The Transition

I have only done one triathlon.  Ever.  8 years ago.  I don't regularly brag about that accomplishment.  Being uncomfortable in the water, I found the most unintimidating tri I could find.  It was a short distance triathlon with a pool swim.  At least that way I knew  I probably wouldn't drown.  It was called the "Fit at 50 and Beyond Tri" sponsored by AARP.  I won my age group- under 50.

I had no idea what I was doing.  When I emerged from the pool, practically last, I ran to the transition area, mounted my bike and made my way to the course.  I got yelled at because apparently you're not allowed to ride your bike until you exit the transition area.  I was supposed to run my bike.  Or walk it.  I always thought bikes were for riding.  What did I know.  I couldn't even get the transition right.

Lucky for me I was pretty strong on the bike.  I passed the elderly participants with no holds barred.  "Take that, Gramps!" I shouted.  Silently.  In my head.  As I completed the bike portion of the race, this time I was experienced enough to know that I ought to hop off my bike before entering the tranisition area.  As soon as I found my spot and rested my bike down, I raced to get my shoes on but once again I faltered.  I wrestled with my shoes which were already tied.  I figured I'd save a few second by not untying them, but they were too tight to slip right on and I was too stubborn to untie them.  

Transitions are hard.

This IronJew finds himself, once again, in a transition, and just like at the "Fit at 50 and Beyond", this transition is proving to be far more difficult than I anticipated.  I have been the Rabbi at Temple Beth El in Rochester for 9 years.  Rochester has been my home.  It is the birthplace of my children.  I have experienced so much of life in Rochester that I can hardly remember life before Rochester.  Rachel and I have decided that it is time for our family to move on.  So for the next 5 months we will be in this transition area, and once again I find myself faltering.  I'm hopping on my bike before I should and I can't manage to slip on my shoes.  I don't know what awaits us, which is both exciting and scary.  And I am already mourning our loss.  Though I believe this is the best decision for our family, we are going to part, geographically, with our congregation, our community, our friends, our home.  

If "Fit at 50 and Beyond" can be instructive in any way, it can teach me that, though transitions are hard, once you get through, you do, indeed, keep moving forward.  There is an open road awaiting  us, and while I may not be pursuing the finishline in this case, I can only hope that, like my current Ironman training, my life has prepared me for the next leg.

What I have learned from athletes who have completed an Ironman is that, in a profound way, their lives are forever changed by the experience.  They are forever Ironmen, and the Ironman is forever a part of them.  So will Rochester forever be a part of us.

Self Realization

Sometimes we criticize in others what we dislike about ourselves.  My father has a disturbingly irritating sense of humor.  I have far too many memories of forcing out a laugh at restaurants just so waitresses knew that he was joking when he did something embarrassing, like asking if the restaurant would accept his Mobil gas credit card.  It wasn't until I finally became a father myself that I realized that I am my father.  We look the same.  We have similar mannarisms.  And we have the same obnoxious sense of humor, though I am much funnier.  We are both persistently annoying and we both intentionally push buttons.  Alas, my youngest daughter seems to have inherited the gene.  It's living proof of God's sense of humor.

Let me reference my recent post: "That Guy."  "That Guy" is the title reserved for the person I inevitably see doing something stupid under particularly difficult conditions.  For instance, "That Guy" goes running when it's 8 degree, wearing shorts.  When I see "That Guy," I shake my head and roll my eyes.  After posting "That Guy," my loving sister posted a response on Facebook, stating, simply, "I think you are that guy."  To her sarcasm I replied, characteristically, "You only wish you were more like me."

I went on a 6-mile run early Friday morning.  I hit the road at 5:00 which, for some people, seems crazy enough.  What made Friday's run particularly memorable, however, was not the hour.  5:00AM has become a pretty standard time for my workouts these days.  Instead, it was the weather that stood out.  The temperature was barely in the double digits and the windchill was hovering near zero, if not dipping somewhere below.  In the middle of January, Rochester, New York was experiencing, at least 6 weeks late, its first real taste of winter.  By the end of the day, the storm dumped about 6 inches of snow on our city which, for western New York, was a modest amount of snow.  But that snow came amidst blizzard conditions.  Running in an early morning gentle snowfall is peaceful and quiet.  Being pelted by snow blowing in my eyes at 40+ MPH was masochistic.  I fought to keep my body moving against the overpowering winds that fought my every stride.  But worse, my face burned from power at which the weather whipped my cheeks.  I wore glasses to protect my eyes, but before long they fogged up and froze.  Honestly, I probably would have been able to see better if I kept them on.  I imagine I looked like a complete fool as I ran with one eye closed and a hand shielding the other.

I didn't stick to the modest pace that Coach Dan scheduled for the morning's run.  I rushed to get through my workout, telling myself all along the way  that the run was building character and tenacity that would help get me to the finish line in Madison next fall.

I got home, peeled off my frozen layers, stuck my head in the microwave to melt the snow from eyelashes and thawed my eyeballs over a steaming tea kettle.  I jumped in the shower and the warm water felt 30 degrees warmer against my frozen flesh.  It took a good 20 minutes before my blurred vision gave way to clarity, at which point it suddenly occurred to me...I am "That Guy."  

I hate it when my sister's commentary about me is right!  But I still insist that she wants to be more like me...

Where I've Been... Where Am I Going?

Just for fun, I thought I'd share some of the more memorable runs I did while in Israel recently. Running through Jerusalem's Old City and then through the Negev Desert were very different experiences, but each equally powerful in their own unique way.

Here are maps recorded by my Garmin GPS running watch of where I've been:





How do I top these experiences? Where am I going from here? Only time will tell. If you have any good ideas, let me know! Just keep one thing in mind. At least for the short term, anywhere I go has to be close to home!

Going Nowhere Fast

I firmly believe training for the Ironman, like training for so many difficult challenges, is just as much about preparing the mind as it is about preparing the body.  I've ridden many long rides over the years.  I can go on and on for endless hours down lonely roads and never feel bored, or regretful, or even unwelcomingly lonely for that matter.  Perch me upon my bike set upon my indoor trainer and suddenly I find myself facing a whole new challenge.  There is no hill climbing indoors.  That might seem like not such a bad thing to some of you, but I have always welcomed the challenge of the heavenward ascent.  I also happen to be built like a mountain goat and the hills are my greatest strength out on the road.  So I certainly miss that while riding indoors.  But without hills, or stop signs, traffic lights or intersections for that matter, I spend the entirety of the ride seated.  I may sing the praises of a particular bicycle saddle's comfort when riding outdoors, but plop my on my bike for a three hour training ride indoors and I may as well be sitting on a 2x4.  There is also no coasting indoors.  So every workout is a constant grind.  I recently read an article which suggested that, on account on this latter truth, a cyclist riding indoors can cut a workout down by 20%  and derive the same benefit he would on a longer ride outside.

But for me, what is most difficult is the absence of distraction.  Riding outside I get lost in the world around me.  I stay alert to passing traffic.  I see, I feel, I smell the seasons.  I hear the birds.  I dance with the wind.  I push myself and I hurt outdoors, but I just don't notice it quite as much as I do indoors.  I have my bike set up in front of a television and I watch mostly the worst of pop culture.  Strangely, I find it hard to focus on any movie or television show flashing before me.  But the images do provide a distraction.  Given that, when I teach my indoor cycling classes at Cycledelic, I often try to give students something to look at, be it a visual profile of the workout, or some sort of film that offers fantastic images of, well, whatever.

As I'm working to develop an enormous endurance capacity capable of bringing me to the finishline in Madison, many of my miles this time of year are ridden at a relatively modest effort and Coach Dan always demands that I keep my heartrate within a specific range, cautioning me not to allow my heart to rise above a certain BPM, lest I overdo it and hinder my recovery.  Today, however, Coach Dan's prescribed a 90 minute workout including 50 minutes at a specific and  difficult range of effort with no HR cap.  In other words, even if my heartrate peaked above the designated limit, I was to keep at it.  Without asking, I assumed the change in the schedule was a means of compensating for having taken a 2 week break from the bike when I was travelling in Israel.  It's pretty amazing to think that just two weeks off the bike can have a recognizable impact on fitness and my heartrate most certaintly rose above the usual limit.  

50 minutes is a long time when you're suffering.  I was pedaling hard.  I was sweating like a pig.  My legs and lungs were burning.  And still, I was going nowhere, fast.  And that may be why I found it so difficult.  When we work hard at whatever we do, we hope to see some measurable success, some indication that we have accomplished something, that we have gone somewhere.  I guess then, maybe today's proof was the enormous appetite I worked up after losing 3 lbs. in sweat.  

The gift: license to eat whatever the hell I wanted today.

The ultimate payback: I am now 4 lbs. heavier than I was after my workout.  

I guess it's back to work tomorrow!

"That Guy"

I saw that guy yesterday morning.  You know who I'm talking about.  "That guy."  The one who makes you shake your head in disbelief.  I saw him during my early morning run.  Having just returned from Israel, I wasn't yet prepared for the frigid temperatures that met me as I stepped off the plane in Rochester.  When I checked the weather before my run, weatherchannel.com said that it was 10 degrees and that it felt like just 1.  I wonder, does it ever actually feel like 10 degrees?  What does 1 feel like? 

So I peeled on the tight layers that are meant to keep my body warm when the mercury drops.  I still haven't found a pair of gloves warm enough for my hands.  I've tried 3 or 4 already this season.  No luck.  I don't think more than a square inch or two of flesh was exposed to the cold air when I set out yesterday.  Though, when my glasses fogged up and froze, my eyeballs would become the first offering I reluctantly made to the winter demons.

It was just after I removed my glasses that I saw "that guy."  I know I saw him because my view was no longer obstructed.  And I've seen him countless times before.  So I recognized him.  His defining characteristic changes depending on the conditions.  Yesterday, in 10 degrees which felt like 1, "that guy" was wearing shorts.  I actually rolled my frozen eye balls and shook my head.  Now, I acknowledge that I don't have a whole lot of body fat to keep me warm.  Sometimes, like yesterday, or each time I jump into the pool and burn half of my workout's calories just by shivering my body to warmth, I wish I had a bit more.  So maybe I feel colder than some other people do, but yesterday most certainly was not shorts weather, and I don't believe that, even while exerting himself on his morning run, "that guy" was warm.

I've spoken about "that guy" long enough that when I mention him to Rachel, he needs no explanation.  She's seen him.  When I returned home from my run, I told her that I saw him.  "Amazing," she said.  "Today?!  He's crazy!"

I saw that guy on one of my last nights in Israel.  During our several night stay in the Negev Desert, when were scheduled to have dinner at a Bedouin tent.  It was an authentic experiences with all the trimming prepared in a kosher kitchen at a nearby hotel.  Just the way the Bedouin's eat.  On a dark desert road in the middle of the Ramon Crater, our fearless bus driver, Eli took a left turn down something that hardly resembled a road.  Curving left and right for more than 20 minutes and still seeing no signs of life, my family started to wonder if we were lost or being brought to our execution.  When, finally, we saw a glimmer of light ahead, we breathed a collective sigh of relief and sooner there after we ate.

The ride home was less anxious, but somewhere along this long, unpaved desert "road," the bus came across a man in the distance who looked, somehow, familiar.  As we approached, I recognized him as "that guy".  That guy was on a run along this pitch black road in the unforgiving desert among the hyenas and other unfriendlies.  Yes, he was wearing his shorts, though it certainly wasn't 10 degrees that felt like 1.  What distinguished "that guy" this time was the absence of any sort of light guiding his way.  In fact, he almost seemed fearful of light.  When the bus rounded the bend and shined its high beams upon him, he curled up and retracted as if he were a vampire in sunlight.  The sky was filled with stars, but there was no moonlight to brighten up the way.  Eli, the fearless bus driver shook his head, said something under his breath in Hebrew, and then turned off the bus lights to see just how dark it was outside.  Close your eyes and you wouldn't see a whole lot less than we saw outside the windshield with the lights shut off.

"That guy" is omnipresent.  He is everywhere.  He came with me to Israel and returned with me back to Rochester.  He makes me shake my head and wonder, "what is he thinking?"  And then I realize that he's not.  How could he possibly be?

Have you seen "that guy"?  If so, email me and share the context in which you crossed paths with him.  Better yet, are you "that guy," or even "that girl"?  If so, email me and let me in on your secret.  Tell me just what your thinking when you decide to go outside in shorts when it feels like 1 degree, or trek through the pitch black wilderness without any light to guide your way.  mfield75@gmail.com. 

I went running this morning.  It was just 6 degrees, but it felt like 6 below.  I thought it was cold yesterday.  I was wrong.  Maybe that guy isn't so crazy after all...