backfire

My plans I laid out have backfired, instead of keeping me motivated and fired up they have led to overuse injury, exhaustion, and burnout.

I am, for now, making my training plans week by week.

This week, one easy run, one fun run, and one trail half marathon at Fall Creek Falls.

Making Adjustments

It has become pretty obvious that I bit off more than I could chew. Running, biking, strength training, conditioning, kung fu, two jobs, parenting. . .

So I am adjusting my goals week by week. If I wind up short of my originally projected numbers, so be it. If I wind up ahead, awesome.

Do It Anyway

The theme for my workouts this week has been, "Get up and do it anyway." My motivation has been low, but I've been doing my best to get up and go do my workouts anyway. I've had some success with this. My plan had been to run in the mornings and do my other workouts in the evenings. The runs all happened, but not much else. It seems by the end of the day my willpower is less strong.

So, time to refocus and head forward again.

12 mile trail race in 4 weeks.

Nebulous

My goals for this journey are concrete, but still feel nebulous. I have found I perform better the more concrete my goals are. 100 pushups in a minute, yeah, I can measure that, 20 minute 5K, I know exactly how much faster I need to get. This kung fu stuff though, is so much more vague. It is harder to measure my progress. Yes, I could memorize more forms, I could do a certain number of repeats, but I still haven't really found a way to make it feel solid.

Out of the Comfort Zone

I happen to like my comfort zone. It's. . . well, it's comfortable. It's easy to keep doing what I've been doing. It's comfortable to lather, rinse, repeat, without thinking about it. To stay the course without new challenges, without new fears, without new experiences. I honestly don't crave adventure much.

Those of you that have been around me the last few years may think this sounds a bit strange considering all the new adventures I've been taking on, but the truth is my inclination to stay in my box is exactly why I keep challenging myself.

Master Tom Pardue often says there is a difference between having 20 years experience, and having one year experience 20 times. That is what I'm striving to avoid, one year experience 20 times.

At times, it seems that this process has drawn people to me, at other times it seems to have driven them away. I have gaines some great students in this process, I have also lost some cherished students, others have stuck with me through thick and thin.

I don't know what it is about this journey I'm on that draws some and pushes others away. I won't pretend that I have all the answers. I will say this, I'm on the adventure of a lifetime, and I intend to keep it that way.

Me Vs. Ego

I use the "smartcoach" at Runner's World to plan my running workouts. I put in a time for a race I've done and what race I'm training for and it puts together a workout plan on what distances and speeds I should be running to train for the race.

Lately I've been consistently slower than the pace set out by the smartcoach, so I had this conversation with my ego.

Me: I think I need to adjust my training plan, I'm not able to keep up with these times.

Ego: Naaah, this is based on one of your 5K races, you can do it.

Me: Yeah, but it's based on a 5K I did 3 months ago when I was running, and swimming, and biking regularly. Since then the weather has interrupted my biking and my schedule has cut out the swimming, and on top of that, an injury cut out a lot of my strength training.

Ego: but, but, if you lower your scores your RACE TIME will be lower.

Me: Look at what's going on ego, my race time is about to be lower anyway, and I'm going to get hurt along the way, it's time to slow down.

Spaz!

I have a spasm in a muscle in my neck/back. It's not cripplingly painful, but I don't want it to get that way, so I've been easing off on the workouts for about a week.

Running seems to actually help it, but kettlebells, kung fu, pushups, and biking are on hold.

Sometimes setbacks are part of the journey.

Trying Harder

On my bike ride in to work today, with plans to "go fast", I didn't manage to go very fast. So I analyzed my effort. I realized pretty quickly that in my 23-25 minute rides to work and my slightly longer rides home (It's mostly downhill there, mostly uphill back), that I was not feeling at the end of my rides the way I feel at the end of a 5K running race. The easy conclusion is that I was not working as hard on my bike as I work when I run.

So I decided to focus on effort level for the ride home.

I made it home in my fastest time ever for a ride home from work.

I thought I was trying hard, but I got tricked by my brain again.

I just had to try harder.

Getting Back on Track

The winter break has been good for me. I'm getting back on track and re-energized. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. A little more struggling and schedules will settle down a bit.

I'm looking forward to having time to go to Louisville for training again.

I'm looking forward to having more time to plan for classes.

I'm looking forward to having more energy for classes and special events.

Tough Week.

Emma's been sick, I've been sick, I've gotten off my schedule. I'm going to have to make it up.

That's part of the process though.

Narrow Path

I am trying to remember to be what I want to see in the world. I want to see people striving for personal improvement, working to improve the lives of those around them, and being joyful while doing it all.

This is a challenge. I think I need to research some role models on this.

Re-evaluate

Things are going pretty well so far, I'm getting into a routine and learning a lot about my strengths and weaknesses.

I'm eating pretty well, avoiding a lot of bad for me stuff, but logging my food intake is making me realize I need to focus on making sure I get my veggies.

Balancing all the physical requirements is tough. I think I over estimated the amount I could do in a week, so I've adjusted some goals downward. It is the wise way to go so as to avoid injury.

Racing Thursday, then holiday travels.

Motivation Comes After the First Mile

My wife once said to me when she was getting ready to go out on a run. "I don't feel motivated to do this, but motivation comes after the first mile." What she meant by that was that sometimes you have to get out and get moving even when you aren't feeling any motivation and often once you get going you feel motivated to continue. That is what I've been doing to get motivated with all my training lately. On days when I don't feel motivated, I get up and at it anyway. Sometimes motivation follows, but not always. Even when motivation doesn't come, I at least get my workout in.

Some days it is easy and fun.

Some days it is a chore.

Just get up and train.

Fighting the Slump

One of the purposes of this project, this journey, this challenge, is to help me through this current slump.

I've been through several kung fu slumps, I've let slumps defeat me in other areas, I've seen plenty of others go through kung fu slumps. I've often given advice to people who are in a slump. Most of them quit kung fu during their first slump. Most that make it through the first one quit during the next one.

Having been through several slumps now, I have some bad news for those with less experience. It hasn't gotten easier to break out of them. It takes hard work.

Of course, that's what kung fu means isn't it, "hard work".

So what's the key to getting through the slump? I doubt there is any one key, but what works for me is allowing myself to feel unmotivated without giving myself grief or guilt about it, making a plan for how I will train through my slump, then working hard through the end of the slump.

difficulties

It's been hard so far to get into a routine. Work commitments, family commitments, illnesses. . .

That is, however, what this is all about. I know that I will have difficulties and challenges. I simply must rise to the occasion.

Planning Ahead

I have discovered that to the key to me eating healthy is planning ahead. When I plan ahead I take healthy home cooked food to work for lunch. When I fail to plan ahead, I run to Kroger during the day and get fried chicken.

My first week was sabotaged by sickness. The beauty of it though is that when you have a two year program, there is room to get sick every once in a while then catch up later. I'm almost better, so I'm getting back on the horse.

Day One

Today it begins. OK, that's not true, it began a long time ago. This journey began when I walked in the door of Tom Pardue's Kung Fu School in July 2000. I signed up for classes in August and started training with no particular goals in mind.

The nice thing about those silly colored belts, is there is a built in goal system. A little extra motivator to get a martial arts student training toward a goal even if they don't have one. It works, I've seen it time and time again. So I started working towards a belt test, then another and another. . .

Now, I've been a black sash for 8 years. So I am starting another segment of my journey. I am setting some pretty intense goals for myself because I do not want to get complacent. I believe that if a person stops training after they pass their black sash test, eventually they are no longer a black sash. The way I see it, it's like being a marathon runner. If a person ran a marathon once when they were 22, then never ran another mile for the next ten years, they are no longer a marathon runner.

I'd rather keep my black sash.

So. . .

Over the next two years:

100 hours of kung fu training.

100 hours of strength and conditioning training

2000 miles run.

2000 miles biked.

100 entries on this blog.

Work on my bonsai.

Grow my garden each year.

4 Community projects.

Maintain and improve my diet.

Maintain and improve my sustainability.

Also, journeys are easier with company along the way, so who is willing to jump in and join me?

Your requirements don't have to be the same as mine.

What It's All About

That title covers a lot of ground for this first post. This post is to describe what this blog is about, but also what my journey over the next two years is about.

I talked to my Sifu, Master Tom Pardue, about what the requirements were to receive my next rank, 5th degree black sash. It turned out that other than meeting the minimum time requirement I had pretty much already met all the requirements. I was actually a little disappointed. Don't get me wrong, the list he gave me was an impressive one, but I didn't like the idea of not needing to do anything else over the next two years. At about the same time, I found myself in a state of low motivation and in need of a challenge. So here comes the challenge I will be setting for myself.

I will be writing about my journey in this blog as a part of the challenge, it will serve as a personal and public accountability tool. It will also be part journal and part portfolio of my training between here and there.

I am working on my requirements for me to complete.

I will be detailing them here.

I'm feeling it already!