Living and Learning

"Let's call all the fun we've had living, living; Let's call all mistakes we've made learning, learning..." - "Living and Learning," Mel Tillis (1971)

(Note: Today's weblog title & the reference lyrics are in honor of my late grandfather, who used to sing & play little ditties like this one, so long ago.)In the business world, perhaps in the last decade...maybe a little longer back than that, there was a focus on transforming businesses into "learning organizations." Training & education managers, formerly the red-headed stepchild forced to share a bedroom with human resources, suddenly became a C-level (or sea level, if you wish to look at it that way, especially if you're at the water's edge...) entity all its own. It was one of the important disciplines in business, especially if you believed what you read in Peter Senge's The Fifth Discipline.

Ah, those were the good old days. Now, in the age of shrinking (shrunken?) budgets, training & education, as well as the CLO (Chief Learning Officer) have been forced to come back home & share the room with manpower & personnel...human resources. But, it doesn't make learning any less important a part of living. John Dewey once said: 'training is not preparation for life. Training is life...' or something to that extent (shame on me, an education guy, for not knowing the exact quote).

That's the most fun about coaching & training, I think. In order to be as efficient with my training as I possibly can...even more important as I become older & less efficient in recovering from races and workouts as I used to be...I have to read, research, re-read, & re-research what coaches, scientists, & even athletes have found to be the most effective means of training, fortifying, supplementing, recovering, & so on. I like it, it fits well with my personality. It provides me the opportunity to try something a little bit different, or adapt to what I'm already doing, before I try it on any of my athletes.

Doing this involves what I guess the Zen masters might call beginners' mind. You have to wipe out any preconception about a particular topic in order to listen clearly, lest your Charlie Brown filter be engaged. We all have that filter; the one that turns plain, simple language into waah, waah, waah-waah, waah...waah in less than 3.2 seconds, leaving us stupider than before. Turning on that filter not only makes you more stupid, but makes your life much less enriched.

I've kicked myself in the butt on many an occasion for not listening more closely to friends who read an article in Runners' World, Triathlete, Geezerjock, & wanted to share their insights with me. Usually that kick in the butt came after remembering, 'hey, didn't so-and-so tell you about a particular piece of equipment, or a particular exercise that would have kept you from crashing & burning in that event?' Then I have to go back, reclaim beginners' mind, & listen to what I should have listened to before. Well, C.S. Lewis once wrote, 'pain is the megaphone of God,' so maybe it was the Almighty's way of telling me...'(WHACK!) Stoopid...what were you thinking!? Wait, were you thinking!?'

So, there I was, standing in my local running emporium, sweating my behind off, listening to one of my advisors talk to a marathon training group about hydration & nutrition. Normally, I would have shrugged off the vast majority of the information; turned on the Charlie Brown filter. But this time, well, you can blame it on Nikki...she handed me an outline of the lecture. What else could I do but stand at the back of the store and listen in. 'Who knows, dude...' I said to myself, 'you might even learn something.'Since the marathon has been my weakest running event, & the one which will probably determine how well or poorly I do in November, I figured it couldn't hurt. No worse than doing the walk of shame for ten kilometers to keep from blowing up my achilles, which I did in 2007.

It was no surprise to hear the obvious: 'we are in two states...training & preparing for training.' But it never really clicked until then. I learned a good possible root cause for my weight plateau & a few other nutrition specifics. Gee. What a concept.

So, by allowing myself to go to beginners' mind I was able to learn a few things which could make the difference between a bad day & a good day, or a good day & a very good day...both now & in the near future.

"And we'll go on through life together living and learning..."

Simple, Simple, Simple...

I'm back in the office after a week away...all right, I did come in once to check the e-mail. However, as quiet and uneventful as it seems things will be this week, I could have stayed home and limped about there instead of in here. Hey, you never know.

Christmas around Chez Bowen was simple and relatively unadorned. Rubin received a boatload of treats from well-meaning friends; most of them rawhides processed in China. It was with a great deal of regret we tossed them into the wastecan. However, he got some more stuffies from "Dad;" I wasn't certain whether he was going to play with them (Suzanne was waxing biblical, talking about putting away childish things), when, lo and behold, he heard the squeak of one and took it to the floor. Okay, so he wasn't wagging his tail to beat the band like in years past...
Practical was the operating word for our gifts to each other. I got Suzanne a massage/heat pad; she got me skivvies, a movie and fruitcake - I must be the only guy on the planet who really likes the stuff, in spite of it breaking one of my teeth a year ago. For us, the trip to Jacksonville was Christmas. Well, she got the presents; I got the coal. Time with good friends and more coffee in a weekend than most guys put down in a year...works for me.
We had to get the check in the box. I was in no mood to run (I'll get some time/mileage in tonight, but it was Florida miserable out there), but felt the compulsion to do something, so I walked for about four miles...Suzanne ran and walked while I just walked and pondered the mysteries of the universe and all those other things young coaches do when there's nothing fun to do. We got hungry about 1:00 in the afternoon, and I really didn't want to go to the Chinese joint again for lunch...so we did a little driving to see who was open. Just so happens that one sports bar downtown was; playing some football re-broadcasts since there was only the basketball games going down. Let me tell you, there's nothing like a Guinness and a big cheesesteak sandwich, especially on Christmas. Hits the spot every time.
Playing with the dog, and the computer, and checking the e-mail started to get very old. First we thought about hitting a movie, then decided to sit in and watch videos. Suzanne went to the Chinese carry out, grabbed a six of Guinness, then came back to stir-fry after calling our friend Laura to invite her over...the first reaction would be to say misery loves company, but we all were just keeping it simple. I heard lots about the movie Dogma from friends who recommended the Showtime series Weeds, but wow... Screaming hilarious. A great mix of comedy and thriller. I'm afraid I'll have to check that one out again for commentary material.
Who would ever thought of casting Alanis Morissette as God?
Now, I'm ready to get back to training. See you on the roads.