10,000 swings.

It's funny that up until now, this blog has been a travel log, mostly because I started it with much grander aspirations.  What I want the blog to be "about" is a more important nugget to write on that will get done soon.  Not to say that writing about a trans-continental trip is somehow unimportant, but such a topic is pretty comitted to the experience, rather than the lessons learned, in a way that I would like to transition away from, somewhat.  I would hope to write more about things that might be directly useful. So, first up in this new vein is exploring the 10,000 kettlebell swing challenge that I set up for myself when I left on said trip. It was a sort of guiding force, giving me a semblance of normalcy even as the landscape changed so quickly. While I wasn’t able to get it done before getting to Oakland I did finish, yesterday. I’m glad I did it, and it was definitely edifying thrash against a challenge like that. But boy am I glad to be done.

I first heard about doing 10,000 swings in a somewhat constrained time-frame from the singular Dan John, who often comes up with those sort of excellent ideas that cozy right up to crazy ones. What I love is that usually what he says seems totally common sense and totally ridiculous, at the same time. This time, he chased down the “do as I say and not as I do” paradigm and tackled it to the ground. For all the times we as trainers praise the kettlebell, listing its singular benefits, he said, much of the time we don’t make good in our training. What if we did?

Sure enough, after doing a ridiculous number of swings (and some other things, which I will get to) I feel mostly great, in all the ways that I would’ve outlined to my clients had I recommended they try it (and not everyone should!). My posture feels better, my legs and core (god I hate that word) feel strong, I flat out can’t get winded without sprinting uphill, and I’m not suffering at all after sitting in a car for the literal 75 hours of driving that my trip demanded. Score!

While the math worked out to about 350 swings a day, that meant zero rest days, and took zero account of other physical things I might do. With my one 24k kettlebell straining my grip after even the first hundred in a set, I figured out pretty quick that days off were crucial (duh!), as was exploring various ways of breaking the daily totals up. For example, DJ utilized a 50-25-15-10 arrangement (totaling 100), in which one would wait for their heart-rate to chill out between micro-sets (e.g. after the 50, 25, etc). I tried all different arrangements, and just waited for my heart to catch in between.

As for the breaking up the whole sets (between 100’s of swings), DJ totally went Easy Strength on that one, I presume, basically doing them as they felt good, and resting as needed. As my workouts mostly had to be accomplished in a single session during my trip, I would do a prescribed number of swings (80-120) broken into micro-sets, superset a pressing variation, and then just loop. While I started with ~350-swing daily totals, this last week (when I was trying to get the damn thing done) I did 700, 800, and 1100 in a day.

This was not usually very enjoyable (har har). While my hips never barked much, and any residual soreness was mostly pleasant, my damn forearms were always a weak-link. I am not a Popeye type for damn sure, but it’s not as if I have never trained my grip either (2x bodyweight deadlifts?). Grip issues, as well as related skin/callousing details (very sexy), were by far the most annoying part of the whole experience.

As for the pressing, switching up the variations helped a lot both physically and as a super-setted relief for my hands/arms. I only did three different exercises (single-arm military presses, turkish get-ups, and feet-elevated pushups), but it was enough to balance all that whole-body pulling (the swings). Throughout, the workouts felt like a turn away from strength as a goal (which was definitely disconcerting, except for the military presses), but the resulting work-capacity gains will round me out in a productive way, I hope. And the mental break from grinding out heavy singles, doubles and triples was more welcome than I realized before setting out.

When I first read about the idea, other than being struck by its simplicity and suited-ness for my gym-less status en route across ‘Merica, I liked the monumental feel to that number. 10,000 is a lot of anything. It’s something that can’t just be stuffed in that black hole of instant-gratification, even if a month is just a flash in the pan of life. It’s also a number to respect, a number that humbles and grounds you--try handing someone $10k cash sometime--and a number that gives perspective about what it is to challenge yourself. And it’s a nice counterpoint to the more instinctive, park-bench workouts I do most of the year (its own blog topic).  Honestly, the sheer repetition became  meditative, too, and it allowed me the chance to become intimate with the tiny details of the movement, without being too conscious.

If anyone wants more information, or guidance to attack your own challenge, please be in touch. It doesn’t need to be 10,000, and it doesn’t even need to be swings. But it needs to be simple, focused, balanced, and realistic, with just a little brutality thrown in for hair-on-your-non-gender-specific-chest reasons. And it definitely needs to be programmed appropriately in terms of your normal activity.

Lastly, the idea of returning to training normalcy feels just right. For me, that will mean a very loose monthly plan of movements that are not a hinge (like the swings), focusing on strength and power, but with wiggle room for whatever might come up. In a word, back to the park-bench for me!

Cloud-Concerts to Life-Building

Shazam, I have made it to the Bay. While this last week has been somewhat of a blur, it is nuts to think of all the accumulations that have happened while I was busy scooting from coast to coast. After visiting my auntie and uncle in central Washington for your standard eco-tourist super-luxe vacation weekend (splitting wood, trail running, local salmon, wood-fired sauna, apple-pie from the garden...), my brother and I skipped over to Seattle for a day/night. Like everywhere else, I was a little gobsmacked by how much I had missed as a youngster traveling through these same locales. Seattle is a seriously excellent town (which I know EVERYone else already knows), and huge! Pike St. was fun, of course, but Fremont and Wallingford were killing it! Walking at night along some canal (I feel like there are at least 341 canals in that city), I had that all-important realization of wealth having nothing to do with money: the air was crisp, the view twinkled, my hosts were generous, the strangers smiled. Even the bus system seemed smoother than it needed to be, always a sign of a city that knows what's up.

But the clock was ticking. An easy day of driving brought us to Eugene, somewhere I had only ever stopped for pizza with my family. My good friend from Boston (and nearly ALL her roommates) are grad students in the Athletic Dept. at University of Oregon, which definitely gave a good look into that most-important side of Eugene.

While my brother and I decided early on to take somewhat of a duff-day, there was plenty of opportunity to take in the singular weirdness of the college-town phenomenon as executed in the Oregon wild. On the one hand, the University has created a hyper-progressive crack in the otherwise rural/conservative backdrop of the region. Out of that crack has grown some great research (I assume), a liberal populace interested in enlightened ways of creating community, and a solidly hip downtown bar/food scene; into that crack, however, has fallen a huge group of drifters whom only need to label themselves as hippies to be embraced by the town infrastructure. Without sounding too liberal myself, I think homelessness is a systemic problem masquerading as an individual one (most of the time), and in Eugene's case, it seems like the system at fault is the contrast Eugene creates with its surrounding communities. Like osmosis, people stuck in tough circumstances are drawn to areas of seeming abundance, and Eugene definitely offers that high-level of public life.

Add on top of that the flashiest program in college athletics today (U of O football), and you have a super city-on-the-hill syndrome. Of course, the football thing has its own problems, with Nike trying to make research done at the university proprietary to the company, considering that Nike has donated approximately 1.5x the State of Oregon's operating budget to the university (kidding, sort of). That said, the beer was incredible, the donuts were wacky, and stadium looked really nice, so there's that.

But reconnecting with my Boston buddy was super fun, and made the the bi-coastal nature of this expedition all the more obvious. She loves her work, loves her house and housemates and is super-committed to daily excellence. Like so many of the people I had an opportunity to check-in on during this trip, I was equally stoked to reconnect and inspired about crafting my own routines. And landing here on Friday afternoon before a blow-out camping trip with the family this last weekend drove the point home hard for me. This new universe I have moved to functions in a balanced and productive way without me being any part of it; I feel equally compelled to both be assimilated by the systems already in place and shake the boat. Both of these goals take some seriously concerted effort, over an extended time, and with great focus. Let's see how it goes.

But before I close this chapter of my life, I thought it'd be nice to check-in on some numbers. While in my car for more than 75 hours, I visited or drove through 13 major metropolitan areas, bought 13 tanks of gas, hugged 38 close friends or relatives, did 6,300 kettlebell swings, 725 pushups, and more overhead presses and get-ups than I care to count. I fell back in love with reading fiction and writing letters, finally got into the Beastie Boys, understood what everyone is talking about when they talk about Montana and mountain-biking, and decided to try being an early riser, even if it goes against my nature.

And speaking of nature, I stopped thinking of the natural world as outside of myself. Somewhere between the spectacular cloud-concerts of western North Dakota and the deafening rush of mountain streams in Northern California, a friend's letter about connecting to ourselves by connecting with nature finally hit home. When the layers are peeled back, there are trees and water and sky, and people who smile and sweat for the important things in their life--that's all.

Thanks to all of you who helped me on my trek, and I will see you soon!

roots, rocks, relatives

When I last left this blog, I was on my out of Madison, WI, headed toward the highest concentration of relatives I would see before hitting Oakland. Just like staying with friends in Toronto had felt like a warm blanket after Montreal, the thought of bunking at relatives houses seemed like a swan dive into comfort and relaxation. Even better, I would get to experience many of them for the first-time as an adult, and alone. And the interactions did not disappoint. I had a friend define a friend once as someone who "knows where you're from," and when I turn that idea over in my head every once and a while I'm always struck with its truth. Sometimes, the person literally grew up near where you grew up, and that single commonality serves as a rocky notch from which a friendship grows. Sometimes, that "knowing where you're from" is as simple as empathizing with your experience, a gesture that springs a lifetime of connection.

But with relatives, the realization of friendship is even more satisfying, I've found. Of course they know where I am from (in most cases, they had the distinct pleasure of changing my diapers!), and from their vantage they are able to perceive my life as a whole arc, a detail in only the latest few chapters of their lives. They love me as only an aunt or uncle can, but more, they are bound to me by blood; I will always be compelled to seek them out, no matter the passage of time.

When I visited them during this trip, that connection, as sturdy as it is potentially meaningless (as in, "why should I make an effort when we will ALWAYS be relatives?"), seemed to age in a most pleasing way. All of sudden (measured in the intervals of years, at least), conversations ran smoother and deeper, with real effort toward meaning from both parties. Toasts with drinks were mostly intimate affairs, but felt weighty. Visiting with my grandmothers were so fun, but also like an important ritual. I came away feeling totally charged, tied in with these people in new and dramatic ways.

My family stretches like a constellation over the Twin Cities, with nodes settling here and there and the distance between summarizing the entire area for me. Staying with various representatives throughout my life has given me the impression that I know the place in a way that I really don't. But this visit felt much different in that I was able to take in parts of the cities that filled in some of those gaps in a true way; maybe because I'm older, maybe because I came alone (without my family), or maybe because of what we actually did.

Eating steaks with my uncle, and staying up late playing pool with my aunt; taking a long drive with my grandmother, and then my uncle; playing cards with my aunt, and eating pizza with my teenage cousings; watching live opera with my great-aunt, and then sharing beers with my other cousin (who is taller than me now?!--damnit!); each part felt like a new edge to a sculpture that I have known my whole life. It made my roots feel living and real.

And it made me realize what this trip is doing to me. Moments are apt to slip by, as invested as we all are in the business of passing time and getting ahead. It felt like a shiny, green skill that I was exploring to try to hold a moment for long enough that I might drink it and remember. Those close to me, and those places that build the mosaic of my childhood travels, are so rarely the locus of my attention, and often in my rearview mirror. The challenge of presence and peace, with anyone, but with relatives especially seems like good, holistic work.

Then, in the early dark of last Monday morning, I swept into the airport and picked up my brother. He had offered to fly out and make the end of the drive with me, and the idea seemed like a once-in-a-few-decades opportunity. We pointed northwest, and leapt for the coast.