sometimes it doesn't come free

I was not feeling super-motivated this morning when my alarm clock went off - the weather was crappy, I had a long week at work and was feeling pretty drained, and all of my regular training partners had other stuff going on, so I was flying solo. Nonetheless, I ended up getting in a pretty decent interval workout on roller skis. I resorted to my 4th favorite training partner - my iPod Nano with the Yonder Mountain String band on shuffle repeat.

I don't care who you are, some days are just difficult to muster the motivation to get in quality training, and I've found that occasionally allowing myself to use a mental crutch like listening to music can be the difference between getting a full workout in or not.

Getting after IT

Sometimes you need to watch a replay of the Miracle on Ice for inspiration, sometimes you just need to see what I saw last night.

Last night I did a hill-bounding workout at Cobbs Hill. It was a good workout, but nothing noteworthy except for one thing. There was a guy who looked to be 70 years old running hill repeats from Highland Ave all the way up to the Reservoir! They weren't the fastest or the most graceful, but it was obvious he was giving everything he had.

While at work earlier in the day, I heard the quote "The only difference between a dream and a goal is a due date." I'm not sure what this guy was working towards, but he was working towards a GOAL, and he was making it happen. It doesn't matter that his goal would seem inconsequential to most people, it doesn't even matter what his goal is - he was out there in crappy weather with no one watching, no coach screaming at him, and conceivably every excuse in the world to throw in the towel, but kept pushing. I think they should cancel "The Biggest Loser" and follow around people like this guy instead.

So you have to run downhill fast also?

This weekend was a classic fall weekend in Rochester - great foliage and poor weather reports. However, this time the weather folks got it wrong in our favor. The weather Saturday was supposed to be cold, raining and windy, instead it was about 60 with no rain and occasional wind. So, Jason, Chad and I took advantage of the good weather and did a 3.5 hour skate roller ski. I felt pretty rocked afterwards but also pumped that not only was I able to get through it, I was feeling great almost the entire ski.

Today, I did a XC running race at Ithaca College. Going to IC brought back some great memories from my baseball-playing days as the RIT/Ithaca weekend was always one that was circled on my calendar, and some of my best memories in a baseball uniform happened on their field. As anyone that's been to Ithaca, NY can attest, there's no shortage of hills in that neck of the woods, and the course today included some of them. Overall, it was an ok race, I pushed hard on the uphills, but really didn't run the downhills well at all, it seemed like a lot of guys were running the downhills very aggressively, where I was running the downhills trying to not break any ankles. These races are really just a piece of my training regiment for the winter (obviously, since I did a marathon roller ski yesterday), so I'm not really that worried that I didn't set any PR's, but it was a little frustrating to pass several people on every uphill only to see them fly past me on the downhills. No big deal though, I was happy with the race effort (avg hr 181 bpm) and am in general happy with where my fitness level is, especially since my focus recently has been on getting ready for ski season and not on running fast.

I'm looking forward to getting back into a normal routine this week. This will be the first week in the last month and a half where I will be in the office and won't have any customers in town. Now, I'm going to hopefully watch the Bills get their season back on track (not holding my breath though). Final note - Nancy and I picked a date and location for the wedding - 11 June 2010 at Bristol Harbor!

"Get the Moose on the Table"

I am currently in a Management Development Program at work. Essentially the gyst of the program is that we meet roughly once a week and there is a guest speaker who is or has been a successful leader in the business world. The program just started two weeks ago but I'm very excited about listening to advice from different executives and getting their take on leadership and being successful in the business world. I have my own opinions on the best way to be a leader, but most of those come from my athletic background, so I'm always interested to hear people from different backgrounds explain their path to success and the lessons they learned along the way.

Today was our second speaker. His background was in engineering and he had a lot of experience bringing new products to market. He told a very interesting story about going to the Xerox tech park (a place legendary for innovation) in 1978 and seeing a drawing of what looked almost exactly like the Dell Latitude laptop that seems to be standard issue in corporate America right now. The point of his story is that sometimes great visions can't happen overnight. He explained that this is referred to as "The Colorado Principle" which he explained to mean "don't mistake a clear vision as a short vision." The Colorado reference makes sense when you picture driving near the Rockies - the mountains always look very clear, but you can never tell how close they really are.

He also had a saying that will likely enter my list of commonly used phrases. He was explaining how to deal with issues with external partnerships (i.e. joint ventures, jointly developed products, etc.), when he threw in this classic "It's always best to 'get the moose on the table' right up front". The moose being whatever the root cause or issue is between the two parties - basically, don't dance around the heart of the problem, get the cards on the table. He also recommended several books on management and leadership. Overall, very interesting presentation.

"Toughness training"

I've read on a few fasterskier blogs recently the term "toughness training" in reference to training in bad weather. I believe the meaning of the term is that training in less than ideal conditions can help with mental toughness, which absolutely is a huge ally to a competitive nordic skier, because it's very rare that the weather and snow conditions on race day are exactly what you were hoping for. I was thinking about this today while doing a 2.5 hour classic roller ski with Jason in 38 degrees/raining weather, and decided that I'd much rather be doing a long workout in those conditions than trying to pound out a decent distance workout running on the treadmill below, which was my nemisis earlier this week in Georgia. I'm sure everyone has a different opinion on this, but personally, there is no workout that I struggle for motivation with more than cranking out an hour+ on a treadmill by myself. It could also have to do with my less than stellar opinion of mother nature after having played baseball in the Northeast for the first 22 years of my life, there aren't many things she can throw at me that's going to surprise me much!

On another note, still no word on where my bag is and I can't even get anyone at Turkish Air to speak to me. I'm also much more jet-lagged than usual. You'd think I'd have this dialed in by now, but to tell you the truth, I pretty much follow the same process every time for re-adjusting to the 7-8 hour time difference and sometimes I adjust quickly and sometimes I don't, and can't really explain it. Maybe it's like a bad hangover - you can try a bunch of different things, but time is the only thing that's really going to help you. Who knows...

Georgia

I landed in Georgia this past Sunday afternoon and have been on the go ever since I landed. The typical working hours here are 10am until around 7pm. Each night this week, we've also been to dinner with customers and our local partners here in Tbilisi. A typical Georgian dinner involves a lot of great food (pesticides are illegal here, so everything is organic) and a lot of vodka. For each dinner a "Tamada" is appointed, and he's responsible for all the toasts for the night, and all proper toasts end with a shot of vodka, so depending on the tamada, it can turn into a rough night in a hurry.

There are a few places that we always seem to end up going to dinner - among them is what Kevin and I have nicknamed the "Winfield - Tbilisi". The Winfield is our local neighborhood bar back in Rochester and the Winfield - Tbilisi is our friend and local partner Ivane's local bar (he lives 30 feet from the door) and is a regular. Ivane is an extremely successful business owner and is involved in a lot of different industries in Tbilisi. He's also an an absolute party animal - this is extremely difficult to explain to people that haven't met him, but the best analogy I can make is that Lebron James was born to play basketball, Wayne Gretzky was born to play hockey, Lance Armstrong was born to ride a bike and Ivane was born to party like a rock star and wake up the next day on 2 hours sleep and function like a kick-ass business man (which he is as well). Pictured below is Temuri, Irakli Kevin and Alex after a dinner at the Winfield - Tbilisi.

We did have a little down time on Wednesday and Lasha (who works for our dealer) took us to a cave city outside of Tbilisi that was built in the 7th century BC. It was quite a unique place. Here's a picture of Kevin Lasha and I standing outside of the royal palace of the cave city.

I also managed to get in some decent workouts in the morning, usually between 45min to an hour on the treadmill. Not exactly the type of volume that is ideal, but better than nothing. Running on a treadmill for an hour is also a test of mental toughness, as it's probably the most mind-numbing workout I can think of.

This was a very productive trip for work, but also pretty exhausting. Right now, I'm back home, it took 28 hours to get home yesterday and my luggage is still in Istanbul (supposedly). I'm pretty beat, but the temperatures here in Rochester are cold and it's pumping me up for some quality training this weekend! We may even see a few flakes of snow later on today.

Travel Checklist

I leave for Tbilisi, Georgia in the morning. To avoid confusion, that's not the state of Georgia, that's a small country in Central Asia that used to be part of the Soviet Union, but has since done everything in their power to separate themselves from their neighbors to the north (Russia). I could go on a political rant about how our current president is hanging them (and Poland) out to dry by being wishy-washy, but I will spare the interweb with my "howlings at the moon".

This will be my 17th overseas trip for work to either Eastern Europe or Central Asia, and over my previous trips I've picked up some routines that make long-haul travelling a little more manageable both physically and mentally. As I was packing tonight, I started to realize that I do pack a few things that most people wouldn't consider, or at least that I wouldn't have thought about a few years ago, but are now necessities in my book (sometimes from lessons learned the hard way!). Among my rules/procedures that I consider unbreakable include:

- Take two multivitamins on travel days and one for each day you are gone - you never really know what you're eating on the road, and anything you can do to keep some consistency with your immune system and your vitamin intake is crucial to avoid getting sick. Nothing will rock your immune system like a 12 hour plane ride followed by eastern european moonshine and food that you're not used too, so give yourself the best chance to come out healthy.

- Wear Smartwool socks and comfortable shoes on travel days. It will take me 28 hours to get from my house tomorrow to my hotel in Tbilisi on Sunday (if everything is on time), every little bit helps, and don't underestimate how much comfortable feet can contribute to your overall mentality after travelling for 28 hours! Same deal on the way home.

- For every day I'm gone, I bring 2 clif bars or odwalla bars. For breakfast everyday, I have one of these (usually after my morning run). It's also always a possibility that I might be in meetings all day and miss lunch, so these lightweight, high calorie bars can serve as good meal substitutes. Additionally, in many cases, I'm not in control of what or when I'm eating next, and both of these products are things that I'm used to, and I know I get adequate nutrients out of.

- Never, ever travel without some basic pharmaceutical products (tylonol, advil, imodium, etc). Previously, I've only had one instance where I felt I was seriously sick from something I ate, and I've been lucky in that respect compared to some of the horror stories I've heard from co-workers. But still, the lesson learned during that instance (which was in Macedonia), was that there are not too many things that leave you with a more helpless feeling than being sick, dehydrated and unable to eat anything in a foreign country where no one speaks the same language and you don't know how to get help. The tylonol or advil can also come in handy when your customers like vodka as much as mine do!

- Bring an empty water bottle - it's a good idea to bring as much water with you as possible for a long plane ride, but also, when working-out on the road, many hotels have water coolers in their gyms, and not anywhere else, and when you're trying to keep up some type of workout regiment and all of your other time is spent on a roller coaster ride between alcohol and caffeine, it's important to stay as hydrated as possible.

- Don't be bashful about listening to songs that remind you of home repeatedly. Especially when on the road alone, where you're completely dependent on others who barely speak your language, it's easy to get frustrated and/or homesick (and there's nothing wrong with that), but it's very important to remember things that are familiar to you occasionally. For me, I usually throw on a little Yonder Mountain String Band or Phish, and I'm mentally back in the saddle!

That's all for now, I'll hopefully post with pictures from Tbilisi next week.

Search for a wedding location and some shooting practice

For the last few days Nancy and I have been checking out a few places in an attempt to try to pick a location for our wedding next year. We haven't made any decisions yet, but Bristol Harbor is the current front runner, mainly because of the view below.

I have been down in this neck of the woods often over the years cycling, but usually I don't enjoy this awesome view of Canandaigua Lake because when you see this view when cycling, it means that you'll be climbing bopple hill within a few minutes, and anyone who's done that on a bike (or in a car) understands that bopple hill is about as steep as it's possible to pave a road.

Today, did a classic roller ski followed by a running and shooting workout at my parents place. They've graciously allowed us to set up a couple targets on their property, so Jason, Frenchy, Chad and I got in some good shooting practice today. Here's a picture of Jason and Chad doing some 1-shot drills.

This week will be filled with some really tough intensity workouts. I'm leaving for Tbilisi, Georgia on Saturday for a week, and will be relegated to the hotel treadmill while on the road, and I realized on my last trip to Georgia that they don't have any treadmills that go faster than a 6 min/mile pace, but it does have an incline though!

Hectic week

After the crash, I took a couple days easy on the training, but since Wednesday have been able to string together a few really quality days of volume training, mostly on roller skis. This week was also especially hectic at work with Thursday taking the cake - went in to work at 7, ran 5 miles on the treadmill at lunch, went back to work until about 430pm, met chad and jason at Mendon Ponds to roller ski, then took three guys from our dealer in Bulgaria to dinner at the Dinosaur BBQ (picture below).

Pictured above are are Scott (who works with me), Yonko, me, Nasko and Nasko. The thing I enjoy most about the opportunity to travel that my job provides is the people I've met along the way. I met Yonko and Nasko #2 the first time I went to Bulgaria three years ago and they are awesome guys and good friends.

On a different topic, the weather in Rochester has been as sporadic as ever, but I'm getting the feeling that winter is just around the corner because we're starting to see folks outside of my core training group out on roller skis!!