2012 In Review

Once again, its time for a look back and a look forward post. Since today just happens to be 1/1/13, seems like a good time for it. This year has been a pretty good one for my family and I. While I didn't hit all of the goals I set out for myself for the year, I did continue to make progress in most aspects of my life and feel that I've set myself up nicely for what is to come.

My two major goals for the year were to lose 50 more pounds and to increase my running. I wanted to run 500 miles, with a stretch goal of 700. I went .500 on these. Fitness wise I feel that I've come a very long way this year and I'm really happy with what I've accomplished. On 12/31/11, I ran my very first 5 mile run. I was ecstatic at the time but I also knew that it was something that I wanted to make a normal occurrence. I set a goal for the first half of they ear to get up to 15 miles a week and to run the Peachtree Road Race.

Our Victorious Relay Team!

I ran 5 miles or more 25 times this year and maxed out at 8 miles. I ran 4 10K races including the Peachtree and also a leg in the Atlanta Marathon Relay. I ended the year with 501 miles total. I could not be happier about the progress that I made in running this year. I'm well on my way in my half marathon training and know that the progress will continue. There were struggles and periods of the year where I wasn't progressing like I hoped to, but I'm glad that I was able to buckle down in the last part of the year and really get myself moving. There was only one week of the whole year where I posted 0 miles.

As for my other goal, the weight loss just didn't happen. I can come up with a lot of reasons why, but they are all excuses. My decision making when it comes to nutrition was nowhere close to where it needs to be. 2011 was a great year for weight loss, 2012 not so much. So I'm going to repost that goal. My wife and I have been talking about ways we can encourage each other and we have some ideas on how we can make better food decisions this year. It still is the hardest thing for us to achieve, but we're going to continue the fight.

Some other areas that I feel went well in 2012. I connected with a fantastic community of runners on Twitter through #runchat. I changed from being a Twitter lurker, looking for stories about cycling and football, to being an active participant. Social media is about conversations and it becomes much more fulfilling when you are involved in those conversations. I've been thinking a lot about ways to use social media to help my own motivation and accountability. I'm still churning around some ideas in my head, but hope to solidify some plans for that shortly.

On the whole, this year I felt much more creative in my thinking. It may sound trite, but I do credit a lot of that to the time I have to think while I'm running. Ideas at work and outside of work have really crystallized for me. Most have not seen their way to execution yet, but I plan to be able to share them with the world in the coming months.

The year ahead is going to be packed with big things for the family and I, including 40th birthday's for my wife and I, a new home for our family and continuing to grow and nurture our little family. I look forward to sharing as much of it as I can on this blog. I want to thank those of you who read and support me, especially those who aren't family members. I wish you all a happy and healthy 2013, may we all live well and prosper.

Fitness Process and Goals

So a number of weeks ago I wrote a post on Process, Systems and Goals and promised to discuss some of the things I've been using in my life. Today I'm sharing the first of those posts. In keeping with the recent theme of the blog I'll start with my fitness and health.

I'm not going to go to deep into my personal situation, as I've covered that already. I'm going to share what I try to do each day to control the two important aspects of wellness for me, nutrition and exercise.

On the nutrition front, I've lost almost 60 pounds over the last 18 months by making some fundamental changes in what I eat and when I eat it. Now, I'll be totally honest and tell you that this is one area where I continually struggle. I am not always (hardly ever) 100% faithful to the process, but when I am I know it works. The process itself is fairly simple in theory. Eat less calories than you burn, eat often enough that you never get overly hungry and avoid poisons such as sugar and processed foods.

The best way to do this is to use some sort of nutrition diary. When I first started I used the Livestrong website, but I've since switched to MyFitnessPal for tracking what I eat. Its important to track everything you put in your mouth when you are starting out because most people fail for lack of knowledge as much as for lack of effort. I find that I do best when I eat 5 times a day. A mid morning snack helps me from being too hungry at lunch time. A late afternoon snack helps me from being too hungry at dinner time. Why is that important? Because when I get too hungry, that's when I make bad eating decisions. The key to good nutrition is making good decisions each and every time you're faced with the question of what to eat. I found that for me, making the right decision is a lot easier when I'm not overly hungry.

So my key nutrition points

• Avoid sugars and processed foods
• Eat 5 times a day
• Be aware of the value of everything you put in your mouth

Now the other half of the equation is exercise. Motivation and accountability are always the parts that I've struggled with when it comes to exercise. When I was a kid involved in sports, those things were easy, because playing soccer or basketball was fun and you had practice every day after school so you were always in shape. As an adult, it wasn't as easy.

For motivation I found myself a goal. At first it was to run a 5K race. At the moment my goal is a half marathon. The goal gives you that lingering thought at the back of your mind to incent you to get out of bed, to lace up your shoes and get moving. In addition, I made my goal public. By announcing it to friends and family I knew they'd be asking me about it and it gave me even more motivation to keep at it. Nobody likes to explain why they didn't reach a goal that they've announced.

I took the accountability step one further and started this blog. At first I wrote about all of my workouts and tried to believe that people actually read it. I joined some online communities that turned out to be very supportive. Its great to find other people who have gone through the same struggles you are, who can help provide support and understanding. I joined the community at Runnersworld.com and then later found a Twitter group called #runchat. Through these two groups I found a lot of great support and advice to help me maintain my motivation and achieve success.

Finally, I use a system to track my progress. There are several websites that provide this type of tracking. Dailymile.com and strava.com are two I use regularly. They take the data off of my gps watch allow me to track it and share it with my friends. I can look back at previous performances and set long term goals, such as the goal I'm about to achieve, to run 500 miles in 2012.

My key exercise points

• set a goal for motivation
• share your goal with others for accountability and support
• track your progress
• Have Fun!

I'm not perfect and I have a long way to go in these areas, but following these points have really helped me make a ton of progress over the last year and a half.

Tryptophan 10K Race Report

This year my family decided to not travel anywhere for Thanksgiving and instead to stay home and enjoy some time together. I had some vacation days to burn at work, so I took the full week off and we had a little "staycation." Earlier in the year the local running store announced they'd be hosting a half marathon on Thanksgiving morning. In my planning it fleetingly entered my mind but I realized that would be too soon for me, but when I heard a few weeks ago that they'd added a 10K to the days plans, I knew that was a race for me. The fact that it was just a few miles from home was perfect for me. Apparently I wasn't the only one, as there was a really good turnout for this race. There were over 300 people in the half, 164 in the 10K and almost 1000 who were running the 5K. They even had a little expo on Wednesday with packet pick up and a bunch of vendors. From my point of view, it was quite a success. 

My family was debating on whether or not to attend, but in the end the lure of the Macy's parade on the TV was more interesting than sweaty people down the street and I can't say that I blame them. I did take the girls to the packet pick up and they had fun looking at all the funny running stuff. I struggled a bit deciding what I was going to wear for the race, as the weather was in that in between zone of the mid 40's but I settled on short sleeves with a compression undershirt, my hat and gloves. It was the right choice, though I may even have been able to go without the undershirt. I took my gloves off around mile 4 and stuffed them in my pocket.

My training for the last few weeks has been going well, mostly because I've slowed myself down and not tried to push my pace at all. I ran 6 miles last saturday at a pace of around 13 minutes per mile and I didn't really have any goals in this race other than to go the distance without putting myself into any great difficulty. As this is the beginning of my 12 week plan to prep for a half marathon, I feared that a hard 10K experience wouldn't be very helpful at this point, so my goal was to take it easy, enjoy the distance and to finish before the first half marathoner.

With this in mind I lined up with the rest of the runners at the start. The half and 10K started at the same time, but we started about a half mile up the road from them, which I think was probably annoying for the faster half marathoners but I enjoyed seeing them run by me. I lined up in the middle of the pack, but stayed to the side and most people moved past me within the first half mile. I kept my pace comfortable and tried to calm my competitive mind. I found myself at the back of the pack and shortly before the first mile I heard some really fast footsteps coming from behind me. 

For the next two miles I worked on trying to stay comfortable and not push myself, tempering my pace by my breathing and occasional glances at my watch (which I realized I forgot to start about 2 minutes into the race, so I didn't have a reliable time). I was trying to stay around 12:30, not pushing too hard up hills to maintain energy. More and more half marathoners were passing me, including my super fast friend Natalie, my twitter friend Jennifer (who somehow recognized me from behind) and others I recognized from my weekly runs on the greenway. I walked a few steps through the water stop at mile 2 and soon started to see the other 10K runners heading back after the turn around. 

We turned around and headed back and it was nice to be free of the half marathoners passing me. I was feeling pretty good and I started to look ahead of me for people to aim at. The next mile and a half I was trying to stay around 12 minutes but I let myself go a little bit down the hills. It was all about maintaining and I was feeling really good, but I've felt good at 4 miles before so I knew it could still come off the rails. Then we came upon the 5K runners. Oh wow, were there a lot of them. I went from running alone chasing someone 100ft in front of me to being surrounded by people, all of whom were running just a little bit faster than me. I thought to myself, don't get sucked into running too fast and burning out, as there's still a mile and a half to go. I wished I had a sign that said "hey, I'm running twice as far as you!" but I just kept my pace.  I did pick it up a bit, but made sure to monitor my breathing and noticed after a quarter mile or so I was about 11:30 and feeling pretty good. Looking back, I think it did help me to have all that company as I think I paced a little more quickly than I would have without it.

About a half mile from the end we split back out again from the 5K runners and I started pushing. There were two people ahead of me that I wanted to catch. In the end, I caught one but not the other but I felt strong enough to really push hard the last quarter mile. I ran past my neighbor Romeo just before the last turn and that gave me a nice burst and I looked up to see the clock at 1:12 and change as I crossed the line. I stopped my watch as I came across the line and took stock of my feelings. I knew my PR was 1:12:48 from the Buford race in June, and I felt right away that I was feeling better than I had after that race. I walked around a bit, grabbed a water and a banana and reflected. This was the first 10K that I felt good after the finish, physically I mean. I recovered quickly and never felt light headed or overly winded. 

I walked back up to the corner to stand with my friends and watch the first half marathoners come in. The winner crossed in 1:17, so I barely made my goal of beating him. His wife Natalie, who is super fast, won her age group in 1:33, a PR for her. I ran back to the car to get my jacket and stayed around to cheer for the next hour or so, watching tons of people conquer a distance that a year ago I never though I could do, but in 12 short week, I'll be running myself. My twitter friend Jennifer finished in 1:57, which I found out later was her first sub-2 hour half, which is awesome. 

All in all, I felt really great after this race. 10K has always been a humbling distance for me, and finishing 152 out of 164 isn't exactly awe inspiring, but I did set my PR by 15 seconds, with an official time of 1:12:33. I plug that into the McMillan race calculator and it says my half time equivalent would be 2:41, which will be just fine with me. I'm feeling strong and I'm looking forward to seeing what I can do in the next 3 months.

Processes, Systems and Goals

A lot of the work that I do in my day to day revolves around processes and systems. How do we manage customer cases more efficiently, to get them to the right engineer with the right skill set in the least amount of time? How do I measure my team's performance? How do we make sure all the various stakeholders in a given situation receive the proper information that is important to them and get it to them quickly? I could list a hundred more challenges that we have created processes to solve. By creating a process, you can ensure that you are able to repeatedly conquer the same challenge and focus your efforts on the important work that needs to be done.

The key, however is not the process but the specific goal. Blasting an email to the entire company list would achieve a broad goal of communicating information. Without the focus on the specific, getting the right information to the right people without distracting people with unneeded noise, the odds of this process being successful is very slim. At Citrix, from the top down we are very good at setting a goal and then adjusting our process to meet it. This type of thinking does not have to be limited to your work life.

It sounds cold and analytical, but setting goals and processes in our personal lives can actually be very freeing and motivating. Over the past few years, when I've set specific goals for myself invariably things in that area of my life have improved. Any reader of this blog is well aware of my fitness goals and the running that I've done. I set a goal, devise a plan, gather data and track metrics, then adjust my process to target my goals. I've tried to tackle my personal finances, my weight loss and even career and education with in the same manner.

I'm certainly not conceited enough to think that I've been 100% successful in everything or that my way is the right way. I certainly wish I'd figured this out in my early twenties and not in my late thirties, but since I don't have a flux capacitor, I can't go back in time. I steal ideas from others all the time. I believe in art that is called inspiration. But for the most part in the last few years I've been able to pull things together fairly well. In the next few weeks I'm going to do some posts that talk about what I've done in each specific area of my life and hopefully someone out there can steal some of my stolen ideas to help themselves.

If anyone has any requests or suggestions, drop me a note, I'd be happy to hear them.

Atlanta Marathon Relay

After putting together a group to run in the Peachtree, I found out about the Atlanta Marathon Relay and thought it would be fun to put together a team. When I put out a call for volunteers, I got 8 responses, so we made two teams. We made up some cool t-shirts and had a couple of group runs to get everyone in the mood. Finally, it was race day.

The race is presented by the Atlanta Track Club and they are very organized. There were 4 legs, though they were not all the same length. The course is a loop of the city, starting at Atlantic Station and going counter clockwise, hitting most of the major sites around the city. I ran the first leg which was 5.5 miles through Georgia Tech and past Centennial Park, the Aquarium, World of Coca Cola, Phillips Arena, CNN and the Georgia Dome. It was a pretty cool leg, though there was about about 300 feet of climbing with a net gain of over 120 feet.

The weather was pretty great for running, in the high 40's at the start with a slight breeze. We car pooled down to the start and arrived about 5:30 for the 7am start. The people taking the later legs took buses out to the exchange points and the bus for the first exchange left at 6, so the timing was good. I ended up running in my short sleeves with gloves and my visor. I checked pants, a long sleeve T and jacket for after the race and kept a long sleeve T with me that I ditched at the start. I'm pretty happy with my clothing choice as I felt comfortable the whole run.

I headed over to the start and tried to stay as warm as possible until the gun. My plan for this race was to start slowly. I knew there were going to be hills and I didn't want to burn out too early. I knew the guy running the first leg for the other team was faster than I am, but I also knew that our second leg guy was the fastest of us all, so I wanted to stay close enough so he could pass the other team during his leg.

This race was awesome for an entirely different reason than the Peachtree. The Peachtree was full of energy and I talked a lot to the runners around me. This race was quietly inspiring. Here I was running 5.5 miles and I was surrounded by folks who were going 26.2. I was just grateful to be out there. I paced by effort up the hills, walked at the top of a couple of the longer ones and took advantage of the downhills when I could. The first half mile was difficult, probably because I didn't warm up, I had a lot of nervous energy, but once I got up the first hill I had a sense that this was going to be my day. I can't say that I was blazing fast, but I was strong and never once felt out classed by the course.

When checking out the race map on Friday, I noticed that I was going to run a small portion on Baker St. I thought this was pretty cool. Baker St. in Atlanta is right by the Aquarium and Centennial Park. When I turned left on to the street I was pretty pumped. After the turn, I was even more pumped. The whole 2 block stretch of Baker Street was downhill! This was probably about 3 miles in and I opened it up and flew down that quarter mile stretch. Man that felt good. Of course, in this race what goes down must come up, so I slowed again as soon as we turned back to find another uphill stretch past CNN and Philips Arena. Just before mile 5 I looked off to my right to see the sun rising in the East. Unfortunately there wasn't much more sign of the sun the rest of the day, but that was a pretty moment.

Soon, I saw the yellow flag and heard the commotion of the transition point. I saw my team mate, slapped the wristband on him and it was done. I was probably about 30 seconds late stopping my Garmin, but whatever. I'd done it. I got one of those fancy foil blankets, a banana and of course my medal! They bussed us back to the start/finish area and my work was done. Fortunately I had packed some warm clothes to put on, because as comfortable as I was while running was as cold as I felt when I was done.

I changed and made it to the finish line in time to see the marathon winner come through at 2:23, just an amazing time on that course. As the runners from each leg made it back we talked about our stories and our runs. The only negative was that for them, waiting around for their race start was a very cold experience. I was lucky to have done the first leg. In the end, my team won our little internal race by 2 minutes. Everyone had a great time and it looks like our Peachtree group is going to be at least a dozen for next year.

I'm in awe of people who can run 26.2 miles, I really am. At this point, its hard for me to imagine that I'd ever want to put in that effort. On the other hand, the dominating thought in my mind after finishing today is that I cannot wait to do my half marathon. I know this journey is going to be difficult, but I'm amped to get into it.

Race moments

• In the first quarter mile there was a man standing on a corner with one of those big Swiss cowbells hanging on a leather strap, ringing and ringing. As I passed him, I heard a shout from the apartment building behind him, "Stop that F'ing Bell!!! I'm going to call the cops!" Pretty funny, but I'm sure Id be pretty pissed at 7am on a Sunday morning too.
• Favorite sign "I thought they said Rum!"
• Coming down Baker St. I saw a race photographer aiming at me. I flashed a smile and the rock n' roll horns, I hope that picture comes out good!
• As we were waiting for the first woman finisher a woman came running down the chute. They put up the tape and were cheering her in when they suddenly realized that she was part of a relay team and not the women's marathon winner.  Lucky for her they noticed too late and she got to run through the tape like a Kenyan!

Lily's Run 5K Race Report

Today was a pretty moving day and while I didn't have the best race physically it always feels good to be around inspiring people. This is the fourth year they've held this race to benefit a group called Kingdom Kids which helps provide relief to the families of children fighting cancer by fulfilling a wish for them. The race started for Lily Anderson, who is now 11 and still fighting this terrible disease, but also benefits several of the kids supported by the organization. Their stories are inspiring and heartbreaking. The courage of a little girl to face such unimaginable difficulty makes our regular every day challenges pale in comparison. The fact that suffering like that has to exist in the world breaks my heart. I ran this race last year and was certain that I'd do it again this year.

The race itself has moved to a new venue, one which I have run in the past and I know is quite difficult. Worse yet was the 1pm start, which isn't my best time for peak performance and add the fact that I ate a terrible breakfast, my mind was already in the wrong place to do well today. I'd decided I would just go do what I can and enjoy the day, especially since my girls were going to run the mile fun run as their first race ever. They were super excited and that wore off on me.

I started too fast as much of the first mile is downhill and completed the first mile in about 11 minutes. I was hurting already and knew the rest would be tough.  There's a long uphill stretch in the second mile and I walked about half of that hill. Fortunately the race turned around at the top of that hill and I was able to roll a bit down the hill on the way back. I just tried to maintain a steady pace around 12 minutes when I was running. At this point I was passing a lot of people who went out fast and were walking, so at least I had that going for me.

Mile 3 went a little better and I walked a couple steep inclines but made sure to run in between. There was one guy who was walking and started to run a bit as I passed him in the last quarter mile. I was afraid he was going to try to pass me so I gave it my all, helped by the downhill to the finish and came across the line about 37:45. Nowhere close to my fastest time and honestly not one that I'm proud of, but I put in the effort and made it around.

Afterwards there was a one mile fun run. I asked the girls if they wanted me to run with them, but they said they wanted to do it themselves. "I want to be a brave big girl," one told me. So they headed out on a loop around the school where the race was while my wife worried about them. At the word go, one started out like a rocket, running fast with some of the other kids off the front while the other loped along at a steady pace. By the time they'd come around the other side where we could see them again, they were both walking. The fast one started running again as soon as she could see me though. As they reached us we told them that they had to go around one more lap and she asked if I'd run it with her. So I took off with them both. My "fast" daughter was about 50 yards ahead of the "slow" one, who just wanted to walk more. I tried to stay in the middle of the two of them and whenever I got close to the front one, she'd turn around, see me catching up and take off. It was pretty funny. She kept turning around and taunting me, which raised a few laughs from some of the people around us.

They both finished running, which was great and both told me separately later that they had fun. Overall it was a great race. Even being disappointed in my own performance, it felt great to come out to support some great kids who need our help.

Cycling, Doping and Lance Revisited

A year and a half ago I started this blog with a post I felt very passionate about writing. I think it was around the time of Tyler Hamilton's appearance on 60 Minutes and the cracks in the wall around Lance Armstrong's reality were beginning to form. In that post I argued that the cycling world would be better served if all those of that era would just tell the truth, confess to what they did and let today's riders move on without that spectre hanging over them.

This week, the USADA released its evidence and argument in its case that Lance Armstrong and others surrounding him engaged in systemic cheating. No less than 11 of his former teammates signed affidavits telling the story of the doping they did, how many of them knew of or witnessed Lance's cheating and the reasons behind their decisions.

So now I have my wish, most of the riders that I respected have come clean about what was going in in their era. All except for one, of course, Lance. Is it within the realm of possibility that he didn't cheat? Yes, but that would mean that over a dozen people have decided to lie under oath about being dopers in order to be vindictive to the man who made it all possible for them to earn the wages they've earned over the past 15 years. No, as I've said before, its impossible to believe that there was no cheating going on.

In the end though, its not the doping that is the most disturbing part of the stories I read. Everyone was doping. Lance needed to dope to stay in the race. Lance did it better than anyone else around and beat them at their own game. Fine, I can accept that. What really bothers me are the stories of bullying, of intimidation, of careers ruined for daring to make a decision different than that of Mr. Armstrong. Anyone who left his cadre through the years tells similar stories of threats, explicit or veiled. We've all seen Lance ride up the road to chase down a break with a rider who dared to say something about him or his Dr. in the press. Levi Leipheimer tells of his wife receiving threatening text messages from Lance after testifying to the Grand Jury initially investigating this case.

I can forgive doping. I can't forgive being a jerk. Yes, he's done a lot of good things for the cancer community. His positive impact on the sport of cycling means that people actually care about this stuff. But an asshole who does some good things is still an asshole. If you're going to think that your version of the truth is important enough to destroy other people, then you are an asshole.

I'm glad that this story broke after the cycling season ended and I hope that next year once the Giro and the Tour roll around that people pay attention. There are some fantastic young riders from the US who are out there making a difference. Taylor Phinney and Tejay van Garderen did fantastic things this year and bring hope that majesty of the sport of cycling will continue long after the smoke of doping dissipates.