Clearing the (Smoky) Air

I've been spending a little too much time debating with a small selection of voices on Twitter lately, so I thought I would write something helpful to make things a little more clear.  It's not to create a forum to explain myself or defend a position, but rather to just create a simple link that I can send somebody to when they try to start telling me what they think they know about me.  I'm 41 years old, (A "grown-ass man" in technical terms) and I quit worrying too much about what people think a long time ago.  This is more just to save us both some time.  

Around age 14, I started smoking about a pack of cigarettes a day for almost a decade.  And through the end of high school and into a good chunk of my 20's, I was drinking heavily and doing "other stuff that shall not be named" at a world-class level.  I even worked my self up to being nice and fat, too.  I never landed in jail, but only because I never got caught. (Breaking the law, not being fat.)  I am very lucky to be here and writing this today.  And even though there was no jail, there were some extremely unhappy events that I don't want to go into.

The stuff I did long ago is possibly in same ballpark as Rich Roll's, Lionel Sanders', and Tim Olsen's stories.  I'm not sure; we've never compared notes.  You might notice that people with such histories are really vague about the past. It's an ugly place that we don't like to visit, even in our minds.  And we all change over time.  I'm not the same person I was back in 1992, and hopefully, neither are you.

I mention those legends' names only because they are recognizable enough to illustrate my point.  Like them, I also turned myself around by realizing that working out was a constructive use of my excess energy, energy that was getting myself into trouble.  I have none of their athletic talent (I'm not sure I even could after how I've fried my lungs), but people like us share a similar gentic trait.  We're like border collies; we need a job to do or we will destroy your house.  No sheep? We'll chew the fence and attack the chickens.  Sheep? We'll run in circles around them all day.  It's good for us and good for you to keep us busy.

Once I found triathlon and ultrarunning, it was like a miracle to me.  It was challenging enough to wear me out, relax me, and then allow me to actually focus on being a productive citizen.  I'm now married with job, a house, a kid, a podcast, and some coaching, I've got a nice balance going that works for me.

As a side note - If you have somebody in your life that is always getting mixed up with the wrong crowd, causes endless trouble, or is self-destructive, consider that they might have more energy than what our sedentary society considers "normal".  Encourage them to go do something constructive with that energy.  Running a half marathon burns off the same amount of calories and gives the same high as running from the cops... I know.  Make the right choice and you get a medal instead of handcuffs.

I'm saying all this because a few of the comments I've gotten hint at an exercise addiction or overtraining and or not listening to Tawnee.  I have three replies to that:

1. I've had an exercise addiction and got overtrained before back in 2011.  I know what that feels like.  And since then, I'm hypervigilant to stay away from that level of training.  I thought more was better, but I kept getting worse and worse.  I was blessed to have Rich Roll himself call me and walk me back from the brink.  I'm eternally grateful for him for that and also will always point to that as an example of how real he truly is.

2. There is a level of exercise that I've found that is the "sweet spot" for me.  It flows and ebbs, and I listen to my body and mindfully follow it.  It's a beautiful thing to learn.  You can find out more about how to do it yourself by listening to the ZenTri podcast.  Or not.  It's either for you or it isn't.

3. If I'm not active enough, my life starts falling apart.  And I spent too much of my life rebuilding myself from the mess I was long ago to let it all that work come undone.  You're not me, you don't know me, and you probably don't want to be me (It's tough in here and my clothes are usually kinda dirty.)  Truthfully, I don't care if it's a level of exercise that gets me a sub-10 Ironman, to Kona, or running 100 miles below 24 hours.  If it is, that's great.  If it's not, that's great too.  I actually do what I do to stay sane, productive, and off meds.  It works wonderfully for me and my life has ended up pretty OK doing it.  In a different life, I'd be a farmer or goat herder, on my feet all day and constantly working on something.  I'd be so happy like that!

Tawnee and I will probably always argue about workouts that I do, and I'm sure she knows that I'm listening.  But things have to go through a lonnnnnnnng checklist in my mind before I do them.  When it comes to how much to do and when, that's where I have a massive backlog of knowledge about what actually works for me and what doesn't.  It's a mental scroll all the way to 1987, unfortunately.  Hopefully, she's got the patience to keep remembering that it's not her with the issues, it's me.  Keep that in mind when you're dealing with older folks; we've got a lot of baggage to sort through.

On the flipside, I'm a total new kid on the block with fat metabolism and all that stuff.  You can tell, because I still call it "stuff."  I hang on her every word when we go there.  I love it!

If you made it this far (Iron-reader!) and still feel the need to hurl away on the Twitternets about how I'm training or doing something wrong, let me add a couple more details.  First, some people said I didn't know my FTP and overbiked IMTX.  But then I did an FTP test (30 minute time trial) that showed my FTP was 10 watts higher than what even I had thought.  Then another rock star started giving me shit that I was exercising too much too soon, but then I turned around a few days later and hit the highest FTP and TT time of my entire life, another 9 watts higher than the week before.  I feel petty pointing to those two examples, but they are strong indicators that I know far more about what I'm doing than you might think.  So, before you hit send, realize that you just might be armchair quarterbacking and your opinion is possibly both wrong and annoying, no matter how right you think you are.  Tawnee and I are my coaches and we've already got our hands full, thank you very much.

On the other hand, I'll get some tips with some encouragement and I love those.  For you folks that have done that, thank you!  That's great.

Ok, I admit... I do care what people think. If I didn't, I wouldn't have written all this.  Maybe there is a little bit of kid still left in me.  There is one in all of us.  Just remember,  How you help is more important than if you help.  Keep that in mind when dealing with others.

And if you don't like how much I exercise, that's ok.  You'll be fine.  You were fine before you heard of me, and you'll be fine long after I'm gone.  Just let it go. :)