No pain, no gain is the old saying as far as athletic training goes. Hurt after your workout? Yeah. It comes with the territory. But there are different kinds of pain, and ignoring pain is not the best idea. Much of the pain associated with working out is due to the fibers in the muscles […]
If there’s a golden triangle of qualities of an athlete–speed, strength, and endurance–I’m certainly lacking in the first. I’m a horribly slow runner. My times in the Great Aloha Run are about 13 minutes a mile–I’m the opposite of a sprinter there. While I don’t like running (okay, I hate running), I also know that […]
The truth is that a few days off not only never hurt anyone, they actually might help. After not feeling like I could get my rides done last week and taking a few rides off, today I was determined to get 45 miles in. It’s the longest ride I’ve done yet this season–although I have […]
I realized I said I’d talk about food this time around, but I thought this was more important right now. I’m burnt. Not burned out–what sometimes happens to athletes, students, workers of all types when they experience long term exhaustion and diminished interest–but sunburned from multiple rides and runs this past weekend. However, there’s no […]
I’m not sure I’d say I love–or even like–working out. I do it, largely because I have to in order to get and stay healthy. To some extent, there’s a social theme to working out when I go swimming with my friends on Thursday nights. But aside from that, I do it because I believe […]
You know how I hate running? I don’t hate swimming, but as difficult of a time as I have running, I’m far worse swimming. It reminds me of the times I’ve spent as a beginning cyclist and a beginning runner, when I couldn’t figure out gearing or when the best time to shift was, or […]
The power of goals is in keeping your vision and managing your behavior in large ways and small to meet that vision. Having goals in and of themselves is not going to assure someone reaches them, but if there are no goals then the chances of them reaching one are zero or less. When I […]
Some people wonder why I largely exercise alone. It’s not (just) because I’m antisocial; there are other reasons as well. First off, getting someone to meet me at 5 am on a weekend morning at my house in a somewhat rural area of the island for a three to five hour bike ride tends not […]
Motivation is among the most important things that anyone dealing with a health condition–let alone someone who is training for an athletic event or just for weight loss–has to deal with. What motivates me? My primary motivation is to outlive my mother, and also to see my nine year old niece grow up. After my […]
I work two jobs–your typical full time Monday through Friday 8:30-5 deal (with the twist of working weekends and holidays four to five times a year) plus a class I teach on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. To fit in workouts, I need to do a lot of them in the mornings–at least two bike rides […]