Answering the Unanswerable

So last post (check out "The Unanswerable Question") I said that all the doubts, the fears, the questions, all the negativity that manifests in the days before your "big day" (race, interview, presentation, date, WHATEVER)...do not matter.  In answering the unanswerable question, naturally, begs another question:

HOW can they not matter?

The answer, simply put:  Because YOU are DOING it.  You are not playing the role of armchair QB, the guy at the far end of the conference table, the dude at the end of the bar.  These people LOVE to watch people try things, because they get to, on occasion, watch people fail at things.  Then comes the smirk, the "knowing" nod, the snarky comment.  It's simply amazing how many people KNOW things are going to go badly, right AFTER they do so.  And I know I am yelling too much in this post, but it is necessary to combat the legion of naysayers we encounter each and every day.

When I completed my first (only, to date) marathon, I had a two-month brain cramp, where I did not realize that they had portable music players (this was 2001, so no iPods, and I know how crazy that sounds).  To push through the tough stretches, I would recite a passage attributed to Teddy Roosevelt:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”  (thanks to Goodreads.com for the text of the quote)

In his book Deep Survival, Laurence Gonzales studied people who survived extreme situations, and others who did not.  He identified a trait common to many of the survivors he referred to as "PMA", Positive Mental Attitude.  Simply put, people who believed they COULD do something, by and large, DID that thing.

This is not, however, irrational confidence; I'm not saying you should sign up today to run a marathon next week (though it's not too late to register for the Urbanathlons in NYC and San Fran!).  This is believing in yourself; believing that your training, your preparation, your plan, ARE good enough, and WILL BE on the big day.  This is me, when the Whatifs crawl into my ear, ushering them out with answers I built pounding pavement on runs and blasting through circuits at the fitness center.

Because there's always that guy at the end of the bar, the back of the boardroom, and there's NOTHING better than looking him in the eye, KNOWING you did what he's afraid to do.  Trust me, he'll look away first, and then it's your turn to smile, my friend.

Until next time,

Tom

2T4:7

The Unanswerable Question

It happens every race, every year.  You hope it doesn't, but there it is, just like clockwork.  This time, it took the form of a text from a friend:

"Good luck in the race!  Are you ready?"

Now, those weren't his exact words, but they are the idea behind The Great Unanswerable Question.  It's the same question that will HAUNT you, in its various forms:

Did I log enough miles?
Did I do enough strength training?
Did I cross-train?  What IS cross-training?
Should I change my diet?  Do I HAVE a diet?  Is it good enough?
Should I eat more carbs?  Fewer carbs?  Or is it "less" carbs? (NOTE:  I have never seen a carb, and thus do not know, grammatically speaking, if they are individually counted, or grouped.  But I digress...)

The Great Unanswerable leads, inevitably, to what that great sage and eminent philosopher, not to mention fantastic poet, Shel Silverstein, called "The Whatif Song."

Last night, while I lay thinking here,
Some Whatifs crawled inside my ear
And pranced and partied all night long
And sang their same old Whatif song

You've been there, when it's the night before the race, and your mind is already running the race, or, worse, NOT running the race because a herd of wildebeests escaped from the local zoo and trampled you, injuring your ankle (don't ask, just understand, my family has a strange history with wildebeests).  Or maybe it's the night before the test, and you wonder if you took ALL the notes necessary...or it's the night before that big meeting, and you aren't sure if you backed up the backup of your presentation...

We KNOW this is coming.  We know it like we know the sun will rise tomorrow (hopefully during, and not before, my last longish run before race day).  We gather together our mental armor, our pithy quotes and sayings.  We scour YouTube like it's a sacred site, searching every variation of "motivation" for that perfect video, like this one:

Get Up Get Moving!  (sorry, that's not the name of the video, but it works, no?)

But in the end, it's just you and your training, or lack thereof.  And believe me, you WILL remember every morning you hit snooze too many times, every workout skipped with "I cut the grass, that counts", every second helping of dessert justified with an "extra mile" you didn't run.

Here's the best part, though:  NONE OF THAT CRAP MATTERS.

I say again:  NONE OF IT MATTERS.

And I'll tell you why...next week, when I write my last words before hitting the streets of Chicago for the Men's Health Urbanathlon.

Until next time,

Tom
2T4:7

Motivation: The Dark Side

So last time, I talked about motivation (Check out "Motivation: It's What's For Dinner"), and today, I got a nice reminder of the motivation that no one likes to talk about, or even consider as a factor in personal motivation.  Let me explain...no, is too much, let me sum up:

My daughter's volleyball team lost a heartbreaker today.  Lost, in a tiebreaker, by 2 points.  Worse, she had the serve, to win, and it...sailed long, and then the other team's best player (basically LeBron with a ponytail) served out the match.  It KILLED me, and there's nothing worse than standing in a rapidly-emptying gym, holding your daughter as she cries and says "It's all my fault that we lost."  No, sweetie, it is NOT "all your fault", this is a team game.  Now let me find someone evildoer to punch on your behalf...

On the way home, we talked about how this does, indeed, feel awful, but I was trying to "coach her up", so I said, "Now, just USE this, and next time..."  She interrupted, "Yeah, next time I'll go back in time and not hit that stupid serve long."

My pre-teen Yoda.  She reminded me, so beautifully, why we TRAIN.

We train because of mile 9 of 13.1,  mile 20 of 26.2.
We train because "PR" does NOT mean "pretty reasonable".
We train because Soldier Field, Citi Field, and AT&T Park are NOT getting shorter.
We train because of the person we hear, running right behind us.

We train because, deep down in places that we don't talk about at parties, we FEAR failure.  We FEAR hitting the wall, we FEAR cramping up, we FEAR getting to the stadium, and not being able to climb the stairs (Urb reference, if you missed it, just move along, remain calm, all is well!)

So after her game, I dropped her off at home, went to the gym and did my circuit training, hungry and tired though I was.

Because, since I must be honest, I am DEATHLY AFRAID that the 35-year-old guy who ran the Urbanathlon three years ago was the best version of me, and he's dopplering off into the sunset.

Until next time,
Tom
2T4:7

Motivation: It's What's For Dinner

The concept of motivation has been popping up frequently in my daily walk, so I'd like to take a moment and talk about it.

First off, let me lay this out:  Motivation must be intrinsic.  That is, it MUST come from WITHIN the individual (emphasis, obviously, mine).

I am a teacher, and thus often hear about the need to "motivate the students to succeed" in my classroom.  Honestly, I don't know if I do this, or if I do, I don't know what I do to motivate them.  The phrase "The beatings will continue until morale improves" springs to mind, but of course, corporal punishment is banned, so....  I can provide clear instruction, clear guidelines, clear consequences, but ultimately, the DESIRE to do work lies within each student entrusted to my care.  I try my best to help them make the "right" choices, but the choices are, in the end, THEIRS, not mine.

It's also why I'm working my hardest to NOT live vicariously through the lives of my children; I've told them, "I already went to school.  This is YOUR education to grab!" or "Hey, I played my sport already.  This is YOUR time to shine!"  Of course, that means allowing them to choose their own paths, but hopefully, in so doing, they find their own motivation to succeed.

I also see this waning and waxing of motivation in my exercise routine.  The most convenient time for me to exercise is immediately after my school day ends.  However, this time of day coincides with the nadir of my motivation and energy levels.  Some days, I can literally feel the energy leeching out of my body, as if I'm morphing into the Nazi officer from Raiders of the Lost Ark.  My wife, sensing that I need support, (usually because I say something puerile like "Tell me to go work out") will say, "You're a grown man. Do what you want."  (EVERY SINGLE WOMAN reading this knows, to the decibel, the pitch and tone of voice used in that quote.)

As counter-intuitive as that sounds, it's also EXACTLY what I need to hear.  

I don't need to exercise because the Men's Health Urbanathlon is only 5 weeks away (HOLY CRAP!!!); I don't need to exercise because my wife tells me to go; I don't need to exercise because some extrinsic force is acting upon my psyche.  

I WANT to exercise.  I WANT to be a positive role model in the lives of my children.  I WANT to show my students that fitness is a worthy lifelong goal.  I WANT to cross whatever finish line is in front of me, head held high.  

And then, I want to look back at the journey, smile, and raise a glass to the guy who hauled himself off the couch on a nameless Tuesday and ground out his workout, on a day where he was running on fumes and had every excuse lined up like planes at O'Hare.

INTRINSIC MOTIVATION:  It's what's for dinner, and what makes me skip dessert.

Until next time,

Tom

2T4:7

Listen to Your Body

I got sick last weekend.

It was a "typical" Memphis summer sickness, in that it was a twofer:  The temps decided to climb back into the mid-90s, with humidity at a percentage that would make Hermione Granger jealous, combined with a marked increase in...whatever causes sinus infections.  I spent most of the weekend, and the early part of the week, walking around feeling like someone shoved a double-handful of wet concrete into my skull.

Fascinating, you may say (though I honestly doubt it), but what, pray tell, has this to do with training for the Urb?

I woke up Saturday morning intending to grind out my long run of 7 miles (yes, I know, "long" is rather relative.  My blog, my rules.  And get off my lawn).  Never happened, because I decided to do what I've read about, but rarely do:  I listened to my body.  My body was telling me, "Kind sir.  If you put us through 7 miles, even at 6 AM, when the temps will only be "wow, it's gonna be hot later," we will do unspeakable things to your respiratory system.  Your call."  I stayed away from the gym, and the roads, until Wednesday.

TWO LESSONS LEARNED:

1.  Man, gotta listen to the body.  Yes, I was DYING having to miss that many days of training, especially since we're inside of two months to race day.  Those long runs are precious, at this point, and missing one was BAD.  That said, destroying my immune system, and possibly needing sick days to recover, would have been WORSE.

2.  Man, gotta STOP listening at some point.  Monday I had to head back into the classroom, and I have learned that if I combine DayQuil and coffee...I see sounds and hear colors, I'm so wired.  That day was rough, but I was able to handle Tuesday, so I decided to head back into the routine.

Yes, I was tired, sore, and not entirely motivated.  Yes, I would have LIKED to skip another day.  But isn't that a pretty good sign that I'm back to relative health?

When the illness becomes the excuse, not the explanation, it's time to kick the meds to the curb, and step off the curb and back into the grind.  Those stadium steps aren't escalators, and as much as I love running along Lake Michigan, I'd rather not have to WALK along the route.

Until next time,

Tom
2T4:7

Introductions are in Order

Since we're going on a bit of a journey together, I thought I should introduce myself.  If this seems gratuitous, given the fact that many of you found yourselves here by following a link via Twitter or Facebook, ask yourself the following questions:

1.  When was the last time you saw me in non-electronic form?
2.  When was the last time we had a conversation that didn't include either a phone or a keyboard?
3.  Is our time apart, covered above, greater than the amount of time it took the Chicago Blackhawks to win TWO Stanley Cups?  For the non-sports fans, was Miley Cyrus still Hannah Montana? (I have 2 daughters...DON'T YOU JUDGE ME!!!)

I see some of you nodding (I'm tight with the current administration, and you're sitting in front of a computer with a camera.  I saw you peek at the camera just now, too).

I have this idea (more of a nightmare, actually) that I'll easily be the oldest, least in-shape, least deserving "Men's Health MVP".  Basically, I'll be the Mark Moseley (1982) of this deal.  Go ahead, Google him...I'll wait....yep, a kicker.  So let's get this out of the way.  I am:

---38 years old
---married, 3 kids
---a teacher at a large private school in Memphis

I say these things so that you can understand where this blog is going.  I am NOT:

---going to write 5,000 words on the various types of stretching routines I do not do anyway.
---going to pretend I'm a model.  I do not possess monochromatic hair, "waxing" is something Daniel Larusso learned from Mr. Miyagi, and "manscape" sounds like something from the Flashdance soundtrack.
---going to act like training is my life.  I do LOVE to train, that is not a lie.  But I have about an hour, most days, for the whole routine, from lacing up to cool down.

Men's Health actually has been great as far as that goes.  Their workouts, typically gym/weight training, usually fit into that hour.  I will try to post my runs, via Nike Plus, to both Twitter and Facebook.  No promises on that, I'm usually busy wringing out my shirt from the sauna that is August here in the South.

If you come along for this fantastic voyage, I cannot promise you wisdom, or knowledge, or even Coolio (unless he sees that reference).  I can promise honesty, hard work, and a bit of humor.  We have about 10 weeks to journey together, from the brutal heat of Memphis to the beautiful shores of Lake Michigan.  Time to step up, and step off, into the great unknown...

Until next time,

Tom
2T4:7

Knock Knock

So it started in the parking lot of a McDonald's in Jacksonville...

About 8 months ago, I got an email from Men's Health magazine, looking for "Men's Health MVPs".  It sounded intriguing, but I assumed the target demographic was a bit more spry.  Nevertheless, I filled out the application, and promptly forgot about it...until January, when I found another email (which I almost auto-deleted, and if that isn't a word, it should be), notifying me that I had moved on to "Phase II" of the contest.  I answered more questions, sent a few pictures (which I thought would be my downfall, honestly), and again forgot about it...until I left Memphis for a Spring Break trip with my family and in-laws.  We were walking along the beach, waiting to board a cruise ship, when I was notified that I had been selected as a "Men's Health MVP".

Fast forward to last week, when an offer came to compete in the Men's Health Urbanathlon in October, and write a blog about my training and race experiences for Men's Health.  I have actually completed this particular race twice before, both times in the Chicago iteration of the event.  Now, for those unfamiliar with "the Urb," as I will henceforth call it, here's a quick primer:

Location:  Grant Park/Navy Pier/Lake Shore Dr./Museum Campus
Distance:  10.8 miles
Obstacles:  10 "stations"

I must admit, I am both excited and nervous about this opportunity.  Excited, because it gives me an opportunity to blog about something I enjoy (training for and completing an obstacle event).  Nervous, because I READ Men's Health, and let's just say that they either have the world's best Photoshop people, or the contributors (and I mean ALL OF THEM) are in rockin' great shape.  Comparatively speaking, well, my old saw about "round being a shape" is looking more accurate daily.

As the weeks turn to months, and the weather in Memphis goes from "can't breathe, too hot" to merely "holy monkey it's hot", I'll be sharing my training exploits, thoughts on preparation, and general musings on the event.  Right now, it's time to answer opportunity's knock, and take that first training step.

Tom
2T4:7