Gary’s Fitness Blog

The idea of "milestone" birthdays has been an increasingly large topic on my mind lately. I do not normally think about my birthdays and honestly hate the idea of a birthday celebration, but I think that the next few months are going to be interesting for me from a psychological / personal happiness point of view.

Why? Because I turn 30 in September.

I am not complaining, I do not feel old, I do not believe my days of "living it up" are over….. it just seems that as I think about the fact that I am turning 30, I begin to think about 5 and 10 years ago and all that I thought would have happened by now.

For those that know me, you likely know that I like operate on multi year plans. In general, my 2 year plan is pretty specific, 5 year plan is outlined and 10 year plans are fuzzier mile-markers. Here are a couple examples of plans that are easy to point to and that I am currently in the middle of:

a - 5 year Ironman plan. I first shared the sketch of this plan back in September of 2006 in my post, "4 days to first 140.6 triathlon ". It has obviously changed to a small degree, but even when life variables change I try and stay steady. We’ll see how much it changes when Nikki starts school full-time?

b - 5 year business development. One of the reasons that Nikki and I wanted to move back to Kentucky is that it was going to offer us the ability to start our own business. Moving back here in August of 2005, I thought that it would take around 3 years for us to both be able to step away from "regular jobs" and try being on our own 100%. Nikki went full-time in April of ‘06, I went in April of ‘07. So things have been moving quickly and we’re as passionate as ever to serve others in health, fitness and performance.

Other guys do the same thing:

1. I was recently listening to Competitor’s Radio and heard an interview they did with Dean Karnazes . They talked about his journey to becoming the "Ultra Marathon Man" and how it began with him running 30 miles on his 30th birthday (from a bar I believe). I haven’t read his book, Ultra Marathon Man: Memoir Of An Extreme Endurance Athlete but Nikki has and she said this event is discussed in the book also.

2. This past week I got an email from Bill Anders , who had some questions about training for his goal to run 40 miles on his 40th birthday. He said he got the idea from the site, B-FitB-day . Because Bill is in Iraq, he’s modifying the standard goals for B-FitB-day and just running his age (did I say "just" run his age!).

And the list of events like this goes on. It makes me wonder, why is it that guys find it a necessary step in life to prove that a birthday (or passing of time) has not proven their mortality? I guess the most famous defiance of age over the years has been the events that Jack LaLanne has done on his birthdays.

In the book, "Timeless Healing " by Herbert Benson, PhD, he discusses how men tend to die around the time of their birthdays. Specifically, men tended to die prior to their birthdays because looking ahead towards their birthday as a sort of deadline. The paper that Benson referenced was actually titled, "The Birthday: Lifeline or Deadline?" by Dr. David Phillips from the University of California, San Diego.

It’s interesting as I look at my own thoughts about the upcoming 30 year "deadline", there are many things that I thought were in my 10 year plan during my 20’s that have not happened. The biggest item that I had on that list was getting my Ph.D, which still comes up a lot within my mind as a source of dissonance.

What do I have in mind for my "milestone" event?

In May, I made a post titled "Help me find my new challenge ".  At the time I wasn’t looking forward to my birthday, but I think that as I come up with ideas, I will.  The idea of riding across Nebraska is probably out at this point - but what I have on my mind right now would actually be more challenging physically - and pretty cool (IMO).

Stayed Tuned.

What milestones have you faced?

It doesn’t have to be a birthday, but I’m interested in hearing others fitness or life milestones that you have encountered.  How it impacted you?  How it propelled you to better places?  Etc.

See you on the roads!

So here it is - race week, 6 days before I participate in my first actual Ironman race (done the distance without the label) and I’ve spent a good amount of the last 4 days in the hidden corners of my mind asking myself - “Why do I want to be an Ironman?”

I’m thankful that I haven’t had to analyze this question before now because there is a possiblity that I couldn’t come up with a good answer, therefore making the daily training even more difficult. But the process of training is over, I have put in 451 hours and 50 minutes of training in 2007 to get to this point. At times I’ve felt cursed with this desire to know “why” about everything or to find an underlying meaning for every action. After reading the new biography on Einstein, I wonder how difficult it was for him to never find a “unified theory”. Imagine having such an intimate knowledge of this universe, only to come to a point in life where there doesn’t appear to be a simplistic methodology for understanding it. I guess that is a curse some people bare, the curse to find meaning and an inability to just let things be what they are. With that perspective in mind, here you go:

As I have thought about this, the interesting thing for me is that from the beginning (1999) to now, there has been a gradual transformation in the reasoning for why I wanted to participate in endurance activities.

The Beginning - I wanted an opportunity to say F-You to those who said I couldn’t.

I have written before about my experiences trying to play high school football in Nebraska. Even though when I sat down on January 1st, 1999 and wrote down my goals for this new adventure I didn’t put, “Show that A-hole you are better than he thought” I know that it was still there somewhere. I actually wrote down some glorified mumbo jumbo like, “use this experience as a platform to help others succeed.” I’m not sure what that really means, which is why there hasn’t been very many people that have benefited from my marathon running, triathlon races, adventure races or long distance cycling rides but me… to this point.

Why Ironman? Interesting enough, I’m not sure why I decided to make Ironman a goal. When I started I didn’t know how to swim and I didn’t own a road bike. There are two possibilities here: One - while attending the University of Nebraska I started to meet people involved with triathlon and Ironman was “the ultimate” in triathlon according to most people I talked to. Two - While running my first marathon I ended up running with a guy from Iowa. Not sure who he was, but he seemed helpful, at first. After a little discussion he started a long list of negative aspects about my marathon attempt. In a period of 5 miles he said, “You are going to Bonk” at least 20 times. He was incredibly negative about what I was doing and went on and on about how he was just using the marathon to “practice” as he was preparing for Ironman Florida. He was right, I did bonk and had a miserable last 10 miles. Maybe because I hadn’t trained enough (likely) or possibly because that guy convienced me that I wasn’t prepared. Either way, that jerk stole my joy. He took my happiness and accomplishment and trivalized what I had done (or was doing).

The “I’m gonna get you sucka” stage.

Once I got into a pattern of racing I fell into a phase that had me constantly comparing myself at races to others, specifically others that I felt I “had” to beat. Why did I have to beat them? Ego.

Eric Atnip says something quite a bit that helps put this into pespective. He commonly says, “I don’t get paid to do this.” How true. This doesn’t mean that being competitive is wrong or evil, but it does allow one to review where their competitive motivation comes from. Is it from a place that wants to crush the other guy because you want to “humble” them and boost your own “self-worth” or is it an opportunity to push each other to new peaks in performance or capabilities.

One thing that I’ve gained by living in Lexington, Kentucky is an environment that is filled with supportive competition. The culture of support among the endurance athletes in this town is tremendous. It is supportive and positive, something that I didn’t experience when I was entering into the sport while in college. (Not to say there wasn’t support in Lincoln or that everyone loves each other in Lexington, but my experience in the two environments couldn’t be more different.)

A lot of lessons can be learned by how some of the professionals act when winning and losing. Chris McDonald taught me a great lesson by his actions at Ironman Louisville on August 26th.

I’m glad that about 90% of that mentality has been removed from my concious and racing. Races would be incredibly unfulilling if that is where I was left today.

Where does my motivation come from today?

If I could narrow it down to a single word it might be - fulfillment. Or maybe a word like, empowering, living, satisfaction, humility….

If I could put it down in simple statements it might be any one of the following:

• - to pursue excellence in a singular area
• - to create discipline within a complicated mind in a crazy world
• - to remember that life is lived in moments of now, not recollections of times past
• - to instill a thankfullness to my God that allows me such a wonderful gift
• - to develop a trust in something other than my own mind
• - to understand pain
• - to disallow physical pain’s grip upon my conciousness
• - to disallow phychological pain’s manifestation on my body
• - to help carry some of the burdens that others’ spirits hold (Specifically for Ironman Wisconsin I will be thinking about the burdens that God has placed upon my aunt Connie and John Reier.)
• - to remember the blessings that I get on a daily basis
• - to honor those that have had a part in my development
• - to have an excuse so that I don’t drink too much once again…
• - to run from problems that seem to have no answer … because there will be an answer once those feet hit the pavement. There always is.
• - to understand the value of working hard

I realize that all of this may seem a little hokie for those reading this. “How can you get all that out of running a damn race?” I agree that it may seem overstated, I could have developed and matured from the person I was in 1999 to the person I am now without ever having run a single mile. But I didn’t! There are two tools that God has given me to deal with the demons I face and improving myself as a person - poetry and physical endurance. I’m not so open to sharing my poetry anymore, so you get to look into the window of my life through my racing.

If you want to read about someone else’s journey that just finished at Ironman Louisville, I suggest you go read Courtney’s Race Report. Sometimes a race means more than just what happens on a single day. Think about the lasting impression John “Blazeman” Blais will have upon the concious of those in the war on ALS.

Sure, there will be moments this Sunday where I will be motivated by images of me walking up to certain individuals and saying “F–K You!” But thankfully, I have a list of things that now motivate me than just that.

Checking out until next week. Follow Nikki and I at www.ironmanlive.com. Nikki’s race number is 2031, my race number is 437. There also will be text updates at various times at, www.twitter.com/ditschfitness