Monona 20k

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On Saturday May 2 I ran in my first race in almost two years. I ran the Monona 20k for the first time ever and I was very impressed by the race. Initially the low cost ($30!) drew me in, but on race day the crowd and the party at the end was second to none. I finished in 1:36 which was faster than I expected.

My training was different than any run I’ve ever done. I had less miles, I got to those miles in a shorter training schedule, and I had 3-4 high intensity training sessions per week that I’ve never indluded in my preparation. Would I do it differently, yes. But I have no regrets. It was a great run, nice recovery, and I’ll probably run it again next year.

Daddy in sight!

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They don’t quite get that I had I couldn’t talk and had to keep going. That’s my friend Ed clapping for our family 🙂

For the first time ever, my kids were on the course cheering me on. I didn’t know how many times (or where) Katie would get to a spot. The first one was at mile four and it was so fun to wave and then have Sorin and Norah run up to me. After quick high-fives it was tough to keep running but they understood. They saw me two other times and then we got to talk at the finish line. What a great day!

I was pushed on the course right after I saw my kids – a client, Ken Woodford, caught up to me and we ran together until mile eight. He kept me going at his pace which was faster than I would’ve gone, but I had the motor to stay with him. The last time I was really pushed like that was the (Des Moines, Iowa) Dam-to-Dam a couple years ago when Grant (brother-in-law) pulled me through the course. I’m very appreciative of both efforts and the push those guys gave me.

The finish line was fun because I had another client there – Sue Koch had just finished her first 5k on the north side of the city and was already at our finish line. One of my training philosophies is to put a race on the calendar and go after a clear goal. What a morning celebrating her first win!

Running is good. It’s been awhile but it feels great to be back. There’s a lot of community on the race day and for me it’s the training that provides so much of the benefits not only to my physical health but my mental health as well. It was a great day for our family. Happy training!

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Lastly, thanks to my team who supported me and Team Blood:Water. We raised a little over $100 for clean water – what a great cause. Every race I do I’m going to train for a cause, and usually it will be with Blood:Water.

Niche HIIT Training

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I’ve found my niche at Pinnacle Health + Fitness. It’s taken about four months of this training to fully develop such that people notice it and make comments about it. Bob says “you’re the only one who gets ‘em to sweat.” One prospective client knew she wanted to work with me because of how hard my workouts look: “I wanna do that!” And my newest clients admitted they were nervous about their first sessions because they saw my workout with another lady and can’t quite imagine them being able to complete it.

Of course I didn’t invent HIIT training, but I’m mastering it. HIIT stands for High Intensity Interval Training. In short, you sprint through an exercise (or set) and then rest and repeat for 30-40 minutes. It’s been shown to benefit many aspects of health, including cardiovascular health which is my number one focus. So I started training most of my clients with this method and it’s really started to work.

The comments from clients and other members have been fantastic. I’m making a name for myself with this type of training and I’m continually developing my execution. It’s not for everyone, and I’m ok with that. I want healthy clients and I want results. A lot of people come to me wanting to lose ten pounds – this is a great way to do it.


Before During and After a Run

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The day before a big run, I drink a little extra water. Proper hydration starts up to 12 hours before its needed. During my longer runs, I have water breaks to keep myself fueled to finish. And after my run, you can be sure that stretching and re-hydrating are essential. In order to train my body, I need to provide the necessary water.

Water is essential to my training. I can’t forget how fortunate I am that I can readily have access to water before I need it, while I’m performing, and while I recover. Water is essential to life. Life is more important than training. Yet not everyone has access to the clean water that I do. On my training run today, I thought about my clean water campaign. I’m running to provide clean water to families that have to travel long distances to get this essential nutrient of life. I get all the water I want whenever I want it. It saddens me that I can’t fully wrap my mind around the reality that families on this same planet don’t have that resource. It fuels me, actually. I get extremely motivated to run really well and keep pointing people to this cause. I’ll never run a race again without pointing my friends and family to this clean water project. If we all chip in a little, we can stop this water crisis in our life time. I hope you’ll consider joining my team.

Pointing to Clean Water

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Do you remember the ice bucket challenge from last fall? How could I forget mine? My (mischievously brilliant) father-in-law poured the slowest bucket of ice water over me at family reunion while onlookers cringed in their sandals. What a great event. I watched a lot of ice bucket challenges. Did you have a favorite? Mine was by Matt Damon. The ice bucket challenge was an awareness and fundraising campaign for ALS. Matt Damon is a clean water advocate, so he used the national attention of the ice bucket challenge and took it a step further. 

Clean water is a big deal. For the last two years, I’ve participated in a campaign called Save a Drink, Save a Life. The idea is for participants to give up a few trips to the coffee shop and instead donate that money to build wells where people don’t have access to clean water. This year I’m running the Monona 20k and so in the same way that Matt Damon pointed attention towards clean water initiatives, I’m doing the same thing with this run. Here’s my promise: I’ll train very hard and on May 2, 2015 run all the way around Lake Monona. I’m asking friends and family to join my team and give up a couple coffees or just donate to my efforts. None of the funds raised will go to my training – in fact you donate directly through Blood:Water, a non-profit that has raised over $24 million for one of our generation’s greatest burden: ensuring every human has access to clean water. 

Will you join my team?

Running Monona 20k for Clean Water

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Last week I signed up to run the Monona 20k on May 2. Today I’m launching my campaign for this event – I’m running to support one of my favorite organizations, Blood:Water Mission. Since 2004, Blood:Water has raised over $24 million through the creative efforts of tens of thousands of individuals seeking to make a difference. I hope you’ll join my team this spring.

Here’s my commitment: I’ll train to run around Lake Monona to the best of my ability.

I want to form a team of 20 supporters to each give $10 for this effort. None of the money goes to any of my training costs. You donate directly through B:WM. Are you in? You can join my team here. If you join, please drop me a line. I’d love to keep you in the loop throughout my training. When we raise $200, we’ll raise another $200!

The idea behind “Save a Drink, Save a Life” is for you to give up one drink per week (a beer, a $4 coffee shop beverage) and donate to the team. My spin on this is to leverage my exercise training for your support of my team.

Donations need to be made by April 6. You can cheer me on the race course May 2, but join the team first! Can’t wait to see what we do with this!Screen Shot 2015-03-23 at 10.58.46 AM

Essencial Habits

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If I were to drill down the best predictor of my clients’ success, it would be the quality of the habits they’ve formed. All of my clients have very specific goals. Success starts with goals but success makes progress with habits. How are you spending your time? What is a non-negotiable in your week? How often is that non-negotiable happening in any given week? When you have answered these questions, you can claim a habit as your own.

If you are anything like me, you have a few too many irons in the fire. Either way, a productive and efficient life will be defined by the habits you’re able to execute. I’m running the Monona 20k on May 2 – if running isn’t a habit, it will be a long day. Are you running a business? What habits make that happen? Are you trying to launch a business? What habits do you need to have to put in the work before you go live? Are you writing a book? Chapters don’t write themselves – you need to do the work and you need to write on a regular basis.

Think about your workflow. Think about your habits. Think about your distractions. Think about your goals and be realistic about what it will take to get there. Put together a game plan of habits and start stacking successful weeks on top of each other.

Gathering the tools

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I am part of a book study through the mens ministry at church. We are reading a book called Simplify by Bill Hybels and this week was about identifying your life verse from the Bible. At first this seemed like kind of a cheesy thing to do, then I started to embrace the idea. But each guy in our discussion at Barriques concluded the same thing: one single life verse would be hard to identify; a verse for this “season” seems more applicable.

Along that same vein, I believe true professionals are constantly adjusting the tools they need for certain seasons, certain projects. I wear many hats throughout the week. Mostly I’m training clients. But I’m also writing, reading, conducting interviews, leading and attending meetings, creating marketing materials, and cranking through email. I am fascinated with how people work, especially the creative and successful ones. And while I could write about how I personally get all these things done, today I want to write about what tools I use for professional development, specifically reading.Turning Pro

I hoard books. My Kindle (app) is loaded with many books I haven’t read yet, but they’re on my list. I sort through tens of blogs each week. I have extensive Twitter lists that keep me in the loop with my areas of interest. All these things help me grow professionally, but every once in awhile a new book comes across my desk that is different. Last week, my friend John was quoting Steven Pressfield from his popular book, Turning Pro. This book has been on my wish list for years. I didn’t purchase it because of the afore mentioned hoarding of books. I convinced myself that I needed to finish a few more books before purchasing another to sit on my Kindle. But something clicked with one of John’s blog posts. I realized the work I was doing at Pinnacle was setting me up to dive into Turning Pro. I read further on John’s blog and learned that he was starting a digital book club around Turning Pro. And I was hooked.

Last week I purchased the book and I’ve had two nights to dig into it this week – it’s fantastic. It will be difficult for a handful of reasons, but I know this is a tool I need for this season of my life. I’m continually amazed when things in life are put on hold only until the “time is right” and things fall into place. I’m so excited to learn from this book and to “go Pro.”

How about you? Are you picking up some tools for this season of life?

It takes a long time

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It takes a long time

In the middle of my workout this morning, I was deep into a squat-to-press and I felt my muscles respond in a new way. This was surprising because I’ve been doing this without twice per week for about six months. I’m getting really good at it, I’m significantly stronger. But today it’s almost like the exercise clicked for me. The exercise seemed to slow down, I had additional focus, and I felt the muscles working more acutely than ever before.

Why did I feel this new level of accomplishment?

Getting really good at something takes a really long time. I know, obvious. But do you need that reminder? I did. Are you expecting quick results? Are you putting in the time? Are you spinning your wheels? Are you being challenged? Things worth having take a lot time to develop. Do not be discouraged. In fact, take pride in the fact that we are always learning new things, achieving new levels of mastery in all our pursuits. Do the work. Earn the sweat equity.

Sadly they is another side of the coin. While it is true that it takes a long time to build up a good thing, it takes a very short amount of time to destroy a prized possession. The reputation that is lost with one moral failure. The job site that has one mistake and now profits for the day are shot. One day of a short fuse with your children and they see Dad lose control. No back up of the family computer, it crashes and all your family photos are gone. A life time of health and fitness, a couple years off and now everything is more difficult and you’ve added 20 pounds. We work so hard and then it all can be lost so quickly.

Build, balance, adjust

It is essential to have a set of goals, both long term and short term. We need to use these goals as a compass for our lives. We need to build up strategic areas of our life and then keep them balanced and always maintained. It takes a lot of work. It’s not all going to move in the positive direction. There will be set backs. In fact if you aren’t failing a few times, you probably aren’t trying hard enough. But that’s where adjustments come in. Make your adjustment and recalibrate toe goals and your game plan.

*** Spring

Here’s the thing I’m feeling after my exercise advancement this morning. I’m wondering what’s next. I’m counting on that experience to spring me upwards and to the right, highly anticipating the next learning moment.