15 Things I Learned in 2013

I'm actually pretty excited to share this list since I've spent literally 365 days waiting to put it all together. 2013 has certainly been a year of much trial, failure and success. I can proudly say I've completed my 2013 New Year's resolution by writing at least one blog entry a month about what drives and motivates me to be who I am. I hope you enjoy. The below list is a synthesis of all of the major points of each entry I've written this past year.

We all have two lives. The second one begins when we realize we only have one. - Tom Hiddleston

Work hard everyday. Get addicted to fighting because as long as you keep fighting, you'll never lose. At the end of everyday, when you rise again in the morning, you'll know you're one day closer to who you want to become and are reminded of the person you already are.

The secret to happiness is acceptance. Stop comparing your life to everyone else's Facebook or Instagram highlight reel. Your movie is ridiculously awesome on it's own. Give yourself some credit.

Change your perspective Read. Listen. Trust the advice of your loved ones. Accept that you are not right in all that you do. When you learn to look at the same thing in your life through different lenses, you get to experience life on a thousand different planes (and most of them are really friggin' cool).

Get active. Go to the gym, go for a walk, go hiking, go snowboarding, Go do some freaky looking lunges that the guy on P90X does. JUST GO.

Lose weight. Stop eating so damn much. Really, it's that easy.

Invest in the real currency of life. Relationships make our lives richer; not the car, house, sneakers or watches you can buy. A steak dinner with the person you love is always worth the money. Flowers, too.

Don't curl in the squat rack. Squat in the squat rack.

Make a routine and don't allow yourself to make it an option. Adding more discipline in your life will always benefit you in the long run. It teaches you how to run a marathon, not a 5k. It teaches you humility, patience, the value of hard work, and the appreciation of what you get when you finally earn it.

Volunteer. A lot. Because wouldn't it be cool if you could say I helped change their life and wouldn't it be even cooler if you got to say wow, that changed my life.

Travel often. Because each place you go is like reading a single page of a big ass book, called The World.

Wear bright socks and buy a blazer that actually fits. then actually wear it. You've worked hard to get to where you are in life. Be proud and look the part. When you dress confident, you feel confident.

Do what you love and do the hell out of it. Commit to what drives you and enables your passion to soar. If you're not where you want to be, make a plan to get there one day and stick to it. Don't give your brain any room to ask what if.

Want really ugly things. When you're blessed enough to have nice and shiny things, do your best to use them for what they're intended for, a lot. What's the point of having a nice shiny car when you don't have any memories when you look at it?

Death is inevitable. Pain is, too. None of us apart from God have a choice in the matter, and even God chose to experience pain through His Son's death. Yet we all have a choice to allow our hearts to mend with gold or wither away with mud.

Love. Love your God above all else. Love your neighbor as yourself. In loving, we find life. There are no other greater commandments than this.

Pouring one for my Homie

I had this entire blog written out in my head. It had all of these nice things about how much Jesus loves us, how we're part of the church not because we're perfect, but we're part of the church because we're imperfect people. All of this beautiful things to say about Christmas to hope and prove to you that I, Toan Tommy Do, may know something so valuable that I ought to write it down and share it.

Then it occurred to me, I don't know nothin'. Not a damn thing that I didn't know a year ago when I started writing this blog. I'm going to end 2013 with probably the most honest few statements I've ever thought of:

• I suck at being a 'good' Christian. Who signed me up for this? I'm not perfect, I never and can never claim to be. I don't wear a suit every Sunday to church, I use swear words when I'm angry, I have road rage and no, I don't carry the bible everywhere I go. I can't ever see myself ever falling into the stigma of the stereotypical Christian because I'm anything but stereotypical. The best news about all of this is that I don't have to be perfect because God is and damn, that's good to know.


• Church has 4 walls and has no walls, all at the same time. Church can be had at a pulpit, in the streets of NYC, at home and even alone when no one is watching. The simple matter is: Wherever love is, there are the Faithful, wherever there are the Faithful, there is the church, and wherever there is the church, there is Jesus because wherever there is love, there is Jesus; Because Jesus is love.

Merry Christmas. and Happy birthday Jesus, you my homie.


How I always remember Christmas

Healing with Gold

Death is a funny thing. It’s something that happens all of the time, yet for the fortunate, it doesn’t seem like it happens at all. It invades our lives as quickly as it arrives and leaves a scar that we can’t see, but we know that will be there forever. Perhaps it’s this mystery that has me caught up in a suspension. I can’t just yet figure out how to feel, react, cope or understand why death happened to my friend Joe. I found myself asking ‘why?’ and saying ‘it’s too soon’, trying to justify with my peers what happened and ultimately going through the motions as if it didn’t.

And perhaps it’s why I’m writing this entry. To stop the madness and convey what it is I feel at this moment, in a way that I probably can’t express in real life. Not just yet, anyway. As the thought of Joe’s passing slowly sinks in, it’s made me [and others] acutely aware of our mortality; my friend Josiah said it best, ‘How can someone [Joe] so alive, be dead’? The loss of our brother sweeps in with such quickness that it literally stuns the soul. Yes there has been tear shed here and there, or a breakdown behind closed doors; but quite frankly, stunned. 

I had begun an entry a few days ago, and as with all things, God put a pause in finishing that entry for a reason. It’s become clear that in this state of mourning can I express it better than before.  Without avoiding, minimizing, rationalizing or substituting the pain that I feel towards the loss of my friend, I can only write a small message of hope within this text.

Kintsugi (金継ぎ^?) (Japanese: golden joinery) or Kintsukuroi (金繕い^?) (Japanese: golden repair) is the Japanese art of fixing broken pottery with a lacquer resin sprinkled with powdered gold.^[1]

I saw this image a few weeks ago and what caught my attention was the curious way gold was used to mend broken pottery. Moreso, artisans deliberately broke their urn-fired creations with full intent to rebirth them using this technique. Like death, God shapes and casts our lives in a way that is as mysterious as the time death chooses to come; I’d even venture to say that there are times in our lives when God deliberately breaks us down, so that he can put us back together with His hands, the hands that originally created us, using the finest gold ever created. 

For me, each life that Joe has touched can be considered an example of Kintsugi; of being broken and being healed. I shudder as I write this down, I know that God is swaying the mightiest mountains to forge the gold that heals us all, with my brother Joe, with his unrelenting laughter, by His side in heaven. He is home.

 

What it really took me to run a half marathon: Part 2

The honest truth is, I'm not a natural runner. In fact, I smoked for 11-some-odd years. Frankly, I remember the moment I decided to quit; it was May 20, 2008. As I took my last drag and flicked the butt away, I thought to myself I'm never going smoke again. This is going to help change my life.What I wasn't thinking about was that in the following 6 years, I'd run 2 half marathons, cycle a full century, lead 2 boot camps and lean out my Buddha belly. If I told myself that at the time, I'd definitely think I was on drugs. haha. That being said, I recognized a long time ago that I need to stick to a very rigid training schedule in order to compete in any type of endurance event. 

Here's the technical side of my training. I think in spreadsheets, it works for me. I don't try to fight what works for me anymore by reading what works for other people. I've spent the time to hash out what makes me the best I can be and I stick to it. Nothing fancy, just straight forward, no mess, gung-ho, rockstar spreadsheets.

I mean, like life, sometime things just need to be made easy. Make a schedule that works, put your damn shoes on and go for a run. That's my approach to most things, especially with running. Without a doubt there were times when I just didn't feel like going for a run, did and was glad I did; and there were times where I said  F IT, laid in my bed and vegged out for the night. This goes back to my other statement in Part 1 about listening to my body. Some days, I just wasn't up for the challenge, and that's ok.

My training schedule:

	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Total
11-Aug			3		3			6
18-Aug	5		3		4			12
25-Aug	6		4		4			14
1-Sep	7		4		5			16
8-Sep	8		5		5			18
15-Sep	9		5		5			19
22-Sep	10		5		7			22
29-Sep	11		6		3		2	22
6-Oct	13							13.1

142.1

What really happened LOL:

	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Total
11-Aug	4.75							4.75
18-Aug							4.7	4.7
25-Aug			5.08		5.7			10.78
1-Sep		7			3.1			10.1
8-Sep	8.62		4.5			5		18.12
15-Sep	10			5				15
22-Sep	11.2				5		9	25.2
29-Sep								0
6-Oct	13.1							13.1
								101.75

As you can see, I missed my training regiment by over 40 miles and really, I'm not even mad. A couple of highlights from Week 1 to week 8.

Week 1 - MAJOR foot injury, pushing me to keep off of my feet for almost 2 weeks
Week 4 - Ran a really good 5k distance around my house - felt genuinely faster and was able to turn my feet over a lot quicker than I usually do. Very confidence inspiring.
Week 5 - First strong mileage week, was feeling good and consistent with average pace steadily decreasing
Week 7 - I definitely PEAKED this week. Running was strong on the 11.2 and 5, capped with a 9 mile hike around Del Water Gap. HOWEVER, I'm convinced that the 11.2 run really hurt a ligament in my foot, which was later exacerbated by the 5 mile run and hike (I tried the 'recovery run' method, which didn't work too well)
Week 8 - Affected by the heavy week 7, I didn't run all week in fear that I would further injure my foot.

here's the trending line for my average pace:
Actually run breakdowns and average pace

Date	Distance	Time	Pace
11-Aug	4.75	0:49:04	0:10:20
24-Aug	4.7	0:43:34	0:09:16
27-Aug	5.08	0:47:58	0:09:27
29-Aug	5	0:45:07	0:09:01
2-Sep	7	1:06:31	0:09:30
5-Sep	3.1	0:25:41	0:08:17
8-Sep	8.62	1:20:27	0:09:20
10-Sep	4.5	0:45:00	0:10:00	treadmill
13-Sep	5	0:42:49	0:08:34
15-Sep	10	1:31:29	0:09:09
18-Sep	5	0:42:52	0:08:34
20-Sep	5	0:43:32	0:08:42
22-Sep	11.12	1:40:00	0:09:00
26-Sep	5	0:42:37	0:08:31
6-Oct	13.1	2:09:48	0:09:55

So October 6th was supposed to be race day. We had heard a few days before that the run was canceled due to the government shutting down. No biggie, I decided to run the distance anyway.

As the morning came, I woke up and immediately ate a clif bar, drank some coffee and sucked down a GU gel. 15 minutes later, I took another GU and drank my preworkout (cause ya know, I needed the pump!). Stretching and warming up then took place and I was off!

The 26 Stages of Running

BOOM! immediately both my left and right foot felt uneasy. I didn't even get to the half mile mark before I started just feeling weird. I said to myself, ugh, this is 'race day, suck it up and stop being a bitch' and off I went. Rounding the 5k mark, I popped another GU in and headed towards RVCC (my friendly community college alma mater). The laps around the campus have about 125' of climbing up the front end and is about a 1.7 mile loop. The funny part is, as soon as I started running I noticed a million orange cones. Apparently, as part of my 3x loop around RVCC, I "participated' in the JDRF 5k walk. So maybe I should call that organization and tell them to give me a damn medal.

Heading back, I was on mile 8 or so, my feet were killing me by then. The slight elevation and descent, paired with funky feeling foot bridges started bringing in some intense pain. By way of compensation, I ended up adjusting my running gain slightly and that most definitely contributed to runner's knee and metatarsil pain in the left leg and arch pain in my right.

By mile 10, I felt like I was pulling a freight train with me. I look down and I'm seriously plodding along at an 11 minute pace. Wow. WTF happened?

Mile 10 > mile 11 > mile 12  all progressively got harder and slower. The pain was creeping up on all sides. Luckily, my energy levels were in check, so I didn't hit a wall, but the pain forced me to walk for a hot minute. The whole time I was thinking about how I was dealing with so much crazy complications when I ran a solid 11 miler only 2 weeks ago. I guess I'll never know.

As I approach 12.5 miles, I tried to pump myself up. Imagining the people that should have  been there to cheer me on. To say "hey dude, only another half mile!!!". I tried to imagine the clapping, the fanfare, the festivities, the banana and medal that I would have earned. And then reality kind of set in. I was running around my neighborhood and ended in an extremely anti-climactic way, in the middle of the street in Bridgewater suburbia.

well that was a shitty ending I thought, as I looked down to see the 13.1 click over on my Garmin watch.

I finished at 2'09". Not bad I think. In hindsight, had I been at the level I was 2 weeks prior, I would have finished right at the 2 hour mark. No big deal, I ran sub-2's my first race and that was more than enough for me. I'm happy I ran, I'm  happy I decided to take the challenge again to complete the distance and now I'm happy to start ass-to-grass squats at the gym.

Cheers to another short, quick chapter of my healthy life and here's an ugly cry for the medal that I never got.

:)

What it really took me to run a half marathon: Part 1

13.1 miles. thirteen point one freakin' miles. Yep, that's how I far I ran this past Sunday. To some, it's a lot, to others, it's pretty normal - for me, it's the second time I've crossed this distance. Except this time it was a lot different. For 8 weeks I trained, ate and mentally prepared myself for this race, only to find out at the 13th hour that it was cancelled due to the government shutdown (Sandy Hook State Park/Beach). With no recourse, I decided to run the worst kind of half marathon I knew of: The half marathon that had no glitz, no glamour, no people cheering you on, no aid stations, no awesome pictures to showoff on instagram / facebook.. nothing. and worst of all no DAMN (you have to say it like that lol) medal waiting for me at the finish line.

I was pretty deliberate to mentally record several thoughts as I was training/running this half. I hope this is as informative as it is entertaining. So brace yourself, lots of broscience is about to rock your world.

Let's talk about nutrition first - that's always the biggest obstacle for me. The last time I ran in 2011, I hit the 'wall' so hard on mile 10 it wasn't even funny. For those of you who are unfamiliar, the wall is what happens when you literally feel like you've run into a brick wall. Low energy levels, low motivation, the desire to quit escalates, you feel like you're running so hard, but you're barely moving faster than a quick jog. It's a pretty shitty feeling and sometimes it's inescapable - sometimes you actually just need to stop.

Anyway, to prevent this, I planned to eat right. What's that mean? It means slowly and progressively ratcheting up my calorie from carbs content in my diet. So what does that mean? My typical diet consists of about 20-30% carbs, 40-50% protein and the rest fats. Essentially, I just try to eat more meat than bread :) Except for a runner, someone who needs sustained endurance, the diet needs to be flipped.

The ramp up period (weeks 1-4) wasn't rocket science - eat more carbs. No problem. pizza, breadsticks, fried rice all happily made their way into my belly. Of course, these aren't quality carbs, but hey, I was running enough to burn them out. The more I was running (see later for time table), the more I felt that my body needed the carbs. More distance = more carbs, more carbs = more energy. As week 5 quickly approached, I had in my mind that a 90% split was the goal for the week before race day. I mean, if you think about it, that's just plain nasty. 90% of all food coming from carbs? No thanks! So for week 5 to7, I moved to somewhere around 50-70%, just gradually and deliberately choosing to eat the white/brown stuff.

Here's where it get's interesting. At the end of week 6 into week 7, I did a full day of prep-carb-loading and SUCCESSFULLY ran 11.62 miles at training pace (9:00/mile). ZERO BONK, ZERO PROBLEMS. It was glorious. This was for sure the product of eating so much damn pizza.. I mean carbs. One last quip about carb-loading for race day is this (Thanks Mike LaMonica for the advice):

• 1 week before  = 70%
• Day before = Doing a full load at lunch time, not at dinner time. This allows the body to fully digest and convert the carbs into stored energy. Eating a nice sized dinner helps, too (but not overboard like for lunch)
• Day off = light breakfast (I had a cliff bar) and some black coffee

Nutrition is just one of the disciplines that needs to be worked on during the training period. The umbrella of discipline covers much more than, it requires sacrifice. So what did I give up?

Oh, I'll tell you what I gave up. Quads. yes, quads. As the natural bi-product of running, my muscles quickly and uniformly adapted from body building to endurance running. Overall, I lost 8 lbs of muscle mass (I stayed at a consistent 9-10% BF range) dropping from 173 to 165, and some days clocking in at 162. It was atrocious. If you're someone who actually trains to put things up and put them down, it's like hell froze over when I started realizing I was giving up my gains brah. As I watched my body shed inches all around, I felt the trade-off run itself up [no pun intend] to how much freakin' energy I had. At the beginning of the program, just a short 8 weeks ago, I was barely putting in the time/energy to run 5 miles. Lately, a 5 mile run was just getting my engine going. I lost a lot of muscle mass, but it showed itself through things like boxing. No wonder why these guys shed weight to fight in a lower weight class. Speed, agility, endurance and stamina all went through the roof. Pretty cool stuff, especially for me who was feeling weighed down by the muscle I was gaining (a good problem to have, I suppose).

Another part of the running discipline was giving up my time. By nature, endurance running is a huge time suck. I trained 3x a week, running anywhere from 2-5 total hours, with double that in prep time / cool down time. The commitment to train for an event requires the discipline of making a meeting and sticking with it. The challenge of a half marathon didn't have time for my excuses, it doesn't care if I trained or if I didn't, because quite frankly, if I didn't train for this half, I would fail. So the proposition was purely black and white. Either I trained and I would succeed, or I would bullshit and I would fail. The choice was mine and if you know anything about me, you already know which way I decided on.

Speaking of which, pride. That in itself is a discpline. To reject it, that is. Although pride finds itself in all areas of my life (of which I constantly fight through), the pride of ignoring pain was something I had to give up; and that stems from knowing when to listen to your body. Everyone wants to be a hero, run like Lance Armstrong (yes, he runs lol), sprint like Usain Bolt, but no one wants to toss in a white towel for a brief minute to recognize that perhaps they're training beyond their ability. I see it all the time, in the gym, outdoors, on the bike, etc. People, including myself, regularly push themselves past the point of good pain, into the realm of damaging pain. This was especially true as I ran my first 5 miles at the beach on week 1. I ran too far, too fast in too little time. My left foot suffered from a lot of endurance fatigue and I was limping for at least a week (you can see it in my run log).

So for me, it's always about knowing when to let my body heal. I have to constantly remind myself that resting and pushing back a training day was far better than sticking to the schedule and risking further injury.

Every training regiment has it's pros and cons, here's my POV:

Pros -

• Better overall health
• Weight management
• Training towards a goal
• Achieving a sense of discipline
• Eating, a lot and staying ripped (don't worry, I won't be posting any swelfies of myself anymore)
• Enjoying the outdoors - street, trail and mountain running
• Runner's "freedom"
• Having my thighs actually fit into the slim jeans that I bought

Cons -

• Having my thighs actually fit into the slim jeans that I bought
• Loss in muscle mass 
• Decrease in strength
• Increase in potential injury

I want the ugly things in life

Like really ugly.. ugly ugly. Well, it's only fitting for an ugly person to have ugly things, right? just kidding.

While out and about today, soaking in what is sure to be one of the last beautiful days of summer, a nice shiny Porsche whistled by me on the highway. I'd say it was a late 90s 911 Carrera aka my DREAM car. It got me thinking, when I make my first million and buy my first Porsche (Mind you, it's not a matter of if, but when - you can see my arrogance peeking through) I don't want that experience to be anything like how it used to be. If you're reading this and have been a friend of mine for a while, you'll remember my Talon. Good ol' vanity plates that read "PSI TSI", most of which I'm sure people thought I was in a frat.. or if you were a non-boosted Honda or V8 with silly Hemi stickers, you'd think twice after looking back at my big ol' FMIC.

Countless hours of research, planning, designing, building and tuning went into that car. After spending over $20k on her, I realized that in the 3.5 years I owned the car, I've driven it less than 8,000 miles. WOW. Every chance I got the car was waxed, pampered, garage-kept and driven like a bat-out-of-hell, after all, that's what she was built for. It was undeniable that it was the funnest (is that a word!?) 8,000 miles I've spent in a car, but a part of it all really eats at me.. Did I really enjoy the car as much as I could have? I spent so much time thinking about driving the car, that I had actually forgotten to actually drive the car.

So here, I present to you exhibit B, my shoes.

These bad-boys have been with me for over 400 miles, which is definitely well over it's squishy point, but oh well. I've ran in 3 different continents with them, I've ran a half marathon (soon to be 2), I've ran mountains, Capital cities, boot camps and beaches with them. I've never washed them, I've never fixed them, I've never done anything but use them. This is how I want my life to be. I want ugly things... used, abused, and beaten to hell. I don't want a nice, shiny Porsche. I want a sun-faded, yellow Jeep Wrangler with no doors (no shoes, no shirt, no problems), that screams "I've been through shit that you haven't seen!". I don't want a cushy life with a cushy job (although some may disagree.. haha!). I want to be out there, never tiring of new things and never afraid to be quiet or be loud. I want the truly ugly things of life because in the end, they're the most beautiful.

Do what you love.. and do the hell out of it

*ba dum bum* title sounds funny, but BRO, I'm serious.

"Remember," he said, "read for pleasure. If you pick up a book and don't like it, put it down. Never read what you think you should read. Never feel inadequate if you don't like what you're 'supposed' to read. Reading is personal. Your opinion is the only opinion that matters"

The smallest moments make the biggest differences

Perhaps this seems like a no-brainer to most of us, but the above article really stuck out to me today. I mean, how many of us go on the rat race everyday? Every single time, without fail, that I'm in a subway car or walking the streets of Manhattan or sitting at my cube staring at pictures of epic places I've been to, I always wonder why I'm not out doing those things. Is it social obligation, financial obligation (after all, I did go to B-school and racked up a ton of student loan debt), and/or familial obligation that keeps us in the rat race? Or perhaps it's an actual need that we have that dictates working is a part of life?

a quick moment with little kids and a big impact

I'm not saying every jamoke should quit his job and run off to New Zealand to grow a beard, adopt the barter system and become a jade-carver, but I am saying that we all have a choice, both inside and outside of work, to do what we love. Take a step back with me really quickly and think about all of the people in your lives who you would call 'successful'. What do they all have in common? They all love what they do and they do the hell out of it. In my life, I have friends who I've watched reinvent the HR wheelhouse, recreate operations, start new small businesses when everyone told them they wouldn't succeed, mothers, fathers, teachers, Christ followers, well diggers, and body builders. All which measure up to the 'successful' yardstick in my book.

I defer to these folks to see what it means to have a passion and actually follow it. It seems all too simplistic (and overwhelmingly true) to realize that they all see things differently and choose to make decisions that affect every aspect of their lives. Trusting that whatever factors may influence their day-to-day lives are the driving force that will bend their results, for better or for worst. These are the people who I call 'all in' and it's about time we all go all in with them. After all, who wants to wake up one day and say, damn, I wish I did?