Running a mile

Whenever Rose and I go for a run, we never run more than a mile or two.  Whenever Rose and I go for a run, she blows me away by about 150-200 yards.

I went for a run with my sister.  Over the course of a single mile, she put about 250 yards in between us.

I once asked Walden how many players on Machine could run a mile at 6:30 or quicker.  His answer was all of them.

I have never run a mile faster than 7:30, but that was high school.  This week I put myself on a treadmill with an 8:00 min pace.  It was not an easy run.

Beware the signal and the noise!

I seriously doubt Machine is running miles as part of their training.  I also doubt that any well-designed training scheme will not include running miles as fast as you can.  However, pounding out a fast mile is a result of their training.

If a point last more than three possessions my utility falls off of a cliff, any “elite” player is more than capable of playing strong for a long point.

I do not plan on running miles more often, but until I can regularly run a 6:30 mile I will know that I am not training as hard as those above me.

Sisyphus

I envy Sisyphus.  Sisyphus knows his limit.  Sisyphus knows how far he can go.  Every morning he wakes up and goes all the way to his limit.  Every day.

I have a personal theory towards test taking.  If want to study until I get to a point where I feel like, even if I had more time I wouldn't study anymore.  My goal before every test I have taken is to get to this level.  In the academic world, I am able to get there every time.

I think I know my physical limit.  I got there my junior year of college.  I could have worked harder sure, it is always possible to work harder.  However, given a time machine, I wouldn't have worked harder.  Some readers may argue that the only way I feel this way is because I had a satisfying end to my junior year.  I would argue that getting last at Nationals when the dream was to play on Sunday isn't all that satisfying.

I have not gone to my limit since that season.  It has been easy to make excuses.  To rationalize missing opportunities to put in work.  To eat garbage.  To not lift heavy.

Today I did three work sets.  I wanted to do five work sets.  I only did three, but I did some extra plyos to "make up" for the two sets I skipped.  I convinced myself not to go to my limit.

I envy Sisyphus.

Early and undigested thoughts on coaching High School:

I don't think I ever earned the full trust of the girls.  Whenever I would provide them with feedback or try to have a teaching moment, they would always feel victimized.  They would tell me that I was picking on or being unfair to them.  I never found a way to share thoughts in a way that they would feel comfortable owning and digesting the criticism.

The fundamentals are way more basic than I ever could have imagined.  All of the time we spent discussing how to play defense, how to structure an offense or general in-game ideas never found it's way from drills to the field.  If I were the dictator I would go all in on partner throwing and running for practices.  Completing an upline and an incut are really hard.  Doing them well puts you in the cream of the crop.

Hopkins practices from September to June.  Most other schools that were at our level practiced from March 1 to June.  Does this mean we horribly mismanaged our practice time?  Do we desperately need all that practice time in order to stay afloat?  Or is the benefit/returns of having a long season overhyped?

High Schooler's are immensely hypocritical.  It makes me feel good because at least they know what the right thing to do is, it makes me really sad because they lack the self-awareness to check if they are doing it.

If you want kids to hate you, talk down to them.

It is really hard to flesh out a philosophy or a multistep idea with the attention spans at this level.  Everyone is looking for a quick, unbreakable answer.  There is little interest in diving into nuances and grey-scales.

Disrespect the game

Disrespect the game and the game will disrespect you.

I have officially been cut from every team that I was interested in playing with.  Moral of the story, cramming doesn't work.  I didn't work out at all from January 21 through April 18th.  I put in about 3 weeks of exercise and I showed up to tryouts completely incapable of catching anyone's eye.  I should add that during those 3 weeks of exercise I did not take a thoughtful or structured approach to training, plot twist this doesn't work.

Do I feel humbled?

No, I knew I wasn't prepared.  I knew that I had disrespected the game.  I thought that I had no chance at Drag'N and a dice roll at MSP and Bird.  1/36 chance of making both, 25/36 chance of making neither.  In the end, the odds stacked against me.  

What now?

I don't know.  If I take another summer off I doubt I will ever be able to make a team ever again.  I took last summer off for a purpose, but I always thought I'd be able to get back into the game and enjoy several more years of playing strong.  Taking this summer off with no reason will likely mean my death knell.

That being said, am I afraid of my death knell?  Do I care to make a team?  Can I be content with work and social activities?  Should I embrace the end and leave the game where it is?

I'm 27.  

Does that matter?  Am I at an age where even if I put in the work I won't be able to get the returns necessary to make the squad.  Does that matter?  Is trying in and of itself rewarding enough?  Where even if next year turns and I still can't crack it, at least the journey would have been enjoyable?

I could play league.  I don't want to play league, that sounds really bad.

Internal v. External Motivation

I believe that is impossible for an external force to spark true internal motivation.  No pump up speech from a coach, no buddy that works out with you, no hype video can spark a genuine internal motivation.

Have you ever watched a highlight video that makes you hunger to improve?  A minute into the video you're telling yourself you're going to overhaul your entire workout strategy.  Two minutes in your planning to workout 4 days a week and throw 7 days a week.  After the third-minute, you're setting your alarm for 5 am so that you can hit it hard.  You know the first morning will be brutal, but if you can make it three mornings it will become a habit.

5 a.m. the next morning, the alarm goes off, you hit it and go right back to bed.  You can workout after work, it will be fine.  5 p.m. rolls around, it's time.  You just hop in your car and go home, the mo is gone.

Workout buddies surely get the job done.  When Ray was around I never missed a workout.  We put together 2.5 good years of training.  But what happened when Ray wasn't around?  I haven't put together three consistent weeks of workouts since 2012.

Motivational speeches?  Try following "Coach Quotes" on twitter, read through some tweets at lunch, at the end of the day try to recall them.  How'd it go?

The internally motivated man can climb to the top of the mountain, spend a year training in absolute isolation, and climb down more powerful than could ever be imagined.  I always fantasized that I was a member of this group.  It gave me a sense of superiority, it made me feel good about myself.  Plucked from my community and given an "isolation tank", I am forced to acknowledge that I am an externally motivated individual.

For those of us who are externally motivated, we live and die with our community.  Our community defines our top three priorities.  Pull us out of our community and our top three will experience a total overhaul.  

If the game falls out of your top three, you disrespect the game. If you disrespect the game, the game disrespects you.  The frisbee gods are a wrathful and hateful group, they have no patience for being disrespected.

12.15.2016

Workout:

I did not workout

Reading:

The Reckoning: Accountants explain their value as providing transparency or clarity of information, but too often they miss rogues or act as aids to fraud.

Notes:

The heat has been out in our home.  We boiled a ton of water hoping to add some humidity and thus increase the heat capacity of our unit.  It worked, strong recommend.

12.14.2016

Workout:

Yoga

Glute Bridges

Resistance Band

Core

3x6 at 80#, 90#, 100#

• Squat
• Reverse Lunge
• SLDL
• Thrusters

Reading:

The Economist Leaders:  on how Donald Trump will be executing deals rather than policies.