TCI Season 2-5

I’m at peace here. I’m looking forward to getting home and my mind is excited to see my family. This trip has been wonderful, and I’m great full for it. I am at the beach again for sunrise. I want to remember this place.  Two unfiltered photos a few hours apart.  The sight of the red and green buoys, the fine tan sand, the blue / green water, the bright blue sky and my coffee cup sitting where the waves have smoothed the sand   The feeling of the warm ocean hitting my feet, the feeling of the course sand between my fingers, the feeling of the warm sun on my face, the wind I can hear the waves, the wind and occasional bird I can smell the salt from the ocean and the coffee in my cup I can taste the salt in the ocean I spent a few hours making my notes for my final forgiveness video (Self) as I was getting ready to record it Carmen came down to the beach. She asked what I was doing so I showed her the exercise. She is making notes for her own video on her own topic that is ...

I got up at my regular crazy early hour. But instead of working out I headed to the beach. I sat at the beach for a long while contemplated how to say what needed to be said. I wrote it out many times. I never did get it perfect. I recorded the video. It doesn’t feel right I’ve done my best to watch the video as an impartial observer as the book recommends. Trying to just see the pain from both sides and allow the forgiveness to happen naturally. Still doesn’t feel right. I think it is because I’m still willfully doing the behavior that I am angry at them for (holding them at a distance for having different views). I can try to intentionally overcome that behavior but my avoidance of conflict still leads me to be distant as I really don’t want to have conflict over our views. I am finding it hard to separate my fear of conflict from my avoidance due to difference. So it is hard to forgive them for something I feel I’m doing. Think I’ll work on it for a while today. I just sit with ...

After a 2hr run and 2.5hr bike ride, I did it... TSS of 75. Goal officially completed. Here is a map of all the roads I have cycled or run down. I've been thinking about it for a few months, but have to follow my "only honor one fitness goal at a time". Now that this goal is done I have accepted Ironman Portugal as my next fitness goal. So it's official, I'm training for the Ironman again. But this time I'm going to do two of them. But for the next few days, I'm going to let my body relax and enjoy the time I have left on the island as I wrap up the final parts of my monk book before leaving for home. I started to think about the next forgiveness video I was going to work on. It is going to be a lot harder than the last one. The one related to career I was ready for. I had that Epiphany before recording it that my life is much better now than it was when I was career focused. That helped with the forgiveness. This next one feels forced. I know it needs to ...

Today was going to be about introspection... but then I remembered I had to work out. I did another long run, a long bike, and a 1K swim. On my quest to find a different beach each day I found "sunrise beach" this morning.  It wasn't bad.   I was bone tired. Daryl has rented a car so we went to get Thai food for lunch. He had not been to long bay so we went there... one thing lead to another and we had been to Long Bay, Boogaloo, Omars, and Las Brisas. I had biked to Las Brisas before but didn't go in. This place is incredible (posh, with great views and good drinks).  This abandoned boat off the Fish Market is where I told da'wife I was going to live if I ran out of money. We got home in time for me to burn some pork chops (but the middle was still raw) on this stupid electric stove where the only frying pan is so warped that only a small part of it touches the heating element. I'm going to get up early tomorrow and complete this fitness quest.

The next part of the book was to audit the amount of time the reader spends doing work, social media, etc. I can say that my "work-life balance" was way out of wack when I was obsessed with my career. I'm way better balanced at that now. I do want to turn on the thing on my iPhone to track my use of social media, or checking out newspapers, etc.  The book continued to work on identifying personal values. He talked about how there were "higher and lower values" and that the higher values lead to happiness and lower to anxiety and depression. Higher values: fearlessness , purity of mind, gratitude, service and charity, acceptance, performing sacrifice, deep study, posterity , straightforwardness, non-violence , truthfulness, absence of anger, renunciation, perspective, restraint from fault finding, compassion towards all living beings, satisfaction, gentleness or kindness, integrity, determination Lower Values: Greed, lust, anger, ego, illusion , envy He then aske...

 I was able to wake up at 4AM and get my run and bike in before the taxi took me to the SCUBA trip at 8AM. Those hours were very important. I am still chewing my way thru "Think like a monk". I spent a good bit of time on this beach I found   I'm having to re-listen to parts of it because my mind wanders and the subject matter is very different than how I think. In the first chapter, the author talks about identifying your personal values. I completed an online exercise here are mine:  Adventure (Challenge, Daring, Freedom, Risk Taking) Boldness (Innovation, Inquisitive, Questioning) Family/Spirit (connection, comfort, grounded) Influence (Achievement, Ambition, Recognition, Influence) Pleasure (food, physical, visual) Security (Stability, reliability, punctuality, Dependability) The author then asked us to identify where these values originated in our life and if they were something we think are "true to me" (meaning something that I think I actually value vs. ...

 I'm tired.  The workouts are rough. I think I can do it, but right now, I'm just tired.  This morning I got up at 4:30AM to be ready to run by 5AM. I ran for an hour then cycled for an hour and then swam 1K yards.  I got home, did some work, and then cycled for another 30 minutes. I've committed to the goal of hitting 75TSS, or however high I can get it by 3/5/2021. If I hit it sooner, I'll head home sooner. If I don't hit it by 3/5/2021, I'll head home then. I don't miss Minneapolis, but I miss home. I'm still holding out home will just move here (HINT HINT) The laundry machine is broken so I washed my clothes in the sink. I hung them outside and as soon as they were about dry a storm came in to give them an extra rinse cycle.  Looking in my fridge this is clearly a bachelor pad. It is mostly mean, leftover pizza, beer, and liquor.  I made myself a nice steak for an early dinner as I am pretty sure I will crash at any moment. I've got a good bit of...

 Slept in a good bit due to yesterday’s late evening Beach excursion. But on the bright side I got to have breakfast and coffee w da wife. It was well past sun up when I got around to moving so it was too hot to run. So I doubled the bike and swim. It was nice. I am reading a book called “think like a monk”. Not my typical style of book. But it has a pdf that I can look at while on the beach practicing just being chill. Anyway I found it ironic today he was talking about how we overload ourselves with sensory input so we don’t have to deal with our internal self. The funny part was I was listing to this on audible at 150% speed while zipping down the main highway on a bike that doesn’t fit me, getting chased by street dogs and trying to avoid the semi trucks.  I made it to the end of the island. On the way back I hit up the grocery store to get supplies for date night w da wife (we are both going to make pizza and watch a movie over zoom tonight).  This afternoon I worked...

 Lower GI issues cut this mornings run super short. My headphones died. My phone was making strange noises due to being in the water yesterday. But I never really got upset....  I was finishing listening to the book "Broken".  It is about a distance runner and his obsession with goals. At the end of the book he DNF'ed his final goal. He was OK with that.  I got back to my villa and sat in the bathroom for a few hours.... then ran to the store to get a new set of headphones, finish my run and also learned that my phone is just fine (their is an app to help dry out the speakers) I moved to a new Villa in the same area (I like my other one better but somebody has reserved it). I met a guy and his wife from Wisconsin. They’re staying in the room above me.  He told me where Smith reef was. So I walked way out there. It was very close to the buoys I went to with da wife. I saw a giant sea turtle and a ton of fish. There is no wind today. It was absolutely beautiful....

The first picture was taken at 5:30AM and the second picture was taken at 6:30AM. The difference in heat is amazing. It was just a 4 mile run. The first 2 miles were at dark and easy. The last 2 miles after the sun was up felt like I was encased in concrete. Today was a day of mixed focus. I worked a good bit :( but I also focused a lot on hitting the exact workouts needed to get to TSS75 in early March so I could go home with that goal completed. I've only had a fitness score of 75 one time in my life (the year I did the Ironman I had a score >75 from Aug to Oct as I finalized the training). I am going to push towards the goal for a few days and assess if it is realistic to get this early in my training. I wouldn't be able to sustain it, but I may be able to peak there for a day :) I biked to town and set up a SCUBA trip for Tuesday and extended my bike rental another week. The guy told me "you already rented it for 2 weeks" so I was like "cool, then I will g...

 Today has been a day of broken stuff... but it doesn't seem like a big deal here.  Everything just happens when it happens. Island time. I started the day heading out for a 3hr bike ride.  I was about 5 miles into it and got a flat. The good news is that it was only a half-mile from the shop. The bad news was it was 8AM and the shop didn't open until 10AM.  So I pushed the bike back to the shop and went for a run. I was in my biking singlet so I had a giant maxipad between my legs while running. I ended up running about 8miles. Well, I probably ran 5 and walked 3 due to heat. I tell myself "due to heat" but really I was mentally struggling to push myself to run after the long run a few days ago.  I got back to the cycle shop at few minutes before 10AM. I waited until about 10:15 before calling to find out if/when they were going to open. It was becoming a poop emergency (I had about 1gal of water and 3Gu's over the last 2 hours of running that all wanted to get...

 I’m Today was a pass. The weather was cloudy. Workout wise it was a rest day (1k swim). Work wise it was catching up, but nothing really customer facing (I messed with google cloud API to customize voices to make voicemail greetings .... mostly because I like that the phone no longer rings inessential). I’m thinking about sticking around until I hit a major fitness milestone (TSS CTL of 75). I think it would take 3 weeks if pushed. If everything went perfect I may make it in 1.5, but the injury probably would be very high and I’m not really keen on being hospitalized here.  Mood: I’m content. At the same time I’m looking for something to do (hence the fitness goal obsession today... but rest days are always hard for me) Real people: 0 Video people: 1 (da wife)

 Got up well before sunrise for a 10 mile run.  It was black dark and the stars were out.    The first 6 miles were good, but then around 6:30AM the sun came up and the heat came out. I finished but it wasn't pretty. I got back to the pool for some coffee time with da'wife. After cleaning up I decided to go to Omar’s for a cocktail. But the wind and wave forecast suggested Grays Bat would be better. I go there all the time but had never really gone to the beach. So I headed that way and got a burger on the beach.  While I was there I scoped out local Kitchen and Bath remodeling company. They are not hiring for the CEO or unpaid intern position or selling their business. Nor did they find me funny.   On the way home I hit the grocery store, again... I had forgotten coffee last trip. When I got home I did some kayaking in Turtle Cove and wrapped up the night with some pasta and margaritas.