I Live in Iowa: Week 129

Pretty exciting week. I mean I transitioned to design engineer a little more. I spent most of the week training. I still haven't designed anything yet. Although I did get a phone call asking me a whole bunch of questions and kind of reporting the progress on a project to me. It was strange because I didn't really know it was something I had to do, and all of by sudden I'm responsible for it. The joys of a new position I suppose.

First impressions of design versus analysis:

• Far more social. We spend more time talking with each other and go to more meetings. 
• Far less technical. Many of the things we do and decisions we make are ambiguous and more towards the get-it-done mentality than the best-technical-solution. That being said, time is money. 
• Quite ambiguous. In finite element engineering there are projects to be done and reports to be written. In design there is an entire product to be produced, and it is not as simply broken down into projects and reports. There is also often no right answer. How much should an engine frame weight?

I ran! A whole quarter mile in 3:19, and it wasn't even painful the first 100 meters! 

On the coaching side we didn't have a meet, but I was at practice six days in a row watching, and sometimes bicycling along side. The team has been thinned down by attrition the last month or so, we are not what we were at the start of the season, just like every other team and every other season. The durability to get through a season, let alone several seasons in a row is not to be underestimated. Recovery is hard. 

Ambiguously, I made significant strides this week toward a long term (decade) goal. Probably exciting news to come in the next two months!

I hope you had a good week too.

If I Never Run Again

I am recovering, slowly, from my marathon leg injury. It seems to be two knots, one in my lateral compartment and another in my gastrocnemius (hopefully not a third behind that one in the soleus). They are responding to all of the usual knot treatment, except that these knots are at least as bad as the gluteus knot I had back in February 2011. Plus, it's pretty tough to get me to actually rest. This week I was in the weight room trying to bench press 125 pounds, doing medicine ball circuits, pull ups, push ups, abductor and adductor exercises... So I do plan on recovering from this injury and going on to set more personal records, at just about every distance.

That being said, the end of a season, good, bad or ugly, plus an injury, makes for a good opportunity to imagine if I never set another personal record. This day will come. Hopefully I can still set bicycling and ultra running PRs into my 40s, but regardless of the details, I will slow down. I may even be sidelined by an injury permanently. So what if this injury, this marathon, was my last?

Well, I didn't get as far as I wanted, not even very close. But I did accomplish far more than I ever expected. I learned so much about perseverance, consistency, hard work, and gifts. My running is a gift. Yes I work incredibly hard at it, but it is a gift that many, probably most, others don't have, similar to my math and science passion. In high school my three best 5ks in cross country were 18:26 (senior year), 18:33 (junior year, and 18:34 (senior year). Two weeks ago in Chicago my first six consecutive 5ks were 17:08, 17:06, 17:19, 17:29, 17:50 and 18:13. In high school I struggled to run a 5:03 1600 meter race. In March I ran a 4:31 mile, roughly 34 seconds better than my 5:03 1600 in high school. I look at that kind of development, and I'm okay with it. That is real, concrete improvement. To know that the process works, that development happens over years and more than a decade of practicing the craft is rewarding. I can tell you about development, but you won't understand it if you don't go through it personally. There have been so many injuries and setbacks. So many challenges and seemingly lofty goals that many internal questions are asked. I have learned what I can do, and what I can't do, often painfully.

If I never run again I will think, 'I did what I could with what I had. There are things I would change, but I didn't know them at the time.' Looking forward, I will be healed. When I return to training and racing I will go after my specific goals. I have done some bouncing around and ancillary goals now and then, but it's time to be specific.

Other Motivations

I do not understand others motivations nearly as well as my own. Perhaps that is an obvious, true-for-us-all fact. I often say that "money and control" are what most people want, and while that is a great way to simplify motivations, it's not the real motivation. No, what I'm talking about today is my goal-orientated, accomplishment nature versus less tangible motivations, like steady relationships, or even fear driven motivations.

For example, a runner on the cross country team I work with told me recently that he was afraid to push the pace hard in a race because he didn't want to fall apart at the end. I don't understand that very well. I go out too hard in many of my races, perhaps even most. Even in a $175 marathon I run too fast at the beginning when it most assuredly means I'm going to suffer the last four miles.

Another example, people are often afraid to bring up issues at work that they really want to. Call it lizard brain fear or whatever, but the point is there are things we are not even honest about with ourselves. Do we really prefer the dysfunctional and outwardly cordial relationship to the honest relationship?

What are your motivations that people don't understand?

Learning to Listen Better

I spend too much time telling my stories. My listening skills are not what they could be. I'm working on it.

How NOT to Run a Marathon

For me, the Chicago marathon was mostly a failure. I went out too hard. Here are my mile by mile splits.

Chicago Marathon 2013 Splits

See what I mean?

Miles four, five and six are what ultimately killed me. 5:28, 5:21, 5:27. The crowds were huge, I was just 15-20 seconds behind the lead women, which made the situation worse because I was mentally basing my pace off of their pace and the men around me. I remember hitting 5 miles in 27:25, and hitting 6 miles in just under 33, both times thinking, "sub 5:30 pace... I should slow down" Now, for the record my watch was beeping a little before the mile markers, partly because I shortened the first mile by pressing the split button on my watch as I cross the mile line. Partly also because of not taking the exact tangents. In other words, I passed 20 miles at about 1:53:11 not, 1:52:33. So roughly 2s per mile difference between GPS and the pavement.

Interesting to see how my pace dropped over the miles. I mean around 18 miles running became harder, and I began running just over 6 minute pace. Then around 22 it got a lot harder, and I was doomed to run 6:50+ pace. Then at 23 I realized that I would not break 2:30, because I was not going to run 3.2 miles in under 18 minutes, and I was doomed to run 7:25+ pace. The last two miles were just ugly. I mean 8:20s pace. That's running on pure fat and protein. Who like carbohydrates? I like carbohydrates!

Simply put, you can't run a marathon on excitement. I was not in shape to have any business running 5:2X miles in a marathon, the oxygen and glycogen requirements were far too high for me to maintain that pace in a marathon, and I ran five sub 5:30 miles.

I Live in Iowa: Week 128

I had a smile on my face all week, baring about 45 minutes on Sunday finishing a marathon and immediately afterward. I have so much! I am so blessed! Even though I am still limping around, I can walk! I have run some great races in my time, faster than most people will ever run. I have a wonderful job, I am paid a lot of money. I am rich. For a brief moment, this past week and week to come, I will spend more time dwelling on the success of my life than the failures. I spend more time looking back than looking forward. Soon enough the concentration will return and probably another dabble with the vegan diet will continue. Soon the focus on career projects and athletic endeavors will once again consume my time.

For now, we celebrate!

I started a new job at work designing structures! How fortunate am I? After close to four years of finite element experience at three different companies I now am on the front end of design. Instead of judging others designs I will now present my own designs to be judged. Instead of only working with design and physical test, I will work with hydraulics, power train, electronics, marketing, manufacturing, assembly, sales, customer support, and at least in one case, materials science. It may be a less technical role, but it's more applicable to the business side of things, and more creative. I am very fortunate. Why do I have all this success?

Running has not happened since the marathon. I tried on Monday, but after one step my right leg was not going to survive. What is the deal with my right leg? I am hopeful it is one or more nasty knots, trigger points, that tightened up in the last three miles of the marathon, exacerbated by hitting the wall and having slightly less protein than normal. It may also be a second degree muscle pull. Serious and painful, but soon to heal. It may also be compartment syndrome in the anterior and/or lateral compartments. I have not been to the doctor but I have been to an athletic training and a massage therapist, and it's still a bit early to really know. I will visit a doctor this week if it doesn't get any better. I can say it is a muscular injury, not ligament, tendon, or bone, so it should heal relatively quickly once it is properly understood. Yes, I did register for another marathon because the registration deadline was Tuesday night. So if I am healthy in a couple months I will give this thing another try.

Coaching is good. It's never as good as I imagine, because the athletes don't have the same motivations I have. That's on me to recognize and deal with. My goal is not to change their priorities, but to support them in their journey.

Other than that, a fair amount of sleeping, lots of sitting around, and enjoying the meats and cheeses that my enormous wealth allows me. I still have not bought any cow's milk or cheese for that matter.

Failure, Recovery, Success

The cycle of failure, recovery, and success is repeated across the board in many disciplines. In 2010 I started a company, failed, and I'm still in recovery from that. Six days ago I ran a marathon, in my mind failed, and I am in recovery from that. However, experience teaches that after the dip, which is the failure and recovery, there is success at the end of the tunnel. How do I know this? I am fortunate to have found such a simple activity, running, which teaches life lessons in an accelerated manner.

About 3/4 of my races in my mind count as average, or below average, which in my mind usually counts as some measure of failure to measure up to where I really am. However, those few races, where I feel good the whole way, run well, and set a PR are worth so much more because of it. I go out too fast in far too many races. However, it takes a few failures to remind me how terrible it feels to finish slow, so that I will run a logical race the next time around.

I talk about running a lot, but I really want to focus on career success today. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone has to learn new skills. In our careers we will likely fail in college many times, recover from those experiences, and finally succeed by getting a degree. It is the same in our careers, we will ship poor products, we will approve inadequate designs, we will send inappropriate emails, and many times we will say the wrong thing. I'm not condoning these actions at all. I'm not saying you should try to make mistakes. I am saying, you could probably do better next time. It's a treadmill, how good is good enough? When the treadmill breaks you have won I suppose.

Perhaps this view is a problem on my part that I am not able to take the data and change the plan or quit the endeavor. I simply stick to doing something long after failure is assured. That being said, if anyone had said that I would run multiple marathons faster than I ever ran a 5k in high school, I would not have believed it at the time. Between there and here was significant failure. Plenty of recovery and learning, and finally some successes. It is exactly the same in my career. Do you know what it is like to go to a top 60 university in the United States, top 10 when it comes to earnings potential and return on investment, receive two degrees and then spend 57 week out of engineering, a supposedly in demand major? There was a time (September 2010) when I considered nearly tossing the whole thing to make snow all winter and teach rock climbing all summer.

What I am trying to say is, persistence matters. We can learn from failure. We can learn more from most failures than most successes. We must not be afraid to fail. Obviously we should not desire to fail, but fear of failure is also fear of success.