Journey to Kona Day 16: A Busy Retirement

My wife and daughter tease me that I’m a very busy retiree.  It seems to them that I have meetings and phone calls nearly every day.  They’re right!  One thing I know for sure.  Keeping busy and maintaining purpose is critical to staying both mentally and physically healthy.  There are studies that show that purpose can stave off the symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease!  I know that this morning I woke up feeling a bit off emotionally, which happens to me every so often these days.  Ultimately, I just went for a five mile run along a five mile loop, which meant that once I got half way through it, I was committed to the whole 5 miles.  By the time I finished this easy run, the “off” feeling was gone, and I was ready for a swim.  I had a lunch meeting for a possible business relationship and then nearly 2 hours of phone calls related to a variety of projects I’m involved with.  I try to walk during my phone calls, which today led to an additional 6 miles of walking!  My legs were already fatigued from 15 hours of training last week, so the walking was good from a circulatory perspective, but also added some valuable volume of moving forward to my bodies training.  This is just Monday.  Hopefully, the beginning of another solid week of both life and training!  

I love to share that this is my third attempt at retirement, and that I’ve “failed” the first two attempts.  The key is that we never truly retire, we just adjust our focus.  In fact, having something to focus on is the key!  If you don’t have something to focus on, you’ll tend to feel lost, or at least I do.  I am finding that my ironman training provides a great base of daily activities that I can focus on.  I’m in pretty regular touch with friends and colleagues talking about the things that matter to me.  Plus, I have some ongoing projects to focus on.  With all of that said, my major purpose will continue to be my grandson.  There’s nothing like having a grandchild, and we will soon be moving to within 5 minutes of him, which will make it easier for me to spend time with him most days.  I want him to know that his grandpa will always be there for him!  That beats anything else I can do in retirement.

Journey to Kona Day 15: Adaptation

The human body is remarkable.  Three weeks ago, I was doubting my ability to fully recover from the 100 miler I did over New Years. I knew that my heart rate was higher than usual, and that running at a slow pace, and cycling at a low wattage, brought my heart rate up.  My coach also talks about how years of base training really help, and I believe that is true.  The body’s ability to adapt is remarkable, especially when it has something to fall back upon.  So, here I was, putting in nearly two hours on my bike to conclude a 15 hour training week.  My legs were tired, and my glutes were sore from yesterday’s uphill and downhill hard run.  Despite that, after  a good warm up on my bike, I was able to go thirty minutes at wattage that is close to my ironman wattage, all the while keeping my heart rate at a relatively reasonable level.  Significant progress in just three weeks, and with Ironman Boulder still 16 weeks away, lots to work with.  I followed up my bike workout with a short 2 mile run to keep my daily run streak alive.  While slow, my heart rate also stayed down, which may have just been due to fatigue, but I’ll take it.

It’s also important to recover from workouts, and Saturday was a pretty solid run day, hence, overall, I tried to keep today pretty tame.  One of the interesting challenges that I will have is that I really want to get in training every day, and in fact, must train every day if I’m going to run every day no matter what.  With that said, training doesn’t mean pounding on oneself.  I’ve found easy cycling to be healthy and I’ve also found walking to be incredibly productive, while at the same time maintaining  a low level of exertion and muscle stimulation.  Finished the day with my grandson and his mommy and daddy, which is a joy!

Journey to Kona Day 14: Ironman Legs

I decided it was time for a longer run today, and ultimately realized that I had an opportunity to run on what I like to call “ironman legs.”  After 3 weeks of solid training, my legs actually are feeling better, but after a 2 mile warm up, I did a hard uphill and downhill run on a one mile hill with 8-10% grade.  The uphill is just hard aerobically, and the downhill is pretty brutal when run hard, which I did by going under 7 minute pace.  I then was able to put an additional 4.5 miles on tired legs that had some soreness to them. That’s what I’m talking about when it comes to “ironman legs.”  It’s really the thing we strive for since the run portion of an ironman is where you can lose the most time.  So, if I can pound on my legs and make them tired and somewhat sore, then realize that I’m running right around 10 minute per mile pace, I’m pretty happy.  That’s what I did today.

I’ve also realized that I really need to get more runs in this year right after biking, the so-called “brick.”  I’m not sure anyone really knows what the term stands for. Is it that your legs feel like bricks, or that doing these workouts are like building a brick wall that will be strong during the run portion of an ironman?  Either way, there is no question as to the value of such workouts in terms of training ones body to be able to keep running at the end of an ironman.

In my quest to always look for the life metaphor in my ironman training, how does today’s workout relate?  Practicing running with your legs are tired and sore is not unlike practicing living ones life when things aren’t going perfectly.  That’s pretty much a constant, because rarely do things go perfectly.  I’ve had my own struggles the past few months, and I think I find my best outlet with hard workouts and training.  It also keeps me focused on a goal that I can get my head around.  Having been in Kona this past October to cheer my friend Robert on, and to have had the opportunity to run on most of the course, I can start visualizing how it will feel on race day.  Visualization works best when you can simulate how you’ll probably feel.  And so it goes.  

Since I started training for ironman 10 years ago, running on tired, “ironman legs,” has always been one of my favorite workouts. As I prepare for Boulder in 16 weeks, and Kona in 34, nothing has changed in this regard.  Approximating the feel of the run leg of an ironman is good training, but even better visualization!

Journey to Kona Day 13: Transparency

One of my friends and colleagues once told me that I can be scary transparent. I have a tendency to be honest to a fault.  People see this transparent honesty as genuine and sincere, as they should.  The scary part, as I understand fully is that this level of honesty and transparency is not always easily to handle.  Not everyone wants to deal with the truth, and not everyone is ready for it.  When I was younger, as in just a couple of years ago, I think that I might at times be too straightforward in sharing my unfiltered thoughts, which could have it’s downside.

In the late 1990’s I was President of GeriMed, a geriatric medical management company.  We were discussing a deal with Humana, which would have had us bring our geriatrics model to some of their Medicare managed care markets.  We met in their corporate office with one of their executives, Bruce Perkins.  I told him that single disease state disease management programs were worthless (which, by the way, the were), and that the proper approach to disease management in older adults was the geriatrics model.  What I didn’t realize was that he was the person behind all of Humana’s disease management programs.  Needless to say, our development person didn’t talk to me for weeks, as I lost any chance of making a deal with Humana due to my honesty.  

On the other hand, being honest and transparent has helped me be a successful leader.  People who work for me know that what I tell them is true.  When I empower people, they know that it’s real.  Like everything, there are good and bad aspects to this.  I realize that having confidence in people who work for me can give them confidence.  That’s wonderful, but if somehow my confidence is misplaced or inaccurate, I can be leading folks down the wrong path.  Of course, that’s life, and we can’t be responsible for all of the unknowns in life.  

One thing that I know for sure.  When you have confidence in people, and you share that confidence in a sincere and transparent manner, those people will follow you anywhere!  Of course, they might follow you over a cliff.  Or, they will follow you to the top of the mountain.  There is one thing that is certain.  When you’re honest and transparent, people know who you are and what they’re getting.  I’ll take that over any alternative consequences every day of the week.

Journey to Kona Day 12: Habits

My father taught me that doing something for 21 straight days builds a habit.  I had a busy day today, so it took some effort to get my 1 mile of running in this afternoon.  I’ve now run for 18 straight days.  I’m doing this for a few reasons.  From a training perspective, there’s no rational benefit of running every single day.  But that isn’t my purpose or my goal.  Running has ultimately been my challenge at the end of an ironman.  Not a huge challenge, as I usually finish an ironman in about the same place as I’m in when I start my run.  My last two races are exceptions based on illnesses and training, but if I’m adequately trained I don’t do too bad on the run.  With that said, I want to do better.  Since I know I can run long, and mentally I’m good with that, it just seems that getting the idea of running every single day locked into my brain might be helpful.  Hence, my daily running streak started 18 days ago.  I’ve committed that between now and Kona, I will run at least one mile every day.  Today was one of those “test” days.  

In running only one mile on a day like today, which for all practical purposes was a rest day for me.  Everything I did was light and easy (walking and a little easy spin on the bike).  I didn’t want to “just” run one mile, I needed a specific goal and purpose for that mile.  I’ve been working on my run cadence, which used to be about 160 foot strikes per minute, and I’ve been trying to increase that number to 170-175.  The science behind that has to do with having less time with one’s foot touching the ground.  Plus, most elite runners are closer to 180.  

I tend to struggle keeping my cadence up when I’m running slow or easy, so today, having only time to run a mile, I focused solely on having more rapid turnover.  I succeeded.  I ran my mile at about a 9:30 pace, but managed a cadence of 184 foot strikes per minute.  My breathing was higher than usual, and if I wore a heart rate monitor, I’m sure my HR would have been higher than what I’m used to when running at this pace.  That’s because I was doing something that my body wasn’t used to and was uncomfortable doing.  But that was kind of the idea.  It’s always good to do things that take you out of your comfort zone, and it takes work to change ones form, which is ultimately necessary if your increasing your cadence at lower paces.  

I few years ago, I worked on increasing my cadence and had some success, but my lack of training in the last year really caused me to slip back in to my more slogging habits.  Over the past few weeks, I’ve been steadily increasing my cadence closer to 170.  Today was the first time I’ve every gone about 180 while running relatively slowly.  It will be interesting to see what comes of this.  

More importantly, I motivated myself to my 18th straight day of running.  Three more days and my habit will officially be locked into place!

Journey to Kona Day 11: Envisioning

My wife woke up today pondering the concept of envisioning.  We all spend too much time envisioning our futures.  They are packed with expectations of what is going to happen.  The same view bleeds into our past as we reflect on what could have been.  We can no more change our past than we can predict our future.  We can only really deal with the present.  Life once again imitates ironman, where these concepts are critical for survival.  We spend too much of our lives worrying.  I’m pretty sure that worrying is unhealthy.  Fight or flight is one thing.  When we have an emergent situation, we need the surge of adrenalin to deal with the circumstance.  But when these same hormones are released constantly due to worrying, they cannot be helpful or healthy.  

There is no value in putting pressure on ourselves to achieve specific goals.  The key is to apply the effort and to try.  That’s all that we can ever do.  Results come one way or another.  Expectations really don’t help.  The very term, expectation, provides the clue.  If we spend our time in expectation, it detracts us from the effort and energy needed to focus on actually accomplishing something.  One of the things that I’ve learned over the years doing ironman is that spending time worrying or questioning my decisions during a race will actually sap me of needed energy.  The most important thing one can do during an ironman is to conserve all the energy you can.  It starts in the morning of a race.  Spending time worrying about the race, allowing oneself to get too cold in transition, spending too much time on ones feet, all of these things use energy that will be needed during the very long day.

Life is no different.  We need to conserve our energy, and not waste it on needless and unnecessary energy expenditures.  That includes worrying, overthinking (my number one weakness), and envisioning.  There’s a difference between envisioning and visualizing.  Visualization is a tool that I have found to be very effective in triathlon, but also in life.  Practicing what we’re going to do allows us to prepare neural pathways so that they can be more effectively utilized.  Visualization is purposeful. Envisioning is not.  Envisioning is about hoping how things will work out, when in fact, we just don’t know.  We’re better off just focusing on being in the moment. It’s really the only time that matters.

Journey to Kona Day 10: Listen to your Body

My coach reminded me today of the value of listening to one’s body and knowing when you’re ready.  Our conversation was focused on cycling and running, but I immediately realized what it meant on another level.  Ever since I quit my job in November, I’ve been lost.  Something has been missing and I’ve been looking for it.  My coaches reminder today made me realize that I just have to wait for it to come to me, which it has been starting to do as of late.  

I have an opportunity later this week to share my thoughts on what it takes to effectively educate doctors, nurse practitioners and physician assistants on how to deliver person centered care.  This feels right to me. It’s something that I’ve both talked about and actually done over the years.  It’s sorely needed in a healthcare system that tends to focus on how many patients one can see in a day, or on how much money one can make performing a procedure or selling a product.  It’s easy to sit down and write about it, and I know it will be even easier to stand up in front of a group and talk about it!  

I’ve also continued to procrastinate on my book project, which is also along the lines of promoting the approach to caring for older adults that I’ve lived for the past thirty years.  The reason for this has been more complex. I know that this is what I want to do, but I actually think that I’ve been afraid to move forward.  Fear is not something that is typically in my vocabulary.  Yet, the fear will dissipate when it’s the right time, and that time is now.  

On the triathlon front, my body has been telling me a lot in the past week.  While the bulk of my training will invariably have to be at a level of intensity that allows me to put in a high volume of work, I usually want something more. My coach recognizes this and will allow me to sprinkle in some of the intense workouts that I crave.  I really do seem to like putting myself through painful training and racing.  In some ways, that is why my favorite race is probably a 5K.  There’s nothing, to me at least, like finishing a 5K in extreme discomfort, to the point of feeling like I’m about to throw up or pass out.  I can achieve this feeling at the end of an ironman, and have achieved it on a few occasions.  Ironically, I found myself in this zone near the end of my recent 100 mile event.  It will be interesting to see what I decide to do next year in terms of training, based on my predilection towards intensity.

In the meantime, I’ll stick to accessing pain in my training and racing, rather than in life!  I think that it’s far healthier to feel pain through extreme exercise, rather than by achieving it through emotional distress brought on by conflict in the work environment.  It’s funny, I used to say that I wanted to become a high school chemistry teacher when I retired.  Since I’ve forgotten chemistry, I think I’ll just look for opportunities to teach the things that are important to me.  It feels like the right time to do this.