What's up doc?

Didn't go swimming this morning since I seem be be coming down with a cold again. I saw a chiropractor, Tom Goodwin, this afternoon, just to check in and see how my post-rowing back was doing - preventative maintenance I guess. He had a great holistic approach to overall health. Found out that I had 17% body fat and need to get that down to 10-14%. Also, discovered that because of my long 2nd and 3rd toes, orthotics are in order to help support my foot bridge. Dr. Goodwin suggested that I not run until I get the orthotics to avoind any further injury. In addition, I do have some issues with my sacrum not having a full range of motion, which could explain some of my challenges in my posting, as well as in yoga. Finally, we discussed some diet changes...more protein, less carbos and more fish. Back on Friday to do a little more work on my sacrum.

Bye, bye base

AM entry. I went for my first run in two weeks this morning. I just did a steady state run to get started, none of the fancy interval stuff. Yikes, although it felt pretty good overall, I've definitely lost a lot of my cardio base. Then again, it could be the fact that I was out a little late last night, celebrating Lauren's birthday with her hubby Kelly and Dr. Robin. While doing a little disco dancin, ran into a couple guys from the crew team, so felt a little better about being out so late. Nevertheless, I'll have to really gear it up so that I'm at a point where Wendy's coaching in January won't be wasted on me just trying to catch up. I also met a fellow last night, Callum, who sold me on doing some cross-training in boxing. He's an actor from NY whose done some stage fencing, is pretty athletic all around and has a background in yoga too, so his comments on how boxing helped him with focus and responsiveness really caught my attention. Boxing might be a good way to exploit and channel that street fighting feel I get from epee. Speaking of which, my right chest and arm have turned a nice shade of green-brown-yellow. My how bruises age so beautifully! I either need to get some padding for these areas or work a lot harder on not getting hit. Stay tuned...epee tonight at Salle Auriol.

PM Entry. I went to Salle Ariol to do some footwork tonight, but discovered when I arrived that the coach had a cold and wouldn't be doing the footwork portion. Because I was coming down with something too, I didnt' feel like doing any full on fencing, so I turned around and took it easy for the night. Should be back to normal on the 4th at Wallingford.

Sister Wendy...Becker and an ounce of prevention

Everyone knows that the true sign of culture is whether a person is familiar with the work of Sister Wendy Beckett, renowned art commentator and historian. Well a sister of athletic sorts has arrived to enlighten my pentathlon world...that would be sister-in-sport Wendy Becker. Wendy will be coaching me in my running and swimming events. Wendy has both competed in and coached for competitive triathlon and biathlon, but I will be her first pentathlete. She also comes with a message therapy, an appreciation for yoga and a much appreciated sensitivity to overall health. The plan for now is that she will spend some time throughout January viewing me in the swim and run, as well as viewing me in some of the other events to get a feel for the big pentathlon picture.

Riding went well tonight. Pet seems to be responding to my transition signals better, but is still taking corners short and it takes several times around the rink to get a good trot/post out of him (this is probably as much my issue as it is his). I finally got a good trot out of him and spent the rest of the time at canter. I still seem to be leaning forward too much, around the turns and in the transition to canter, but after some wisdom from Laura addressed this only to find out the value of "prevention"...keeping control of the rhythm before it...and the speed get out of hand. With some more wisdom on the use of my hands, I was able to pull things together and finish my lesson on another positive note. Laura's gone for the next two weeks, which should provide me with some time to really internalize what I've learned thus far.

An evening at La Salle

The Wallingford Fencing Club is out for the holidays, so I spent an evening at the Salle Auriol Fencing Club, the other club in Seattle. It is a permanent space on the top floor of a warehouse near Lake Union. There were several people there that I had met before when I used to fence at UW. The footwork portion was quite different than Wallingford...much faster paced with longer, more choreographed sequences. With the permanent set up, it was also much easier to do some electric fencing. I fenced epee with Greg again (the assistant coach at Wallingford) along with a George (a well seasoned fencer who had a lot of good advice) and Ilya (an A level epeeist that also gave me some good pointers). I got two touches on Greg, beat George 5-4 and I did get one point on Ilya, which made me feel pretty good. I also found out that there were some people that had competed in the pentathlon in Seattle, so I am going to try and track them down in hopes that they might have some good advice on the big picture of the pentathlon. I have some great individual coaches, but need to figure out how to put it all together. I spent some time on Sunday looking at the US Modern Pentathlon Association website and quickly realized that I have a lot of work ahead as they have a pretty clear plan for how an athlete qualifies and advances in the events over a four year period. I meet with my prospective running and swimming coach on Wednesday, so I'm pretty exited to "escalate" things.

Epee or bust

Had a great catch up/holiday dinner and beer with Lauren, Kelly and Robin. Robin's back in town from Med school in Boston, so it was good to get back together. We all came up with our own pentathlons, which included such competitive sports like dog ball throwing. I'll have to have a "name your pentathlon" page on my website.

Rushed off to fencing after that and arrived just in time to watch the end of the basketball match. Garik (the coach from Belarus) feels pretty strongly that diverse athletic activity can do us all a lot of good. Basketball especially is great because of the bent knee stance and hopping around that are an important part of the game. We did a couple balance drills that were really challenging and something that I can take into my other events. One, where you stand facing your partner and try to make them lose their balance by pushing their hands, will prove especially valuable in my riding as it really emphasized loose elbows.

Greg (one of our other fencing assistant coaches) started me in on my epee adventure. What a difference from foil! The best way that I can describe the different feel is that epee felt much more like street fighting. You bounce around a lot and wait for the perfect moment to take a punch. Foil is has a very classic look and feel to it. I describe it as high speed chess. Very strategic and defense is quite important. In contrast, epee is different in that you don't have to establish right-of-way and the whole body is a target. Thus, if you spend time defending yourself, you'll probably receive a touch from the opponent before you realize what you were trying to do. I really enjoyed it, but realize that I have a long way to go. Since one of my big problems was trying to parry against Greg's blade all the time, it will be good to leave foil behind as quickly as possible. I have a long way to go!

Canter Man

It was back to Pet tonight, which is a good thing as it gave me a chance to put into practice the things I learned the week before riding on Eli. Once again, had the usual trouble getting Pet up to the post and when I did it was slow and forced. Not the kind of post you want to go up into a canter with. Laura suggested that I actually take him up to canter to get a better post and it worked well...a little reverse horse psychology.

I seemed to have gotten my canter in the correct "wild thing" motion as Laura calls it, which made my canter much smoother and I was able to get Pet in frame easier as well. When I finally went up into canter things went really well. I was in the saddle, kept things pretty much under control and Laura even commented on my arms being relaxed in the right way. I still need to work on the transitions but I’m pretty please with my progress.

Talk to me Eli

Interesting night at the barn tonight. Laura had an animal communicator come into the barn the Friday before, so we all got to hear what the horses had on their mind. Suffice it to say, everyone was suspicious of a "horse communicator" but after the sessions, Laura was pretty convinced. Eli, the horse I rode tonight, was the talkative one I guess. Which definitely came through in my riding. According to the horse communicator, Eli wanted to be an Astronomer and/or a chef. Apparently, Eli is the one horse in the barn that eats anything he's given, so this fits him well. Eli also told the communicator that "he didn't need a bit in his mouth to teach these novices how to ride". This is definitely the attitude that we've all come to know with Eli, but once again I really felt it in the ride. It was almost as though Eli was commenting on my riding as we went along. His head was all over the place and he seemed to especially have a lot to say when I gave an unclear signal with my aids. I definitely learned a lot from Eli about balance though. As a former polo pony, he's much more sensitive to balance shifts and signals. He also was much more responsive to signals, particularly transitions from post to canter, than Pet. I look forward to riding him again.

Knuckle neck

Since I got to leave work early due to the WTO situation downtown, I was able to get to Hilltop Stables early enough (6:30pm) to observe other riders. I really do learn a lot from doing this. Its one of the things Jenny Hale taught me early on in my rowing instruction…you can learn a lot by watching. I’ve decided that visualization is really important to me in training. Watching the UW crew guys, watching fencing bouts, and other riders really helps me focus on what I need to concentrate on. The funniest part of observation time was one of the horse’s (Mac) response to a reindeer antler/Santa hat that someone put on top of my UW cap. Mac just couldn’t stop looking at me. He’s a curious horse, but the look on his face was hysterical…not sure if it was worry or disbelief.

I was pretty tight at first and had the usual problems getting Pet to listen to my aides, he seemed to keep wanting to make short turns. Laura had me pull the outside reign along with pressure on the inside leg to get Pet to stay to his full turns. Got a handle on this then worked on getting good flex in Pet. This basically means that I was trying to get him to curve his neck (eventually his whole body) into the turn or path I am taking. I did this by pulling my inside elbow back while maintaining constant pressure on the outside reign. Took me a couple laps in both directions, but I eventually got it. By the end Pet was responding much better to all my commands. Then up to canter where I finally figures out what Laura has been trying to tell my about using my knuckles rather than my wrists on Pet’s neck during the 2-point and canter. It felt 100 times better when I started using my knuckles.

Heeee’s Baaack

First day back to fencing after the Thanksgiving holiday. My plan was to just do footwork until after the new year, but I’m pretty willing to jump into anything. We did some more great footwork again. A lot of squat jumps again and some different advance/retreat exercises. One drill, in which you tap your partner on the front, back or both shoulders to induce a particular action was really useful as it made you focus on the present. A tap on the front shoulder meant to retreat, on the back shoulder to advance and a tap on both shoulders to lunge. This really echoes what I recently learned from yoga pertaining to being in the present, not thinking ahead or dwelling on the past. Then I had some small group time with Gary that worked on precision hits. Basically just extend advance distance from the wall for a touch. Then extend lunch distance. Then Gary got really cocky and did some parry 4 and 6 drills and then some quick disengage exorcises. Finished off the drills with the infamous “touche the falling glove” drill. Spent about 20 minutes fencing a fellow named Richard. I believe he’s fairly new, but seems to have good “present” responses, meaning that he seems to be responding to what is actually happening, rather than what he thinks will happen…which happens to be my problem. He had a lot of very simple, but aggressive attacks, particularly seemed to like flushing (where you extend and then run toward your opponent). But I started to focus and got better at the “present” fencing so that by the end of our bout, I was scoring most of the touches. For not planning on doing any fencing for a while, I was pleased with my fencing. Next step is to start with epee lessons. I also need to start my fencing journal to keep track of opponents for the long run.

Back in the saddle again

After two weeks away from riding, I had to spend a lot of time catching back up. I spent most of the night doing leg yields and transitions from walk to post with a little canter at the end.

Lunge at long last

Finally made it to fencing class again. And they were there! I went to the instructional hour at 6:30 and quickly surmised that I was advanced enough to forgo the classes. Did some fun drills though, including amoeba tag. Footwork with Gary was intense. A lot of squat jumps, and some good drills again.

On the Road again

After being off for a week due to illness, I hid the road again in the evening (didn’t make it up in time to do it in the morning.

Friday feet

Another running session with Rob. My cardio failed first this time out and Rob has definitely surpassed my in the run

Where’s the fencing?

Tried to go fencing again tonight…no luck. I need to get on that darned email list so I’m told when practice is canceled!

Intervals...again

Got a new battery in my workout watch so was able to run intervals with Rob again. Just started over with the 2 minutes off, 30 seconds on. It was pouring rain, but overall a good workout. Need to remember not to wear too many clothes though, I am just too warm blooded (or used to being cold from crew). No riding tonight.

Whoops

Had a YMCA ESC meeting, but tried to stop by fencing class afterward. No one was there though, so I must have missed a message about a change in location or cancellation.

From strokes to the shakes

The swim went well this morning. I added a lap on to each stroke/kick so I’m slowly building back up to my former distances. I’m in no big rush, but I think I will be able to progress pretty quickly. My crawl stroke is feeling great which I think is pretty important in itself. I did a quick erg before my yoga. I can definitely feel that my back is out of shape compared to what it used to be while I was rowing. I’ll have to keep up on the ergs because I would like to get back into rowing next spring if pentathlon training allows. Yoga was nice. We did a lot of partner yoga. Partner yoga is great for getting some good stretches that you normally wouldn’t be able to do yourself, but its not as appealing mentally and spiritually to me. Perhaps if I were doing with a significant other it would provide a different energy. Nevertheless, I was shaking after yoga…the sign of a good workout.

I dream of Audrey and stop the Z

Express entry (5:35 a.m.): Here’s one for the Dream diary…just woke up from the craziest dream. I’ll describe my dream first, then interpret later for the full crazy affect. So I had joined the Air Force and come in to my dream as I’m walking around a campus (I think it was UW) practicing my march. I’m not sure if I can enter the student union building or not with my wooden display/practice weapon so I head back to my dorm which is actually more like one of those portable classroom/trailers. Luckily some fellow recruits are there including Audrey Hepburn and Liz O’Malley a girl I used to work at the Nordstrom espresso bar with (she was the quintessential Irish girl with short red hair and a lot of personal style). I put on my Air Force cap and looked in the mirror and it reminded us of something Audrey wore in Breakfast in Tiffany’s because it was so big. So I asked Audrey to put it on which she did and it was very funny. Cut to the next part that I remember…Audrey kept all of her wedding dresses on the wall near the door of our dorm room. I came in to her trying on one of the dresses. So I snapped a few souvenir shots and then asked Liz to come over and play a few songs on her guitar. I was wearing the big Air Force had this time. The sun came into the room through a skylight and I couldn’t believe what awesome pictures I was getting; Audrey sitting down among her wedding dresses in that way only a super model could, Liz in front of her and the both of them singing Moon River. I finish the role of film, rewind it, but of course open it before the film is done rewinding so I’m not sure if I have the pictures or not. The was a fellow guy recruit sitting next to me, but I’m not sure who he was. He was pretty amazed by the incredible photo opp. as well. So now, interpretation. I’ve been seriously considering joining the Air Force reserves for a while. Serving the military is one of those things that I regret not ever doing. I was scared stiff of doing such a thing when I was younger. Didn’t think I could measure up if I remember correctly. But I think I could do it now and actually look forward to the self discipline and physical challenge that would be involved. In addition, I recently read a book called Audrey Style by …It of course talks about how she developed her personal style, which was a huge deal to the world but was never much thought for her as a person. The book was very inspiring, and she has certainly been on of my role models for a while. I remember watching an interview with Isabelle Rossolini where she spoke about Audrey as her role mode. They were at a fundraiser together and Audrey was at the podium speaking. There she was in her evening gown, looking amazing and giving an inspirational lecture, but Isabelle noticed that she had dirt under her fingernails as she leaned on the podium and put one of her hands over the side. It turns out Audrey had just flew in from Africa where she had been planing with some local villagers. Now that’s my kind of woman! Liz was one of the coolest people I ever worked with at the espresso bar. She was young, but super intelligent and spunky. The kind of person I always wanted to be. I think the dream spoke to the fact that I’m starting to feel a little more self-actualized; getting to where I want to be. Then again, it could have just been the cashmere cap.

Now back to training...started the day with weights, my first leg workout in quite some time. Did the same as my upper body…started out with the weights that I left of with last time I was lifting. No major feats, but it felt good to get back into it. Once again, I’m not wanting to get huge but could use some additional strength and wouldn’t mind some more definition.

My work stress and new training showed up in riding tonight. Laura said I really looked rigid and I could certainly feel it. She said my ankle was stuck in a Z and wasn’t moving. I almost felt like I was trying to relax too much. Part of the problem could have been Pet again. He still seems to have the upper hand in a lot of situations. He is tending to veer towards the inside shoulder. I couldn’t figure out if I was sending the signal or if was him being his usual pill self. Laura first though it was my rigidness but we figured out that Pet was doing what he often did with children riders…turning to the inside which results in the rider spending their time trying to get him back in line rather than forcing him into the trot. I ended up just letting veer where he wanted, but forcing him into the trot. Worked pretty well and I was able to get some shoulder in done before going up to the canter. Cantering proved a challenge given my rigidness, but I eventually pulled out some good laps and was able to work on getting my hand positioning correct.

From cashmere to karma

I took a pointer from a friend and wore a cozy stocking cap to bed last night to keep my head worm…slept like a baby, cozy, and no headache in the morning. So cozy though that I didn’t get out of bed to go swimming until 6:00 a.m. That’s being pretty lazy for me as I generally get up around 5:30 to give myself plenty of time to get wake up. And the longer I snuggled in bed, the more I convinced myself that it would be to late to go at all since I needed to be back by 7:00 to get ready for work. But, I did finally get myself up and made it to the pool after all. Actually, it was this diary that provides the extra oomph these days. In rowing it was nice because you had seven other guys waiting for you. Training on your own is a different story though, so I’m glad I have the diary to put a little guilt pressure…if I don’t stick with my training, it will show up – actually, more like not show up  in the diary.
I’m still starting pretty slow with the swim. I’m doing a 4 lap swim, 4 crawl, 4 crawl with hand paddle and pull buoy, 4 with hand paddle, 4 breath stroke, 2 crawl kick and 2 breath stroke kick. This is a long way from my days back at UW when I did a 10 lap warm up, 10 lap with hand paddle, 10 lap pyramid and 4 lap kicks for crawl and breath stroke. But I’m pretty please with my level so far. I think the swimming will pick up pretty quickly so that I am back to my UW levels within a month.

After work I went to a Braintrust meeting with ONE Northwest (Online Networking for the Environment). Its basically a brainstorming session with a bunch of techies into environmental/social issues to help develop programs for ONE/NW. Its such a rewarding feeling to sit with a bunch of high-caliber thinkers and come up with some really great ideas. Definitely falls into the developing the mind category.

After the Braintrust, I dropped by the old fencing turf, The Wallingford Fencing Club (WFC), to see if the group had returned from their summer location. I used to go to the club when I attended UW. I never really competed much in college but got pretty close. Its been about 3 years since I last fenced, so I was looking forward to re-starting this portion of my training. So here’s where the Karma starts. Turns out that this was the club’s first night back at this location. They had some other temporary digs while they renegotiated the contract for the gym at Hamilton Middle School. Steve was still there an very welcoming. Turns out there was a new Coach, Gary, who hailed from Belorussia and had trained several of their Olympic athletes. Foil is his forte, but he also trains in epee. There are several people in the WFC that are ranked at the national level, so it should be a great place to train on my fencing. Also met a guy, Eliott, who is interested in taking up pentathlon as well. Pretty cool, but it gets better. He was born in Kenya, his dad’s a conservation biologist there, and he’s really into the outdoors. My kind of guy and hopefully another great friend in the making. For now, I plan on attending WFC on Tuesdays, when they have an hour of beginning lessons (I’m plan on being pretty rusty for a while), an hour of footwork and then open fencing and lessons until 9:30. I was always pretty intimidated by the epeeists back in my college days, so a major challenge lies ahead.

Raindrops on noses

Woke up in the morning with quite a headache. Maybe my head was cold (I sleep with a nearby window open) or maybe it really was that one beer I had the night before, but I certainly didn’t feel like running. Probably just dehydrated. So running had to wait until evening, which meant postponing my usual Monday weights. Of course it was poring rain at the time I was ready to go, but what they heck. After rowing, a little rain won’t scare me. I did my beginning interval workout again. This consists of 2 minutes at about a 7.5-8 minute mile and then 30 seconds at what I’m hoping is a sub 7 minute mile. I still need to do it on a track to get my rates right, but regardless, the 30 second interval is a much faster pace. The faster pace actually feels pretty good. I have to really concentrate on staying relaxed at the faster pace or I get jerky. It also makes me lift my legs a little higher with a more fluid motion that feels really good when I get it right. Cardio at the higher rate feels OK to, just can’t sustain it for long right now. I plan on changing the interval weekly, but not sure how it will escalate yet. Since the pentathlon running event is only 4000m, I’m not too concerned about building endurance. I know I can run up to an hour with no problem, but I plan on reducing my mile time over the approximately 3+ mile course I am running right now. The intervals have also pushed up what I call my ‘steady state’ (a rowing term) running times too. The times seem to be just the right combination of challenge and steady state now though.
Got a message back from Craig Ballew regarding homecoming. He’s still in Korea so can’t make it but we had a short email discussion about VanWert (our high school history teacher) passing away. VanWert had really had a profound effect on us all, we just couldn’t appreciate it at the time. As I approach my 30th birthday, I find myself looking back on that time and realizing how much of me was really formulated back then. Since I wasn’t a big athlete in high school, VanWert was the first to really make me internalize that developing your mind and soul was just as important as developing athletically. He said not to worry, that I’d find my sport someday and would probably be in the best shape of my life by the time I turned 30. VanWert’s right again.

“Three breath Change”

Learned a very important tool today. My yoga teacher kept asking us to do things in a “three breath change” What a great thing. You can accomplish so much in a three breath change, in yoga, in life…in anything! This will be a useful tool whether at work or in training. Also finally understood how yoga really takes you apart. Really minute changes in position, balance, etc. can really affect how you feel the stretch/energy flow. This realization has so many applications across my even - rowing, riding, fencing – all of these require micro-level control, whether it be a muscle group, balance, or mental focus.

After yoga did weights for the first time in MONTHS! I used data from the last time I kept track (for rowing), which was…yikes…September of 98. Got back home and did my usual cleaning requirement. I have a bad habit of letting everything go and then needing to clean it before being to sit down and get any home/reading type work done. Cleaned everything up and cleared up my desk, then set into to do some excel sheets for my weights training. I’m not intending to get big, but I do like the idea of tracking progress. And…started my diary! Checked out Adam Holland’s diary on Rower’s World for a little inspiration. I’m looking forward to movies with Ron and Dave tonight.

That’s Amore

After another long day at work, I helped out with our Salute to Cultural Diversity event. The event provided a much needed snack for the soul... for both myself and Lynnell, my assistant manager. Olympia Dukakis spoke along with the four awardees from the community. Olympia’s message about appreciating those who came before us seemed to set the theme for the evening, as it was echoed in the other speakers. I teared up on several occasions, which is usual for me. Stories of love, destiny and success seem to really affect me and make me cry much more than sad events, movies, etc. do. Not sure why that is, but I am sure a quick cry when someone wins an award or has overcome amazing odds to meet success. What a sap. Good emotional nourishment though.

The Sunset Girls

Bonnie Robbins invited me to an event after work with the Sunset Club. The Sunset club is made up of ‘established’ women shall I say? Basically a group of society women that hold a variety of social events. Bonnie is a member, Mari Jalbing, a fellow SYC rower, is a member too.

Tonight’s talk was on Global Partnerships, a group that does village banking in South America based on the Gramin Bank in India. I hoped this would be a soul development opportunity since the late dinner meant I wouldn’t able to do any training. Boy did it turn out to be just that. Started with cocktails with the Claps, the couple that started Global Partnerships. These conversations, about what you do, what I do, etc. always seem surreal at first, probably because I don’t have them often. I sometimes feel like people my age are trying to be intellectuals and fake these kind of conversations. But it quickly became apparent how passionate Mrs. Clapp felt about Global Partnerships and was sincerely interested in learning more about me as well. Same thing with Bart Fite and then the Nollans and Blacks. Mrs. Nolan was from Little Rock, AR and obviously came from a cultured background. What a fascinating person. The conversation was so stimulating, intellectually and spiritually. As we dined in this grand room we all talked about how much we take for granted here and what it was like to really live life. Mrs. Black’s daughter happened to be traveling in Nepal as we spoke so we had lots to talk about. She had just went to a symposium on mind, body and spirit so was really intrigued in my ‘motto’: developing my mind, body and soul to its fullest extent. The lecture on Global Partnerships was wonderful too, but is was certainly the incredibly rich (in spirit) company that made my evening.

Pet the Pill

I was SO ready for riding tonight. Work was exhausting, mentally and physically. So the riding , as usual, is well placed in my week.

I feel bad about always interrupting Pet (his full name is Pet Step) from his post-lesson hay (his owner rides him two classes before me). Luckily, although he usually is a pill to get the halter on, he does put up with getting back in tack. It was back to the jumping saddle, which I was very happy about. I could definitely feel there was less support, but I do prefer the jumping saddle to the dressage.

As usual, had problems getting Pet up to a trot. I think my balance still makes him a little cautious. It took two full laps of pressure and kicking to get him up to the trot. He also kept taking short turns, so I had to really concentrate on what signals I was sending him. I still lean into turns too much and probably am not consistent with my reigning. Laura had me work on holding my reigns as far out as possible, even past my knees at some points. This did a lot for my balance and confidence when I finally got the hang of it. Then back into working on the “shoulder in” where you turn your horse in on the quarter line and then slowly, with the horse staying parallel to the wall, make your way towards the other end of the arena slowly getting closer to the wall. Afterwards I was cantering on my own again. Definitely felt a lot more at ease tonight. My hands loosened on the reigns a little and I could rest my knuckles on Pet’s neck rather than grasp his main. Its still far from perfect, but I’m getting there.