A S*&$@Y Way to Lose $1,000

1000_dollars copy

Last summer I ended up hiring a trainer who was in amazing shape physically and lousy shape financially. After he got to know me a bit, and without any prompting, between sets he’d tell me what was going on in his personal life. At one point over months of struggling, he had an immediate need for $1,000.

I seriously considered giving it to him anonymously. In fact, I felt like I was supposed to. Not obligated, just intuitively compelled. While I don’t think it’s my job to try to fix or help every person in need that comes to me, nor does my intuition always tell me to help them out, I do feel like it’s my job–at the very least–to have compassion. In certain situations I’ll try to help, especially when it’s coupled with some intuitive calling. Too often these situations present an opportunity that defies my logic. Like the time I was supposed to give my coat to a guy whose car just caught on fire BUT DIDN’T DO IT  (though there’s a follow-up to the Car on Fire post, where “I Finally Found Him” on this link here.)

Sometimes my intuition tries to lead me to a bigger conflict with rationality, like the time I was supposed to give my car away to a waiter at my favorite restaurant in Reston, Virginia, but also didn’t do it.

Sometimes I listen to my intuition. Sometimes I don’t. Other times I get to observe random strangers demonstrate What a Little Hope Can Do, like a few weeks ago.  I wish I deferred to my intuition more often, but sometimes my analytical, risk-averse, or logical side wins out, which of course is sometimes the right thing as well. If I’m hesitant or anxious to take a risk, I can justify seven ways to Sunday why I shouldn’t do it. But sometimes you have to make the jump.

Finally the day came when my trainer hit me up with his idea: I’d pre-pay $1,000 for training, and in exchange he’d reduce his rate by 50%–effectively giving me double the number of training sessions. I thought about it for a few minutes and agreed to the plan. Drafted a simple agreement with signatures, captured all his information including social, address, alternate phone numbers, and his email.

Fast forward two weeks, I text him to schedule a workout and he never responds. Eventually called the gym where he trained and found out that he had skipped town. Totally gone.

Numerous calls, emails, texts over a period of weeks and months yielded nothing (though I did catch him on the phone once). I went full spectrum from southern polite to New York City nuclear. Nothing worked. Since then I’ve been torqued at this guy for ditching our deal. Until two days ago. I was at the gym late one night and on Pandora came a song by Safety Suit called “Life Left to Go” and as I’m listening to the somewhat mesmerizing melody doing lat pull downs I realized what happened with this situation was really lousy, though not because I’d lost a grand.

But because I knew that I was supposed to give this guy a break before all of this went down. Incidentally, if I’d done that I wouldn’t be blogging about it–instead I’m sharing the scenario where I didn’t listen to my intuition. Which resulted in two dynamics, both of which are pretty s*&$@y:

It left one man knowing he was a thief.

And another man knowing he was robbed.

I’m not absolving this guy of his responsibility. If you interpret this as me saying that my act of not giving a guy a $1,000 makes him justified, then you’re totally missing the point. That is, most definitely, not what I’m saying. There could be a lot of lessons in here. I see all the obvious ones, but I saw those in advance–I knew the risk. And then there’s a chance that the logical lessons really aren’t the lessons at all.

Maybe there’s another lesson in here. Maybe it’s the hidden one.

And maybe it’s the magical one.

No doubts, take Lasix only as prescribed by your doctor. Levitra is one of the best-known medications of all period. What is the most significant data you must study about levitra vs cialis? Most doctors say the effectiveness of Levitra is well documented. Absolutely, a sexual problem refers to a problem during any phase of the sexual response cycle that prevents the individual from experiencing satisfaction from the sexual life. Whilst sex is not vital for good health, it’s doubtless great for anyone. Why it happen? What kinds of professionals treat sexual diseases in men? A common class of antidepressants, which include Zoloft — can kill the mood in bedroom.

Lessons Learned, Numero Tres

SF Marathon, Mile 18-ish
SF Marathon, Mile 18-ish

A few quick lessons learned from my latest marathon, which was really not a very good run, all for self-inflicted reasons. Some of my other running posts are here, here, here, and here.

These are all the things I learned not to do through my personal experience of making a mistake on each item below. If nothing else, there might be a few amusing anecdotes in here; for me it’s a living list to read through again at a later time.

1. Don’t enter the race fatigued.

The week of, you really do need to bank up the sleep. I couldn’t have changed it around anyways, as I had been on the road for most of the month prior to the marathon including a long Asia trip. If you can regulate your sleep when you travel you might be in good shape. I didn’t, and missed at least several nights during the week of the run. This is a straightforward fix.

2. Don’t forget to read your list.

Make a marathon check list, and READ IT in the morning. Sounds obvious. But, I was overly confident the morning of, grabbed my stuff, and went. I forgot several important things, perhaps most importantly I forgot rule number one from one of my earlier marathons. Tape your nipples. Which leads me to lesson number three.

3. Don’t try to be clever if you forget rule number one.

By “clever” I mean do not find packing tape at the starting line and tape your nipples. Well, that part might be okay. But if you do that do not then, at mile 13, because you’re wondering how the pictures are going to look with packing tape across your chest underneath your running shirt, take the tape off and run the remaining 13 miles with your chest that has remaining residue that’s stickier than the floor of a U-haul rental center. There are two types of people in the world. Those who have had that experience…and those who haven’t.

4. Don’t do anything new on marathon day.

Everyone says this. It seems SO LOGICAL. It should be an easy rule to follow, you know, like along the lines of “Don’t play out in the street” and “Keep your hand out of the blender.” But then you run two marathons in half a year and you’re a pro and suddenly you’re all like “I got this” and the best practices don’t apply any longer and you stick your hand in the blender. For this latest race I bought new shoes on the day of the race because going into SF Marathon I decided to drop to the half, and I brought a different type of training running shoe to run in. At check in I decided to run the full, and needed shoes. I also bought new Yurbuds, which I absolutely love. The shoes were totally not broken in, and this was just a bad decision. The Yurbuds were the wrong size, and fell out of my ears continuously. I must’ve put them back in 300 times during the run.

5. Don’t under train.

Perhaps obvious, but if you want to finish, and finish comfortably, you really have to put the miles in. I was reminded of this on my last marathon, thinking that despite very little training 45-days prior it would be easy as I’ve been CrossFitting more, lost another few % bodyfat, etc. But, nothing works like putting miles on your legs; at mile 17 or 18 your legs just don’t care how much you’ve been crossfitting, or how good the Kale nutribullet was from three days ago. Check out great programs from Hal Higdon, Jeff Galloway, and the Hansen Method are all winners. I’ve just bought the book and am training using Hansen for Chicago, my goal is to run a sub 3:30 which for me would be quite fast–but I have a TON of training to be able to get close to this and not a lot of time. Miles on the legs matter. Get your miles in.

6. Don’t go out too fast.

Marathoners say “run reverse splits” which is basically translates into “run the second half faster than the first half.” It is good advice. Everyone generally feels pretty good, if not amazing, the first few miles. Crowd energy, music, glycogen loading, fresh legs…it’s all a recipe for going out too fast. And remember that the first few miles you’re in a heat that is following a way-faster heat, so say you’re targeting to runs sub-nine minute miles then early on it’s easy to run those first few miles in the seven’s or even six’s Like ridic easy. Don’t do it. Save some gas.

7. Finally, don’t forget to fuel your muscles.

Glycogen load big time during the week. If you’re a Paleo eater you can still do this, sweet potatoes are perfect. And eat clean days before, and on the morning of make sure you’re consuming what you generally do prior to your longer runs (I usually take SFH pre-race with water, a banana with Justin’s honey-almond butter and drink a few low calorie G2 Gatorades with a several Nuun tabs dropped in each). For your nightly meal before, you could try something like my dinner before the SF marathon. I had fish tacos. Two beers. And some Tequila (it came with the beer). This will not go down as one of my better pre-marathon meals. And I forgot to glycogen load race morning by taking my GU Energy Gel’s 30-minutes pre-race or at mile five. By the time I took my first GU gel at mile 12 it was too late, and I couldn’t catch up on fueling my muscles, which became very–very–cranky around mile 15.

 

 

No doubts, take Lasix only as prescribed by your doctor. Levitra is one of the best-known medications of all time. What is the most significant information you must study about levitra vs cialis? Most doctors say the effectiveness of Levitra is well documented. Absolutely, a sexual problem refers to a problem during any phase of the sexual response cycle that prevents the individual from experiencing satisfaction from the sexual life. Whilst sex is not vital for good soundness, it’s doubtless important for anyone. Why it happen? What kinds of professionals treat sexual diseases in men? A common class of antidepressants, which include Zoloft — can kill the mood in bedroom.

Love

Love

Last week has been incredibly busy, as you can tell from a blogging absence of EIGHT days (cringe!) with a lot of work activity along with business travel, some volunteering with the Olympia Hands On Children’s Museum, and then finally a bit of a personal vacation that started this week (but I’m headed to Portland to help w/ the big close this weekend and Monday!!!).

I’m ever-trying-to-improve on the work/family balance thing, and have gotten better during the last year. There’s no nobility in losing your life to work, yet there’s still much admiration and pride to be had in working exceptionally hard. It just requires a balance, all of which I’m still on my journey learning. Sometimes a little love can be all the reminder you need.

Last week I went to Salt Lake City for a few days and I departed on Thursday morning. I awoke around 5am, did one of my P9ox workouts, did emails for an hour, made breakfast for the family, finished packing, and was hustling out the door to catch my plane. And, amidst all of that, I probably wasn’t giving enough attention to the kids or didn’t just take five minutes to stop and really be present with them.

So as I’m hustling out the door, knowing I was going to be pushing the limits of my departure time, little Zoe comes running out the door to give me one last thing. And, at first, the honest thought that came to my head was “this is really a little annoying…I HAVE to get going!”

Then her little barefoot steps quickly pattered out to the car, wearing her pink Hannah Montana nightgown with the morning breeze whisping her blond little locks and a wry little smile Zoe ran to my car and handed me a picture who simply said “I wanted you to have something to remember me by, and I want you to know that I love you.” With that, a smile, a kiss, and a turn, and she headed back into the house. It was one of those moments that will give me a long-time reminder of the role I REALLY have as a dad, and in the process she gave me the gift of a simple act that made my week–and it didn’t cost me a thing, other than 60 seconds to slow down and receive it. A little bit of love.

No doubts, take Lasix only as prescribed by your doc. Levitra is one of the best-known medications of all time. What is the most significant info you must study about levitra vs cialis? Most doctors say the effectiveness of Levitra is well documented. Absolutely, a sexual problem refers to a problem during any phase of the sexual response cycle that prevents the individual from experiencing satisfaction from the sexual life. Whilst sex is not vital for good health, it’s doubtless important for anyone. Why it happen? What kinds of professionals treat sexual diseases in men? A common class of antidepressants, which include Zoloft — can kill the mood in bedroom.