Infecting the Family: Schmeis35for35 is Contagious!

Growing up, I wanted to win everything.  Actually, I wanted to dominate everything.  I wanted to win, rub it in your face, and then do it all over again.  I’m really not sure where this came from as I never really considered my family to be terribly competitive.  My parents and older brother were generally very reserved.  Sure, my dad might get into a good game of Scrabble, but he certainly wasn’t going to get into a heated argument on the basketball court if he thought the score wasn’t right.  On the other hand, I would fight to the death if I felt I was being cheated out of a point.  Here are some quick memories of my family’s competitive spirit (or lack thereof) from my childhood:

• My brother preferred collecting insects over playing sports as a kid.  No, that’s not a typo…he really enjoyed collecting and identifying random insects.  He was probably the only person in the world when assigned to complete an insect collection for Science class already had about 47 of them to choose from.

•  The first day my mom and I learned to ski, we saw 3 year olds gracefully glide down the slopes while we struggled to stay on our feet.  My mom wanted to quit as she thought she could never be as good as a 3 year old.  I wanted to head to the top of the mountain as I thought there is no way a 3 year old should be better than me.

• While most parents would yell and scream at high school basketball games, my dad would remain calm at all times.  If there was an obvious missed call at the end of a game, my dad would say logically “the referee was closer to the play than me and therefore was probably right.”  A rational response, maybe, but not exactly the typical response of a killer instinct.

I could also talk about my wife who is extremely driven, but very laid back and generally not looking to compete at most things.  I often think Sue gets more joy out of seeing me win than she gets out of winning herself.  It’s a very admirable quality but one I definitely do not possess.

As you can see, my family doesn’t have a history of fierce competitiveness.   Over the last few months though, I’ve noticed a general shift in their fire with an inflection point being reached this past weekend.  Let’s take a look at what happened:

My brother and mom ran the 13.1 mile half marathon in Carmel, Indiana.  My dad was busy competing with his volleyball team in the Ohio Senior Olympics.  Sue, who couldn’t swim a year ago, spent hours improving her stroke by taking an all-day triathlon swimming clinic.  As recently as a year ago, I wouldn’t have imagined any of those things happening and now they all took place in 1 weekend!

It’s really crazy to think how far the family has come in the competition department…a transformation from just going through the motions to completing impressive feats.  What’s the single biggest factor?  I think it’s having clearly defined goals. 

After I started Schmeis35for35, my parents decided they needed to have some athletic goals as well.  Sue jumped on board with some goals of her own.  My brother already had a few but has definitely ramped up the intensity.  Can goals alone be the reason for the sudden shift in competitive fire? 

Let’s start with my brother.  As I mentioned in my last post, he finished 24^th out of over 800 in his first Triathlon of the year and then did a Half Marathon this past weekend.  Does this look like someone who used to only enjoy collecting insects?  

Jeez.  Amazing what happens when you have goals.  He wants to make it to the Xterra National Championships (a Triathlon with lake swim, mountain bike, and trail run that Lance Armstrong competes in) and is working ridiculously hard to get there.  It would be a rare opportunity to see exactly how he stacks up against the best.  Competing against the best is something I never thought he would care about but he is now obsessed with.

How about my mom?  She has walked consistently for the last 20 years but never had any goals or targets related to walking.  After seeing my list of 35for35, she came up with some of her own, including completing a half marathon in less than 3 hours.  For Christmas, Sue and I got her a GPS watch so she could tell how far she walks and at what speeds.  Suddenly, she went from walking without a purpose to trying to beat her personal records.  Her pace has been dropping from ~20 minutes per mile when she started to 19, 18, 17, etc.  Completing the 13.1 mile Half Marathon in 3 hours is equivalent to doing 13.7 minutes per mile which was a lofty goal given where she started.

This past Saturday she had her first chance to reach the goal.  It was a chilly morning and she was incredibly nervous for her first race.  Like any race rookie, she was concerned she hadn’t trained enough, wasn’t going to be able to finish, etc.  My brother ran along her side to help with pacing and keep her confidence high.  Can you believe she came in at 2 hours and 49 minutes?!?  That’s 11 minutes faster than her already lofty goal.  Check out a few pics:

I’m incredibly proud of her and how far she’s come.  Later that day I asked her if she was ready for a full marathon and she seemed iffy.  The next day though, she was telling people she thinks she can do a full marathon in 5 hours!  I love it…getting cocky on us!  Glad to see I’m rubbing off on you, Mom.  I think it all started with having goals.

How about my Dad?  Well, his team finished 1^st out of 6 teams in the volleyball portion of the Ohio Senior Olympics.  He has a written goal of finishing in the top 3 at the Senior National Volleyball tournament in Utah later this year.  He’s played volleyball forever, but I can’t remember him ever articulating clear goals related to volleyball until recently.  It’s really awesome to see.

To be fair, Schmeis35for35 can’t take all the credit here but the concept of setting goals clearly still applies.  I have an Uncle in his 60s who has been doing pushups every morning since 1986.  He has missed only 2 days in 26 years of doing this…that’s nearly 10,000 days and he’s only missed 2!  You don’t pull that off without some serious competitive juices and sticking to your goals.  To this day, he can still do 90 push-ups in a row…that’s ridiculously impressive for a 21 year old, let alone someone in his 60s.

I could also point to my grandparents.  They are walking machines.  At ages 90 and 87, they still walk consistently to this day.  My grandmother recently broke her pelvis in a fall and it was questionable initially whether she would walk again.  Well, don’t tell her that because she pushed her way through the pain and built her strength back. 

When she was in the hospital last year, the doctor said she couldn’t leave until completing a specific walking route in the hospital.  When I first talked to her, I said I was only going to call her home phone on Christmas Day to say Merry Christmas…I refused to call the hospital.  She could either be out of the hospital and home by Christmas Day or miss my call.  Well, my Grandma wasn’t going to miss my phone call so she worked extra hard and accomplished her goal and made it out of the hospital before Christmas!

Goals matter…that’s the message.  No matter what your age and in what aspect of life you want something, they matter. 

While my family was busy with their goals this past weekend, I was playing golf trying to achieve some of my golfing goals.  I stayed in Pinehurt, NC (home of a few US Open golf tournaments) at a little bed and breakfast with my friends.  This sign was at check in:

My friends and I loved that sign.  The hotel was filled with people who looked “old” in the traditional sense but had life coming out of their ears.  They were chipping golf balls in the hotel lobby, laughing, drinking, and telling stories in the bar, etc.  They looked like they still had a lot they wanted to accomplish in life.

It truly is amazing what the power of written goals combined with support from friends/family and a competitive spark can do for you both mentally and physically.  Goals can make an old person young and a weak person strong. 

Having goals makes it clear how to move forward.  If you’re not moving forward, I guess that means you’re going backwards or standing still…and that’s not a good way to win a race.

Schmeis

Mixing Pleasure With Pain: My First Triathlon of 2012

Is it better to lose the championship game by 1 point in heartbreaking fashion or lose by 30 where you never really had a chance?  Would you rather have dated the hottest girl and have her dump you or never had the opportunity to be with her at all?  Should I be happy about finishing in the top 17% of a Sprint Triathlon this past weekend or upset that I barely missed finishing top 15% and achieving another one of my 35 goals?

That last question has been on my mind since crossing the finish line and seeing the results last Sunday.  When I did the first Triathlon of my life a few short months ago, I didn’t even finish in the top 50%.  On Sunday, I finished 24^th out of 136 (top 17%) in my first Sprint Tri of 2012.  I was just 4 places away from one of my 35for35 goals of top 15%.  It was a significant improvement for sure but I didn’t meet my goal. 

To finish in the top 15%, I needed to finish 20^th or better out of the 136 people who competed.  20^th place (top 14.7% for the Math majors reading) came in at 1 hour, 2 minutes, and 24 seconds.  I finished a measly 18 seconds behind.  That means I needed to go 0.5% faster and I would have placed top 15%.  If that wasn’t bad enough, I went the wrong way on the run course which cost me a full minute.  How’d that happen?  Great question.  It was just one issue in a long line of things that screwed me on my time and left me wondering what might have been.  Here’s how it went all went down:

2 days before the race, I was doing some light swimming and I got a shooting pain on the right side of my lower back.  I immediately stopped, got out of the pool, and stretched for a good 20 minutes.  The next morning (1 day before the race), I could barely get out of bed.  For those of you who haven’t noticed, I’m a freaking walking injury these days.  I’ve had knee problems since starting Schmeis35for35 and now my back gave out on a light swim…not exactly a good sign. 

I spent the day icing and attempting to set the world record for number of Advil taken in a 24 hour period without overdosing.  That combination worked well enough that I got up on race morning and decided to give it a go. 

The race started with a 300 yard swim.  All participants had to submit their 100 yard swim pace in order to be seeded for the start.  Triathlon pool swims are notoriously difficult as people inevitably swim at drastically different speeds which can create logjams.  The seeding is supposed to help because it places you around people who swim close to your pace.  I was seeded 14^th overall so that was my starting position. 

The top seed started at 8:00am and then every 15 seconds another person was released.  At 8:03:30, the starter sent me off.  I definitely didn’t feel great during the swim.  My back never got loose and each stroke didn’t seem to have much power.  I exited the pool thinking my time was very slow.  I looked down at my watch and was shocked when I saw it still said 00:00:00.  I assumed I hadn’t done the swim in 0 seconds, so realized my watch didn’t start for some reason.  I hit start again so I could at least know my time for the rest of the race.

There was a long run from the pool to the transition area where I had my bike set up and ready to rock.  It was about 60 degrees that morning which sounds pleasant until you run out basically naked from the pool and feel the wind hit you.  I threw on my bike shoes and helmet, grabbed my bike, and ran to the mounting line.  As I was getting on my bike, a race volunteer yelled at me that my helmet wasn’t strapped (automatic disqualification if you mount the bike with helmet not fastened).  I tried to snap it with one hand as I was checking my watch again….it still said 00:00:00.  WTF? 

Now I knew something was messed up.  While I was simultaneously trying to snap my helmet and fix my watch, I ended up dropping my bike.  This wasn’t exactly the smoothest swim to bike transition I could have imagined.  After restarting my watch and seeing it still wasn’t working, I decided I didn’t have any more time to waste fixing it and just took off.

Not having my watch may not seem like a big deal but it tells me the distance I’ve gone as well as the time.  I’d never been on this bike course so I had no idea at any point how close I was to the end.  My watch would have told me how many miles I had left which obviously helps for pacing. 

I was so upset with my terrible transition that I went into kill mode on the bike.  I hammered it and was chasing down and picking off people one by one in front of me.  The course was extremely hilly and I found myself to be much stronger on the climbs than others.  Apparently all the work I’ve done with spin classes was paying off.  I ended up passing 6 people and didn’t get passed by anyone. 

After 10 miles of rolling hills, I heard the crowd and music playing around the corner so knew I was coming to the finish of the bike.  I pulled in, threw off my bike shoes and helmet, threw on my running shoes, grabbed my race belt with bib number and off I went on the final leg of the race…a 5k run to the finish.

The first .5 miles of the run I couldn’t feel my legs.  It felt like I was barely moving.  If you haven’t ever done it, try going really hard on a stationary bike at the gym for 30 minutes and then immediately jump off and hop on the treadmill for a few mile run.  If you don’t want to try that, you can just take my word for it…it sucks. 

I had never run the course before but typically tri courses have the turns very clearly marked and volunteers are usually at every turn to help.  Even if the course isn’t marked well and there aren’t volunteers, you can usually see someone in front of you and follow them.  Of course, none of this was true for me when I approached a fork in the road with arrows literally pointed exactly in between both directions.  Awesome.  I looked for volunteers and there were none around.  I looked for other racers in front of me and I couldn’t see any in either direction. 

I ended up taking a wild guess and then I heard a racer behind me yell “other way.”  I quickly turned back and went the other direction.  After about 30 seconds going that way, more racers appeared from behind and they were all yelling that I was going the wrong way.  It turns out, the way I originally chose was correct but the guy behind me was wrong.  In any event, this cost me a full minute of time.  I didn’t know it while I was out there, but this would come back to haunt me.

After about 2.5 miles, I actually started feeling pretty good with my cardio and leg strength.  My knee was starting to really hurt but I was pleasantly surprised that my back loosened up and wasn’t an issue at all.  I kicked into high gear for the last ~1/2 mile and crossed the finish line with a full race time of 1:02:42.  It was faster than I would have guessed, but I didn’t yet know how that would stack up against the rest of the field.  

Remember, with a staggered start in the pool, you could cross the finish line behind someone else but actually have a faster overall time than them depending on when you started.

I waited for the preliminary results and knew I was going to be close to my goal.  I kept going through “what ifs” in my head about my watch not working, dropping my bike at transition, going the wrong way on the run, etc.  I knew all those things cost me time but wasn’t sure if I’d still make my goal of top 15%.

The race official posted the results and my heart sank.  I was 24^th.  The guy that finished 23^rd (5 seconds ahead of me), was the one who had yelled at me to go the other way on the run.  20^th, 21^st, and 22^nd were all just a few seconds in front of me as well.  So painful.  I ended up finishing 15^th in the swim, 13^th on the bike and 30^th on the run…good enough for 24^th overall.  Here is a pic of me right after finishing…

The first thing that went through my head is I actually achieved my goal after factoring in my run issues.  I mean, what if the guy behind me hadn’t yelled “other way!?”  I lost a full minute from going the wrong direction and was only 18 seconds from finishing top 15%.  That has to count, right? 

Wrong.  There was no way I was counting this goal as complete.  I don’t want asterisks by any of the 35.  I need to do as many as I can…100% officially.  Triathlons are very physical but there is a gigantic mental component as well.  The race course was posted online and I could have studied it before the race.  I didn’t prepare mentally and it cost me.

In football, a kicker can miss a last second field goal and that can be the difference between a quarterback being regarded as someone who comes through in the clutch or someone who doesn’t have what it takes. 

In golf, a ball staying 1 inch away from the water vs. turning one more revolution into the creek allowed Fred Couples to win the Masters 20 years ago.  If the ball goes in the water, life is a lot different for him.

The point is this:  there is an enormous amount of randomness/luck/unfairness in life and an infinite amount of “what-ifs” you can ask yourself.  We’ve all heard the phrase “woulda, coulda, shoulda.” In other words, nobody cares about the nuances of a story…people want results. 

One of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever heard is “focus on what you can control.”  So, instead of dwelling on all of “what-ifs” from my race, I’m going to use them as motivation to get better.  Next time, there will be no doubt. 

Plus, if that isn’t motivation enough, I found out that another triathlon was happening 1000 miles away in Carmel, Indiana that same day and my brother competed.  How’d he do?  Well, he pretty much dominated…24th out of more than 800 (~top 3%). 

Obviously, he doesn’t need to spend several pages explaining those results and dwelling on what-ifs like I do.

Schmeis

More Travel: Swimming My Way Through the Virgin Islands and Another Goal

Want to know a good way to annoy people and make them want to smack you in the face?  If so, I suggest you try what I’m about to do and complain about having to travel to cool places.  In fact, I may even take it one step further.  You know how 99.99% of the population puts on their resume that they enjoy travel?  I’m going contrarian on this one and making it clear on my resume that I hate traveling. 

Before I start bitching, let me assure you it’s not lost on me that getting a trip to Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Japan is pretty phenomenal both personally and professionally.  I certainly would welcome the chance for another exotic work trip anytime.  It’s also utterly ridiculous for me to even hint at complaining about the trip I just took to the Virgin Islands, where Sue and I just returned from a wedding and vacation. 

But do you think that’s going to stop me?  Of course not!  Complaining is way more fun and interesting than talking about how beautiful the water is so please allow me to mix plenty of that in over these next several paragraphs. 

Here’s how it all went down:

We arrived at STT airport on St. Thomas Thursday, March 29.  To say the taxi stand didn’t have a system would be an understatement.  It was pure chaos.  How hard would it be to have a system that involved a clearly designated leader giving directions?  I’ll even make the first suggestion for a system:  how about a line?  You know, one of those things that people stand in until it is their turn.  I’m open to other ideas but that would be my contribution to the good island people.  As it stands, I think I asked about 47 people which van to get into and got 47 different answers. 

Anyway, Sue and I survived the unnecessary confusion and made it to our hotel.  It took me about 2.4 minutes to put on my suit and goggles and start swimming back and forth in the pool.  Keep in mind, the pool was probably 12 yards long and everyone else at the hotel was just lounging around getting sun.  I think they thought I was a little intense doing laps in a pool clearly not made for laps but I didn’t care. 

Speaking of not caring, I’ve also been doing the leg machine lately at the gym where you squeeze your legs together.  You know the one…it’s the machine that no male has ever used in the history of gyms.  It's funny, whenever I get on everyone looks at me like I just walked into the women's locker room.

Let me assure you that you have to be pretty comfortable with your manliness to get on that machine.  I’m trying to change the conversation between meatheads in America from “home much do you bench?” to “how much can you do on the leg squeezing machine?”  Clearly, I’ve lost it and am way beyond caring what others think about me.

As for the wedding, it was the next day (a Friday wedding for the record…but hey, I’m not one to complain) at a very nice yacht club on the beach.  It was supposed to start at 4pm but it didn’t actually get going until 6pm.  I thought this was another example of “island time” but it turns out that one of the bridesmaids somehow forgot her dress on the other side of the island.  I have no idea how this is possible.  If that wasn’t enough, when she finally was able to get it and bring it back she ended up locking her car with the keys and dress inside.  Again, I have no idea how this is possible. 

The bride remained calm and refused to have the wedding until all was resolved.  If I were the bride, my solution would have been to have the bridesmaid executed.  Problem solved.  Did I say that out loud?  Anyway, once it all got going the wedding was phenomenal…nice people, lots of drinks, great music, etc.

The plan the next day was to head to Megan’s Bay (ranked in the top 10 most beautiful beaches in the world by National Geographic).  I loved this as I got a lot of open water swimming practice along the coast.  Crystal clear water, cool fish, and the perfect temperature made swimming out there all day a no brainer. 

That night we hit Starz nightclub which apparently is the place to be in St. Thomas.  If I were skeptical by nature, I may have had reservations about a club that is in a strip mall that had Deloitte’s offices literally directly next door.  But hey, you know me, I don’t have a skeptical bone in my body so I assumed all would be great.  Plus, I’m obviously not one to complain.

As we walked in, we saw the cast of the upcoming Real World and the film crew.  Apparently they are filming in St. Thomas for this season.  The bride and groom had very graciously reserved 3 tables at the club and we had a great area overlooking the dance floor.  The night was going great and I was just starting to find my niche when the power literally went off in the whole club.  The music stopped and it went pitch black.  The island has power outages regularly and the club didn’t have a backup generator.  I’m not kidding.  We sat in the dark drinking with no music.  Some people were breaking out their iphones and playing songs but that wasn’t quite the same thing as having the jams come through the million dollar sound system.  Not even my vast club going experience was enough to know what to do during a pitch black power outage.

After a few days of relaxation switching between beach and pool, Sue and I decided to take an excursion to the British Virgin Islands on an all-day boat adventure.  We first went to Virgin Gorda, where we got to see “The Baths.”  The Baths is a series of rocks and caves that made for a really cool hike.  Here is a picture of me on one of the rocks.  I think I’m either practicing being on a podium for my upcoming triathlons or getting ready to declare to the world that I’m taking over.  I’m not sure which one.

We also went to Tortola, stopped off at various snorkeling locations, and got to listen to the captain from Texas tell racist jokes all day while claiming he isn’t racist.  Classic.  The 2 key takeaways from the day were that the waters were amazingly clear and people everywhere are really stupid. 

As for my workouts on the trip, I did pretty well.  The first day in the gym I saw John King from CNN and here was our interaction:

Me:  “Hey John, glad to see they give you time off.”

John King:  “Everyone deserves a little time off now and then.”

Me:  “I hear ya...big fan by the way…”

John King:  “Appreciate that.”

Me:  “…of Anderson Cooper.”

Ok, so I added that last line but the rest is 100% true.  I also returned his headphone case to him which he had left on the exercise bike.  I thought about stealing it and selling “John King’s headphone case” on Ebay but returning it seemed like the more simple and appropriate thing to do.

In addition to the gym, I also swam nearly every day either in the open water or in the pool.  The open water swimming was very enjoyable as it was great practice for my half ironman coming up.

So, after a great 8 days (minus the minor but fun to mention complaints), I returned home again last night.  On the plane ride back I was thinking that after all the open water swimming fighting the current and waves, getting back in the pool should be a piece of cake.  Given that, I decided to make my first attempt at one of my swimming goals for the year:  200 yard swim in under 2 minutes and 45 seconds. 

For a little context, when I started trying to swim for exercise a year ago I literally couldn’t complete 100 yards straight freestyle.  When I finally built my way up to 200 yards continuously, my time was 4:30.  I’ve been gradually improving over the last year and set the 2:45 goal as an optimistic place to get to this year.  Let’s see how I did...keep in mind that 200 yards is 8 lengths of the pool so this might not be the most exciting video but stick with me.

2:44!!  Are you kidding me?  I honestly had Sue film it just so I could see for myself how I did.  I never thought I would actually achieve that goal already.  I was over 3 minutes last time I tried.  That makes 5 goals completed! 

Despite being in media all her professional career, Sue didn’t exactly capitalize on the moment as she stopped the video right after I touched the wall.  I told her this would be like NBC cutting to commercial just as Michael Phelps hits the wall to win gold and set a new world record.  Anyway, given that, I decided to add a post swim interview with myself as well.  Here it is:

Damn I ‘m good looking.  Sorry, I got caught up watching video of myself.  Anyway, lots of great stuff coming up over the next few weeks…I have my first sprint Triathlon on April 15, I’m planning on a golf weekend April 21, and then have the Half Ironman May 5.  Schmeis35for35 is really ramping up into a critical part of the year.  I’m just hoping most of my travel is behind me.  If not though, at least I’ll have something to complain about.

Schmeis