It Wasn't Supposed to End Like This

I’ve been a procrastinator all my life.  Whether it was studying for a test, writing a paper in college, or meeting timelines at work, I always seemed to wait until the last minute. 

Every time the clock ticked down in the final hour before a deadline, I always asked myself why I let it happen again.  Some people say they do their best work under pressure.  Others say they like the stress. 

My rationale?  Life always seemed to let me get away with it.

Over and over I was convinced that “this time” I really waited too long; over and over everything turned out ok.  No matter how much of a crunch I was ever in, things always turned out great.  I always came away with an A on the test, wrote a great paper, or efficiently finished the project with high quality. 

Life never taught me a lesson as to why I shouldn’t procrastinate, so I just kept doing it.

As my Schmeis35for35 year went along, I wasn’t procrastinating with workouts, but was waiting way too long before attempting some of the goals if I wanted to finish with a good number. After all, with just 2 weeks left in the year, I still had 13 remaining to accomplish and hadn’t even attempted 7 of the 35. 

Luckily, everything always works out for me, right?  Let’s take a look…

My left knee had prevented me from doing as much running as I wanted this year, but that was no excuse for letting the calendar turn to the end of December before making a push for any of my running goals.  Not only did my procrastination cost me even attempting a few of the goals, but it also forced me to run in conditions that were less than ideal for the ones I did try.

As an example, I ended up attempting my goal of running 1 mile in 5:30 on Christmas Day…after a big Christmas meal…in 28 degree weather…with significant wind.  Those aren’t exactly ideal conditions for a blazing time.  I would have preferred to approach this much more like a space shuttle launch…wait for the perfect conditions, delay a day if necessary, and then give it a go. 

The weather though showed a winter storm with 6 inches of snow expected on December 26^th so I had no choice but to try my mile attempt on Christmas Day.  Here it was…

5:43.  Missed it by 13 seconds.  I went out too fast and couldn’t maintain the pace…a definite rookie mistake that never would have happened if I had actually tried it a few times before.  But I procrastinated and didn’t try it before…and now the clock ran out on me.

I’m confident after my performance that I can do a 5:30 mile in reasonable weather, but being confident doesn’t count.  I didn’t get it done.

Next up was the 400 yard swim.  I already accomplished 4 of my 5 swimming goals and only needed to swim the 400 in less than 6 minutes to sweep the category.  I was around 8 minutes to start the year and then tried it again in October and went 6:02.  Since I was so close, I always knew in the back of my mind I would get this goal done but kept putting it off for some reason.  Next thing I knew it was late December and I hadn’t tried it since the October attempt.  

I finally gave it another shot over the holidays and went 6:06.  Ugh…not only did I not make it, but my time was worse than before.  I hadn’t been swimming that much and had lost a little fitness in the pool I guess.  Now my procrastination left me with only one final chance to break 6 minutes…on December31.

You’ve got to be kidding me.  6:01…6:01…6:01.  I missed it by 1 second.  I’m beyond disgusted…so brutal…like getting your heart ripped out.  My turns were absolutely terrible, my stroke felt slow, and I just didn’t get it done…missed it by 1 freaking second.  F-me…so disappointing.

All I wanted to do after the swim was go home and crawl into bed, but there wasn’t time to dwell on the near miss.  With only a few hours left in the year, I needed to head from the pool to the high school track to try my ¼ mile and ½ mile running goals for the first time. 

My legs pretty much felt like jelly after kicking with everything I had to make the 400 yard swim time and now that was all for nothing.  I couldn’t help but think I would be much better off running with fresh legs but there was no time for that…there were no more days left in 2012. 

I needed to do the ¼ mile in 65 seconds and the ½ mile in 2:30.  I thought my best chance to get both would be to just try it all at once.  In other words, I would run the half mile but try for a super fast first ¼ mile and then attempt to hang on to the finish.  If all went as planned, I could knock off both of the goals with one quick run. 

66 seconds!  My quarter mile was 66 seconds!  I missed this by 1 second too!  Ridiculous.  It was cold again outside, my legs weren’t fresh, and needing to do a 2^nd lap definitely held me back from going all out on the first ¼ mile.  Why did I wait until December 31 to try this?!?

To make matters worse, you’ll notice I didn’t even run the 2^nd quarter mile lap.  I had instructed Sue to call out my time as I went by the ¼ mile mark so I would know where I stood for the 1/2.  When she was silent, I assumed that meant I wasn’t even close so I just stopped.  In reality, I still had 1:24 to do the 2^nd lap and had just done a 1:06 first lap.  It would have been very doable but I didn’t even try it.

I was initially upset at Sue for not calling out the time but now realize I have no one to blame but myself.  In nearly every sport, you’re taught to keep playing until you hear the whistle.  You never assume a call is going to be made…you keep playing.   It was as if I forgot all those lessons when I stopped on my own.

I was so pissed off that I lined up on the track again a few minutes later determined to make both goals.  This time I took off as hard as I could, made it about 100 yards, and had to come to a screeching stop as I slightly pulled my right hamstring.  It was one disaster after another…

With my head held low, I hobbled back with Sue to the car in disgust.  We were hosting a NYE party later that night, but I didn’t feel like celebrating. 

Instead, I sat in silence on the ride home with a blank stare on my face.  I wasn’t thinking about the 22 goals I accomplished in 2012.  I was thinking about the 13 goals I didn’t accomplish and why I waited so long to attempt them.

Finally, after 35 years, procrastinating cost me. 

It wasn’t supposed to end like this.

Schmeis

The Final Scorecard (With Proof!)

It’s over.  300 days of workouts over 365 days.  If you count each swim, bike, run, and weightlifting session separately, I did well over 400 workouts.  That’s more than 1 per day throughout the year. 

The only thing that worked harder than me was your spam filter trying to stop my emails from reaching you.  But I beat the spam filter.  If I knew you had more than 1 email address, I blasted both.  Take that Symantec. 

Once through the filter, I tried to trick you in the first few weeks of the year.  I threatened to stop pushing the blog to you in the beginning.  I made it very clear in my first few posts that the only way to keep up with my progress was to visit my site directly or sign up for updates.  It was a desperate ploy to get you to register for Schmeis35for35.  But you didn’t blink; you called my bluff and didn’t sign up.  Well played. 

It didn’t end there.  You greatly underestimated my persistence.  You never anticipated I could have so little shame that I would just keep emailing you all year despite your obvious lack of interest.   Big mistake by you; I have no shame.

So what did all the hard work get me?

In total, I completed 22 of my 35 goals.  For a final grade, we need to turn to the scorecard I put together at the beginning of 2012 when this was just getting started…

·         < 15 out of 35 aspirations completed = F

·         15-18 = D

·         19-23 = C

·         24-26 = B

·         27-29 =  A

·         30 or higher =  Greek God

Looks like my 22 is a C…terrible.  That’s the first C of my life!  I did, however, set the Vegas over/under at the time at 21 so slightly beat that. 

When I think about how close I was to so many more goals, Greek God status was definitely within reach but wasn’t meant to be…

Anyway, throughout the year I posted evidence of every goal I achieved in various blog posts, but realize now there is no easy way to find each one. 

So, below is the final summary of all the 35 goals and how I did against each. 

Basketball (3 of 5 Completed)

1.  Dunk a basketball (Incomplete - Never attempted)
2.  Reverse 2-handed dunk (Incomplete - Never attempted)
Ok, that wasn’t a great start…I’m 0-2!  Probably not a good sign when I never even attempted the first 2 goals on my list this year.  This killed me, but I opted not to find out whether my already bad left knee would explode into a million pieces if I tried to jump.  I guarantee I will dunk again though at some point…

        3.  Make 20 free throws in a row (Completed!)
        Why make 20 free throws in a row when you can make 40 free throws in a row?  I make 7, miss 1, and then rattle off 40 in a row...

       

        4.  Make 10 3s in a row (Completed!)

        No problem…I even throw in an 11^th for good measure.

       

        5.  Make ½ court shot (Completed!)

        I’m very upset the first shot didn’t go in but I got the job done on my 5^th attempt

       

        Weightlifting: (It’s a clean sweep!  5 out of 5 completed)

        6.  Bench 225 lbs 10 times in a row (Completed!)

        13!  If nothing else, this video proves I should be in the NFL.

       

        7.  70 pushups in a row (Completed!)

        Squeaked by on this one with 71.

       

        8.  25 pullups in a row (Completed!)

        30 pullups!  Not bad…

       

        9.  50 dips in a row (Completed!)

I put up the double nickel…55! 

       10. Jump rope 100 times in 1 minute (Completed!)

       Easily the dumbest of my 35 goals.  I had no idea how easy this one would be.  I did 150 in 1 minute after not touching a jump rope since I was a kid.

         

      Running: (0 for 5 Completed)

      11.  Run ¼ mile in under 1 minute 5 seconds (Incomplete)

      I waited until December 31 to give this a try and went 66 seconds…missing by 1 tiny second. 

   

      12.  Run ½ mile in under 2:30 (Incomplete - Never attempted)

      Why did I never attempt this?  Great freaking question.  I’m an idiot.

      13.  Run mile in under 5:30 (Incomplete)

      Made one attempt in less than ideal conditions on Christmas Day and went 5:43.

     

      14.  Run 5k in under 20 min (Incomplete)

      Despite doing 9 Triathlons throughout the year, I only did one 5k and went 20:38 on a hilly course…good enough for 2^nd out of 70 people but 38 seconds shy of my goal.

      15.  Run half marathon in under 8 min per mile (Incomplete - Never attempted)

       Well, technically I did attempt this but it was in a Half Ironman.  I ran at 8:54 pace for the half marathon portion of the race but it was after 3.5 hours of swimming and biking.  I never had the chance to do a stand-alone half marathon as it never fit into my schedule.

      Golf: (3 for 5 Completed)

      

      16.  Shoot round of golf on par 72 course in 75 or under (Incomplete)

      Only played 5 rounds all year but wasn’t even close to shooting under 75

      17.  300 yard drive (Completed!)

      Bombed this 312 yard blast at Austin Country Club on a guy’s golf weekend in November.

      

      18.  Eagle a par 5 (Incomplete)

      I had 3 chances putting for Eagle this year on a par 5 and badly missed all 3 putts.

      19.  Juggle 3 golf balls with hands for 20 seconds (Completed!)

      Not exactly Cirque Du Soleil worthy but it counts…

     

      20.  Juggle golf ball on face of club for 20 seconds (Completed!)

      Just like the old Tiger Woods commercial!

     

      Swimming (4 out of 5 Completed):

      

      21.  50 under 28 seconds (Completed!)

      This was truly a photo finish…I was under 28 by the slimmest of margins…

     

      22.  100 under 1:10 (Completed!)

      No problem with this…1:06

     

      23.  200 under 2:45 (Completed!)

      2:44!  Michael Phelps here I come...

     

      24.  400 under 6 min (Incomplete)

        Maybe the most painful incomplete of them all…6:01…missed by 1 second.

       

      
       25.  Swim 50 yards underwater (Completed!)

        I should be a Navy Seal!

        )

       Triathlons (4 out of 5 Completed)

       

       26.  Compete in at least 6 Triathlons (Completed!)

        I could post all the links on here but I’ll instead post a picture of this awesome blanket Sue had made for me for Christmas.  She collected all my race bibs and put this together…what an awesome way to remember the year.

       

        27.  Finish Top 15% in a Sprint Triathlon (Completed!)

         Finished in the top 12%!  Official results posted in link below.

         http://www.fsseries.com/uploads/6162012203739_3ps_tri_overall.pdf

        28.  Finish top 30% in Olympic Triathlon (Incomplete)

        I only did one Olympic distance race this year and finished top 32%.  Actually, I finished in the top 30% if you go off the official participant list.  I decided though to go off the official race results which showed a few people registered but never raced.  I clearly have way too much integrity…

       29.  Complete Half Ironman in < 6 hours (Completed!)

        5 hours and 23 minutes in my 2^nd half Ironman attempt.  Boom!

        

        30.  Complete FULL IRONMAN (Completed!)

        It wasn’t pretty, but I finished Beach2Battleship in October in 13 hours, 51 minutes

        k

        Miscellaneous: (3 out of 5 Completed)

        31.  Climb/hike a mountain > 14,000 feet (Completed!)

        Hiked all day to the top of Mt. Elbert, Colorado’s tallest mountain

       

        32.  Do the splits (Incomplete)

        I was making good progress with this until a November back injury stopped me from continuing to push on the splits.

        33.  Bike 1 mile in less than 2:15 (26.7 mpg avg – Completed!)

        Below is the link with all my mile splits on the bike course during the Finish Strong Half Iron.  If you look toward the bottom of the page (you may have to scroll down), you’ll see my average speed greater than 26.7 mph on splits 15, 20 and 25.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/231002588

        34.  Bike 15 miles in less than 45 min (20 mph avg – no drafting; Completed!)

        Averaged over 22 mph for 30 miles in my Tri in Muncie, Indiana

        35.  Chug a beer in 3 seconds (Incomplete!)

        I chugged and chugged throughout the year but never got any faster.  3.5 seconds was my best.  I’m still kicking myself for not just making this goal “in 4 seconds” instead.

       There you have it...the official results and videos for Schmeis35for35.  It’s been a great year and pretty crazy to think back on all I tried to do.  

       I didn't get them all done but it was an incredible experience overall.

       Perhaps redemption in the form of Schmeis40for40 will be in my future...

       Schmeis

Bo Knows Schmeis35for35

If you haven’t seen any of ESPN’s 30 for 30 series, you’re missing out on some incredible documentaries.  Even if you’re not a sports fan, you’ll find the stories extremely engaging as they typically focus on the human side of athletics. 

There have been great pieces on Magic’s HIV announcement, OJ’s white Bronco chase, Pablo Escobar and his ties to soccer, Michigan’s Fab 5 and their cultural influence, the prevalence of bankruptcy among professional athletes, etc.

Most recently, ESPN released “You Don’t Know Bo,” in reference to Bo Jackson.  You probably remember Nike’s “Bo Knows” advertising campaign where they had him pretend to play all sports including basketball, cycling, and even horseback riding.  The ads capitalized on Bo’s star power in 2 sports (baseball and football) and were used to launch Nike’s cross-training line.

Nike already had running shoes, basketball shoes, football cleats, etc. but the cross-trainer was geared towards athletes who liked to do it all.  By seemingly being good at everything, Bo was the perfect athlete to represent the cross-trainer. 

Consider some of these fun facts that show Bo’s breadth of abilities:

-         

      - He was a 2-time state champion in the 100 meter dash in high school

      - He won the Heisman Trophy while at Auburn

      - A variety of sources claim he has the fastest 40 time ever at the combine at 4.12

      - He was the 1^st pick in the NFL draft but turned it down to play baseball

      - He hit several of the longest home runs in Major League history

      - He could easily break baseball bats over his knee and occasionally over his helmet

      - He could throw to home from the warning track without a hop

      - He was the first pro athlete to be named an all-star in both Baseball and Football

Not bad.  He has some crazy running achievements, amazing football accomplishments, and legendary baseball stories.  I even read he could do a back flip standing in 3 feet of water…that’s pretty mind boggling.

Anyway, Bo’s schedule had him playing the full Major League Baseball season and then switching gears to the NFL after baseball was over.  He would come into the NFL mid-season and still be one of the most dominant running backs in the game even without the benefits of training camp.

So here’s the question:  How was he so good at everything?

Actually, let’s edit that question as I think his natural physical gifts are pretty clear.  Instead, let’s look at a different question that pundits have discussed frequently over the last 20 years: 

How much better could Bo have been at either baseball or football if he chose to concentrate only on one sport?

Interesting, but notice the underlying assumption in the way the question is asked; everyone seems to assume that Bo would have been better if he focused only on one sport.  The conventional wisdom is that playing 2 sports is distracting…any time spent practicing football is time away from baseball and vice versa.

While some of that may be true, I’m not so sure I agree.  I’m wondering if he was so good partly because he played multiple sports.

Clearly, in hindsight from a career standpoint, Bo would have been better off concentrating only on baseball since a football injury effectively ended his career in both sports.  However, let’s take injuries out of the equation…let’s just discuss when he was healthy and if he would have been better focusing on a single sport.

How are we going to solve this?  Am I going to site multiple medical and fitness studies that prove my point?  Of course not!  I’m going to use the all-powerful anecdote!

This is where Schmeis35for35 comes in.  Schmeis35for35 has been, among many other things, a year-long experiment at the benefits of cross training.  Because I have 35 items on my list, I haven’t been able to concentrate on any single item. 

Before this year, I used to go to the gym and pretty much exclusively lift upper body.  If I wanted six-pack abs, then it seemed logical to spend my time doing crunches.  If I wanted to be able to bench press more, then I better do a lot of sets of bench I thought. 

Throughout 2012 though, I have taken a completely different approach.  I went from having only 2 different workouts to having almost no 2 workouts be the same.  Not only do I now run, bike, and swim, but I have several different workouts within each of those.  While I don’t lift much anymore, I still occasionally lift both upper and lower body but focus on all muscle groups and not just a select few. 

Well, the results are starting to come in and they’re looking promising. 

Ok, that was a joke.  That was Arnold when he was Mr. Universe.  Let’s look at some real examples of my progress..

Example 1:  Dips

This past week I tried my goal of 50 dips.  Keep in mind, I used to do dips fairly regularly as part of 1 of my 2 workouts and never seemed to make much progress. I could always do somewhere around 40, but I almost never do them anymore.  Let’s see how I do now…

55!  Honestly, 55 is probably 10 more dips than I have ever done consecutively in my life.  You can try to say that I didn’t quite go down 90 degrees but I’ve watched the CrossFit championships on ESPN and these would definitely count for their standards.  Plus, my form on #1 was the same as #55 so I feel good about that.

As I said, I rarely do any lifting of upper body anymore and almost never do dips.  In fact, I’ve probably done a total of 5 dip sets in all of 2012.  I don’t know if the swimming has helped, if my triceps are getting stronger from spending time on the bike (counter-intuitive, but the bike is actually a good tri workout), or where the benefits came from, but the results are real. 

Hey, that also puts me at 20 of my 35 goals completed!  Bo knows awesomeness and I think this qualifies!  

Let’s keep going…

Example 2:  Swimming 50 yards underwater

This is a completely unrelated goal to dips, but one I’ve had on my list all year as unlikely that I could pull off.  Swimming 50 meters underwater is part of the Navy Seal BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/Seal) training and is often a point where people fail.

Let’s check out how I did.

I did it!  21 out of 35 completed!  Here is another example where cross training clearly paid off.  I don’t think this video does it justice, but I tried doing this a couple of times early in the year and could barely make it one length of the pool (25 yards).  I’m not exactly sure why, but my drastically improved fitness level allowed me to do 50 yards now without that much trouble.  Incredible!

While I was only under water for ~45 seconds, the body has to use a lot of oxygen in the movement so it is wildly different than just holding your breath for that long.  I can hold my breath for more than 2 minutes, but swimming 50 underwater is definitely harder than that.

Again, I didn’t spend days practicing this over and over…I just naturally got better by doing a variety of activities. 

Example 3:  Pushups

Early in the year, I tried my goal of 70 pushups.  I got to 70 exactly, but my form was terrible so I didn’t count it as complete.  At the time, I was actually doing pushups fairly regularly so thought that was going to be my peak.

Since then, I’ve essentially stopped doing pushups.  The result now?  Check it out.

71!  While the number isn’t much better than I did before, keep in mind that I had much better form in this video and still reached my goal despite not working on my pushups.  Again, the benefits of cross training in terms of quick muscle recovery and other factors seem to have offset any loss I had from not working on the exercise.

So what has my anecdotal evidence told me that helps with the Bo Jackson question?  It tells me there are clear benefits to cross training that might not have been widely understood at the time.

Remember, it wasn’t that long ago when NBA players weren’t supposed to lift weights because it was feared to hurt their shot.  Golfers never thought about weight training because they thought it would negatively impact their swing and ruin their touch around the greens.

Given everything I’ve learned, it’s not hard to imagine that quickly picking up the spin on a pitch in batting practice is going to carry over to scanning the field for holes as a running back.  Timing a great catch in center field must have benefits in catching a football.  Building leg strength from carrying tacklers surely provides a nice base to blast home runs. 

And perhaps most importantly, mixing in a variety of activities keeps everything interesting and makes it much easier to stay mentally fresh and motivated.

So, in my non-professional opinion, I think Bo knew what he was doing.  He wasn’t just playing 2 sports.  He was realizing the benefits of cross-training before the benefits of cross training were widely known.

Now, a similar formula has propelled me up to 22 of my goals accomplished. 

ESPN, please let me know when you want to do a documentary on me.

Schmeis