canadian athlete – Page 12 – The Conscious Pilgrim

finding the edges

As I round out the first couple of months of 2023, I am ultimately content with my progress as it pertains to physical fitness (despite some inevitable frustration with the speed of that progress, but hey!). The reason I am content with my progress is because it IS progress, and in order to feel the way I want to feel, I need to be pushing forward.

I’m not opposed to rest & recovery. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about personal challenges within my vocation. I’m talking about writing better, lifting heavier, playing guitar more proficiently, helping my contemporaries at work to deal with challenging situations and learning from them. I’m at my best when I’m actively engaged in what I am doing and who I am with, and I wager that you’re no different.

I’ve learned that nobody wants to see a ‘pretty good’ rock & roll band, they want to see a great rock & roll band – a truly exceptional rock & roll band, for that matter. In the same way, my girlfriend doesn’t want to have a conversation with me when I am distracted by a TV show or a social media post; not when she could have an honest, engaging discussion with me – she wants to be reminded that she’s more important than whatever content I am consuming.

It’s too easy to live a life of leisure; to enjoy the fruits of your labor without any plan to return to work. As humans, we’re predisposed to this, likely due to some evolutionary trait that permitted us to be content with a certain set of comfortable circumstances. Personally; and I know this is common to many people – I’m happy as a clam being on vacation, but there IS a point at which lazing about reaches it’s limit, and the need to accomplish something kicks in. This is why I’ve gradually fallen in love with making a plan. “Finding the edges” is a crucial part of this, because we need to know what the limitations of our capabilities are, particularly if we’re going to push or stretch them and avoid complacency.

Complacency is what happens when we stop rising to meet new challenges and succumb to the comforts of life. We accept the reality with which we’re presented and have a hard time seeing beyond it because we’ve stopped looking. For many people, this is retirement, but for most of us it means giving in to a lifestyle that isn’t necessarily easy, but that we’ve decided we’re okay navigating. This might look like a paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle… it might look like retirement… or it might look like sleeping in a ravine in a makeshift tent and spending your day scheming to get a fix to numb your pain.

We all share this humanity, and some compassion is required in order to navigate these waters… but maybe that’s a post for another day.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Plans change. They can change and they will change – and it’s only when there is no plan that change is particularly hard or uncomfortable.

Training this week has been reasonably solid. My work schedule has changed a bit, and with the advent of subscribing to a Monday-Friday work schedule for the first time in over a decade, a few regularly occurring things on the calendar have been shuffled out of necessity.

If anything, my workouts are longer somehow. Monday (which I took off this week w/ the Family Day long weekend), as well as Thursday and Saturday are long endurance days. A solid 60 – 75 minutes of running. Tuesday and Friday are weight lifting days, as they historically have been, but with an endurance component as well, which is divvied up between the stair-climber, the stationary bike, the rowing machine, and the tank. Wednesday & Sunday are rest days.

I’m also making an effort to spend some time stretching and doing some isolated core work on a gym mat at the end of each of the 5 sessions. I’m sure I will reap the rewards of that in time, but for the moment I’m just trying to make sure I get it done.

This should get me into outdoor running season, but things are constantly changing and fine-tuning. It’s a process.

the late bloomer

“A lot of my foolish teenage dreams came back when I got my health back, except now I’m 40, and I have the discipline and artistic fortitude to chase them. “

I know I’m probably not alone in this, but for as far back as I can remember, I’ve been misunderstood, or at best, taken out of context with some regularity. The fact that a person with those sorts of credentials spends any time uploading creative works to the internet is a mystery, even to me – but here we are.

I suppose somewhere between my 40 year old body and my brain that operates at the same level it did when I was 17, it can be expected. I’ve spent a good amount of time in my life being various forms of fucked-up, and have ultimately been hell-bent on consumption of everything from high-fructose corn syrup to pain pills, and washed them all down with liquor, beer & wine. I would say upsetting things, and the frequency at which I was resonating was so low I’m surprised I didn’t stop existing altogether. But that didn’t happen.

I cleaned up – in all the different ways. I got my health in check and my food sources in check and at this point I’ve never been so clear as I am right now, and I’ve also never been so misunderstood by so many people – and that misunderstanding likely either comes from the fact that (a) most of the people around me have only known the hazy, inebriated version of me, or (b) those people are hazy versions of themselves. Now; regardless of whether they fall under category (a) or (b), they’re gradually having to get used to the version of me that is driven, motivated, and disciplined. I understand that it’s a bit bewildering for those people, assuming they care enough to give it a second thought.

What can I say – I’m a Confusionaire.

Scattered throughout the fields of bewildered people are a few folks in my life who are excited by these changes. I keep these people close – or at least as close as an introverted guy like me can. I play it pretty close to the chest, which is either a natural inclination, or a defense mechanism – I’m not sure which, but I do manage to let a few people through.

I wasn’t joking when I said my brain functions the way it did when I was 17. A lot of my foolish teenage dreams came back when I got my health back, except now I’m 40, and I have the discipline and artistic fortitude to chase them. Some of you might be reading this and thinking “mid-life crisis” but I’m not talking about buying a sportscar and picking up women half my age. I’m talking about re-realizing my purpose – but when it feels like so many of my contemporaries are moving in the opposite direction, I am most certainly the outlier among my peers. It bothered me for a while… but I really can’t be too concerned with that anymore.

I like the term “late bloomer” – I subscribe to that.

If any of this resonates with you then you might be a late bloomer, too. I think it’s a thing to be proud of despite how easy it is to look and your low-frequency years as ‘wasted time.’ That’s not wasted time at all. That’s a blessing… and an incubation period. Truth-be-told, if I was always healthy in my body and my mind, I’d probably have taken it for granted – but since it’s a newfound hope and a new opportunity to push myself beyond my limits, it’s absolutely everything to me.

I wish everyone felt this way.

I’ve been traveling this week, and working some long-ass hours with one of those people who got excited by the changes I’ve been making. If you are friends with me on Facebook then you might know that I’m leveling up in the company I work for, and that my band is releasing our finest album to date. Saying that I have a lot going on is an understatement.

Through that, I’ve been able to maintain a level of physical fitness in the fitness room of the hotel I’ve been staying in. I’ve maintained my weightlifting routine, and I have been running with the usual regularity, but not for the lengths of time I’d like to. That can change in the future though, because I’m largely rolling on someone else’s timetable this week…

My boss, a great man who’s had a lot of influence over my professional trajectory, is retiring, and the company has seen fit to offer me his role in the company. I’ve been spending the week training with him, and even though he’s a quarter-century ahead of me, and retiring… he’s not here to fuck around.

I’m proud of where I am, and where I am going… even though after the job is fully mine I’ll be able to go for longer runs. lol.

inspiration and discipline

“This moves into every facet of life, including songwriting. Inspiration might get you to pick up a guitar and mess around with a chord progression or a lick, but discipline is what makes you pick up your guitar every day, and discipline is also what really has the capacity to make a song great.”

I hope I’m inspiring.

Well, I guess know I’m inspiring. I’ve been told I’m inspiring, but that’s not the point. I hope I stay inspiring. One of the great many things I’ve learned along my path is that inspiration is fickle. Inspiration is a notion that something might be a good idea and it requires absolutely no follow-through. Good ideas are good ideas whether you follow through or not.

Once upon a time, I was inspired to do something for my health. I went to the gym. It felt good, and I elected to do it again the next day. This went on for a period of time – let’s say a week, until one day I didn’t feel like it… like I deserved a break. I did deserve a break. I’d been working hard and it was time to rest. One day inevitably turned into two or maybe three – until guilt made me feel like I should get back on the horse. It; too, felt good.

After a while my feelings on the matter – the question of whether I was due for a rest, were no longer part of the equation. My rest days were planned just as much as my workout days were. I’d developed a routine and I was doing alright with it. Then I started seeing things I wanted to see. Things like larger biceps, or a lower number on the scale. This resulted in a more consistent practice. Diligent follow-through.

At some point along the way I was no longer inspired. I know I wasn’t inspired because there were days my alarm went off and I didn’t want to go to the gym – but I went anyway. That’s not inspiration, it’s discipline.

To this day I really don’t know how to answer the question “what inspires you?” because I think inspiration checked out a few miles back, and discipline took over. At this point there are so many great things that happen in my life as a result of my practice of self care that skipping a day doesn’t even occur to me – and when the unforeseeable happens, I reschedule, and I adapt… because that’s what discipline gets you: resilience.

This moves into every facet of life, including songwriting. Inspiration might get you to pick up a guitar and mess around with a chord progression or a lick, but discipline is what makes you pick up your guitar every day, and discipline is also what really has the capacity to make a song great.

Ultimately, if I had to choose between them, I’d rather be disciplined than inspired any day.

I didn’t make an entry about training last week, but it’s not for lack of follow-through. I’ve been changing my approach a little bit, and it’s all based on that notion that got me to start running in the first place…

Running is hard.

I’ve adjusted my focus away from the stationary bike and toward running. There’s still place for the bike… and for the rowing machine, stair climber, swimming… all of it, but running kills me the hardest. It’s the most calorie-burning and exhaustive activity I do, and I feel that if I want to accomplish my goals that I gotta dig in on the hard stuff.

It’s made for some ass-dragging, over-cooked days but it’s been worth the effort so far. I’ve definitely overdone it a couple times but I wear that with a bit of pride. I oughta pace myself, I know – but if I know anything, it’s that I will adjust, and fairly quickly.

Maintaining the weight lifting for a total of about 45-60 minutes, twice a week, and I hit the rowing machine, stair climber, and bike once a week each – the rest of the time I’m running. It looks like this:

Monday – long run (60 – 75 minutes)
Tuesday – stationary bike / weightlifting
Wednesday – rest
Thursday – long run (60 – 75 minutes)
Friday – row machine / weightlifting / stair climber
Saturday – bike (30 – 45 minutes) / run (30 – 45 minutes)
Sunday – rest

I’m undergoing a job-change right now, so there’s more than one kind of adjustment happening in my life, but it’s all for the best.

trauma

“Trauma is not just bad things happening to you.
It’s also good things not happening to you.”

Trauma might be the biggest 6 letter word of 2022… and maybe 2023 since we’re right in there now. I’m not sure if it’s my own algorithm treating me to a nice, shiny shovel with which to dig into my own psyche or if it’s actually everywhere, but it’s certainly a thing to be aware of.

Trauma is most often defined as anything that guides or reroutes neuropathways in the brain, and is completely experiential. That means: a thing happened to you and it changed the way you think. Typically a trauma response is something you implement to prevent yourself from experiencing that situation (or one like it) again, and it’s an understatement to say that most of these situations happen to you as a child or some other variation of young person. This is a time of great brain development and it’s a given that your brain has adapted to your bad experiences just as it has your good experiences and your educational experiences.

But trauma is not just bad things happening to you.
It’s also good things not happening to you.

The hard part of acknowledging trauma in your life is concluding that your parents had something to do with it. And basically, you’re right – they did, just as you as an adult likely have something to do with the trauma of your own children, perhaps your nieces & nephews – but assigning blame isn’t the point. Well, not always. To be trauma-free would make you an outlier in this world.

*** if you’re dealing with serious trauma from childhood you should talk to a professional who can guide you through it.

We’re all sculpted by our experiences in this life, and we’re all graced with a unique view of the world as a result. Often times our world view is what limits us and prevents us from success, just as there are many people who are propelled forward by those same factors.

My personal challenge has been to change my world view. I obviously can’t change my experiences, but I can change my reactions to them. I can use them to grow and see things in a new way, I can redefine what terms like success and growth mean to me after years of simply accepting the status quo. I won’t say it’s easy and it’s certainly not instantaneous.

But… I choose growth.

room for the miracle

“Personally I love this notion. If I have a plan and I need to change it in order to navigate the terrain of a tumultuous day, I can do so. It’s when I don’t have a plan at all that this change becomes a massive disruption.”

I like to have a plan.

I didn’t always like to have a plan, but then again I didn’t always get everything done that needed doing. In truth, the first positive thing I ever got a grip on was my health, and even then it was a loose grip in the beginning – but slowly & surely I made bigger progress followed by smaller regress… 2 steps forward, 1 step back until I learned enough about myself to optimize things.

It took me the better part of a decade to get done what I set out to do, and the most successful part of that (almost) decade was the fall of 2018 leading all the way through 2019 and into the pandemic. I consistently lost 1-2 lbs for a year & a half.

I’ve also been able to apply the principals of that weight loss to other aspects of my life, everything from home improvement projects to artistic output. I’ll spare a lot of the rhetoric and sum it up: Do the work.

Doing the work is methodical and consistent more than anything, but the work requires rest and periodic analysis, too – and it’s within that rest and analysis that we can take a step back and figure out what’s working and what’s not, and how to make things move more efficiently in the direction we want them to. Now, the term isn’t mine, but the concept of ‘making room for the miracle‘ has been pretty constant in my life as of late. The idea that having a plan is great, and knowing that plans change.

Personally I love this notion. If I have a plan and I need to change it in order to navigate the terrain of a tumultuous day, I can do so. It’s when I don’t have a plan at all that this change becomes a massive disruption.

In the context of songwriting, songs show up in my whenever they please… but if I don’t have a guitar and a pen on hand with some regularity then those moments are sure to be further and fewer between – even less so if I insist on exclusively working on scales and rudiments without allowing for any experimentation. Similarly if I want to develop muscle, I’m going to have to spend some time in the gym – and consider trying a new sport or game. If I want to lose some weight then I’m going to have to put some effort into selecting nutrient dense foods, but it’s bound to be more exciting to try some new recipes.

It’s important to stay consistent without being too precious about the action because it can be easy to lose sight of the goal, in the ‘can’t see the forest when you’re looking at the trees‘ sort of way.

When I did my first vegetable juice fast in 2014, I wasn’t thinking about triathlon, or home ownership, or my musical trajectory – but all of those things were ultimately set in motion at that time.

Training this week, has been exactly as written above. The week started out well, but since I’m out traveling and playing shows from Wednesday to Sunday, working out and running have been challenging. I am doing what I can when I can, and through some measure of magic I’ve been able to do a little more than I’d anticipated.

And ill be back on track in no time.

new realism

I recently had my mind blown open after following up on a book recommendation from a like-minded friend. The book is called “HumanKind” and it was written in Dutch by Rutger Bregman, who; after watching a few interviews, I’ve determined is the real deal.

I don’t often furnish myself with the time to sit and read, so audiobooks tend to be my preferred medium, but in any format this particular book challenges the idea of ‘realism’ or ‘being a realist’ – a label I’ve donned myself with many times in my life, by calling what it really is – fatalism. His book pokes holes in ‘veneer theory’ and the prison system, various social structures and regimes, and provides a balanced look at the world we live in now; which it may be surprising to learn, is one of the most peaceful and friendly periods of our short history on this planet we’ve ever known.

The true ‘realism’ is that things are ultimately good, or at least more good than bad, and that the realistic outlook is bleak more often than not. A realistic viewpoint after accounting for the statistics, is pretty optimistic.

In truth, both statistically and as a personal observation, it’s not hard to see that of the several billion cohabitants of this planet, the vast majority of us are doing our best to be the best versions of ourselves we can be, and that we are not inherently selfish or self-sabotaging so much as we are naturally social and communal in our day to day lives – and the broadcast news and viral editorial columns that are designed to grab our attention are actually the exception, not the rule. That’s what makes them interesting. Though as someone who’s spent some time mainlining cable news through the majority of the COVID-19 pandemic, I can see very plainly how someone might get the idea that the whole world is like that, when it’s really not.

The thought that’s forefront in my brain today is the idea that when an onlooker sees someone doing something good; giving money to a panhandler for example, that it would be easy to denigrate them by saying they were giving for selfish reasons. However, numerous studies have been done on such things, the results of which are irrelevant because in the end: doing good things feels good. Of course there’s ‘something in it’ for the one giving, just as there is for the recipient and to cheapen the experience by being critical of the deed, or even just the time & place of the deed, is counterproductive, and ultimately anti-human.

If every time you held the door for someone at the mall, you felt some abdominal pain or dizziness, it wouldn’t take long before the world became a much darker and less welcoming place than it is.

So why question the motivation if the result is good? I’m not saying we should be broadcasting and virtue signaling with our good deeds all over social media, but we should not hesitate to engage in the human experience, which includes acts of service, community, and love.

Training this week has been good – it’s been nice to get back at it in a serious way. At this point; for me, I am not interested in any wasted effort. When I got to the gym, I’m there for a solid 90 minutes (or more, on occasion) and the goal is complete decimation of the muscles. I leave there with nothing left in the tank as a general rule, and I’ve found it to be infinitely rewarding.

Monday and Friday were both a 45 minute ride and a 45 minute weight workout. Thursday was 45 minutes on the bike and a 25 minute run. I had slightly less time than anticipated but I still got my thing done, and Saturday‘s brick was a 60 minute ride and a 15 minute run. Tuesday has become an at-home floor/core workout that really doesn’t take much time, but I often don’t get to that muscle group on any of the other days, so Tuesday becomes an overflow day.

It sounds great to say you ‘left nothing in the tank’ after a workout, but it’s another thing to really do it. In a few short months we’ll be back outside – but until then, this is what we’re doing and we’re loving the effort.

living in the future: permission to dream

“Traditionally we set unrealistic goals and then berate ourselves for not holding them up despite the fact that this is the hardest time of year to do anything. We’re exhausted from the poor sleep and poor food choices of the past week, family visits tend to take an emotional toll – but a similar toll is felt by people with nobody to celebrate with. So we’re ready to commit to anything that will make us feel better than we currently do.”

As a supplementary post to last week’s post about living in the past, I thought it’d be nice to give myself permission to dream.

New Years is one of those times that is so marked with tradition that we tend to be able to recall previous years with ease, but our thoughts tend to trend toward the idea that “this year will be different” and – well, of course it will be.

Traditionally we set unrealistic goals and then berate ourselves for not holding them up despite the fact that this is the hardest time of year to do anything. We’re exhausted from the poor sleep and poor food choices of the past week, family visits tend to take an emotional toll – but a similar toll is felt by people with nobody to celebrate with. So we’re ready to commit to anything that will make us feel better than we currently do.

The gyms will be fraught with new enrollment, and sadly attendance will taper off gradually over the next couple of months. Cigarette and booze sales will decline for a bit, but only for a bit. I’m not speaking this over anyone, so much as observing a pattern.

It’s a hard time of year… But…

Dreaming is allowed. I encourage you to not only dream, but to sort out what the steps are to get there. I promise you that you’re not going to just wake up one day and run a marathon – not without paying for it in one way or another – but if that’s a dream, you can certainly realize it if you put a plan together.

I sincerely hope to see people make the best of their time and really set themselves in motion.

Training this week has been a bit lighter. We took a few days to chill but by Thursday and Friday it was time get get into Zone 2 and start lifting weights. Saturday was a Zone 2 bike/run for an hour – and tonight I play a New Years Eve show at The Black Dog in Edmonton and I’m happy to be fresh for that.

The new year is here… and the plan; for me, is to throw down hard. My music, my job, and my workout regimen won’t even see me coming. The restful holiday time spent gathering with loved ones and reminiscing are over; and frankly, I’ve got some serious shit to do. I’ve got a new record coming out in April, the pre-orders for which will formally be open in a couple of weeks, and I’ve got work to do on that front as well as booking shows, and writing songs for the next one. I’ve got some fitness goals that need some attention that will require me to squeeze every ounce out of my current 6.5-7.0 hours per week I spend training… and… did I mention I also have a job and a family?

I’m not concerned about time constraints. I get up pretty early, so a lot of what I need to take care of gets taken care of before most people are awake – the primary concern is effort and efficiency.

I don’t expect anyone to do what I do to the degree to which I do it… but I hope people push their limits and achieve their goals. I love seeing that.

Between a conscious decision to take it easy this week, which I made back at the beginning of November, and an emergency tooth extraction and a round of antibiotics – I gotta say it feels really good to be back at it in the gym this week. I started back in on Thursday with 90 minutes of endurance / Zone 2 training and Friday with a 45 minutes of cycling and a 45 minute weight workout that consisted primarily of compound exercises – I wanted to hit all my muscle groups since it had been a spell without any serious lifting.

As this is being posted, I’m likely out the door and spending the morning of New Years Eve doing a bike/run with my girlfriend, easily the best way to start the new year. I’m disinclined to really punish myself because I’ve got a long night ahead of me, as my band Confusionaires is performing at The Black Dog in Edmonton tonight.

January is a busy month for me as a performer, and has historically been so. You wouldn’t think it would be that way, but I’ll be traversing this frozen province a couple times before the end of the month, both with Confusionaires and with Robin Kelly, and Elvis Presley tribute artist I play guitar with.

Happy New Year Everyone!