EricMN's Jedi Training - Choose Your Path

[EricMN]

Main Goal

 

In October of this year, I'll be competing in the 2018 OCR World Championships. I qualified as an age group competitor twice during the 2017 season and raced in a group of similarly grey-bearded men. I will travel to the UK to participate and will run as a journeyman if necessary, but it's my goal to qualify to race against other 50-and-over men again. This time, I don't want to be happy to be there, I want to finish closer to the middle of the pack than the back, and I'd like to leave with something more than just a finisher medal and a tee shirt: I want to finish with 100% obstacle completion.

 

If I do this, I will get to keep my band.

A bunch of my friends kept theirs last year.

 

At the end of the last challenge cycle, I ran a qualifying event and did not place well. I got pretty down about it. While it was a wake-up call regarding my training, it was also a wake-up call to re-focus my mindset and my attitude. I needed to be reminded that I do this for FUN.

 

This is about a mile and less than 15 minutes into the race. Does this man look like he's having fun?

This man is 8.2 miles and eight hours into the same race. Does this man look like he's having fun?

 

Kacey spent the whole race, including the double-hill bucket carry, smiling. He also was quoted as saying, while standing in a puddle, "You better be careful here, the mud's up to my waist!" and laughing.

 

I ENJOY obstacle racing. I'm going to spend this cycle putting in the work while changing my mindset and enjoying the process. I need to choose the path to the Light Side, where there is joy in the process.

 

This is where I say "I know what it takes to get where I want to be" and put my goals in. I do know what it takes. If I had any self-discipline, I could run a Battle Log, because these things don't change, but I have the self-discipline of a teenager on a Red Bull drip and the attention span to match, so Challenge Thread it is. If you've been around for any of my challenges you know what's coming:

 

Goal: Speed

I have gone from "I'm not a runner" to "I enjoy trail running." The problem is, our trails have been frozen since November and the cold aggravates my psoriatic arthritis. We should have had a thaw in March, but it's now mid-April and IT'S STILL SNOWING. I'll get in most of my work on the Dreadmill with some scheduled trail runs while things are 

 

I'm still building up my mileage from a winter of slacking, but I have a running plan that works. Consistency will get me there.

Plan:  Run a minimum of 3x per week, including 3-mile VO2 max interval training, 3-4 mile lactate threshold training, and weekend long run.

 

Goal: Strength

I enjoy weight training. I need to supplement this with boot-camp style bodyweight and high-rep, low-weight training, and pull-ups. This will help with obstacle proficiency and efficiency. There will be white boards.

Plan: Boot Camp Monday, Wednesday, and Saturdays when I don't have a scheduled race or trail run. Weight training Tuesday and Thursday. 400 pull-ups during the course of the challenge.

 

Goal: Skill

While raw strength will help with some obstacles, it's not going to help me through a ninja-style rig or on Pegatron or obstacles where there are specific skills involved. I have a gym membership to Obstacle Academy for this.

Plan: Weekly Friday obstacle workout at Obstacle Academy. Have a specific training plan every time instead of just going in and goofing around on the toys.

 

Goal: Sustenance

I lost a bunch of weight five years ago by tracking my nutritional macros and I've kept it off by doing the same. I've occasionally dropped five to ten pounds in between that has not stayed off because when I'm not tracking macros, I eat junk. I've stuck to my macros pretty well over the last challenge cycle and my race jersey is fitting pretty well right now, but I'd like to look AMAZING when my home race in June rolls around.

Plan: Log my food daily. Stick to my macros.

 

Goal: Sanity

This is my self-care non-goal. I'm chronically over-scheduled and currently don't have an out for this. Work is a hot mess and I'm along for the ride. Aside from Yoga on Mondays when it fits my schedule, this is not a quantifyable, SMART goal, but it's on the list to remind me to spend some time in self-care daily. 

 

Starting Line

I Race. I do it because I enjoy it. A bad day on an obstacle course is still the happiest day of my week. I've got two trail "races" on the docket this cycle to ensure that I am getting in my weekend long runs. There's also one obstacle mud run at the end of this cycle:

Muddy Warrior Run, May 19

 

 

This is NOT an OCRWC qualifier, so it is going to be more of a fun run than a competitive race for me. It looks like fun. I'm going to go race happy that day.

 

 

Time to choose your path, Jedi.

[Sloth the Enduring]

Here for the white boards.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Following along again. Has that new DBA started yet at work?

[Sloth the Enduring]

22 minutes ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Second.

 

FTFY. 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

20 minutes ago, Sloth the Enduring said:

 

FTFY. 

Don't get cocky old man.

[MattSkywalker]

Following, of course!

[jonfirestar]

10 hours ago, EricMN said:

 

Kacey spent the whole race, including the double-hill bucket carry, smiling. He also was quoted as saying, while standing in a puddle, "You better be careful here, the mud's up to my waist!" and laughing.

 

I ENJOY obstacle racing. I'm going to spend this cycle putting in the work while changing my mindset and enjoying the process. I need to choose the path to the Light Side, where there is joy in the process.

 

You make some darn good points! Go have some fun! 

[Charlie_Quinn]

Here for the fun

[Xena]

On 4/18/2018 at 5:54 PM, EricMN said:

This is about a mile and less than 15 minutes into the race. Does this man look like he's having fun?

 

I see your bigger point and admire it.

 

But looking at that picture, I would say, I don't know, probably...  It IS fun to suffer on the trails and it's ok to enjoy being kind of grouchy about it.

 

I did really appreciate your initial post though. I just had a disappointing race, and I'm ready to get back to some solid training.

[DarK_RaideR]

Whoops! Wrong franchise!

[EricMN]

Thank you all for continuing to support me. Even when I'm slow to update, I always read and appreciate your support.

 

On 4/18/2018 at 5:05 PM, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Following along again. Has that new DBA started yet at work?

Yes! We are now about two weeks into her onboarding. I'm doing the majority of the training. She's good and she won't be taking up much of my time going forward, and I'm looking forward to having a positive team member on her side of the aisle.

 

15 hours ago, Xena said:

I see your bigger point and admire it.

 

But looking at that picture, I would say, I don't know, probably...  It IS fun to suffer on the trails and it's ok to enjoy being kind of grouchy about it.

You're right; there are times where it's definitely "fun" to embrace the suck and find joy in the suffering. And it's okay to have a crappy run and gritch about it. I'm ready to enjoy the process, though. It's time.

 

15 hours ago, Xena said:

I did really appreciate your initial post though. I just had a disappointing race, and I'm ready to get back to some solid training.

Thank you for this. I really admire you as a runner, even though I don't follow you closely enough. It's good to hear that something I said resonates in some way. Let's put the past behind us, where it belongs, and do what we know we need to do to move forward.

 

Week Zero Recap

Here we go!

I skipped all of my scheduled Boot Camp and weight training workouts due to travel fatigue after Sunday night's red-eye home, scheduling conflicts, and a need to get my head on straight. I did get in all three of my expected runs, and with the weather taking a dramatic turn to "look, Spring, only a month late", I'm back to feeling like me this week.

 

I've signed up for a ton of trail "races" this spring and summer. I'm not worried about my placement, I'm signed up for these things because that way I am holding myself accountable to get my weekend long runs in. Also, that means I get occasional bling. Saturday was the Trail Mix race; there were three distances (50k, 25k, 12.5k). I did the 12.5k. When I checked in, I told the volunteer "You've now serviced your last-place finisher" and I was smiling. I hung out for a while until my heat began, cheered on one of my NSS teammates who was running the 50K as he pitted, and chit-chatted with a couple others as they waited for the podium in the 50K team race. It was gorgeous, with no clouds and temps between 50degF and 60degF. The trail was a snowy, melty, muddy, wet mess, and much of the trail was puddles of standing water. My spikes did well in the snow and the solid mud, but there were plenty of places where it was just "plant your foot and hope for the best." My feet were soaked with freezing snow runoff by the first kilometer marker. I'm not in shape for this distance yet.

 

I loved every minute of it.

 

Spoiler

Compare and contrast the face of the man in the bandanna above vs. the man in the bandanna from last week.

 

Those shoes aren't factory black.

 

Turns out I didn't finish last overall, but my placement didn't matter, and I'm not going to post it. It was a gorgeous day and it was fun to get back on a trail for the first time in months. Most importantly, in one beautiful morning, I started to get my head straightened out and I'm ready for Week One.

 

"Ready, are you?"

[Terra]

I like the shift back to having fun and enjoying your sport!!! 

[Sloth the Enduring]

I saw pics of the race on the FB; it looked looked brutally muddy.  It must have hard to run in.  It looked fun though.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

I'm glad the outdoor therapy helped.

Rangers gonna Ranger.

[Mr_Willes]

Always fun to see other peopel suffer enjoy their OCR's.

 

 

We just had a small one last sunday. Hardest obstacle: 2K without an obstacle, in the heat, on white/yellow loose sandground, with a 0-windspeed... Running back into the forest-shadow hard trail was delightful. I bet i looked worse than you did in your pic in that 2K.

 

Following along if you don't mind!

[DarK_RaideR]

You know, in my brief stint with Muay Thai, I remember the teacher telling us during a long planking session to relax our face muscles and let go of the suck. It's amazing how this simple thing shifts your brain's mentality a little out of "this hurts and I'm dying" mode and increases your endurance. That said, I'm glad to see the smile back on your OCR/trail photos, should help your state of mind going forward.

[EricMN]

Monday

With the exception of some moderate knee soreness (thanks, arthritis), this week is off to a good start.

 

Goal: Speed

Plan:  Run a minimum of 3x per week, including 3-mile VO2 max interval training, 3-4 mile lactate threshold training, and weekend long run.

Result: My legs were dead and my knees were screaming nope, and my feet hurt. I cut it short after a mile. It's still gorgeous out and I'll head out on the trail on Tuesday.

 

Goal: Strength

Plan: Boot Camp Monday; 400 pull-ups during the course of the challenge.

Result:

Spoiler

15m time cap:

Finished in 11:05.

 

Cash-out (no whiteboard):

30/20/10 wall balls/kettlebell swings; 10m timecap. Finished in 5:15.

4 pull-ups; 396 remaining.

 

Goal: Sustenance

Plan: 

Result:

KCal: 2,059

Protein: 150g

Fiber: 29g

Sodium: 3632mG

It's time to really get my sodium intake under control.

 

Goal: Sanity

I had lunch with my friend Jeff. It's a necessary part of my self-care to disconnect from work, spend time with a friend, and talk about things that we care about - our families, our relationships, our faith - to make myself whole.

 

21 hours ago, Terra said:

I like the shift back to having fun and enjoying your sport!!! 

Channeling a little Terra mindfulness always helps.

 

 

19 hours ago, Sloth the Enduring said:

I saw pics of the race on the FB; it looked looked brutally muddy.  It must have hard to run in.  It looked fun though.

Sample from FB, spoilered for enormousness:

Spoiler

This was one of the muddier parts of the exposed trail. It was worse on the hills back in the woods.

The ground was still frozen under the mud and in most places it wasn't too deep. Nowhere near as bad as Seattle the week before. It was definitely fun.

 

16 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

I'm glad the outdoor therapy helped.

Rangers gonna Ranger.

Thanks, Tank. I'm starting to feel Rangery again.

 

6 hours ago, Mr_Willes said:

Always fun to see other peopel suffer enjoy their OCR's.

 

We just had a small one last sunday. Hardest obstacle: 2K without an obstacle, in the heat, on white/yellow loose sandground, with a 0-windspeed... Running back into the forest-shadow hard trail was delightful. I bet i looked worse than you did in your pic in that 2K.

 

Following along if you don't mind!

Running in sand is almost as bad as running in deep mud, it sucks the energy right out of your kick. It still looked fun.

 

And I will never mind the follow.

 

5 hours ago, DarK_RaideR said:

You know, in my brief stint with Muay Thai, I remember the teacher telling us during a long planking session to relax our face muscles and let go of the suck. It's amazing how this simple thing shifts your brain's mentality a little out of "this hurts and I'm dying" mode and increases your endurance. That said, I'm glad to see the smile back on your OCR/trail photos, should help your state of mind going forward.

You're absolutely correct. One of my NSS guys is a cross-country coach and last summer he watched me running; the first thing he told me was to stop clenching my fists because it made everything clench up and made it harder for me to breathe. He was absolutely right.

 

I'm looking forward to a few more smiles in between the grind this summer.

 

[Raxie]

Following! Mr. Raxie just found out he has high blood pressure so we'll be on a get-your-sodium-under-control journey too. 

[Xena]

On 4/23/2018 at 11:26 AM, EricMN said:

I really admire you as a runner, even though I don't follow you closely enough.

 

Thanks! You are definitely one of my "favorite rangers who I don't usually follow." Every time I swing by your thread, it's inspiring and fun.

[EricMN]

Tuesday

 

It's a good sign when Tuesday morning rolls around, I do NOT want to answer my alarm, and am still in the gym by 6 a.m. to get my lifting in. It's an even better sign when 5 pm rolls around, my legs are smoked by the morning's lifting work, and not only do I still get my VO2Max run done, but it's the fastest session since last year. It's days like this that are going to get me back to where I want to be, arthritis be damned. Consistency, Jedi, it's the path to the Light Side.

 

Goal: Speed

Plan:  Run a minimum of 3x per week, including 3-mile VO2 max interval training, 3-4 mile lactate threshold training, and weekend long run.

Result: My legs were dead, my hamstrings and glutes were sore, and my head was saying "nope", so I taped up my knees and busted out my best VO2 max training run since last year.

 

Goal: Strength

Plan:  Weight training Tuesday; 400 pull-ups during the course of the challenge.

Result:

Spoiler

10m AMRAP each station.

 

Did deadlifts instead of glute bridges due to a lower abdomen thing I've got going on.

 

Double-rack kettlebell front squats can kiss my butt.

8 pull-ups; 388 remaining.

 

Goal: Sustenance

Plan: 

Result:

KCal: 1,983

Protein: 151g

Fiber: 28g

Sodium: 2310mG

Much better. Let's see if I can string together a few days like this. 

 

Goal: Sanity

It's a good thing this is a non-goal. Aside from plenty of quiet stretching yesterday, I can't think of anything specific to put here.

 

On 4/24/2018 at 10:44 AM, Raxie said:

Following! Mr. Raxie just found out he has high blood pressure so we'll be on a get-your-sodium-under-control journey too. 

I had full-blown high blood pressure in my 20s and was medicated for it. I hated it. I was borderline hypertensive for years. I didn't get into a healthy range until I lost a significant amount of weight, and I don't want to go back. Tell Mr. Raxie that I'm in alternative-seasoning solidarity with him, and that I still have beard envy.

 

15 hours ago, Xena said:

Thanks! You are definitely one of my "favorite rangers who I don't usually follow." Every time I swing by your thread, it's inspiring and fun.

Thank you, too. "Favorite Rangers who I don't usually follow" - that's a pretty accurate description of a lot of people around here. So many people doing so many really awesome things, I can't possibly keep up with them all.

[Raxie]

1 hour ago, EricMN said:

Tell Mr. Raxie that I'm in alternative-seasoning solidarity with him, and that I still have beard envy.

 

I will alert him to both of these things

 

1 hour ago, EricMN said:

It's a good sign when Tuesday morning rolls around, I do NOT want to answer my alarm, and am still in the gym by 6 a.m. to get my lifting in. It's an even better sign when 5 pm rolls around, my legs are smoked by the morning's lifting work, and not only do I still get my VO2Max run done, but it's the fastest session since last year. It's days like this that are going to get me back to where I want to be, arthritis be damned.

 

WOW that's impressive.  Way to totally kill it!

[EricMN]

Wednesday

 

Another Good Day^TM. I've yet to just turn off the alarm when it goes off at 5 in the morning, I'm in the gym by 6 am, and I'm enjoying Shannon's CF-style workouts. Side note: Until the past month, I did not recognize two 5 o'clocks per day, refusing to acknowledge the one that occurs outside of my afternoon commute. I'm looking forward to my weekend, but I'm not regretting my choice to change up my gym program.

 

Also, I can evidently only operate at a massive caloric deficit for so long before I lose it; I felt like I was going to gnaw my arm off in hunger all day long. Even with the slice of birthday cake at Youth Group, though, I still managed to stay within 500 calories of my target, and I'm not too worried about one day, although my snack choices and the sushi I had for dinner spiked my sodium intake again. The sugar in the cake and frosting does things to my digestive tract, though. Best not to go there often.

 

Before I'm forced to keep an extinguisher on hand...

 

Goal: Speed

Plan:  Run a minimum of 3x per week, including 3-mile VO2 max interval training, 3-4 mile lactate threshold training, and weekend long run.

Result: Wednesday is rest day.

 

Goal: Strength

Plan:  Boot Camp Wednesday; 400 pull-ups during the course of the challenge.

Result:

Spoiler

Warm-up

 

100 sit-ups can kiss my ponderous, pasty old-man butt.

8 pull-ups; 380 remaining.

 

Goal: Sustenance

Plan: 

Result:

KCal: 2,505

Protein: 132g

Fiber: 34g

Sodium: 3700mG

 

Goal: Sanity

I love my Youth Group. We met outside around the fire pit on the first nice Wednesday evening of the year. It was cool and clear and the fire was warm and awesome and even though I was eating like my inner fat man, I skipped the S'Mores and let the kids go nuts. The kids make me smile - all of them, including the ones with challenges and the ones with challenging personalities. They're all my kids. I can't wait to see what comes next for all of them.

 

Even the weird ones and the ones that usually nobody wants to talk about.

 

Today's already another Good Day^TM. Let's see how it plays out. 

[EricMN]

Catching Up

 

Goal: Sanity

o, I've been trying all week to write a catch-up post to get caught up with my goals here. But it wouldn't come out. I pretty much know what the problem was.

Spoiler

 

Content warning: I'm going to spill some of my guts here.

 

Except for missing my workout at Obstacle Academy and my run yesterday afternoon due to knee pain, I've kept my expected schedule, I just haven't been posting and I've missed a couple days' logging food. Otherwise, I've been using exercise and writing to cope with, as my daughter The Pink Pricess says, "all the feels."

 

Tomorrow is a 10-mile trail run. I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be a Good Day^TM.

 

Peace, Rangers.

[Salinger]

Oh man, Eric, thank you for your update, im crying a little now and wishing you well. You rmum would be so proud of you and all those kids! You know that though. 

 

You are an inspiration, and im sorry ive not been here yet. But now im here to follow you and be inspired to go running. Thanks for that. 

 

Sending you so much peace and love right now xx

[EricMN]

Weekend Update

It's good to feel back to normal(-ish).

 

Saturday

Trail Therapy: 10 miles at Willow River State Park in Wisconsin. Technically it was a Trail Race, although that wasn't what I was there for. Paying for a race registration is my way of ensureing I don't skip my weekend long runs.

 

 The park is gorgeous, trail runners as a group are pretty awesome people, I had a handful of friends from my Spartan group there, and it was a spectacular day for a run. The trail was hilly, and there were a couple of major hills - 300+ foot climbs at between 20 and 30 percent grade - and a total of 771 feet of elevation that made it a good, solid training run.

 

Spoiler

They signed up for the 2-lap, 20-mile option. Freaks.

 

That's me about 2/3 of the way up there, zig-zagging across the trail to cut down the steepness of the climb. This hill sucked.

 

This view was the money shot, about 6 miles in.

 

I'll be back to daily tracking starting today. You can't get rid of me, Rangers.