Three quarters of an ounce

One minute he was there, the next he was gone. Nothing had visibly changed but the body laying before me was no longer my father. The Bible says that at some point in time, God breathed into man the breath of life. In the eons of time that have followed that singular event, we have not been able to truly grasp what that really means. Is sentient life simply the interesting byproduct of chemical processes and the physical nature of matter or something else, something ethereal, intangible, inhabiting the body but distinct from it? This question has occupied thoughtful men for centuries. Modern science and medicine have been unable to provide an answer.

In 1907 Dr. Duncan MacDougall, of Haverhill, Massachussets did an interesting experiment in which he placed terminal patients on a bed set on a very precisely calibrated scale. When the first patient expired, he noted that the body suddenly became lighter by ¾’s of an ounce. He postulated that this was the weight of the human soul. Unfortunately, other investigators and he himself in later experiments failed to corroborate these results.

Be that as it may, something changes when you die and that body you once occupied becomes an empty shell. Very odd. Despite the unavoidable deterioration over time the human body, when occupied by a living being, is a remarkable piece of biological machinery. While an elephant may be stronger, a cheetah faster, and a monkey more agile, no other animal combines the total package of physical capabilities of human beings. Our combination of speed, agility, dexterity, and endurance are unique in a single species.

Who wouldn’t love to own a high performance, limited edition sports car like a Lamborghini? What we often don’t realize is that we are that sports car. Talk about high performance- our bodies make even the most exotic sports car seem pathetically simple and mundane. Try taking any sports car engine and revving it repeatedly, week after week, month after month, and year after year.  It will undoubtedly require extensive, and frequent, maintenance by experts, and, despite that, it will probably break down and/or wear out in a few short years. Try  mistreating it; filling it with contaminated gas, putting in dirty oil, etc. and it will break down in short order. The human body requires only a very modest amount of care and maintenance, which anybody can do. If physically stressed it actually becomes stronger. Although the aging process cannot be forever postponed, it can be pushed back further and further by physical activity. Don’t take my word on this. There are studies galore that support this position.

I cannot understand someone who owns a Lamborghini and does not, now and again, want to just take it somewhere, such as a track or empty stretch of highway, and open it up. What a waste not to. I feel the same way about my body. The analogies abound. We have to fuel both with high quality fuel. The engine/muscles must be properly tuned. Good quality tires/shoes are a must. The difference is that every mile driven wears the Lamborghini down whereas, up to a point, pushing the human body makes it stronger, faster, more flexible, or any combination of these. Who wouldn't want to see what their body can do?

In swimming, running, or cycling, with practice it is possible to turn inward and monitor all the systems involved in propelling you forward, making adjustments as necessary. Breathing, heart rate, perceived effort, muscle fatigue, and more can be adjusted on the fly to either conserve energy or push the pace. It is a fascinating exercise just once to do something and observe, truly observe, your body in action. Watching other athletes can be inspirational. Observe an elite sprinter at top speed and you have the sense that they are practically flying. Their feet barely touch the ground and the forward motion seems effortless. They appear to be but moments away from reaching taking off speed and simply leaving the ground behind. It is beautiful. The same with a bicycle peloton. It is truly an organic marvel as riders spin up to 30+ mph for hours at a time. Watching it from the air, you feel as though you are seeing a King Kong-size unicellular organism undulating across the countryside. Watch an Olympic swimmer moving through the water and you cannot help but feel that they are being pulled by an invisible ski boat to go that fast.

I suggest that to experience sheer joy, get your body tuned up and take it out for a spin now and again. You may never wish for a Lamborghini again!

This week's training summary, Thanksgiving notwithstanding: 

Running- 

        Monday: 5.45 mi @ 8:46 min/mi pace

       Tuesday-Wednesday: rest

       Thursday: 8.18 mi @ 9:26 min/mi pace

       Friday:  4.17 mi @ 10:54 min/mi pace

       Saturday:  4.25 @ 10:53 min/mi pace 

       Sunday:  6.85 @ 10:13 min/mi pace

Total for the week: 28.9 miles

Priorities matter

Imagine, if you will, the following order of priorities. You put a dollar in the coffee machine. Out comes the sugar, then the cream, followed by the coffee, and then, last of all, the cup! Priorities matter. Sometimes I chafe under the restriction of priorities in my life. At times, when I would rather go for a bike ride, swim, or for a run, I have to do other things. Some of them are work related. A physician's time is rarely his own and discretionary time is a priceless and rare commodity. Other priorities are family related.

This morning, I had the awesome privilege of seeing my 93 year old father draw his final breath. He was a man of moderate habits and never quite understood my attraction to endurance events. A competitive swimmer in college, he swam all of his adult life but it was a leisurely pursuit and not one that taxed or stretched his abilities. Despite this, several years ago he won 3 gold medals in the state Senior Olympics held in The Villages, FL.He was the only one competing in his age group. His strategy was that if he couldn't out swim the competition, he could outlive it! He was married to my Mom for 52 years and after she passed away in 2002, he lived independently into his 90's. After a period of deteriorating health and 3 falls in his apartment resulting in 3 serious fractures, he decided the time had come to move to assisted living.

Two weeks ago, with his active participation and blessing, we jointly decided the time had come to allow nature to take its natural course in his life. We discontinued all of his medications except those needed for comfort. He called this final chapter of his life "our project". Two days ago, he slipped into a coma. This morning, his breathing changed. My two sisters and I gathered at his bedside and after a brief prayer we began sharing stories of our family and its many "characters" with much laughter. In the middle of this, Dad briefly opened his eyes, closed them slowly, and, six breaths later, he was gone. It was the calm, dignified, and peaceful death we had hoped and prayed for him. It was perfection.

I didn't run, bike, or swim today. There was too much important family stuff to do and I was OK with this. After all, priorities matter. Seeing my father off was a privilege I would not have missed for anything. We did not have that opportunity with Mom and so this was his final gift to us.

This week's training summary:
Swim- 2525 yards in 59:14
Run- Thursday: 5.46 mi at 8:28/mi average pace
         Saturday: 4 mi at 8 min/mi averaga pace (Fall Four Miler in Mt. Dora). Took 2/6 place for age.
Bike- None this week.

The Moment of Truth

Did you know there is an 11^th commandment? No, it wasn’t inscribed on the stone tablets and it is largely ignored but is very real none-the-less. It is, stated in the style of the King James Bible, “thou shalt not kid thyself”. We kid ourselves in so many areas of our lives that it would probably be easier to list where we do not. We know we aren’t going to live forever but we behave as though we will never die. We practice lifestyles whose consequences are basically a foregone conclusion yet kid ourselves that we will somehow dodge those consequences. We spend, individually and as a nation, as though the supply of money is endless and kid ourselves that the accumulated a debt not one day crush us. As I said, it is, by all appearances rarely heeded.

This post is actually not about this commandment but rather about “the moment of truth”. The relevance of the former should be evident shortly. Sometimes, when initiating a discussion on a topic, just for the heck of it, I will type the topic onto Google search and see what turns up. In this case, I entered “the moment of truth”. To my mind this expression, as used in the popular lexicon, describes a momentous point in time wherein some decision must be made which will determine the course of future events. At the risk of digressing from the topic of this blog, I was surprised to learn that this is the title of the report by President Obama’s bi-partisan national commission on the national deficit and debt, delineating the problem and offering solutions. Ironically, the president refused to accept his own commission’s findings and recommendations. There is a “Moment of Truth Project”, which grew out of this commission as a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to furthering dialogue aimed at implementing the commission’s goal of responsible deficit and debt reduction. I know I am tiptoeing through a political minefield in discussing this but regardless of one’s political persuasion, it is a mathematical fact that one cannot continue to spend more money than one takes in. This is the definition of going broke. To ignore this is to break the 11^th commandment on a monumental scale.

Closer to home, ‘the moment of truth’ actually comes up daily, in fact, multiple times daily in most of our lives, whether we realize it or not. We face innumerable decisions in the course of each day, some large, some small, and the choice we make will in some measure determine the course of our life from that point on. I face a moment of truth every morning when I step into a shower stall, which is getting ever colder as winter sets in, and have to turn the cold water on full. Despite all the benefits that I feel have accrued due to taking cold showers, it is still a moment that gives me pause and the temptation to say “the hell with it” and switch over to “hot” is ever present. So it is with contemplating leaving the comfort of my desk and computer chair to go for a run, heading to the YMCA at 6 AM for an hour of swimming laps, or resisting the urge to indulge in a sweet desert that I really don’t need.

For me to claim that I intend to do an ironman triathlon in 12 months and then not put in the effort and the hours necessary to prepare for this is breaking the 11^th commandment big time. And, so it goes, with any goal that we may have for which we are not willing to make the right decision when the “moment of truth” arrives, in its myriad forms. Don’t be surprised if that goal remains elusive.

This week was not a particularly good one for training. I do have a day job, after all, and it was a bit demanding of my time this week. In addition, family matters, including a father who is now in hospice and who deserves some of my time in whatever time he has left, further eroded my discretionary time. I used it for some contemplation and reflection, and to begin planning my strategy for training. There will be weeks like this along the way. It remains to be seen what I will do when the opportunity to train presents.

This weeks progress toward FI 2013- it was the first truly cold week of the year:

Swim- none

Run- none

Bike- 44 miles at 14.9 mph average.

OK, now it's real

The first hurdle has been overcome. Actually, this was the second hurdle; the first was actually deciding to do this crazy thing. As of this afternoon, I am officially registered for the 2013 Florida Ironman Triathlon to be held in Panama City, FL on Saturday, November 2, 2013. After all of the worry and anxiety about actually getting this done -  the 2012 triathlon sold out in 16 minutes – it was surprisingly easy and went without any glitches. Even the laptop computer cooperated without any frozen screens, failure to connect to the internet, or any of the myriad things computers are wont to do when you really need them to perform. Registration opened at 1 PM and I was logged on at 1:01 PM. 10 minutes and $800 later, I was officially a registered participant. Panama City here I come!

Now, it gets real. As of today, I have exactly 364 days to plan and prepare for what will be the most challenging physical thing I have ever done. I watched the live stream coverage online of this year’s event yesterday. The most inspiring and encouraging thing that I saw was the 88 year old man who finished the course in 16 hours and 50+ minutes, barely within the allotted 17 hours for official finishers. The final participant crossed the line with less than a minute to spare. OK, if an 88 year old man can do this and another middle-aged guy can hang in there for nearly 17 hours, I certainly can. The fact that an 88 year old finished does not take away anything from the magnitude of the challenge; it just makes me look on in awe at an 88 year old that is capable of this. What is discouraging is to realize how few people in their 80’s, 70’s, or even 60’s (my decade now) are remotely capable of physical effort even approaching a fraction of that required to finish an Ironman triathlon. We have become a nation of “couch potatoes”, and obese ones at that.  

Mark my words. You heard it here first. If we do not realize a major change in our country’s trajectory away from personal indulgence and dysfunctional eating, and toward personal responsibility and serious changes in lifestyle, I predict that we are soon going to experience a collapse in our economy under the weight (no pun intended) of the obese and their related medical problems, which will overwhelm our medical system and “break the bank”, Obamacare or no Obamacare. We simply cannot provide Cadillac level medical care to our citizens if the demand becomes too great. We speak of the fiscal cliff looming in 2013 when a variety of tax laws and financial manipulations will possibly send our economy in a downward spiral toward a new recession like a plummeting out of control airplane "augering in" as Chuck Yeager was fond of saying. What I feel is equally, if not more, possible is the looming “physical” cliff over which our inactivity is going to throw us. Think rationing of medical care; think panels of citizens empowered to determine who gets dialysis, who gets cancer care, who gets a transplant or heart bypass; think no care for those who, according to actuarial tables, are predicted to pass away in 6 months or less; think of an entire nation full of elderly people incapable of doing the least bit of physical activity without the assistance of an army of nursing assistants. I see the latter as a huge growth industry for the future. Even when we live longer, that largely means is we are living with more chronic diseases and so we are also living worse. It is going to get ugly.

So, this little project of mine is, I hope, more than just some individual’s self-centered attempt to prove something to himself by engaging in conspicuous consumption on an athletic playing field. I hope it will serve as an impetus for a few readers to get up off the couch and do something to change the trajectory of their lives, as a source of encouragement, of information, of advice, of, well, whatever one chooses to make of it.

Hopefully, anyone reading this will still be around in 364 days. What will your next 12 months bring?

This weeks training summary:

Swimming- Monday: 2625 yards in 1:01:27

Running- Wednesday: 3.7 miles at 8:30/mi average

                 Friday: 5.44 miles at 10:14/mi average (with my brother-in-law at easy pace

Biking- None (bike in shop for adjustments and minor repairs)

Next week: Goals