Triathlon Training Week 5 Column (and a fun little riff on pride, that monster within)

My fifth column in my triathlon training series with the Wilmington StarNews published today. It was one I honestly didn’t want to write, at least when I started. I like how it came out, though, and in all honesty I owe a lot of that to Katie, my wife. She gave me some honest feedback on my first draft, which I thought was really good but she thought was really bad. I completely re-wrote it thirty minutes before deadline, and this is what came out. I’m much happier with this version.

It’s unbelievable how destructive pride can be in our lives, and how easily we let it affect us. When you read the column you’ll see how it was affecting my training. Also, if I didn’t let Katie read my column before I sent it in–I don’t always do that–then if I didn’t listen to her when she didn’t like it, I would have turned in a crappy piece of thinking and writing that I thought was great, at least at the time.

Pride’s killer, man. It kills relationships, it kills careers. Just look at Gilbert Arenas. The guy’s probably a good guy and even a smart guy, but he thought he could get away with carrying unlicensed firearms into an NBA locker room, which is the equivalent of an office or other workplace. Then, after he was called out for it, he made fun of it all.

Now he’s facing felony charges and time in prison. He can’t play basketball for awhile. Just a few years ago  he was “Agent Zero,” the classic feel-good underdog story of a guy who entered the league widely rated as an average player, at best. Then he became one of the NBA’s best scoring point guards.

Now NBA commissioner David Stern and the authorities are treating him similarly to how NFL commish Roger Goodell treated Michael Vick a few year ago.

Pride is that thing in us that resents someone else when they say something against us or against our beliefs. There is good pride–pride in your work, pride in your team, pride in your family, pride in your accomplishments. It’s healthy to be proud of things in your life. What’s unhealthy is that pride that convinces you you’re always right, or that you’re somehow better than someone else.

But if we’re never challenged, if we never accept criticism or consider that we might be wrong, then how in the world can we ever expect to grow or learn? And what’s the point of life without growing and learning?

Pride also convinces us that our pasts are “what made me who I am” as though that’s always a good thing. You hear this everywhere these days. It’s absolutely true that the past makes us who we are, and it’s good to learn from it, but this idea that we can’t make mistakes is a lie. Poor decisions lead to lower quality of life. There’s really no way around that.

I’ve done stupid things in my past that affect my life today. There are definitely things I wish had been done differently. I would love to see how my life would have turned out had I made a few different decisions.

Our lives are all individual, personalized journeys, yes. But they’re also journeys in which we’re given leaders. We need to trust these leaders. Thinking we know how to best live our own lives is flat-out irresponsible, like if we were to wave off a translator in a foreign country or disregard the directions or correction of a guide during a trip. You could go to Haiti with all the best intentions, hoping to save people and help them rebuild their lives and resurrect their hope….but if you don’t listen when others tell you the best way to help them, how are you going to be beneficial? You’ll just waste everybody’s time.

Not to say that we don’t have good individual ideas. But often our own ideas aren’t as good as we think. Truly good ideas are molded by following truly good leaders, by listening to truly good friends and siblings.

I love my wife.

I love my life.

Read the column here.

Below, a funny cartoon I found when I googled “prideful.”

2010
02/09
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Triathlon Training Day 34

I needed a good start to this week. You’ll read about why in tomorrow’s Wilmington StarNews column. Fresh week, fresh attitude, ready to not moan and groan and hate the fact that I signed up for this. Because really, I don’t hate that I did. I love getting in shape. I hate working out at 6 a.m., though. Man alive. I’m so not a morning person.

Actually, now that I’m sitting here looking out my window at the cloudless blue sky at 8:30 a.m., it’s really totally worth it. Why in the world do I make this so hard? Why do I so easily forget the good things that come with it?

Anyway, the morning, the workout, the good start to the week….

Mondays, as you probably forgot (I almost did), are cycling days. Usually I load the bike into the car in the freezing cold (so ready for March/warmth, by the way), de-ice the windshield, drive while shivering (I never wear enough clothes to these workouts) the 3.7 miles to the Y, unload the bike, thaw out, then spin for an hour.

I don’t know why I just gave you all those details because they’re pretty pointless. Blood sugar must be low. Me need food.

Anyway, I did all that stuff like usual, except soon as I got there running coach LeAnne is like, “Hey Brandon, want to do a brick workout today?”

Brick workout: running immediately after riding. Also, running while your feet feel like bricks. Or so I expected. Also, I found it fitting to try a brick workout the week after feeling like I’d hit a brick wall. If that doesn’t really make sense, read tomorrow’s column. (Man. Really need food.)

First off, I kinda killed it on the bike this morning. I mean, I felt great. Maybe such a slack week last week was good for me. Then forty minutes in, us brick worker-outers — six total — hopped off and hit the road.

It actually felt really good, the brick. (Is that how you word it, triathletes? “The brick”? Or am I just trying to be too cool?) Something about wearing out my legs on the bike made me focus on more energy-efficient strides. There wasn’t much wasted motion in my gait. We ran 2.11 miles in right around 18 minutes, and I kept up with these people who’ve been training for way longer than I have. It was crazy. It was great. Running one more mile at even a 10-minute pace would have been a full 5K. I’m such a stud, right?

(Shyeah. Right.)

It was a horrible morning to wear nothing but shorts and a dri-fit long-sleeve Nike shirt, by the way. My Explorer’s thermostat always reads high, and it showed 35 degrees. Who’s brilliant? This guy.

When I finished even my neck was numb. My neck’s never gone numb before.

2010
02/08
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1,750 words or so about my book, writing nonfiction, journalism, and why I wish I was Stephen King/Nicholas Sparks/Dean Koontz/Ted Dekker/(insert any fiction author here)

I was emailed a notice a couple hours ago. Someone else was following me on Twitter. It’s a great way to feed your vain, egotistic side, Twitter. You get those notices and it’s like a little shot of euphoria. Someone else recognizes me! Someone else cares about my 140-character thoughts! Someone else considers my Internet existence worth following! Joy! Euphoria!

Then this person, moments later, among other things he said, tweeted that I was an idiot.

Twitter sucks.

~

In his memoir On Writing, Stephen King recounts how angry animal-rights types were with him about a scene in one of his books in which a corrupt politician kicks a barking dog to death. Of one lady in particular he said (I paraphrase), “I reminded her that one, the story wasn’t real, and two, the man wasn’t real, and three, the dog wasn’t real.”

Handling controversy about fiction is, at its core, that simple. Remind people it’s not real. I wish I made my living off fiction right now.

I love writing. I’ve learned to love journalism because it provides material to write about and a way to pay the bills while I work on my fiction stuff. Much of that fiction has been inspired by nonfiction, whether it’s something I’ve written or read.

But one thing I’ll never love is Read more

2010
02/06
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Yeah. I changed the web site.

Just so you know you’re still in the right place, yes, this is still Brandon Sneed, and yes, I redid the web site. I do this sometimes.

That is all.

2010
02/05
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If I was wearing socks, Beta Radio would be rocking them

Brent Holloman (left) and Ben Mabry, a.k.a. Beta Radio

This will come off sounding pretty biased because Brent Holloman is my cousin-in-law, but I gotta break away from the training blogs to give him and Ben Mabry a serious shoutout. They are not only very cool people (well, Brent is; I don’t know Ben all that well, except that he’s the guy from those PC3 videos sometimes), they are members of Beta Radio, a folk/indie/minimalist band (according to their MySpace) here in Wilmington.

I’ve been hearing about them for a good few months now. When Brent let me hear the just-finished MP3 of their song “Brother Sister” I thought it was OK for a guy graphic designer. With a beard birds could live in. I’m not a folk music kind of guy.

Then I went to the Half For Haiti benefit concert last night at the Satellite Bar and Lounge. Beta Radio played next-to-last, opening for concert headliner Rio Bravo. And dude, they were good. So good. People there all thought so too. Best band there, I say.

Saw them on Twitter this morning talking about how $1,300 was raised at the concert and decided to give them another listen. You know, to make sure it wasn’t just last night’s Bud Lights (and 5-layer burrito from Taco Bell) that liked them.

They’re awesome live, but their stuff online is great, too. I’ve played “Brother Sister” about ten times in a row this morning. Whoah, whoa-oah-oah-oah, whoa-oah, whoa-oah-oah.

I think what I like so much about them is how original their sound is, at least to me. Maybe it’s not to other people. I don’t know. I’m not all hip with folk music. But man, I like these guys.

Beta Radio on Myspace

Beta Radio on Twitter

2010
02/05
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Triathlon Training Day 31 – Always pee before you run

This guy's getting his run on.

I wake up late, around 5:45. Katie’s not here; she’s in Greenville–she had a meeting for her freelance work–so I hit the snooze for all it was worth and, well, must have turned the thing off at some point. (Funny. Millie Holloman and I were just talking the other night about how that was the worst thing about using your phone as an alarm. It’s way too easy to actually turn it off.)

Anyway, fortunately I laid out my clothes already, and since Katie wasn’t here and I didn’t have to use a flashlight, it took me a grand total of 37 seconds to get dressed. Then I bolted out of the house, not even stopping to use the bathroom. As it turns out, this would be a horrible idea.

I book it over to the track, far exceeding the posted 25 mph signs around UNCW’s campus, and make it there by 5:51. Nice. I beat everyone there. I thought we were supposed to run at 5:45 on Wednesdays, but oh well, I’m the first one here, I rule, they all drool, what what?

Then 6:00 rolled around. Still nobody. To entertain myself I fiddle with my phone, and realize I can put the date and time on my home screen.

Then 6:05. Nobody. And apparently it took me five minutes to figure out how to put the date and time on the home screen.

I picked up the phone to call running coach LeAnne and give her crap for nobody being here after they all gave me crap for missing Wednesday–

HOLY CRAP. Today wasn’t Wednesday–today was Friday, and they’re not at the track because we don’t run at the track on Fridays, we run at the Y, and by the time I got to the Y they’d be two or three miles away and there was no way I was running around out there in the dark by myself.

So that was a good feeling.

I sat there for awhile. I wondered what to do. Should I drive over there and try to find them? No way that ends well, although I’m sure I’d get my miles in. Wandering around lost will help with that.

Do I take a nap, then drive over there around the time they’ll finish and then run where they tell me to run? No, that’s wasting too much of my day.

Do I dare run here, alone, by myself?

Or ever worse, do I dare go home and not run at all?

That last sounded pretty darn good. The one before it sounded pretty darn horrible. Unfortunately the two above it sounded even worse.

I got out of the car.

I walked to the track.

I started running. Ugh.

The track in the dark by yourself is a spooky place. The lights out there create a strange orange haze I’d never noticed before. Woods bordered one side, something else I’d never paid much attention to, and it’s strangely easy to imagine things running out of it and chasing you. That works really well for about half a lap. Then you have to run towards it.

I don’t know how far I ran. I tried to keep count but of course, got confused after lap six or seven. I think I ended up running for 35-40 minutes, or 13 laps or so, which is around 3 miles, which is OK. Running alone is tough. It’s way easier than it was a month ago, but harder than it’s been for that month. There’s nobody to tell you to suck it up and keep going except yourself, and today I wasn’t especially convincing.

But I ran. I didn’t wuss out. Other people eventually showed up, so I felt less alone, although I did have to be extra sneaky when I decided to stop and pee behind one of the sheds out there.* That was around the 6-lap mark. Always pee before going for a run.

*I remember talking with Reggie Barnes when I interviewed him for his story back during the Beach2Battleship Ironman here in Wilmington. He said guys will literally pee on themselves while running sometimes. They don’t want to break pace or something like that. That will never, never happen. Maybe I’ll pee while swimming. But running? No, no, no. And for some reason I googled “pee while running” while writing this. That picture to the right is the face of a guy doing just that. He is literally peeing on himself while running. I feel truly bad for the guy. I would strongly advise against it, but if you want to see the whole picture, the whole ugly mess, the horror that everyone in the background of that picture is staring at….just click it. Wait, I’m kidding, don’t do it. Except you know you want to. But it’s gross. Don’t do it. Mom, you better definitely not do it. Nobody else should either. OK, you know you’re going to, but don’t blame me. I warned you.

Then, naturally, the very next lap I notice port-a-johns over in the other corner of the field.

Great morning. Great start to the Friday.

And just in case you’re thinking, Bull poop, no way, he slept through his alarm then woke up at like 8:00 and went to Bojangles and now he’s making all this up because blah blah blah blah blah…

Here’s a little video I made just for you! (Which apparently came out sideways.)

2010
02/05
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Triathlon Training Day 30

I might never miss another morning of working out again. Not only do I get called a wuss by a faithful reader of the blog, but I get called a wuss by my wife (yeah, that’s her down there–Katie). Then I get to the pool this morning to find out that apparently the folks who went running yesterday morning spent plenty of time talking crap about me behind my back. I’m sorry, okay!? I promise, I’ll be there every morning!

Well, probably not, but I’ll try.

As for this morning–the swim went fine. Getting up and getting into the car and getting into the pool was horrible. I hit the snooze four times, which, naturally, Katie didn’t much appreciate. Then for some reason I decided it would be a good idea to wear nothing but flip-flops and my bathing suit to the pool. It was 30 degrees outside. And the water somehow felt cold. But yeah, the swim went fine.

Truth be told, I felt awesome for the first 3/4 of everything. Felt really strong. (Probably because a lot of it involved flippers.) Then we started a set of 21 50-yard sprints. I don’t care what Lance calls them, they were nothing short of sprints. About the fifth or sixth one of those, I started inhaling water again, which led to coughing up a lung again, which led to taking many breaks on the side. I know. I’m a wuss. I’m sorry. But I prefer my lungs inside my chest. Of the 21 laps, I probably made it through 15 or 16, which isn’t horrible. I just started giving out toward the end, which led to rushed breathing, which is why I started drowning. Then we finished with 175 cool-down yards, and that went really well. I know, that sounds funny. Of course cool-down stuff is going to go well, right? But it was nice to end with easy, calm strokes as opposed to the increasingly frantic, panicking strokes that come with exhaustion.

Part of my problem today, and part of why I missed yesterday, was an “I’m sick of this” feeling. I wrote my column this week about getting skinnier, about losing muscle mass, about shirts fitting like trash bags. It’s weird. It’s humbling. It’s not me.

But then, who likes change? And on top of that, who enjoys it? But I have to face the fact that chance really, really sucks sometimes, and sometimes I’d rather sleep than swim or run or bike. Most times, I’d rather sleep than swim or run or bike.

I‘ll tell you another part of the whole “this sucks” feeling. I’m finally getting in shape. I’m in the best shape I’ve been in for about six months and I love that. Now that I can actually make it through workouts without feeling like I might pass out any minute, though, I’m starting to feel competitive again. I’m getting frustrated that people are beating me, and on top of that, old people. Grandfathers and grandmothers are outswimming me, outrunning me, outbiking me. I hate that. It’s the athlete within, that piece of my soul that’s driven to be better than everyone. It’s something I need to let go of, because there’s always going to be some triathlete better than me. Most of the people in this group will probably be better than me, always, on the whole.

But something else I’ve learned: the sport of triathlon, like life, isn’t about being better than everyone. If we live life trying to be better than everyone then we always lose and never have friends. But if we live life trying to be better than we were yesterday, how can we lose? Yeah. We’ll maybe get passed over for a promotion. Maybe I as a writer won’t land that freelance gig I pitched to someone, or maybe somebody will hire someone else. But that’s life. Failure happens. Moving forward, though–it’s an option, but it’s an option impossible to ignore.

Great blog post by Michael Hyatt here about how to not quit when you want to quit.

2010
02/04
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Triathlon Training Day 29

Today, I did not run. I slept in all the way until 7:15. I’m just getting over some sickness and didn’t want to wreck that by running in 30-degree temperatures this morning. Also, I was tired, and we didn’t get home until around 11:30 last night. (Lost party with at the wife’s cousins’ place. It’s kind of a big deal.*)

*Two thoughts on last night’s Lost premiere: (1) Crazy, deep, I see where they’re going with this and I like it; and (2) !?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?.

I remember when getting up at 7:15 felt like what getting up at 5:15 feels like now. It’s unbelievable how much better my days are now that I’m up and getting momentum that early.

That’s pretty much all for today.

2010
02/03
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Triathlon Training Column 4

My fourth column in my triathlon training series ran in the StarNews yesterday: http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20100201/ARTICLES/100209960?p=all&tc=pgall

2010
02/03
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Triathlon Training Day 28

About an hour ago it stopped raining here in Wilmington, which is doing its best Seattle impression, so I decided to get out of the house. Cooper’s great and I love having the nice little home office with a fancy-looking desk, but when you spend all day there, you start to go a little crazy.

Well, since I left the house I have written roughly 100 words and spent most of my time reading random junk on the Internet. Then I realized I hadn’t updated everyone, and since I know you all cling to my every word here, I felt bad and decided to relieve you your pain.

Day 28 was swimming and it went about as well as swimming usually does. Actually, now that I think about it, it went a little better. I actually felt like I was moving the whole time. I’m actually figuring out how to breathe while swimming–that gets better every time. I was actually passing people at one point. So yeah, I guess it did go better today.

I’ll tell you one thing though. Tomorrow might mark four weeks since I started training, but I’m missing it if the weather’s like it is right now. I’m not running in this crap. Thirty degrees? Wind? Rain? No thank you. Sorry LeAnne. Sorry everyone else. You all have fun. I refuse.

~

I know everyone else with a blog who watches the show has already geeked out about it, but Lost starts its final season tonight. This just gives me another excuse to share one of my favorite clips of all time.

This from Season 1, Episode 4. This is what turned me from one of those people who laughed at those nerds who love Lost into, well, one of those nerds who loves Lost.

Anyway….

I’ve got a lot to deal with tonight, so I’m not sure how I’ll balance everything out, but one thing’s for sure: I’ll be at Brent and Amanda Holloman’s tonight by 9:30. For darn sure. (They’re having a party; they’re also DVRing it and starting it at 9:30 so we don’t have to deal with commercials. Brilliant? I think so.) Somewhere between now and then I’ll be picking up Andy’s for the wife and I to eat, going to either Overflow (PC3’s college ministry, for which I lead a small group; incidentally, I’d like a few more guys in my group, so if you know someone or are someone looking a group, let’s make that happen) or men’s group, then leaving whichever of those I go to no later than 9 so I can get to the Lost party by 9:30.

~

In other news, it’s been a really great writing day. The past two days, really. I’m revising my nonfiction book and starting a novel and randomly started writing some some essays I hope some Christian magazines will pick up. (Read some random essay in Christianity Today and started writing one of my own and, well, now I have 3,000 words of I’m-not-quite-sure-what. Wonder where that’s going.) I’ve also started picking up a lot more work and am talking to more magazines about working with them, and I’m totally stoked about that. I’ve probably cranked out somewhere near 20,000 total words between the two days, which has been awesome.

Well, 20,500 now, after this post. I’ll quit rambling now though. Maybe I can get in 30 minutes of solid writing before going to pick up that food.

(EDIT: Now 20 minutes. I just spent 10 watching Lost clips on YouTube. Stupid good TV show.)

2010
02/02
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Triathlon Training Days 25-27

So, I just got a scathing email from my dad demanding I get around to updating everyone about how the triathlon training is going. I guess it has been awhile. Once you read tomorrow column, though, you’ll understand. I’ve basically been laid up all weekend fighting off a running and clogged nose (how does that happen?), exhaustion and the sensation that Shaq’s using my head and face and ears as a footrest.

In other words, I’ve been in pain.

It’s nothing serious. I blame the weather. And I blame LeAnne for making us run outside in this weather. And I blame myself for joining this club. And I blame Nichole Rodriguez for starting this club. Whoever’s fault it is, getting just five hours of sleep then working out in 30-degree temperatures and then working nonstop all day every day — hey, writing is TOO work — caught up with me this weekend. I fell asleep by like, 9 p.m. one night. It’s like I’m getting old.

But I gotta stop, I’m just repeating my column now. Basically all I did this weekend was sit around. It was actually pretty great. I haven’t just had a weekend in a really long time. I worked some a few hours on Saturday and had church stuff on Sunday, but other than that it was just Katie and me sitting around trying to grill burgers without lighter fluid and watching Saturday Night Live on Hulu.

Today was something else. I hit my snooze about four times. I consciously decided at one point to sleep through the workout. That was around 5:47 a.m. Then I woke up and it was 5:34 a.m. Apparently I dream a lot between snooze slaps. It gets very confusing. One way or another, I somehow ended up at the YWCA this morning, and even remembered to bring my bike. I was a few minutes late, but I was the last one off the bike this morning, too.

That’s actually kind of a cool little story, if you don’t mind my bragging for a minute.

Used to be that I really liked finding excuses to quit workouts, primarily those of the cardio variety. I hate cardio work. Which is really ironic considering that’s all training for a triathlon feels like. But yeah, I hate it. This morning was no exception. Nothing sounded worse between dreams than getting out and walking in the cold (for all of seven feet) and driving in the cold* (for all of seven minutes) to go pedal a bike for an hour. Who does that? What’s wrong with those people?

*A stocking stuffer my parents got Katie and I for Christmas was some De-Icer spray stuff and dude, it’s awesome. It literally like, de-ices whatever you spray it with. Whoever thought of that is a genius.**

** Al Gore? (Check that link. Third answer down is solid.)

So then I get there and actually get to pedaling and people are in way too cheery moods and I do not feel like being there. The sooner I can get out of here, the better, I’m thinking. I warned LeAnne of mornings like this when I signed up. I can’t believe they’ve taken so long to get here. About a month in and I’ve shown up smiling every time.*

*Maybe an overstatement.

But today I was nowhere close to smiling. I started pedaling at 6:03 and made for darn sure I wouldn’t spin past 7 a.m., like some of these knuckleheads like to do sometimes. I fully planned to pedal as slow as I darn well pleased, too.

Then the strangest thing happened. I decided not to be a complete slacker. I pedaled hard. I tried matching the cadence of the girl next to me and the guy behind me. And they were pumping.

Then another weird thing happened. At 6:54 people started getting off their bikes. Four or so finished, four or so more, myself included, kept going. Then two more finished. Then it was just me and this other guy. And it was only 6:57. Three minutes sounds like the length of a sneeze, but trust me, it’s way long when you’re on that bike. I wasn’t trying to show anybody up; I just felt like going until 7 a.m. My new thing right now is “try hard things,” so that was a hard thing to do. I didn’t realize I’d do it alone, that people would be looking at me and dropping their jaws about how I was still going. Not like it was that amazing. But it was me, the bike equivalent of a goose flying with eagles, if you remember from spin class one. The other guy finished and I kept going. I also kept staring at the floor. Then I heard something say, “Quit being a wuss and look up,” so I did.

I thought the hard thing would be making it until 7 a.m. and then stopping when everyone else kept going. Somehow though, it was way harder to keep going after everyone else finished. I only went a minute or so longer than the other last guy, and he could kick my you-know-what in an actual race, I bet, so it’s not like I was getting all impressed with myself. But I decided at 6:03 to go until 7:00, so that’s just what I did. I wanted to quit at 6:55 when others started to. I stopped pedaling for a second. Then I started again and forced my mind to shut up and just kept going.

It’s funny, too, how those doubts stop yapping when you do what they say you shouldn’t, or even can’t.

So yeah. It was a good day.

2010
02/01
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Triathlon Training Day 24

Today was, without a doubt, one of those days in which I would have quit within the first mile if I wasn’t running with people. My legs felt heavy; my lungs burned. By mile two or three my knees started hurting. I really, really wanted to walk, more than once. This Friday was nothing like last Friday. Last Friday it felt easy. Last Friday it was fun. Last Friday I wanted to finish.

Not today. Today every step became a struggle. But I forced myself to keep going. I forced myself not to say too much to LeAnne and Brian about how much today sucked, because if I did then they’d let me slow down or stop, and I didn’t want to stop. I forced myself to ignore myself and just keep going. When I ran on Monday, by myself, I stopped and walked whenever I wanted to. I do that a lot when I’m working out, and when I’m doing a lot of things, really. If I don’t feel like doing something, I won’t do it. If I feel like taking a break, I’ll take a break.

That’s all good and well, I guess, but I was tired of it. It’s one thing if I’m in pain and need to stop or else I’ll suffer permanent damage to something. It’s another thing to be a wuss. I got away with things like this in college because I was jacked and could bench-press lots of weight and looked all studly, what with my muscles and everything. But I don’t like that anymore. I don’t like quitting just because it doesn’t feel good. I knew I’d hit this point in my training, and here it is. I don’t want to keep going, but I do. I want to keep trying hard things. Even if I don’t get to write about them, I want to try hard things, because trying hard things is the only way to eventually do hard things.

For example, in my office there are so many books I haven’t finished reading. I just counted 13 within arm’s reach. Part of that is just my short attention span. I start reading one book, then I hear about or read about another book, so I go buy that. And yeah, insane as it is with a library 10 minutes away, I buy just about everything. I love books.

But part of it is laziness. If I get bored with a book, yeah, it’s the author’s fault, but again — reading doesn’t always feel good, but if I start something I should finish it.

Today I took a step toward quitting that cycle, a step toward quitting quitting. A few thousand steps, actually. There are 5,280 feet in a mile and I ran the same amount as I did last Friday — nearly 5 miles — in the same time — nearly 50 minutes. So at the end of the run, it was still a good day. A very good day. Just because it felt bad while I was trying doesn’t mean it was bad for me. I’m fine now. Well, my nose is stopped up and running at the same time (how does that happen?) and there’s a lot of pressure in my ears and face and head, but I’m alive, and I’m better off now than I was at mile one, at step 20, when I wanted to walk. Sometimes we don’t need to take a break. Sometimes we gotta let something in us break so we can move past it.

Other notes from today:

  • Last night I was so exhausted I went to bed the earliest I have since I was in high school, probably: 10:10 p.m. Since my body’s so used to getting just five hours of sleep now, I woke up at 3:30. (Then I went back to sleep and still had to hit the snooze twice before rolling out of bed at 5:40.)
  • Brian Campbell, the 50-something man who ran with me and LeAnne last Friday, ran with us again. I only remember bits and pieces of the conversation, but the dude has lived an epic life. He’s run through Jerusalem. He’s flown in military jets. And he’s just a construction infrastructure something or other living in the outskirts of Wilmington. He inspired me. Anybody can do anything.
  • I shared my story of shame with LeAnne and Brian today during the run. It was cathartic. Look for it soon on the blog. It’s horrible and disgusting but who am I if I can’t be honest, right?
2010
01/29
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Triathlon Training Day 23

Don’t do it.

I hit snooze once. Then twice. Then Katie kicked me. Or maybe I dreamed she kicked me. I don’t remember. It’s so early, 5:30 a.m. Twenty-three days in and getting out of bed still hasn’t gotten any easier. Oh sure, once I’m up, it’s great. Check that — once I’m done working out and it’s only 7 a.m., that’s great. But 5:45 a.m. workouts? Whose idea was this?

There’s nothing much worse than easing into a cold pool at that hour. (Incidentally, there’s nothing much better to wake you up than said pool.)

Today was a good day, though.

Remember three weeks ago when I was getting lapped by 70-year-old Mary and sitting out every other set? Remember when I was inhaling huge lungfuls of chlorinated water? Remember all that?

There was no getting lapped today. It was a Lance workout day, but I made it through the whole thing. So that was kind of a win. I still feel like I’d drown if I had to swim 300 yards without stopping. I’m still coughing now from the chlorine I swallowed. But I made it through 2,800 yards today. Well, 2,750. I sat out the last lap. My breathing has gotten a lot better, but toward the end there I started inhaling water again. I spent the last few minutes of the workout coughing until I nearly threw up.* No, seriously. I almost made a run for the bathroom. (The sick part? I thought, “At least this will make a good blog.”)

*On a side note, coughing like that shreds the abs.

But I didn’t barf. I think part of that had to do with my brain getting distracted when Lance started complimenting me and sounding all impressed that my endurance was so high after just three weeks. A swelling head does settle the stomach, you know.

So to everyone there, my survival made it a phenomenal workout. I still don’t understand some things, though, like how I can feel so slow sometimes and how others I feel like I’m not even moving. I’m just waiting for the day I swim a lap and start going backwards.

I still have problems with a lot of my technique. I don’t kick right all the time; I swear, sometimes today I felt my legs just dragging behind me. Yeah, that does a lot of good.

Apparently my arms look really long. I don’t know if this is a good thing, but LeAnne and Brian gave me a new nickname today. Albatross. Because of my long arms, they said. Of course, since an albatross is a bird and birds don’t exactly swim, I probably look about what an albatross would look like if it tried to swim.

2010
01/28
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Triathlon Training Day 22

Today marks the third full week I’ve been working out with the Y Dub Tri Club. It’s been horrible. It’s been awesome. It’s been everything I expected. The people are phenomenal. I need to start writing about more of them soon. The workouts have been draining but so rewarding.

Lately everyone has been telling me how much skinnier I look. I guess this is a good thing. I was never fat, but I definitely had some love handle action going on that I didn’t care much for. It’s cool though. If I look skinner I’ll roll with it. I live in Wilmington and everyone here surfs and whatnot anyway, so I guess I’m just starting to fit in. I was tired of looking like a weightlifting jock, anyway. You know the types. They use too much hair gel and grunt and have some weird way of talking that I can’t put my finger on (or entirely understand). They’re always talking about muscle striations and power bars and secretly flexing their forearms so their veins pop out.

Or maybe that was just me. I dunno.

Whatever the case, I’m happy. Really, really happy. There’s a lot more to that than the working out, but the working out has a lot to do with it, too. It’s put me on a schedule. I used to sleep until 9:30 most days. Now by 9:30 I’ve worked out for an hour, done some reading and some writing and cooked myself an egg sandwich. I’ve been wanting to get into a routine since I graduated and became a full-time writer. Now I have one. It’s great.

Oh and yeah, the workout this morning went well. We ran 10 200-yard sprints mixed in with a lap’s walk/jog/puke/whatever rest you wanted to do. I apparently ran really fast. It was fun to run really fast. I think I’ll try it again sometime.

2010
01/27
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Triathlon Training Week 3 Column

My column about the third week of triathlon training is in the StarNews this morning. Check it out.

2010
01/26
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Triathlon Training Days 20 and 21

Day 20: Monday

Most Mondays I have spin class for an hour in the morning. This Monday, however, I was in Greenville. Why? For personal reasons, you nosy people. Since I didn’t have my bike, I ran for about 30 minutes. Somehow it felt way harder than the 50 minute run from Friday, but I blame that on the 15 mph wind I was running into for half the time.

And of course, I didn’t have the excellent LeAnne and Brian to keep me company, which naturally makes things harder.

Day 21: Tuesday

This morning was swimming. And yeah, it sucked, especially when I inhaled (vigorously) lungfulls of water. I thought I’d get this breathing thing figured out by now, I was thinking halfway through. It felt harder somehow.

Here’s the thing about breathing in a pool. We’re not designed to breathe in a pool, or in water at all. Thus, the body fights when one wants to exhale underwater because exhaling means the next thing one must do is inhale, and inhaling underwater is drowning. Our bodies’ natural instincts, of course, fight this. We do not want to drown.

Then out of nowhere, I started doing it. I started breathing out underwater and coming up and getting a breath and all of that in a smooth motion, like everyone else. I found the rhythm. It felt great. It felt so good that for my last two laps — the cool down laps we’re supposed to do easy as we can — I swam as hard as I could. It just felt incredible to actually have my lungs pumping while I was swimming. I finally quit holding my breath. I released the tension. I trusted.

Trust is good.

2010
01/26
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Triathlon Training Days 18 and 19 (Weekend 3)

If you’ve been following this blog you know that this weekend was the big baseball game, the showdown at Barton College between the Old Dogs and the Bulldogs. The Bulldogs were playing to prepare for the season and hopefully to win so they didn’t get embarrassed. The Old Dogs were playing for one more glory day to tell our grandkids about when we’re half-crazy old codgers sitting on rocking chairs in our nursing homes.

This game got me off the hook for running 20 minutes a day since I was catching nine innings. All of Sunday I was sore all over. It hurt to cough or to laugh, which was unfortunate, because the way the game went, I was doing a lot of laughing.

We won. The Old Dogs won. It was a glory day indeed. The final score was 2-0. Brandon Brinson went 4 strong innings to start. Kelly Stracke followed him up with 3 beastly innings. Then Nick Nigito brought us to the end by killing it for the 2 final innings.

The tone was set from our first two plays of the game. First play: sharp ground ball up the middle, Will Johnson makes a truly SportsCenter-worthy diving stab and throws the guy out at first. Second play: former all-everything Brock Godwin slides to a knee in the hole at short, backhands the thing and throws the guy out from his back leg. The dude like, doesn’t have an Achilles tendon in one of his legs any more. Maybe the best shortstop I’ve ever seen.

As for me, I had the most fun out there I’ve had playing baseball in a long time. It made me want to do it every day.

Picture above from the old days. It’s me catching my brother Kramer, who I let strike me out in my first at-bat on Saturday. He hit 94 mph on the gun in the fall and the pitch I whiffed was chest high around 92. Haven’t seen 92 mph in a lonngggg time. He’ll be playing pro somewhere in a year or two. You can count on that.

2010
01/25
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Triathlon Training Day 17

I didn’t want to get out of bed this morning. I didn’t want to go run. We were running on the road and I know LeAnne would make me run a 5K without stopping again and man alive, I just didn’t feel like it. I missed yesterday though, so I had to go today. (From the sound of things, Lance was in gotta-kill-em mode, so it was a good day to miss. My excuse? Had a long day of work. What? I really did. Check Sunday’s sports section for the end product. It’s gonna be good. I hope. I still have to go write it. Which I’ll do after I do this. So I should probably stop blabbering on in this parenthetical expression. It’s strangely difficult right now.)

(Phew, finally stopped.)

It was the best run ever. Best run yet, anyway. It was so good I can’t even tell you because it’s what my column for Tuesday will be based on.

Some highlights from the run: Brian Campbell, the man loaning me his bike, ran with us. It was his first day running on hard ground since fracturing his foot back in October. He and LeAnne are both talkers, so I got to stay quiet most of the time. Maybe that’s why the run went so well.

He had a couple of good quotes. The only one I remember right now — what? I’m hungry — is below.

“There’s a difference between, ‘Yeah, I’ll try it,’ and being determined to do it.” – To LeAnne when she said she was gonna run some half-marathon sometime soon. (Great reporting there.)

I seriously have to go eat. Maybe I’ll revise this later. But probably not. I have a lot of work to do today before I leave for Greenville/Wilson. I got called about a month or two ago by an old friend from my former college team. Barton College’s baseball schedule was cut from 56 games to 50 this season and the coach wanted to get the guys a few extra games. One of his ideas: invite some of the old guys back for a “real game.” We’ll be taking BP and doing pregame warmups and getting mad when we strike out and everything. It’ll be great. Word is that I’m catching all nine innings, so that gets me off the hook for running on Saturday. If you’re in the Wilson area head out to Barton’s baseball field and check us out. I don’t want to brag or get all presumptuous, but I feel good about things. So what if we haven’t swung at a thrown baseball in longer than we can remember or haven’t thrown in even longer? So what if we’re old and out of shape and they’re young and have been working out and running and stuff since August?

We got experience, yo. Experience.

I’m also looking forward to the weekend because I’m getting a piece of research for my book that I’ve been hoping would turn up for a long time, and there’s a chance I could interview one of the book’s “bad guys” who has been suspiciously impossible to reach since he learned what I was writing about. I’d love to talk to him. I’ve written around it already, including changing his name and his kids’ names to protect their privacy, but it would make the book so much better if he’d at least talk to me.

Anyway, that’s a ramble and a half, I’m sorry for that. I told you. I need food. I go crazy when I’m hungry.

2010
01/22
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Triathlon Training Day 14 and 15

Missed a day of blogging. Sorry. I’m busy. Training for a triathlon and working and such.

Day 14 (Tuesday) was my first swim session with Nichole. She’s nicer than Lance. She doesn’t try to kill us. I learned more about technique, got to practice breathing while swimming a lot. It was hard. But a good kind of hard.

Today was running. LeAnne tested my mile time. It wasn’t good. For baseball at Barton, we had to run a mile-and-a-half in 10 minutes. We were tested on this a couple times a year. We simply ran 6 laps around a track. Since I have no concept of pacing, my strategy involved basically running the mile as fast as I possibly could then just trying not to die the last two laps. At my best, I was running the mile in 6 minutes.

Today I ran it in 8:12. Then I flopped to the ground. “Come on, get up,” LeAnne said.

“No, trust me, I need to stay down here,” I replied.

“Really? Are you serious?”

“Yeah. Trust me. I’ll tell you later.”

I never told her. I’m still debating on whether or not to share that story. It’s horrible. It’s humiliating. I don’t want to.

Check back later. I probably will. Life’s too short to live with shame.

But oh, the shame….

2010
01/20
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Triathlon Training Day 13

If you want to know how adventurous training for a triathlon can make you feel, just know where I am right now as I type this: at Starbucks. I rode here on my bike. Sure, it makes me look like a stuck-up preppy boy. Who rolls up to Starbucks on his road bike, orders a large white chocolate mocha, then whips out his Macbook Pro?

This guy does. And even better, this gives me a chance to bust out one of my favorite Family Guy clips ever. The show’s horrible, but it has its moments, like this one below.

This morning was spin class, where Jacob from Fitness For Life took his turn trying to kill me. This seems to be the theme of training for triathlons. Unbridled determination to die by exercise.

What was great was getting to use my new/old bike that Brian Campbell’s loaning to me for this.

We rode for an hour. I was feeling especially ambitious afterwards too, and talked about riding my bike the 3.7 miles home. Since I needed a helmet, or else Wilmington police “would give me a ticket in a flash,” according to club member Ben, Ben loaned me his helmet.

But then I got cold, so I didn’t ride home. Maybe next time.

I also learned some valuable lessons about triathlon apparel today, too. Ben told me to get tri shorts, not bike shorts. In tri shorts you can do everything. Swim. Bike. Run. Bike shorts, Ben said, feel like wearing a big diaper. Sure, if you get tri shorts and train in them and don’t wash them every day they’ll start to stink, but that’s what Fridays and washing machines are for.

Jacob recommended getting something high in sugar in my system soon after the workouts. Hence the large white mocha. It’s ridiculously high-priced. Who charges more than $4 for a coffee? Seriously? But I have gift cards, so it’s OK for now. Go Christmas.

~

It’s later tonight now. I went to my first injury prevention workout tonight at 6:30 at Fitness For Life, where Jacob kicked our butts for an hour. He’s an awesome trainer though. Knows his stuff. Awesome guy, too. He led our spin class this morning, which is pretty impressive since he’s doing it all pro bono. Class act through and through. If you want to get in shape and a great guy, look him up at Fitness For Life. It’s on Oleander next to the Port City Java.

2010
01/18
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Triathlon Training Days 11 and 12

I’m an honest guy, right? So I have to just get this out in the open before I say anything else.

I was under strict orders from running coach LeAnne to run 20 minutes a day this weekend. I did not do that. Maybe it was because my left foot was sore as all get-out on Saturday. Maybe it was because I drank two too many Mountain Dews today, Sunday. Maybe it was because I’m a bum. Probably all three. But I did think about it a lot. And I felt kinda bad a lot. And I wished I had.

But if I can allow for a deep moment here, I have to say that thinking about running a lot and feeling bad a lot and wishing I had didn’t make up for the fact that I didn’t do it. I didn’t run. I didn’t get the benefits of running just because I wished I had. Life rolls that way too. Chew on that for a bit. It’ll mess with your head. But it’s true. We don’t get anything for thinking or feeling or wishing. Sometimes we can make up for it. I could try to get in a run tomorrow, but that would be a horrible idea since I have spin class at 5:45 a.m. and another workout at 6:30 p.m. Trying to make up ground only makes things worse. We just have to move forward and take our lumps and do better next time.

That’s the good thing, though. There will be a next time.

You know what, though? I’m totally jacked about tomorrow. Yeah, I’m still out of shape, but I’m less out of shape than I was last Monday. And this week I have a real road bike. Many thanks to Brian Campbell, who may or may not become legend one day. He’s loaning me his Raleigh road bike that he bought off Craigslist to start training with this group two years ago. I love it. Unbelievable, the difference between a road bike and a mountain bike. I’m so jacked I might even ride the four miles to the Y tomorrow for my spin class.

Ugh. 5:45 a.m. comes way too early.

That’s it. Gotta go work on that column for this thing. Make sure to check in Tuesday to see how I nearly died from just 11 minutes of working out with Greg Koenig over at Fitness for Life.

2010
01/17
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Triathlon Training Day 10

Today was a good day. I woke up fine. I remembered to turn in my paperwork so now I really can’t sue anyone if Lance does kill me. And I ran a 5K without stopping.

That’s right. Eight months out of shape, just over a week into training, and I ran a 5K without stopping. I didn’t want to, but LeAnne made me.

It wasn’t fast. We ran the 3.1 miles in around 34 minutes, which clocks out at right around 11 minutes a mile. Back in college I had to — and could — run that at a 7:30 mile pace. But just finishing it without stopping once was a huge sign, LeAnne said.

Then we ran another mile, mile-and-a-half.

Training actually works. So if you’re thinking about doing it, do it. It doesn’t matter how fast you go. Or how quickly you see results. I’m lucky. Results come quickly. (I can actually already see my abs again if I flex just right. Nice.) But regardless of who you are, they will come.

I’ll tell you what helped: LeAnne got me talking. First we talked about a mutual friend we have who is pretty cool and things he’s been doing lately. Then we talked about my work. Then we talked about the book I’m working on. (I can’t give too many details just yet, but I can give you a hint: This video.) I’m a writer. If there’s one thing writers love to do, it’s talk about what they’re writing. The miles flew by.

I’m not thrilled with LeAnne though. I’m under strict orders to run 20 minutes a day this weekend. “You can’t take two days off,” she said. Watch me, I thought. “Then you just have to start all over Monday morning,” she then added. OK. Maybe. Even if I miss a day, I’ll probably lie to her and say I didn’t. Because, you know, lying about exercising gets you in shape.

But it is the weekend. I get to sleep past five. I can’t wait.

2010
01/15
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Triathlon Training Day 9 (with tips on swimming technique)

I don't know why, but I really like this picture. Probably just because it's a tiger.

Today we swam. And swam. And swam. It was brutal. I wished I’d stayed in bed.

The hardest part is learning the technique. I hate being wrong. I know, everyone hates being wrong. But when one is dying, it makes it harder to be wrong. Let me explain.

Our Thursday morning swim coach is Lance. I don’t have him on record, but I think the others in the group will back me up when I say this — Lance’s goal every Thursday morning is to have to save someone from drowning. Last week we swam 2,800 yards and nobody started to die, and I think that frustrated him. So this week we swam 3,000.

As expected, about halfway through — oh, by the way, I totally made it on time — I started to take a break every other lap. This was fine, I was told. Three thousand yards is about twice as much as I should swim right now, anyway, just starting out.

But the laps I did swim started getting brutal. I was in a lane with a guy named Bill (not Bill Campbell, but I don’t know this guy’s last name yet), and he summed it up best: “It’s hard to relax when you’re swimming.” Relaxing is so key in this stuff. The more calm you are, the less energy you exert, so the better you do. I was getting through half a lap to three-quarters of a lap (down-and-back is one lap) pretty fine for the most part, but man, when I hit the halfway point of that second length I started thrashing a lot. I started rushing my strokes, holding my head out of water longer than a stroke because I didn’t want to inhale water instead of oxygen (although it still happened way more than once).

Breathing is by far the hardest thing for me to figure out. The strokes and kicks and actual swim techniques are muscle memory. Practice them right enough times and your body will figure it out. But timing when to take a breath can be horrible if you don’t time it right. I had to cough out water more than once.

Then of course, then there’s Lance over there on the side yelling at me.

“Don’t hold your head out so long!” (Dude, I’m drowning!)

“Don’t bend your knees!” (Dude, I’ll bend…your…knees.)

“Kick!” (Kick your face.)

(OK, my comebacks are weak as it is, and at 6:30 a.m. with half a pool in my lungs, there’s just no hope.)

I wondered what would happen if I called him over — “Dude, I can’t hear you, come closer! No, wait, closer! CLOSER! To the edge of the — yeah, right there! Right there with your toes over the water!” — then pulled him in, him and his cargo shorts and tennis shoes.

I’m joking, of course. Lance is a great swim coach. He tries to kill us, but I mean, other than that, he’s great. I really have already learned a lot from him, and as is quickly becoming a theme here, learning is what this is going to be all about. Some tips about swimming if you want:

  • Don’t put your head down, just under the water and keep looking straight ahead, not down at the floor below. If you put your head down, it makes your upper body turn down too, and that makes you drag through the water more.
  • Extend your arms on your strokes. This one comes from Greg Koenig over at Fitness For Life. One of his buddies was going through a swim workout with him the other day, and the guy is 6-4 but makes himself 5-9 the way he used his arms. You want to get full extension on your stroke.
  • When you pull through the water, keep your palms close to your body and make sure your thumbs pass as close to your hips as possible. This ensures you get the most out of every stroke.
  • Keep your hips up so you can kick easier. Kicking is so important. If you don’t kick, or get good kicks, you’re only using half of what you could be. A tip Lance said was to imagine yourself swimming downhill. Don’t duck your head down, but keep that in mind as you focus on your torso, hips and legs. That way your body stays as on top of the water as it can, and the higher up you are in the water, the better.
  • Keep your legs straight. This is my biggest problem. I bend my knees a lot, and that weakens my kicks. I finally started figuring this out toward the end today, and the difference is unbelievable. I actually felt like I was gliding in the water rather than throwing it behind me.

Bill summed up the morning perfectly. “Man,” he said before climbing out of the pool, “I did not want to come out here this morning. But I’m glad I did.”

~

Speaking of Bill Campbell, I picked up the bike he’s loaning me for this training. I’ve never ridden a road bike before, but once I got over the fear of falling over on those skinny tires, it was actually pretty awesome. You can fly on those things. The bike is a Raleigh, blue, all aluminum, which is nice compared to my steel mountain bike. When I got over to his house, Bill had already put fresh tape on the handlebars and everything. The dude is awesome.

I’m definitely going to look into buying one of my own sometime in the near future. Unfortunately, those things are also pretty expensive. I’m a writer. I don’t have money.

~

So tomorrow we run on the road. If you’re out around the Krispy Kreme in Wilmington around 6 a.m. you’ll see us. Give us a honk.

2010
01/14
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Triathlon Training Day 8

This morning made a week since I started training with the Y Dub Tri Club. It’s amazing the difference a week makes.

I did not want to get out of bed. I hit the snooze three times. Woke up at 5:30. Felt like passing out as I got dressed (again by flashlight). I’m not sure how I made it to the track, but it’s a good thing there weren’t many cars on the road.

The run went well, though. Surprisingly well. I ran seven sets of 2 minutes hard running, 2 minutes jogging. I walked three times, and my running was like most everyone else out there’s jogging and my jogging was slower than my walking, or at least that’s how it felt. I hated that I was doing this. I’m glad Brian Campbell was running with me and LeAnne because I wasn’t exactly in a talkative mood today. At moments I hated myself for even thinking of this idea.

But eventually I realized that I felt better than last week. Most of my runs were between an 8-and-12-minute mile pace or so. Then the last 2 minute run of the morning I felt so good I practically sprinted around the track.

It’s been a long, long time since I’ve opened it up full throttle like that. It felt good. Really good.

Of course, a lap and a half later — the longest 2 minutes of my life — it felt like a horrible mistake. But 10 minutes after that, even though I was still breathing hard and sweating and a little shaky, it felt great.

I loved this idea.

2010
01/13
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Triathlon Training Column 1

My first column in the StarNews is out now. I can’t even begin to tell you how sexy I look in the picture.

2010
01/12
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