Author: Davey

Hey there, pilgrims,

I made subtle mention of contracting covid-19 in last week’s training update and since it’s been forefront in my brain, you get to read about it for a few minutes. I’m fortunate – and I credit this largely to my training, diet, and overall health although, yes I am vaccinated – that I had a milder-than-average go ’round with Covid-19, though not quite as mild as my girlfriend.

That being the case, I will say that several days in isolation is a long time when you don’t really have the energy to do anything creative or physically demanding, so it’s pretty easy for your brain to recede to the dark, dusty corners and even the strongest of us can start talking ourselves out of our own goals & dreams really quickly. I had Luann there with me, so I did have someone to talk to but when it came to matters of sadness and malaise, I was hesitant to go there – I did, and I’m glad I did, but not as soon as I should have.

I kept my diet on track through the whole isolation period because I wanted to heal fast, and I did get some time in on some creative woodshedding, but my outlook was way more grim than I ever really want it to be again. I was back on top within a couple gym visits, which serves to illustrate how important that is in my life – but the memory of going there sucked.

So naturally, with training this week I hit it as hard as I could, which may have been a mistake, but I’ve made way bigger mistakes. I swam a kilometer on Tuesday, and rode 37km on the bike in 75 minutes on Wednesday. Got 45 minutes on the treadmill Thursday and another 60 minutes on the bike Friday.

That Friday 60 on the bike was a lighter effort than usual thanks to a medical device i had strapped to me for 24 hours. The hangup was that I didn’t want to sweat the sensors off, but nomatter how you slice it, I pedaled for 60 minutes straight.

Life won’t wait.

Beyond all of that, I’ve taken on another creative writing endeavor which detracts a bit from these blog posts in some ways, and in other ways it’ll likely start to permeate these posts a bit, too. I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about it and conjuring ideas and I’m excited to get it to the point where I’ll be able to share it with all of you, even if it takes (a long) time.

Snotty and juvenile as it might sound – “Compared to what?” might be my favorite question. Context is so brutally important, and it seems to be that way now more than ever.

We hear ‘this food is healthy’ or ‘this activity is dangerous’ and the circumstances of the statement are always so vague that the message is never questioned, when being questioned is actually what validates the statement in the first place.

Contextually, I’ll say I’m a fast runner. With no unit of measure or no comparison to relate, I could just as easily say that I’m a slow runner. A more honest statement would be ‘I’m faster than I was last year at this time‘ and just as easily I can say ‘I’m slower than my girlfriend‘ and both statements are affirmed.

That light example gives context to why certain claims can be made without question, and the fact is that we hear those claims so frequently that they stick with us for our whole lives – sometimes they’re even put to music to embed the message even deeper for even longer.

People often conflate advertising slogans and scientific research, and it problematic because of the inequal financial situation of a chain fast food restaurant that would love to let you believe their product is healthy, vs spinach farmers who have a healthy product and no revenue with which to promote it.

All this to say: its important to be objectively critical of what we’re reading and looking at, and when in doubt – follow the money.

Training this week was interesting and brief. I had a great, long workout at a gym I dropped in to while on the road in Grande Prairie, AB performing w/ Robin Kelly. It was fun because I had nowhere important to be for several hours after, so I thoroughly beat myself to a pulp. Upon my return home, I managed to get a real good 900m swim in before I started showing symptoms of COVID-19, and everything came to a halt on Wednesday.

For all those concerned, my symptoms are totally manageable so far. We’ll be taking the time to rest and recover; naturally, and look forward to putting this illness behind us.

Through the coming months, we are extending our swim, bike, and run lengths. Our swim is up to 900m in length, and we’re roughly trying to add 100m per week as we go. We’re extending our Bike/Run combination workouts as well, and as these sessions lengthen, we have to perform them on non-work days.

A lot of the source material is still in development, so I haven’t posted the latest training schedule yet – but with my newfound Covid-19 isolation time, I imagine it will be along shortly. It’s going to get a little more specific than the last one, so hang in there. We’re 14 weeks away!

Hey all,

Thanks; as always, for clicking & watching & liking and subscribing to all of these things. January is always a funny time for me, as it is for a lot of people and it’s become faux pas to talk about the ‘seasonal blues’ and what I call ‘event fatigue’ for lack of a better term.

‘Event fatigue’ pertains to the low-down feeling that sets in after a big to-do happens… like a sporting event, or a big expensive holiday, or anything you might take part in that requires a bit of a build-up. Often feelings of dread, malaise, or sadness sink in. I talk a little bit about that in this new episode, as well as whole food plant based training and veganism – both of which I strongly encourage, but don’t aim to preach about.

We also set a new date for the full-length olympic triathlon this spring – training schedule and route to follow soon.

I hope you enjoy it, and get something out of it!
CLICK BELOW!!!

Much love,
Davey

I’m in the throes of making the next video right now, which deals with the 1/2 triathlon we ran between Christmas & New Years and the strange time in-between that I felt compelled to address in that video, and here as well. (spoiler alter, I guess). as well, this week’s post is a little shorter as I’ve had a lot of writing to do as of late with a new undertaking that I’ll get into when (if) it turns into something. As well, I’ve been cramming songs for an upcoming performance with an Elvis Presley Tribute artist, and finishing a Confusionaires recording, so I apologize if it feels like I’m a little short on words this week.

I digress… The 2 weeks between completing our event and now has been a strange time of feeling directionless and melancholy. This happens to everyone following a big to-do. I’ve felt it coming off of tour, I felt it after this event, and I’ve even felt it coming home from vacation. This is a totally normal and important phase of life, wherein goals are reset and a turning of the page happens – and it’s totally powerful and deserves the respect it demands.

It’s important to be patient with yourself, though these times, but it’s also important to realize that the way out of this uncomfortable time is to make a new plan, set a new goal, or renew your focus on your priorities, all while realizing that you are under no obligation to rush this process, frustrating as it may feel to be there.

Think of it in terms of a weekend – a required rest and refocus time before going back to grinding for another 5 days. I feel that to acknowledge it in such a normal and common way takes a lot of the frustration out of the equation and allows for recovery – both mental and physical.

The big thing that helped us move forward was picking a new race day for the Olympic Length triathlon this spring. More on that to follow in the coming weeks!

That said, getting back on track with training this week has been great. Had a great swim and a great brick workout this week on monday/tuesday and I’ve been lifting weights to work the muscles that don’t get pushed as hard through the swim/bike/run activities. In a lot of ways I feel like I’m training to get ready to train… as a matter of fact, that’s exactly what I’m doing.

Over the holidays, I had a chance encounter with a beer that had been sitting a little to long. It made a mess out of me; the saving grace of which was timing. I was no longer in the throes of cooking 3 trays of cannelloni, and due to a certain global pandemic which shall remain nameless I managed to not have any company beyond my adoring girlfriend and canine karmic guide.

I don’t drink often nor do I drink in volume, but I haven’t exactly abstained from alcoholic beverages, either. As a matter of fact on a good day I would probably tell you that I have a ‘healthy relationship with alcohol’ but if we were to sand & file that sentence down past it’s veneer, I would likely tell you that I have a tumultuous relationship with every ‘consumable’ (for lack of a better term) available to me at any given time.

Without labeling myself an alcoholic, I can tell you quite easily that I have consumed alcohol as a means of escape and that I’ve done so with great ease and greater excess – but I’ve always had a problem with overindulgence of all kinds. What this particular instance rings back at me in the echo chamber of my thoughts is how powerful a substance can be. For me; it’s any substance, but in this case it was a brown ale.

Reflection has taught me that this power is to be revered, and deserves it’s reverence, because power is so easily abused. It’s unfortunate that so many ‘normal’ things in my life, both as an adult and as an entertainer and artist, yield that power. Or… maybe it is fortunate, and maybe I need to be cautious in letting my guard down.

That power deserves reverence.

Now, reverence is one of those words that drags my brain back to church, but it doesn’t have anything to do with Love, or God for that matter. Reverence is unabashed deep respect. The respect that you would pay anything that has the capacity to end you completely. The way a craftsman regards his tools, the way a samurai respects his sword. In that way, these things have the power to compromise my judgement, and thus my safety and my livelihood, and have certainly killed more people than cancer.

I don’t know where you are in your journey with anything, but I can say that every last one of us are on a spiritual journey of some kind or other, and that my experience has been that as I gradually remove the toxins from my life through various means, my mind & body & spirit are able to build their connection stronger.

Maybe I won’t abstain completely. Maybe I will.
I believe there are times for celebration and times for focus and discipline, but I will endeavor to revere that power more fully.

As an addict, I know that I will always need structure around these things in order to maintain order in my physical, mental, and spiritual life.

Training this week has been a challenge. There have been more than a few obstacles in my path in regards to time, but the time spent immersed in physical fitness has been beyond therapeutic. It’s very grounding and upon our first swim of the year, Lu and I both remarked that everything seems to have queued up after getting back into the fitness program.

I’m not one for resolutions. I’ve always figured that if you want to make changes, the time is now – right when you conclude that changes need to be made. That said: sometimes those things happen around the 1st of January – like how I’d like to put more time into video making this year.

Usually, the ‘new year’ vibe I get is at the end of summer. At that time when school is back in session, people tend to return to normalcy and I start thinking about ‘winter projects’ and what I’d like to accomplish. The conscious pilgrim as an entity is one of those resolutions.

Here I am though, having finished the half-triathlon and am staring down the olympic length distance for the spring, choosing a date, piecing a program together to get me there – I can’t help but feel that ol’ NYE vibe. As I type this people are making plans to lose their holiday weight and get into beach mode for in time for the summer and it sort of pains me to know that statistically speaking, most of those people won’t make it. I sincerely hope they find what they need in order to hang on and it would be pure ego to think that I could somehow help someone find that – but I do hope to inspire.

I’m generally pretty humble, perhaps to a fault sometimes. I often undersell what I’m able to accomplish and I’ve made a conscious decision to try and break through that barrier. I read that “A knight never says he’s not a knight to protect the feelings of another. We honor those around us by offering the best of ourselves” and it stuck with me, because humility and pride are not at odds. It’s not bragging when you ‘offer the best of yourself‘ because in ‘offering‘ anything we are in a place of service to our community. It’s with that in mind that I started doing this and it’s with that in mind that I will continue to do so, putting forth an increased effort through 2022.

The training front is a bit different as we enter 2022. The bike, run & swim are central – and increasing in distance as we progress, but a weightlifting component is coming into the fold a couple days a week as well.

Happy New Year, folks. 2022 is upon us and I’m well into pushing myself physically and artistically already… flexing organizational prowess as The Confusionaires work directly with our new manager, Jessi Toms – and enjoying the gradually calming waters of post-holiday chaos with my girlfriend & my kid, & our karmic teacher / canine companion.

I’m sure that most of us can haphazardly wave our index finger in any direction and find an example of someone in a leadership role that really ought not be there. Anyone with the slightest of inclinations towards politics on any level can do that.

But what makes a truly great leader? There are fewer examples to point to, and even historic figures are marred with controversy decades and centuries later.

Many would argue that the best leaders are natural leaders, but any natural leader is likely to tell you that they honed their skills to become who they are – so can a weak leader become a strong leader? Furthermore, can a follower become a leader?

My theory is that the best leaders are the last to know it, and I’m sure I’m not the first nor the last to think so. Quite often the leader is simply the person who wants to get something done, and finds themselves leading the pack out of necessity more than some burning drive to be in charge of other people. Leaders are protectors and resources long before anyone appoints them to be the ‘boss‘ yet a burning majority of individuals at the helm of any organization are propelled there by accolades and money. But, once the financial incentives and glory are removed, people tend to lose interest in leadership.

To be a true leader, one would need to garner the respect of the team, or the community, or the band, or whatever the situation might be. To liken it to a basketball team for example’s sake, the reason that the ‘captain’ of the team is likely the most popular and the hardest working member of the team is because they raise the bar for quality performance. They’re not only a master of their craft but they have garnered the respect of their team both on and off the court. They’re the first to open up vulnerable conversations, they’re the ones making sure you get home safe after a night of drinking, they’re not in front all the time, they’re behind you, propping you up.

The result in this case, is that when you’re on the court with them, you play a harder, faster, and better game because you don’t want to let them down. They do the work – THEN they get the title. They are both completely vulnerable and incredibly strong, and they are always listening, always learning from the other people around them, always bettering themselves – all the while acknowledging that they likely feel that they’re not the ideal candidate because they don’t have all the answers.

Leaders don’t always have the answers, they just try and find the answers more readily.

As I type this I’m reminded of my relationships with my dog, and my kid, my girlfriend, and my band. As much as they’ve all put their lives in my hands, they have so much knowledge to offer me in the way of informal education, they challenge me constantly to be the best, the most present, the strongest – but in each of these scenarios I am rudderless without their input, their level and rate of growth, and their expertise.

That’s just where my head is at today, I suppose.

Our Half-Triathlon happened this past week! The sense of accomplishment with completing not only that event, but the training program is strong to say the least. Worthy of it’s own post, so I’ll keep it understated here (plus I feel like this blog entry is already long enough).

I’m excited to redraw my fitness regimen for the next little while as we plan the circumstances around our full Olympic Length event. Lu and I will be formulating the official date and the 12 week program leading up to that day. The swim will still be indoors, but the bike & the run will happen outdoors with an indoor contingency that I sincerely hope not to use. For now, my workout week will consist of a bike day, a run day, a swim day, and 2 weight-training days (with some time on the rowing machine… my most recent nemesis).

Happy new year, folks.
May this be a year of realizing potential, positive change, and personal growth.