Resting today. I woke up really tight and sore. Moreover, I know tomorrow is going to be full of rope-climbing contests, swimming, and intense basketball. Family party and so forth.
So I'm resting from the blog, too. Food time!
Indefatigable. Let's go.
Saturday, August 31, 2013
Friday, August 30, 2013
Day Three: Finding Will (The Verb)
Today, I am definitely tired.
I realize that all major successes in human history are at least in part due to the dedication of certain individuals who found the motivation and strength to push themselves over and over again, doggedly pursuing their goals. I realize there are also outliers, who merely discover themselves in the midst off random success. Lottery winners, Jed Clampett, this guy.
In case you were unaware, we just exited another McDonald's Monopoly season. As a garbage man, I can play McDonald's Monoploy without ever having to purchase food myself, because the trash of about one-thousand people passes before my eyes every week. And every week, from July sixteenth through August sixteenth, I peeled those tabs off of discarded Big Mac boxes, soggy hashbrown wrappers- looking for a winning combination of game pieces.
I didn't find that combination.
A few days before the game ended, I actually looked up the odds of winning. Turns out I had a much better chance of opening a trash can lid and immediately being killed by a lightning strike than finding that wretched Boardwalk piece.
But I couldn't stop. The empty hope of winning a million dollars and being only ONE PIECE away from a fifty-thousand-dollar-a-year payout for the next twenty years was positively intoxicating. I even bought a Big Mac at one point, with money that actually existed in my wallet.
The only prizes I won were free food. Free McDonald's food. Which of course, I cashed in on. Oh, McGriddle, you horrible, sexy pancake-demon. You made me so sick, but I ate you anyway. Quarter pounders and french fries and kept on peeling those tabs.
Looking for the payoff.
This entire concept is so obvious but so painfully difficult for me. I hate practical, present-tense investment for small, often nearly imperceptible gains. It's discouraging to me because I often feel like I don't really have anything meaningful (read: gratifying) to show for what was, particularly in terms of willpower, a real investment.
This entire concept is so obvious but so painfully difficult for me. I hate practical, present-tense investment for small, often nearly imperceptible gains. It's discouraging to me because I often feel like I don't really have anything meaningful (read: gratifying) to show for what was, particularly in terms of willpower, a real investment.
How do you find motivation? Is it something you "find," or is it a point you reach? Is motivation a desire for something better, or is it the weathered conviction that comes from experience? Experience that knows there is only one way forward, and it is by walking with your feet. Under such experience, if it feels like forward motion isn't happening, there is only one culprit. Make that two culprits. And the legs that connect them to a really stupid brain.
I have a really stupid brain. And this physical exercise stuff is just the shallow part for me. But it's so measurable and objective. As absurd as it is, even in these few days I have felt a small shift in my perspective on diligence and effort. A small one.
But I need that small one. And a lot more like it.
So.
The Fatigue:
4 mile run
[Aberlyn helped me with this one. Got me out of bed and out the door with her while it was still cool this morning. Long runs are nice because they really help me feel like I've made progress, even if on the nuts-and-bolts side of things, they are not necessarily the best for fast-turnover motion like indoor soccer]
The Fatigue:
4 mile run
[Aberlyn helped me with this one. Got me out of bed and out the door with her while it was still cool this morning. Long runs are nice because they really help me feel like I've made progress, even if on the nuts-and-bolts side of things, they are not necessarily the best for fast-turnover motion like indoor soccer]
15 minutes on The Square
[This came a little later in the morning. Went down to the park with my younger brother and sister Elijah and Julia. Elijah ran with me for the first six minutes, then passed and worked with Julia. It was actually really sweet to have them along. I remembered how much it meant to me, when I was included in grown-up stuff, even if it was as pointless as The Square. Fifteen minutes because I made the sides twenty yards instead of fifteen, and because SO HOT AND NO NO NO NO.]
That's one small step for man, and I'm gonna eat something covered in chocolate.
Thanks for reading. Love you guys.
Indefatigable. Let's go.
[This came a little later in the morning. Went down to the park with my younger brother and sister Elijah and Julia. Elijah ran with me for the first six minutes, then passed and worked with Julia. It was actually really sweet to have them along. I remembered how much it meant to me, when I was included in grown-up stuff, even if it was as pointless as The Square. Fifteen minutes because I made the sides twenty yards instead of fifteen, and because SO HOT AND NO NO NO NO.]
That's one small step for man, and I'm gonna eat something covered in chocolate.
Thanks for reading. Love you guys.
Indefatigable. Let's go.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Day Two: Basic Geometry
Few people are allowed the solitary thinking compartment that is a trash truck cab on a rural, driving-heavy route. I am one of them, and it's something to be grateful for, the interminable sensation of it notwithstanding.
As I rolled through remote locales and past bizarre over-sized statues of trout and hippopotamus (yes, Otisco owes all of us an explanation), I was thinking about the approaching evening and what I was going to attempt in this effort to regain my fitness.
I've done lots of kinds of exercise under a lot of different coaches over the years. When I was about twelve or thirteen I got to play on my older sister Natalie's travel soccer team, which was the next age bracket up. It was a big deal for me, particularly as an affirmation-driven sort of individual. The coach's name was Don Edwards, and in my memory he is kind of like a skinny Hulk Hogan, sans the facial hair and always wearing sunglasses. Coach Edwards believed in running and yelling, and we ran while he yelled. We ran a lot, most of the practice as I recall. I don't know if this strategy actually made us any more fit than the teams that we played, but I know it eventually led to him being asked to step down from coaching. According to reports, there may have been yelling involved there, too.
But in these more modern times, they don't do that kind of thing. The research seems to indicate that interval training - doing something intensely in a series of sets with short breaks between - is the best way to condition one's self.
So in the think-tank that is my garbage truck, I got an idea. An idea that percolated nicely over the afternoon.
So when I made it home, I got my cleats, soccer ball, four screw drivers, and trotted down to a park just a couple blocks away from our house.
It's a pretty sparse little public space. Just a month ago the cops busted a meth lab in a white, ramshackle garage that sits directly on the park's edge. It was still there. But as the punishing sun cooked everything, the basketball court sat empty, the plastic playground got wobbly, and with my four screw-drivers I marked out a square in the bleached grass, each side fifteen yards long.
I set my timer, put down my soccer ball at one corner, and-
The Fatigue:
20 minutes on The Square
[the concept was fairly simple- jog two lengths of the square, sprint a third. I could reverse my direction at any corner, and when I came to the soccer ball I could either keep running or dribble it to the middle and do a fake or a turn, dribble to another corner, and resume the jog-two-sprint-one routine. I expected this to be difficult, and I was a lot more correct than I expected. Ninety-two degrees in full sun didn't help. After thirteen minutes I changed the rules and allowed myself to mix-in running backwards instead of sprinting every third side. It helped a little, but in the last several minutes I was dying. It was really hard to keep my touch on the ball from getting sloppy, and eventually it wasn't just accelerating INTO the sprint that was difficult. STOPPING at the next corner, after such a short burst, that became really tough.]
I'm sure someone else has already invented something pretty much exactly this, but I'm proud of it. It definitely pushed me. I'm sure the square is going to become part of bigger fitness plans as my conditioning improves. But I didn't have time to do more this evening.
Time is always going to be an issue. I can see that already. But I think making time is going to be biggest benefit I can give myself. Even if it's just this twenty minutes of effort.
I bet if I thought about it, I could find that principle wanting to improve a lot of other areas in my life.
But psssshhh. Whose got time to think about all that?
Thanks for reading. Y'all are way more motivational than you know.
Indefatigable. Let's go.
As I rolled through remote locales and past bizarre over-sized statues of trout and hippopotamus (yes, Otisco owes all of us an explanation), I was thinking about the approaching evening and what I was going to attempt in this effort to regain my fitness.
I've done lots of kinds of exercise under a lot of different coaches over the years. When I was about twelve or thirteen I got to play on my older sister Natalie's travel soccer team, which was the next age bracket up. It was a big deal for me, particularly as an affirmation-driven sort of individual. The coach's name was Don Edwards, and in my memory he is kind of like a skinny Hulk Hogan, sans the facial hair and always wearing sunglasses. Coach Edwards believed in running and yelling, and we ran while he yelled. We ran a lot, most of the practice as I recall. I don't know if this strategy actually made us any more fit than the teams that we played, but I know it eventually led to him being asked to step down from coaching. According to reports, there may have been yelling involved there, too.
But in these more modern times, they don't do that kind of thing. The research seems to indicate that interval training - doing something intensely in a series of sets with short breaks between - is the best way to condition one's self.
So in the think-tank that is my garbage truck, I got an idea. An idea that percolated nicely over the afternoon.
So when I made it home, I got my cleats, soccer ball, four screw drivers, and trotted down to a park just a couple blocks away from our house.
It's a pretty sparse little public space. Just a month ago the cops busted a meth lab in a white, ramshackle garage that sits directly on the park's edge. It was still there. But as the punishing sun cooked everything, the basketball court sat empty, the plastic playground got wobbly, and with my four screw-drivers I marked out a square in the bleached grass, each side fifteen yards long.
I set my timer, put down my soccer ball at one corner, and-
The Fatigue:
20 minutes on The Square
[the concept was fairly simple- jog two lengths of the square, sprint a third. I could reverse my direction at any corner, and when I came to the soccer ball I could either keep running or dribble it to the middle and do a fake or a turn, dribble to another corner, and resume the jog-two-sprint-one routine. I expected this to be difficult, and I was a lot more correct than I expected. Ninety-two degrees in full sun didn't help. After thirteen minutes I changed the rules and allowed myself to mix-in running backwards instead of sprinting every third side. It helped a little, but in the last several minutes I was dying. It was really hard to keep my touch on the ball from getting sloppy, and eventually it wasn't just accelerating INTO the sprint that was difficult. STOPPING at the next corner, after such a short burst, that became really tough.]
I'm sure someone else has already invented something pretty much exactly this, but I'm proud of it. It definitely pushed me. I'm sure the square is going to become part of bigger fitness plans as my conditioning improves. But I didn't have time to do more this evening.
Time is always going to be an issue. I can see that already. But I think making time is going to be biggest benefit I can give myself. Even if it's just this twenty minutes of effort.
I bet if I thought about it, I could find that principle wanting to improve a lot of other areas in my life.
But psssshhh. Whose got time to think about all that?
Thanks for reading. Y'all are way more motivational than you know.
Indefatigable. Let's go.
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Day One: Excuse Making
As one might have expected, I didn't want to start today.
I work on a garbage truck in southeastern corner of Indiana. I drive (read: hunt down addresses on tiny county roads and busy subdivisions) and tip (read: pick up trash cans and empty their contents into the aforementioned truck), which as you might guess ranks somewhere between considerable and notorious on the much-debated scale of physical labor.
For anyone not living in the United States at the moment, it's really hot right now. No, seriously. It's not as hot as it has ever been, but here in the Ohio river valley we've had a solid week of mid-ninety degrees Fahrenheit. That means everything has dried up and all the humidity is in the air and not in the ground or the lakes or wherever humidity is meant to dwell, and the pavement and metal and trash cans are all radiating with their absorbed sun-fury. It's like the angry heat of the sun is transforming everything into its wrathful likeness.
Anywho.
When I got home today, I was tired. And I immediately realized one of the big reasons I have not exercised in a serious way for, oh, about five years now.
IT'S TIRING AND I HAVE A JOB, DAMMIT.
Everyone who has kids and is in college in addition to working a full-time job is laughing at me. But shush, you. This is my blog and I'm being narcissistic about my life and troubles. Away with you!
Moreover, I'd consider myself semi-pro at rationalizing. Not being rational in a real way, but you know- purposefully twisting my angle of reality with a sweet lullaby of excuses as I choose the path of least resistance and effort. I'm really good at that.
So before I was even through the front door, I was all, "Jeez it's stupid hot today. I'm so tired. I don't wanna be out there anymore."
As I was closing the door behind me it was all, "Truthfully, I lifted a cumulative 4.5 tons of trash. Now that's a workout most people don't get."
Huey is there, jumping up to greet me with his happy pit-mix face. And I'm thinking, "I'm really in decent shape, and I played a game last night. Rest is really important if you're exercising. I should rest today."
But then, as I come into the kitchen, Aberlyn is in the downstairs bathroom with a paint roller, working away. In the past couple days she's been transforming that long-closet of a space. She's stripped off the ghastly wallpaper, puttied and sanded all the chips and dents, patched all the holes the wallpaper was hiding, and now this; painting away. She just got back from work, too, and there she is- white paint flecked on her face.
Aberlyn is the reason our house looks good. Because she cares, and she's always doing what she cares about in her life. It's a little crazy to be around if you're like me and motivated primarily by external approval. Because from my side, I'm constantly saying, "That's fine, you're fine, I'm fine, it's all fine! No worries!" Which she seriously appreciates. But when she wants to do something, it's done. Because she's self-motivated, whether or not someone else specifically cares about what she's doing.
Excuses are like pornography, I realize. They appeal to my weakness. I want to accept them for that same reason, because they say it's okay to just slack and not try and not grow and not seek new heights. They are comfortable and easy and numbing to the pain of failure.
They are going to keep me exactly in one place for the rest of my life if I listen to them. I will never be fast, free, and strong like I was born to be if I give into that false, empty promise.
How many more days do I want to be stuck here, on a plateau of cheap excuses?
So. I kissed my wife, rinsed off the trash grime, got my new soccer ball and went outside.
The Fatigue:
15 minutes of touches on the ball
[this was a lot harder than I thought it would be when I decided fifteen minutes sounded like a practical number. I'd forgotten how much fast-twitch muscle all of the fakes and movement and juggling take, especially when done without pause. I was sweating like crazy and breathing hard by the ten minute mark. Huey made things interesting by constantly trying to steal the ball, which ended up making him an excellent defender. I will definitely employ him in the future.]
5 minutes on the jump rope
[I got this jump rope out of the trash. It's got weighted handles, two pounds each. Again, I thought five minutes was a practical number. Dear God. By the end I was tripping constantly and wanted to stop so bad. I wasn't sweating so much as weeping in torrents with my whole body. Checked weather.com when I came inside, and it was ninety-four degrees out there.]
20 sit-ups, x2 sets
[these may seem a little out of place, but the motive came directly because those welt lines from last night are still clearly emblazoned on my gut in nice, hexagonal patterns. I do not want that to happen again. Besides, these are good for my job, too. I'm sad to say this was the most I could do. I'm really careful with form on these and mindful to lift myself only with my abdominals without curving my spine.]
There it is. Day one. I'm gonna get some stretching done. Maybe eat some protein or something.
Thanks for reading. The support has been surprising and encouraging. More complaining and narcissism tomorrow, I promise.
Indefatigable. Let's go.
I work on a garbage truck in southeastern corner of Indiana. I drive (read: hunt down addresses on tiny county roads and busy subdivisions) and tip (read: pick up trash cans and empty their contents into the aforementioned truck), which as you might guess ranks somewhere between considerable and notorious on the much-debated scale of physical labor.
For anyone not living in the United States at the moment, it's really hot right now. No, seriously. It's not as hot as it has ever been, but here in the Ohio river valley we've had a solid week of mid-ninety degrees Fahrenheit. That means everything has dried up and all the humidity is in the air and not in the ground or the lakes or wherever humidity is meant to dwell, and the pavement and metal and trash cans are all radiating with their absorbed sun-fury. It's like the angry heat of the sun is transforming everything into its wrathful likeness.
Anywho.
When I got home today, I was tired. And I immediately realized one of the big reasons I have not exercised in a serious way for, oh, about five years now.
IT'S TIRING AND I HAVE A JOB, DAMMIT.
Everyone who has kids and is in college in addition to working a full-time job is laughing at me. But shush, you. This is my blog and I'm being narcissistic about my life and troubles. Away with you!
Moreover, I'd consider myself semi-pro at rationalizing. Not being rational in a real way, but you know- purposefully twisting my angle of reality with a sweet lullaby of excuses as I choose the path of least resistance and effort. I'm really good at that.
So before I was even through the front door, I was all, "Jeez it's stupid hot today. I'm so tired. I don't wanna be out there anymore."
As I was closing the door behind me it was all, "Truthfully, I lifted a cumulative 4.5 tons of trash. Now that's a workout most people don't get."
Huey is there, jumping up to greet me with his happy pit-mix face. And I'm thinking, "I'm really in decent shape, and I played a game last night. Rest is really important if you're exercising. I should rest today."
But then, as I come into the kitchen, Aberlyn is in the downstairs bathroom with a paint roller, working away. In the past couple days she's been transforming that long-closet of a space. She's stripped off the ghastly wallpaper, puttied and sanded all the chips and dents, patched all the holes the wallpaper was hiding, and now this; painting away. She just got back from work, too, and there she is- white paint flecked on her face.
Aberlyn is the reason our house looks good. Because she cares, and she's always doing what she cares about in her life. It's a little crazy to be around if you're like me and motivated primarily by external approval. Because from my side, I'm constantly saying, "That's fine, you're fine, I'm fine, it's all fine! No worries!" Which she seriously appreciates. But when she wants to do something, it's done. Because she's self-motivated, whether or not someone else specifically cares about what she's doing.
Excuses are like pornography, I realize. They appeal to my weakness. I want to accept them for that same reason, because they say it's okay to just slack and not try and not grow and not seek new heights. They are comfortable and easy and numbing to the pain of failure.
They are going to keep me exactly in one place for the rest of my life if I listen to them. I will never be fast, free, and strong like I was born to be if I give into that false, empty promise.
How many more days do I want to be stuck here, on a plateau of cheap excuses?
So. I kissed my wife, rinsed off the trash grime, got my new soccer ball and went outside.
The Fatigue:
15 minutes of touches on the ball
[this was a lot harder than I thought it would be when I decided fifteen minutes sounded like a practical number. I'd forgotten how much fast-twitch muscle all of the fakes and movement and juggling take, especially when done without pause. I was sweating like crazy and breathing hard by the ten minute mark. Huey made things interesting by constantly trying to steal the ball, which ended up making him an excellent defender. I will definitely employ him in the future.]
5 minutes on the jump rope
[I got this jump rope out of the trash. It's got weighted handles, two pounds each. Again, I thought five minutes was a practical number. Dear God. By the end I was tripping constantly and wanted to stop so bad. I wasn't sweating so much as weeping in torrents with my whole body. Checked weather.com when I came inside, and it was ninety-four degrees out there.]
20 sit-ups, x2 sets
[these may seem a little out of place, but the motive came directly because those welt lines from last night are still clearly emblazoned on my gut in nice, hexagonal patterns. I do not want that to happen again. Besides, these are good for my job, too. I'm sad to say this was the most I could do. I'm really careful with form on these and mindful to lift myself only with my abdominals without curving my spine.]
There it is. Day one. I'm gonna get some stretching done. Maybe eat some protein or something.
Thanks for reading. The support has been surprising and encouraging. More complaining and narcissism tomorrow, I promise.
Indefatigable. Let's go.
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Day Zero: The Reality Check
It's been six years since I played competitive sports. I can remember with pretty intense clarity how my body felt on my last soccer game in Marshall, Illinois. At that time, I played 90 minutes, every game. Wasn't even a question. I'm not attempting to boast- anything less than that would have been ridiculous. I played soccer all the time, every season, for the previous fifteen years leading up to that game. Played basketball in the winter to stay in shape.
That final game, I was never winded. And it wasn't for a lack of sprinting. I played sweeper, and I could run and run and run. Muscle fatigue was a distant threat, but I was good for at least two games before that was a real danger. And being out of breath for more than ten, fifteen seconds? It just didn't happen. I was conditioned by the game. And the game was a place where I always felt powerful, confident, an entirely at home. Even when I lost, even when I didn't win every challenge, I knew that the pitch was a good place for me, and I was always happy to be playing.
Well, it's been six years since then. My life is a lot different now. I'm married to an impossibly wonderful woman. I have a job and a house and a mortgage. Life is really good. But I've missed soccer. I really have. Being part of team, playing my guts out, that feeling of being in competition on the field.
So a few weeks ago I started looking for a pick-up game. Just to get back into it, you know? Circle of mutual friends connected, and I found one, a great one with skilled players who were good people to boot. It was a fun morning, the field was definitely a little over-crowded, but it was great to get touches in again, make plays; I even scored once.
The guy who invited me to the pick-up game, one Bradley Speaks, a gentleman and an athlete by all accounts, texted me afterward to see if I'd be interested in playing on an indoor team called "Toepoke" that he organized. I couldn't believe my luck, said yes, and three weeks ago showed up at Mockingbird Valley Sports Complex over in Louisville and played with these guys.
It's a great place to play. Astro-turfed, hockey-style walls, nets- it was legit. I was seriously excited.
I expected the night to go a little rough for me personally, and it did. I knew I was out of shape, had smoked a cigar the previous night, etc. And I was right- I was out of breath pretty consistently, my legs got really fatigued, the works. But it was insanely fun. I made some good plays, scored a goal- we ended up losing 3-4, but I figured I'd be back into the game after a couple weeks of running consistently with my love Aberlyn, who is always inviting me to join in her cross-country-conditioned ways.
The team didn't play last week, but I showed up a little earlier tonight with a new pair of sambas (my old ones, worn on the previous occasion, had no tread and one of my toes was coming through a hole) and a new soccer ball (six years, and I have a soccer ball again!). I felt ready. Not perfectly in shape, but definitely several meaningful steps ahead of where I was last time.
Well. We got hammered. My conditioning showed no meaningful difference- I was constantly out of breath. My legs were tired. And we were playing guys who seemed way more in shape than us. Definitely way more in shape than me.
I used to chase down every runner, every ball. And I just couldn't do it tonight. I managed to bag a goal early on, but then came this moment where they were in the middle of this devastating run of goals, and I jumped in front of a shot that one of their guys was making. Caught it right in my gut.
That's an hour later. Yeah. It just about killed me. After that, it was even worse. I felt a little nauseous and couldn't draw deep breaths.
I think the final score was something like 4-13. Their best scorer stopped playing after the first half.
I'm really good at losing. I've been on the losing team plenty of times and I feel like I generally do not get upset because of how the score looks at the end. Because I play soccer for the joy of being able to move, play, sprint, and make things happen with the team I'm with, striving to the utmost of my ability.
That didn't happen. And it really stood out to me just how MUCH that didn't happen. I just don't have the kind of strength and fitness that I did.
And that ball to the stomach- it was just drove the point home. I couldn't cut it. I couldn't hold up.
So. I'm starting a blog, because that's the thing we do in this modern era, right? For what purpose? As a motivator and a record to myself, and possibly as an encouragement/amusement to people who might read it.
A record of what?
Of the journey I am going to embark on starting tomorrow. I am going after that same kind of strength and endurance that I experienced at my last game. I have no idea how long it will take. I don't know what all means I'm going to employ. But I want to take it seriously, and want to be consistent.
And write about it. Because I like writing.
Indefatigable. Let's go.
Indefatigable. Let's go.
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