Gary’s Fitness Blog

I am about half way through a book titled “Beyond Booked Solid” by Michael Port. The book is a business read, but I just read through a section that seemed to apply very well to an athlete’s attempt at a new fitness goal (Remember - Brad says we are all athletes!).

In the chapter, Projects - How to Get Things Done, Port goes through a list of “simple rules to get things done.” Of course the rules are designed to address a business project, but isn’t taking on a half marathon, marathon or a triathlon a project? A project on yourself!

Think of all the management skills you have to use when you begin this journey of endurance: scheduling workouts, relationship building, family management, coordinating outsourced help (from coach, trainer, nutritionist, physical therapist, etc)… it really is a project.

Reading through the list of rules that Port shares, the one that really made me think about this connection was the last rule - “Have a Compelling Story for Your Project.” Let me share a couple quick quotes from that section:

“Keeping your passion and your focus depends on telling and retelling the story of your project” … “[your story] will become increasingly important as you face problems, setbacks, or any type of project breakdown”

Discussing some research by Dan McAdam’s, author of The Redemptive Self: Stories Americans Live By, Port talks about the value of our story to our behaviors:

“.. when we tell our life stories, we are really just telling ourselves who we are and why. McAdams found, for example that successful people often tell a life story characterized by overcoming adversity, connections with others, and a belief in the future. In fact, the narrative themes we choose when we tell our life story may well be diriving factors in our behavior.”

The Direct Application to the Journey of Endurance:

Some of the stories that I’ve heard over the years are pretty amazing.  When I think about the people that give me motivation to continue my own journey, it is because they have had a compelling story.  Here are a couple stories:

- Gordo Byrn - now he is a professional triathlete, finished top five at Ironman multiple times and has a performance lab in his basement in Boulder, Colorado.  But that hasn’t always been the truth, nor was it the story that inspired me to call him my hero in triathlon.  At the age of 30, Gordo was a beginner, just like most of us - with a full time job, etc, etc.  He used to talk often of his process to “come off the couch” and become the professional athlete.  This story is actually the force that compelled a masters swimmer to tell me about him back in 2001, and while the professional Gordo is interesting, the couch to athlete story is motivating.

- Brad (right here at sweat365) -  The title of his blog is pretty revealing, “Fat Kid becomes Ironman.”  Over the past year, I’ve had the ability to read and share in Brad’s story because he has been open to us readers through his blog.  It is a story that many people probably relate to, especially when they decide to take on this endurance project.

There are many more stories that I’ve heard at races, on blogs and lately on podcasts (steverunner, zentriathlon and confessionsofarunner), but one thing to think about when figuring out your own story is this:

Take control of your story.  Define your own path.  Don’t be afraid to dream (and become) big. Be positive.

I have written about the benefit of positive “story telling” in a post I titled:  Talk Yourself into a Better Triathlon Performance.  It was about the thoughts I had after reading Bobby McGee’s book, “Magical Running,” integrated with some ideas that I shared about - Mental Training for Endurance Athletes.

One of the more personal stories that I’ve shared related to self-image and running was a story I shared a couple years ago, Define Yourself (and Be Positive).  The point was of sharing that story is that we will have face our doubters.  We’ll have people telling us we can’t do that because we are not good enough, fast enough, strong enough, healthy enough or anything-not-like-them-enough.

It might be that we’ll have more people telling us that we can’t than telling us we can.  I even had a guy continually telling me I was “running too fast” - “was going to bonk” - “wasn’t going to finish” while running my first marathon.  (Jerk!)

But that’s the secret.  Develop your story.  Define who you are, what you want to accomplish and then share it.  The platform here at sweat365 gives you that ability.  And then sell that story to every person you see.

Micheal Port says in his book, “Never discount the power of the stories you tell about your projects.  Stories articulate why a project is important to everyone involved, and they keep the project on track.”

I’d love to hear your story.  If you’ve already constructed your story - Please share it by posting a link in the comments of this post.  We can all improve by reading other compelling stories.

The picture above is from this past weekend. The weekend was a good reminder as to what balance can create for your health, sometimes fitness, but may not be a positive factor for performance. Read On.

This past weekend Nikki and I spent Saturday afternoon through Sunday afternoon at the Boone Creek Anglers Club. It was a short retreat with the other trainers and families from Fitness Plus (the studio we personal train at). It was a great way to spend some time socializing, relaxing, hiking and just being around nature. We often take little trips outdoors in order to get away. Thankfully, we live in Kentucky where there is a lot of natural beauty to be explored. (Even though people say that we should still be living out west if that is what we truly desired… take a look for yourself. Pictures here.)

The whole experience allowed me to solidify some thoughts that I have been having on what type of year I would like to have in triathlon, running and competing.

The process of an active lifestyle:

Last year around the New Year, I wrote a post discussing the benefits of setting up process goals. It sounds easy, but often we fall into the outcome based thinking. As I approached Ironman Wisconsin in September, I felt that pressure to become more and more outcome focused. Some of that pressure was from others always asking what my goals were, some of the pressure was within in my own mind deciding what would be and what would not be successful.

I feel like I succeeded in fighting off those pressures and just allowing my training plan take care of itself and allowing the race to happen. (You can read my race report if you want.) The interesting thing for me was what happened after the Ironman. I quickly became dissatisfied with my accomplishment and found myself looking for how I could “better” my efforts this year. And by better, I mean, how can I prove myself to others and myself again.

By November, I was making plans to do two and possibly three ironman distance races in 2008. And my training plan was beginning to be sketched out. But that is not what I want to be about. I can’t force myself to be happy only by beating “x” or even out-doing myself. Triathlon, running and all the activities that I’ve competed in over the last 9 years has been about a lifestyle.

I find it interesting that on January 1st, 1999, I sat down and wrote down on a piece of paper

“complete a marathon”

And nine years later, I fully anticipated completing a couple marathons and iron-distance triathlons in the same year. There could be a lot said about the change in lifestyle that has occurred during that time!

This year I have decided to revive my commitment to the lifestyle, the daily process of being active. I’m not 100% sure what that means right at this moment, other than it means I will seek balance in my activities and I won’t target an A race.

Why? Well my thinking is this; when I have an A race chosen each day is geared towards one single day of the year. This reality alone makes it difficult at time to chose activities that will increase my enjoyment, because the activity chosen is the one that will prepare me to do that race better.

I will still race, but hopefully no race will become more important than another. Nor will any race become more important than my Saturday rides. There might be a lot of peace available for myself if that is true.

The bottom line is that I’m taking the “Basic Week” idea to a lifestyle extreme of having a noncompetitive anticipation as my end. The reality is that is where it all began 9 years ago. As an 11 hour Ironman athlete, that is really where it is anyway!

Balance and Athletic Success:

My perspective of this as a coach is that this is not an optimal strategy that results in the best possible race. When it comes to health and fitness there is a level of balance that we all can achieve; when it comes to race performance, there is often little room for balance. The best athletes are those with a life that has little balance involved in it. If you have any questions about this, watch the documentary “What it takes“.

I received the documentary (along with the trainer version and Showdown) for Christmas. It is a very inspiring and interesting video, but you don’t see much balance available for those at the top end of the sport. They live swimming, biking and running.

Many of you are probably saying, “yeah but”. Yeah but, I don’t want to be the best. Yeah but, I’m an age-grouper not a professional. Yeah but, etc….

The truth is that at the long end of the tail, there is not much balance - even for the “everyman”. I personally will not be a top professional in Hawaii, I know that. But even when I compete against myself, I realize that to become a much faster Ironman than 11 hours, I’m going to have to sacrifice a level of balance.

In 2008 I will likely not become a faster Ironman athlete, but I will be very active. That’s the point.

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