2018 - 21 December - Check-in!

Took down the beard and cleaned it up

Checkin' IN!!!

So, ramping up to the big 25 of December. The kids are excited of course. Liz and I are somewhat prepared. I think given the year, purchase of a new home and moving, adding a new to us car, and plenty of other things this year, it has been solid. I am ever more aware of our imperfections as a family and increasingly acutely aware of my own imperfections. I like what my favorite podcast gentlemen said though:

Progress not Perfection!

To that end. So, pull buoy analogy/story. 3 to 4 years ago I survived swims, and I started at about a 3:30 per 100 yd type pace. Today, as I sat on the pool deck getting ready for my fourth swim of the week, I am grateful, this is the activity pulling me back into the swing of things. On the recent Crushing Iron podcast, Robbie Bruce and Mike Tarrolly circled around physical injury.

I'm becoming more aware that I was injured mentally in 2017. Coupled with life events (positive stressors mainly), I just couldn't find the space to heal. Context since 2013/2014 realizations (see Transformation Tuesday post) once I realized that I was not taking care of me, then doing so up until our home purchase this year. Further, I have been reading a book by Craig L Manning called the Fearless Mind and combined with peak performance it is clear that I was doing what Robbie was speaking to - 'do no harm' for my 2018 activities. I have been reviewing my blog posts, notes in TP and some Strava thoughts, and the progression is humbling. Somewhere along the line, I recognized that I had a difficult choice to make. I chose family and my wife first, and now I am getting back to where I can add in the emphasis of endurance hobbies.

It's an interesting thing that this obsession and thing called Triathlon does to a participant. I am no longer where I was in my High School years. Not that I was overly special even though I had a lot of promise in different sports. I still remember a Christmas morning years back. I received a 10 speed. I stood next to that thing beaming.

Christmas Gift - circa 1986

I recall riding it and plenty of other bikes. Admittedly, I never had the BEST stuff but what I was given from my parents was "plenty enough". But I had many moments like that through the years as I played baseball, soccer, and dabbled in tennis and volleyball and a few other sports. I recall going to the 'Soccer Locker' and getting a running specific shoe - Saucony at the time. 1 week later the shoe was demolished it was a piece of crap. I was introduced to how quality matters and buying the correct shoe is vital. Needless to say, a KMART equivalent was probably the follow up shoe. Where am I headed with this. The obsession came early. I had a drive for excellence within my means - meaning, DNA, talent, work and whatever other tools were in my way. There were times I ate and breathed a specific sport, or specific things related to a given sport. Triathlon, for me, returned that fire and vigor. I mean, Liz will tell you, i jumped off the cliff and was all in. And back to a very pivotal moment where I made a wrong turn during my first Cache Valley Gran Fondo, it just all changed.

Like I said, Triathlon, takes us and it grabs us. In those moments we get caught up, and for me I became the guy that before I even was participating in any, I was a triathlete. I told everyone. I am sure it was annoying, I wasn't being arrogant, but man, I sure told you. Flash forward. It comes out casually when I am trying to be honest and self disclose what is important to me - Family, endurance sports hobbies, etc. What I hope, is that I am no longer a douche canoe. I hope I have progressed and grown and become a person that is ever grateful for my participation in triathlon, but not necessarily in your face about it either. Sure I can talk your ear off about it, and tell you about my events. But I hope I have demurred into a quiet confidence that allows me to just be me and let that come out naturally and not every forced.

So, to that end, I am in the middle of a swim block. I am concentrating on it more than ever as I feel it is where I can make the most beneficial improvements. I am starting off where I thought I was improving before. I feel like I am getting stronger. That I am learning a technique - as a self coached athlete and especially in swimming, I haven't had a swim lesson since I was at Rusch Park years ago when my parents took me and my sister and brother to the pool, and handed us off to the local teenagers who pretended to teach us how to swim. My week this week has included four swims. Currently I a swimming a mile consistently for my frequency. All workouts have a defined purpose. Today I was a bit tired with both swims and P/T for my shoulder. I feel like my fitness is coming back and I can now extend my swims to 1.2 miles and beyond. Liz wants me to be ready for a full - 2.4 mile swim.

So to my shoulder. So, This spring we were moving a chicken coop. It needed to go around an awkward portion of our new home. In the moving process I got pinched between the house and the coop. Well, in that process I felt something in my shoulder. I neglected it at the time, and about 10 or so days later I was feeling like tennis elbow. Fast Forward, I went in to see a Dr. Clegg at AOS in Logan, Utah. Well, we talked it through what happened, my history of arm troubles in high school, my dislocation while climbing my Freshman year at USU and he recommended an MRI. So into the big grumbling tube of claustrophobia I went. The twist - Clegg requested I get ink in my joint. This would help demonstrate current or perhaps old tears. See, when I hurt my arm in high school, I never had it looked at. I just turned from throwing hard to relying a knuckle ball and thought I tore my rotator cuff. Well, the MRI confirmed that was not the case, rather I ruptured and tore my labrum. The evidence of a tear was glaringly apparent int he MRI. So I have an impingement where the top of the joint is being being pulled away and the lower ball pulled inward. That is where my pain - very dull, is coming from. So the outcome, no surgery now, P/T in the short term. So, hopefully if all goes well, I now know my strength training exercises and I hope never to see Clegg or my P/T Jason, except for tune ups and follow ups. But man, ink in the arm. And the guy putting it in stuck me 3 times to get it right.

Well it is late, and we have more family stuff tomorrow. But my swims are going very well. I tend to try to focus on triathlon oriented things in my blog. Also, I try to keep it to life things. This is my journal. I can come back here and re-read postings. See my frame of mind. Identify with where I once was and try to use that information and insight to move in better directions today and into the future. My sincere hope is to anyone coming across this, can simply identify with it somehow. To understand, that they don't have to be on a lonely island in life or participating in this wonderful suffer sport. You see, triathlon has helped me in many ways. When I was at P/T a gal got all excited and asking me about things. And I just grinned. It was cool to see glimpses of me in her. She is so much younger than me and has a different set of options, but man, I remember that and still have that fire too.

So, hyperbole. Because I was so engrossed in things, and while Juniper and Astrid where being grown in momma's belly and ultimately stealing our hearts. Somewhere along the line I burnt up a bit. It really happened during the 2017 St George Ironman. I just didn't see it. The year prior (2016) I had my best day out while many DNF'd b/c of the brutal temperatures and the torrential Maytag-like rainfalls we endured from swim through the bike ride. But somewhere just past the roundabout on the run I hit a WALL of Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. I still vividly recall Jenni Archibald, a local running friend, screaming at me - she scared me to death and woke me up out of my negative self talk at the moment - and I came alive, but then I petered out about a mile up the road. That was a brutal 13.1 miles. I wanted to just walk off. I was done. My mind, my spirit was bruised and ultimately injured. I didn't see it at the time as an injury. See I don't get mental illness, I have a hard time understanding depression, ADHD etc. Don't get me wrong, I know it exists, and I know it is real, but gratefully it's never been a long term challenge or difficulty for me. SO, I was in a space I didn't know. I learned so much that day. I went on to my next event, a local sprint and did quite well. I was 18 out 151 participants which put me as 1st in my age group - which I didn't learn until post race - after I went home i saw the results some 2 weeks later. I was too busy at the event, as I went back to the finish line and welcomed in all participants. I know a lot of folks didn't get this. But I did. B/c of what I went through weeks earlier and almost walking off, I appreciated so much more the efforts of folks. I was out there at about the 25th or so participant and I was out there clapping in and welcoming folks until about the 145th. I had to get back to family. I was just in a good spot.

That experience, helped me to grow. I was able to understand the difficulty others go through. Granted I was graced with a very acute witness of things, but it changed my perspective. TO be honest, that is what I think I have missed the most in focusing on my family. I will not lessen the focus of family, but I need to nurture me so that they get the 'best' me I can offer, not a mediocre making it happen mundane version. My fears I guess is will I be there enough for Liz. Will I be able to give her and the family the support she needs and be able to help me and her grow. I know she is in a rough patch with her back, her mental and emotional states b/c of her challenges and also whether or not we will have another little child or not - see due to secondary infertility, we have 2 frozen embryo's and next year is the time to try, again.

AND, ahead I go - self coached. I am trying to pull together a schedule that will allow me to be strong. I don't know that I have a goal for what I want to achieve in each discipline, but I want to execute well. I'm thinking in way of ranges. The two major ones are swimming and running. Cycling is the hard one, b/c I ride blind. I don't have fancy tech to help me, heck I haven't even had a proper bike fit. I watch videos, and guess my best. I do hope to have a strong swim, and I want to be able to run that half marathon. My fastest stand alone half marathon is 1 hour 42 minutes, and although I am not there today, I know I can be there on May 4th this year. Anywho, I digress.

Training has started. I would say I am 3 weeks in with solid swim focus - with more planning and more to come. I did pen this down during my flight from PHL to SLC.

A fun side story. One of the FA's saw my hat and asked me about Ironmans. It was another fun opportunity to share with someone hungry to want to complete a triathlon. She seemed to be a one and done type, but who cares. She was so, afraid of things and then as I walked off the flight she was like - "I can't wait to put your free advice into actions." So ya. It's time to walk the weeks back from May 4. My countdown tool says 133 days - that means the 12 week block is here. As normal, I will sign up for the event in March before the no name on things deadline. This allows me to gauge if I will sign up or not due to injury, fitness, family or other factors. Last year was extremely difficult to not sign up. The week of the race even, to tell my wife no, I'm just not int he right physical and head-space to do it - was DIFFICULT.

Well, off to bed, will spell check this and edit in the morning. Will post now for those that may happen across it before any proofing adjustments. Good luck to me. Good luck to you, whomever is reading. All best.