Merry Christmas

Happy Holidays from the Christmas wonderland of Westport, Connecticut!!
I have spent Christmas in various circumstances in various locals. Glorious present filled mornings in Idaho, rehab in Auburn, dope sick in Spanaway, writing angst ridden stories about Santa's decent into homicide in Louisville but a yuletide moment in Atlanta always replays.
It was 1993 and my girlfriend and I were at Robert and Crystal's apartment. Robert and Crystal were a charming combination of white trash, urban, violent, junky heroin dealers. One thing most people don't realize about long term opiate addiction is that you are usually just sticking it in just to feel normal. The initial reasons for experimentation are long gone and you are just avoiding the inevitable excruciation that stopping will bring. At this point many add in regular binges of cocaine to actually feel something and if you are already a junky it's not going up your nose like the wild kids at a frat party. You are smoking of shooting it. Robert and Crystal preferred to smoke their coke, mostly because uncollapsed viens were at a premium. These were my friends, my contemporaries, my store if I couldn't scrounge a car to go to Proctor street were the dope was cheaper.
Smoking crack is a very focused activity. When you are smoking crack, you are smoking crack - that's it. You just sit in a circle waiting your turn, wishing the the other person would hurry the fuck up so you could smoke some more crack. You would take a hit, feel AMAZINGLY good for about a minute and then wait again.
I wasn't smoking crack that day, but Robert and Crystal were. This haunting memory is just the moment that I was walking out the door. I had gotten my dope, gotten well and as we walked past their room I gave hearty 'Merry Christmas". I looking into the room and saw just how much an expression of the season meant. Everyone was staring at whoever currently had the pipe. The idea that it was a day the signified giving, sharing, God's ultimate loving gift was pitifully insignificant compared to 'I'm gonna smoke some more crack in a minute.' For some reason the reality of our situation blasted through the dope and I knew what we were. It was temporarily horrific.
I have been in much worse situation when you look at the circumstance, but the most poignantly awful are generally self contained realizations or self delusions. Sometimes the moment of truth juxtaposed with events before and after make the experience even more memorable. I was obviously a less then healthy place and Robert and Crystal were dead by June. This was the world in which we lived.
You may wonder why I told just a depressing Christmas story. To put it simply - I am not there anymore because miraculous things can happen. Today I ran through the crisp snow lined streets of my lovely wife's home town after a peaceful brunch.
May you all have a blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year and say a prayer for Robert and Crystal and those like them and me. Pay attention to what you have got.

17 Miles on a Treadmill

Saturday I ran 17 miles on treadmill - 17 miles! I have always hated treadmills and my opinion hasn't really changed. Thank God for a machine mounted television and Law and Order or I might not have been responsible for my actions. The monotony was AMAZING.
Sunday I rode a bike inside using a trainer. I trainer is a device that balances your bike and gives resistance to the back tire to simulate real riding. It is boring, but not the epic boring of 17 MILES ON A TREADMILL.
I should just be grateful I have the machinery to keep on training, but I miss our boring weather. Please give me 60 days of rain.

Shared Difficulty

I spent a large amount of time today on buses and streets commuting through what amounts to trauma for Seattlites - snow. It was a wonderful experience. People smile and laugh at strangers with a camaraderie that only shared peril brings. It warms the cockles. It is akin to a group of triathletes reminiscing about pain or diarrhea sustained during events. It is like the way former junkies chuckle together over the common experience of pain and diarrhea sustained while kicking.
It's good to share.

Instant Gratification

On my way to meet my group for running I stopped to get a coffee. The girl at the counter asked me what I was doing out on such a cold night. I told her I was killing time before I went running. She said I was crazy in a tough, good way. Training has its props.

Nice Weekend Report

This was a nice light weekend of training. I love what is becoming 'light'. On Saturday I ran 7 miles of hills and then played a trail running game for 4 miles. It was very social training. It was nice.
Today I made my first attempt at volunteering at an event. I was going to be one of the water-giver-outers at the 12k of Christmas in Kirkland, but it was cancelled due to ice. We (fellow volunteer and event-jilted runners) went to a nice breakfast overlooking the lake.
I then went and had one of the best non-coached swims ever. Though it was little more than half of the 2.4 miles I will swim in the ironnman, it shows me that I am capable.
Nice.

The Commercial

A few times I mentioned that a daily regimen of intense triathlon training is not sufficient for me to overcome drug addiction and the underlying wackiness and related insanity that are byproducts. I could never have come directly from where I was to where I am. I don’t have that kind of power. Though the idea of addiction as a disease accepted, most still think of it as a condition of willpower. I think this is because, though the disease concept is true, it makes no sense. It isn't really the responsibility of the normal person to firmly grasp this. It is the responsibility of the alcoholic or drug addict (I consider my self both) to understand this. It is a multifaceted illness in that it affects the body, mind and spirit. The body aspect is relatively easy to fix- remove the substance. If this was sufficient detox and treatment centers would have near perfect results. The mind and the spirit aspects are the seemingly impossible ones to fix. There is no way to do this that I have experienced or been aware of that remedies this without some sort of spiritual experience. I know that this is brings a lot of preconceived ideas of what 'spiritual experience' can mean. To me it means to utilize the power of God to deal with the problems that run to the core of my being. Though I have often clung to this idea as a means to an end - the end being not needing to instantaneously feel different, sobriety is a by product of the spiritual experience.
So how does one get this experience? I have seen it happen in churches. I grew up very active in an non-denominational Christian church and I definitely knew people who had been freed from addictions through God in this setting. However, there is one place where all traditions, concepts and steps are centered around the concept of helping those the need it find this effective spiritual experience - Alcoholics Anonymous. In my experience and observation, if someone goes to AA and works the 12 steps with someone who has worked the 12 steps and doesn't stop they will get the results. I don't think I will ever really understand the mechanics of this, but if I could that would make me more knowledgeable than God. It is like tri training. You follow the directions of someone who has completed the goal you are hoping to attain and you get there. It may not look or feel exactly how you imagined, but you get there.

HR Monitors Rock!!

Though I hate how loosely we use the descriptive verb rock * these days, I could not think of a better way to describe my first real experience training using a heart rate monitor. My hope was that keeping an eye on it would help me speed up when I slowed down for no real reason. I hoped that that effort to move back up into some zone would be relatively effortless. Some guy who I swam with twice told me this. I don't even remember his name, but I tend to cling to words that I want to hear regardless of the source.
Well that nameless wiseman was exactly right!! My 15 miles run on Saturday may have not been the fastest I have even run, but it was the strongest for where I was physically at the time. I feel like I really utilized my capability by the awareness of when I was slowing and it really did not take much effort to speed back into the 150s (my training target). Now if I can only exert this force of will over my blood sugar.

* Yngwie Malmsteen opening for Ronnie James Dio in 1985 rocked, getting the stapler to work correctly on a copier does not rock. If you get the musical reference you at least have butt rock leanings.

Self Disclosure

So this is morphing into something a bit more transparent and the audience has become a bit wider than I quite predicted so let me lay out some expectations. I swear, I have an extremely checkered past (that is obvious in the title statement of the blog), I have a strong belief that God is the reason that I have any life and I am really liberal.
Here is a personal belief statement that kind of sums it all up - I think that thinking it is ok to kill Muslims in the name of Jesus is way worse than a lifetime of 'goddam motherfuckers' in light of the second commandment (Thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain.) Like anyone's personal beliefs I may be wrong, but I have a good sense that I am not.
I am telling you this so that I will quit worrying about who I am potentially offending. I have been fretting about what both the religious and non-religious ones of you might think. I apologize for not giving you the credit you deserve by thinking you would be so easily offended. I tend to do that. I tend to present a very controlled, palatable image of myself, but that can be boring and not very helpful.
So be warned there will swearing, talk about God and descriptions of some fucked up situations ................................................................................ and talk about triathlon training.
I am now off to run 15 miles on a beautiful crisp morning when I will trying to aim for a target heart rate zone. Thanks!!!

Monitoring Parental Gifts and Curses

Tonight was the first time I used a heart rate monitor. I met with my triathlon training team to measure a baseline to determine my heart rate zones for training and racing. This was crossing a line for me as I have always avoided anything resembling sport science. I have always felt a little bit tough and rebellious in this avoidance. I like to feel tough and rebellious. I have particularly avoid using a heart rate monitor because of being diabetic. I always of played the excuse of avoidance in my father's sort of red-necked swaggering voice, "I already have to measure my blood sugar six times a day so I'll be damned if I measure on more thing." My dad never said this, but it was something he would have said in the same circumstance. Like most of us I am often amazed at my similarities to my parents.
Parents. Today is an odd day for me regarding parents. My biological mother specifically. I am adopted and a little over three years ago I met my biological mother and three brother, but that is another story.
My biological mother has extremely poor health, primarily due to 30+ years of heroin abuse. We are a good argument for the genetic theory of addiction. She called me tonight to let me know that she is in the hospital with a broken leg for the second time this year. Last week she told me that she was recently in the hospital and was diagnosed with emphysema. She has hepatitis C, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure etc. So I have known her for 3 years and I have lost count to the traumatic health events; many of which are glimpses into a very grim possible personal future. There are some major differences, decades more active drug use and lack of vigorous exercise. So, yes, I am apparently hard wired for addiction. We (triathletes, marathoners, anyone freakish about exercise) often joke about our healthy activities being an addiction. Sometimes I hate this line of joking, but I have to recognize that slight element of truth. At least if I get all single minded on this one the prospects look astronomically better than some of the others in my arsenal. Not that I can rely on this one to avoid that one. There is something else for that, but that (again) is another story.

Overwhelmed

Today I had my first of many panics about this whole endeavour. I looked at my training schedule and realized I should have swam. Yes, one day since running a half-marathon I was already self-flagellating over perceived laziness. This of lack of perspective is somewhat of a neccessity for motivation, but I need to learn to balance this obsessiveness with healthy regard for myself and others.
I have generally had issues with self-perseption: sort of an egomaniac with a low self esteem (I stole that line, but I like it). In my years of single-minded drug abuse, I was pretty certain I was capable of anything if only I would just do it. It is an amazing sense of loss of control to have the belief that you have outstanding abilities, but lack the core ability to utilize them. The transition from this powerlessness to the ability to even consider an ironman is something for which I am humungously grateful. It is well worth the occasional overwhelmed self-doubt freak out.