Workout Journal: On the Value of Goals

It's amazing the difference that having a goal can make.  I said over the weekend that I wanted to try to go a 500 free under 5:40, and it totally changed the way that I approached last night's swimming workout.  I got to the pool a little before seven, talked briefly to the YMCA age-group team's coach, and asked if he had anyone he thought would like to do a 500 freestyle time trial in the next few weeks.  Around October or so.  One of the girls standing said that she was interested, that she thought she could do it, so I guess we're racing.

Workout Journal: August 8, 2016

Man, watching all this swimming in the Olympics makes me want to compete again.  I just watched Katie Ledecky destroy the field in the 400M freestyle, and it felt like it triggered something.  I always wanted to be a better mid-distance freestyler, but I never quite found the time to dial it in.  I was always stuck doing butterfly because that was my best event.  As a high school swimmer, I spent my time chasing Junior National cuts.  At the Academy, the team needed me to score points in my best events.  I got so focus on stroke work that my freestyle lagged as we got into the mid-season form, and for whatever reason, I never managed to put both butterfly and freestyle together at the same time.  It’s one of the issues that came up in my memoir, and watching the Olympics makes me wonder a bit what could have been.

Odds & Ends: Olympics (Day 1)

First off, I heard "Bang Your Head" yesterday on my way to the train, and it's been stuck in my brains ever since.  It's got to be the toughest heavy metal song ever written, so here you go:

Memoir Excerpt: Hannah's Birthday

I've been writing a memoir about my family and my athletic career.  I'm not sure who's going to care about it, but this is a project that my wife and have been talking about for several years now.  Basically since my dad died.  In theory, we're going to sync our stories and talk about how we complete each other, how athletics and our marriage saved our lives.

Me and Sally in the Mess Hall during my 20th Reunion.

I know I shouldn't share the excerpts before they're all together and in context, and I especially shouldn't share this one because I wrote most of it just this morning.  But.  Writing this piece almost brought me to tears.  Also, this is the story of me and my wife both, and this part concerns Sally quite a bit.  It's past time to share some of that.

If you're wondering, the memoir currently sits at 62K words covering approximately 172 pages.

Army Football Camp Opens: What to Watch

Army opens its preseason football camp today.  I can’t make it to the summer scrimmage this year, unfortunately, and that leaves me with little choice but to follow the team through press coverage as best I can.  Good thing, then, that Army beat writer Sal Interdonato published a pair of articles this past weekend covering the current happenings of the team.

Political Analysis

I found most of this through Slate but only got interested in writing about it when I found the Reuters/Real Clear Politics slide show that breaks down the results of their most recent survey of adult voters.  I found myself wondering how I'd answer some of these questions, and here we go.

It should be noted that a national-level poll like the one I linked above is essentially meaningless in the current political climate.  The election will be decided on a state-by-state basis in the Electoral College, winner-take-all per state.  This type of system typically favors Republicans--it was intentionally designed to give lesser populated "farm" states an out-sized voice in politics in order to prevent all power from devolving to a few highly populated urban areas--but the design is not working exactly like that in 2016.  New York and California lean heavily Democratic while Texas leans heavily Republican.  This leaves Florida and a few other, only comparatively large, states as the key "swing" states, and here we are.  Whoever wins Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania is going to win overall.  This has nothing to do with farms and does not particularly favor the Republican Party in 2016.

Memoir Excerpt: Recruiting Visit

I've been writing a memoir about my family and my athletic career.  I'm not sure who's going to care about it, but this is a project that my wife and have been talking about for several years now.  Basically since my dad died.  In theory, we're going to sync our stories and talk about how we complete each other, how athletics and our marriage saved our lives.

Me and Sally in the Mess Hall during my 20th Reunion.

My half of this thing has grown to 55,000 words over about 150 pages.  This is the fifth book I've written, or the ninth if you count graphic novels, so at this point, I feel like I've got a system.  I started, as I normally do, by trying to tell a story to my kids.  Indeed, that may well be the future of this project; if it becomes little more than family lore, I'll be plenty satisfied.  I make it a goal to write for me, and if others have a use for my work, that's a bonus.  One way or another, writing is ultimately a lonely endeavor.

And yet, it helps to have a target audience.  Writing to someone, writing for specific effect, these things help frame the story.  It's easier to pick out what's important if you know who you're talking to and why.  Lately I've been writing to a hypothetical West Point candidate, a rising high school senior thinking about whether or not he or she wants to attend the U.S. Military Academy.  I don't know what such a person's life might hold, but I was them, I remember it well, and this is what happened to me.  Maybe that has some value.  I hope that it does.

West Point is a lifetime commitment.  Not because you'll necessarily serve in uniform for a lifetime--I certainly did not--but because your connection to The Long Gray Line is eternal.  I was on the phone with my old roommate just last night because he needed to talk, and that's what we do.  The guy has been there for me more times than I can count.  I love that son of a bitch.

That's life.  That's West Point.

I don't have a lot of family.  I have my wife and my classmates.  But you know what?  We're doing okay.

The excerpt below is the story of my recruiting trip.  To Harvard.

The Adventures of Sneax & Elaina Emboo (Part 20)

Our Story So Far:
Sneax and Elaina went to collect on a debt for Draks, but found more than they bargained for.  Luckily for them, they met Nathaniel, a half-fire elf mercenary, and his companion Maleeka, a giantess of unknown origin.  But it turns out that Nathaniel works for Draks as well, and that he's in Wanderhaven to take Sneax to Ellesburg, a tiny timber town lost in the hinterlands of the Kingdom's northern frontier.  Sneax soon finds herself on a ship with her new companions, her friend Elaina far behind.

But that's only the beginnings of Sneax's problems.  Soon she and Nathaniel realize that the so-called "deal" Draks worked out is really more of a rescue mission.  They and their companions soon find themselves heading north, into the trackless wilderness in search of the goblin bands who've been raiding the local logging settlements, cutting off the flow of valuable timber to the heart of the Kingdom far away.  

Sneax is nearly killed in her very first battles.  Her new friend Nathaniel revives her, but only by using his connection to the dark god Loki, Norglander god of lies and chaos...

Knights of Ren Concept Art

Knights of Ren - bring it on!!! #StarWars @fatkyloren @KyloGirlfriend @Svenn1968 @KyloRen46 @Kylo_R3n pic.twitter.com/629druK5Rx

— Mark Austin (@BobaFettANHSE) July 22, 2016

J.J. Abrams says that he'd like to see The Knights of Ren: A Star Wars Story.  Here's hoping, right?

The Hangover and the Eagle

Yoga!

My least favorite aspect of aging by far is the way that my body now responds to hard workouts the day after.  I woke up this morning with blinding pain in my right eye, caused in an immediate sense by sinus pressure from the shit air-quality that we tend to get locally on peak electric load days as well as by a nasty knot in my neck.  It took me a minute to get myself going, and even after a couple of Advil, I still didn't start to feel better until Sally, my amazingly awesome wife, rubbed my neck to get that knot to calm down.  I then realized that the knot in my neck had been caused by another knot down in my upper back, which had pulled on the muscles in my neck overnight and triggered everything else.

How do you get a nasty knot in your upper back?

Saturday Workout Update

You guys are always so fascinated by my workouts, so here goes:

A Tough News Cycle

Woke to some tough news this morning.  For a switch, it made me glad that my father is no longer alive.

Breaking News: Trump said he wouldn't automatically defend NATO members like the Baltic States from a Russian attack https://t.co/8mFJ7zE1pE

— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 21, 2016

Writing Update: In Defense of Unrequited Love

I’m writing a memoir about my family and my swimming and triathlon careers.  It’s an open question who’s going to care about it, but some parts of it, at least, I think work pretty well.  I hope they do, anyway.  I am the worst judge ever of my own writing, but this particular project still feels like a worthwhile experience, even if I still wish like all Hell that I felt like I could trust my own judgment about it.