Darwin Awards and New Years Resolutions

For the snarky and snide (or for those who are looking for a good laugh), the Darwin Awards are an endless source of entertainment. Stories of how people perish by welding gas containers that contain fuel, or how you can die when you look down an elevator shaft provide endless entertainment and cringe worthy moments to procrastinators and those who have a lot of daylight to waste.

It is at this time of year that people make some form of minor commitment to become a better person. Why the connection to the darwin awards? Because human beings have a chance for self improvement; most mistakes don't cause an elimination from the gene pool. Here are some things that I would like to improve upon, and if I don't, I hopefully won't end up with a fitness of zero.

1) Be more willing to do or say something. In the past, I have walked away from doing things that I was unsure of. Someone once told me "that is just who I am". If I perceived the risk of the action too high, or the outcome uncertain, then I would take the safe road. It is my goal to change that. I need to be more willing to act with less concern for a consequence. If I have another chance, I will not let it slip away.

I remember my mistakes, now I need to fix them.

2) Call and write more. Too much of the contact between my friends is impersonal-text messages, online messaging, etc. With these, it is difficult to tell tone and inflection, making it difficult to understand the true meaning of the speaker. So if I have your address, expect a letter. And maybe a phone call. I promise I am not creeping, just trying to stay in touch. Throw your address in the comments if you want something handwritten.

3) Eat healthier. I plan on going "paleo"(for those that are unfamiliar with this term, it means to very loosely eat how a cave man would eat-lots of protein, vegetables, nuts, etc and stay away from refined grains and sugar) for a month or two. The reason why I put it in quotes is that I am only going to go partly paleo-I will continue to eat the food that I already have in my cabinet (I have probably a month or two of food stocked up with rice, pasta, cereal, etc), but only buy paleo foods at the grocery store to restock the cabinet/fridge. I also am going to make lots of exceptions to this diet. I go home every Sunday (and sometimes other days) for family dinner, and my mom's cooking (and dad's bbq'ing) is delicious. If a friend wants to go out to get a meal, I will eat whatever I want. So pretty much this only applies to the meals that I prepare.

Notice no grains and dairy. Unfortunate. 

At the end, hopefully I will be running this fast and sveltely. 

4) To use a total cliché, don't make people a priority who make you an option.

Source. One of my favorite images/memes.

5) Race hard and don't be afraid of bonking during a race, because it will eventually happen. With the exception of the past two weeks, I have had a very successful offseason and past season. The hours will continue to build through the coming months, and I have decided some of my races for the spring and summer. I will be returning to Escape from Alcatraz, and I will be racing at ITU World Championships in Edmonton. For these races (and whatever other ones I decide upon), I am going to push myself harder within the races and see what my real limit is.

 For training, I am continuing to work with Martin Spierings, and I also just joined a local triathlon team sponsored by Every Man Jack. The team is filled with dedicated, very fast athletes who are consistently at the top of the podium in every distance. It is headed by Ritch Viola, who recently won both Ironman Tahoe and Ironman Arizona. I am very much looking forward to training with the team and racing with them this season.

Real Running

Running has exploded recently. There are 5ks, 10ks, color runs, run for various charitable causes, etc. Individuals/corporations have convinced enough people to run while they are bombarded with food coloring, being chased by people dressed up as zombies, etc to be profitable. Mostly these events are not "competitive" in the sense that they do not draw the fastest crowds, but are for fun.

Given that it is Thanksgiving, people obviously need to run to burn off all of the empty calories that they are going to be eating afterwards, so most communities have some form of a "Turkey Trot". Piedmont is no different, and for a town of roughly ~10,000 people, the race has around 2,000 runners each year. Typically, in the crowd, there are some fast runners, mainly college kids who are coming back, and some parents in the community who are very fast.

Earlier this year, I had won a smaller edition of a similar race in town, that had only attracted ~700 runners, and none of the typical faster runners. I had been flirting for the past few months with trying to make myself into a "real" runner, someone who actually maybe kinda sorta doesn't always hate running and might actually enjoy it from time to time when the moon is in the third phase of Saturn but under the watchful eye of Scorpio.

I put effort into my longer runs, and my runs were more consistent, and after this short experiment with running, I decided to put myself in with the self seeded runners at the front of the Turkey Trot.

Typically at these smaller community races, kids like to line up at the front and take off at the gun for about 20 yards. That is fun and awesome, until the rest of the field comes behind them and then this happens: 

The rest of the field comes bearing down on them like a pack of hungry zombies. Kids get knocked over, limbs fly everywhere, and then it's the end of the world.

The race had a small section just behind the start line where you could self seed if you thought that you were capable of running the course under 18 minutes, and with about 4 minutes to go to the start of the race, there were only two or three people in there with me. Then a few more showed up, and then came a few more, and there ended up being about 10-12 of us in the front corral. 

Some of the runners in the front corral.

At the start, we took off. There was dead silence except for the pounding of feet against the pavement, and the breathing of the runners. This was no joke. 

Through the first half mile, the race is pretty flat/downhill, and the group only stretched out a little. I put myself in a group of three that was behind the front group by about 3 seconds heading into the first uphill. Living nearby, I run these hills all the time, and I figured that I would be able to make up ground on the uphills, and my weakness, in comparison to the other runners, would be the flats. 

I was wrong. These were actual runners. I only pulled one guy on the first uphill, and one person behind me shot up the hill and took the lead and gapped the field by a few seconds. This was going to be a race. 

The first mile had a net elevation change of zero (see course map), and I was through in 5:35, and sitting in about 7th place. I had already lost sight of the leaders, but I was just behind two runners, so I wasn't alone. 

The second mile started out flat, and then proceeded up a long, steady incline. Again, I hoped that my legs would allow me to make up time on the people in front and to gap the runners I was with, and again, I was wrong. I only pulled back one person in front, and I was passed by another, so my overall position didn't change. With the uphill, the pace slowed to about 6:10. 

What goes up must come down, and seeing how I was bigger than most of the runners in front of me, I hoped that my heavier mass would allow me to get down the hill faster than them, since I was incorrect about my perceived strength of running uphill. 

And I was wrong again. These were actual runners. The pace quickened down the hill, their cadence was super high, and they flew down the hill. The gap between the runners in front of me widened again, and they were away. The last mile split was ~5:20. I held on to my spot to finish 7th overall, 3rd in the 20-29 age group with a time of 17:04. 

Trucking up to the finish.

My sister also ran in the race-her first road race. With no prep, some walking and talking with friends, and running part of the way with a friend's dog, she finished her first 3mile race. I am proud of her, and hopefully she will get bit by the running bug as I somewhat have.

A post race picture where Katy, one of her friends and I were clearly not ready for it.

Slightly more prepared.

Things to take away: real runners run fast. There are more of them out there. I have a lot of work to do if I want to make up that ground. Keeping healthy will be key. I am currently dealing with a bit of heel discomfort/pain that comes and goes, and hopefully I will be able to sort that out as I push on with the offseason of training.

Now that coaching water polo is over, I will try to keep this more up to date. Thanks for reading.

Let's make life as inconvenient as possible

When we fly, we are told that in the name of safety, we need to take off our shoes, we can't wear belts, and that, save for a few, no liquids can pass through the security checkpoint. We unpack our laptops, and pull whatever we have in our pockets out to be scanned. We then pass through either metal detectors, or a scanning machine that produces images that look like this:

When we are finished with this dance, we frenetically put our shoes back on, shove our belongings back into a backpack, and run, holding our pants up to our gate, hoping that the 45 minutes we stood in line to be verified that we are not a terrorist didn't cause us to miss our flight.

Initially, I did not have a problem with all of these procedures. Anyone can google the anarchist's cookbook and using a few simple chemicals, injure, maim, and kill.

These security protocols are slowly spreading to

Best Motivational Videos

So there are a bunch of motivational videos out there on the internet. Below are my personal favorites.

Do not be afraid to fail. Embrace it. And then get up from that failure and get better.

5k run and swim

On Saturday, I had the opportunity to support two causes that are close to me. The first of which is a school district where I work has a wellness center to help students who are struggling with stress, depression and any other form of mental health issues, and for the past three years they have put on a fundraiser 5k. I ran in it last year, and signed up again to give me something to train for through the months that I am coaching water polo.

Shortly after I signed up for the race, the master's team that I occasionally swim with as my schedule allows announced that they were doing a swimathon to raise money for a friend who is battling cancer. She was a former age group swim coach of mine, and my babysitter. Looking at the timing of the events, I realized that it would not be a problem to do both. If you would like to donate to support my friend, comment below or message me, and I will get you the details. I will match every donation.

For the run, I knew that my preparation would be pretty solid. After racing at nationals, and my disappointing run, I made a commitment to myself to run every day for 100 days. Some days it is as little as a mile, but I have been averaging roughly 3.5 miles/run. I have also been doing roughly one track workout a week to help with my speed. I am about halfway through my 100 day commitment, and my legs have been feeling pretty solid, so I went into the race hoping to come away faster than last year.

I got to the race, and with the race being put on by the school district, many of my current and former students were there. A few of my water polo players were there, and a few of the people I train with at the track workouts were there, so I knew that there would be some competition. 

I did my usual warm-up, and made my way to the start line. As this is a community race, a bunch of the younger kids like to line up at the start, so the first three or four rows of racers are all kids under 14. While this is adorable, it is also a little dangerous. They sprint the first 25-50 yards, and then slow down. Behind them are another ~400 racers who are running who are now effectively playing dodge the kid to avoid running them over.

I lined up about 4 rows deep with some of the people that I do the track workouts with, and we laughed at the little kids in front of us. At the start, as predicted, the little kids took off. Then one tripped. Then two more tripped. Within the first 100 yards, we had the potential for a bunch of people to get hurt. I carefully picked my way around the kids, and one of my track friends (Steve) went with me.

Through the first mile, I was running side by with a guy I didn't know (henceforth, Nemo), and Steve was behind us by a few steps. The first mile was all flat or downhill, and it ticked off quickly in just under 5:30. I was noticing that Nemo was pulling ahead a little on the flats, but with my superior mass (I weighed more than him by a bit), I was able to use my momentum to keep pace on the downhill.

Then came the first hill. Hills are one thing that I get to run regularly around here, so I pushed the tempo up the hill, and Nemo and Steve fell behind by about ten seconds. The hill was pretty short, and followed by a short flat section, and I was quickly caught again. I knew that the course was hilly, and assuming that I could push the later hills, the course would play into my favor.

Here's the course. Downhill, then uphill, then downhill...and you get the point.

The next hill came quickly, and it was a long one. It goes from the middle of Piedmont to almost the top. I kept my rhythm pretty steady until about halfway up, and then put the pace down a little. The breathing and footsteps that had been right on my shoulder faded away, and I was able to put some time between the two trailing runners.

At the top of the hill, I let my legs go beneath me on the downhill. I wasn't hurting after the hill, but I knew that there was a brief climb at the end, so I would need to save something for that if I was caught. I started making mental notes as I passed spectators and volunteers in the timing of the cheers for Nemo and Steve to try and judge how far behind me they were. In the past I would have looked, but I am trying to get away from that and run with confidence, rather than fear of getting caught, so I kept my eyes forward and my ears back.

I noticed that the gap was getting smaller, but I knew that I had one more hill at the end. I slowed my tempo just a bit to save my legs, and at the base of the hill, I could hear one set of footsteps behind me by a few strides. This is when I threw down what I had left.

The gap slowly got bigger, and at the top of the hill, I took a quick look behind me and saw that I had about 8 seconds on Nemo. Steve wasn't in sight. I pushed through the end, and finished in 17:57, more than a minute faster than my result from last year.

I waited around for a few minutes to congratulate the other finishers, and then I grabbed my stuff to head over to the swim-a-thon. There was a wave of swimmers going off at 9:30, and I was planning on being in that wave. I had raised a bit of money (if you want to donate, you still can-either a flat rate or a per lap donation), and I was looking forward to seeing my friend who was going to show up.

I ended up swimming mostly by myself, and doing 25x200s, to do 5000 yards in one hour and one minute. The team was able to raise more than $3500, and hopefully we will be able to pull more in the next couple of days.