn’t see any reason not to join her. Maybe I should have thought that through a little more.

I had correctly guessed that most boxes would have grueling, insane Thanksgiving day workouts. I did not expect that the box we decided to try, Stability Crossfit, would have a total ass-kicker of a Black Friday planned for us.

The main workout was three sets, consisting of 21, then 15, then 9 reps each of cleans and box jumps. No big deal, right? Wrong. Oh, and then there was a “cash out” which was to consist of 30 reps each of “knees to elbows” (in which you hang from a pull-up bar and touch your knees to your elbows) and “toes to bar” (in which you hang… you get the idea).

After a brief warm-up, Ryan (the coach) gave some really thorough instruction on how to do a clean, and then we practiced for a bit at low weight before starting the workout. Cleans are a rather complex movement, but I was feeling confident enough after the warmup and instruction to try for 95 lbs for the workout. I mean, it’s only three sets, how bad could it be? I also went ahead with the prescribed 24″ box for my jumps, seeing no reason why I shouldn’t. After all, it seemed so easy in practice.

What I failed to account for, and what almost killed me, was the lack of recovery embedded in a CrossFit workout. While I’ve become an experienced weightlifter and athlete over the past few years, most of my gym routines involve the typical rhythm of do a set, wait a minute to catch your breath, and do another set. CrossFit is more a long the lines of, do a huge set, do another huge set, do a slightly less huge set, and continue until you’re standing there, hands on your knees, looking at the bar on the ground like it just insulted your mother.

Jumpin' to the box.

Jumpin’ to the box.

One of the pillars of CrossFit, for well or ill, is the timed workout. This is mostly meant to be a measure of your progress, so that you can see how much faster you completed a given workout since the last time you attempted it. But the tangential effect is one of competition, both with yourself and your fellow dupes athletes, to see who can finish first.

I blasted through my first set of cleans, moving the 95 pounds from the floor to my shoulders as quickly as I knew how. I didn’t realize how much that had taken out of me until I stepped up and jumped on top of the box the first time, and almost fell on my face. My legs said they had put in enough effort to easily clear the top of the box. Gravity disagreed. By the time I finished 21 reps, I was sucking wind like I had just finished the sprint at the end of a 5k. Oh, and I still had two more sets, of 15 and 9 reps.

My pace degenerated from a sprint to a grind, and I could hear other people banging out reps behind and beside me, speeding through their workouts as I faltered. It took me almost as long to do 15 cleans as it had taken to do the entire first set of cleans and box jumps, and I was having to pause more frequently to catch my breath. The whole thing was sorta nuts. While I was clearly suffering, and not doing anywhere near as well as, say, every single other person in the gym, I was loving it.

I finally finished my second set and looked around, realizing that almost everybody else was done. Katie was behind me, knocking out her last few reps of box jumps and simultaneously cheering me on. The nerve! I looked at the bar and cursed myself and my confidence for not having gone lighter. What was I trying to prove, anyway?

Then a funny thing happened. As I was sizing up the bar and trying to make myself pick it up, everybody who had already finished saw me struggling, and gathered around me to shout encouragement. Total strangers, with no personal investment in me, chose to learn my name and cheer me on. At Ryan’s order, I put my hands on the bar and started working, heaving lungs and shaky legs be damned. I finished the cleans one at a time, like a competitive eater finishes a 64 ounce steak, miserable but determined.

Then I stepped over the bar, trying to take a few seconds to catch my breath, but Ryan started counting down from three, and I had to start jumping. I jumped. I landed with both feet on the box and stood, then stepped back down for another rep. I was close enough to being done that I knew it didn’t matter how much my body protested. My experience from racing has taught me that I just had to keep going, and worry about the recovery when it was over. I jumped. My impromptu fan club/support group cheered. I stepped back down and they clapped, telling me how many were left and that I could do it.

Finally I was finished, and I was as overwhelmed by the support I had received as I was by the workout itself. It had taken me well over 17 minutes to complete a workout that many of my cohorts had finished in 8, but that didn’t bother me. I rested my hands on my knees and let my lungs pump fresh oxygen into my body, waiting for my clouded vision to clear and the lightheadedness to subside. I’ve been here before, so I wasn’t worried. I’ve pushed myself this hard more times than I can remember, but usually, I’m the only one around to appreciate it. Usually, the only encouragement I receive is my own internal dialogue, and it isn’t always so positive. For a solo athlete, what I experienced at Stability was as strange as it was welcome, and it vividly illustrates what has made CrossFit such a phenomenon in the fitness community.

Finally we all headed over to the pull-up bars to finish our cash-out, and I grunted and struggled along with all the new friends I will probably never see again, laughing and joking like I had been going there for years.

If you’re ever in Virginia Beach and want to go get your butt handed to you in a workout and still walk away smiling, stop by Stability Crossfit. They’re doing it right.

Nov 282013
 

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Among the reasons we made the trek to Virginia for Thanksgiving this year was to meet our new nephew, Oliver. He’s only just over a month old, so there was more of him eating and sleeping than us meeting, but that’s to be expected.

Another highlight of the trip was spending Thanksgiving evening itself at the home of one of my brother-in-law’s coworkers, who graciously agreed to host the six of us (plus Oliver) for dinner. I’ve spent a lot of Thanksgivings away from home over the past decade, mostly due to work-related travel. But I always seem to find myself at the warmth of a family table, welcomed sometimes by total strangers with genuine hospitality.

For that small miracle, I am deeply thankful.

Nov 272013
 
It would've been pretty, if I wasn't concentrating so hard on what I was doing...

It would’ve been pretty, if I wasn’t concentrating so hard on what I was doing…

It’s Thanksgiving weekend, and that means it’s time for our first little road trip in the new car! With two bikes slung on the back and 4 adults, plus luggage crammed into every nook and cranny, I expected us to be far less comfortable, and the car far less fun to drive. I was wrong on both counts! We made great time all the way to Virginia Beach, despite some snowy roads in the mountains of West Virginia. As with every time I’ve come through this state, I’m reminded that I have GOT to spend more time here on a bicycle.

Nov 262013
 

Our new (to us) BMW may be my dream car, and it may also be the nicest vehicle I’ll ever own, but that doesn’t mean it won’t have to earn its keep. All of our vehicles end up on transport duty for rides and races at some point. Thanks to folding rear seats, I can fit a bike in the back with the wheels off, but that gets old quick, and isn’t really an option with a muddy mountain bike. It’s time to add some utility to our growly German sedan!

By virtue of it being a diesel, there is only one company in the country making hitch kits for our car. There is a urea tank for the diesel exhaust emissions system that sits behind the rear bumper cover, which results in a slight modification to the available mounting points. That one company is UHaul, about which I was not thrilled. I ordered the hitch in what I thought was plenty of time, but it took SIX FREAKING WEEKS to get here, meaning that I had to install it the day before needing to use it on a trip! I wasn’t pleased.

Thankfully, the design and manufacture of the hitch kit was better than their shipping department, and it went together tightly and smoothly. Then end product is more than acceptable, and most importantly, allows me to use a hitch-mount bike rack, instead of a roof rack. Roof racks look cool, but I’ve found them to be fuel efficiency killers, and less than practical for people of less than average height to use.

The hitch rack I chose, the Yakima Holdup 2, is a brilliant little piece of engineering. It’s easy to install, easy to load bikes on, has integrated locks, and folds up like a pretzel when not in use. Best of all, it holds road bikes and mountain bikes with equal ease, despite large differences in tire width, wheelbase or weight. I also bought an adapter to install on the truck, so that I could easily ferry 6 bikes, should the need ever arise!

What this picture did not capture was how hard the cross bar assembly was to wrestle into place. Equal parts finesse and brawn.

What this picture did not capture was how hard the cross bar assembly was to wrestle into place. Equal parts finesse and brawn.

Impressive that this is all that shows below the bumper!

Impressive that this is all that shows below the bumper!

And I did all that, to do this! TA DAAAA!

And I did all that, to do this! TA DAAAA!

I think every car looks better with a couple bikes hanging off the back.

I think every car looks better with a couple bikes hanging off the back.

Folds up nice and tight, but far enough out that you can still open the trunk.

Folds up nice and tight, but far enough out that you can still open the trunk.

Possibly my favorite feature. It's the little things!

Possibly my favorite feature. It’s the little things!

Nov 252013
 
Doing a new thing? That means a new shiny!

Doing a new thing? That means a new shiny!

I’ve made it no secret that I can’t swim. This comes as a surprise to a lot of people, for whatever reason, but you may as well have asked me if I speak fluent Russian. Their surprise is a surprise to me, since I’ve never really been able to do it. I suppose it’s something like my bewilderment at people who never learned to type; I’ve been able to do it for so long, and from such an early age, that I can’t imagine not having the ability.

It’s not that I haven’t been taught. I have, several times, by several different methods. In second grade, they bussed all of us over to the local YMCA for lessons. I didn’t pass. The following summer, while at a hotel on vacation, my dad took the “throw him in and he’ll learn” approach. I sank. He had to come in after me. I didn’t speak to him for days, convinced that he had been trying to kill me. In high school, several of my friends were incredulous that I couldn’t even float, and watched, perplexed, as I demonstrated my ability to simply sink to the bottom, on my back, and lie there.

In the years since, I’ve developed some sort of flailing “technique” that one might be tempted to call swimming. It’s like a doggy paddle, if the doggy was out of shape, uncoordinated and a little bit panicked at the idea of being in the water. It’s not pretty, but it’s effective enough to (hopefully) get me from where I land in the water, to the nearest floating piece of debris or life raft. What it isn’t, is anything that you imagine when I say the word “swimming.”

Through the race season, while conversing with friends and competitors about my efforts in running and biking, the inevitable question arose almost without fail: “Why don’t you do triathlons?” The ability to swim is assumed. Most triathlons, short of the Ironman variety, have reasonable swim distances. The follow-on assumption is that if one can run and ride for long distances, adding a swim is no big deal. Except, of course, if you can’t do it.

After years of answering the question with some embarrassment, I’ve decided to do something about it. After all, being told I can’t do something is essentially what spurred my whole lifestyle change from bloated couch potato to addicted racer. A few years ago, I blew up my knee. In rehab after surgery, they told me that I’d likely never run more than the required mile and a half for my annual fitness test. In response, I started running 5k’s that fall, and the following Spring, signed up for a half marathon. I’ve done a half dozen since, and have no plans of stopping.

So after much hemming and hawing, and with more than a few pep talks from Katie, I signed us up for lessons at the YMCA in December. Katie’s coming with me for a refresher, and as moral support. We’ve been coaching each other for years now, so it’s only natural that she’d come along. While it may seem counterintuitive to learn to swim in middle of winter, I’m banking on everybody else thinking that, too. The fewer people who show up to witness my aquatic thrashing, the better.

I’ve spent the year engaged in a lot of activities that some of my readers have told me are crazy. While in the middle of some of them, I was sometimes inclined to think they were right. But putting on the goggles and getting in the pool this December will be, in many ways, the biggest challenge of my year.

Nov 242013
 
Mmmm, scotch scotchy scotch...

Mmmm, scotch scotchy scotch…

During a recent restocking trip to the Class Six, I had a hankering to try a new Scotch. I selected Dalwhinnie 15 year, a Highland single malt from one of the coldest and highest regions in all of Scotland. Highlands aren’t my favorite variety as a general rule, but I do maintain a certain affinity for them, since they were how I was introduced to the wonders of Single Malt all those years ago.

It might sound funny, but the best way I can describe Dalwhinnie is that it’s a very Scotchy Scotch. It’s not particularly smooth or polite up front (like The Balvenie), but it maintains its character throughout, not falling on its face in any one area. I will say that, as Highlands go, this one is gentler than most, although the finish maintains a smoky intensity for what seems like a long time. It lacks the fascinating complexity of Royal Lochnagar, but that’s a rather high bar to meet, now isn’t it?

It’s not an every day whisky by any stretch, but when the mood calls for a dram of a solid Highlands spirit, Dalwhinnie fits the bill.

Nov 232013
 
Warming up.

Warming up.

As much as I’m trying to fight it, the offseason is upon us. I’ve spent the past few weeks doing a lot of thinking about what I want to accomplish over this winter, and what might be the best way to go about it. Above all else, I want to come out next spring stronger and lighter than ever. This year, I stretched my endurance to places it’s never been, but for next season, it’s time to add speed and strength. I want to be a better hill climber and sprinter, both on my bikes and on foot. Endurance is always going to be the focus of my racing, but I do enough short (less than an hour) races that I’ve been able to realize my weak points.

Adding strength training to my offseason program last winter paid huge dividends this year. I followed Wendler’s 5-3-1 program for about 4 months and saw really solid gains, but the program is not without its drawbacks. Because it relies on incremental progression, you have to be in the gym 3-4 days a week to make it work. As the race season spooled up I tried to make do with less, but found myself faltering.

Another issue I faced is that I worked out almost entirely by myself. I could usually find a spot for bench press, and overhead press is sort of a yes or no question, but my squats and deadlift need coaching to get better. Especially my squats, which are embarrassing in their lack of power. While those 4 movements (plus a little bodyweight work) are certainly enough to make you strong in almost every muscle area, it also gets a little dull to do them, and only them, over and over and over, week after week. Variety is what keeps me going, and the lack of it has been a big reason that I haven’t stuck with a single weightlifting program for more than 6 months.

These problems speak to an overall issue I’ve noticed with non-customized training plans. Whether they’re for lifting, or running, or biking, they never seem to leave much room for variety. Most running programs for endurance athletes have you out on the road 4 or more days a week. I’ve tried that, but I end up just beating myself to pieces trying to log the required miles. Cycling plans are easier on the joints, of course, but they often require an investment of hours that simply isn’t practical for anybody with a full time job and other life responsibilities. And weightlifting programs, even the good ones, will definitely build strength, but often in ways I don’t need for what I’m trying to do. A 2x bodyweight bench press will help me out precisely zero on the bike, and the associated bulk will actually slow me down.

BE the wheelbarrow!

BE the wheelbarrow!

Over this year, I figured out two very key truths, at least for my purposes. First, cross training can cover a multitude of sins. A lot of running coaches will tell you that there’s no way to lower, say, your half marathon time, without doing a bunch of really focused running work. You could call my running “program” a lot of things this year, but focused is not one of them. And yet, I banged out PRs with regularity at every distance this year, including knocking 26 minutes off half marathon time from last year. All this, while logging less than 250 miles of running, racing and training all year long. How did that happen? I didn’t only run.

The second truth is that you have to consider where you’re trying to go when looking for a plan. In other words, if your goals don’t include looking like an Olympic powerlifter, or a Kenyan marathoner, or a Tour cyclist, then why follow any of their plans? Don’t misunderstand, I don’t work out for cosmetic reasons, ever. Looking better in the mirror is nice, but my wife loved me when I was fat, so I’m not worried about it. What I’m saying is that certain types of athletes will generally have certain types of bodies. Following a plan that got them there will not get you to a demonstrably different place, physically.

That leaves me trying to define exactly what it is I’m trying to be. I love my bikes, but they aren’t the only thing I do. I love to run as well, and I enjoy being strong enough to move myself around efficiently, for things like the Mud Ninja and, well, life in general. I know that weaknesses in certain areas of my fitness have, in the past, resulted in injury, something I’d like to stop doing.

So, bearing all that in mind, I came up with a list of requirements for my winter strength and conditioning regime:

  • It has to make me stronger. Not just stronger than I am now, at the end of race season, but stronger than I was last spring.
  • It has to keep me interested, with a variety of exercises.
  • It has to include at least some coaching of the more complex movements, and should introduce me to new ones, something that hasn’t happened since high school.
  • It can’t be terribly expensive. My bicycle habit is already expensive enough.
  • It should focus on leg and core strength, with a nod to endurance activity.
  • It should result in me being a more well-rounded, robust athlete.
  • Ideally, it should be something I can scale back on through the racing season, but still keep doing.

Which means,

  • It has to allow room for me to train in other ways.

A few of my friends would point out that I basically just described CrossFit. And they might be right. A few of my other friends will want to slap the freckles right off my face for saying that.

But I think it’s worth a try. I’ve watched a handful of people I know start up with CrossFit over the past couple years, and the results are undeniable. People who were not strong or fit at all made serious strides toward being both. People who were strong and fit when they walked in got better. One guy I used to be able to keep pace with on the mountain bike is now leaving me for dead without even trying, and he barely rides any more except for racing. What does he do? CrossFit, 5 days a week.

I dropped in at AKP with Katie earlier this year, just to see what it was about, and left impressed. Today we dropped in at CrossFit Dedication, a new “box” (slang for a CF gym) that recently opened only a few minutes’ drive from our house, to check it out. I was impressed again, especially with how much fun I was having. (Full disclosure: Saturday workouts at most CF gyms are both free and team-oriented, which is totally marketing. Every day is not like Saturday. But it’s effective marketing.) While the exercises we did weren’t terribly complex, they were still thoroughly instructed and effectively coached, something I was hoping to see. After talking it over with Katie, we decided to give Dedication a try for the month of December and see how it goes.

I’ve been very public with my concerns over CrossFit’s shortcomings and challenges. But in reality, a whole lot of those shortcomings are present in almost every program, and they boil down to personal responsibility, more than anything. Will CrossFit make me as outright strong as I could possibly be? No, but that’s not where I’m trying to go. Will it be my offseason answer, to make me a better overall athlete, which is where I am trying to go? I think so. Time will tell.

Might I find a home among these folks? We'll see.

Might I find a home among these folks? We’ll see.

 

 

Nov 222013
 
Better, but by how much?

Better, but by how much?

You may remember my travails earlier this season with trying to find the right saddle for my road bike. While the fi’zi:k I bought to replace the stock unit was an improvement, it still didn’t totally solve the problems of pain and numbness, especially on rides over 40 miles.

A few weeks ago, I scored a deal on this Selle Italia from a friend of mine on Facebook, and it’s a step further in the right direction. The split design seems to alleviate some pressure, while not being overly flexy over bumps or while pedaling. I’ve had the chance to test it on rides up to 46 miles, and it seems more comfortable for me than the fi’zi:k, but not yet perfect. I don’t know if it’s the firmness or the shape, but my sit bones are still begging for mercy after 20 or so miles, causing me to stop for a break. With my endurance racing goals next year, that won’t do.

So the search will continue. Once I find the right saddle, I’m looking forward to being able to steam through 50 miles at a time, weather and hydration permitting, without a stop.

Nov 212013
 
Whatever it used to be, it's now a metaphor.

Whatever it used to be, it’s now a metaphor.

It’s not often that, out for a ride or a run, I’ll come across a symbol so appropriate.

I was out for a road ride, my activity of any kind in five days, owing partly to crappy weather and more to my sinus bug. But today, I just couldn’t take it any more. I needed a pedal, the weather was just warm enough and I felt just good enough. A nice, flat road route would do the trick, and with the remaining daylight, I could get just over 40 miles in. I mapped out an easy loop, sucked down some coffee and hit the road, happy to feel my wheels rolling again after a too-long break.

I intended not to push. The point of the ride was just to burn some energy out of my legs and breathe a little, not hammer out PRs. I rolled south through Yellow Springs, stopping to adjust the angle of my new saddle once. Between Yellow Springs and Xenia, I ran across these bones along the side of the path. Picked nearly clean, the symbolism of seeing them on the trail beside me was too strong to simply pass by. Some scavengers had removed every morsel from the carcass, getting every ounce of nutrition they could before the onset of the harshness and scarcity of winter. And there I was, wrapped in thermal tights, trying to do much the same thing.

It wasn’t a particularly nice day, as days for cycling go. It was overcast and chilly, with highs hovering right around 50. I thought back to the brilliant skies and warm breezes of July, when the only reason I had not to pedal was fatigue from doing so much already. This was a day that I would have stayed in, only a month ago. But the coming winter had me out, gnawing at the bones of the riding season, getting every last pedal stroke I could get before there wouldn’t be any more to be had.

I didn’t intend to push. But between the weather, and the bones, and my legs having had so much rest, there was an urgency about me that made speed come easy. I coasted through Xenia and headed east, accidentally riding 6 miles down the Jamestown connector before realizing my error. I linked together some country roads back north to catch the Ohio-Erie trail, and as I stood and charged up the overpass at U.S. 35, something in me awoke. I like going fast, and recovering from a cold, or riding in the cold, doesn’t change that!

I poked a couple buttons on my cycle computer and saw that I had been sailing along pretty well already, judging by my average. I cruised northeast for the next ten miles, all alone on a remote stretch of pavement, with my head down and my cadence up. When I reached my turn for my last leg, I was out of the saddle again, charging up the rollers on Selma Pike and spinning down the other side, enjoying the rush of adrenaline and burning in my legs made sweeter by its absence over the preceding days.

My accidental detour towards Jamestown had added 6 miles to my planned route, but the surprise pace I found helped me get back before the sun was down, anyway. I turned in 46 miles at an average of 17.8 mph, which is the longest distance I’ve cleared in one shot since the second day of the Young’s ride. Not bad for just getting over a cold. I just hope I can get another couple rides like that in before the weather closes me down for good.

On a lighter note, hey look! Alpacas!

On a lighter note, hey look! Alpacas! Or llamas. I never can tell.

Nov 202013
 
This isn't really a back squat.

This isn’t really a back squat.

Many of the people I train with and compete against seem to suffer from an identity crisis. While they’re out running, they claim that they aren’t runners. While riding, they’ll steadfastly maintain that they aren’t cyclists. While training and competing in any variety of disciplines with a focus, intensity and regularity that borders on obsession, they’ll vehemently insist that they aren’t athletes.

And you know what? I get it. When you look at the front of the race, at the pros, at the world championships, it’s easy to think that those people are doing something entirely different than you. To call myself a mountain biker, in the same sense as, say, Kelly McGarry, would seem to be a stretch of the term and a disservice to a guy who can do backflips over canyons on a bicycle. I can barely do a wheelie, so how could I possibly include myself in the same nomenclature as a guy like that?

But the titles themselves make no claim as to the proficiency of the practitioner. Saying that you’re a runner isn’t saying that you can crack out a sub-20-minute 5k; it’s saying that you run. You lace up your shoes, go out from your house and run, with some regularity and of your own volition, because you decided to do it. That’s what makes you a runner. It’s not your speed, or your distance, or your list of PRs; it’s the choice and the activity.

If you do, you are a doer, no matter the scale or scope or speed of the action.

By selling yourself short, rejecting the title even of a participant in the sport, you deprive yourself of the joy of celebration of your own accomplishments. You set the barrier to entry so high for yourself that you’ll never reach it, and you’ll likely find yourself disheartened and demotivated when your efforts lack any sweet reward. After all, how can you be proud of what you’ve done while still claiming that you aren’t someone who does it?

Worse, others see that barrier to entry and adopt it as their own. “Well, if he can’t call himself an athlete,” they say, “surely I can’t, either.” What a tragedy that is, when people who may be looking to you, as a source of motivation, as an attainable standard, find out that you don’t believe in yourself.

Our society’s obsession with sport in general has resulted in unprecedented access and coverage of professionals in every area. Much like the effect of airbrushed supermodels on magazine covers, we can’t look anywhere without seeing someone doing what we do, only better. And not just better, but incomprehensibly better, setting times and clearing obstacles and moving weights and climbing rocks that we couldn’t dream of approaching if we trained every day for the rest of our lives. We hold up those athletes as the prototypical examples of the sport, and so rule out any possibility of assigning to ourselves the same moniker. The same voice that says “I’m not attractive unless I look like that,” is the one that says “I’m not an athlete because I can’t do it like that.”

That voice is wrong. It’s wrong, and it’s evil, and it’s holding you back from all of the things you can do, if only you stopped listening to it, and started listening to your inner child. The voice that says “look what I can do!” while you pedal up that hill, or cross the finish line at that race, or get that bar over your head. That is the voice that deserves your attention. And when it says you’re an athlete, you’d better believe it.

It’s time for all of us amateur athletes to stop pretending we aren’t what we are. It’s time for us to respect ourselves and those who may be watching enough to gladly accept the titles we’ve worked so hard to earn. We may all have a long way to go, but that’s no reason to cheapen what we have already accomplished by ignoring that we did it. We’ve earned that badge, however modest. Let’s wear it proudly, and help others to earn theirs as well.

Nov 192013
 

After a nine month run, I was finally starting to get a little bored with the breakfast burritos Katie and I have been making and freezing. Looking for a quick and tasty alternative, we turned to the Feed Zone Portables cookbook for inspiration. We settled on an adaptation of the recipe for a mushroom and swiss frittata, baking them in a mini loaf pan instead of the prescribed muffin tins to give them the bump from “snack” to “meal.” We also added some diced ham for extra protein. The result is a smoky, savory little loaf of breakfast goodness, that takes minimal time to make and is perfect for munching on the way to work in the morning, and packed with healthy macronutrients to get your day started off right! This one’s a winner. Next round, we’ll probably substitute basmati rice for the plain white long grain we used this time, and bacon instead of ham.

Slicing mushrooms. Surprisingly cathartic.

Slicing mushrooms. Surprisingly cathartic.

Dicing onions. Not cathartic at all.

Dicing onions. Not cathartic at all.

323c

Shredded swiss cheese. We shredded it extra coarse to help preserve the flavor through the mixing and baking process.

I mean, how many times in your life do you have the chance to crack open an entire carton of eggs?

I mean, how many times in your life do you have the chance to crack open an entire carton of eggs?

Happy little savory loaves!

Happy little savory loaves!