Paleo diet challenge rules and info

Ok folks! Invite everyone to join this upcoming 45 day Paleo Challenge! The dates are Nov 15-Dec 31. The winner will receive a $100 gift card to Whole Foods and second place will get a $50 card! Boom. 

Below are the rules and the reporting is done on an honor system. Please let me know if you have any questions. The weekly results will be posted every Friday on my blog, because I am self-serving like that.

Rules:

Do not consume added sugars of any kind. No Splenda, Nutrasweet, xylitol, agave nectar etc. Read labels carefully. For the purpose of this challenge Natural sugars such as honey and 100%maple syrup may be used in moderation. 

Do Not consume sugary alcohol drinks like wine and sugar based cocktails. You MAY have simple cocktails with clear liquors (it's the holidays for God's sake). IE: vodka or tequila with lime and seltzer. No dark liquors like Rum - too sugary.

Do not eat grains. This includes but is not limited to wheat, rye, barley, oats, corn, rice, millet, bulgar, sorghum, amaranth, buckwheat, sprouted grains and all pseudo grains like quiona. Note: read labels, many unexpected products include grain.

Do not eat legumes. Legumes are beans and more... Black, red, kidney, lima, white, navy, kidney, peas, lentils, peanuts, peas, chickpeas, and all soy products ( edamame, soy beans, bean sprouts, soy sauce,miso, tofu, etc. Read Labels!)

Do not eat dairy. The strict paleo Gods say none, ever. This challenge, only grass-fed butter is allowed. No milk or cheese of any kind.

Root vegetables are good, white potatoes are bad. Although some articles say different for the sake of the cleanse we are going to ditch these too. Try subbing every potato recipe with sweet potatoes, and if your eating yams or sweet potatoes add more grass-fed butter!

Comment below with your daily record with your name, date, and score, or on my Google plus page.

Scoring:

When you wake up you have a fresh 15 points, you can win and loose points depending on your day. You gain points based on the quality food you eat, your sleep (yup, you GAIN points for sleeping), working out and mobility training. Here's the breakdown:

15 points-wake up every day with a fresh new day ahead of the game.

Add points
+2 points for 60 minutes of working out (30min workout=1 point)
+1 for 7+ hours of sleep
+1 for 2 grams of quality fish oil (2 pills/day)
+1 point for mobility training (stretching/yoga) outside of workout hours.

Max allowed points per day is 20 pts. Kudos to you for putting in a 3 hour workout, but you will only be awarded the 2 pts for that time.

Deducting Points
-1 point for every serving of: deli meats, sausage (only if not fully meat/veg), legumes (ie: hummus, peanuts, peas) salad dressing, red wine, tequila, GF Beer or Cider

-2 points for every serving of dairy with the exception of grass-fed butter (milk, yogurt, cheese, soy products) 

-3 points for every serving of cereal, oats, grains, corn, flour, rice, pasta, noodles, quinoa and all things derived from above 

-4 points for every SERVING of soda, juice (not fresh squeezed or 100% juice), sports drinks, fried food, chips, pizza, cookies, ice cream, ketchup, processed foods, beer (and all alcoholic beverages other than "1 point beverages", sugar added sweets(cake, sorbet, pie, you get it, don't eat it!)

The lowest you can get for one day is zero (thinking Thanksgiving here people) and the highest is 20.

WHO'S IN???

Foodie Friday: The Challenge of the Caveman

About a year back, I did a 30 day challenge diet.  It sucked.  My job was to eat like a caveman for a month and see how many fleas I could pick out of my friends hair before the month was over.

Yes friends, I did the Paleolithic diet.  And seeing that I operate on varying levels of extremes, I did blood work before and after to see if the suffering was really worth it.  And seeing that I am pathologically desperate for attention, I wrote it up in a magazine called OnFitness.  Here is what I said:

I had been hearing of a plan called the Paleolithic diet from a few sources and started getting interested.  After asking around to health professionals I trust, it was becoming increasingly recommend.  I tried it; here’s what happened.

What is the Paleolithic diet?

       The short answer to this question is a diet in which you eat anything a caveman would have eaten.  This includes meats, seafood, eggs, vegetables, fruits, and nuts.  That’s it.

       Food groups specifically off of the list include dairy, grains, and legumes.  While all grains are taboo on this plan, those containing gluten are especially cautioned against.

The science behind it

       Books have been written on this topic delving into great detail the biochemistry of the forbidden food groups and their interactions with the human body. 

       Mainly, the justification comes down to proteins that our bodies are not able to properly digest.  These proteins are said to cause damage and inflammation to the gastrointestinal tract, and subsequent systemic immune dysfunction.

       Lectin is one of these molecules.  Instead of breaking down into amino acids for absorption as a normal protein is expected to do, lectins remain intact and cause a series of deleterious effects. 

       These proteins are found in beans and grains and have been associated with inflammatory bowel conditions, obesity, and auto-immune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis.

       Similar proteins are also found in dairy products causing equally harmful reactions in the human body.  The biochemistry behind this diet is complex and worthy of further study and examination.

       Aside from the biochemistry however is the justification of the plan by evolutionary reasoning.  According to proponents of the Paleolitic diet, we as humans did not evolve eating dairy and grains.

       Over the course of many millennia of evolution, human ancestors did not exist on dairy farms and agricultural sources.  They thrived on what they could go out and hunt or forage.

       This, along with the biochemical science, is the basis for this diet.  It is proposed that if the agricultural revolution has only been a very small period of time when compared to the entire human evolution, perhaps it is bad for us.

30 days of caveman

       After reading multiple sources on the science and justification for this diet, I decided to try it for 30 days.  I had my physician order some blood work for later comparison, cleaned out my cabinets, and got to it.

       The results forever changed how I would think of food.  What I had originally thought was a diet of moderation and general health was in fact quite the opposite. 

According to my pre-diet blood profile, I was quickly approaching necessary medical intervention.  My total cholesterol and LDL levels were far too high.  HDL levels were quite low as well.

A quick snapshot of me personally is relevant.  At the time of this experiment, I was a 31 year old healthy looking guy, completed an Ironman race the year before, and was in training for another Ironman that year.

After 30 days of eating only approved foods, every blood value I had tested had improved.  The test ran values on 15 various markers and every single test came back healthier.

Ideal total cholesterol is below 200.  Mine went from 221 to 154.  LDL cholesterol, otherwise known as the dangerous type, should be lower than 100.  My values went from 140 to 73.

Small sized LDL, the really dangerous type, went from 699 to 387.  Ideal here is lower than 117.  Triglycerides dropped from 93 to 47, and large HDL cholesterol rose from 2.1 to 8.3.

       My physician, nutritionist, colleagues in the health professions, along with me were pretty blown away by these results.  This went against most of what I learned about nutrition in 8 years of undergraduate and graduate level schooling.

I said a bunch of other stuff too, but by you reading my usage of the word deleterious, I feel smart enough to end it there.

Not only do I feel smart, I felt HEALTHY!  And so, I would like to challenge all of you to join me in this animal skin wearing, club wielding, carnivorous journey!

We've got some lead time, but no season fattens us up like the holidays.  I might be setting us up for EPIC failure here, but I am planning to do a 45 day challenge from November 15 through the end of December.  Wouldn't it be nice to not start off the New Year looking and feeling like a pork rind?

Details will follow, but right now I'd like to get a role call.  Who out there is stupid enough to say no to pumpkin pie and dressing?

The good news about this plan is it is a daily scored system.  If you know you are going to botch it on Thanksgiving day, which lets face it most of us will, you can start afresh the next day.

I dare you.  Join me.  Chase down an animal and eat it in public... ok, don't do that.  Who's in?

     

IronMan NYC Race Report: A Review of the Misery

Of course it is reasonable to fork over close to $1000 for a race.  Of course you should swim in the Hudson River mere days after a sewage spill.  Running up the flights of stairs of the George Washington Bridge after 16 miles of hills would be ok.  Why wouldn’t you do an Ironman in August in New York City?

Let’s talk about that, shall we?

I signed up for what was my second full Ironman with cheerful anticipation and dreams of grandeur.  It really did seem convenient to do a race right in my own city, and yes, I suppose I did save some dough on avoiding spendy hotel stays.  Unfortunately it ended up being a pretty disastrous day despite my imbecilic optimism. 

The Swim:  I had been in the Hudson once before to do the NYC Tri the year before.  It was gross then, it’ll be gross until the end of time.  What is consistently surprising about the Hudson is that it is brackish.  One doesn’t expect a mouthful of salt water in a river; it just seems weird.  One also doesn’t expect a strange aftertaste with hints of oak and diesel fuel, yet a bright finish with locker-room musk undertones.  And yet the Hudson delivers.

Ok, it isn’t THAT bad I guess.  Can you see your hand underwater as it’s pulling through?  Not on your life.  This water is not clear.  More accurately, this water is an impressive cloudy brown that is surely impenetrable to human senses.  That said, it wasn’t terrible.  This is an Ironman.  Man up and swim, Woodard.

All was going well until I temporarily went blind.  I was approaching the swim exit feeling good about myself when the world went black.  Not dark, black.  “Well,” I thought to myself, “that’s interesting.”  Wait, wait, when I lifted my face out of the water to breathe, I was back to crystal clear vision again.  Stroke-stroke-stroke of blind; head turn to breath and the bright sun in my eyes. 

What was happening was that as we were getting close to the swim exit, the 2000+ thrashing and struggling bodies were stirring up God knows what on the Hudson floor.  I can’t be positive, but I think I saw Jimmy Hoffa in there, but I won’t go on record saying so.

More surprising than the lack of color and life in this muck was the exceptionally noxious taste.  While you try not to get the water in your mouth, it just happens.  It’s like smoking without inhaling, and unless you’re Bill Clinton, that’s impossible.  After one good swig of the black-death goop, I opted for a reasonable doggie paddle for the last 100 yards or so.

Best part of the swim: I did it in 58 minutes.  What the what?  I am many things, but a sub-1 hour IM swimmer, I am not.  This should have taken me about 1.5 hours.  As I was scrapping what was left of Jimmy off of my wetsuit, I quickly thanked the Hudson for it’s very generous current.  Perhaps it was disgusting, but the day was off to a good start!

The Bike: Nothing like starting a 112 mile bike ride with a quad crushing hill, but that’s what we had coming out of transition.  I climbed with all I had and crested the top triumphantly, making a note about how much that was going to smart when I had to run it at the beginning of the marathon. 

But never mind that, I had a mind-numbing bike ride to get through. 

And for the most part, mind-numbing it was.  The bike route was along the Pallisades Parkway, which with a few glorious exceptions was a lonely road.  And with that, there isn’t much to report about the bike portion.  It was a lot of low grade, yet lengthy hills.  The few pockets of spectators were welcomed, but seemed bizarre considering a city of 8 million people was enticingly close by. 

As for my performance, my coach told me to be pretty aggressive on the bike and rely on my run.  It ended up being a pretty solid strategy overall.  I finished with an average speed of about 18mph, closing off this portion of the race in 6 hours.  Not too shabby; not too shabby at all.

But hell was waiting in the wings…

The Run: never have I experienced a marathon this tough, much less at the end of a freakin’ Ironman.  As eluded to earlier, that hill coming out of transition not only burned up the legs, but it took a big, juicy bite out of my spirit.  I, along with everyone around me, was walking.  Not even a mile into this race, and we were walking.  A somber start.

But that’s what an Ironman is all about right: managing the moment you’re in and doing your best.  True to form, I kept my head high and walked to the top.  Had this been the only punishing hill to negotiate, things might have gone differently.  But punishment abounded for the next 16 miles.

The one positive was that it was shady, and in mid-80 something degree heat and some nasty humidity, shade is a welcomed bonus.  That was the only positive though.  The hills just wouldn’t stop.  If you weren’t killing yourself on a climb, you were hammering at your quads with a descent. 

Half way through this mess stood two young, lovely, eager volunteers.  Their job was to ask if you were on your first or second loop and would then radio ahead.  Hearing them ask me if I was on loop 1 or 2, having to answer I was indeed on 1 and had to go for another round of this crap, and dreading what was ahead of me made me furious.  What the hell was I doing to myself?  Why was I punishing myself like this?  How can I get some of this anger out?  I savagely bit the shoulder of the nearest volunteer.  She was just standing there asking for it.  And as it turns out, it’s not that hard to bite someone hard enough to draw blood.  I congratulated myself on what surely was my ability to survive in the wild.

Lap 2 was expectedly worse.  Towards the end of it I came up on one of my teammates who was, for lack of a better word, running.  A better description would be weird looking slow walking with funny hops in between steps.  I was walking and caught him.  The absurdity of the situation was rich, but on questioning him, I learned that his goal was to finish this race without having walked at all.  Impressive, albeit foolish.  On hearing this goal, I was reminded of mine.  I wanted to finish this race in under 12 hours.  Doing some math in my head, I realized I had to keep my pace at about a 9 min/mile to do so. 

Let me tell you where things stood at this point in the day.  My timing chip, conveniently strapped to my left ankle, was chaffing something terrible.  I pulled to the side of the road to move it and realized I was unable to bend my legs far enough to reach my feet.  Physically unable to do it.  Whoa, I was in bad shape and still had 10 miles to go.  Getting the help from a curious, yet gracious volunteer (not the one I bit, mind you), my timing strap was moved and I was back to shuffling along. 

And then at mile 17 or so, you hit the bridge.  Never has 4 flights of stairs looked more impossible.  If I could get one photo from this day, it would be of me climbing these stairs.  I imagine such a photo would be nothing short of award winning, conveying an idiots desperation to climb for his life to finish a race he knowingly subjected himself to for no other purpose than personal glory.  It would have been beautiful, people.

After the bridge however, the elevation map promised pancake flat roads.  That got me through.

That map lied.

While compared to what we just went through it was much better, but by that time you were so burnt that even a curb was akin to Mt Everest.  I’ll never forget rounding a corner, let’s say about 20 miles in, and seeing a short, yet steep, incline.  I cried.  No sarcastic rhetoric here.  No artistic license to make this a better read.  I actually cried tears.  This is what is called hitting a wall my friends.  Each race has low points that all athletes have to contend with, but this was my lowest.  I vowed, with God and General Grant as my witnesses, that I was not doing this race again next year.  I just loved myself too much.

The math calculations were still going on, and somehow I was maintaining the pace needed to hit my goal.  How I mustered this amount of sheer will, I may never know. 

I crossed the finish line in 11:59:08.  52 seconds to spare to hit my goal.  Unreal.

While there was a tremendous sense of accomplishment from this, there was also a crushing amount of unadulterated self loathing.  The ratio of punishment to elation was not at an ideal mix and my previous vow to never do this race again was repeated like a mantra at a Buddhist monastery. 

As we know, the powers that be at the Ironman Corporation saw the error of their ways and cancelled the damn thing after the first year.  Good move.  And while I can honestly say I am proud to have been one of the few to have put this race on my resume, I’m much more proud to know I will never be given opportunity to do it again.

Deep thought Tuesday: the impossible dream

To dream the impossible dream...  No, this is not a review of musical theatre, but where I am today as an aspiring triathlete rock star.

A few years ago, I firmly believed that to finish an Ironman was pretty much humanly impossible. Asking my body to do this was akin to gluing impressive amounts of feathers to my arms and flapping my arms fast enough to fly. And while I did repeatedly try, I can't tell you how much it hurt my body, not to mention my pride, when I came crashing back to earth from the heights of my childhood garage. It's just not meant to be done.

Same with Ironman. Running a marathon is freakin hard enough. How could I do that after this epic swim and bike?

And yet, I've done it thrice.

I artistically used the word thrice there. It made me feel fancy. Athletic and grammatically competent?  There are so few of us...

Point is: I am pretty addicted to attempting things that seem impossible. Within reason, of course. And while my attempted flying days are long finished, the feeling I get when I am finally able to achieve that previously decided impossible goal is just about the best feeling ever.

"Chad Woodward, you are an Ironman!"  Sure he said my name wrong, but I wasn't hatin'. That was the most incredible sentence I had ever heard, perhaps seconded only by "balding men with beards are totally sexy," but I didn't log on to tell you about that...

What I did log in to say was that it is time for another goal. Nothing ventured, no chance for public embarrassment, right?

This past weekend, as many of us know, was the World Championship Ironman in Kona, Hawaii. Our Super Bowl. Qualifying for this race is damn near impossible. Uh oh. There's that "impossible" word again!

Naturally, I'm obsessed.

And so that, dear reader, is my goal. It's crazy, bordering pathological thinking, but it's where I'm at. It sounds impossible for me to pull in a time fast enough to qualify in my age group. For those of us paying attention, it would be a sub-10 hour Ironman. My current record is 11:59. I've got some work to do!

And yet, that is what this deep thought is all about: set a goal for yourself that sounds absurd. Challenge yourself. Aim high. The only thing in your way is probably you. Nothing more true than that statement in my own goal setting.

If I get out of my own way, I can accomplish anything imagined.

And so, I am doing that. Getting out of my way.

I'm also trying to stop talking to myself. I never enjoy the conversation and it draws attention. I won't be that guy anymore.

So, loyal readers, what goal can you set for yourself?  What sounds impossible?  What can you surprise yourself with?

Write it down here. Leave a comment. Tell me what you are going to challenge yourself with. If to no one else, be accountable to me!

Weekly review 4: embracing weakness

What is it about struggle that triathletes find so irresistible?  Why do we find things that make us suffer and feel compelled to jump right into them?  How many of us partake in self-destructive behavior, just to make that goal even more glamorous when it is achieved?

I know my Sunday post is supposed to be all about how my week of training went, but this week went a bit deeper than that on a personal level.  My workouts were somewhere between tragic and triumphant: a gold-standard representation of mediocrity.  And while I strive to rip myself out of that unsavory status, this post is about one of the reasons I seem to stay there.  This post is about why, although setting lofty and impressive self-goals, I tend to gravitate towards the metaphorical middle of the pack.

Ladies and gents, I'd like to introduce you to my own struggle.  My beacon of self-loathing and symbolic, ego-driven, deprecation.

Ice Cream: The Enemy

How absurd, right?  What high level athlete repeatedly finds themselves crippled by such a kryptonite-like bowl of deliciousness?  Apparently, this guy does...

Now, let me elaborate.  It's true that I do try to write this blog with a current of humor to it.  There are few things funnier than the crap a triathlete does to himself in the struggle to cross that finish line.  How could a blog about being a triathlete not be funny?  And yet, the battle I am about to tell you about is anything but.

Some people are addicted to drugs.  Others find alcohol to be their weakness.  For that matter, you name any seemingly pleasure-inducing modality and there will be someone in the world who harbors a crippling weakness to it.  Mine is food.

Please read this thought provoking paragraph:

Binge eating disorder is defined as recurring episodes of eating significantly more food in a short period of time than most people would eat under similar circumstances, with episodes marked by feelings of lack of control. Someone with binge eating disorder may eat too quickly, even when he or she is not hungry. The person may have feelings of guilt, embarrassment, or disgust and may binge eat aloneto hide the behavior. This disorder is associated with marked distress and occurs, on average, at least once a week over three months. 

That text is quoted from the DSM-5, which stands for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (now in it's riveting 5th edition).  

Reading that paragraph invokes a few primal reactions for me.  The most striking being that it describes my relationship with food more articulately than I could have spoken aloud to any therapist. The second being the confirmation that my frequent "carb-loading" portion of my training is in fact more problematic than I had once justified.  It would seem that I now have a freshly diagnosable disorder.  Well...shit.

How can I demonstrate to you, the reader, my relationship with food?  Perhaps this image will carry across what I try to say with words:

Yep, that about does it...

And while I am no longer a preschool-aged female, I do still carry with me this horror-film-inspired love of food.  So what gives?  

Without bringing us down more than I already have (stupid DSM and its labels), I had some bumpy times during my childhood.  Who didn't, right?  There was the typical childhood and teenaged struggles that we all go through, with a generous peppering of some heavy caliber artillery mixed in.  My coping mechanism became food.  

Things were bad; food made it better.  I'm sure it's more complicated than that somehow, but that is as good a description as I can muster.

And yet, to my dismay, I seemed to have never outgrown this compulsion.  And that is what I am left with this week to tell you.  Not about my training or new hurdles I have cleared.  Not about milestones reached in my physical abilities.  Not about some seemingly impossible race that I just crushed.  This week was about an old enemy of mine.  This week was about the internal struggle that is my pathological, and don't forget diagnosable, reliance on food.  

This week has been hard.  

The optimist in me likes to believe that facing this struggle head on will bring me one step closer to closure.  That sharing with the world what I consider to be my biggest weakness will somehow break down a barrier.  That putting to words what I find to be my ultimate example of self-loathing and failure will somehow allow me to finally put it behind me.  

I won't spend the energy telling you what the pessimist in me believes.  

So now that I've had my big come-to-Jesus moment right here on this page, I'm left wondering how many of my readers share a similar struggle.  Maybe it's drugs, sex, food, attention.  Maybe it's something I've never even considered a temptation for weakness.  Maybe it's exercise.  I wonder how many of us out there, triathletes or otherwise, feel like they lose control of their will on a regular basis.  How many well educated, inspirational, successful, go-getters out there feel that same terrifying moment of complete lack of discipline and regulation.  Or worse yet, that moment of realization after a particularly damaging episode of failure; the proverbial hang-over after blacking out the night before.

More so than that, I wonder how they have learned to control those tendencies.  

I promise my posts will be back to their campy and entertaining antics soon, but for just this moment, I am grateful to you for allowing me to briefly share this bit of inner reflection.  For that matter, I would be even more deeply honored to read any comments you might be willing to share about your own struggles.

Perhaps weakness is not so rare?

With love to you and loathing to weakness,
Me

Deep thought Tuesday 4: Do something that scares you

Dear world, please meet my friend Lisa.

Isn't she glamorous?  I wonder if she's planning to give me my hat back soon...

I am writing about her tonight because she has had a pretty incredible year that is worth mentioning.  The theme of her year is doing things she's afraid of, and while nude streaking in Times Square didn't make her list, other pretty cool things did.

Early in the year, she decided to shave her head for St. Baldricks, an organization dedicated to helping families with children battling cancer.  Please picture the most lush, curly, would-kill-your-stepsister-for, brown hair.  She had it.  A lot of it.  Yet somehow she became even more beautiful after it was gone.

Years ago, she used to sing, just like me.  And just like me, she put it away as a profession to join the real world who enjoy paying rent and such.  Adulthood calls.  This year she also got back on stage, with me, and sang her face off.  I'd say she sang her hair off, but it was already gone.

And finally, she got her ass on a bike and raised money for people battling homelessness and HIV status.  I had the pleasure of accompanying her from Boston to NYC on a bicycle.  

Oh yeah, she also has lost 35 lbs and counting on her fight to get healthy.

Reading this, I feel like a lazy punk.  At least I'm also going bald, it's just happening slower and doesn't really help kids, but I think my suffering makes the world a better place.

So why am I telling you about Lisa and her year of accomplishments?  Mostly to make you jealous of my awesome friends, but also to encourage all of us to carry this momentum forward into our own lives.  Because when I asked her what motivated her to have a year like this, she said it was because she felt her life was previously in a rut and she wanted to do things that scared her.

I still think Times Square streaking would have made a better story, but she did pretty well without it.

I wanted to tell her story because it reminds me of the passion I occasionally find in my life that pushes me forward.  It reminds me of how I can be a better man by pushing my own boundaries.  It reminds me that being scared of things is really just an opportunity waiting to happen.

Here are her words on reflecting on these experiences, "The greatest part is everything I have gotten out of this year.  I made amazing friends, I rode a bike after not being on one since I was a kid.  I raised ~ $6000 for 2 amazing organizations, I shared a stage with an incredibly multi talented friend, I've let myself believe in myself again and I kinda dig it."

Isn't that last line poignant?  "I've let myself believe in myself again and I kinda dig it."  Friends, if that isn't poetry then Walt Whitman was a boob.

I'm left reflecting how often I don't believe in myself.  I wonder how many of my readers do the same absurd trick to themselves now and then.  I ponder how different our world would be if we could all channel this drive to change; to grow; to live.

Saying I am proud of Lisa and her accomplishments sounds childish and stupid.  I am overwhelmed by what she has done.  It's a funny thing when a teacher is taught by the student; it's an opportunity for them both to grow together.

Here's hoping that a blog entry I'll write in the near future tells you about fears I have faced and hurdles I have overcome.  Perhaps we can find them together?

Weekly Review 3: The warmth of a family

A slight break in tradition here.  This is normally when I would tell you about my training for the week and how I royally screwed it up.  While there is a bit of that below, I also wanted to share a unique experience I had with some pretty incredible people.

First thing's first though: the training.  This week was good overall (go me).  I hit most of my goals and most of my workouts.  Quite a departure from my norm, I know!  But one workout was especially helpful and made me feel optimistic in a whole new way.

I had to pleasure of riding with my coach Brian Hammond on Thursday to Alpine, a roughly 40 mile round trip of some pretty great hill training.  Now please keep in mind that I have been riding a bike on some level for 7 years.  I should know what I'm doing, right?  (please visualize an annoyed yet comical emoticon here...)

It seems that when I ride I am down right expert level at descending hills.  I know that sounds sarcastic, but there is quite a bit of technique to be good at descending.  It might be the extra ice cream I like to keep stored on my body during the off season that makes me fast, but there is more to it.  I am also pretty average at flat roads.  Put me next to someone stronger and younger than me and I can usually keep up with them.  If they are attractive, nothing holds me back.

But climbing a hill, I get smoked every time.  Being such a genius and having more letters after my name than I know what to do with, I assumed I was doing it right.  Well, here is another example demonstrating that those letters mean basically nothing.  Tell that to my student loan collectors.

You see, when I would go up a hill I would usually stay in my big front ring and steadily work my way into easier gears in the back.  My mentality was to power up the stupid hill with all I had and hope and pray I got to the top with both lungs being spared from collapse.  It's a hill; it should make you hate yourself.  Right?

Wrong.

Brian, the all-knowing-bike-maestro, set me straight.  As it turns out, the amount of power you are putting out on a flat road should be the SAME amount of power you put out on a hill.  Well now, it seems I've been doing that rather wrong, haven't I?  With his guidance, and occasional chastising that was well-deserved, I rode right up those hills feeling, dare I say it, pretty darn good.

Imagine my surprise when he told me that the speed and wattage we were using that day were at his race levels.  He consistently pulls in the bike portion under 6 hours without really trying.  Upon hearing this, I did what was perfectly natural and expected of any athlete.

I peed.

How exciting!  Maybe I don't suck the proverbial rotten egg after all!  Maybe I'm just dumb and don't know how to ride a bike.  An important distinction between being fat, slow, and unable to produce any power.

I found this enriching.  I hate to admit it, but I'm almost looking forward to my next bike ride.  Who am I?  That's crazy talk.  Not bad for a 40 mile ride to find out a 6 hour bike time for an Ironman should be easy at my current level.  My last race logged an impressive 7+ hours.  This was a good lesson and I am grateful to my rock-star coach.

That was pretty good, but below is the best story of the week.  To give it proper set up, here is a touch of back story:

Sometime this summer I booked two flights to Alaska.  It's stupid, but I did this only to earn more airline miles so I could maintain my preferred status with the airlines.  Please don't judge me.  It hurts.

The second of these two flights featured a 10 hour layover in Anchorage, AK.  I wasn't sure what the hell I was going to do for 10 hours, but I figured I'd pack my running shoes and go out and chase a moose.

Then, during the first week of September, I was lucky enough to take a vacation to Maui which I'm still glowing from.  Seriously, the sun is strong there and I'm still glow-in-the-dark from a sunburn I got.  Not cool.  While there I decided on a whim to get more tattooing done (sorry Mom).

My tattoo artist that I met was awesome.  Picture the quintessential Hawaiian dude, complete with cool Hawaiian clothes, tattooed face, and a spirit and energy that would warm John Boehner's heart.  His name is Samson Harp, and here is a video that gives you a small glimpse at who I've come to know.



If you just skipped that and continued reading, you're dumb.

Well, as I was getting worked on by Sam, he told me he was moving to Alaska in the next few months.  I began to question his sanity.  After hearing his reasonings for the move, we discovered that he was moving to Alaska one day before I was scheduled to be there for my 10 hour layover.

It's a shame the universe never gives me any signs, right?

We booked the time to add on to my left arm.  How could I not?  What happened was more than I could have ever expected.

Upon arriving at the airport, Sam and his wife came to pick me up in their own car.  I know I am from a different culture, but I once made my own brother take a cab to the airport because I was hung over.  I was flattered.

They drove me to their home.  I met their children, all 7 of them.  I gave their two dogs a scratch behind the ears.  I was welcomed.

During the tattoo, his children would peek around the corner shyly and wave at me.  A smiling face would appear in the window and giggle.  I was entertained.

After the tattoo was over and the equipment cleaned, I anticipated being driven back to the airport to wait out the rest of my layover.  Instead, Sam invited me to stay at his home.  I graciously accepted.  I was surprised.

I played outside with his children, who are magnificent by the way.  Afterwards I was invited to eat at their dinner table with the family to a home cooked meal.  I was nicknamed "Uncle Strawberry" by one of the girls due to color of my skin and my rosy cheeks that looked different than theirs.  For one unexpected evening, I was invited into their family and embraced as their own.  I was humbled.

Sam once told me the true meaning of the word "Aloha."  To a visiting tourist, I knew it meant hello and goodbye, but it goes so much deeper than that.  I won't succeed describing it here.  I don't think I am able.  In the video above, you might have noticed that when Sam greeted his client, they put their foreheads together and simultaneously drew in a deep breath through their noses.  That level of trust and sharing, that intimacy, that love.  That is Aloha.

In my mind, Aloha is some sort of Chi, Karma, good naturedness, and oatmeal cookies all rolled up into one convenient package.  It means affection, peace, compassion, mercy.

I was marvelously honored to have experienced a glimpse of this, and feel an immense privilege to share it here.

To Sam and his beautiful family, please allow me to send Aloha to you.  While we may look different, grew around different cultures, and have entirely different lives, I feel as though my family has grown.

My goal from this week, and dare I boldly state that it's a goal I will strive to meet forevermore, is to be worthy of the Aloha that was given to me.  How magnificent...

Uncle Strawberry with the whole gang

My new best friend, happily attached to my right lower extremity