It's Go Time!

 Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. -Theodore Roosevelt

Two weeks ago, my body finally told me, It's go time!  The 2012 training season has begun, baby!

I was wondering and longing for when it would happen. For the past three months, I've struggled to wake up to my alarm, put on my running shoes or do anything with any gusto. I've tried to just roll with that, being compassionate and respectful to my body's needs. I still have some injuries I'm diagnosing and nursing, but at long last, it feels like someone threw gasoline on the tiny embers inside of me, and I just exploded with readiness.

From the outside, my rebound appears to have coincided with the new year, but I actually launched my 2012 season back in October by deliberately resting my butt off. You've never seen somebody working so hard to accomplish so little.

The downtime and darkness has especially lent itself to reflection over the past year and setting goals for the coming one. We also had our company retreat this week, so in a comprehensive work+play way, I'm excited to launch 2012 with new visions of an integrated life.

As a four person architecture firm we strategized about how to balance all of our off-the-wall-pie-in-the-sky projects with the day-to-day normalcy and even occasional downright tedium. One outcome of this exercise was to create a more tangible rallying point in the office-- a kind of shrine (aka bulletin board) to our collective psyche and all of our dream-projects.

Due to something called "time compression diseconomies", visits to the shrine, whether consciously or subconsciously, reinforce our intentions with collective focus. They build up mutual trust and support for each others' dreams through small-dose long-term exposure that could never be garnered through a single, intense, large-dose exposure. Think Chinese water drip torture versus electric chair.

In the same way, I've tried to make mini-shrines all over my house and within my subconsious for the many things I hope for from 2012. As Steve Pavlina says, "Some of the best goals will require you to shift your vibe in order to achieve them. It could be said that the vibrational shift is an even greater accomplishment than the external goal. For example, aligning your vibe with abundance can be a greater accomplishment than earning some specific sum of money. Once you’ve integrated the vibe of abundance, your whole life is transformed, not just your finances."

So in no particular order, here's my list of goals for 2012:

1) Visit a national park I've never been to

2) Learn Portuguese and Dvorak

3) Run a 50 mile trail race

4) Qualify for Boston

5) Bike to work 3x/wk

6) Eat a big ass salad with dinner daily

7) Do my vision exercises daily

8) Renew my passport... and use it

10) Build a living hedge

11) Inuslate my house

12) Go to a nudist resort (or become one once my house gets warm from insulation)

13) Build a food forest with my family

14) Learn one magic trick and teach a kid

15) Find a cool organization to volunteer with

16) Write a stand-up comedy routine

17) Donate blood/marrow

18) Read every book recommended to me personally

19) Take nieces and nephews on adventures to new places

20) Convert my anger and anxiety into opportunity and peace

21) Start working on my PhD

22) Learn how to identify the 110 Messier objects

23) Design a zero-energy home

24) Do the American Triple-T

Having the courage to be myself continues to be one of my main challenges in life. It's almost more difficult for me to have shared this list than it is to imagine accomplishing the items. But I feel like if I put these intentions out there, while I may drive some folks away, I am drawing out others who may be able to help me. If 2011 was my "year of soil", 2012 will be my year of "bridges and bonds".

Have a bodacious new year everyone!

Barefoot Snow Running

Before winter is over, I will run barefoot through the snow. I don't mean a run through the front yard to pick up the mail, but a fo' serious run of six or seven miles. I'm not really sure why. I think I just despise winter and need to walk all over it.

In preparation, I've gone on two outdoor runs in my new Vibrams. The first was a frigid night in the high 20's F. It was against my physical therapist's instructions. (Sorry Eric). I didn't feel like doing anything, let alone run in the cold. I was all laced up in my normal running shoes, hopping in place in the kitchen to get warmed up. Every time I planted my left forefoot, it was like lightning bolts through my middle toe. I said to myself, "Screw this. If it hurts playing it safe in my normal running shoes, then I'm going to see how it feels in the Vibrams." As soon as I put them on and started warming up in place, the lightning sensation was gone. Yabba dabba doo! Then I took off, into the night.

For the first two miles my toes were painfully cold. Then, mile two to three my toes had gone numb. There was no lighting bolt sensation like usual, but I wasn't having fun and I decided to end the run and head home. All of a sudden, by mile four, my toes felt fine and were actually warm. My feet felt really friggin happy, actually, like new muscles were getting tickled. I ended up doing six. (We're telling Eric, three).

The next day my feet were sore in strange new ways--on the tops and my achilles.

Tuesday of this week, I was feeling unmotivated again when I got home from work. So, I decided the best thing would be to get what I call "grounded as hell". I put on the Vibrams and took off into the darkness.

I only made it five miles this time before my feet and achilles tendons were really tender. I ran to the studio for some sadistic weights and Tabata to finish off the workout.

My calves have been sore for the last four days now, so today I did my 9-miler in my regular shoes. They were much gentler on the calves, but mid-run I collapsed to the ground with toe pain. I took off my shoe and sock and gave my toes and foot and big True Movement massage. From then on, they were happy again.

Hunkered Down for the Winter

Many years ago, I was a novice in a religious seminary that always seemed to be under construction. The bathrooms had 1950s aluminum windows that wouldn't shut all the way and bricks missing in the wall, open to the frigid New England air. Since I was the main breakfast cook, I had to wake up at 5am and take the first shower in the dark, so as not to wake up the other brothers and fathers. "Dark, cold, silent, early, wet, poverty, chastity, obedience"-- the worst words in the English language and,  coincidentally, concepts loosely associated with winter triathlon training.

Hanging out and meditating with the seminarians.

I last raced in September and now it's almost St. Nick's Day, but I still haven't done a whole lot to speak of blog-ably. It kind of feels like the last few minutes of sleep before the alarm clock goes off-- when your body is revving to wake up, but you can still squeeze in five extra minutes of pure do-nothing rapture. My body is still in off-season mode, but it's juuuust about ready to wake back up and start training again. I can read the signs and I'm excited to be turning the corner on the funk of lo-mo (low motivation).

In the meantime, I've been finishing up some good books and doing body/home repair projects. I thought I took care of the source of the water damage above the fireplace with my brother, Matt, this fall. We rebuilt the chimney, supposedly saving ~$5000. I've earmarked that magically materialized $5000 for a trip to Kona one day, but I'm not quite convinced the water issue is solved, so the house resembles a New England seminary. I just need a dry weekend to finish up more chimney work.

Without fixing the water problem, we can't insulate the walls, so it's pretty cold in the house. The dang bananas just sit there like big green popsicles and the stone-hard persimmons tease me to death. It makes me want to kick Old Man Winter right in his stones. Luckily, we treat our bedroom like a winter fallout shelter.  We pretty much get home late from work/workouts and hunker down in our warm little cave. The walls have poster paper on them and we're busy dream crafting as we do once per year, talking about bucket lists and goals and dreams for the future. So, it's also most wonderful time of the year.

You've heard of breakfast in bed. Well, now there's dinner in bed and compost in bed. Date pits anyone?

I've been using the winter downtime to stay on top of my vision exercises every night.

Unfortunately, in my quest to resurrect elementary school flag football glory over Thanksgiving weekend, I pulled my hamstring while sprinting back for a failed interception attempt. It's close to being healed, but superfluous injuries certainly weren't on my bucket list. And in other bodily misadventures, my physical therapist homeboy, Eric Oliver, finally evaluated my pestering toe problem. He's narrowed it down to nerve damage from last season. Supposedly it's a long and annoying route to recovery. It was all the excuse I needed to go ahead and pamper myself to my latest footwear purchase-- my Vibram naked shoes.

So far, I and black women LOVE them.

I'm not exactly allowed to wear the Vibrams on dates with my wife, but I continue to negotiate what constitutes a "date." Apparently, a trip to the gas station constituted a date the other day. I am allowed to wear them to work (between construction site visits) and around town. They are much cozier than being stuck in stiff dress shoes or steel toed boots. Since I keep my toes wiggly all day, they are prepared to wiggle even harder at night if I feel like going for a run. Otherwise, I am occasionally stopped dead in my tracks by throbbing pain of cartoon-toe-throb-proportions.

As an experiment, I ran two miles on the treadmill with the Vibrams, and quickly took them off to run another two in my favorite (supposedly "minimalist") shoes-- the Saucony Kinvaras. Night and day! The regular running shoes felt clumsy, like running on half-inflated balloons. There's just no way I can believe that long hours of training in one shoe or another won't effect my mechanics. So my goal is to build up my treadmill mileage in the Vibrams and do my pavement runs in the Kinvaras, pending Eric's approval. Hopefully, before the last snow of the winter I can run at least a couple of miles barefoot in the snow. It's not necessarily the ultimate rush, but it will put hair on my chest and it supposedly feels like running through fields of cotton balls. Or maybe piranhas. We shall see.

Better Vision part 2

For those of you reading this, it means you're one of the lucky ones-- not blind and not frozen dead from movember. And as a celebration, here's some eye candy:

Tom Sellick fractal-- self similarity

It's not that I support prostate cancer, but this is as far as my mustache is allowed to go.

But just because you can see doesn't mean you have good vision. You may have good eyesight, but vision is something beyond eyes. For the last year I've been working hard at improving both of mine-- eyesight and vision. Unfortunately this past month has been particularly rough on my eyes and vision. If you've ever experienced a winter in Midwest, then you know how my soul feels come winter and daylight savings' darkness-- motivational skills be lacking. It's dark. It's hard to see past the cold. Vision becomes myopic.

I had my ass served to me hard this week when I went in to see Dr. Powers, my optometrist. His office is inside the left testicle of Satan himself-- Walmart. I know, I know, I'm so ashamed. But at least I know him by name and he knows mine. My glasses have gotten all scratched up and mangled from visits to construction sites. So, I thought the time was right to get examined for new hardware.

My brilliant plan was to get the prescription from Walmart and then, just to piss-off "the man", order my frames online for like $10. (If you know a local fair trade free range organic lens grinder, I'd love their card). The bad news is that Dr. Powers told me my astygmatism has gotten worse. That means that my eyesballs are morphing from European futbols to American footballs. I said, "Doc! This can't be, I've been trying to be really good to my eyes."

I felt like I got the wind knocked out of me. You see, I was totally convinced by the book I read last year, that it was possible to cure my sight and improve my vision through a variety of physical, mental, attitudinal exercises and mega-nutrition. Honestly, I didn't really devote myself to my vision exercises, but I still didn't expect to be moving backwards. I was damn good about my nutrition (probably because it was the closest thing I could get to a delicious magic pill). 

I wasn't quite sure how much enbrightenment I could expect from a man of the ivory tower inside the big box testicle, but I decided to put it out there, "Hey Doc, yunno, I read this book a year ago about how to improve your eyesight naturally...do you think there's anything to that?" I really laid my soul out to bare...and if Dr. Powers would have answered differently, I probably would have renounced my entire belief in the power of the plasticity of the mind...or my mind anyway.

Luckily for the human race, Dr. Powers had this to say, "That's funny you ask. I get asked that question about two or three times a year. For most of my patience, if I told them their vision would get better if they did these five or six things, they'd go home and do nothing about it. I do believe it can be done. We all fall into bad habits that can make our eye sight worse. I have a colleague who was getting great results from it himself. It's actually a hundred year old method, called the [some name I can't remember]." 

The fact that this exchange happened in Walmart was enough to restore my faith in humanity. And let's not forget our faith in the effect of the placebo. Countless studies are showing that not only do placebos work, but the more powerful the placebo, the more effective the results. For instance, a syringe-administered placebo is more powerful than a pill placebo. And a higher dosage of placebo is more effective than a lesser dosage.

Not that eye exercises and vision meditations are purely placebo, but I have to wonder, does my head ache go away because I take an asprin or because I made a decision to take an asprin? Probably both.

So, as Lady Gaga would say, "Scheiße be mine."

Biking to Work

I've been meaning to start biking the eight miles to work everyday, but I've always got a good excuse not to. The past two weeks, I shot 3-for-10-- it's a start!

Now that construction and holiday traffic are everywhere, I can beat my average car commute time pretty easily. Door to door, it takes about 30 minutes there (downhill) and about 40 minutes up the hill home.

I've also met a bunch of friendly commuters (more women than men), and now I'm convinced that if you can transport frozen sperm on a bike, then you can transport anything and anyone. My problem is that I've always been able to transport frozen sperm-- it's the non-frozen kind that I need help with.

Sperm bike transports frozen sperm around Copenhagen. Is that a frozen yogurt store?

So I went into Element Cycles for a consultation with my buddy Brett. He's the kind of guy who thrives all winter long, riding in the snow. I knew he would have all kinds of handy advice for not ending up frostbitten. "Basically, it's as simple as keeping your face, hands and feet warm. Then you should be fine. And if you ride in your small chain-ring, you'll enjoy the scenery more and not end up all sweaty and stinky." I should have asked for a guarantee about that stinky part. But so far, he's been right.

I guess the inner-triathlete in me was disappointed that I didn't need to throw excessive money at hi-tech gizmos that offer marginal improvements. So, I convinced Brett to recommend a USB-rechargeable head lamp. It attaches and detaches easily and it has an 8 hour battery life. I use this on the front handlbars, while I have tons of $3.99 red flashing clip-on lights lying around the house from years of running group swag. I make a point to use multiple flashing lights on my rear so drivers can gauge their distance and approach speed better.

Urban 180 LED head lamp

What the sperm bike has that I don't is a fender. That was this week's harshest lesson. It was drizzling when I left home at 7am last Thursday. And by the time I made it to work, the tush of my khakis had been sprayed black by my back tire. The reverse-skunk look was a big hit with my office mates and clients-- embarrassing! Even more embarrassing-- fenders. I'm sorry, I'm just not ready to take that leap.

The other harsh lesson I learned is that cotton undies just don't dry.  If you like sitting on wet smelly sponges all day long, then cotton undies are the apparel for you. "Riding Comanche" is not the fix-all you've grown up thinking it is, either.

I decided to tackle this problem from a non-sporty angle-- seeking the consult of the hippiest person I could think of-- Dan Korman, owner of Park + Vine, the green general store near my office. Dan doesn't own a car nor spandex and always wears flannel, so you know he's legit. I thought for sure, he would be selling some kind of fair trade water proof hemp coated flannel knickers at least. Nope. Dan's simple advice, "I don't really wear anything special-- just utilitarian." Thanks for tearing down my excuses, Dan!

I'm still honing in on my ideal routine. But having a routine is probably THE most important factor in whether or not I ride to work. If my tooth brush starts on the right side of the sink rather than the left, my whole routine tailspins into defcon 6 crisis mode and I end up driving. I'm like Rainman, and I need my K-mart underwear, dammit! Whether I ride in regular undies or bike shorts under my pants I simply have to put on a fresh pair once I get to the office. I'm wondering why I'm so sweaty if the ride is downhill in the cold during my off-season. Balance is the king I'm still looking for, so if you ever find someone in your attic that looks like this, you'll know I've taken the commute to work too seriously.

Russ and Chris before a pre-dawn ride around Cincinnati, the morning of our first frost.

Russ and Chris' frosty view of Cincinnati from Devou Park. The fog is rolling into the city and Ohio River from the Licking River to the south.

Money Out of Thin Air

Vibram Sprint

I know I talk a big game about stickin'-it-to-the-man, but I'm still a capitalistic wimp in certain cockles of my soul. This week, I bought two pairs of running shoes-- 1) the Saucony Kinvaras, which I'm married to and 2) I finally caved in and bought the Vibam Five Fingers which I wanted as my foot-mistress. When I showed my wife (Department of Homeland Cuteness), she vetoed the Vibrams for being too ugly, so I returned them straight away. In my warped non-Euclidian universe, that "compromise" just saved me $90!! Pay attention, it gets better.

Saucony Kinvaras. Can you tell which is the new one?

You're probably wondering what I spent that "saved" $90 on (and how Susie's vetoes leave me with any clothes at all). Well, the answer is that I bought a Garmin GPS watch-- the Forerunner 210 to be exact.

Forerunner 210

I've had a GPS watch on my Christmahannakwanza wish list for a long time, but I've just never caved. What I really wanted was the Garmin 310xt since it has a 20 hour battery life and is water proof. Unfortunately, it also costs $350. Since the Forerunner 210 only costs $250, I just saved another $100!!

310xt

Before taking the watch out of the package, I was semi-suffering from buyers remorse, so I went on the Garmin website to explore their online community and all the cool data-logging features of their GPS watches-- lo and behold-- they just came out with the replacement for the 310xt, which I covet even more. It's called the 910xt and it's a bad mamma-jamma!!

910xt. Sweet sweetness!

You don't have to know non-Euclidian math to know that

910xt -210 = 700xt

So, I kind of just saved 700xt!!!!

I will probably return the Garmin watch this week. That'll put $250 back in my pocket. It just doens't make any sense for me to buy a runners watch, when I really want a triathlon watch. You know what they say, we don't buy drills because we want drills; we buy drills because we want holes. I don't really want the watch, but I want what the watch provides-- DATA, right?

If you're keeping track of my nonsensical economics, out of thin air this week, I saved

$90 + $100 + 700xt + $250 !!!

While I know this kind of math is crazy, my psychology fudge-factors it anyway. In a sense, I think I am telling myself that not buying the watch is providing me with some kind of extra "imaginary capital" to put more effort into training without all the gadgets and gizmos and technocracy.

As a matter of fact, I have quasi-factual anecdotes backing me up on this.
1) My friend Lee Ann qualified for Boston this year and attributes her breakthrough to finally training without her GPS watch. She said running with a constant number in her face took the fun out of running as a free-spirit.
2) The guy who sold me the Forerunner 210 today warned me that I had to be careful at first because the temptation to constantly look at the watch is dangerous for running. 
3) Barefoot running is free, so why buy shoes that are advertised as barefoot shoes?

Being my off-seaon, I haven't been pouring crazy hours and efforts into my workouts this month, but I did stay up way too late exercising my nerdiness this weekend. I re-built my excel spreadsheet that programs my training calendar for the year. I also rebuilt my training log. (Just email me if you'd like me to send these to you). The key difference to my planning and logging this year will be my new-found attention to heart rate intensity points as described by Sally Edwards in her book The Heart Rate Monitor Guidebook . I've always trained with a heart rate monitor, but never with the precision that really makes the critical difference.

Here's a quote from Karl Foster Ph.D, Professor of Exercise and Sport Science from Sally's book:

"I can almost accurately predict when an athlete, almost any athlete will break down. Here's how. I take their logbook, calculate their Heart Zones Training points and then I know their workload. Next I plot that value along with their racing performances, injuries, illness over a year period of time and can then determine quantitatively their individual workload threshold value. When they surpass their workload threshold for a relative period of time-- KABOOM, they are hurt, drained, destroyed, fried, trashed."

Calculating your Heart Zones Training Points is easy only if you're familiar with your own heart rate numbers and your own five heart rate zones.

Zone 1 (50%-60% of Max)

Zone 2 (60%-70% of Max)

Zone 3 (70%-90% of Max)

Zone 4 (80%-90% of Max)

Zone 5 (>90% of Max)

My max heart rate is around 190 beats per minute, but it really depends on the activity. When doing sprint intervals on the track, I've seen it hit 200, but I don't like to do that often.

Points = Zone Number x Minutes  

So, if you spend 10 minutes at Zone 1, that's 10 Points. If you spend 10 minutes at Zone 5, that's 50 Points. Add up all your minutes in all of your zones for the week and you get some number that may provide a healthy dose of adaptive stress to your system, or it just may overload it. Amateur athletes can handle about 2000 Points per week, while Olympic athletes handle as much 6000 Points per week. For many elite athletes, about 3000 Points is the norm.

I've never kept track of my Points, so I don't know where my limits were last year. I'm anxious to find out this coming season. To help keep me on track, I interviewed a coach who looks very promising and who I think may be able to better orchestrate the timing and amplitude of my peak this year. With all the money I saved this week, I'm one step closer in affording her. Hooray!

One [Chimney] at a Time

Next weak I'm headed to San Francisco and that reminds me-- Happy Birthdays-- to Emotiv and my father-in-law Ben!

My company, Emotiv, was actually born in San Francisco in October 2005, which means we're six years old. Holy smokers! Back then, I had a lot of confidence and excitement that I was starting a really cool and necessary business. I was a dude in a "truck" (sedan) out to save the planet. Success was destined to blow-in on the winds of booming real estate, skyrocketing energy prices, consumers' growing sensitivity about Mother Earth getting raped. That was my business plan, stripped of all the math, anyway. 

I envisioned forming deep relationships with my customers, such, that after six years of hand-holding, we would have retrofitted their houses into high-performance energy ass-kickers and would by now be cutting their last ties to the grid, selling our franchises by the dozens, and harvesting squash out back. But things haven't exactly gone according to plan. Emotiv is now solely doing business on the astral plane, fighting the forces of evil in non-conventional-profit sorts of ways, while I do similar energy gymnastics for Sol design + consulting. 

When I look back on it, I realize my biggest mistake was that I didn't do one...damn...thing...perfectly. I did many things adequately, many things 95%, many things I enjoyed, but too many that I didn't enjoy. So for now, Emotiv is just kinda haunting this One [blank] blogosphere with it's spirit until it finds a new materialization.

As a tribute to my wise, hilarious, sincere father-in-law, Ben, who celebrates his 70th birthday this month, this reflection's for you. You're the youngest 70 year old I've ever known. Thanks for teaching me about the "one thing".

One thing. Period!

This week's One Thing
Fixing my water leak with my brother Matt is integral to my own "one thing" this week.

This spring's record rainfall found its way into the house above the fireplace.

 "Maybe the flashing is loose at the chimney?" 

"Negatory. We've got bigger problems with the chimney's brick and cap."

How bad is it?

Well, the top six courses of brick are more like six courses of top soil and roots. Very moist. Very bad.  Let's just rebuild the chimney.


OK-- I'm not training for anything. I can be training Karate Kid style.

 

 It gets worse before it gets better.

Matti about to pour the new chimney cap.

Chimney finished-- the 8th wonder of the world.

This week has been uncharacteristically hot and dry, which means we haven't had a chance to see what this baby can do in a storm. I trimmed back the branches that were in danger of touching the house, which should also help future-proof our casa. Matti's been tuck-pointing the brick too over the past couple of days. What a talented guy! Now we just have to re-plaster the wall and ceiling above the fireplace and we should be home free. Oh wait!!!! This week's One Thing turned into two.

25 years is about 3 times the life expectancy of a water heater. 

Our water heater died. It was actually the ideal week for it to happen if there is such a thing. There is nothing worse than cold showers to stress your marriage. But we were able to go the whole week without losing our stride. Susie just showered at the gym and I just took cold showers after my evening runs.

Luckily I had done my homework on a model that I thought would be both a good temporary fix as well as a good segue into my solar water heating system that I have almost all the parts for. (I just need a large storage tank). 

Of course the new water heater is just a bit taller than the old. This made the flue slope downward, which is a dangerous situation. So, I had to open a new hole in the cement block wall and chimney. You really get in touch with your manhood in a deep way when you have to bash a hole in your house with you wife watching. 

Whatever the DIY books and the internet sites estimate as the amount of time it takes to complete a project, I normally just multiply that by pi to budget my time. But this project took 10 hours when it should have taken 30 minutes of work and 60 minutes of logistics and prep. Note to self-- when you go to the hardware store and they ask, "Would you like some help?" when you decode those hateful words, what they are really asking is, "Would you like a red herring and all the wrong pipe threadings?"

Harvest Time-- Kentucky Banana Festival

Where else can you shave a Llama, practice your atlatl self-defense skills, and gorge yourself on the only tropical fruit that thrives in Ohio? The Pawpaw Festival of course!!

Dad, Matti, and I hit up Athens, Ohio last weekend for an edu-taining day, immersing ourselves in Native American (and carnie) lore. Athens is the self-proclaimed pawpaw capital of the world. The pawpaw is sometimes called the Kentucky banana, and these people go bananas for them.

Big Daddy Dwyer

Big daddy Kentucky banana

The adventure coincided with a mind-blowing book I'm reading called "1491" by Charles C. Mann about what the Western Hemisphere was like prior to Christopher Columbus kicking off the European invasion that wiped out 95% of the population. Mann blows holes in the myth that America was an untouched wilderness when the Europeans arrived. We have this erroneous image of eco-Indians leaving no footprints on a virgin forest, when in fact they were quite busy doing some large scale plant cultivation and geo-engineering. He even argues that the Amazon is a remnant of an orchard once-managed by the millions of inhabitants who used to live there. They also managed the bison and passenger pigeon populations before they reached millions and billions, respectively. We call the Western Hemisphere the "new world", even though it was teaming with millions of people while Europe was still buried under ice.

FESTIVAL PICS

Beneath the totem pole, we learned how to make fire the old fashioned way-- from a hungover Indian impersonator in aviators. Matti suspects his "sunglasses" were actually decorative grisly bear eye balls.

Alpaca wool comes in a variety of colors (no need for dyes). It is softer, warmer, more durable, and cleaner than wool. I'm not sure if you can smoke it, but I'm pretty sure everybody at the Pawpaw Festival has tried.

You could burn some calories making ice cream the way Indians used to?

It doesn't look like a nanner, but it tastes GOOD.

Raccoons and squirrels usually get the wild ones around our house.

It's like eating a Gogurt-- just squeeze the mush out. It can taste like caramel, honey, mango, banana, apple, pineapple, melon, and/or peach custard. Wild ones can also taste kinda bitter. My favorite cultivated variety is the Shenandoah.

The atlatl is part arrow, part spear, thrown with a lever. It was more accurate and deadly than European guns at the time of Columbus or Cortez.

A couple of weeks ago, my sky was falling when I heard an NPR interview of Dan Koeppel, author of Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World. In his book, he talks about the demise of our beloved Cavendish species that we all know from the grocery store. We eat more Cavendish bananas than apples and oranges combined! Soon, the Cavendish will be extinct since it is being wiped out by something called Panama Disease and each banana is a genetically susceptible seedless clone. It's unfortunate, because on so many levels, bananas are "quite possibly, the world's perfect food." They're delicious, nutritious, calorie dense, cheap, durable, transportable, convenient, beautiful, wiener-shaped. What's not to like? Just their shallow gene pool I suppose.

Don't expect this car or its fruity decoration to live much longer. The banana's days are numbered. Don't look for a pawpaw version of the car either-- whoever said the pawpaw is the next banana doesn't understand home economics or the first law of thermodynamics.

Despite their good intentions, the Pawpaw Festival shattered any illusions I had of making the pawpaw a local replacement for my staple food, the banana (I eat about 20 per day). Calling the pawpaw the "Kentucky banana" or "Hoosier banana" is a huge misnomer. Here's where the pawpaw doesn't live up to the banana:
*they sells for $10/lb!!!!! (compare that $.10/lb that I sometimes pay for my nanners)
*they bruise easily
*they ripen, and then fall off the tree spontaneously (the banana ripens after being picked)
*only 65-75 grow per tree per year
*trees cannot be grown easily or densely (~290/acre)
*harvests are sporadic, sometimes non-existant, and usually last only about 6 weeks starting in August
*they are filled with about 10 big astringent seed casings which aren't good for smoothies
*the squirrels and raccoons and deer usually get first dibs from the wild ones

If I had my wish from the genetic modification genie, I'd cross-breed the pawpaw with the seedless watermelon and the banana, so that you could have a huge red fruit (everyone likes red), with no seeds (no one likes seeds), a convenient wrapper only opened by creatures with opposeable thumbs (I'm all thumbs), with some occasional wiener-shapes to boot (everyone likes provocative fruit). 

Wiener-shapes are actually an important component to the history of the banana. The scandalous shape offended Victorian comportment and may have prevented them from gaining traction on the apple sooner. They came up with all kinds of clever ways to serve them in more modest ways--chopped up or wrapped up. Victorian marketing campaigns were pretty clever to get images of Victorian ladies eating bananas uncut and uncensored all over the Victorian version of the internet.

Race Report: Ironman Wisconsin 2011

I'm still marinating in the gazpacho of emotions from last week's Ironman. It was awesome. And it sucked. It can be punctuated with a lot of these-- !!!!, but also a lot of these-- #$%#@. As my wise friend, Neeraj, said, "You didn't die and you finished; therefore, you won!" Yes. Yes! AND YES!!! That's so true, "So shut up, ego, and leave me alone for a minute to marinate."

In many ways, it stands out as THE benchmark day amidst a benchmark year amidst my life. Without so many lovely people on-site and others crowding my brain that day, so much to be grateful for, I would have quit and/or be mostly dead. You are all the best.

For all my Ironfans who want the juicy details, you're going to get 'em. And for my own peace of mind, who needs to make sense of the day and take lessons for next year, let's get busy answering the burning question on everyone's mind, or mine anyway...WTF?

Have you seen that wiener of a dude at the finish line, stomping his foot for not going fast enough? That's not me, this time. (Give me an intervention if it ever is). Believe me, I gave myself total permission to go as slow as I needed to, in order to not end up in a ditch on a Wisconsin dell. I respect my body and the event's brutality too much. Let's face it-- Ironman is tough, no matter which way you cut it. This time it took me 14:00 and change. Hopefully, the puke that I wallowed through can at least be used for the forces of good.

I finished, but the puke didn't.

Plan A, was pie-in-the-sky and the wind at my back, was 10:00.

Plan B was 10:45, based on some key workouts that I thought were justified.

Plan C was faster than last year's 11:51.

Plan D was to help my friend reach his goal.

Plan E was to finish with my friend in case he didn't reach his goal.

And Plan WTF was to beat the 17:00 cutoff time.

The implied goal, of course, was to live to tell the tale. And this...I barely did. Long-story-short, my belly decided he wasn't going to participate that day. He had his own fantastic voyage.

HOW IT ALL WENT DOWN (but didn't stay down)
Three weeks before the race, I was feeling like I hit a wall with my training. My energy level plummeted to uncharted levels of weirdness. I believe I was crashing down from my season high-point of back-to-back epic weekends of racing piled on top of excessive hours of training. So, to salvage the season, I prematurely launched phase 1 of my taper two weeks early. I cut down my weekend volume to about 1/2 and the intensity to about 80% the norm. I also cut down my weekday volume to about 50% the volume but upped the intensity.

The hopeful news in my mind was that date season was back and my organic date supplier in Cali was shipping once again. Operation race day date-o-rade was a go. I bought a 15 lbs variety pack and started soaking. I soaked 150 dates of all sizes for 48 hrs. Then I strained the pulp away from the syrup-water and froze the concoction.

Peristalsis was never meant to be seen outside the body.

dateorade ready to freeze till race day

SWIM
My plan was to go 1:10 in the swim--fast enough to improve my time from last year, but slow enough that I would be mentally certain that I had held back. I went 1:09, which sounds on target, but it was very hard-earned. I felt off from the beginning. Everyone advised to take the turns wide. So, what did I do? I took the first turn as tight as I could. That resulted in me becoming a human bitch-slap dummy. At one point I was even going backwards around the buoy. I didn't notice till the end of the night, but it gave me scrapes and bruises all over my chest. I think I may have even lost my virginity.

7AM swim starts to U2's It's a Beautiful Day

From the first turn, I was stuck on the inside lane, in no man's-land, constantly drifting inward, never in a pack to draft off of. It was a blur, except one distinct memory of rounding the second turn, pacing exactly to the right of a guy who was breathing every stroke to his right, while I breathed every stroke to my left. Our mouths were uncomfortably close to sharing the same air space in a synchronized French kiss. And then it was over. My manhood and my day.

T1
I swore I was going to walk up the three levels of the spiral parking ramp to make sure 1) that my heart rate had recovered from excessive boxing effort and 2) to make sure I didn't bruise my soles for the run (as my friend Amy had warned me about). I've been known to step on staples during races, too.

Earth to? I feel violated.

The fun part was laying on the ground while the wetsuit removers practically yanked me back to my feet. I could never have taken it off as fast without them. "Good decision, Chris."

BIKE
The course was gorgeous dairy land. Barely any flat portions at all. The hills weren't steep, but you just never had a long enough section of flat to get your groove on. The plan was to take the first lap uncomfortably slow for the first 56 miles, in an easier gear than I would normally ride, making sure to keep my heart rate absolutely below 167 and on average, at my upper zone 2 limit (155). Anyone can ride fast on a bike. But very few people can run fast after riding.

Needless to say, I continued to feel just...off. I devoted myself to taking in water, but like an idiot, I had my first salt pill too early, with barely any water in my system. So, I tried to dilute it by finishing my aerobar water bottle. My hear rate was glued to 167 for the first 20 minutes. Then I started to drink my dateorade. It kinda burns the throat at first, since it's so concentrated, but before I knew it, the first bottle was gone. Yet I didn't feel energized in any way, as I normally do. Instead, I started getting the dreaded burps. This required me to sit up (not in the tucked aero position) to sort of resolve the situation by practically belching the alphabet.

Taking in a salt pill.

Then the burps evolved into dry heaves. Then the dry heaves evolved into all-out projectile vomit to the side of the bike. The recoil almost tipped me over. Then, it became so violent that I actually had to dismount the bike so I could give it the proper bodily follow-through. The evacuation of my belly felt refreshing, like my body hit the reset button. So, for a few miles I would ride hard. But I was becoming dangerously dehydrated and wasn't taking in any calories. So, I started on the Powerbar gels. These had a comforting familiarity to them, but it wasn't long before they too started to get burpy.

I saw my family twice, which was great. It's just a quick neck jerk, though--kinda strains the eyeballs to look to the sides trying to find where those familiar voices are coming from. Luckily they were all in their neon spirit wear and had the inflatable octopus.

At about mile 80, I knew my entire race was in jeopardy. I could feel the dehydration. I had no appetite for food and everything I put down came right back up. In retrospect, it would have been best to get off the bike and attempt a proper sit down meal. 20 minutes of undivided attention to the GI could have saved about two hours of marathon torture.

By mile 100, I knew my race was over. For a nano-second, thoughts rushed through my head, like, "You're knocked down, Chris. Now is the time to get back up and push even harder." Silly head-brain!

I just found out that, in addition to the head-brain, the human gut has a brain as well--the size of a cat's! Seriously (great TED talk about it). My belly's brain, at least, had enough rationality left to call this head-BS what it was. "Chris, you haven't peed once since you peed in your wetsuit before the swim (tee hee hee). You've held down no water! No calories, man! Are you suddenly a breatharian? Your marathon will NOT be a run, but we should treat it like a progressive dinner. If you want to try to run, go ahead-- you'll see what happens pretty quick."

T2
I dismounted the bike, which is supposed to feel like a relief for the monotony of the last six hours. Instead, it hurt like hell. My left foot had completely seized into a clump of plantar fasciitis, which I haven't had to deal with since high school soccer. I limped into the transition area and, by complete chance, sat next to my buddy, Pater. We exchanged UN-pleasantries,
"How are you Pater?"
"I hurt like hell. How are you?"
"I feel like shit, thanks."
"Ok. Have a good run."
"You too."
Then we got lubed up by the rubber gloved sunscreen applicators. It was an orgy of pain, funk, and nastiness in there.

RUN (WALK)
I took some extra time in transition to stretch out my hip flexors and my calves. Then I was gone! How long could this possibly take me if I jaunt it out nice and sleazy? Not much more than 4:15 with a bit of hydration and luck, right? I put down another gel and ran the first quarter mile. The crowd was thick and loud. Then, I was loud and the puke was thick-- "Excuse me people-- I'm gonna blow!" And that was that. I had to walk and walk slowly. It was going to take me 6 hours at this pace. And that's IF...I was able to get in fluids. Pater wizzed by me like a friggin locomotion on a mission. Man, that guy is a mechanism. It was pretty inspiring.

The aid stations were handing out coke, which I turned into my new staple. Every aid station I took two cokes and two waters. The hours droned on. But calories were actually staying down.

Cameron Stadium where the Badgers play

Thank God I got to see my family a couple of times. I really needed them. Physically and emotionally, these were some of the toughest pains of my life. My ego hurt a lot too. I kept looking for the burning bush and the moment when the voices would tell me where to carve ten to fifteen commandments. "When belly was in Egypt land....let my belly go."

With a bit of actual running happening between aid stations, I managed to claw my way near Pater. O man, it felt so good to have him by my side. I asked if I could try to keep up with him. I gave him permission to run ahead if he felt inspired. As for me, I just wanted to hang on for dear life, maybe jump behind him, in his slipstream. We started getting kinda chatty and in a groove, run-walking from aid station to aid station. Things were going as well as they could.

Then, a pivotal moment came-- the aid stations started serving chicken broth. I took my usual coke, some water, some gatorade, and some chicken broth. The savory of broth is a welcome relief from so much sweet coke. But at mile 18, that cocktail turned into a weapon of mass destruction. It launched more episodes of puking. Pater plodded on, evidently inspired by the broth.

Susie caught up to me on her bike and discretely gave me an armed escort of support. Perhaps the highlight of the day was at mile 19 when I dropped to my knees and stuck my finger down my throat-- there in the grass next to my upchucked gatorade was a pocket knife. "COOL! Hold on to this Susie." I stood up, suddenly inspired and no longer nauseous and pieced together another mile of running. The crowd errupted in applause! "That's an Ironman!"
"Thanks everybody. I hope someone got that on film and posted to Youtube."

But I could only shuffle as far as the mile 21 aid station before my belly unraveled again and my face started getting really cold. The aid station workers wrapped me in a mylar blanket. I laid there for about 30 minutes, shivvering, while Susie tried to force down some pretzels and water. I had under 6 hours left to finish 5 miles, and I was worried.

The pretzels and water were taking. Susie was seriously saving my life by painting little circles on my tongue with the salt of the pretzels. I walked on with a guy named Jeff from Chicago, who had a day similar to mine. We took turns jumping into each other's slipstream, making jokes about how awful we felt, thanking all the volunteers and the thinning crowd of spectators. We asked each other's name several times because we kept forgetting. He really helped pass the time by. We thought it was just the funniest thing in the world when this 70 year old guy passed us. He looked fresh and we looked like crap.

Jeff and I held hands down the finish chute and then we attempted a mid-air high five at the finish line. Like most of the events that day, it didn't really work out right, but it was beautiful in its own way.

9PM finish to U2's Where the Streets Have No Name

FINAL THOUGHTS & ANALYSIS
This whole week following the race, I feel jipped by my results. Do they have mulligans (redo's) in triathlon? The outcome of the race wasn't at all commensurate with the input of my preparation. Still, this past year has been so over-the-top amazing, that I would do it all again even if I knew it would mean a race as painful as that next year. Nevertheless, I have a new imperative on how to squeeze out the best of both worlds-- 1) an amazing year of training on raw fruits and veggies, AND 2) a logistically simple kick-ass race result based on synthetic race-supplied gas station junk "food". 

The day after the race and this week after, my body has felt uncommonly fresh-- relative pep, no soreness, and best of all ZERO injuries to speak of. This is a huge advantage over last year's result, which took months to recover from. All the books say to take to take time off and get back into "embarrassingly easy" workouts gradually. We'll see if I can help myself. I'm thinking I need a redemptive marathon this fall. Hmm?

I had a few slices of pizza for dinner the night of the race and I've had a couple of naughty cooked meals this week. They feel familiar and comforting in the moment, but their value is better based on how they make me feel the hours after them-- which is to say, not so good. So as I recharge my batteries this off-season, you better believe I'm going to hold fast to my truck-loads of raw fruits. It's a secret weapon as much as hydration, calories, and sleep are a secret weapon. If I've learned any lessons at all from this debacle, it's that timing is everything-- when to peak, when to hydrate, when to eat, when to push, when to groove, when to sit in. For next year, I'll definitely be getting a coach. My head-brain, gut-brain, and you-know-what-brain need to defer to someone else with expertise for a while.

Happily, today marks the beginning of yoga, pilates and house project season! I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

Much love, XOXO!