How We Got to the Moon

Drama.

In some circles (movies, music, art) it is considered an absolute necessity. In others (relationships, driving, school) it is avoided like a plague of pandemic proportion. 

There is a chemical reaction similar to the fight or flight response that take places the nanosecond tempers flare, buttons are pushed or certain words carrying emotional payloads are launched. Whether this confrontation is between two people or an army, the bottom like is that something important is taking place. Something uncomfortable to discuss. Sadly, we would rather remain in pain than change the course of our ego, bias or ignorance and agree to a solution. 

Personally I find wisdom in the adage ’no resistance - no stress’, but there are times when that simply won’t do. Something has happened, or not happened, that requires action and a quick, effective response. Not an eye for an eye, but diplomacy. Successful communication. The transfer of information and intent. As Spock might say, to serve ‘the needs of the many’.

Yesterday inside our indoor cycling dojo, the world famous PowerBarn, we took advantage of the damp, gray skies to ride (for 2:15) while watching the movie First Man. You know the story, the Space Race of the 60’s resulting in Neil Armstrong’s pronouncement that giant steps had been taken for mankind. The scene that stole the film had nothing to do with NASA, the politics of race relations and war, both simultaneously spiraling violently out of control, but with the impossible duty imposed upon Armstrong to confront the reality of the mission to his two sons. Literally ordered by his wife to tell their boys that Dad might not return from the dangerous and mathematically impossible sortie to space, they sit at the kitchen table in utter terror as the scene unfolds. I am spinning the wheels of my Fuji with watery eyes as I consider the dramatic degree of difficulty hanging over the family as the truth is exposed - and relationships strengthened, bonds solidified, love shared. 

Courage on display. Both boys make noble and mature gestures, one hug and one handshake. Mom supervises the exchange fighting back tears. I lost that battle. 

Drama. 

Work together, be flexible and ready to sacrifice. Love your brother. Check your ego at the door and pack as big a lunch as you can into the box you plan to share with your neighbor. Toast to their success and yours. And to future success. Shake hands. Hug.

Nothing happens until we muster the courage to face the reality of conflict. And then take the steps necessary for its resolution. That is how we learn, grow and create powerful relationships. 

It was also how we got to the moon. 

Mission is to Carry On

Had one of our regulars admit to me after yesterday’s rocking spin class that she suffers from Imposter Syndrome. She is extremely successful, talented, a business owner, a world traveler, tri-lingual and as personable a person you will ever want to meet. She and her husband just returned from three months in Palm Springs, a locale significantly warmer and drier than our Pacific Northwest moss museum. I never suspected this of her. Very ironic. 

Because the theme of our session was threefold:

1) Acceptance of the reality of your current state of physical fitness.

2) Forgiveness of past events that have contributed its less than optimal status.

3) Firm commitment to move forward with patience, focus, and peaceful balance. 

Steering the group towards visions of their ‘best selves’, we avoid the most common potholes, pratfalls and detours. From our experience and practice we had identified many hazards that await each of us once we embark on the sacred journey. Granting the fact that actual hazards will vary by individual circumstance, we offer support and encouragement to those negotiating the battlefield for the first time. Or the fifth. Or the fiftieth. Here are a few  

you might be familiar with.

Distraction. 

Arrogance.

Ignorance.

Sloth.

Depression.

Guilt.

Addiction.

Fear.

I have yet to meet the perfectly balanced person. Everyone has a cross to bear, an emotional scar or two and anxiety over something uncontrollable. When we offer solutions, opportunities and options that have the potential to combine the most powerful threesome known to us; the strength of the body, the immense power of the mind and the universal compassion of the soul, we offer it to everyone, regardless of their pedigree, hue, status, IQ or any combination of physical, emotional or religious status. Somewhere between darkness and enlightenment, we are all stumbling towards that thing we call happiness. It has long been my belief that our physicality represents the major percentage contributing to the success of that noble quest. It has been suggested that good health is 90% of happiness. Whomever said that (first) in my opinion was a pessimist. 

So here we are. Another day to improve upon yesterday and indeed our entire body of work. Those myriad decisions, choices, best guests, mistakes, losses, hurts, joys and victories. All of it, every bit. 

Every workout, ride, run, lap in the pool, trip to the beach, visit to the sick, kind word to neighbor, toss of tennis ball to chocolate lab, mention of praise to teammate, time spent with kids, meal prepared, book read, mantra voiced, lawn mowed, carburetor cleaned and corruption cited, are all the atoms that comprise us. Are we truly what we think? Are we really what we eat? Is this predestined? Do we actually have a choice?

We do. I chose to relentlessly move in the direction of my vision of my better self. That means work, effort, study, play, forgiveness and gratitude. It means sharing. It means random acts of kindness and going the extra kilometer. It means wearing the moccasins of those whose values vary from mine. 

It means moving gracefully and with awareness through the battlefield others have built in the greedy political attempt to control my consent. 

They are the imposters. Corrupt, implicit, immoral, shameful and criminal. 

Our mission is to carry on. 

Survey2List (Set One)

All right then. Here we go. 

Presented for your musical consideration. And please remember that this set-list accompanies an indoor cycling session - today is a high intensity 45 minute set. So keep that combination in mind as you make your voice heard in our Survey2List experiment in musical- exercise democracy. 

You may also suggest songs, and if you do please give me the song name, artist and genera. Should you desire to comment on the potential use of your tune suggestion, as it might pair with a specific drill (climb, sprint, etc) we humbly invite you to do so. 

I plan on using a standard scale with the exception that ours will be 0-5. Zero means ‘never play that song again’ and Five indicates that you would have no problem listening to it in every class. 

Good Luck and Thank you.

Lucy in the Sky Survey

The List and the Survey. Modern equivalents of basic duties once demanded of town criers and wandering minstrels. Or Gypsies and Buskers. 

Truth be proclaimed: I am fans of both, all actually. 

We love lists. Probably mostly as validation of our existing opinions, beliefs or bias. Top Ten lists are particularly emphatic be they College Football, restaurants, French impressionists or Southern Rock bands. 

Surveys, while light-years behind lists as sexy, are a precursor to them. Tell us what you think about our product or service and we’ll increase the sample size to better graph brand trending and popular culture. The peoples court of public opinion.  If a single note is the survey, a smash hit is the top-ten list. Yin and Yang, one following the other as natural progression. 

It is with these two as impetus that we launch something I am a little surprised we haven’t flirted with prior. The results of the survey will then be used to create the list. I am doing this because I already make way too many assumptions about my preferences in the combination of exercise, specifically, indoor cycling, to the musical accompaniment therewith. 

Those of you having any historical familiarity whatsoever with this blog already know that my musical tastes prefer what in the biz is known as classic rock. I am also partial to folk rock, the aforementioned Southern rock, Blues, Mo-Town and fusions of all types. Oh, yeah and jam bands. Having tried, unsuccessfully, to incorporate jazz and classical into sets, and not being a fan of rap, hip-hop or anything modern, I have in fact cornered myself into a limited range of any genera reasonably considered ‘new’. Sure I can, and do, create fresh play lists for almost every class, digging deep into catalogues embedded with the mold of long forgotten toe-taps and sing-alongs, but really, if every set list contains a silly love song from the Fab Four, during the British Invasion and first released as a 45, am I, as DJ, unintentionally restricting the opportunity for audience appreciation? 

As much as we talk lovingly about this golden era of rock, does my core demographic secretly wish for the occasional Britney Spears, Byonce or Taylor Swift? I have no idea. None. My assumption is that if they wanted some they would ask. 

Those being the facts it is with great interest that we launch, A) The Survey, and from it, B) The List.

I am going to create a print out of tomorrows class listing every tune and asking for a response. Thinking about a simple 1-5, one being intolerable, and five being a keeper. After three sessions, which will include the there main demographics of class participants, I’ll tabulate the results and create, ta-da, the Top Ten as generated by the spinning proletariat. 

Won’t THAT be fun? 

I will share with you tomorrow the first set-list (should you choose to participate electronically), and all subsequent others. 

Please be advised that each will contain one Beatles tune. 

Little White Lies

Body Mass Index aside, this morning represented a milestone of sorts. After my second spin class of the day I stood atop the scale wondering what a thousand calorie burn might represent on the balance bar. True, I had a small bowl of yogurt and granola between sessions, and I have managed the discipline to eliminate one beer from the nightly cool-down routine, leaving a low-alcohol, 98 calorie per, total consumption to less than 300 (minus dinner), I felt like there might be the possibility of a negative split on the day. And for the record a day that is far from over, as we are lifting at noon, I have a lawn to mow (non-motorized) and a final 2x20 session in the PB at 1830. 

BMI is an average. The calc is as simple as it gets, height (in) x weight. From that total a chart indicates your index. You can be skinny, unhealthy, average, fat, obese or overweight. For the record I know a lot of very lean triathletes that have unhealthy BMIs, as I know several football players that are stronger than bull elephants yet considered unhealthy and overweight. I guess insurance companies and overloaded general practitioners can glean some data from this measurement, but for most of the folks I deal with, it is nowhere near an accurate snapshot of their true health and fitness. Very much like the old 220 minus your age to determine maximum heart rate. A gross generalization and inadequate for anyone wanting accuracy in their training regimen. 

We were talking the other night about the difference between our former ‘playing weight’ and its current count. No one in the group that evening was anywhere near what weight class they participated in at their last competitive level. In some cases, like mine, we are talking about an athlete’s stats from over a half-century ago. Back in the days when accuracy was nowhere near the level of today, when it was, and remains, an art form to hedge both height and weight - on paper - for whatever benefit might be gained as a result of said hedgery. So it was with great trepidation that I reported my playing weight, in 1970, as a slick fielding shortstop at 5’10’ and 175, although the reality was 5’9’ and 165. One inch and ten pounds possibly being the difference between a tryout with the Giants or working as a sporting goods salesman. I much preferred the former and was willing to say five Hail Mary’s and five Our Father’s as penance for my overzealous little white lie. With the assumption of course that as a means to and end I would one fine day be a starting shortstop, somewhere in preferably the American League. 

I bring all this up today because as I settled the bar between the metal arrows on the scale, I had to keep pushing the counterweight left, or lower. Finally when this dramatic process was finished the indicator weight was pointing to 165. 

I had reached my playing weight. 

I know for fact that my ‘cubic inch displacement’ has self adjusted since my last college RBI, a sac fly against a LACC team that featured three players destined for supporting roles in The Show, meaning that muscle has been replaced by fat, but the metric used by health professionals still insists that I am, at 24.35% BMI, a healthy former shortstop. 

I should be happy. 

Trial by Fire

Trial by

As leader of this mission it is your job, as primary objective, to take the team at full speed to the river. Once there you will fall back, stand down and allow each individual to decide for themselves whether or not to jump in, swim across, find a boat or bridge, or retreat. This is a test. It may not be repeated soon. You have this one chance to get it done. Use the tools you were given, understand and commit to the objective, and execute your plan. 

GO. 

This dramatic imagery conjures visions of challenge, teamwork, presence and focus. We could have made it even more interesting by adding the always unruly elements of fatigue, hunger, dehydration and/or sleep deprivation, and of course, a bit of distraction for good measure. Yes and while we’re at it, let’s compromise one of the five, say speech, this has to be done stealthily and silently. No verbal communication. 

Yesterday in my haste to get the story told, I left out a shipping container sized load of detail. The story was that of Jenny Graham, and her astounding global circumnavigation of the earth, all 18,000 miles of it. I used the story in class this morning as a way to match up (sure go ahead and compare) our puny commitments with those she demonstrated on her, what can accurately be called, incredible achievement. In review, 18,000 miles, all six (We combine Europe and Asia because they are one land mass), in an astounding 124 days (4 months) averaging 156 miles a day, fully self-supported. WOW. 

She said of her sacred journey that she was fascinated by the continually changing understanding of herself. For when she thought that she could go no further, not another pedal rotation or kilometer, she could, in fact, somehow continue. What was once a fact (I cannot go further) was being challenged every day and proven to be incorrect, inaccurate or, should one choose to frame it as such, a lie. Truth being revealed to her in the form of courage and wisdom. 

Match that up with our current understanding of our limitations. On what conditions or under what circumstances do we, traditionally, toss the towel? When do we give up and go home, or worse, never take that magical first step?

The process we call progressive overload gives us a chance and flashes a chance for us to move in the direction of our energy, power, commitments and bold vision. It allows us to continually improve by consistently adding to our current total package. You got speed? Add power. You got power? Add endurance. You got endurance? Add adventure. You got adventure? Add dynamic flow. 

We add until our story is told and our souls are satisfied with our produced effort, a true trial by fire. 

Your story will not be told until you have crossed the river, faced the demons, adjusted your strategy, changed your tactics, withstood the cold, endured the distraction, muted the negatives, made the sacrifice and accomplished the primary objective. 

And you know what that is. So go.

Badassery

Just when you start to feel (pick one or all that apply), strong, fearless, capable, empowered, alive, awake, energetic, creative, visionary, hopeful, positive, optimistic, ready, or prepared, something or someone comes along to fully illustrate the relative level of your assessment. Here are a couple of timely examples. Please take a few minutes to read both, as they are great stories. The first is in bullet point form and lists Alistair Humphrey's ten lessons of the road. If you need additional inducement here is item one: 'Setting an outrageous goal is a great start point. You are capable of more than you realize'.

The second lesson in badassery is from Jenny Graham who set the record for fastest time around the planet. She said this about the 18,000 mile, 124 day trek:  'I always thought it was really impressive that every time you thought you didn’t have any more, actually, you did'.

It is with total admiration and respect that I present these two bona-fide bad asses for your review. And motivation. 

Set outrageous goals. Smash barriers. Take the first step - and keep going. The Universe will conspire with you in the search for meaning and the satisfaction of your soul.

I am not sure how our 1,600 mile trip from Seattle to LA in August matches up, or the 365 miles of the 2019 Olympic Peninsula Cycling Tour in June, new logo for which makes its debut above, but I do know that they both have the feel, today, of chasing some of the badassery shown by Alistair and Jenny. 

And that's a start.