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Week 3: Summertime memories, emotional leadership and putting my money where my mouth is.

Welcome back!

As the summer draws to its close, I often think back to the days of my childhood. For some reason, I spent time this week thinking about getting up early to beat the brutal South Alabama heat to search for golf balls so I could come home from my “day’s work” (age 9 or 10) to relax for the day. I remembered having to hustle home so I wouldn’t miss the Price is Right with Bob Barker. I remembered pool days and going to the beach with my mother and going to the YMCA to play racquetball and swim with my father.

Naturally this took me to thoughts of my own children. What will their memories of summer be? Will they remember the parks, the playground, the libraries, waterparks, and trips? Or will they remember something silly like searching for golf balls in a hurry so they can catch Bob Barker on tv?

Summertime, and the living is easy indeed.

Philosophical Dad Stuff

My wife is traveling this week, which is always both a blessing and a curse.

While there are moments of frustration when the baby wants to get up at 5:00am, there’s also that sweet time when he’s laying on my lap drinking his morning milk and talking about sea creatures.

I’d be willing to bet I’ll miss the heck out of that all too soon.

I often say it, but these are my good old days.

Thank goodness I realized it so I could appreciate it more fully.

Leadership

I’m tired of reacting emotionally to things and I need to get better at it.

After some other frustrations this past week, I realized a critical difference between leaders and the teams they lead. And if I’m smart, I’ll extrapolate this basic knowledge to every other facet of my life and stop being disappointed with people.

So here it is:

Other people won’t necessarily think the same stuff is important that you do.

This applies to our spouses and partners. This applies to our kids, our friends, and our families.

And this definitely applies at work.

So how do I bridge the gap between my desired state and their desired state?

Is it by trying to be something I’m not? Is it by trying to flex on somebody? Is it by hoping things will just get better by themselves.

Hope is not a strategy.

And I cannot control the actions of others.

But I can control mine.

And that’s enough to get started.

Couch to Ultra-marathon

Data is fun. In the almost two months since some Canadian guy named Jeff popped up on YouTube and gave me crazy dreams of running psychotic long distances in the mountains, I’ve run 100 miles.

In two years, I hope to be able to cover that mileage (in the mountains no less) in 36 hours.

Alrighty then.

That being said, weekly mileage has ticked up considerably with consistency.

Starting off in mid-June at about 10 miles (16km) per week, I’m now comfortably logging 20+ (32km+).

At this age, not getting hurt is top of mind, so I’m rebuilding my cardio base with a couple months of zone 2 heart rate training, which has shown me the path to running long. I’ll spare you the long-winded science, but in essence it’s building your cardio threshold so that you can efficiently use ATP from respiration to cover your energy needs while running instead of tapping into your body’s finite amount of glycogen, or simple sugars.

In practice, it allows you to run much further provided you stay hydrated and supplement your energy needs with food.

Training has progressed well however, which is why I moved up my timeline and signed up for dual 50k races in January and February. In Ohio. When it’s cold as balls.

Lets. F***ing. Go.

In closing this week, I found a quote from T.S. Eliot that encapsulated this crazy idea perfectly.

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

Live triumphantly. See you next week.