This has been a crazy week from a nutritional and training perspective. As most of you know, I’m participating in the 10 in 10 Challenge to lose ten or more pounds of unproductive weight in the first ten weeks of 2012. I’ll post this week’s results tomorrow after I do my weigh in but didn’t want to wait (weight) to give you a few observations and insights I had this week.

In short, it’s the little things that can make all the difference. When striving to achieve a goal, inevitably you’re going to get thrown off course or have bumps (failures) along the way (weigh). For me this past week, I drove back and forth from Ohio to NY to Wallingford, CT to NY to CT to NY to CT to NY to CT and so on until I drove finally from NY to Ohio. I probably lost 40 hours in the car this past week during prime training hours. Add to this the extended hours I worked and I would have had to have woken up at 4am to get my workouts in which I clearly wasn’t ready to do. This only jacked my blood sugar around so badly that I ate whatever was conveniently placed in front of me including three slices of pizza (thanks Vandana and two chocolate cookies.

So why am I actually pretty okay with where I am? Primarily because since the macro issues were so jacked up, I didn’t focus on them this week, but did focus on what I could control – the little things.

Nutrition

From a macro nutritional standpoint my eating sucked, empty calories with no or at best little positive nutritional value. But from a micro standpoint, I didn’t let it get out of control, meaning as bad as it was, I could have given in and it could have been so much worse. For example, after eating three slices of pizza and then driving two hours through traffic to get back to NY, I would up in my hotel with a decision to make. Thankfully, what was left of my self control took over and I passed on the late night dinner an opted to just go to sleep.

I could have easily written off the day and said, hey if I’m going down today, I want to go down in flames and ordered up a slew of comfort foods or stopped to get a pint of Haagen Dazs coffee ice cream before passing out, but I didn’t. And this mattered because instead of saying tomorrow I’ll do better – having no idea how tomorrow was going to play out, I ended the day doing better which means when tomorrow came and I still couldn’t get a workout in, I knew that I had done something to positively stay on course. And since this happened day after day after day this past week, I had five separate opportunities to keep myself from completely falling off the wagon and I feel pretty good because of it.

Training

This is the first week since being laid up in bed from my surgery that I didn’t workout in the morning any day all week long. The drive time consumed my traditional training hours and by the time I got back it was dark and I was exhausted. Again, instead of writing off the week to a taper week without a race in front of me, I found a few opportunities to use the time I did have for a few minutes of quality training, and I do mean a few minutes. For example, I dropped down and did core abdominal work and pushups before jumping in the shower one morning, I stopped in CT to run a 5-mile course in the middle of my drive back south on another and on Saturday, I even ventured out to the hotel’s 13 meter pool and since I couldn’t get a quality swim workout in at 9:30 at night, I focused on what I could do, which was doing kickboard drills back and forth for 30 minutes and then treaded water for 15 minutes to work on my strength and rehabbing of my neck and arms.

When I got back to Canton this weekend, I found myself using an old trick to get a full ten miles in on the treadmill, which corresponded to 90 minutes of mental agony. What I did was pretty simple and you can try it yourself:

First pick the amount of time you want to run and start running with that amount of time in mind. Find something on the television in front of you that has a variable time component – in my case, I chose the Kansas v Iowa State basketball game. What I mean by variable is that in college basketball each half is 20 minutes long with an additional 15 minutes for halftime. But it really isn’t 20 minutes long, it’s 20 mins of time plus all of the time outs, commercials, and time stopped for a whole slew of reasons. In reality each half is closer to 45 minutes, perfect for what I was trying to accomplish. I started my run thinking about 90 minutes and then started playing games with myself, including working hard during the first half to get a solid 7 miles in and then dropping the pace during half time to recover before picking it up again in the second half. I also watched as the real time left on my session got closer and closer to the time remaining in the game until they were both equal and then I switched over to just focusing on the game clock. What this resulted in was me getting in an extra mile or two on the treadmill that I might not have done, as well as walking for an extra 10 minutes after I was done, burning some additional calories I hadn’t planned on. Again, it’s the little things that can make the difference and in addition to my calories spent, I felt really good mentally and emotionally for achoieving a better than expected result.

It help to turn a negative week, where I’d already missed three days of training, into a positive one where I felt I ended strong and set myself up for an even better one next week.

The key message here is that, similarly to what I explained above, I didn’t throw in the towel on any particular day or on the whole week. I found small things to get me back on track and I know that while my weigh in tomorrow won’t be as good as it could have been, it’ll be a whole lot better than it otherwise would have been if I hadn’t make these small positive choices.

Lastly, I wanted to throw out a shout out to my good friend and RacewithPurpose holistic nutritionist Christine Lynch, aka @holisticguru who will be hosting a free Nutritional Resolution workshop tomorrow Monday, January 30th at 6:30PM in NYC at Jackrabbit Sports at 140 West 72nd Street, New York, NY. Check out all of the deets here at Christine’s blog. This is a pat of Jackrabbit Sports Resolve series. If you set a resolution and didn’t stick to it, or if you just want to participate in what will be an awesome exchange of ideas to super charge your efforts going forward, do attend. And it’s FREE!

Until next time.

While only tangentially related to the 2012 “10 in 10 Challenge” we’ll all be starting tomorrow, January 9th, I thought this was worth mentioning. This morning I did something I haven’t done in a long time. I ran with a group of newbies, runners who for whatever reason have decided to do the work necessary to run and finish a marathon. Canton, Ohio will be hosting its own marathon this year and to prepare locals for this race, they’ve established the Canton Marathon Training Program. A sizable group primarily made up of wide-eyed newbies meet weekly to share in each others enthusiasm and anxiety, effectively balancing the outward expression that “anything is possible” mixed with an inward healthy dose of “what have I gotten myself into”.

Canton has a rich history of collegiate x-country running with perennial powers of Walsh University and Malone College right here in our backyard, but in the two plus years that I’ve lived here, I’ve seen the community evolve from no formal running groups to at least three main groups with their own identity and yet they are all open, inviting and embracing enough that members migrate seamlessly from one to another based on their schedule, their attitude and in some cases where they are in their training or recovery from an injury. Every community has to have a local running store to support a running community and nobody does this better than Shannon Bragg at Second Sole. Sporting a quick smile, an always encouraging comment and now his own version of a Sons of Anarchy Van Dyck, he’s visible at most every running event in the area.  Jason Vickers leads the first running group by sending out an innocuous email every evening to a group of fasties, unassumingly acting as the resident running cult leader for overachievers who get out there in the dark, ice and snow at 5am every morning to follow the Daniels Marathon training program, to do quality speedwork on some days as well as do an easy 8 miler at a 7 min/mile recovery pace on others. Always smiling, always joking Pete Dennis and Brian Daniska started the Jackson Running Group, an irreverent club which seems to subscribe to the belief that “we take our running seriously but not ourselves” and which is filled with folks both training hard to qualify for Boston as well as those-used-to be-runners like myself who struggle to maintain a 9 min/mile pace these days. But the Canton Marathon Training Club is the one for which I have the most appreciation, because we all started there, wondering what we were getting ourselves into and with the understanding that not finishing is still a possibility. As the years, races and miles pass underneath our feet, so do the memories of our first marathon. We take it for granted. And while we may find ourselves running with a single person who is dedicated to this goal, there is something spiritual and  cleansing about diving into a pool of those for whom all of this is still so new.

This morning I had no idea what to expect, in fact the reason I showed up initially was because a few weekends ago as I finished my own run around Lake Cable, I saw dozens of folks picking them up and putting them down in the pouring rain. This was the first time I’d seen so many people running together in our community. I had to see what this group was doing so well for having inspired so many. What I found when I showed up this morning was a training group fully committed to each others’ success and a very supportive staff. I went out and ran a few minutes chatting with their coach Matt Sidel, who has all of the qualities you look for in a group running coach. As he went off to chat with other runners, I found myself running with a lady named Amy who like most others is training for her first marathon. Her reason? It’s something she always thought would be cool to do but wasn’t sure she would be able to finish. The announcement of a local marathon in her backyard is all she need to dive in.

What’s beautiful about this is their innocence. A veteran marathoner’s reaction to a June marathon in Ohio humidity and heat may well be to file this under “What were they thinking?” There’s no way I’ll PR this race, it will be brutal and why would I torture myself like that. If you’re going to make me run a marathon in the summer there better be swim and bike segments attached. To a newbie, however, they aren’t thinking about any of this. They are simply excited to be able to prepare themselves to toe the start line, put one foot in front of the other and cross the finish line crossing this off their own list of items that people have said was not possible for them and yet they did it anyway. Their coaching staff can make sure they do this safely, all behind the scenes. To a newbie, there’s no difference between a hot marathon and a cold marathon because they have nothing to compare it to. This simplicity is quite refreshing, and for me running with this group this morning reminded me what I take for granted. It inspired me to add 8 hill intervals into the run to give me a few extra miles, but also to take advantage of being out there on a sunny 36 degree morning with a group of folks throwing off the positive energy that anything is possible today.  Maybe it’s because they are still so in awe of what we veteran marathons have already done, or maybe it’s just because this community is slowly but surely turning into a true running community for those of any ability. Either way, I got my own quality run in and had a blast doing it.

If you’ve been running for a few years or for all of your life, I strongly recommend finding a local running club to give a few miles back to those who are following in your own footsteps. And for those who are contemplating running a marathon at some point, do look for the local running club around you.

If you ask a triathlete what their greatest risk is or what they fear the most, new athletes might answer drowning, while more experienced competitors might answer not being able to compete; and when pressed further as to what might cause that, they may point toward a fractured collar bone or another similar injury from a  bike accident. Few would answer death by brain eating amoeba although three people died last year from swimming in water inhabited by Naegleria fowleri, a “brain-eating” waterborne amoebic meningoencephalitis, which causes headache, stiffness, fever and nausea before leading to almost-certain death.

Many more got sick from ingesting or inspiring non lethal but severely painful bugs that can be found in pools, lakes and rivers. This has become such an important issue that the CDC ran a video contest to raise awareness of how to avoid these issues. Here is the winning submission:

But why as we enter the winter month of December are we talking about waterborne risks commonly found in warm waters. For two reasons, fist because triatletes move inside into pools during the winter months that are shared with youth swimmers that probably haven’t heard of these risks and even if they have, they don’t much care. Adults also assume that chlorine kills all of the urine and fecal borne bugs introduced by little swimmers wearing floaties. It doesn’t.

The second reason I bring this up is because winter brings winter colds and with more and more people resisting the use of antibiotics as a quick foolproof solution, many are turning to the use of nasal irrigators, some over the counter, others through the time tested use of nasal irrigates or nasal douches like the Neti pot. A Neti pot is used to pour warm saline water into one nostril drawing out any infection and contaminants as they are swept out the other nostril and into a sink. In most cases, this is a very safe and simple procedure, but just as noted above, there have been cases, where people have gotten and died from meningoencephalitis while using a Neti Pot.

To protect yourself during swimming, you can close off passages of entry including using goggles, not swallowing pool water, and by using ear and nose plugs. To do the same while obtaining the health benefits of using a nasal irrigator such as a Neti pot, use only distilled water, keep your pot clean and only use it for short periods of time. It doesn’t take any more effort and you can virtually eliminate all of the associated and completely preventable risks.

There are other pros and cons of using nasal irrigation as a course of action, many of which are identified in this WebMD article. http://www.webmd.com/allergies/features/neti-pot-nasal-irrigation-pros-and-cons

Hopefully, you’ll pass through this winter getting in great swim workouts and without getting ill; but if you should, remember these few simple tips.

“I don’t get men like you, you’re dangerous men. You start wars and then let other people fight them for you. You come in and say ‘do this, do that, think like this, become this kind of person’, you put a sign in somebody’s hand and say ‘follow me, I have all the answers’, but all you do is get people killed!”  ~ Richard “Dickie” Coombes

The only thing constant these days is change. The economy sucks; it’s sucked for years and it looks like it’s going to suck for a good deal of time going forward. If you are lucky enough to have a job, you’re probably now doing the work for two and have managers looking over your shoulder asking you why you can’t do even more, because they have managers looking over their shoulders who have managers looking over their shoulders. To state that we are all living under a considerable amount of stress is a ridiculous understatement.

In times such as these, success or failure is determined in days or weeks, not months or years. Deliver or die and fail fast are mottos many managers are living by these days. If the performance isn’t there quickly, make a change and make it quickly. The furious pace of change is business’ version of the fight or flight response. And this carries over to the people that are being put into new roles because they know that if they don’t show results immediately, they will be the next casualties of this war.

So how do you step into a new situation and give yourself the best chance to succeed and succeed quickly? Here are two recommendations.

1. Get inside and form your own opinion before making any changes. Beyond listening to those who asked you to take on the role, ask the people in the trenches and ask your customers. Take the time to identify the problem you are trying to solve.
2. Move quickly to make the changes that will motivate your employees and increase the confidence of your customers

“You can’t reform the system if you’re not in it.” ~ Lilian Gray

The truth matters – Chances are, the person who asked you to take on the role has already shared their opinion of what he problem is and how you are best suited to solve it. That said, whatever you think the situation is from viewing it from the outside, don’t rush to conclusions until you’ve gone inside and seen for yourself. Often new managers feel that they need to immediately make wide sweeping changes in order to be seen by their boss as having the right stuff to be effective and gain their confidence. Unfortunately this strategy can often backfire both on the objective and on the new manager. Unless that manager is going to do all of the work him or herself, he is going to have to rely on the people in the trenches to get it done. Swooping in like a white knight does nothing but alienate you from those that are already battle scarred from fighting the fight on a daily basis. Before passing judgment, get inside and find out what is really going on. It’s okay to start with a hypothesis, this approach will allow you to move quickly, but be as open to proving that hypothesis wrong as you are to proving it right. What you are looking for is the truth – the real problem that needs to be solved. Getting the problem statement wrong leaves you open to criticism, heading down the wrong path, and making decisions that will immediately undermine your credibility as an effective leader.

“I don’t see playing politics with the truth.” ~ Henry Brubaker

A terrific example of this method of transition management is found in the 1980’s film Brubaker, where we first view Robert Redford’s character Henry Brubaker as an inmate in Wakefield Prison in Texas witnessing first hand the mistreatment of the inmates, the corruption of the guards and the deplorable conditions. Brubaker quickly sees who is effective in their roles and who isn’t. We all quickly identify people with characteristics and values that aren’t being effectively used and those in leadership who aren’t contributing at all. We see who “gets it” and who is just passing time. So when Henry Brubaker, still in his prison garb, breaks up a volatile situation by telling an inmate he’s the new warden, we are both surprised and curious why he didn’t just come into the prison the normal way by letting everyone know who he was and asserting himself in his appointed role.

The answer is simple, if he had, he never would have found out the truth – what problems needed to be solved and who he could count on to help him to do it. Instead he might have wasted valuable time trying to solve the wrong problem, or simply been rendered ineffective.

Beyond asking the employees on the ground, ask your customers. Voice of the customer isn’t just about branding. One of the worst things you can possibly do is walk in and make sweeping or critical changes that disrupt your customer or client experience without even consulting with them. By doing this, not only will you lose credibility with your own people but you will lose credibility with your customers. Trust may be hard to make up with your staff but you still have institutional power to lean on. With customers, you have no such authority and the savvier the customer, the more they will form an initial opinion of you of a poor manager and someone they won’t find value in dealing with. That will be even harder to rebound back from.

“Be quick, but don’t hurry” ~ John Wooden

As stated above, once you have figured out the problem you need to solve, move swiftly. By listening to both your customers and the people in the trenches, you’ll quickly hone in on a few critical changes that need to be made and equally which things you should absolutely leave alone. Make quick changes of personnel and tactics that immediately will be seen by your customers as addressing their needs and by your employees as improving their opportunity for success.

I’ll provide you with an example from one of my own clients, a finance executive who was asked to come out of running the finance side of the liquor division to run that of a larger entertainment business. He didn’t have to play an “undercover boss”; he just made sure to spend enough time to ask the people on the ground the right questions. Once he identified the problem to be solved, he quickly wound up sacking the finance VP and promoting a controller two levels down because that was the right person to lead that function. The business results spoke for themselves and the new leader had an inspired employee group to take his strategy forward.

In summary, to be not only seen as effective but to be effective in a new leadership position remember to  ask the people on the ground and form your own opinion of what the problem is and who can help you to solve it, and once you do figure it out, move quickly and decisively. You know what they say, you never have a second chance at a first impression and understanding the situation clearly is much more important than trying to establish yourself as a hero when you haven’t even gotten your clothes dirty yet.

Definitely one of my favorite running experiences is running relay races. A few years back I entered this field while running as a part of Team White Line Fever in RAGNAR Texas. Last year I ran as a part of Team with No Name in Hood to Coast. This year I will be running on April 15th and 16th on one of two teams our company is putting together for RAGNAR Southern California, which covers 200 miles and runs from Huntington Beach, CA to Coronado Island in San Diego.

We have a few new or fairly new runners who have jumped into the fray, and that’s pretty exciting. What more experienced runners tend to forget is how daunting any race can be, let alone one that covers more than 200 miles even if there will be between 8 and 12 runners joining together to complete it. So what I’ve done here is put together a few pointers to help out the newbies and hopefully lesson any anxiety that might be accumulating.

This isn’t a race, it’s a relay. This is probably the most important point to remember. Unless you are joining a team with an explicit competition objective, 99% of the teams are just trying to complete the event in the middle of the pack. Relays are very much about the experience and you’ll observe elite collegiate athletes as well as first timers, including this year two teams from The Biggest Loser television series. The main objective is to have fun. Your finish time is of secondary importance. You just don’t want to be the last.

You do need to train for a relay. A successful relay is about being able to run, recover, run, recover, run and recover as effectively as possible. Therefore your training should help you to do this on race day. Like any other running event, you will want to build up an adequate endurance and structural base by gradually increasing the mileage for any individual run along with weekly volume. What’s different is that you will want to build up your physical and mental ability to handle multiple runs in a relatively short period of time. Therefore, there’s a bit more emphasis on back to back days of running and then a couple multi-run days to simulate event-day experience. These multi-run days are much more about your mental training than physical. These runs will provide you with confidence that you can do this, and also provide a bit of humility as you learn that going out as hard as you can in your first leg will only leaving you wanting by the time you start your third leg.

So to get our newbies started, I’ve created a 14-week training plan which will guide you from now all the way up the starting line in April. Happy training.

* Feel free to match your multi-run distances to the individual legs you will be running.

Okay, so on January 3rd I laid the gauntlet down. 2011 Outcome goal: Return to 185 lbs in 2011. At an embarrassing 225.5 lbs to start the year, you might wonder why I’m posting this publicly. Well it isn’t for some narcissistic reason or because I want people to feel like they need to support me in this endeavor. In truth, I’m doing this for two reasons. One because I’m a firm believer that a goal is not real until it is announced. That means that folks like you get to hold me accountable, if at any time I don’t do so myself (not that you have to, of course). Yes, that’s right I’m declaring open season on me to assassins like Timmy who already has jumped into the frey with his oh so unique way of providing feedback and support. Timmy, keep it up buddy. I count on you for clarity as well as for new words that can be used in an adult-only version of Scrabble. The second reason is because I need to log my progress for my own benefit and this is as good a place as any. So if during the next few months you see a new post on this blog with a similar title, feel free to opt out, without any hurt feelings.

My third – yes I said two – reason is that I’ve found that some folks aren’t very good at reporting on projects, both in business and in their personal lives. So for the aspiring project managers out there or for those who just want to dip their toe into the waters of accountability and management practices, this exercise might help you as you put your own plans together, although I will refrain from over exciting all of you with terms like Gantt and Pert. In business, there is an adage that a task is not complete until it is reported upon, and the same holds true in training, meaning that your workout is not complete until you record it in your log. Kind of like the tree falling in the forest if nobody was around. Providing regular reporting is good practice because it works. It keeps you focused, provides valuable information and quite frankly doesn’t really take that much time. One caveat, I know an awful lot of people who spend more times on the report than the work. It should be apparent why that doesn’t make sense.

Why 40 in 2011? (The Outcome Goal) Well last year I participated in the 10in10 challenge, with an outcome goal to lose 10 pounds in 10 weeks. And yes I reported on it, and yes by the time I reached the start line of the 2010 Los Angeles Marathon in March, I had easily hit that mark. The trouble was that from March to December, I somehow found a way to let it all get away from me covering my 10 and raising it another 10. Lot’s of excuses why, lost days traveling, lousy nutrition on the road, blah blah. There’s always enough of those to go around. So to quote one of my favorite movie villain lines, “If at first you don’t succeed, Mr Kidd” “Try try again, Mr. Wint”. (extra credit if you are old enough to remember this one.) And this time it’s go big or go home! Or go small, or , well, you know what I mean.

Each week I will report out using the following format:

How’d I do? (The Outcome Goal) Up or down and by how much. I use three levels of performance measures. Less than Expected, Met Expectations and Exceeded Expectations. I’ll also include a report card on the Process Goals, which are all posted using Joe’s Goals.

Here’s an example of a weekly report from last year:

Report Card – Week 8

February 22 – February 28:

Then we’ll summarize our insights on these by analyzing them within the following three categories:

1. Caloric Intake/Nutrition

2. Caloric Expenditure/Positive Stress

3. Recovery/Adaptation
   

I’ll be logging my daily workouts using Buckeye Outdoors, a terrific free online training log managed by some friends of mine who have dedicated themselves to providing high quality work while giving back to their community. Below is an example of a weekly report that is generated.

By the way, while you are there, if you want some additional motivation you can join 2011′s version of the 10 in 10 Challenge. Just search for “10 in 10 2011″ at http://buckeyeoutdoors.com/training/challenges You can also learn more about this on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/#!/10in10Challenge

Sound complicated? It’s not. But if you want to get even simpler in your own 2011 goals, follow these simple steps. 1) Select one to three outcome goals, 2) break those down into one to five process goals, 3) tell your friends and family about them both to declare them and because their lives will probably be impacted, 4) log your progress after each activity (paper taped onto your refrigerator works great), and 5) analyze your results and report out weekly. That’s about it. This simple process will give you structure, focus and motivation. Hope it will help you as much as it has helped me as well as the many athletes and staff I’ve worked with over the years. Conclusion: I’m just as excited as any new person using the New Year as an artificial reason to do what could be started on any day of the year. But in the end, who cares, as long as it works. Have a tremendous 2011. Thanks for coming along.

OK, not really. CLE is providing free massage therapists as a way to help ease the stress for holiday travelers around Thanksgiving. Pretty cool example of customer experience management. And they still can’t touch my junk. Winning tag line was provided exclusively by my friend Bill Porter!



For as long as I can remember, my life has revolved around human performance, sports and athletics. My father was a golfer and competitive swimmer (didn’t get that gene), my mother participated in every sport imaginable from tennis and golf to riding on boys shoulders while surfing down in Mexico, and my sister turned Title IX on its ear in her own way by being a five sport letter girl and making the boys in high school and the men at UCLA look foolish in any number of sports. It was just part of our lives. Being Jewish has also been a large part of my life, and no, ordinarily I don’t go around wearing a kippah on a daily basis or even mention it, but I do think it has influenced my outlook on life and how I approach competitive athletics. Full disclosure, for the most part I grew up as what one might casually call a Beverly Hills Jew, getting Bar Mitzvahed, and going to High Holiday services, and not much more. Even so, I have always considered being Jewish to be a big part of who I am, except for the whole slaughtering and sacrificing of animals, keeping multiple wives, all that huge portion, high calorie tasteless food and that whole carnivore thing – I haven’t quite reconciled all of that yet.

What I have been in tune with is how these two important pieces of my life, athletics and Judaism, have occasionally come together to create a perfect synergy of spirit and purpose. I’ve often wondered, however, why when the discussion of Jewish athletes arises, only a few names like Sandy Koufax come to people’s minds. Maybe that’s because there are so few well known Jewish athletes and that makes it so easy to identify the few there actually are; it’s kind of like asking the question, do you know of any “Catholic American Presidents?” My earliest competitive memories of combining Judaism with sport are from back in high school playing Yeshiva Academy in some non-league basketball game and having to wait until sundown to start the game and thinking to myself, how ridiculous it was that we had to keep stopping for one of the boys to pick up his kippah that inevitably would continue to fall off of his head while running around.

Like many, however, my first and most memorable connection to Judiasm and athletics came in 1972 while watching the summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, watching American athletes, who’s names I will never forget collect myriad medals in individual sports that up until that time were sports there just to prove how weak I was as part of the Mr. Peanuts Physical Fitness Tests we did annually in elementary school: Frank Shorter, Mark Spitz, Dwight Stones, Shirley Babashoff and of course the ultimate front runner Steve Prefontaine, who actually lost to Gammoudi, Viren and Stewart in one of the greatest 800 meter races ever run as a part of a 5,000 meter final.

Combining with these amazing athletic success stories was the unfolding horror as members of Black September took Israeli Olympic athletes and coaches hostage, finally killing them on the tarmac at the airport in a botched rescue attempt. Like Beamer’s famous last words on Flight 93 “Let’s roll”, I still remember these words from Jim McKay from those Olympic games as if  he just said them yesterday:

“When I was a kid, my father used to say “Our greatest hopes and our worst fears are seldom realized.” Our worst fears have been realized tonight. They’ve now said that there were eleven hostages. Two were killed in their rooms yesterday morning, nine were killed at the airport tonight. They’re all gone”

In the years that followed those 1972 games, I got actively involved in sport, even figured out how to do a pull-up and have thought about the best and the worst of those games ever since.

So as I sit here typing on Yom Kippur, thinking about what this holiday or holy day is all about, I do so through my own particular lens, one that continually combines human performance and sport with my own interpretation of Judiasm.

Beyond the tragedy of that event, it also opened my eyes up to really terrific athletes who were also Jewish, or maybe it’s more appropriate to say, really terrific Jews who were also athletes? And obviously with my passions focused since college in the area of endurance sport, I can say that we as a community still have a long way to go although if you look at the individual sports within a triathlon, we’re pretty well represented. Well, not all of the sports. Jews have continued to suck at cycling, even a guy named Levi Leipheimer isn’t Jewish, what’s up with that? We do alright in running with standout Deena (Drossin) Kastor leading that field, and absolutely own swimming. Think about these aquatic athletes, all Jewish, who are all household names regardless of your religious affiliation: Jason Lezak, Lenny Krayzelburg, Mark Spitz, and Dara Torres. As for the complete triathlete picture, well we don’t exactly dominate that sport but can point to Joanna Zeiger who was the Ironman 70.3 World Champion in 2008. Hey, it’s a start.

So with this mindset, I found myself in NY during these Days of Awe and was particularly thrilled to be able to attend services at Temple Israel in New Rochelle, NY, just a few miles from where Cindy and I lived for most of the past 10 years. It is a bet kennesit, (meeting place) where we can see old friends and neighbors and now perhaps most importantly, it is led by Scott Weiner, a rabbi, who is also a former Team for Kids member and one of the founders of Running Rabbis. Yes, you got it right, Running Rabbis, a group of rabbis that are committed to positive change in their communities and use running as a catalyst.

Scott was a TFK member back in 2006, where at the NYC Marathon he popped off a respectable 3:52 marathon. Since then he has run NYC two more times and has dropped his average pace per mile almost a full minute and finished last year’s race in 3:35. This tells me two things, First, he got a lot faster after he left the team I was coaching, and second a rabbinical appearance in Boston cannot be far behind.

Last night at Erev Yom Kippur services, I listened to Scott give an impassioned sermon on the purpose of a Jewish congregation such as that at Temple Israel, and took much enjoyment out of the fact that he made at least 4 references to sport and discussed a balanced nutritional meal of spiritual, mental and social calories. Cindy leaned over to me and whispered, “You can tell he drank the runner’s Kool-Aid”.

But being Jewish and an athlete, I can’t help but find a certain degree of humor in the process of fasting as a form of “suffering”, don’t they know that a fun day for people like us is to swim 2.4 miles and bike 112 miles BEFORE running a marathon? Like speed limits on roads that I feel should take into account the car you are driving, I’m pretty sure this whole simulated suffering thing needs to run on a sliding scale, otherwise for many it becomes simply a really convenient time to shrink your stomach and begin dieting so you can fit into you best ski bunny outfit this winter.

So here are a few recommendations for more effective suffering as our Jewish population gets increasingly athletic and performance oriented:

• Instead of fasting, don’t let us use the bathrooms for 24 hours;
• Set up bike trainers with reading stands in front of them and then make us go through services as if it were a Spinning class. Every time the arc is opened, we have to stand in the saddle;
• Tie this to an American Cancer Society Relay for Life event and have us run or walk on treadmills in the synagogue for 24 hours while raising funds to fight cancer;
• Let’s simulate a real exodus and put on an 80 lb backpack and hike the entire day in the hot sun without any food or water – I actually did this on a UCLA Outdoor Adventure instructor outing that was scheduled on Yom Kippur

Regardless of the changes we might make to how we observe the holiday, I hope Temple Israel understands the value that Rabbi Weiner can bring to this congregation by shepherding the physical as well as the spiritual health of its congregants. And they have a perfect 6-mile course right outside their temple that they can train on. Pinebrook Blvd might well become Westchester’s equivalent of San Vicente in Santa Monica, CA.

More broadly, I think it’s time for Jews to accept their rightful place in the endurance sport community. We come from a culture where suffering is part and parcel with whom we are. And let’s face it, we already have the complaining part down. We’re world class at that. L’shanah Tova. Have a happy, healthy and sweet new year.

The Leonard Lopate Show. “The New Nutritionist: Your Grocer”, Friday August 6, 2010

Let me start by saying that I am a huge fan of Leonard Lopate and not having a tremendous amount of time to read for pleasure, his show The Leonard Lopate Show on WNYC has helped to educate, enlighten and intrigue me and beyond that has gotten me through any number of long multi-hour runs by listening to his podcasts. Every now and then, I come across an interview that really just makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Last week’s episode entitled “The New Nutritionist: Your Grocer” was just such an episode. Leonard, I’ll chalk it up to having a bad day because there is no way you would have let your guest, The Wall Street Journal’s Timothy Martin get off of the hook so easily for any other reason. It was clear that he had no idea what he was talking about on the topic of nutrition or healthy and active lifestyles. Now having spent the past ten years directly involved in the fight against youth obesity, I feel that this is one of those public discussions that I just can’t let slide.

Just to bring everyone up to speed, the episode highlights one of a number of new nutritional ranking systems that are being put into place at grocery store chains designed to provide shoppers with simple and necessary information to make healthier choices when shopping. In this instance, this system combines all of the factors such as sugar content, fiber, sodium levels, fat , etc and runs them through an algorithm to arrive at a single score between 1 and 100 with the higher number being associated with the healthiest foods available.  I really like the concept, but I found two obvious flaws in the author’s argument that Leonard in any other situation would have not let him slide on.

The first is that this system is being funded by a grocery store chain and a hospital and led by a nutritionist at Yale. Sounds great, right? The problem is that nutritional guidance is hardly a science and the prevailing winds seem to change what the public is told to do with regard to the factors listed above. Eat high carbs for fuel, don’t eat carbs, look at net carbs. eat fiber, but not too much, take fat out of your diet, fat is good in your diet, use portion control but don’t eat too little or you’ll trigger starvation responses,only eat low glycemic, eat all protein, don’t eat protein, and on and on and on. So what does this mean with respect to my first issue of controversy? We didn’t cover any of the aspects of how the algorithm is created or the philosophy that the founders adhere to.  Personally, I’m not going to take anyone’s judgment as an authority on this subject just because they teach at Yale.

The second issue is the one that made me accelerate the pace of my run yesterday because I was just hopping mad. The statement was that this system is not designed to drive people to eating better in a way that would really make a difference. It’s not to make people stop eating potato chips or other crappy food, rather it is designed so that people can select the healthiest choice within each category. So you can choose the healthiest potato chip, or the healthiest diet soda and feel good about making those selections. This statement was reinforced throughout the interview and I couldn’t figure out why the guest and even Leonard seemed to be acting defensive about wanting to help people make real choices that can help, like helping people to make real healthy choices is a bad thing. In one example, they suggested that a shopper was observed buying one brand of breakfast sausages over another because of this scoring system. The honest truth is that he shouldn’t have bought either brand and I would just bet that this system provided support to this guy to feel like he is justified and actually doing something healthy by buying this brand of artery clogging, heart stopping, stroke creating wannabe food. Didn’t we just get past all of this with the whole fat free generation of manufactured foods where we saw obesity increase even further because people inaccurately rationalized that since it’s fat free they can eat as much of it as they want?

Leonard, your show does a service to so many and to not call out this obvious flaw in the author’s logic only reinforced bad messages to an already confused population, and unfortunately one that seems committed to data mine for any evidence they can find to continue their bad behaviors which cost our country billions of dollars each year, all of which are preventable.

I hope you invite the author back to challenge him in your traditional thoughtful and objective way, and provide your listeners with real guidance on how they can use these new technologies to make a measurable difference in their lives and the lives of those who they love.

“It’s unfortunate, that’s all I can say,” Knowles said. “It’s unfortunate for the young lady. But you’ve got to teach the kids that rules are rules.”

I learned about this issue when listening to Mike and Mike on ESPN radio last week. Here is the full SI artcle. I was surprised initially that ESPN radio was covering a SoCal High School Track Meet, and then I realized that the sport itself was just the setting for one of those lessons of sport are the lessons of life moments. I’ll preface this by reminding my readers that I loathe policy without purpose and have never been one to support the creation and enforcement of rules, favoring applying the combination of guiding principles and wisdom instead. What happened to Robin Laird of South Pasadena High School is a perfect example of why.

Mike Golic of ESPN radio repeated a radio-friendly version of the phrase “chicken shit” over and over again, and I was incredibly impressed by his declaration that if his child was on the Monrovia team, he would never let her play for Mike Knowles ever again.

The articles and media attention that has followed has attempted to balance the story on the one hand stating how important it is that High School athletes learn the importance of following rules, while cries for sportsmanship and the emptiness of winning by losing are carried by others.

I on the other hand will not be so subtle. Mike Knowles, get your head out of your ass! I’ve coached undefeated league championship teams at the High School level too so I know how important it is to win and also know that it so much more important to be a role model. Given my experiences, I feel quite confident in my ability to make that claim along with the strong suggestion that you do some serious soul searching about your priorities.

The rule is there to protect the athletes from injury. That’s it. It does not protect against an unfair performance advantage and you know it, I know it and everyone else who’d heard of this story knows it. Her bracelet had NOTHING to do with her making that excellent vault and leading her team to victory. If I had such a lapse of judgment, I would expect, no I would demand that my players, my family and my AD remind me to get my head out of my ass.

Thumbing through the numerous online reactions to this situation, I have yet to find anyone who actually provides a compelling argument supporting Mike Knowles actions. Why? Because there is no positive spin on this story. Here’s a few of my favorite recommended responses:

“Yup, it’s all about you Mr. Knowles. You’ve sure taught those kids a lesson to win at all costs. Be self absorbed and only worry about yourself.”

“And I LOVE the idea about sending him friendship bracelets!! Address below…

Monrovia High School
845 West Colorado Boulevard
Monrovia, CA 91016″

and my personal favorite:

“Rules are rules. Time for the building inspector to check out his house. Have the DMV inspect his vehicle. IRS audit the past 7 years of taxes…..After all, rules are rules.”

It’s time to take a lesson from John McEnroe. You know the one where his opponent makes an incredible play which is then overturned due to a ticky-tack bullshit rule imposed by the chair umpire or line judge? And just to show that they really have no real power, Johnny Mac would hit his next shot 20 rows into the upper deck to purposely lose the point and give his opponent his just due. It’s about doing what’s right.

You and your players should do the same. There’s nothing more that I would love to see than you and your own players either publicly or quietly giving back the championship to the team that actually won this contest. And don’t you dare give me excuses about league rules or things that can’t be overturned. You have the patches. You have the trophies. Bundle them up, pile them and your team into your van, take the South Pasadena High School team out for dinner and give them a true mea culpa. You can still do the right thing, and if you can’t, your players certainly can. And in that action, they too will be truly champions.