the anonymous senator

This was going to be a post about going to see 12 Angry Men at the local community theater, which I hear is excellent. Instead, it's about how my wife broke her wrist in a fall on the ice and we spent the afternoon in the ER. It actually worked out to be good timing because we already had babysitting.

I'm quite comfortable in hospitals because while I was growing up my mother was a post-operative recovery nurse. On the other hand, I am decidedly UNcomfortable with medical procedures, so I nearly threw up after I watched the orthopedic resident inject a couple cc's of lidocaine into the fracture site.

A few things are clear. I am going to appreciate my wife a whole lot more. I am going to experience in a very direct way just how much she does to keep our household running smoothly. I am going to be very tired. And those "productivity" systems/practices/approaches that I pretend make my life easier and more productive? - they are going to be tested, and some won't make it out the other side. We'll see what works and what's just fiddling.

Can't complain, really. We have good jobs with good insurance, and two excellent hospitals five minutes away. The next time I tell you I want to move to rural Colorado, or something, step on my foot.

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Lifehacker shared this cool idea for how to use the Forms function of Google Docs to easily add to an expense record spreadsheet from your email.  Basically, you create a Google Docs spreadsheet, create an input form, email the form to yourself, and then just bring up that email whenever you want to make a new entry. The form, complete with a submit button, appears as html in the email. This is awesome because you have complete control over how the spreadsheet is set up, but don't have to open up the sheet to add a new entry. Spreadsheets are great for keeping data if you don't need a relational database, but they're clunky for daily data entry - open the sheet, scroll to the bottom, click on the first empty box, type, tab, type, tab, type, save, close, repeat.

This method, on the other hand, seems simple, lightweight, low-friction. What do I mean by low-friction? Whenever you try to change a behavior or create a new behavior, in yourself or others, there's resistance. I try to remember to ask myself "Is it easy to say yes to this new behavior? I mean really easy - is it so easy that I/they would have a hard time coming up with an excuse for why not to do it?" In other words, is it as easy as falling off a log? This is my log test. Low-friction behaviors are ones that pass the log test.

This would be great for keeping a training log. Easy update - no need to log in to a website, just go right to your email. Export your data at any time. Create a few dynamic charts and graphs and make 'em public in a new tab, or insert them into your blog sidebar. Amaze your friends.

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One of those weird things that happens when you go for a run after taking a long time off is you never know if you're going to feel like slow moving crap or if you're going to perform relatively well. It's the good performances that always surprise. My theory is that you're well rested and don't have the tightness, muscle soreness, or nutritional deficit that comes with regular training. Your muscles and cardio system are no longer as well adapted for running, but your nervous system remembers how to run, and just does it.

Yesterday was one of those days. I ran to the pool and back, a little over 5 miles round trip, as a test run to see if I want to start doing some run-swim-run workouts in the evening because the pool is open nice and late.  There's also a gym there, but it's overrun with college gym rats and loud techno music. I kept looking at my watch during the run because it said I was doing better than 8:00 min/mile, while it felt like I was running at least 9:00 min/mile. Figured I would have to recalibrate the watch when I got home (it measures speed from a pod attached to my shoelaces), but I measured the route in Google Earth last night and the distance was spot on. So that was nice. Too bad these runs are usually one-time events. 

Today I'm also starting that 100 push ups thing. It's a generic 6 week training plan that's made the rounds of the interwebs, at the end of which you can do 100 push ups in a row. I can use the upper body work, so why not? My fitness is good enough so that I can start at week three. Once that's done, maybe I'll hang that homemade pull up bar off the swing set. I bought the parts at the hardware store.

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A couple weeks ago I wrote a bit about what happened to my adventure racing season this past year. Here's the proof. Tonight I finished cleaning up last year's training log.  (I've used The Triathlete's Training Diary by Freil about five years, and I've just started another one.)

2008 training hours, by discipline:
Swim - 0
Bike - 16.6
Run - 34
Yoga and weights - 9.25
Paddling - 1.25
Adventure race (1) - 12
Total - 73

Things to think about:
* That one race accounts for 16% of my total training time for the year.
* I used my $1200 kayak once - on March 23.
* For someone who's really good at swimming, I sure don't swim a lot. I wish my local university pool still had a Masters team.
* All of the cycling took place prior to the race on May 17.

Attached are two Excel charts - one showing hours by discipline and the other hours by week. I was thinking of doing a comparison with the training log of an elite racer I know, but I knew that a few people would yell at me.

Onwards.

   

Click here to download:

the_damage.zip (17 KB)

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Take a look at your list of resolutions. Instead of only asking “what do I need to accomplish?” maybe another question to ask is “what do I need to believe in order to be the kind of person who accomplishes these things?”

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A walker about to be struck by a bike rider.

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• Why am I training alone when I'd rather be with a club?
• Why am I training at night when what I love is being out all day on the weekend with friends?
• Why am I training for 50 minutes a pop when I know that it takes longer to get into shape for the races I want to do?

The simple answer is that I couldn't train the way I used to. I needed to be home for my family. Our life was stressful enough without me jetting out the door to train every five minutes or asking my wife to take care of the kids alone every Saturday.

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Orangehornet wrote yesterday about how fans of Survivor: Gabon couldn't believe that contestant Crystal Cox was a 2004 olympic gold medalist in track and field because she did so poorly on tests that involved climbing hills, swimming, and balancing on a log. She also seemed uncoordinated and lacked a sense of direction. She stated in the post-season wrap-up that she's just good at running circles on a  track, and she loves it. The point he took away is that you should look for opportunities to specialize in what you're naturally good at. While that's a valuable reminder, I want to make a different point.

If you train really hard to run around a 400-meter rubber track, you'll get good at running around a 400-meter rubber track. If that's all you want to do, great, but that kind of athletic specialization just doesn't cross over into other environments and modes. If you like to do all sorts of things in all sorts of environments - that requires a different skill set and training philosophy. And that's adventure racing.

I know lots of cyclists who can't imagine running a mile. Orienteering aces who dread swimming. Pool swimmers who can't imagine open water.  I'd rather be able to travel over any terrain, by any mode, at any time.  That's my idea of fun and empowerment. 

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