The Everyday Athlete

I spent most of 2007 waking up between 4:30 and 5:10am and heading off to Portland Adventure Bootcamp.  I’d found the program by doing an internet search after hearing about the concept from a midwestern cyclocrosser.

When I went that January, I was at the end of my rope.  I was working 70-80 hours a week on a product launch, sleeping like shit, and feeling something more than disillusioned by the future that presented itself to me as a “marketing manager” at a small software company.

I felt exhausted and out of control.  Desperate.  I could not stand to listen to myself complain about my situation for another single day.

In boot camp I sought structure, discipline, meaning, direction, and pain.  And understanding.  Of self.

I was looking for something.  And it wasn’t rippin’ abs or screamin’ glutes.

I wanted answers.  About me.

It was a last ditch effort.  As a life-long athlete, I was dubious about joining a group fitness setting.  I was skeptical about the warm indoor facility and the chipper man named Daniel in the track-suit standing at the front of the room.

Two things tipped the scale and finally convinced me to give it a shot:

1. The camp began and ended with a physical test that consisted of a timed mile and push-up blowout.   As a classic over-achiever personality, I love tests.  And I love track-able progress. It also did not hurt that I absolutely love to run.
2. The camp started every morning at 5:30am.  Miraculously, it fit into my completely insane schedule. Sold.  Period.

What happened after I pulled up the anchor and committed was miraculous.  You might measure success by bodyfat percentage, mile times, or push-up records but the real beauty revealed itself in other parts of my life.

My gamble was paying off.  My last-ditch effort was delivering.

Suspended there holding a plank in isometric agony, with sweat dripping rhythmically from the tip of my nose, I remembered things about myself. When I thought I couldn’t hold a plank for 90 seconds, I held it for 2 minutes. When I thought I couldn’t do 35 pushups, I did 50.  When I thought I couldn’t handle one more hill sprint or one more bone-chilling morning on Tabor, I did.  And more.

I woke up some mornings so sore that I was sure I couldn’t get out of bed, let alone report for duty to execute an endless stream of lunges and half-jacks and burpees. But I still went.  And I surprised myself.  Again and again and again.

I tapped on Daniel for guidance and got control of my nutrition and started eating whole food that would actually fuel my body, instead of sending me into a constant series of spikes and crashes.  I learned and read and showed up.

Every small physical battle won made me a little braver, a little more bold, a little more willing to risk.

In March, I took the leap that had been too long delayed.  I quit my job and started the marketing consulting business that I’d been thinking about for a year. I started writing- for real.  I started making photographs - for real.

And things kind of exploded for me.  In the good way.

Along the journey, I met some seriously inspiring women and we spent summer mornings kicking each other’s asses in the shiny dawn light. There were mornings when those particular women were the only reason I got out of bed.

I finally left boot camp in late fall of 2007, when my bike racing addiction began to take too much of a toll on my body.  I committed to cycling for 2008 and spent this year figuring out how to get speed out of a  bicycle (still working on that part).

I rode centuries and 200k randonneuring rides - setting distance records and destroying perceived limitations.  I raced cyclocross every weekend for three solid months - spending 45 minutes of every Sunday with my heart threatening to blow into a billion bits while I rode over gravel, through hub-deep mud, and over kidney-rattling meadows.

It’s been a good year.  But it’s time to go back.

The bike is all-consuming.  It demands everything I can give.  I write about it, talk about it, plan for it, spend money on it, and generally obsess about it more often than I’d like to admit.

Boot Camp presents new challenges, a different brand of structure, and a break from the frantic pedaling that has characterized the past 11 months.

I don’t expect it to change my life again, but I do expect pain, doubt, camaraderie, small victories, and renewed discipline. And I expect my body to reward me with soreness, and all the muscle-changing glory associated with that sweet aching agony.

So, from here until December 19th I have only one thing to say:

Bring the hurt, Daniel. Bring the hurt.

________

Related Content:

Boot Camp Entries from 2007