Over my 12 days in California spent with family, close friends, and quite a bit of alone time, I realized that many of my friends are nomads.  We travel between intense moments with little to no rest.  Any free time is taken up by one or more hobbies, which are another set of intense activities.  We’re always on.

In my industry (the computer one, not the fitness one), we have a phrase called five 9′s, which means that a system needs to be available 99.999% of the time.  That’s practically all the time.  It’s the phrase we use to indicate that something has to be always on, it can’t go down, it can’t break.  I think I’m surrounded by five 9′s people, I think I’m one myself, and I think that’s horrible.

Why is it so bad?  Because the vast majority of those people (myself included), when the 0.001% downtime occurs, quickly realize that between all the stuff, the new friends, the old friends, and more stuff, they’re still alone.  We’re so over-stimulated that everything has to be done for time, for reps, maximal effort, everything we’ve got, nothing but the best.  Sometimes we need to just mail it in to bring some balance back.

In a world where most everything is noise, it’s really hard to find the signal.  It’s even harder if you never give yourself a chance.

So when I tweeted a while back about slowing down the game, it wasn’t just in relation to athletic endeavors (although at the time it was).  I think I need to spend more time “off,” because being on all the time is impossible.

I want to the find the signal.  First stop: get rid of the loneliness, it’s been around too long.

I think a great barometer of the quality of a friendship is how “resumable” it is.  When you graduate high school and then college, and then move away, you find yourself wanting to keep in touch, and maybe you’re successful for a bit.  But over time, people get busy, and life happens.  This is why I love my Memorial Day weekend trip.  It’s called Dogpatch, and it’s a big ass reunion.  And you can tell who’s different, which connections are weaker or stronger.  And it’s good to know that when I came back, I felt like all the friendships resumed.

To be sure, Austin is now home for me (I miss it when I’m gone, and I do miss my Austin friends just as much as my California friends these days).  But California sure feels great when I make it back here.  Why?  The ability to totally reset.

There’s no better way to take things into perspective than getting the hell out of dodge for a bit.  And while we have no wifi or cell reception at Dogpatch, the Starbucks 4 miles away does.  So I can make a quick trip back into town to catch up on reality if I want.  And in my reality scanning while waiting for my Venti Iced Americano, I came across a post by lifestyle coaches Melissa Urban and Dallas Hartwig (aside: just reading Melissa and Dallas’ material is awesome. you should do it too) about their Whole30 participants sticking to the diet (and their commitments) during the long weekend.  Nutrition aside, there’s one line in particular that struck me:

Take a minute today and list one thing in comments that is significantly better NOW than it was two weeks ago, thanks to your Whole30 efforts.

I’m not participating in this round of the Whole30, but if you’ve followed my blog, you’ve noticed that I have a lot going on lately, both personally, professionally, and in my weekend warrior endeavors.  So as part of my reset button, I’ve instituted some Whole30 tenets that I know have worked for me in the past.  No need to list those here, because my point is that regardless of what you’ve been up to, go back to the bold text, read it, and do it.

After two weeks, reduced training volume, some serious deadlines checked off, and a slight cortisol management scheme, I feel like I’ve got my groove back. Energy levels are back up and steady, I’m back to making progress in the gym, and most importantly I’m back to feeling clear in my head.  I’m happier than I was even a few days ago.

Now I just need to find a way to keep it up when I get home.

The last line from that post that I need to share:

Motivate, re-dedicate, and then get out there and enjoy your holiday weekend.

Replace “holiday weekend” with “life.”  Motivate, re-dedicate, and then get out there and enjoy your life.

Breakfast

• Snap kitchen blue corn migas, no cheese
• Catalytic Coffee’s Blast Off Blend, black
• Snack: Larabar

Lunch

• Whole foods sonoma chicken salad
• Mixed berries and pineapple
• Kombucha
• Snack: rest of chicken salad, more fruit

Dinner

• Zucchini noodles tossed with bell peppers and onions, ground bison marinara sauce, 2 teriyaki sweet potato spears
• Water
• Dessert: paleo banana bread

Supplements

• Nuun Kona Cola
• Progenix recovery, growth, SRG (after CrossFit)
• 25 caps of fish oil (per Whole9 calculator)
• ZMA

Tuesday

Breakfast

• Snap kitchen blue corn migas, no cheese, no potatoes
• Black coffee
• Snack: Paleo banana bread

Lunch

• Zucchini noodles tossed with bell peppers and onions, ground bison marinara sauce, 2 teriyaki sweet potato spears
• Kombucha
• Snack: paleo banana bread

Dinner

• Cast iron skillet bison NY strip, roasted asparagus

Supplements

• Nuun Kona Cola
• Progenix recovery, growth, SRG (after CrossFit)
• 25 caps of fish oil (per Whole9 calculator)
• ZMA
• 5000 IU vitamin D3

Wednesday

Breakfast

• 2 eggs scrambled with spinach and organic chorizo
• Black coffee
• Snack: paleo banana bread.
• Later on, bad snack: 2 Round Rock donuts.

Lunch

• Cast iron skillet bison NY strip, roasted asparagus
• Snack: paleo banana bread

Dinner

• Cacao nib pork chops, spinach, butternut squash with honey and cinnamon
• Water

Supplements

• Nuun Kona Cola
• Progenix recovery, growth, SRG (after CrossFit)
• 25 caps of fish oil (per Whole9 calculator)
• ZMA
• 5000 IU vitamin D3

Thursday

Breakfast

• Omelet with double spinach and some bacon
• 2-shot Americano

Supplements

• Nuun Kona Cola
• Progenix recovery, growth
• 25 caps of fish oil (per Whole9 calculator)
• ZMA
• 5000 IU vitamin D3

So it’s 0830 on Sunday morning.  Normally I would still be sleeping, but instead of nursing a hangover, I pulled the ripcord at Molotov around 1230 and took off.  One of those nights where nothing I drank was getting me drunk, and I felt uncomfortable in my own skin.

I’m in a funk, and I can’t figure out how to get out.

I feel like I’ve allowed the following things to happen:

• I’ve managed to piss off or otherwise irritate some new friends of mine (you know who you are).
• I’ve stopped progressing in CrossFit.  I’ve stopped progressing in triathlon.
• I’ve stopped caring about my job.

Until I took a few minutes to pause, all I had for the above things are excuses, no real reasons.  I can blather on about feeling unwelcome, or not training because I don’t have time, or work being just plain annoying.  But all of those things are my refusal to provide the one thing that I demand from everyone else around me: respect.

Respect, and with that, loyalty, are the two things I demand from any relationship or community I choose to join.  That’s because those are two things that I fiercely provide in return.  For better or worse, I will throw myself in front of a bus for someone I just met 5 minutes ago, if they fit into the respect-loyalty relationship.

I spent the afternoon Thursday listening to Robb Wolf’s podcasts, and one thing he mentioned is the notion of training without ego.  Ego belongs on the field, when you’re competing, but it doesn’t belong in your training.  You’re not too good for drills, you’re not too good to practice a lift at 95lbs before you lift it at 135.

Same goes for life and relationships — it’s not a competition, it’s more training.

I’m not too good to expect that new friends will treat me like they’ve known me for years.  I’m not too good to expect that I can PR on a race without training.

In the words of Jimmy Eat World’s A Sunday, the inspiration for this post (again):

The haze clears from your eyes

On a Sunday

So to those who think I’m a total headcase, I’m not, and I’m sorry for the bullshit.  The bullshit is over.

To my other communities, I’ll find that vigor, fire, that so many of you have seen.  It’s somewhere.

With respect to life, I can say I’ve learned a lot about myself and my friends, but I’m only scratching the surface.  I still have trouble coping with the simple fact that as an adult, you have to do your dishes, laundry, and clean your own damn apartment.  Obviously I do these things, but only when it really needs to happen.  It’s not just-in-time… more like almost-too-late.  For example, I go through so much athletic clothing that easily over half of my laundry is gym stuff.  And since I need to use it just about daily, I end up doing two loads of gym clothes per week, at the sacrifice of other clothes.  I really wanted to wear that shirt I wore out the other night… oh well.

Basic “adult things” are eschewed for stuff that’s far more fun or interesting.  The funny thing is it’s not just me… many of my friends are doing the same.  It makes me wonder if this is common for the single late 20s/30s crowd — reverting back to dorm-style life management skills — or if this is new for our generation.  Maybe it’s an Austin thing…

Speaking of… early 2010 + life + Austin = Eric was a zombie.  Let’s review:

• Mid February: everyone seems to have a brithday; let’s all drink. Heavily.
• Work sends Eric to perform a production deployment… sweet.
• Customer asks (requires) Eric’s presence the following week, right before his first ski trip of 2010.
• Eric returns to said customer, rebooking flights like crazy, and flies AUS-SAN-DFW-GUC, chill for a week (at a bachelor party, so we all know how that goes), then GUC-DFW-AUS.
• Home for 5 days.  phew.
• Not just yet… drive to Houston and back for the Muse show (which was amazing, btw)
• Oh wait, SXSW.  Shit… ZOMBIE ATTACK!
• Ski trip #2, Whistler.  One bottle per person condo entry fee.  4 people dust off 5 bottles in 5 days.  3 bottles alone on the last night.
• Return to Austin, try to resume life.

The rational person would simply tell me to stop drinking so damn much.  Good point.  Now let’s return to reality.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt so disconnected in a long time.  With all that traveling, the only connections you retain are the people you randomly text while traveling and the ones you see when you get to your destination.  In fact, my schedule has been such a mess lately that I’ve honestly felt like I’ve alienated myself from the CrossFit Central Tribe.  And that’s scary.

So I’m in the process of re-establishing myself in the tribe that has provided me with so much over the last 2 years.  Going back to my 6:15am CrossFit class (although that didn’t happen today… there’s another post coming on that one).  Heading up to the gym to support/participate in events.  Getting back into The Label Says Paleo.

That also means writing stuff down here, for whoever reads it to read.  Seriously, I have no idea who reads this.  I have the Google Analytics on it, but that doesn’t identify an individual… I just know how many hits I get.  But I digress…

Coming in the next couple weeks:

• How I finally got a 190kg (~418lb) deadlift, and won a duathlon
• Why I can’t stand up straight today, reach for tall things, or otherwise move correctly
• My race schedule updates and training plan for the remainder of the season
• Other random (hopefully entertaining) musings

If you’ve gotten this far, thanks for reading… and leave a comment, dammit!

Today, I completed the 3M Half Marathon in 1:42:25.  That’s roughly 1 minute faster than last year’s 3M, and my previous 13.1 PR of 1:43:16.  Total turnaround from the catastrophe of San Antonio.

With San Antonio, I knew that I had the physical ability to run the 13.1, but I was completely unprepared both in training, diet, and just simple logistics.  How was this race different?

• Training: I hit the track 3 times, over about 4 weeks to work on my pacing and form.  I did 2 “long runs,” of 4 and 7.25 miles.  I continued to CrossFit, cycle, and stretch regularly.
• Diet: I ate very well for most of January; paleo with some cheat meals.  Not as much drinking, maybe one weekend out the whole of January.  My transition back to paleo was complete, and I think I’m doing a better job of topping off my glycogen stores.
• Logistics: I set out everything I needed the night before, went on a tune-up run the day before (p.s. thanks to Derrick Williamson at Durata Training for some nutrition tips… turns out I don’t need that gel after all!).  I performed my race rituals of solid steak, veggies, some starchy carbs the night before, solid breakfast morning of, and some coffee.

All things said, we were hitting decent paces, feeling good for most of the race.  Save for about a minute at the bathroom around mile 9, the race went very well.  I think that if I keep up the track workouts and get some quality miles on my feet, I can finally get my 13.1 time down into the 1:30s.

Warm-up

1. Wheels- Foo Fighters

Workout

1. Harmonic – Unwritten Law
2. Jellybelly – Smashing Pumpkins
3. Sex Type Thing - Stone Temple Pilots
4. Mudshovel - Staind
5. Night of the Hunter - 30 Seconds to Mars
6. Burn, Burn - Lostprophets
7. The Perfect Drug - Nine Inch Nails
8. Up In Arms - Foo Fighters
9. Captain Bligh - Filter
10. Rooftops (A Liberation Broadcast) - Lostprophets

Cool down

1. Wake for Young Souls - Third Eye Blind
2. Across The Sea - Weezer