*Lack of Oxygen to the Brain

By now, I’m guessing that everyone has either seen or heard about last weekend’s 60 Minutes segment featuring Olympian (and recently named Sportsman of the Year) Michael Phelps. Among other things, we learned that Phelps doesn’t really eat 12,000 calories per day (it’s closer to 10,000 – as if that’s any less remarkable), that he can fall asleep in less than one minute (I can relate), and that his high-rise condo features piles of laundry and cupboards of cold cereal and snack foods much like any other 23-year-old bachelor would acquire.

The interview took a strange turn towards the end, when Anderson Cooper challenged Phelps to a race, with some conditions. That’s also about the time that I got really interested in watching.

The ground rules were that Phelps had to swim underwater, using only his legs for propulsion. Cooper took a diving start and swam freestyle. The result is the video below: (click to play)



The clip gave me a great idea for a swim workout – but first, a few thoughts on the journalist:

1) Did anyone get a watch on Cooper? By the time marks on the video, he covered a length of the pool in 14 seconds. Even if it’s just a 25-yard pool, if the dude spins a tight flipturn and hammers the return length, he’s swimming a sub-30-second fifty. And he wasn’t even wearing a Speedo Lazer suit. Sure, the tape could be edited … but if not, don’t be surprised to see AC show up at your next masters meet.

2) This is the second time in recent memory that Cooper has challenged one of the world’s best athletes to a skills competition. Last spring, he played goalkeeper and tried to defend a free kick against David Beckham. He’s like the high school kid who reports for the school newspaper, but secretly longs to be one of the jocks on the field instead of the person who helps make them popular. I know he’s the most famous newsman on television, but I sense that there might be a hint of insecurity to him. Just remember I said this if you ever see him playing a game of HORSE with LeBron James or table tennis with Venus Williams.

3) Cooper’s hair looks nearly as good after swimming 25 yards as it does when he’s in the anchor chair on CNN. Seems worth mentioning.

Despite the items above, the intent of this post wasn’t to poke fun at Anderson Cooper (although I must say, I sort of enjoyed it). Rather, what I took away from the video was how easily Michael Phelps covers a length of the pool underwater.

You may recall that I have this thing about swimming underwater. I worked for several months to make it fifty yards beneath the surface, and I’ll periodically attempt the feat every now and again just to see if I still can. However, it’s starting to take on the feel of a carnival trick – especially when other people are watching - so lately I’ve been experimenting with different breath-holding challenges just to keep things interesting.

My two favorites are 1) swimming a continuous 100-yard freestyle with 3 breaths on the first lap, 2 on the second, 1 on the third, and none on the final length, or 2) swimming 25 yards underwater, then taking a quick breath at the wall before pushing off for a freestyle breath-holder on the way back. (I know, I find pleasure in strange things. I’ve even come up with a name for these games: Fun With Hypoxia*. I’m basically a Darwin Award waiting to happen.)

After watching Phelps do a length of the pool with nothing but a butterfly kick, I knew that it was something I wanted to try. So this week, after a regular swim workout, I ducked under the surface, pushed off the wall, and made like Flipper for all I was worth.

I made it less than 20 yards.

Unsurprisingly, my main limitation wasn’t my air capacity, but a complete loss of momentum from my notoriously anemic butterfly kick after about 5 seconds. I spent almost as much time underwater as I do with the other challenges, but covered less than half the distance. When my shoulders started moving more in the vertical direction than horizontal, I figured it was time to surface and start breathing again.

Obviously, I didn’t expect to be as good as Phelps - but I didn’t expect to completely suck either. Regardless, I now have a new challenge to conquer – you KNOW I can’t just leave something like this alone - not to mention a new trick to add to my hypoxia catalog.

It’s also another reason for me to keep going to my swim workouts – and at this time of year, anything that inspires me to exercise is a welcome distraction.

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Pretty Is As Pretty Does

A couple of nights ago, while clicking through some post comments, I ended up finding a video of Sinead O’Connor on this post. Since I was recently nostalgic about Sinead, I clicked to play the song.

My 5-year-old daughter was sitting beside me, and approximately 30 seconds into the video, her 7-year-old sister stopped by, where we all had the following conversation:

7-year-old: Is that a girl?

Me: Yup. Her name’s Sinead.

7-year-old: But where’s her hair? Why does she have a buzz cut?

Me: That’s the way she wanted it, I guess. She’s still very pretty.

5-year-old: Yeah. I really like her singing.

The older daughter wasn’t quite convinced, so I dusted off my old I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got CD, and we listened to it during dinner. She didn’t say anything at the time - but the wheels are always turning in this girl, whether it’s apparent on the surface or not. So I wasn’t surprised by the conversation we had while I tucked her into bed later on:

Her: What was that girl’s name again?

Me: The singer? Sinead O’Connor.

Her: I like her songs. She has a nice voice.

Me: Yeah. Pretty isn’t all about hair, you know.

Her: I know.

Truthfully, she probably knew that before our impromptu lesson, but it was nice to hear her recognize the fact. Hopefully she’ll tuck that piece of knowledge away for the time being, and pull it out sometime when she’s having any hint of self-doubt.

In the meantime - since embedding videos is easy and I'm still feeling a bit nostalgic - here's Sinead's heartbreaking, yet incomparably pretty "Nothing Compares 2 U": (click to play)




(We'll get back to training stuff soon, I promise ... )

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The Marathon Bug

On the Monterey Peninsula, most runners’ race calendars are anchored around two premier events: the Big Sur Half-Marathon On Monterey Bay each November, and the Big Sur International Marathon at the end of April.

While most local marathon runners typically do both events, only a small percentage of half-marathon runners go on to do the marathon the following spring. There’s nothing wrong with this, of course; for many people, a half-marathon represents the longest distance, and the largest time commitment, that they are compelled to complete. And that’s absolutely fine.

Each year, however, a certain number of half-marathon participants get filled with wide-eyed ambition, and start thinking about continuing down the road towards distance running’s holy grail. The following Monterey Herald article was written for them.

**
Running Life “The Marathon Bug”

Let’s say you’re one of the thousands of runners who finished your first half-marathon this fall. By now, your body is reasonably well recovered, and you’ve got a great sense of accomplishment from running 13 miles.

Maybe you look adoringly at your finisher’s medal – and perhaps, every so often, you squint your left eye closed so that the word “half” is obscured. Maybe you find yourself wondering what it would take to get a medal like that. Sometimes you talk yourself out of it, but the idea lingers, and preoccupies your thoughts with each passing day.

If this is you – congratulations! You’ve caught the Marathon Bug. Chances are, it probably won’t go away. The only question now is what to do about it. How do you make the leap from 13.1 to 26.2?

The answer isn’t as hard as you may think. In fact, you can probably have yourself ready for a marathon by next spring. You’ve already got a foundation, and there’s plenty of time to build upon it.

Your first, most important step is to commit yourself NOW to reaching the goal. Go online and register for the race. Your motivation to train will be much greater after you’ve officially signed up. Where your money goes, your body is likely to follow.

Between now and springtime, you’ll gradually progress your training towards your marathon goal. At first, you don’t have to change the number of days, or the number of miles you ran to train for the half. The most important adjustment is to reserve one day per week for a marathon-specific training run.

Starting in January, your overall mileage will gradually build, as the length of your training runs increase. Long runs should increase by 1 or 2 miles every other week, and marathon pace workouts can be anywhere from 5 to 12 miles. Many runners will raise their mid-week mileage as well, but this is depends on how your body responds to the longer weekend runs.

Your longest run should be three weeks before the race, and should be at least 22 miles. Let’s say you’re training for our hometown race – the Big Sur Marathon at the end of April. Working backwards, your long runs in March should be 18 to 20 miles, in February should be 16 to 18, and in January should be 14 to 16. If you ran a recent half-marathon, and you keep training through December, starting a 14-mile long run in January shouldn’t be too intimidating.

Finally, don’t hesitate to enlist some help. Find someone who runs marathons and pester them for advice. Visit websites and read the blogs of experienced runners, and absorb their knowledge like a sponge.

Yes, the road to 26.2 is hard sometimes, but the rewards are worth it. If you thought the sense of accomplishment from running 13 miles was great, the pride of a marathon finish will blow you away. And it’s available to anyone who wants to make the leap.

Don’t be afraid to take a bold step and scratch that Marathon Bug. Chances are, it will never go away unless you do.

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All That I Requested

“I'm walking through the desert-
And I am not frightened although it's hot -
I have all that I requested –
And I do not want what I haven't got”
- Sinead O’Connor, “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got” (click to play)

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As far as celebrities go, Sinead O’Connor was the musical equivalent of a shooting star.

She rocketed to fame on the success of her 1990 album I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, featuring the ubiquitous “Nothing Compares 2 U” (written – in case the title wasn’t a giveaway – by Prince, at the height of his songwriting powers). She spent several months as the media's darling du jour before a few well-publicized and poorly considered public appearances (such as ripping up a picture of the Pope on live TV, refusing to perform after the National Anthem, etc.) brought her time in the spotlight to a turbulent, fiery end.

As for the album – it was the most poignant collection of songs many people had ever seen. The tracks are equal parts stark and passionate, vulnerable and strong, desperate and hopeful. They're the soundtrack of a lost romantic soul clamoring for peace and acceptance in her relationships, as well as her overall place in the world.

They are also the songs that my wife and I fell in love to.

Sinead’s hushed, passionate voice played in the background during countless long nights that my then-girlfriend and I spent together, talking into the wee hours, exchanging hopes and vulnerabilities on the long road to joining our lives together. When we didn’t feel like talking, we’d just lay in the dark and listen to the songs that spoke directly to our hearts. At that time in our lives, we were the center of each other’s world, and there was honestly nothing else I wanted other than the girl and the life that I already had.

Eighteen years later, I feel almost exactly the same way.

I don’t know why memories of the album’s title song came back to me recently – except perhaps that as Thanksgiving draws near, I’m thinking about the blessings I’ve been lucky enough to enjoy over the past two decades. Nowadays, it extends beyond just my wife – to my expanded family, and the beautiful place I live, and all the activities I’ve had the opportunity to enjoy.

When I listen to Sinead's remarkable voice today, I'm reminded to find meaning in the quiet moments, and comfort in the storms of life. My circumstances (not to mention my wife's) are certainly different than they used to be; life is more complex, more challenging, but at the same time, more fulfilled. It remains as desperate and hopeful as it did long ago – but with each passing day, more often than not, I find myself at peace with the way everything has played out.

For all of those things, I consider myself extremely fortunate. I have all that I requested – and I do not want what I haven’t got.

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Play-Doh Running

Suffice it to say, the post I had originally intended for Saturday never materialized – so it will be postponed until another day. In the meantime, I’ve found myself coming to grips with the passage of time quite frequently lately.

I mentioned a while back that my youngest daughter was soon to turn 5; that day has now come and gone, and our family has a freshly minted 5-year-old in our midst. It’s quite likely that she’ll forever and always remain the baby of our family, so watching her skip off to elementary school this year feels like a chapter of our epic parental adventure has come to a close.

I’m generally not nostalgic for having infants and toddlers around the house, and I don’t lament the progression of our children’s development. However, I realize that some routines and experiences that were once commonplace will become increasingly rare over the months and years to come, before disappearing forever. That’s not inherently a good thing or a bad one; it’s just the way things go.

For instance, it’s now almost hard for me to remember a certain peculiar habit I followed nearly every morning before lacing up my running shoes. Thankfully, I wrote most of the details down a few years ago – and the result is the post that follows below.

**

My running shoes usually occupy the bottom shelves of a utility cabinet in our dining area. A few shelves higher on the same cabinet is the storage area for our children’s Play-Doh containers and accessories. Surrounding the containers are leftover bits of dough that linger on the cabinet before eventually falling towards the floor.

Consequently, I’ve acquired an odd habit early in the morning before I go running: as I sit on our steps, preparing to lace up my shoes, the first thing I do is turn them upside down to empty out stray clods of Play-Doh.

Recently I’ve wondered if my daily runs would be any different if I just left the Play-Doh in my shoes; in many ways, the multi-purpose toy serves the same purposes for kids that running does for adults.

Play-Doh has been around for almost 50 years, primarily because it is an ideal interactive toy. It appeals to kids of all ages (and think about it- hasn’t every kid you’ve ever known had some? It must be the most ubiquitous toy ever), and has countless practical applications. It stimulates a child’s creativity, as well as his emotional and physical growth.

For babies, it exposes them to a unique texture, and helps develop their grasp. It teaches them basic colors, and how certain colors can be mixed to make other colors. (Of course, the lesson that everyone remembers best is that all colors crammed together for long enough eventually make brown.)

Toddlers use Play-Doh to develop fine motor skills, and to experience how objects can be manipulated to change their form. Older kids use it in a more scientific context – either to learn how it’s made, what causes it to dry out and harden, or why water can rehabilitate a partially-parched clump.

Play-Doh has therapeutic properties as well. In fact, there’s a whole subset of child psychology called “clay therapy” which utilizes the material to help draw out aspects of a child’s personality that otherwise stay unrevealed.

Now compare the wide-ranging functions of Play-Doh to those that grown-ups reap from the sport of running. While the most obvious gains are to our physical well-being, our sport provides numerous creative and emotional benefits as well.

For example, most of the ideas for articles I write are hatched in the midst of a run somewhere. The physical exertion and endorphin surge somehow open a creative reservoir that is inaccessible at other times of the day. It’s a common phenomenon, as many people have stories of some business or relationship problem that was finally figured out while running.

Running exposes us to our physical surroundings, and instills an acute awareness of their impact on us. Rolling hills and sloping sand dunes become much more impressive structures when you’re struggling up the sides of them - and running at the feet of majestic redwood trees, or along a mountain trail, is enough to ingrain a sense of humility in almost any of us.

Finally, running also displays qualities of people that aren’t otherwise obvious in their daily lives. Whether it’s the competitive nature of a shy middle-aged woman, the focused discipline of a marathon runner, or the perseverance and determination of an ultrarunner, running is the means by which these traits are developed and later revealed.

Author Robert Fulghum once contemplated what the world would be like if, instead of bombing enemy countries, we dropped packs of Crayola crayons instead. He envisioned creating a generation that was too busy developing their creative and artistic talents to cultivate hatred. The scenario could just as easily pertain to dropping Play-Doh - or for that matter, to developing a generation of runners.

(Incidentally, this story also plays into my father’s theory of how to topple Communist nations: instead of isolating them, we should just open the floodgates and give them the full capitalistic, decadent American experience. Once they start playing GameBoys, eating French fries and Krispy Kremes, buying iPods and watching Beyonce videos, they’ll get addicted, and overthrow their dictators to acquire more. It’s not a bad idea, really. But I digress…)

After all, newcomers often comment about what a nice group of people runners typically are – so it’s not too far-fetched to suppose that the world might be a better place if more people were runners. It seems that when people have some activity that brings them satisfaction, humility and joy on a regular basis, they’ll be less inclined to foster the petty grievances that grow into bitterness or insecurity.

In light of all these things, I’ve started leaving the Play-Doh in my shoes when I head out the door for my morning run. I’m hoping that it helps me to appreciate the world around me, and reminds me that childhood is never too far behind me. As I head out the door, the Play-Doh is a silent reminder of the possibilities that lie before me with each morning’s run, and with the rest of the day that follows.

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Sunrise Revisited

Admin note: things have been kind of crazy around here lately. I had planned a full-length post for Friday, but I'm way behind - so let's aim for Saturday and see how that goes. Come to think of it ... Saturday's a more appropriate day, anyway. I'll see what I can do. In the meantime, here's a snapshot from a few mornings ago.

**

It's been awfully tough for me to get out of bed lately. In the middle of my self-imposed off-season, and as the mornings get colder and darker with each passing day, I spend far more sunrises tucked inside my bed than out on the trails. But every now and then, I rally myself out the door and into the hills.

This was my view from the top of a Carmel Valley ridge line on Tuesday morning:


It's not necessarily anything to take your breath away - but it's always enough to make me glad that I made it out of bed. Whenever I'm standing atop some hill after a long climb while most of the world is stirring from their slumber, I ask myself why I can't do this everyday.

Soon enough, there will come a time when that's my normal routine. For now, I'm content to revisit those hilltop sunrises and those feelings of satisfaction in small amounts - just to remind myself that they are still there.

**update** I won't have a post by Saturday, either. It's not happening.

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The Story of (Someone Else's) Success

Having role models can be a mixed blessing sometimes.

We’re all familiar with the positive aspects of focusing attention on those we admire. Whether it’s the company CEO, or a famous athlete, or simply an upstanding family person who seems to have his or her life in balance, those types of people are sources of inspiration and encouragement about what might be possible in our own lives.

Athletes tend to latch onto role models more frequently than the population at large. High school athletes make scholarship decisions based on which coaching guru they want to instruct them. Rookie professionals look to seasoned veterans for tips on how to succeed in the big leagues. Novice marathoners or triathletes seek advice and mentoring from hired coaches or experienced members of their training club. It’s basic human nature that in order to improve ourselves, we need to learn from those who are better than us.

Occasionally, however, consideration of someone else’s abilities or accomplishments is enough to make a person feel woefully inadequate. Sure, an African-American can be elected President, and a cancer survivor can win the Tour de France, and a college dropout can become the world’s richest man - but the amount of toil and commitment and (to some extent) good fortune that is required for somebody else to duplicate those achievements seems entirely too staggering to comprehend. Sometimes it’s easier to just let the great people do what they do, while the rest of us remain content with our own meager attempts to emulate them.

The reason all this comes to mind is because Malcolm Gladwell has a new book out this week.

It’s no secret around these parts that I’m completely in the tank for Gladwell. This isn’t a recent development - as the following paragraphs from a post I wrote in May of 2006 shortly after reading his then-current book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking should make perfectly clear:

**

Now, I just happen to have this thing about Malcolm Gladwell. He’s a brilliant writer with razor sharp insight, and has a way of writing about all manner of esoteric subjects in a way that reads like an espionage thriller. He can tell you about a syphilis epidemic in Baltimore, or an Ivy League admissions policy, or a retrospective analysis of the “Pepsi Challenge” taste tests in a style that’s not merely interesting – he actually makes you wonder why you didn’t realize these topics were so darn compelling a long time ago.

Over the past two years he has become my favorite author. I’ve also learned that he’s a passionate, knowledgeable sports fan, a runner, and – to top it all off – he even has a blog. It’s probably a good thing I don’t actually know him, or else I’d be in danger of developing some kind of man-crush on him.

**

The new book is called Outliers: The Story of Success, and it deals – ironically enough, in the context of this post – with the factors that determine individual success. He looks at conventional beliefs about how great people succeed in life - whether it's gifted physical ability, innate genius, privileged socioeconomic origins, or just good-old fashioned hard work – and analyzes the relative validity of such theories in modern-day society. He discusses the underlying reasons why successful people excel, and what the rest of us can learn from them.

(On a completely random side note: be sure to check out the link above - if not to buy the book, at least to see Gladwell's fantastic Sideshow Bob hairdo. I swear, if growing my hair like that would make me an author, I'd do it in a heartbeat. You think I'm kidding.)

Obviously, this new book has jumped straight to the top of my current reading list – but in some ways, I’m almost reluctant to read it. Whenever I read anything written by Gladwell – either from his New Yorker articles or his books – I’m completely astonished at his writing ability. I marvel at the way he strings words together, and at how he finds the most interesting angles to any subject matter he tackles. He makes me think about everyday situations in ways that are both unconventional, and unexpectedly insightful.

I try to emulate his style a little bit in my own writing – which is somewhat akin to a Pee Wee hoops player saying he emulates LeBron James. Maybe I can do a crossover dribble or sink a long-range jump shot every now and then - but I can’t soar above the rim, and I can’t carry a team on my back night after night, and I can’t make it all look nearly as effortless as the superstars do. Reading Gladwell’s stuff makes me want to be a better writer; at the same time, it makes me realize that I’ll never be a great writer.

In that respect, I’ve learned to enjoy his works for the achievements they are, and take the good feelings along with the bad. After all, those mixed emotions are just part of the tradeoff with having such accomplished role models.

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