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A Running Rundown – 1/19/12

It's been a few months since I've offered up a race report or any kind of commentary on the athlete side of life, so now I've created A Running Rundown - a new category of post that summarizes my harrier activities for those that wonder about that stuff.  I'm currently 3 1/2 weeks from Holiday Lake 50k++, my first actual ultra of the season, and, well, the preparation hasn't been seamless. Around the holidays, I made the mistake of checking my last year's training log to see what my mileage looked like one year ago at the same time.  That was a mistake.  It makes a difference when (A) you started your running phase a month earlier and (B) you have a stupidly long event (40 miler) to train for scaring you into more mileage.  For the record, once you've done a 40-miler, somehow 50k's no longer count as ridiculously long.  Argue with my logic if you like, but I challenge any of you to come to a different conclusion after treading those same miles yourself. So, anyway, I figure, no problemo about the mileage because I'm not concerned about being super fit or fast for this winter's events and hey I've still got time anyway.  Then I ran 2/3 of a FA 50k on New Year's Eve at a faster than intended clip while living in a den of hacking and sniffling.  This was rapidly followed by me participating in the hacking and sniffling.  For the record, the boys are still hacking and sniffling as am I, but I thankfully managed to stave off the worst of the bug. After that, the period of time intended to see a build-up of miles became a time that mileage dropped in order to not make myself so sick I had to stop running altogether.  All said, my run fitness may not be all that amazing right now. Yet I still had the Little River Trail Run 10 miler on my docket.  Meh.  I figured it would be good speed work.  It was.  I figured my mental race toughness would be a little off.  It was.  These all sound like excuses and I guess they would be if I had gone into this seeking a PR or some sort of high overall placement.  I wasn't. Early on, I saw a Bull City Track Club teammate lope away and had a train of three women to purportedly pace off of.  Really what happened is I would fall back going up hill because it was spiking my heartrate really high to try and keep up, and then catch up on technical and/or downhill sections.  This lasted until the extended climbing section in the middle, which is when I simply lost sight of them. In the end, I went about a minute or so slower than last year, which isn't too bad.  Even better, all the speedier runners ahead of me were under 40 years of age.  Huzzah!  Hello sweet new running shirt and gift certificate for dinner for 2 at local swanky joint! So the next day, I run 16 miles on the ATT before the soreness really sets in.  Then follow that with lots of stretching and a massage session.  My body was feeling a little worked over come Monday morning, but I made it to pilates class. I've been doing well with two long runs each weekend-- one on singletrack and one on bridle type trails-- but each run tends to be around 2 hours long or a bit longer.  I have a 50k coming up and my longest training run is still only 22 miles.  That was leaving me a little anxious until I heard about another FatAss event up at Falls Lake for distances between 26-53 miles.  I'm going 26.  It's this Saturday and the forecast is for rain in the 40's.  Perfect. I'll check back in with you folks later.

Toddler Talk – January 2012

We are sooo in trouble.  We've got a clever one on our hands that has an impressive learning curve with using our own words and techniques against us.  Such as?  Click on to learn more. We have (thankfully) transitioned past the phase of semi-hourly on the floor tantrums.  However, this negotiation technique has been replaced by something more insidious.  That's right.  The kid has a repertoire of gambits and he's not shy about using them.  Let me illustrate with a story.
Papa, who couldn't pass up the opportunity to buy his grandson a big toy, got Remy one of those toddler cars.  We call it the gator, because that's what it says on it's side.  So Remy loves driving it around when we visit (the Gator stays there) and we did that last weekend.  Remy then get's tired of it when the vehicle is pretty far from the hangar, where we park it.  The Gator is too small for an adult to drive, so my Dad starts negotiating with Remy. "Remy, can you drive the Gator back to the hangar while Papa helps steer?" "No.  You can do it." "If you drive the Gator back, Nana will give you a cookie." Remy agrees to this arrangement and the Gator makes it's way back.  Remy's feet haven't hit the ground when dismounting before he's asking where his cookie is.  He NEVER forgets when you make a deal with him.  NEVER.  If you make a bargain, you'd better be prepared to deliver on it. So Nana takes Remy into the kitchen and brings out the animal cookies.  Nana asks, "How many do you want?  Three or four?" Remy replies, "Three."  Gets those three cookies, then corrects.  "No.  Not three.  I want four." Nana lets him have four. But Remy's not done.  "How about ten?"
  This is the kind of thing we deal with all the time.   In theory, bribes like the cookie one above sound like bad policy, and I would have agreed with you before I had a toddler.  The thing is that they work when nothing else does.  Just gotta be careful about what we're agreeing to is all.  I usually pick something I would have permitted any way, but present it like it's an awesome deal that he can't get until he does whatever thing I want him to do first. We also are getting "not yet" in place of no a lot of times.  It's a good replacement, because it doesn't sound totally disagreeable even when he's disagreeing.  He's also gotten very good at asking really sweetly for things he wants.  In fact, he's a sweet talker and a smart aleck all in one.  If we ask him if he can say a particular word, he may say it, but he's just as likely to respond, "yes."  Yes.  Just yes.  If I take the time to then ask will he say it, I get "Nope!"  Nope.  This is one more word that he's learned from me.  Class A parenting over here. One new thing we've done is implemented the No Boob countdown calendar.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Boob is what we call nursing around here.  Classy, I know, but that's the lingo.  I got the super clever idea to have months January through March taped up on the wall where we can cross off each day that takes us closer to April 1st-- the big day that Remy is a big boy and doesn't need boob any more. In a stroke of what I considered genius parenting, I figured he could learn more about the passage of time, days of the week, months of the year and prepare gradually for weaning.  If you ask Remy what the NB stands for, he knows.  So everything's going swimmingly until I turn my head for 10 seconds while Remy has the Sharpie in hand.  Now we have this.   Ah.  Oh well.  It will still work I hope.   Now back to reading stuff and watching the boys play Angry Birds.  

Defining Success for Success

Success is one of those things we generally think we know what it means and behave as if everyone defines it pretty much the same way.  Except we don't.  We acknowledge this pretty quickly in terms of where different people set their performance bars, but there's a lot more to success definition than moving an outcomes bar up and down some arbitrary, society-defined metric. This is an important consideration for not just athletic achievement, but also career and life-wide achievement.  We do this naturally when we encounter transitional periods like moving out of our parents' house (the first time), when we marry, when we become parents or when we have a mid-life crisis and realize that what we're doing isn't what we really want to do anymore.  What if we were to re-exemplify what success means to us deliberately? Sounds worthwhile.  But how do we do it in a way that's advantageous? When thinking about what makes one definition of success healthier than another, we can evaluate emotional response.  What do we feel when we think about success?  Is it anxiety or excitement?  If we feel anxiety or even fear, that could be a sign to revisit what we think success means.
"Careful you must be when sensing the future, Anakin. The fear of loss is a path to the dark side."―Yoda to Anakin Skywalker
Let's say, hypothetically, that we notice some icky anxiety when conducting the emotional response test.  What then? How do we figure out what needs changing in our success definition? In giving this some thought, a positive success definition is rational, achievable, a stretch, and of interest to us.  Let's examine how to test for each of these things in our own success definitions. Testing rationality.  A belief that lacks rationality is akin to throwing away your power over your self-concept.  You allow your satisfaction to hinge on what someone else does or seems to think.  Believe you me that someone else doesn't have your best interests at heart-- they have their best interests.  Be your own best advocate.  How?  Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT) is a sort of cognitive therapy model that proposes our emotional responses aren't direct results of what other people say or do, but rather a result of the beliefs we have about the situation.  REBT identifies the Three Major Musts that are most problematic- (1) I must do well and win approval of others, (2) other people must do the right thing, and (3) life must be easy and fair.  Follow the links to get more details about REBT and the Three Major Musts.  Do any of these musts underlie your definition of what is successful?   If so, you've just identified one area that you can address to make your success definition healthier. Stretching ourselves.  Success should require growth.  How can it be success if it's just easy?  That's not success, that's just lame.  In fact, pushing ourselves is not only the path to improvement but it's inherently emotionally rewarding.  Who hasn't heard of Csikszentmihalyi's concept of flow?  Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.  Ask yourself if your definition of success is a stretch for you.  Even if you're already successful, keep raising that bar!  Keep aspiring to flow. Testing achievability.  Stretch, but don't raise the bar so high it's not achievable ever.  I mean, go ahead and aim sky high with those long term goals, but give yourself a chance to find small successes in the meantime.  A common scenario when achievability becomes an issue is when we experience changing life circumstances and priorities.  For example, once I started a family and began working full-time again, my definition of my success as an athlete changed quite a bit.  Actually success in general began to hinge a lot less on winning races and a lot more on doing great work and being present and involved parent.  There are lots of events through a normal lifetime that we have to shed our old definitions of success because they aren't relevant to our lives anymore.  Let's really ask ourselves the hard question of whether our definition can realistically happen-- are we able and willing to put in the work it will take considering our broader expectations?  If the answer is a resounding no, then time to rework that definition. Testing for interest.  Sometimes we adopt a success definition dictated to us by our environment- whether that's our parents, teachers or broader social context- that, once inspected more closely, doesn't really excite us.  For example, it's commonly held that higher level positions accompanied by higher salaries are clear markers of success.  However, I'm not personally motivated by title or salary.  Sometimes I almost wish I was or wonder why it isn't so, but the fact remains that those two things aren't aspirational drivers for  me.  Because of this, if I used a success definition based on those things, it wouldn't be as helpful as a definition that aligns more closely with my personal values and interests.  What are your personal values and interests?  Does your success vision align with those?  Or have you adopted someone else's vision as your own?
Your definition of success should be defined by you.  Though it is inevitable that parents, peers and society will influence your definition of success, it imperative that your definition be crafted based on your unique experiences, perspective and preferences.  I think that for most people this requires periods of introspection and actively challenging beliefs about our self and our life that are not our own. -- Akash Mittal.
The Act of Success Redefinition.  So that was the diagnosis part of success definition.  Let's say we discover the time is right to redefine success for ourselves.  What then?  How do we go about redefining success in a meaningful way for ourselves?  Here are some thoughts for a Reader's Digest version for how to proceed.
"To set your personal definition of success, you will need to identify one or more "anchoring points" -- The Bridgespan Group
Strategic anchoring of your success image.  It makes perfect sense to compare ourselves to role models that we grow up with or that surround us, because these are really handy examples.  Often these are role models that do certain things well that we aspire to emulate.  Sometimes, though, there are aspects of that role model's behavior that hold us back.  How so?  We might console ourselves for falling short of our ideals by comparing ourselves saying, "well at least I'm better than ______ in that situation."  Is this helpful? Anchor to values.  Strategic anchoring is more than picking a role model from our limited pallet of options.  It's about choosing your comparison points in a way that optimizes your chance of a desirable outcome.  When you anchor to a succint set of non-negotiable values, you're better off.  Articulate those values, then define your success based on those values. Anchor, tweak and test.  Tweak and test.  Iterate until you've got what works and then revisit and iterate again soon.  Build in feedback loops that show you how you're doing.  Feedback loops are intermediary self-reflection checks on how we're doing against our standard of success.  If you're looking to lose weight, it's a good idea to weight yourself every now and then so you know whether your decisions leading you towards your success.  Seek trends in the data without fixating on specific data points.
All rising to great places is by a winding stair.  -- Francis Bacon
Why your success definition matters.  Isn't this all just a bunch of head games?  What difference do thoughts have on actual physical performance?  Here's a not-so-secret secret.  Mind-body is a false dichotomy.  They are interconnected in ways that can't be severed.  Even so, there are many things in our existence that are treated as if they are not related and it is these errors that cause problems.  By problems, I mean unintended consequences that are often not seen for what they are but as problems the world has unfairly beset upon us.  What you think does matter in a very physical way.
We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.  -- Albert Einstein.
If you're ready to grow, it's time for you to redefine success.  Now get to work!    

Toddler Talk – December 2011

Time keeps passing.  Yesterday, I looked back at Remy's newborn pictures and couldn't believe how small he was.  Small in a "big for a newborn" kind of way, that is.  But now he's big and destined to get bigger still.  Here's the latest trends in Remy land. Counting Things - Remy's a compulsive counter these days.  We count everything.  Daddy taught him to count to 100 and he gets super excited about anything with numbers. Early Reading - We're in the pre-reading stage.  He recognizes and can spell a few small words like car, sun or bed.  When we read books together, he'll say "tell this one!"  Then he commands us to "say it slowly" and turns the page before we can finish. Swimming Regularly - Gary's been taking Remy to the pool on a regular basis.  He's developed a preference for the floatie vest, when before he wouldn't touch the thing.  Now he can float wherever and will occasionally jump off the wall into Mommy or Daddy's arms.  He's getting more courageous in general in the water, which is nice to see. Bossy Man - The kid's not afraid to let his will be known.  This isn't new.  Hasn't subsided either, but he's becoming more articulate about it all. Mr. Talks a Lot - He might be a bit quiet around strangers, but he doesn't stop jabbering when he's at home.  Doesn't.  Stop.  Except when he's sleeping, although he sometimes says things when he's waking up. Tomorrow, we're going to friend Grier's 2nd birthday party.  Remy's excited to see Grier, play with his truck and give him a hug.  Here's some pictures.    

Running and the 2012 Race Season

It's time to come clean and talk about what I would have rather been doing while I was training and racing triathlons throughout the 2011 season and what I will be doing during the 2012 season.  It took a little forcing myself to do swim and bike workouts.  I just wanted to run. Why?  Less time commitment for the value and the limit of my capabilities in pure running is relatively unexplored.  Sure, I know how well I run based off a couple months of trail- and road-running base, or while I'm also training for swim and bike, but what could  I do if I really just focused on running for, say, a year?  Gave my body a little time to re-shape itself a tiny bit more like a runner instead of a quad-heavy, substantial-shouldered triathlete?  What could I do if I did this before age becomes an inexorable factor? I know I probably have less speed now, but I have better endurance and run durability.  I've finally figured out how to train slowly enough to get the consistency up and therefore the mileage up.  Also, the ultra's I've done build my confidence for a fast road marathon.  Well, faster than my 3:12 PR from early 2005 at least. So that's the drive on the interesting-and-worthwhile-goal front, but the time commitment factor is an at least equal draw to a run-only plan.  Even when I add in a few yoga and pilates sessions a week on top of higher mileage, I'm still going to be logging fewer hours than the kind of triathlon training it takes to try and maintain what I've achieved. That's a freeing sensation.  I have a family and job I love-- I'm over the feeling that my training sacrifices one or the other.  Not that run training won't require a balancing act, but it's a matter of degrees.  Plus, the goal is interesting to me. So...I'm sorry triathlete friends.  I don't mean any offense when I say I'm burned out on the scene right now and might not be back for years.  No swimming except floating around in the pool with my son on occasion.  No biking except to commute.  As an athlete, I want to be a runner that does some yoga and pilates.  That's just where I am. So blah blah running blah blah.  What's your racing sched Alicia? Well, I've got my eye on a couple trail 50k's this winter.  That 40-miler was an interesting challenge last year, but that box is checked.  I've signed up for the Holiday Lake 50k which is purported to be one of the "easier" and "faster" 50k's.  That interests me.  Also, I'm hoping that BCRC can get the Mountains to the Sea 50k to happen this year and I hear it from a reliable source that the event's prospects are looking up.  I'm also comp'ed in to the Umstead Trail Marathon again-- can I break 3:30 this year?  There will be other, shorter and/or informal events mixed in, but that's the gist of the trail running season. As I did last year, Spring will mark a transition to road racing.  Shorter stuff and a longer term plan for a fall marathon build.  I haven't picked a marathon yet, but I'm looking at Outer Banks because it's flat, fast and not super crowded.  I'm not big on being packed in like a sardine when I run.  Actually, I'm not big on being packed in like a sardine ever.    Anyway, I have some tiered time goals for the marathon that I'll share at a later date. So that's the scoop.  Running.  I'm excited about the change, which is a nice switch from the sense of obligation that drove my training and racing this past tri season.  Running!  I'm a runner now.  Whee!

2011 Reading List

I know the year isn't over yet, but this year's reading list is grandiose, almost crass, in it's length so I'd rather go ahead and trim and log it in the form of a blog post.  Some of it was required reading for various things, but I guess I just read a lot over the past year.
Finished Books and Articles:
  • The Help.  by Kathryn Stockett. *
  • Designing next-generation platforms for evaluating scientific output: What scientists can learn from the social web.  by Tal Yarkoni. *
  • The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive.  by Patrick Lencioni.
  • Coach:  Lessons on the Game of Life.  by Michael Lewis. *
  • The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership.  by James Couzes and Barry Posner.
  • The Making of a Corporate Athlete.  by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz.
  • Evolution's End:  Claiming the Potential of Our Intelligence.  by Joseph Chilton Pearce.
  • The Intellectual Odyssey of Elliott Jacques:  From Alchemy to Science. by Douglas Kirsner.
  • The Business of Academic Publishing:  A Strategic Analysis of the Academic Journal Publishing Industry and its Impact on the Future of Scholarly Publishing.  by Glenn McGuigan and Robert Russell.
  • But What Have You Done For Me Lately? Commercial Publication, Scholarly Communication and Open Access.  by John P. Conley and Myra Wooders.
  • The Prophet.  by Kahlil Gibran. (re-read) *
  • Mastering Emergent Strategies: Taking Uncertain Ideas Forward.  by Scott D. Anthony, Mark W. Johnson, Jospeh V. Sinfield and Elizabeth Altman.
  • Using a Balanced Scorecard to Align Your Organization. by Howard Rohm.
  • How to Win Friends & Influence People.  by Dale Carnegie. (re-read)
  • Touch Points:  Creating Powerful Leadership Connections in the Smallest of Moments.  by Douglas Conant and Mette Norgaard. *
  • HR is Dead:  Long Live Employee Experience.  by Razor Suleman and Kris Dunn.
  • Through the Network (of Networks) -- The Fifth Estate.  by William H. Dutton.
  • Acres of Diamonds. by Russell H. Conwell.
  • Interconnected Networks of Practice in Professional Learning.  by Julie Mackey and Terry Evans.
  • Rules for Revolutionaries:  The Corporate Manifesto for Creating and Marketing New Products and Services.  by Guy Kawasaki.
  • What's Next?  The 2007 Changing Nature of Leadership Survey.  by Andre Martin.
  • 2011 Executive Job Market Intelligence Report.  by Execunet.
  • The 3P Learning Model.  by Mohamed Amine Chatti, Matthias Jarke and Marcus Specht.
  • The Mondragon Model:  A New Pathway for the 21st Century.  by Joel A. Barker.  (excerpt from Ch. 11 from "The Organization of the Future" published by the Peter F. Drucker Foundation.
  • The Talent Myth:  Are Smart People Overrated?  by Malcolm Gladwell.
  • Drive:  The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.  by Daniel Pink.
  • The Innovator's Dilemma:  The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business.  by Clayton Christensen.
  • Orbiting the Giant Hairball:  A Corporate Fool's Guide to Surviving With Grace.  by Gordon Mackenzie. (re-read) *
  • The Complete Idiot's Guide to The Power of the Enneagram.  by Herb Pearce and Karen Brees.
  • Helping Leaders Take Effective Action: A Program Evaluation. by Dianne Young and Nancy Dixon.
  • Open Science at Web-Scale:  Optimising Participation and Predictive Potential.  Consultative Report.  by Dr. Liz Lyon.
  • Senior Leadership Team Coaching.  A Center for Creative Leadership White Paper.  by Douglas Riddle.
  • The Story of Edgar Sawtelle.  by David Wroblewski.  *
  • Talent Intelligence -- Key to US Business Success.  Taleo Research White Paper.
  • Thoughtful Pay Survey:  Corporate Governance and the Compensation Committee.  Survey Results May 2005.  by Compensia.
  • Leadership Development:  Optimizing Human Capital for Business Success. by Nancy Lockwood.
  • The Influence of Experience & Deliberate Practice on the Development of Superior Expert Performance.  by K. Anders Ericsson.
  • 10 Trends:  A Study of Senior Executives' Views on the Future.  by Corey Criswell and Andre Martin.
  • Choosing 360:  A Guide to Evaluating Multi-rater Feedback Instruments for Management Development.  by Center for Creative Leadership.
  • Startup Genome:  Cracking the Code of Innovation.  by Max Marmer, Bjoern Lasse Herrmann, and Ron Berman. *
  • Leadership Development:  Past, Present and Future.  by Gina Hernez-Broome, Richard L. Hughes, Center for Creative Leadership.
  • Using 360 Degree Feedback in Organizations:  An Annotated Bibliography.  by Center for Creative Leadership.
  • 360 Degree Feedback Best Practices to Ensure Impact.  by Center for Creative Leadership.
  • Reinventing Leadership Development:  Proactive and Progressive Strategies, by Dan Gallagher, Theresa Dadone, and Sandra Foster.
  • Managing Yourself:  The Paradox of Excellence.  by Thomas DeLong and Sara DeLong.
  • The Future of Online Learning: Ten Years On. by Stephen Downes.
  • Why Lead Nurturing Works:  An Introduction.  by Silicon Cloud.
  • Employee Resistance to Management Control Through Humor.  by Murad Salman Mirza & Helene S. Kannemeyer.
  • Employees Stuck in the Middle:  How to Transform the Average Joe into an Everyday Superhero, by Cornerstone.
  • Fighting Fraud with the Red Flags Rule:  A How-To Guide for Business.  by The Federal Trade Commission.
  • Assessment 2.0:  Modernizing Assessment in the age of Web 2.0.  by Bobby Elliott.
  • Are You a Gen Y Magnet?  Q&A with Ryan Healy of Brazen Careerist.
  • Media & Culture:  An Introduction to Mass Communication.  by Richard Campbell, Christopher Martin & Bettina Fabos.
  • What Does Research Say About Streaming Media?  by Myra Sellers.
  • Manual for the GRE Test. by The Princeton Review.
  • Practicing to Take the GRE General Test, 10th Edition.  by Educational Testing Service.
  • Electronic Gaming Machines:  Are They the "Crack Cocaine" of Gambling?  by Nicki Dowling, David Smith & Trang Thomas.
  • American Culture - And It's Influence.  by Barnett Singer.
  • The Ecstasy of Influence:  A Plaigarism.  by Jonathan Lethem.
  • The Unschooled Mind:  How Children Think & How Schools Should Teach. by Howard Gardner.
  • The Dance of Technology and Pedgagogy in Self-Paced Distance Education.  by Terry Anderson.
  • Whatever it Takes:  Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem & America.  by Paul Tough. *
  • Research Ethics in the Virtual World.  by Agnes Nairn.
  • The Unschooled Mind. by Howard Gardner.  Peterson Lectures published by the International Baccalaureate Association.  *
  • What is Education For? by Nicholas Tate.  Peterson Lectures published by the International Baccalaureate Association.
  • You're Smarter Than You Think:  A Kid's Guide to Multiple Intelligences. by Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D.
  • Between Parent & Child. by Dr. Haim G. Ginott.  *
  • 7 Things You Should Know About Personal Learning Environments. by Educause Learning Initiative.
  • Discovering the Gifted Ex-Child. by Stephanie Tolan. *
  • Durham Strategic Plan Charting Our Course. FY 2011-13.
  • Raising Self-Reliant Children in a Self-Indulgent World:  Seven Building Blocks for Developing Capable Young People.   by H. Stephen Glenn and Jane Nelson.  *
  • Is Education 1.0 Ready for Web 2.0 Students? by John Thompson.
  • Durham Public School Strategic Plan 2011. DPS Board of Education.
  • First, There Was Pedagogy and Then Came Adrogogy. by Philip O. Ozuah.
  • What Do We Know About Students' Learning and How Do We Know It? by K. Patricia Cross.
  • University of Phoenix Facilitation Skills Manual. by the University of Phoenix Central Administration Academic Affairs.
  • 2009-2010 University of Phoenix Faculty Manual. by the University of Phoenix.
  • Teaching Critical Thinking and Problem Solving Skills. by Lisa Gueldenzoph Snyder & Mark J. Snyder.
  • The Role of Metacognitive Knowledge in Learning, Teaching & Assessing. by Paul R. Pintrich.
  • An Investigation into Tertiary Teaching:  Emphasizing Reflective Practice. by Ruth Kane, Susan Sandretto, & Chris Heath.
  • It's Called Androgogy. by Stephen Paul Forrest III & Tim O. Peterson.
  • Learner-Centered Teaching:  Postsecondary Strategies That Promote "Thinking Like a Professional." by J. Thompson, B. Licklider, & S. Jungst.
  • The Big Picture:  Education is Everyone's Business. by Dennis Littky.  *
  • A Summary of Relevant Research and Experience with Developing Capable People and Developing Capable Young People Training Programs In Prevention, Education, Family Life, The Workplace & Social Service. by H. Stephen Glenn and Bruce F. Colston.  *
  • Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns. by Clayton M. Christensen.  *
  • University of Phoenix 2010 Academic Report.
  • Montessori From The Start:  The Child at Home, from Birth to Age Three. by Paula Polk Lillard and Lynn Lillard Jessen.
  • Implementing Reflective Practice Approaches with Elite Team Athletes:  Parameters of Success.  by Pam Richards, Duncan R.D. Mascarenhas, and Dave Collins.
Returned to Library Before Complete:
  • The Biology of Belief:  Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter & Miracles.  by Bruce Lipton, Ph.D.
  • Positive Discipline for Preschoolers.  by Jane Nelson, Cheryl Erwin, & Roslyn Ann Duffy. *
  • A Chance to Make History: What Works and What Doesn't in Providing Excellent Education for All. *  by Wendy Kopp.
  • Intelligence Reframed:  Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century. by Howard Gardner.  *
Started and Discarded:
  • Classroom Assessment Techniques:  A Handbook for College Teachers. by Thomas A. Angelo and K. Patricia Cross. * (a good reference - will return to it)
  • Montessori at Home. By Heidi Spietz.
  • The Game-Changer:  How You can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth with Innovation.  by A. G. Lafley and Ram Charan.
  • Full Spectrum 2 (anthology).  Edited by Lou Aronica, Shawna McCarthy, Amy Stout and Pat LoBrutto.
  • Keeping Good People:  Strategies for Solving the #1 Problem Facing Business Today.  by Roger E. Herman.
  • Talking Leadership:  Conversations with Powerful Women.  by Mary S. Hartman. (read parts of it)
* Recommended Readings. These are those items that I really enjoyed and would recommend to others. Not that other items on the list are bad (some are OK and some are quite good), it’s just that they aren’t as memorable.   (see 2008 Reading List at this link, the 2009 Reading List here, and the 2010 Reading list here.)

Long Course Tri Worlds in Henderson, NV

Here it is.  The race report for the last triathlon for a while so you can read how it all played out. As do most full-time employed parents that try to be triathletes, I made some choices about how to spend my training time and how much of it to spend in the first place.  In order to prep up for the longer swim and get my run in a good place, I might have made some sacrifices on the bike volume front.  My bike fitness was at a peak mid-summer and that was rewarded by a big 10 mile time trial PR.  Which is awesome and all but this is early November and I wasn't so confident about the cycling fitness at this stage of the season.  No matter.  I was going to go for it anyway, and by go for it, I mean do the best I could with what I had. Then in the bitterly cold early morning darkness of race morning I hear the announcement that the swim is cancelled.  What?  Something about ITU rules and the average of the air (37) vs. water (64) temperature.  Sigh.  I'm not going to worry about what I can't change, so I go hang out with my home stay peeps that happened to be staying in the hotel near the swim-bike transition area.  Yeah, strange arrangement, but it gave me and the family somewhere warm to hang out until it was time to start the bike.  In  lieu of the swim, everyone was started at 5 second intervals by race number.   I was #842 out of just under a thousand.  Which meant I had a little wait. So what did I think about during the wait?  First, I adjusted my nutrition plan on the fly and got ready to go.  When I was lined up at the bike rack, I met Susan Williams, who was two slots down from me.   She's very nice and quite modest about her abilities.  Her abilities, in fact, are ridiculous although the longer distance and lack of swim weren't doing her any favors.  Not that she needed favors to win the age group handily (yes she won).  Oh.  Sorry.  Did I ruin the surprise?  Pity. This time of year, Henderson, Nevada is known for it's windy weather, so I was a bit cautious at the beginning of the ride.  I needn't have been because it wasn't bad at all.  Maybe 10mph winds is all Henderson had to offer that day.  No big deal.  So all that worry some people had about the front blowing through the prior day was for naught.  And to all those people who looked warily at my wheel cover during bike drop-off-- no problemo amigos. One thing I did notice within the first mile of the bike is the ease with which Susan passed and dispatched me out the back.  There were others who passed me by later and I know there were ladies who started ahead of me eating up the pavement at a faster pace than I.  Now, I don't believe myself to be the awesomest cyclist out there, but I'm usually pretty solid in the women's field.  Let's just say I was getting the distinct impression that I might not be in top bike form.  Which, if you read a few paragraphs prior, shouldn't be a major surprise.  Life priorities and all. One of the most interesting things I saw out on the bike course was an enormous, gray hairy spider creeping across the road.  First, I saw a woman up ahead of me swerve around something and then thought I saw a crab.  Wait a minute...crabs don't live in the desert!  Then I nearly run over that ugly bugger.  Now, I can't swear to it, but it may very well have been a desert tarantula.  Can't say I stopped to get a closer look or anything. Anyway, as planned, I picked up my effort in the final 15-20 miles and reeled a few ladies back in that passed me earlier.  This was the part on the mountain trail back into (and UP to) town.  I finished with an OK but not amazing 4:04:xx and hoped I had left enough in my legs for the excellent run that I knew I was fit enough for.  Maybe my bike fitness was off, but certainly I was ready to run pretty well.  I would find out soon enough. Tired legs and all, I felt good that first loop.  The run course is 4 "loops" that are really double out and backs that run us by the finish area 7 or 8 times.  It's hilly, with each 4.6 mile lap including a solid 2 miles of climbing and 2 miles of descent.  Not super steep, but definitely not flat. I had no idea where I was against my age group homies, but I had a feeling I was out of the medals at that point.  I later discovered I was in fifth after T2, but I ran down one woman with a 40 on her leg fairly early on.  After the first lap, placement gets even more difficult to discern, so I really had no idea but I did see Susan Williams on the out and backs with an enormous lead.  You've heard the saying "getting beat by a mile?"  She was a good 2 miles up.  Yes, it was like that. Happily, I held my run together pretty well and only tapered off the pace a little on the final lap when I was getting twinges of potential cramps.  Fortunately, the cramps held off and I held on for a 2:20:xx, which is a 7:35 average pace (no doubt the e21 helped).  I am thrilled to report that this is the pace I hoped for and about 10-11 minutes faster than I ran at this distance at Grand Columbian in 2006 on a much flatter course.  I may not have quite the same run speed of a younger me, but I do have superior run durability and endurance, which bodes well for the new marathon PR project for 2012. All this left me in 4th place with a sizable gap of about 5 1/2 minutes behind third.  As I mentioned in a previous post, the main goal was to go hard and leave no excuses on the course.  That I did.  I had hoped that would be enough to earn a bronze, but there were just faster, better prepared women there. Even though I return without hardware this time around, it was a good trip.   Many thanks to Rex and Jolene Mitchell for their hospitality and support.  Many more thanks to Remy for being a real trooper during his first long plane trips and my colleagues for loaning us a travel DVD player and lots of fun DVD's.  I think the highlight of Remy's trip were the bus shuttle trips between the airport and rental car place, although he was pretty excited about riding on the big airplane too.  Also, thanks to Gary for hanging out with a sometimes obstinate toddler while I pummeled myself on the race course. Up next-- run focus!

Toddler Talk – Halloween Version

We took the 3 year old out trick or treating tonight.  Here's what we learned. Since his costume of choice (basketball player) wasn't exactly weather appropriate for a drizzly 48 degrees, I adapted the outfit.  I pulled out what used to be baby leg warmers (skull & crossbones design) and put them on his arms, pulled on some gym pants and put a sponge bob square pants skull cap on his head.  The result was what I'll refer to as "goofy-thug." We hit up about 6 or 7 houses.  The first few, Remy kept inviting himself inside and looking around unsure of how to proceed.  I think he thought we were going to a party.  He didn't have any trouble picking up some candy on his way in (or out) though. Speaking of picking up the treats, his stock response to whether he could say "trick or treat!" was "yes."  Smart aleck.  It was, in his defense, a cheerful and pleasant yes.  Since later during dinner he said "trick or treat" about five times in a row, we figured that we should have spent a little more time pre-coaching before we hit the road. Eh.  Next year... Here's a pic of the big man doing his best stank face. [caption id="attachment_3161" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Yo. Hands off my treats. Dog."][/caption]   I'll upload the others to the Fall 2011 album.

Showing Up Big When it Matters

I have a track record of doing this and I plan on doing everything I can to do it again next Saturday.   I'm going to a World Championship, after all.  Yes, perhaps it's an amateur World Championship, but I have the honor of racing against some fine 40+ now-amateur talent (some of whom used to be pro).  This is my big race of the season.  The one that I've sacrificed Mommy-Remy time on the weekends for.  The one I've spent ugh-worthy amounts of money for entry fees, plane tickets and a Team USA race kit.  This race, I mean business. You may wonder what my goals are.  Number one is crossing that finish line without any sliver of a doubt that I didn't give it everything I had that day-- sound execution, effort, pacing, and digging deep when it matters most.  There will be no doubts.  There will be no excuses. Did you see any goals in the paragraph above that have anything to do with splits, times, places in the field?  No?  That's because I know that if I leave it all out there, that means I've done my very best and the splits, time and placements will take care of themselves. As I've mentioned before, it takes a lot of mental and emotional preparation to go to the well like that.  Much of my final month is building up that fight and desire to go for it.  I read more triathlon-related internet materials to get in the triathlon mode (unlike some of you, the coaching I do is non-triathlon related).  I visualize race scenarios during my key workouts.  I tell myself over and over that I'm going for it and intend to relish every moment. Mental training is every bit as important as the physical preparation.  Maybe more important. Generally, I plan for more training volume in my final month than I ever do.  It's during this period that I extend myself more permission to drop or reduce those things that aren't key workouts and that's exactly what I do.  My training judgment call goes from "can I do more without sacrificing repeatability?" to "will this help me feel fresh and speedy?" Yesterday, I bailed on a group ride because I was too exhausted from an intense workweek and the cold, wet weather just seemed like an invitation to catch one of the many illnesses that  have been floating around the community.  Including my son, who's had a stuffy nose lately. So that's what I've been up to.  Preparing.  We fly out o-dark-ridiculous Wednesday morning.  The race is Saturday.  I'll let you know how it goes.    

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This is a first year event that had about 2000 people sign up-- mostly women, Yagara schedule, Buy cheap Yagara, because, ummmm...it's for women.  Except until that email I saw that mentioned that men could sign up, Yagara natural, Where can i buy cheapest Yagara online, because what man doesn't want a bright pink race shirt and finisher's medal?  The event was well done, started about 6 miles from my house and was sure to have friends out on the course.  Plus, Yagara street price, Yagara reviews, it was a race.  If I want a good, hard effort it really helps for it to be a race, comprar en línea Yagara, comprar Yagara baratos. Yagara use, My goal was to hold about 7 minute pace, holding back for the first half and then pushing the back half.  On the start line, Yagara price, Yagara no rx, I wasn't confident I could run that quickly, but I figured I should be fit enough to pull it off without having to dig too deep, japan, craiglist, ebay, overseas, paypal. Yagara dangers, It turns out this hilly course was hilliest on the second half, which I thought was pretty fun.  Maybe it was fun because I ran the first part controlled and I felt good when everyone else around me was regretting their more aggressive earlier paces.  I was reeling people in on all the ups and downs.  I've gotten a lot better at downhill running and could really open up some gaps with my falling, Yagara australia, uk, us, usa, Yagara used for, flailing approach.  Hard to argue with what works.

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