New Year's Revolution

"Your highness, the peasants are revolting!" "You said it. They stink on ice.

Pull!"

Mel Brooks, History of the World, Part I.

New Year’s is a time for resolutions, or revolutions, if you believe the kid

on the AT&T commercial. Though I tend to not make resolutions I do set

goals for myself. This year is no different.

Last year at this time my wife and I skied up to Tumalo Falls. It was a

sunny but very cold day. There was a lot of snow and a lot of time to think.

Think about where I was, and where I was going. At the conclusion of our

trip I knew that I wanted to lose weight, become more active, and possibly

do a triathlon.

Fast forward to this year. Sunny, but this time with temps in the high 40’s

there was very little snow. It was the perfect day for a very long run. This

was good because that was what was exactly on my training docket.

Again, I had another New Year’s Day with a lot of time to think. As I ran

above Tumalo Creek I thought about what I accomplished in the past year.

I was successful in losing weight and I had competed in several triathlons,

including my first long course triathlon. I felt good and was running well. In

fact, in the past year I had been able to drop my pace by almost a minute

and half from the previous year. As I completed my run and walked up the

driveway I thought to myself. Ok, so where do I go from here?

I got my training information loaded into Training Peaks, grabbed my

recovery drink and headed upstairs. As I was stretching I decided to check

and see if my coach’s blog had been updated. Jaime, my coach, writes a

blog on being a triathlete for The Albuquerque Journal, where he used to

be photo editor. I like to follow the blog to see how his mind ticks and

glean some insight in addition to the guidance he provides me as a coach

and mentor. His new blog was up so I read through it while I stretched out

my quads.

In his blog post titled The Endurance Lifestyle, Jaime talked about how in

simpler times he just wanted to finish a sprint-distance triathlon. This

morphed into Olympic distance races, the half-ironman, and eventually the

full on ironman. He referenced how people came to him for guidance with

their training programs as they neared a race. He noted how his life had

become an ‘Endurance Lifestyle’. He related how he received an email

inviting him to go on a short ride with friends on a day he had planned a

run. I was one of those friends. It was my first ride outside in awhile. I felt

good, rode with confidence, and attacked the hills. As Jaime and I rode up

the last hill before my house he punched me in the shoulder and said, “I

told you man, you’re fit!” After I peeled off from the group I threw on my

running shoes and did a half-marathon pace for an hour and covered over

eight miles. Afterwards I texted Jaime and raved about how I felt

awesome. Ok, I think I threw in an explicative in addition to what I just

related. The following day I woke up feeling great and went through my

routine, a mix of weights and running. Later in the week I ran a halfmarathon

distance. The following day I woke up feeling like I could set the

world on fire. Some old friends I talked to marveled at the amount of

mileage I was covering and to me it wasn’t worth a second thought, it was

simply part of my daily plan. I had undergone a rather revolutionary

change in appearance, fitness, and lifestyle from where I had been less

than a year before.

As Jaime continued to talk about living the ‘endurance lifestyle’ in his post I

realized that what he was talking about applied to me as well. I was

stunned and a bit shocked. I had only a few months earlier accepted the

fact that I was an athlete and here I was realizing that I was now living

what could be termed an ‘endurance lifestyle’. Now let me just say that in

no way can I compare myself to Jaime. It would be nice to be at his level

but I have four years of age on the guy and he’s got a sixteen-year head

start on the triathlon thing. The only time I can only keep up with him is

after he’s had major surgery. Still, I realized that, as Jaime said to me a bit

later in a text that, “without you knowing it you’re life is becoming just that.

You’re there”. Way back in April when we first connected he told me that

what I was undertaking was a lifestyle. I really didn’t fully grasp or

appreciate what he meant until I read his post. Of course I joked with him

later via text that I was still thinking, ok, so where do we go from here?

What is my New Year’s Resolution? If Jaime had his way, and my guess

he more than likely will, he would simply say that my goal is to be healthy,

happy, and fit. Actually he did text me just that and my guess that is what

he truly wants for me in 2014. The more I think about it, that’s not a bad

resolution, even if it isn’t very revolutionary.

After a couple of back and forth texts with Jaime we agreed that we would

talk things over during a bike ride. I am going to meet up with him after I go

lift weights for an hour and go through an hour’s worth of swim drills. If you

had told me last year at this time that I would be undertaking all of this in

one week much less one day I would have thought you had gotten into the

doctored egg nog. Now, truth be told, it’s just another typical day in what

has become my ‘endurance lifestyle’.