My first day running intervals since a week ago Tuesday! Alas, I was a bit worried about how today would go, as after Legs yesterday morning, helping the Maxwell Gang move out of their house, and playing 2 hours of frisbee in the afternoon I was pretty beat last night.
The run ended up going very well, however. Not surprisingly, it was my legs that gave out first this go around. I could feel them aching of exhaustion by the 3 charge up the hill. Very stoked, as I did decrease my recovery time between sets from 3:00 to 2:30, which is pretty cool.
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for finally making an appearance on frisbee day. my goodness, when the sun is shining at North Boulder Park gently basking the Flatirons in a soft afternoon glow, can there possibly be anywhere better to be?
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Life, as they say, can be pretty crazy. So I normally lift with my great mates: Casey and Rollie. We were all set to lift as usual this morning, emailed each other talking some trash last night getting psyched up for our massive leg lift in the morning. As I drifted off to sleep I thought about the mighty amounts of weight I’d be forced to squat the next morning….
And then around 3:15am I get a text from Casey: Can’t Lift in morning. House burned down. In a shocked state I gave him a ring to see what was going on and make sure all was well. Unfortunately, despite Casey’s heroics involving the house’s fire extinguisher and a blazing upstairs, Maxwell House is no more for the time being. Structurally its still intact, but it will need major renovations before anyone can live there again. Strangely enough it was the oldest rental in boulder, guess it was due for an overhaul! Apparently it was a candle in the upstairs rental unit that was the root of the problem.
Best wishes to the tenants of Maxwell House in this difficult period of transition.
Yet another reminder of the fleeting nature of the manifest realm. one day you have a home, one you don’t. Make sure to give your house some love tonight, cuz it might be gone tomorrow.
Good leg workout with Rollie though despite the morning’s craziness. Squats were pretty hard today as my overall energy level is still a bit low, but its definitely recovering.
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a rough outline
consider this a view of the future; a mixture of intentions, desires, goals, and things I’ve already started manifesting.
The Frame: I like life, I really do. I enjoy the hell out of it, and fantastically enough it seems to be getting better with time. When I look ahead to turning 30 in a few years I smile, and when I look ahead to what might be at 40 I really smile, and past that I glow atomically.
i want to make films, lots of them, of all genres and styles. For at least half of the year I want to work intensely on preparing for film projects, lining up all the pieces and locations, working with actors and scripts and being fully engaged in the creative planning process. then I want to spend a month or two shooting, working 12 hour days, pushing myself to the edge, and creating small temporary families with the cast and crew for that project. I want to make movies that make people happy, that show them new perspectives and waken them up to the beauty of this world and all the moments that comprise it. When I’ve attained a moderate degree of success I’d like to give back to the film community and the world. I’d like to recreate a mini studio system that has teachers and students and becomes part of passing the lineage on. I’d also like to create a non-profit that donates equipment and training to communities around the world and teaches them how to tell their own stories.
I want to see the world and travel to every continent. I think travel inherently shifts one’s perspective and is a crucial part of personal growth. I want continue relationships I have with friends in various countries around the world, and make new friends that I haven’t even met yet. Then I want to connect these friends and acquaintances, because when I sit back and imagine where everyone I know will be in a few years it blows me away how much power we’ll all have, and the chances we’ll have to really enact some change in this world.
I want to have a solid practice, one that I live and not just talk about. Strength Training is now part of my life, and always will be. I expect to be getting fitter each year as I grow older, so it’s likely I may very well be in the best shape of my life when I’m 50. And that is pretty exciting. I want to continue consistently meditating on a daily or near daily basis. It’s one that I feel is already leading to benefits and levels of clarity that I might not even realize for years to come. Letting go, dieing, holding on to attachments a little less, how could any practice that leads to such things not be a good thing? I also want to continue working with my coach, Willow, to help deal with the loads of psychological baggage I’ve built up over the years. It’s not always easy, certainly not always fun, but life’s simply to short not to deal with problems. I think I want to start doing some more energetic body work, of what specific variety I’m not yet sure, but I think Tai-Chi, Aikido, Yoga, or Qui Gong would be very good for me and do a lot to round out my physical body practice.
I want to start working with those with developmental disabilities again, maybe adults, maybe kids, I’m not sure. The gifts I was given by those I worked with at the Listen Foundation were simply extraordinary; I was taught so much by those with so little.
I’m pretty sure I want to live in both Colorado and California. Europe would be nice if the opportunity ever presented itself, but if I never get to live outside the US I could be quite happy with my CO/CA combo. I’d like to have a nice small place in mountains right here in boulder, somewhere quiet, beautiful, and that I could really call my own. Complimentary to that I’d like to have something in Northern California, most likely either Santa Cruz or San Francisco. California and Colorado have both been crucial parts in who I’ve become, and I will always love them!
I want to have a beautiful partner that completely embodies the full force of the feminine. Sexy, vibrant, dynamic, emotional, and alive. Sometimes I walk the line of dissociating into the masculine, losing all attachment to the manifest realm and getting forever lost in the emptiness of thought and time in my head. That’s where she comes in: crazy beautiful, completely alive in her body, and so absolutely present in the moment that even just the mere sight of her brings me right back to now, this moment, this body, this world. We’ll connect on a deep level but not be attached, two beings that don’t need each other but whom nonetheless choose each other.
I’m pretty sure I’d like to have kids at some point. I imagine becoming a parent is somewhat akin to an instantaneous ego death. Boom, right then and there ‘I‘ suddenly become a LOT less important. What better way to practice bringing love into the world than having kids? Plus, I just think I’d be a damn good father. Clearly, like any parent I’ll do things that’ll fuck up my child in one way or another, but overall compassion and love are something I’m good at giving, have been told I’m good at giving, and something I’d give to another in the purest of forms as a parent.
I suppose that’s it for now, but I’m pretty stoked. traveling the world, making movies, living in kick ass cities, hanging out with amazing friends, seeing concerts and hiking along with a sexy hot partner doesn’t sound too bad to me. let’s have some fun and do this.
there will be ups and downs, good times and bad times. learning to love the process, living itself, is the key i think. at that point it doesn’t really matter what happens.
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Soooooooo, I took some time off. I hurt my back a bit doing squats Thursday, so rather than push myself too hard I took a step back. Thursday I spent all day preparing for my Memorial Day Weekend trip to CA, so I didn’t run or lift. My 30 days of sobriety ended this weekend, and with authority! The holy temple of my body was desecrated a bit this weekend…..boozing, ice cream, shitty food, and many a good times!
But, back to training. One of the beautiful things about routine as practice is that nothing ever really changes in a single session, but each individual session is the road to change itself…
It’s important for me to jump right back into things after taking a break, and as I’m entering week 6 of 12 I wanted to make sure I didn’t lose any of momentum I’ve been building and wanted to jump right back in. Thus, despite incredible exhaustion from this weekend and not getting home and into bed until midnight, I dragged my ass out of bed to do some chest/triceps with casey this morning. Not surprisingly, it was a HARD workout, and I was not lifting my best. One of the crazy side effects of being healthy is how sensitive my body has become to anything that’s outside my normal eating habits or sleeping routine. After a weekend of shitty eating, lots of boozing, and not much sleep I could literally feel the weekend reflected in how many sets I could do. Nonetheless, it felt great to lift, was nice to catch up with my man Casey, and a great kick start to another beautiful day in boulder.
Gonna sleep like a rock tonight. But damn, it was all worth it. Mike, and Julia, that was a rad f’in wedding.
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Thank you to DAN SANDERS and KEVIN KING for their lovely comments on training log: day 23. BTW, Dan Sanders likes to douche himself.
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Another wednesday another leg day. Felt pretty good this morning, not the most intense workout ever, but had a decent energy level and felt a bit more solid doing my squats than I have in a long while. The sauna was great today, seemed to really sweat out a lot of built up energy. My 25 minute sit was also great today, my posture was as good as its been in ages and felt rock solid and pain free. Frisbee tonight, keep it rockin’!
Very much looking forward to my 10:30 Full Strength….mmmmmmm……..fuel
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As many may know, Jim Henson is definitely one of my artistic role models. I’ve always been a big fan of the Muppets and their many incarnations, but I also totally dig some of his more experimental stuff….
one of which can be viewed here; killer
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Running this morning went fairly well. I started off feeling good, reaaaaal good. My first 3 intervals were pretty solid, and I’m definitely feeling that within a week or two I should be able to up the ante a bit by bridging at least one of two of my interval charges with jogging instead of walking.
By sets 4 & 5 I was pretty worn out, and definitely feeling a bit tired. Also, though the meds I’m on have definitely helped my sinuses, I’m still coughing up a lung everytime I run and getting really congested, so still some work to be done there.
I’ve been trying one or two new daily practices in my life, one of which involves me starting to really get into ending my showers with cold water. It’s such an intense in the body experience to go from warm and comfortable, to cold and shivery! It’s an amazing experience to practice relaxing into the cold water, not running from it. And boom, suddenly your body has equalized and all is fine.
Good stuff.
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And week 5 starts with a massive resounding……..mehhhhh. I lifted chest alone today, and wow what a difference that made! Energy felt low going into the gym, and I never really got into the zone and built up any real pump. Chest is a very difficult area to exercise without a spotter, and as I’m really relying on going to failure in that area in particular it made it just didn’t work out too well alone. For safety I went down in weight and made myself do more reps, but overall it just didn’t have the same impact my normal lifting sessions have.
Still learning a lot though, and at least I went through the motions…
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I haven’t lifted today! Dun Dun Dun! Was hired to help Stuart shoot a short yesterday, and because of rain and generally undesirable conditions, we decided to shoot at golden hour this sunrise. Sooo, my biceps haven’t gotten their love this week quite yet, but they will either tonight or early tomorrow morning, I promise!
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Today felt pretty good running. Things started off feeling really creaky, but I did notice that my recovery time has definitely improved to a some degree or another over the last 3 weeks. The sprint up the hill is still killer hard, but I’m finding myself catching my breathe faster afterwards. Next week I might try to up the ante a bit by going straight through 2 intervals, ie right now I still pretty much walk my way down the hill. Next week I think I’ll push myself to keep jogging, albeit at a much reduced paced, in between two hill sprints.
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Legs this morning, and I felt like I had more control over my squats than I’ve had in a long time. I think my body is really adjusting to all the weight increases of the last month.
I feel like I’ve really dialed in my nutrition, in no small part because of my twice daily full strength shakes, which really are the best meal for after lifting I’ve ever had. They’re also wicked good cures for hangovers!
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It rained last night, and was pretty cloudy when I woke up. I didn’t really want to run, but dragged my ass out of bed anyway. My warmup was a bit rough, it just felt like my system wasn’t running very efficiently. Out of my 6 intervals today, number 2 and number 6 were clearly in a league of their own. Number 2 I went balls out sprinting on, taking off fast on the steepest part of the hill causing me to be almost completely out of steam by the top. Number 6 I did a little different in that I started off a bit slower, then revved up as I was hitting the peak of the hill. Both were equally challenging!
In other news, I’m getting ready to go suit shopping this weekend! Haven’t had a suit since high school, and need to look sharp for the wedding I’m going to MM day weekend.
Should be fun!
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and weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee’re off! Week 4 begins with a solid bang. Today felt like the first time I’ve ever actually done a bench press properly in my entire life. While I certainly am not a muscle bound all star, and really wasn’t doing all that much weight, it was a highlight for me. Still doing the same amount as the last few weeks, but today I felt in control of the weight like I’ve never before. My reps were fairly slow, balanced, controlled, and intense. The rest of the workout went great and was followed up by a great 15 minutes in the sauna and catching up with Mr. Capshaw about our respective weekends.
I am eagerly awaiting 10:30 when I can devour a chocolate full strength. Live Strong!
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went and saw an ENT friday, the first thing we’re going to try to get my respiratory system healthy again is 10 days of antibiotics, sudafed, a short dose of afrin, followed by some nasal steroids. If that doesn’t work, when I go back in 3 weeks we’re gonna do a catscan of my sinuses to try and figure out what’s causing all the problems.
Also, turns out I have extremely large tonsils, which may be contributing to the problem. You know what they say about guys with large tonsils…
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BICEPS. And a little back today. Great workout with my main man Rollie, and a solid end to week 3. Theoretically I should have lost about 2lbs of body fat by now, a little scared to find out! But, since I’m not doing the body comp test until July, we’ll just have to wait and see. The thing about setting a hard quantifiable goal is that it’ll feel incredible if I succeed, but also makes me a little nervous about failing! Though regardless of whether I hit my actual numbers, the satisfaction of sticking to this routine and feeling healthy is just about enough of a payoff to make the whole practice worth it.
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It was an absolutely beautiful morning in Boulder today. By 6:30 when I hit the streets the sun was already shining and radiating the perfect amount of warmth. Interval training on the hill went fairly well, I chugged up and down the slope a good six times in a perfect timing of 30 minutes.
Went home and had a delicious egg/tofurkey-sausage-link scramble, then headed off to the office for my morning meditation. Was joined by Steve today, and we had a great full on hour sit. After lifting legs yesterday morning, Frisbee last night, and running this morning, by poor legs were hurting something fierce by 30 minutes into the sit. I survived though, and like everything else the pain passed…
Looks like its going to be high 70s / low 80s the rest of the week/weekend here in Boulder. Hot damn I’m excited for summer!
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seriously, how could anyone still possibly use hotmail or yahoo? they’ve both rolled out new versions in the last month, and they’re both horribly bloated and just trying to emulate what a desktop client like outlook was doing in the 90s. Gmail, how I love you.
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Shawn Phillips F.I.T. method refers to Focus Intensity Training. It’s a style of weightlifting that incorporates some meditative techniques to help align one’s mind with their body. I really like it and think it’s a simple but extremely powerful method of training.
Today I did the training, but failed to bring the Focus and the Intensity to our leg workout. As a group we were all a bit off, which isn’t an excuse but certainly contributed to my semi lacklustre leg workout. So I’m setting the intention that next week’s leg workout will be the best one ever!
More generally, I’m feeling pretty good overall, and have become completely addicted to my Full Strength shakes. They’re the best meal replacement/protein shakes I’ve ever had, don’t make me gag, and passed the ultimate test when I mixed vanilla with Lukewarm water last month at LAX. I was able to drink the entire thing!
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This morning was more hill jogging, which I find myself far more adverse to than lifting. Likely because I do it alone, and thus it takes 100% internal motivation, I find its harder to get out each morning. There was a nice chill breeze this morning that made it even tougher, though once I got warmed up the wind no longer registered.
My first three charges up the hill were pretty intense, with #2 in particular being the closest to an all out sprint. By 5 & 6 I was chugging along at a noticeably slower pace.
As always I got really congested fairly quickly, and found myself coughing quite a bit. The whole not being able to breathe thing has gotten really old, so I’ve scheduled an appointment with an ENT for Friday, assuming my cobra coverage will back date (I’m 99% sure it will). It’ll be interesting to see when this doctor recommends, though in any case I just hope it starts working faaaaast.
I had a fairly decent 55 minute meditation this morning, mostly got lost in random wandering thoughts but had a few nice moments of stillness. The 55 minute sits are definitely my edge right now, my body starts freaking out after a half hour or so and just wants to jump up and to check email or something. feels good though, slowly training myself to actually appreciate having nothing to do but ‘be’.
On a sadder note I saw Spiderman 3 this weekend and was severely disappointed. Sam Raimi is like Google in that because I hold such high expectations of them/him, anything less than the very best is an extreme let down. So was the case with SP3, which was barely cohesive and by far the worst in the trilogy. I’d at least like to believe it was because of some producer interference but that might just be a pipe dream.
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I’ve been thinking a lot about getting older as of late, and find myself more and more looking forward to the process. I’ve finally integrated some solid practices into my life, and already feel them softening me up a bit. Additionally, while life doesn’t seem to be getting any easier with age, dealing with it does seem to be. Things still hurt just as bad as they used to, but it feels like I’m able to let go of that pain just a little easier than before. It’s a shift of frame really, just holding things a bit more lightly, with just a bit less attachment. I think it might get easier with age because one has a lot more experiences to compare each moment to. It’s like when you’re a kid and one summer feels like an entire lifetime, whereas with age one summer feels like a blink of an eye. Relatively speaking, each summer has more context than the last so it doesn’t seem quite as epic as it used to. In film/video/editing terms, it’s liking zooming out on an editing time line, every clip or event still occupies the same amount of time, but takes up less space to make room for everything else.
Similarly, as I age I find that most pain I feel, whether emotional, spiritual, or physical, is one that I’ve experienced in some degree or another in the past, which makes it a lot easier to not make a big deal about it. Wounds just start taking up less space on the time line as the years go by.
I think the best way to make sense of my above incoherent ramblings might be for me to try to express them in another way, and one I know very well: Pearl Jam. So check it out, I think these two songs are very similar, and about very similar experiences. However, I think there’s one key difference between them that ends up making them so remarkably different. Call it wisdom, call it age, call it softness, call it non-attachment, call it whatever you want really. In any case, I’m looking forward to more of it. Cheers.
Pearl Jam - Ten - Black - 1991
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Pearl Jam - Pearl Jam - Come Back - 2006
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Chest day. didn’t do much physical activity this weekend so my body was nice and rested up. Had a hard time generating enough intensity today, but managed to do a few drop sets that will hopefully compensate.
feeling good at the start of week three. very tired of always being congested and coughing though, looking forward to seeing an ENT.
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Week 2 has been completed. Had a good lift with partner #2 this morning, and we tore right into back and biceps. I wanted to change things up a bit by hitting back first, as usually I’m so exhausted by the time we get their my intensity isn’t quite as high as it should be.
My whole body aches of soreness right now after a strong week of lifting, two days of intervals, and some funtastic Frisbee on Friday. I’m going to take it fairly easy this weekend, and other than a possible hike just chill back and let my body rebuild.
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Thursday’s are one of my running days, and this morning like Tuesday it was really hard to get out of bed. My body was very sore and very tired, yesterday’s great leg workout combined with yesterday evenings Frisbee session wore my body out. However, once I got going and my body loosened up a little, the run went pretty well over all. I was able to do 6 intervals today, one more than I usually do and with a few briefer breaks in between. Felt pretty good about it really!
One of the tough things about a fitness program is not seeing results right away. A battle I’m facing everyday is my inner self yelling “i want results now, i don’t want to wait!”, when I know right and well its going to take time. With any practice I suppose, and particularly with physical practices, I think the key is teaching oneself to love the process, not the results. I’m trying to re-frame things and learn to love the actual routine of getting fit, so that whether or not I hit all my goals it won’t matter and I’ll continue exercising anyway. Love the journey, not the destination right? I think if I learn to focus and love the process and habits of exercising, the changes will almost feel like surprises and come out of nowhere as extra bonuses.
We’ll see!
This morning’s sitting meditation was a bit tougher than usual. Tues/Thursday’s I’m doing a 55 minute sit, which was a struggle this morning because of how sore my legs were and how tired my body was overall. I slightly dozed off a few times in my sitting period this morning, but I guess that’s all part of the game!
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LEG DAY!! Training Partner #1 happened to oversleep a bit as he forgot to set his alarm clock last night. 15 minutes after our usual departure I called him and said I’d meet him there. Upon arriving I found training partner #2 already hard at work at the squat rack, good for him!
Despite our late start the workout went fairly well. I’m not quite jiving with our stiff legged dead lifts yet, but that will come in time. The sauna felt quite goood today, and after tonight’s game of Frisbee I imagine my legs will be mighty sore for tomorrow mornings run.
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It was harrrrrrrrd getting up this morning. I stayed up a little later than I should have as I had a hard time falling asleep last night. Nonetheless I managed to wrangle myself out of bed and get up for my jog. My body felt tired, but I sauntered over to my hill and managed to whip out 5 intervals up the hill of doom. Lots of coughing (hopefully some COBRA insurance will help me take care of the whole post nasal drip soon) and towards the end I actually got a bloody nose (boulder is DRYYYY). But overall I think it was a moderate success, it’ll definitely be interesting to see how much my running capacity has improved in 12 weeks from doing just intervals.
Also, if you haven’t check it out yet, watch this incredible interview between Bill Moyers and Jon Stewart. I hope we start seeing more intelligent people like this in the media and political world in the coming years.
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