Out of Focus

Aaron's Summer Vacation Part 2: What the hell was I thinking?

Let's get something clear up front: when I decided to do the AIDSRide 10 years ago, I was more than happy to raise money for a worthy cause, but it was not my primary reason for doing the event. Not that much had changed in May: I did not set-out to do charity and then decide to do it through endurance athletic training. However, I did have more of a personal connection this time around as my Grandfather Harold passed away 14 years ago after a long battle with Leukemia, so raising money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society certainly carried some meaning.

I was required to raise $3,000. I had hoped to raise $4,000, but I didn't really work that hard at doing so. However, if I contacted you and you haven't donated but would still like to, you still can. My fundraising page will be live for another couple months, and all you have to do is follow this link. (There's a brief pitch/explanation of why I did this on that page as well.)

But fundraising was never my big concern. I knew enough people -- family and otherwise -- who I was pretty certain would happily donate to this cause (and I was pleasantly surprised by many not-close acquaintances who chipped in $10 or $25 or whatever they kid, many of whom I still owe official thank you emails). What obviously made me nervous was the idea that in four months time, I was going to have to run into open water, swim nearly a mile, bike 25 miles and run 6.2 miles.

Point of clarification #2: In May, I was nowhere close to being able to do any of this. After buying a new pair of running shoes, I went to the gym and couldn't really make it through a full mile on a treadmill. I've always hated running. It hurt my back and my shins and my calves; it exhausted me nearly instantly; and frankly, I found it fairly boring. The first time I tried running outside (maybe a week later), I couldn't even finish one mile. I was utterly incapable.

I was never that terrified of the bike. Having trained for the AIDSRide in 2000, I knew that being able to ride 25 miles, even with a few hills, was utterly doable, but my first time getting into a pool, I became instantly concerned about the swim. I always loved the idea of swimming, but the actual process of swimming laps was another story. I hadn't even tried doing so in years, and my first attempt on my own (coached swim practices hadn't started yet) was unbearable. Getting through one length of a 60 yard pool took my breath away, and not in the wonderful, awe-inspiring, majestic way. I had to rest after each length of the pool, and that was only 60 yards. How was I ever going to complete 1600?

This is where participating in Team in Training really helped me as they provided us with weekly training plans and offered structured and scheduled practices with coaches each week -- eventually, we swam every Monday evening, ran every Wednesday evening and biked every Saturday morning. This proved especially valuable with the swim where I was taught an entirely new way of swimming freestyle in an efficient manner to carry me through the long hall, and while it was exceedingly difficult for weeks, eventually my capacity to distance swim got to the point where not only did I not need to stop for a rest after each 25 yards, 50 yards, 100 yards or 200 yards, but I was swimming a full mile (1760 yards) without stopping; in fact, during one solo swim session about a month ago, I swam more than a mile-and-a-half with only a couple brief breaks, and I could have done more, but I ran out of time.

Swimming easily became my favorite of the three events. I've always loved cycling, and I still do, but I became quite frustrated with my bike (a nearly 10 year old mountain bike which is incredibly heavy and slow). Plus, even though I was more confident and comfortable cycling than either swimming or running, and I had only had one bike accident my entire life and that was over 25 years ago when since I ran into a parked car and broke my tooth, the bike caused me some physical pain, and I have the scars to prove it.

Aaron’s Summer Vacation Part 1: Why not try a Tri(athlon)

Sometimes, my addled lump of grey matter gets so clogged up with random topics, it takes a while for me to clear it out, and in working towards turning my little corner of the web back into a regular stop for new and interesting (well, at the very least new) opinionated content, I stop myself before I get started. This is a common problem for many; in fact, if you’ve ever even heard about time management guru-to-many David Allen and his GTD system (standing for “Getting Things Done”), you’d know that it’s the primary problem. “Open loops,” as he calls them, that one works so hard to remember, they simply never get done. (I’m simplifying.)

And frankly, it’s just impossible for me to start talking about all the more blog-topical subjects — the new TV season, the New York Film Festival, the move from Broadway to off-Broadway of Avenue Q or even why nobody in New York should vote for the annoying and (dare-I-say hypocritical) Bill de Blasio in tomorrow’s run-off election for Public Advocate — without first discussing what I did this summer that led up to what I just did yesterday.

Some might term it classic middle-age crisis, others might just decide I suddenly became more adventurous, and plenty, I’m sure, likely think I’m crazy, but as I hit Summer 2008 which would end with the birthday propelling me into the period commonly known as “late-30s,” I got it into my head that I wanted to jump out of an airplane – and survive! So last year, eight days before I was to turn 37, two friends and I drove to eastern Long Island, took a plane up to 11,000 feet and then stepped outside.

That didn’t take much planning or preparation, but as this summer rolled around and I was decompressing from another festival, I got it into my head that I wanted to do a Triathlon. How? Why? My ADD-inspired need for variety probably played a part, but there was more to it than that.

In early 2009, I suddenly found myself fatter than ever. I’ve never been totally, svelte, but I also never considered that I would be eligible for participation on The Biggest Loser. I still didn’t come close to tipping the scales to that extreme, but when I did see the digits hit 228 one morning (I’m 5’10” and not an NFL fullback!), I was quite upset. Yet, like so many, fitness has always been one of the more difficult disciplines in my life, and when you combine that with my natural expertise at laziness, things weren’t looking good. But again, hitting my late 30s, with various ugly family histories involving heart disease, high cholesterol and blood pressure, diabetes, etc., that had to be a high number I left far in the past.

In 1999, I had a similar drive to lose a chunk of weight, and in an effort to kick myself in the ass, I registered to do the Boston-New York AIDSRide: 3 days, 275 miles, all on a bike. I knew that if I was part of a group with scheduled and structured training sessions and if I raised a bunch of money and had that guilt complex as motivator, no way would I then flake and have a bunch of people say, “Uh, Aaron, I donated $100 because of you. What do you mean you can’t do the ride?” And it worked. My training for the AIDSRide was a success. I was ready. I lost around 20 pounds, and was under 190 for the first time since high school. The ride was a big letdown, though. Hurricane Floyd passed off the coast that weekend, and the organizers for the first time in AIDSRide history (at that point) canceled part of the ride. Most of the first two days worth, in fact. They stuck us on a bus and transported us all the way to New Haven, where we spent the night on the harder-than-hard concrete floor of the New Haven Coliseum. All the Connecticut hills for which I had trained … we passed them by. The second day, we rode about 30 miles; it took under two hours. The third day, we rode into New York, finished on 7th Ave in front of Madison Square Garden, and then I went home, went to sleep, and didn’t get back on my bike for nearly two years.

And so, in early 2009, I was looking for something similar: another way to find structure in training; a huge, seemingly-ridiculous endurance event to use as a goal; an organization that would help coach me and structure my workouts; and a fundraising component so that after hitting up friends, family and acquaintances, there was no way I could even consider not training hard enough to be able to follow-through.

The first decision was the event. I had no interest in doing a marathon or even a half-marathon. It wasn’t because I didn’t think either would be difficult enough. Quite the opposite. I hate running. I hated running even more when I was making this decision in May. The idea of running 26+ miles in one day still seems utterly ludicrous to me. I remember when deciding to do the AIDSRide, I thought to myself that spending four hours or so running 26+ miles seemed far less appealing than spending three days riding nearly 300 miles on a bike.

So still feeling that way, a marathon was out. I then thought about doing a Century Ride – one day, 100 miles on a bike. There are lots of those rides, several every year right here in New York. But having trained for the AIDSRide and knowing that I could do that (even though I was ten years younger when I trained), there was something less appealing to me about it. I wanted to really challenge myself. I wanted to try to do something that seemed doable but I couldn’t fathom actually doing.

I also had some knowledge of Team in Training, and was considering using them as my cause (for a couple reasons), and they worked with marathons, century rides and triathlons. I did some reading about Triathlons and learned that they come in a variety of distances. The shortest is called a “Sprint”: between 1/3-1/2 mile swim followed by 12-15 miles on a bike and a three-to-four mile run. Next is the official “Olympic” distance: 1.5 km (0.9 mile) swim, 40 km (approx 25 miles) run and 10 km (6.2 miles) run. After that you get the half-Ironman and Ironman distances. The latter is a nearly-three mile swim, followed by 112 mile bike ride, and to cap-off things for fun, you run a full marathon. (For the record, I did not nor will I ever complete one of those.)

Most of the books I looked at talked about how one should complete a “sprint” distance first, and yet, the two triathlons with which TNT worked were both “Olympic” distances. One was the Nations Triathlon in Washington D.C. on 9/13/09; the other was the Westchester Triathlon in Rye, NY on 9/27/09. I was nervous about doing the longer distances, but a few people assured me that I had plenty of time to train. Two things encouraged me to choose Westchester: first, it meant two extra weeks to train; and second, the minimum fundraising requirement was $3,000 instead of $4,000 for Nations.

And so, I went to a TNT information session in mid-May knowing that unless they said something to truly terrify me, I was going to register and do this thing. And that began a four month journey that … will get a post of its own tomorrow ……

The Sixth Annual Birthday Post: Time for a reset

In five months, this blog will be seven years old, but at precisely 2:56 AM Pacific Time, I turned 38. I'd love to have a convention of Sept. 21 birthdays one of these years, especially if it could somehow include those who have passed away. H.G. Wells? He'd be 143 today. The imaginative and influential Chuck Jones? 97. The hysterical Henry Gibson? He sadly passed away one week ago, just before turning 64.

I could still have a phenomenal party with just those still alive. Leonard Cohen: Happy 64th. I wish I had half your lyrical talent. Stephen King: Would that I had your writing discipline and prolificacy. Enjoy your 62nd! Ethan Coen: I hope by the time I'm 52 like you I finally have at least a decade's worth of movies under my belt. Bill Murray: I strive for such a quick wit, but maybe there's only so much to go around for people born on our day.

Caleb Deschanel, Ricki Lake, Jerry Bruckheimer, Liam Gallagher, Larry Hagman, Faith Hill, Nicole Richie: Happy Birthday to us all. Luke Wilson and Alfonso Ribeiro both joined the human race on this day along with me. If we were triplets, I wonder who'd be oldest?

And hot off the presses, apparently, the latest member of the 9/21 club, the newborn baby of internet royalty Jason Kotkke and Meg Hourihan. Mazel Tov to you both.

The date has seen lots of other non-person births, some quite interesting to my media sensibilities. Three of the longest rated and (at times) most popular and influential series in TV history premiered on Sept. 21. In 1948, "Texaco Star Theater" came on the air hosted by Milton Berle. Berle became Mr. Television and hosted the show for 19 years, sometimes claiming as much as 75-80% of the viewing audience (of course, the total viewing audience then was less than many network shows still manage to achieve now, but that was because of lack of television sets, not popularity).

Perry Mason premiered in 1957, becoming the all-time iconic TV lawyer and helping to set the stage for courtroom dramas that has lasted more than half-a-century. The year before I was born, ABC took a major risk and in the process changed the face of sports on television premiering Monday Night Football. And apparently, J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" was first published on Sept. 21, 1937.

For me, 2009 has been a year of striving for new beginnings. Like most, I had my New Year's resolutions/goals/what-have-you that were going to start on Jan. 1. And then, realizing that with my work schedule, it's impossible to create new habits before at least mid-May, I decided to create Aaron's Fiscal Year, starting June 1, and then I went on to dedicate my summer to becoming ready for a Triathlon, but still not achieving anything close to the balance in all things personal & professional to which I strive.

Well, "all things" is an overstatement for sure, but putting all my faith in the cliche regarding "third time" and all its charms, we're going to start one last reset now. Why not? It's my birthday, and the beginning of my 39th year. It's also Rosh Hashanah and the beginning of the visually numerical pleasing while still slightly asymmetrical 5770. And, as of next Sunday, I will (hopefully) have completed that hard-trained summer goal of my first real (and long) triathlon.

Kurt Andersen's latest book is called "Reset," and I figure I'm in for one too. Third reset of the year; first one that takes? Let's hope. But I figure what better place to start than right here, in my own little corner of the internet where I can get all that crap out of my head that's been clogging it all this time. No promises; no grand statements of intent; not even 100% sure what it will be exactly (although I intend to refocus on film, TV, theater, media with maybe a dash of politics and sports but less of the personal), but the most important thing is for it to be at all. For me. And right now, I think that's the best birthday gift I can give myself.

So Happy Birthday to me and all my birthday mates. Here's hoping regardless of how good or bad the past year has been for any of us, the next 365 take us all uphill with downhill effort.