Leaders, Followers & Drifting

 

An early morning on the Six-13 - Out at the point.

Things you don't say

I've made a few trips around the sun - like a lot. During that time I have learned the importance of observation, versus jumping to conclusions and judgement. One of the things I have learned is how to spot those that truly lead as opposed to those who simply follow. Contrary to cultural mythology, leaders are not necessarily "Type-A", or "alpha-dogs". Often they are unassuming, but deliberate. I have also learned (the hard way) to be leery - rather to steer clear of those individuals that say it out load (they are leaders). Those are the ones that get everyone killed to feed their self-righteous ego. History is full of these types. Simon Sinek has pushed the idea that leaders "always eat last". There is a lot of truth to this and is not limited to actually the meal time activities. There are those that are first in, last out and never above the smallest task. Again, this is not to be confused either with superb military strategists, but individuals that their very presence is enough to elicit your own self confidence. In the end it is never and I do mean never, the things a person says. In some cases it may not even be what action a person does, but rather who they reveal themselves to be. Charisma aside, its that person you would instinctively follow out (or in) of a burning building without having to be told to do so.

Things to know

At some point, in fact the majority of the time, even leaders have to follow someone else. But that whole "following" thing gets a bad name, as it implies weakness and lack of direction. Many a business has been built on the idea of "building leaders", with the idea a person has to be broken down and learn to follow before they can be taught to lead. This idea that you can pay a pile of cash to someone else to make you a leader flies in the face of the laws of nature. Corporate culture, the military and virtually every other organization is full of what I call cardboard leaders - people that are placed into positions of "authority" as a matter of "the process". This is largely why I personally left the corporate world after nearly four-decades. At any given moment (don't wait until the end of the day), a person needs to know why they are doing what they are doing. Are you fighting for someone else's misguided cause, or does that guy with the red flowing hair and very nice uniform actually know what he is doing (my little Big Horn reference)? Who's water are you carrying and why? Does that person (or people) that claim to be leading really believe they're acting in your best interest, or do they tell you your fall will benefit those who survive. Military history is full of these stories - again the British slaughter at Anzio comes to mind. Don't assume you are a follower and have to charge the machine gun nest for the benefit of those that will survive. Rather, consider what the objective really is and figure it out. And by the way, feeding the "machine" is never a worthy objective. Put your time, effort and blood into that place where it makes the most difference - and that is NEVER carrying the water for someone who tells you that your sacrifice is needed for the others that will follow. In doing what really matters, you will be a leader without ever having to be recognized as such.

Have a Purpose

Know why you are doing what you are doing - at all times. Have a tangible purpose to operate. All thrust and no vector is how a balloon operates. Don't blow it for the sake of doing so. Look at what you have done at the end and assess if it was truly worth your energy to have done so in the first place. Time is a funny thing. It is irrevocable and non-refundable. Are you willing to give it away so cheaply. Would you give away your last twenty-dollars without considering where it was going? Stop giving your time and energy away to things that advance other peoples causes unless you are willing to let someone else own you in the end. That isn't the same as asking "what's in it for me", but maybe you should know who is getting the cheaply sold commodity of your own time and effort. Do everything in your day with a purpose.

A Sister making a huge difference....

If you have been following this effort over the years, you certainly know how a couple of my sisters are regular contributors to the Porpoise thing. This year has been no exception. This sister is perhaps the meaning of even-keel and steady. Always a constant in the universe regardless of the surrounding environment, she is virtually immortal - kind of the Dick Clark of her own day. Ageless and reliable. Never one to seek attention, but always on station regardless of the situation. Without any prompting this year (as the whole Porpoise thing has been rather dormant), she has again jumped in for the swim - in a very big way. I have also related this story as how one of my most memorable Christmas exchange gifts was the album from 1976. Still one of my favorites mainly for being a gift, much less the content of the vinyl tracks themselves. As I write this, I'm listening to a random shuffle and the title track just came on. I do not believe in coincidence. Thanks Sis! Dick Clark could never have been as cool as you.

Click here for "Band On the Run"  

Important update in a few days....... Until then

Ride HARD!

In Between Places

Atop the Avon Divide Road

 Breaking Stuff

I've been putting more miles on the hardtail than the road bike this year. That was until I broke another spoke on the drive side of the rear wheel - AGAIN!  Right at what I was planning to be a 4 hour tempo ride across the valley, "PING" - that too familiar sound of a spoke breaking at the J-hook. Only a few miles from home, I had to do a soft pedal back to the casa. I pulled out a bullet proof set of DT Swiss dirt wheels and made up a set with some cross country dirt tires.  These wheels have a straight pull-through spoke that is less susceptible to failure. Great racing stuff. About an hour later, I was out riding hills with dirt tires. A couple days later I setup a set of trainers for the road bike and made a quick once over check of everything on the old road bike. Truth is, that thing is getting old and worn out. I realized the tune up I gave it last year was.....not so good. I used the wrong cable guides for road shifting cables - leading to less than desirable results. I also had to replace the carbon-fiber seat post - AGAIN. This may be the last year for that bike, as tech has really changed in the past few years. Add to that my riding posture has also changed, I should probably make a change.

Skeet Shooting

The picture above is on the Avon Divide Road, about 1/4 mile from the top. Somewhere there is a picture of some of us skeet shooting at this very spot, 40 years ago, nearly to the day. This was at a very pivotal time in my own life, as I had spent the previous nearly two years in a downward, self destructive pattern of behavior. Neck deep in what I thought was the end of the world at that time, I was told some critical information about events that had occurred two years before, without my knowledge. The events that led up to the moment two years early is what set me off on my downward trend. It was only a few days before going skeet shooting at this particular place, that I was briefly made aware of a very critical detail. Some ships just have too much inertia to stop and turn - as was my case then. It got me to thinking of what I was doing and what choices I had yet to make. I wouldn't say I had an awakening, but I can tell you it was definitely a moment that changed everything going forward. I never did get the full story of what actually happened two years before. Sure, it still haunts me, as I tend to think of the worst scenarios - but somehow things only now are beginning to make better sense. Like I said, somewhere there is a picture. I'm just not sure the story will ever be fully told - as is life.

a calm morning at the point.

Competing Schedules

This consulting thing has really taken off. In the process it has also began eating away at my time to train - or pretend to train. For the past four-weeks I've had to drive to a site in Southern California, do some work and immediately turn right back around to go home. Typically out and back in about 24 hours with little to no sleep. Not only does that cut into my time for training, it completely wrecks me for the next couple of days. Needless to say, everything has been at a minimum training-wise. A lot of intervals. A lot of hard and quick, short duration sessions of just about anything. I'm not sure how well it is doing, as I have no metric to compare against yet. With the Cache Century in just over a week, that may be my only real check point.

Leadville

A couple of my buddies did make it to Leadville this year. I was supposed to be with them, but that has already been discussed. The event added two new groups, with about 300 more rider than before. Needless to say, it sounds as though things went poorly. Both of them finished, but nowhere near their times from a couple years ago. Of course, Keegan won it again, but fell short of his record - still sub-six-hours. That's five in a row for the Heber Valley kid. Dave Wiens did six in a row before losing to Lance, the year Lance came out of retirement and went back on the tour. Wiens beat him the year before, but Lance crushed the course the next year, having just completed his seventh TDF victory. As Wiens said, "Last year Lance was riding off the couch. This year he was riding off the tour." We'll we know how that ended anyway. Wiens is still an animal, as he was doing it on a 26" bike, with crappy tech. That bike Keegan ran this year was closer to a Gravel Bike than a mountain bike - with the absolute techiest tech to be had. We'll see what the off season looks like before we talk about next year.

Not sure why this one seemed to be the pick....

Click here for JD Souther - If your only lonely

Ride HARD!

Having been called out........

A near full moon over the top after an evening of hill intervals.

 You have some s'planin to do Lucy...

So.....it's been a while, like a long while. A lot has happened and a lot more to explain. This goes against everything this blog has ever stood for in the past. It has never been about me, but rather a vehicle to drive the message and provide an easy link to Huntsman. But there have been a few things happen that need to be discussed. So sit back for some "splanin".

Heart Rhythm Issues

Last year, early in the spring, I noticed some variation in my heart rhythm - at odd times. Truth is, it's been going on for a long time, but finally decided to have it checked out. As infrequent as it was (very infrequent), I happened to catch it using my pulse-oximeter and blood-pressure cuff. I was able to get into to see a doctor at the time it was happening, which they were able to diagnose atrial-fibrillation (a-fib). It had some very screwy characteristics as it was a very low rhythm comparatively speaking. Still the rhythm was confirmed. That sent me to an electro-physiologist (EP) to take it further. After wearing a remote pain in the butt monitor for 30-days, they still couldn't capture it. Several other tests indicated my overall heart and cardiovascular system was in great condition - just that pesky a-fib thing that they couldn't capture. The EP is actually a serious cyclist himself as well. I've known him for about 10-years. We've discussed various training methods outside of this situation before. He knows what he is dealing with when it comes to me. He told me to continue my training and plan on doing LOTOJA that September, or to call him if anything changed - with a follow up visit scheduled for a few weeks after the race.

On race day things started out normal, with a group that I knew would get fast going into the 22-mile climb at Mink Creek. Climbing that first hill going into Riverdale, Idaho, I completely went flat. I just assumed it was my poor conditioning and was resigned to catching whatever groups I could going to Montpelier. At Montpelier I was gassed - as in never have I ever felt that bad. I new continuing would mean a hell of a time on my own, with winds straight on going through Star Valley. At that point my gut told me to quit - against all other instincts. I pulled the plug and threw my bike on the truck - it was over. The next day when I docked my Garmin, I had logged 90-minutes in zone-4 with 45-minutes in zone-5. My heartrate peaked at 172 BPM which is completely off the charts for my age - especially for that long. No, I wasn't in danger of a stroke or heart attack, but I was literally running on half a heart for nearly 3-hours. A few weeks later when I met with the EP, he looked at me funny like I was telling him a story. Again, he told me to keep going and let him know if anything changed.

Fast forward to March. With snow still on the ground, I was doing hill intervals on the hardtail trying to get in front of things for the season. On the 8th I did a full session with my heart rate peaking at 157 BPM (low end of zone-5), with 1 minute recoveries at 95-105 BPM - right where it is supposed to be. On the 10th I had been working all day and felt totally gassed, but still was committed to doing hill intervals. I made it through 2 full climbs and was halfway through the third when I decided to call it quits for the night. When I docked the Garmin I saw a sharp contrast to the effort two days before. Peak heartrate was 172 BPM, with the recovery never dropping below 140 BPM. Armed with the graphical data (and I am a data guy), I went back to see the EP. This time he believed me, as I had the graphs to show him. As a matter of urgency regarding the training season, he wanted me in for an ablation in early May. On May 16th, I had an ablation to remedy the erratic and unpredictable a-fib thing. They found no problems such as scar tissue or other damage. The best he could tell me was just a combination of some stupid stuff - like high intensity interval training for years, but nobody really knows for sure. 

After the procedure, I was back on the spin bike less than 2-days later. Back doing hill intervals at normal rate on day 4. After about two weeks, I couldn't get my heart rate above 150 BPM, but my recovery was still spot on. Doing a follow up visit with his PA, it was decided that I should forgo any long distance endurance stuff for 90-days. That put me out of Leadville for sure, but gives me an opportunity to dive back into LOTOJA - albeit with very limited training. If 90-days puts me at around August 14th, that gives me less than one full month of riding to pull off LOTOJA. Basically it is something like 9-days prior to the Cache Valley Century. Sounds a little tight to me - but it's better than nothing. I'm still shooting for it, with key mile-stones and markers to hit along the way.

Putting it all into context

So.... this past spring I went down to see Reed while he was in the rehab hospital at the U. He was there again for over a month, still putting up a fight. He told me they had only given him 6-months to live when he was first diagnosed, but at that point he had already made it 15-months. This during the time I was uncertain about the ablation, as they hadn't even scheduled me yet. In fact, I wasn't sure what my prognosis would be. After a couple visits with Reed and his wife, I really had a glimpse of what a stud he is - being so optimistic. He wasn't pissed off, no little rain clouds, no pity - just happy for each day he had to spend with his wife, even if it wasn't exactly ideal. WHAT A STOIC! And here I was moping about my petty little problems.

I have made this point over and over again. There are people who would give their eye-teeth to suffer on a bicycle by their own choice, versus what they are dealing with. Sure, it's only riding my bike, but I still can ride my bike and by hell I will show up to that starting line with every intention of following through like I have done for some many years. Sure that's a big check for my body to cash, but I do have the capacity to make it happen - somehow.

Being called out

Occasionally we all need to be called out for our inadequacies. In this case, I had been really thinking about it for some time, but really wasn't sure how, or where to start again (writing). It takes a special pain in the "hunna" (as coach Save would like to say) to get a point across. Here's the bottom line; we are all capable of being better than we are. As we get older we somehow believe we don't need to go through the same process of reinventing ourselves to actually be our true selves. Right, sounds backward, but it's true. We sell sell out to the first and easiest thing that comes along - making us feel comfortable. Well...being comfortable will get you killed in nature. You have to really know who you are, not what you want other people to think you are. Be true to yourself - and I mean your real self. Nobody cares if you are a self proclaimed hard-ass. Be what you were built to be - like when you were six-years old. Put away the facade. Drop the mask. So there may be a few scars. Wear them with pride, but don't let them reshape you. The true story of the Elephant Man speaks to this point exactly. An elegant example of presenting yourself as you are and being that person you in fact were born to be. Here were are.........

More updates

In know it is late, but there will be regular updates for the rest of the season - regardless of how everything stacks up. It won't be easy and hasn't been to this point. Stick around. We have a steep hill to climb.......

Going back a few years. Thanks for the reminder "IZ"

Click here for Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World - Israel Kamakawio'ole

Ride HARD! (like you mean it)