Angus Lessons- Pacing Your Season

Editor's note: As if Mother Nature read my last post on Perseverance, the great northeast is being beseiged with Hurricane Sandy. Rains and wind gusts up to 65 mph. I have every intention of running tomorrow morning. If Julie and Colin can row in a hurricane, I can run.
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As I reflect on my interactions with the dynamic duo of Julie and Colin Angus, I was recalling some of the question and answer sessions in which they were involved. Mind you, they expertly participated in roughly 3000 Q&As over the course of a 2 day span. Oddly, many of their questions were not age limited. Kids, elementary school through high school and even adults, were very curious about the nuances of their travels. Here's a list of the most common questions asked to the mighty adventurers:

• What was your favorite animal?
• What was your most embarassing moment?
• How did you two meet?
• Why are you hanging out with this dweeb of a science teacher?
• How did you go to the bathroom on the boat?

Nothing like asking a couple of the top adventurers in the world the hard hitting questions. That's some high quality learning opportunities there. There was one question, however, that was repeatedly asked which peaked my interest:

• How do you train for something like that?

In case you are new here, let me clarify the 'something like that' bit. Colin walked, skied, biked, and rowed a boat starting at his house and continued west until he ended at his house. He made it around the globe using zero drops of gasoline. That feat makes my owning of a hybrid seem a little weak. Julie became the first and only woman to row a boat all the way across the Atlantic Ocean. She did that just after biking across Europe. In contrast, I rode my bike in the garage for an hour yesterday.

 So, back to the question at hand- How do you train for something like that?

Each time the question was asked, the audience grew quiet. Pens were on paper ready to record the wisdom of the ages. People wanted to know the magic behind getting the body ready for a venture that would span many thousands of miles. You can see that lives were about to be changed.

"You don't," said Julie and Colin.

The disbelief was palpable. Shoulders slumped. Faces contorted as minds tried to absorb the simple sentence just spoken. Luckily, the Angus's put it into perspective.

Colin's Take

On the first part of his journey the desert was full of life, there were plants and birds and rocks and things he was in a row boat for many days as he slowly crept his way across the sea into Asia. Instead of training, he was preparing all of the necessary gear and planning routes. Then he rowed. After the rowing, he biked for a very long time (the better part of a year). Any bike training that he would have done was lost on the first rowing. Then, any rowing training we accumulated would have been lost on the bike ride. There was simply no way to physically prepare for the excursion.

Julie's Take

Julie was in a very similar situation. She met Colin somewhere in Eurasia for the final portion of his bike ride. If she had any rowing adaptations from specialized training, they would have worked their way out of her arm muscles and into her legs. Then, somewhere in Portugal, she got in a boat and took up the oars. Now it was row, row, row your boat, gently across the Atlantic- a 5-month journey. You really cannot train for something like that.

The Take Home Message
Luckily, Julie and Colin are nice people and they kept talking. They did give their audience a plan of attack for starting an adventure. I found this advice to be spot on in starting any new adventure, beit training for an Ironman, starting a new career or life in general.

"Start slowly," they said. "It's really easy at the beginning to have all of this energy and want to get a head start on the job. But, this can have grave consequences. There's nothing worse than a repetitive stress injury or burn out in the first month of the adventure."

It's a shame people had stopped writing things down. That's pure gold right there. They went on to explain that they insist that the first 2 weeks are slow and steady, while emphasizing slow. That's how long it takes for them to establish a routine and for their bodies to gain the necessary adaptations for the work. So long as they don't stop and keep progressing towards the goal, they were not in a hurry. After 2 weeks, they can build intensity if they want to.

This sounds very similar to what all of the experts say about endurance training. In the first part of your training routine, never focus on speed. Everything should be slow and steady. Let your body adapt to the new schedule and the activity. In my opinion, 2 weeks is not nearly long enough for slow steady work. It takes me roughly 6 weeks before I get comfortable doing anything closely related to intensity.

To apply this to sport: One of my athletes is training for a marathon in late summer, 2013. Her current schedule is as follows: run 5 days a week at a minimum of 3 miles a session. Do that for 3 weeks in a row. If she fails during any of those weeks. She starts over. We have no current focus on speed, hills, or intensity. Her specific instructions are that she needs to be able to run tomorrow comfortably after today's effort. When she succeeds at that schedule, her next block will be very similar. Run 6 days a week for 3 weeks in a row. At the end of that block, she's going to be in some pretty good shape to tackle the next stages of training. Her body will be on the right path to handle the stress load for the impending marathon.

So, once again, thanks Julie and Colin for your sage advice. Your wisdom learned through arduous experience is spot on.

Angus Lessons- Perseverance

My mind keeps wandering back to the Angus', Julie and Colin. I hung out with them for a couple of days and listened to many of their stories. In doing so, I learned a lot of lessons, many which can be applied to sport. I'll share one of those lessons with you now.

To Recap
Colin traveled across the globe on nothing but the power of his own muscles. He had to row across the Bering Sea. And ride a bike through China, Russia, and Siberia in the middle of winter. What exactly does that look like? A little something like this...

And to think that I won't ride my bike when the temperature is below 40º F. 

Julie rowed a tiny boat from Europe to America, across the Atlantic, through a hurricane (and other obstacles).  When others before her had done this, there were distinct differences. First, they were all men. Second, they always had a support crew to feed them, water them, etc. Julie had a dude (see bearded guy above), fishing pole and a boat. What did that look like when they finished? A little something like this...

Here's what I learned from their Adventures: Don't stop.

That's as simple and as complex as you can get in sport. And, it applies perfectly to endurance training. When your goal is to get from point A to point B, guess where stopping gets you? Nowhere. And that was the Angus Point (patent pending).

Moving towards your goal, even slowly, is still helping achieve your goal. Good stuff right there.

A Case Study
How does this affect me? Great question. Take, for example, my triathlon obsession frosted with the Ironman. I'd really like to get good at it. So far, I suck. That's okay, I can cope with my crappiness. One of my underlying weaknesses is my running. Therefore, I have started to dedicate myself into trying to become a runner. Not an easy task for the slow and weak (meaning me).

To achieve this goal, I have started running more. Sadly, the only real way to get good at running is to actually run (a fact I have worked hard to avoid for a long time now). Currently I am at 5 days a week on my way up to 6 and doing them in the morning. Morning running is actually advantageous. It removes all the excuses later in the day for not running.

However, there is a dark side to morning running. Specifically, it's dark outside. Worse, now that the sun has dropped below the equator, it's not as warm as it used to be. Plus, I am typically tired at 5:30 am. Then, the other day, it rained. That's 5 whammies: Dark. Cold. Tired. Rainy. Pansy (the last one is assumed). In the past, any 3 pack combination was enough to kick me out of my running shoes and back into bed.

That's where I draw on the experiences of the Angus Clan. I am seriously motivated by these people. It didn't matter if it was cold, or they were tired, or they had a boo boo on their pinky toe, blah blah blah. Stopping meant not getting home. The only real option was to keep going. Now, I won't be dragging the Wife around the world any time soon. (Aside: We talked about it. The biggest problem, in her mind, is that she doesn't like seafood and she has her doubts that I'll be able to reel in a cow while in the middle of the Ocean. End Aside.) I also won't be using crappy excuses to not train.

So, with Julie and Colin's lesson on perseverance, I went for my dark, chilly, rainy, tired, pansy-esque run. And guess what happened? It didn't suck. I had a great run despite the obstacles. And that great run motivated me to get up the next morning and run again. Guess what happened? I had a great run. And that great run... Well, you can see where this is going.

I'm pretty sure that's the way it goes with life and I'm definitely sure that's the way it goes with sport. Once you get into a habit of greats, more greats come. Once you get into a habit of laziness, more laziness comes. Being lazy will not solve my running problem.

The only way to get back home is to keep going. Persevere and you will get there.

Angus Adventures- The Intro

A couple of months ago, I got called over to a short meeting with the school's PR/ Fund Development Guy. He asked me if I would be willing to escort this year's speakers. To be honest, I've never been a male escort before and I had no idea what the task entailed. Details please.

"Well," he said, "You basically give up everything important in your life to take care of every possible need for 2 adults that could easily take care of themselves for 2 days in a row. It's exactly the same as having to babysit 2-year olds with the genius level IQ." (Okay, I must confess that I am doing my best to recall the conversation in its entirety. It was a couple of months ago and I didn't realize its importance until recently. I may be misremembering some of the details.)

"What's the catch?" I thought to myself. What actually came out was, "Why are you asking me?" It turns out that this year's presenters are into endurance sport kinda stuff. They had done a fair amount of biking, hiking, and rowing. The Fund Dev Guy thought that I was the closest thing on campus that they could relate to. That sounded reasonable. I have a degree in science. I never go to parties. For fun, I exercise. I once ate a bug on purpose. I relate to just about everybody. If it was relations he wanted me to have with these 2 people, then relations I would have. I agreed.

"And Banter, there is one more thing," he said. " Don't let them die." (That may or may not have actually been said.)

The First Meeting
The presenters were Julie and Colin Angus. I purposely didn't do any research on the pair. I get starstruck pretty easily and I didn't want that to impair my judgement. I knew that they were celebrities of some sort. From the info disseminated at my school, I knew that Colin had circumvented the globe via nothing than human power (which is much different than circumcision, I later learned). I knew that Julie became the first woman to row across the Atlantic Ocean without a support boat. I also knew they were Canadian. That's about it. They had a clean slate from my perspective.

My first responsibility was to pick them up from their hotel and drive them to school. Pick up time: 8:00 am. Banter Arrival Time? 8:07 (being prompt is proven, once again, not in my skill set). Having not done any research on the team, I had no idea what they looked like. Luckily, there were only 2 people sitting comfortably in the hotel lobby. Guessing their identity at this point was fairly easy.

http://www.angusadventures.com/

Julie Angus was closest to me so naturally my eyes gazed upon her first. She stood about 5'9 with an obviously athletic physique. Her brunette locks waved down over her shoulders and could have provided enough hair to fit a couple of other heads. Her skin was glowing a nice olive tone, the kind found on Mediterranean supermodels and is often mistaken for a natural, all-over tan. Her face was warm and pleasant. She smiled at me and walked in my direction with her hand raised in greeting. After giving her a subtle up-and-down, I instantly thought to myself, "This woman is a molecular biologist." Glad to see I nailed that one.

http://www.ideacityonline.com/

Colin Angus was directly behind her. I, um, didn't see him at first. He was just as tall as me and roughly the same build. His hair was a short, a bit disheveled, and dirty blonde-ish in color. He reminded me of one with a Scandinavian decent, possibly a Viking (it turns out he's Scottish Canadian). His blue eyes showed a deep form of intelligence where as his facial features and posture indicated his ultimate love and joy for life. My overall initial impression was that he could have been a poster child for the 'average guy' (something that I believe he gets a lot).

The Facts

These 2 have quite simply done some amazing things. Julie was/ is the first and only woman to row across the Atlantic Ocean. With nothing more than her boat, whatever supplies she could stuff in the boat, her fiance (not sure where she stuffed him but she did end up marrying the bloke) and the ambition to row across the Atlantic. It was an amazing story.

(Editor's Note: I'm trying my best not to rob any of the good details from their presentation or their story line. They have a book about the adventure called Rowboat in a Hurricane, which should tell you that not everything on the trip went as planned. I have not read this book, yet, but I have heard good things about it. Such as, it was a National Best Seller.)

Yes, that's the same guy

Colin is clearly driven by the male ego gene. See, his wife went across the Atlantic Ocean in a rowboat. He couldn't handle the fact that this is a cool accomplishment and let her have all of the glory. He had to one-up her. He decided that not only would he do the Atlantic Ocean thing, but he would also do the rest of the world. Without using any petro. Allowed items, bicycle, shoes, skis, rowboat. That's it. Once in a while, he was allowed to have some food and he could drink only what he could chisel off a glacier with his bare hands. He did happen to bring along a tent and some toiletries. Although, as I understand it, he forgot to pack a razor.

His book, Beyond the Horizon, was also a National Best Seller. The adventure took just under 2 years and was full of fun stuff.

There's a whole list of other things too. There was the time when they were voted the "Adventurer of the Year-2006" Award by this no-name publication called National Geographic. Outside Magazine, in the December 2005 issue, listed Colin as one of the Top 25 Bold Visionaries. There's some other stuff too that you can find on their website.

When all was said and done, Julie's Atlantic rowing expedition was a bit more than 10,000 km or over 6000 in miles. Colin's epic journey across the planet netted more than 43,000 km or just over 'holy crap that was long' in miles.

In contrast, I, um, did an Ironman last year.

As you can probably tell, despite my best efforts, I am still a little starstruck. I got to be the guide for these 2 adventurers as they tried to navigate the complex halls of an elementary school. How in the world do you take care of 2 people with these credentials? Simple. You wait on them hand and foot and make sure that their water bowl is full. They sort of take care of the rest. It turns out that they were down-to-earth, fun-loving, flexible individuals with a lot to offer.

During my 2-day adventure with Julie and Colin, I got to talk, chat, and make idle conversation. I learned a lot from them outside of their presentations that I will share with you in the next couple of posts. Maybe by then, my school-girl awe of the magnificence called Angus (which could also include the beef) will subside a bit.

Maybe.