As I approach my first big multi-sport race of the season, I want to take a moment to do two things. First, I want to talk about setting goals, and what a difference it makes. Second, I want to talk about good coaching.

It took me a few years into my working career to come to understand the importance of setting goals the right way. I did what many people did when they set goals. I made non-specific, and non-measurable claims about things I want to do. “I will lose weight” or “I want to get a better paying job.”

I don’t need to spend a long post on the process, as there is plenty of content out there on how to set goals in the right way, but I will at least endeavor to give the high level summary.

Goals must be specific and measurable, they must be yours, they must have a expiration date, and they much be achievable.

When I started my training for this season, I had one big goal: to qualify for the 70.3 World Championships in the 40-44 age group. It’s very specific, measurable, mine, and has a timeline. It’s questionable whether I have the talent to make it achievable, but I have the desire and I will work my ass off. There are sub goals that tie into that big one, and those have to do with progress on my training.

To that end, I hired a coach (actually, my awesome wife gave me a gift for my b-day of professional coaching for a year). Why? Because I don’t know everything I need to know in order that I could achieve my goals. I found a coach (or mentor, two sides of same coin) to help me achieve those goals. And it’s made a huge difference. While this is a physical training observation, it applies to anyone in their career as well.

With only a few big races this year, it’s been hard to have check points along the way about how things were going. I have had vague check points, but nothing measurable. Thanks to the power of the interwebs, Strava provides a set of tools that allow me to see progress on non race related training efforts.

The chart at the top is the testament to the progress that Ben at VO2Multisport has brought to my game. Those two efforts are on the same road, on the same bike. The only difference was the wheel set (though both were aero wheels), and the training plan Ben put me on for this season.

This 7.9 mile segment on Hwy 202 is pretty flat with only 217 feet of elevation gain. My HR was actually lower on the faster ride, and I was 25% faster just 5 months later. That’s confidence inspiring.

So thank you Ben. It’s been a season of firsts for me, some solid PRs, and I am anxious about toeing the line at the Honu 70.3 race in 2 weeks. There are some high quality races left in my season, and I hope I keep moving forward.

Having made that decision last year, I signed up for a 30 mile race in the NW Epic series at Stottlemeyer. I figured, wrongly, that I would get back to my previous race shape in a couple of months. The calamity of youthful exuberance is funny because of inexperience. Those same errors made in your late 30s are far less so. I should have known better. I crossed the line in 4 hours and 12 minutes. The leader won in 2hr29min. Yeah, I was almost 2 hours off the lead.

During that race, there was a moment when I was struggling, and I mean really struggling, up a fire road climb when the 60 mile leader came through. He was on lap 4 to my lap 2. To repeat – finishing 60 miles before I finished 30. I remember that moment because Logan Wetzel, a name I would become all too familiar with in the coming year, went flying by me like I was standing still. I remember that moment very clearly because I let loose an expletive along the lines of “holy f@ck!” I must have surprised him, because he looked back over his shoulder, standing on the pedals, flying up the hill, and with a huge smile, and not a hint of irony, said simply “yeah!” Then he was gone.

It was that memory that stuck with me over the last 12 months. I really didn’t want to get passed that late into the 60 mile race. When I marked down Stottlemeyer on the calendar for this year, way back in December, I had a goal. Improve. It wasn’t very specific.

As I have been training with Ben at VO2Multisport these past 6 months, I have had moments where my bag o’ crap was getting in the way. He had already given me the gem “if you only look at your average pace, expect to have an average race” when I was whining about how my training pace looked so slow compared to what I had been doing in my late 20s and early 30s. He’s done his best to reassure me, but my neuroses continue to haunt me.

I pulled together a really good half marathon earlier in the season which built up some confidence. My XC trail riding has been improving to the point where I have been the top rider for my team for the last two races. That’s mostly due to Ben’s training and my engine. I think Nate had the best comment this weekend when he said “if you ever learn how to actually ride a bike, we’re all in trouble.” It was high praise from the king of awesome when it comes to going downhill fast. My technical riding skills need work – but it’s all fixable.

Stottlemeyer was the first of my big races for the season. I really wanted to do well, and as we got closer, I did set a goal. 3 hours and 30 minutes seemed like a reasonable target given my performance last year. I still haven’t had a monster great ride on a bike yet this season. Even when racing at Lord Hill, a course seemingly built for my particular talents, I performed just OK.

With the race just days away, I was very concerned about my training schedule for the half ironman, and what it would do to my legs. On Thurs night I had to execute what worked out to be a 90 minute hammerfest to get a gut check on my half-iron pacing. Riding around the pacNW for me has been humbling. I thought I had a big engine, but long climbs tend to cause me to go too hard too early, and the lactic acid just pools. I was, therefore, elated with the results from Thurs, as the ride was mostly on flat-ish roads (E. Lake Sammamish, for those interested). Here’s a segment cap from the Strava posting.

An average speed of 23.2 was way outside my expectations. And that was only part of the ride. I maintained around that pacing for the entire ride. The session was 4×12 at HIM pace, with rest, warmup and cool down thrown in. I felt great and all of the sudden started thinking maybe sub 3:30 at Stottlemeyer was possible. Not to let me rest, Ben had me run a half marathon on Friday morning before work. That too was done without killing my legs. The pace wasn’t a PR or anything, nor was it meant to, but to have run a solid pace over that distance and not have “dead legs” was great.

With all that as pre-amble, Saturday morning was upon us as most of the Project529 team members who were racing were gathered in the Edmonds Ferry line-up. It was going to be another gorgeous day of racing out on the Kitsap peninsula. We were all pretty excited. The fact that this distance was a first for Brian, Raman and Jun was also a bonus.

It goes without saying that most races will have a glitch or a problem. Mine surfaced early when, about 1 hour before the race, I made the horrifying realization that I had left my HR strap and riding computer at home. Given that all of my training had been to HR plans, this was a mini-disaster. The team tried to rally and find me a setup, but we couldn’t. Alex had a spare watch and strap, but the batteries in the watch were dead. I appreciated all of the effort, but I resigned myself to my own mistakes, and knew that I would have to ride on feel. Not the best plan.

I also made the change of mounting up my new SRAM Rise 60 front. Unfortunately, I made a small mistake when mounting my Maxxis Aspen on the front, and it didn’t bead correctly. Had it not been for Bryce at the FSA tent, I would have had a very, very short day. I thought my wheel was out of true from my quick warmup. He correctly diagnosed the problem, and fixed it for me. Great guy, and awesome to have such great volunteers on course.

This race was meant to be a rehearsal for my fueling and sodium strategy for the half-iron in 3 weeks time. I am still tweaking the formula to get little to no GI distress, and reduce the cramping. The Gu/water mix that worked reasonably well last weekend at Soaring Eagle was back in action, but this time I mounted the flask on the seat post. The location worked out MUCH better than last week, and I know I have solved that problem going forward.

When the gun went off, my strategy was simple. Ride with Raman, Brian and Alex through the first lap, and then press the issue. This strategy was in effect for about the first 45 minutes. The pace was slow, but that was more because of the riders that got in front of us when they red lined it to get forward, only to be sucking wind on the first few climbs of singletrack, and holding people up.

As the first lap was progressing, I had zero idea as to what my heart rate was. I am sure I was pestering Raman because I kept asking his, and the time, to ensure I was consuming my calories and not pressing too hard. I was feeling good, and we were cruising along. When we got to the first section of trail where the single track dumps out to the flat-out section, I pulled Raman along in my draft, but at some point he told me to take off. So I did. I loved that section of the trail because it’s not technical. It’s fast and flowy, and provides huge grins.

Deep into the first lap I caught up to Nate. I pulled up behind him as we got to the second long single track section and was ready to witness poetry. It’s hard enough to follow Nate when he’s on his Santa Cruz Nomad, but he just built up his Santa Cruz Tallboy LTc and was racing/riding for the first time this weekend. Nate on a 29er is bad. Nate on a lighter bike is even worse. My pacing blew through my comfort zone and into what I call “yikes” as I tried, very unsuccessfully, to follow him on the singletrack descents. My only saving grace was that as he would close down riders in front of him, they would wait until there were two riders behind them before letting us through. So went the inchworm of fear of my lap.

Somewhere in that part of the race, I lost the front and the rear. As I was sliding off the trail, I put power to the rear wheel and saved it, but my left knee smashed into the handlebars and the pain was intense. At one point I thought I was going to pull off and retire from the race, but I convinced myself the pain would subside (despite not even being able to stand on the pedals) once some more blood circulated. I was mostly right, in that I was able to box up the pain, but it’s still hurting two days later.

We eventually arrived at a fire road section and I asked Nate if he wanted a draft. He said “it’s a long race, and my pace is good. Go get ‘em.” So I clicked down a couple and took off.

The rest of the race was rather uneventful save one moment deep into the second lap when the 60 mile leaders came through. This time they were on lap 3, so I knew I was doing better than last year. Logan and the rest of that train were riding at a pace that made Nate look like a baby. Even today, as I write this, I am marveling at the pace. I tried to get on the back of the train as they passed me just as we dumped onto a fireroad. I figured I still felt strong, so why not? That lasted about 50 feet. Logan is my rabbit, and I continue to work to get faster. That group was inspiring.

I definitely started to feel some pain in the second lap, and the snap was out of my legs on some of the harder climbs. It might be that I was down on calories. I need to chat with Ben about that. The only thing that kept me really pushing the effort was a mantra as I attacked the singletrack. “Nate is behind you, and with every turn, he is closing you down. Move it.” I really did not want to get caught.

With the final little bit of goat track singletrack in front of me, and knowing that I was mere minutes from finishing, I was stocked at how good I really felt. The race had gone pretty well, despite not having a computer, HR monitor, or timing element. I felt mostly good, and not like I was pushing beyond the limits of my legs. As I popped out of the forest and into the finishing chute, I looked for a clock, but there was none. I crossed the finish line feeling great, and really happy. Truly happy.

It wasn’t until quite a bit later that I found out how I did. 3 hours 4 minutes. A full 1 hour and 8 minutes faster than last year. I know I could have gone faster earlier, and maybe arrived under 3 hours, but that just rolled off my back. In times past I might have dwelled on that, but in that moment, as I left the finishing area to quickly change and wait for the rest of the team, I was really, really happy with how the race went. There’s always next year for more improvement, but that was a monster chunk of time to take out.

Almost every 529 team member finished. Unfortunately Rob had to pull off after one lap with some back cramps. Both Raman and Brian came in under 3:30, which was their goal. Very happy for them. My genetic freak of a best friend showed up largely untrained, certainly not trained for this distance, and went faster than he did last year. It boggles the mind how strong Alex is. Jun also had a great day, finishing strong and just over 4 hours. Ty also took 30 minutes off his time from last year. Mike, also new to Stottlemeyer this year, put up a very impressive 3:28. As for Nate, he almost caught me, finishing just two minutes behind me, but 23 minutes faster than last year.

As I get ready for my next big test of the year, I am feeling better about my bike legs. I have no idea how I will react to the heat and humidity in Hawaii, and I am not sure how well the bike course will play to my riding skills/abilities, but I leave this first test with a pretty big grin on my face, and happy to know that I was way more prepared this year than I was for this race last year, which bodes well for the next test. The VO2Multisport plan continues to push my body to new records and beyond my goals.

My specific goal for the half? Sub 5:15. My super stretch A goal? Sub 5. There. I’ve finally said it out loud. My previous PR on a chip timed course is 5:44, at the Gulf Coast Tri, where I stomped at 2:39 bike, only to put up a 2:25 on the run. My last half iron was 6:38 at Buffalo Springs, a course that detonated my legs on the bike, and beat me into savage submission with the heat and climbs on the run.

With this being a home race, the Project 529 team was out in force. There was a healthy handful of yellow Santa Cruz bikes; more than I had seen at any race this season. The turnout overall for a Budu race seemed light, especially given the weather. However, it was Cinco de Mayo, so who knows.

I had a single plan for the race. I wanted to keep my heart rate under control, and work my nutrition plan ahead of the NW Epic race next weekend at Stottlemeyer and the half Ironman next month. My experimentation with nutrition this week was to pre-mix Gu and water in a flask, and consume my calories that way. I also wanted to work salt tablets into my race plan, as Hawaii will have heat and humidity which we don’t have here in the Northwest.

It’s never a good plan to introduce too many new things for a race, and I knew before the gun went off that I would likely have problems with how I stashed my bottle with the Gu/water mix. During my pre-ride, my knee hit the plastic holder which I had zip tied to my top tube, and I thought that there was a change the bottle would pop out during the race. I should have listened to that inner voice.

As the gun went off, I was pretty shocked to see Christian (“VB” as we call him) take off like a scalded cat. He was sitting in 4th or 5th position heading up the fire road. I knew that he wanted to drop into the downhill single track and let his downhill skills carry him forward, and I didn’t want to get in his way as he is leaps and bounds faster than I am downhill. The two guys between us were holding his pace, so I figured I would just settle in and let the race come to me. He’s fast, and I was white knuckling that section of the course. Following him was was without question the fastest I have ever gone through there.

As soon as we turned into what I will call the “goat track” section of the course, we caught some of the 50+ racers who went off in the start wave ahead of us. As we closed one of them down and were yelling for him to pull over, he pulled off to the right. He was nice enough to let VB go, and the two guys in front of me, but for some unknown reason he pulled back onto the trail in front of me. I collided with his frame and went over the handle bars into the weeds. I was…pissed. Looking back, I know how mad I must have appeared because as Alex went by me, he was shouting at me to settle down and collect myself.

I remounted and threw my plan out the window. That’s my biggest problem. Lack of rev limiter, and the red mist descends when I race. I got back on the bike and dropped the hammer to get back to VB. In short order, my knee knocked my Gu flask off my top tube and hit the ground. More swearing. To stop at that point would have been stupid, as we were still quite bunched up from the start. So to sum up, within 10 minutes, I have hit the ground and my nutrition is lost to the forest. Perfect.

I continued to hammer, but knew that I needed to settle down. I needed to let the race come to me. I slowed my thoughts down enough to consider that there was a chance that my flask would still be on the ground on lap 2. I had planned on a swig at the start of lap 2, so this would just be a 10 minute delay. Just as I was processing those thoughts, I passed Alex at a log pile crossing on which he put himself on the ground. Then we made the turn up the big climb. I was completely cotton-mouthed and my HR was 181. Exactly the opposite of where I wanted to be. So I settled into the climb and took on some water. I really tried to focus on getting my HR down and calming my mind, while at the same time allowing my engine to work as I knew it could.

I finally caught and passed VB and continued to move forward through the field. The first lap was a bit too fast for me, and I knew that if I was going to make it through all 15 miles of the race, I needed to cool my jets a bit.

As I started lap 2, I saw my family had arrived. There’s something really special about seeing your wife and kids cheering for you on the side of the course. It gives a bit of a boost to an otherwise weary body.

Lap 2 was pretty uneventful. As we hit the first uphill section, I was able to look behind me and see that VB had made up quite a bit of time on the downhill section. I didn’t want him to get around me, but knew that I had nothing for him when the trail goes down. However, he passed me when, as luck would have it, my Gu flask was on the side of the trail, intact, and I was able to stop, pick it up, take a swig, and pull at my jersey to get it into a pocket (under my camelback) so as not to risk losing it again. I almost immediately got past him again on a climb when he pulled over with something in his eye.

The back half of the lap was spent playing tag with a couple of riders. I was sandwiched in between a 50+ guy and someone in my age group. When I finally managed to get in front, the age group guy started stalking me. I could hear that he was close enough, and when I asked if he needed by, he just kept saying that he didn’t feel that ambitious. As we made the final turn up the fire road, I knew I had put time into him and didn’t see him again either.

With my Gu flask handy, I took my last swig, and my last salt pill, and still felt good. My sweat rate was high, but this was also the first 80+ degree day of the year, and certainly the warmest riding conditions I have seen since last year. I felt really good and decided it was time to really push on the last lap. Sadly, my body had other plans. Everything started to slow down. My tires felt like they were glued to the roots instead of going over them. I was making tired mistakes. My lines were not clean.

Even with my pace seemingly slowing, I was still closing down riders from the other classes. As we crested the final climb of the day, I knew that I was in good shape, and I really wanted to get the guy in front of me. In looking at the time sheets, he finished :58 in front me. From where we were on the course, I think I managed to get within 20 seconds, but every time I got close, he managed to find another gear and go faster. We accordianed like this for the last mile and a half, but he eventually put too much time into me. I made a mistake on one of the final turns, completely over cooking it, and knew my race with that guy was done. Then on the final turn, I almost dumped the bike, having put my foot down and only just managing to save it.

Overall, I had a good race. Despite my feelings that I was going much slower, it turns out I was faster on lap 3 than 2. I was the top rider from Project 529, which was a great feeling as well. The timesheets tell an interesting story. I was 29th overall in Sport class, which probably had 70-80 riders in total. I was 8th/14 in the 30-39 age group. Two minutes would have put me into 6th place. First through fifth was populated by the guys who, if you asked me, would be great if they were riding in the expert class. 1:08 to 1:12 was the time bracket for the top 5, with six minutes back to sixth place. However, our first place guy, at his pace, would have put him in last place for the expert class. Those guys are FAST.

From a nutrition stand point, I am not sure Gu is working for me. The last two race weekends, where I have gone exclusively Gu, have left me in GI distress for hours after the race. I need to talk to my coach about this. It’s possible that I am taking on too many calories, or not enough. I don’t know enough about nutrition to know what to do.

I also have learned a few more things about myself. I really, really need to get the rev limiter under control for these sprint distance races. The pace at the front is unyieldingly fast. At the first race at Dash Point, which was a shorter race overall by 17 minutes for the leaders, I was 17 minutes off the front. Soaring Eagle this weekend was roughly 1/3 longer in distance, and I was only 12 minutes off the front. I went from almost DFL to a top 10 finish. I’ll take that progress and build on it for next year.

I won’t be doing any more full lap pre-rides on day of race. Even though I rode the pre-ride much slower than race pace, that was still 40 minutes of hard-ish riding I probably don’t need to be doing. Next year I will get a better pre-race warmup routine.

That’s it for the short course mountain bike racing this year. Next weekend is the first of the epic distance races – 30 miles! It should be tons of fun, and I hope to improve on my placing last year, where I was 58th of 69 in the Mens open division, and 1h43m off the lead with a whopper of a time of 4:12:01. My race fitness this year far exceeds last year. The stretch goal for this year is 3hrs, with a realistic goal of 3:30.

In looking at the course profile map, it was clear that the bike portion was going to be challenging. There was a pretty sizable climb right in the middle of the lap, and since I was going to be racing the long course, I was going to be going up the mountain twice.

Race data for this race is a bit difficult to pull apart. For some unknown reason, neither Garmin nor Strava make it easy to flag a workout as a race of mixed types. As such, you are either left with a bunch of runs, or a bunch of bikes. Lame.

First, I wanted to thank Budu for the organization of this event. Though a small event, the event staff, in particular the road minders, did a very good job of managing traffic. In any race where you are on the road, managing the road is critically important and they did a great job. The on course water support left a little to be desired, but this was a smaller race.

I also want to thank my coach. Ben Bigglestone is doing a great job of improving what I called out as my liability – my running. To have gone sub 8min/mile over 9 miles, even with a 30 mile bike ride made me extremely happy. The training this year with VO2MultiSport has been a great experience.

In looking at the run, I am quite surprised to see that I did so well for the first 5+ mile run. My first mile was 6:54! That was completely unthinkable for me several months ago. My slowest was an 8:01, and that was on a section with a few steep, and high, rollers. All the other sections, with slight elevation changes, centered around 7:30, and my HR was in the mid to high 160s. The race time says 7:41 pace. 119th / 225 racers. Not stellar placing, but it was my target pace, and I hit it, without putting myself into difficulty.

The bike was something of an oddity to me. I felt like I was riding very well, despite the headwinds on part of the course, the rain, and even hail at the top of one of the climbs. There was that one tough climb, and in all honesty it’s smaller and tamer than some of the climbs around my house, but for some unknown reason I ran out of gears. Not to the point of being out of gas, but having one more tooth on top of the 26 would have been appreciated. However, no one ever passed me on the climb. I put distance into those near me on both ascents. Looking at the data, it’s just strange that I was as slow as I was overall on the climb.

For most of the ride, I was hovering around 21.5 mph, with a good handful of the miles averaging 22-23 mph. I felt really good, and was keeping my HR under control. That said, I had an interesting experience on the second loop. I was tired. Not exhausted, but sleepy. That has never happened in a race. I remember thinking “I could take a nap.” Strange.

I was also surprised by the amount of pain generated in my neck. Having broken it two years ago, I have not yet raced on aero bars since the accident. The downhill section of the race was loads of fun, but I was touching speeds approaching 45 miles per hour. I used that section to absolutely hammer on the pedals, and made up probably .25 – .5 miles on the people in front of me. You know you are going fast when you hear “what the hell?!” “holy shit!” and “f!ck!!!” as you go by people. If only I could translate downhill fearlessness into uphill expediency and efficiency. That said, it took me close to 2 miles to ride out my neck pain on the first loop, and about 1 mile on the second loop. I didn’t deduce that the pain was being generated from the wind pressure on the crown of my head from the downhill until the pain surfaced on lap 2. The neck is still pretty sore today, so that’s something on which I need to work.

I’m not really sure how I am feeling about my cycling at this point. I guess it is as I have always been – fast-ish on the flats, and fast enough uphill, but when asked to combine the two, I guess I get into trouble. The riding in and around Seattle doesn’t benefit my style all that well. That’s what I get for building my base while living in the flatlands of Houston. The race in Hawaii will be, at the very least, interesting. I am going to have to spend a good deal of time reconsidering what I believe my overall talent potential is on the bike, and whether it’s possible to dream of being called one of the “fast guys.”

The second run was slower. My feet were still frozen from the mix of rain, ground water, and cold wind on the bike. It took me about 2.25 miles to get feeling in my feet back. Sadly the second run was only 3.85 miles. The first 2 miles were 8:10 and 8:24, but the second 2 were at 8:00 and 7:45 pace. Always nice to neg split, and to get faster into the run. Better still, I didn’t walk once. Not once. That has never happened in any race mixed sport race over sprint distance. I felt strong through the second run. I had slight GI distress, but managed through it. Race time says 7:59 pace. 118th / 225.

The biggest surprise of the day was that I ran better than I rode. That has never happened. Ever. That little fact isn’t helping what I would call my shaky confidence going into the Honu Half in June. For whatever reason, I simply haven’t pulled it together on the bike. I thought I was flying for most of the bike. Turns out that the climbs crushed my average speed down. My flat sections were speedy, but those uphill sections just dropped my overall time. Groan. 1:30 for the 29 miles. 71st/225. Top 5 was 15 minutes faster. Yikes. 7 minutes to place me in the top 25.

The best surprise of the day was my mother in law being at the finish line. Completely unexpected, but she came over from her boyfriend’s house. She will need to remember mist racers have a need for personal space at the finish line, and holding a camera phone in their face saying “smile!” may not be the best plan. Her heart was in the right place, though, and it was nice to have a family face at the finish line.

I managed to place 6th in my AG, and 96th overall. The 40-44 AG, where I will be next year, was stacked. I would have placed 19th of 28th. I’m pretty happy with the result. My goal was to finish in the top half of my AG and overall. Both accomplished. I also wanted to finish strong. Accomplished. I wanted to have a strong bike. I’m don’t know enough to know if I had a strong bike. I wanted to have a strong run. Accomplished. It was a good day.

This is a busy handful of weeks for racing. I have a local sprint mountain bike race this weekend, with one of my NW Epic races two weeks from now. And of course the Half Ironman on June 2nd. I will need to spend some serious time on my nutrition plan. I thought I had it dialed, but most plans don’t survive the first bullet, and yesterday the guns were on full auto.

Overall, in Q1, I spent 110 hours training/racing over 96 different activities. The total distance covered is well understated at 665.6 miles, because so much of my bike training was on a trainer and not outside, due in no small part to our weather and the start times of some of my rides. Elevation gained, also understated, was 28,839 feet, and I burned 56,562 calories. I started training at about 182 pounds. My waistline has come in several inches, but I am walking around at only 173 pounds. The difference is clear, but I expected to have dropped more weight. I want to drop another 8 pounds for my racing weight. No specific reason, but 165 sounds good.

I ran 30 times for a total distance of 182 miles, in 28 hours and 43 minutes. Total calories burned 19,803, and climbed over 8,000 feet.

I cycled 42 times for a total distance of 451 miles, but again that was way understated. Total time, however, was not, at 60 hours 53 minutes. Elevation gain was 20,800 feet (understated), and burned 36,343 calories.

According to the data I swam 20 times, but that seems low. I need to check on that. Total distance was 31 miles, over the course of 18 hours and 22 minutes.

I ran in one race, and set my personal best chip-timed half marathon by almost 8 minutes.

I rode in two mountain bike races, and have regularly finished near the back of my racing team, and well back in the sportman class of Budu Racing. I really should be racing beginner class due to my riding skills, but the races in that class are simply too short to be interesting to me. I have quite a ways to go in developing my handling skills to keep up with the front pack guys, but my engine is developing nicely.

Let’s back up.

I have been training incredibly hard for the last 2 1/2 months for this race season. While I am doing quite a few mountain bike races this year, my primary goals are to race in 2 half Ironman races this summer. About a year ago I entered my second ever short course XC mountain bike race. I raced in the beginner class. I got handled. I finished DFL in my age group. I sat at the start finish line at the end of lap 1 of 2 for what seemed like 5 minutes. During that time, all of my friends were yelling at me to continue. At that moment I made a decision. That decision was to finish the race. I also decided that I was going to work my tail off all summer so that I would be able to ride with the group I was riding with and not be sucking wind. It was a brutal realization of just how far out of fitness I had fallen since putting my triathlon racing hobby on hold while my wife and I tended to our 3 littles.

I spent the better part of last riding season flogging myself on the bike. From March to September, I rode 140 times, for a total distance of 1,750 miles, and 205 hours. I climbed over 102K feet, and burned 114K calories. When I started, I weight 192 pounds. By the end of the season in September, I was, oddly, about 182 pounds (I thought more would come off). The training paid off, however, and I was starting to get my riding engine back. I was making a name in my riding group as the guy who goes up hill fast.

Coming out of the season, I decided I wanted to get back to triathlon racing. For my birthday (Sept), my wife gave me what I consider one of the coolest gifts ever. A season of training with a professional tri coach. After several interviews, I settled on Ben Bigglestone at VO2MultiSport. In signing on for the season, I gave him my insane, audacious goal. I will be racing in the 40-44 age group starting in 2014. I told him I wanted to qualify for the Half Ironman World Championships in that age group. My own assessment was that I have a big engine on the bike, and my run is a liability. There will be plenty of future posts on my tri training, but the short story is Ben has been kicking my butt for the last 2 1/2 months and the training is certainly paying off. No question.

This is all a long preamble to get to the main point: you can train all you want. If you don’t stick with your routines and you don’t race smart, you might as well not have trained at all. After reflecting on the race yesterday over the course of the last 18 hours, I can safely say that I blew it. To use one of my favorite smack talking quotes of all time: “[My] ambition outweighed [my] talent.”

I read the book “The Power of Habit” last year and realized there was plenty in there I could apply to my life, specifically around my training. I started getting up earlier, having the same routine every morning. Drinking, eating, etc. Every morning. It makes getting my engine started, and getting to my hard workouts much, much easier. Sadly, I did not check on my food situation until late the night before the race. I realized I was out of bread, which would rob my of my pre-race food (1 hour before the race, eat a peanut butter sandwich on wheat bread). I figured it was no big deal, and I would improvise. Mistake.

I also had never raced or ridden particularly challenging terrain using only my down tube bottle. I have always raced with a camelback. It turns out that when you are riding at pace, and dodging rocks, roots, etc, it’s much hard to grab that bottle, and, WAY more importantly, put it back. So you end up not hydrating. Mistake.

Lastly, I let hubris get the better of me. I recently was asked (and accepted) to join the Project529 mountain bike team. I have been riding with these guys for years, and it was certainly an invitation for which I had been hoping for a while. During the pre-ride, Nate was making comments about how the course suited my “horsepower” and my “engine.” That went to my head, and I rode way harder than I should have on the warmup. Mistake.

Worse, I didn’t do my warm up with my heart rate monitor turned on. I had no idea how much I was exerting myself. Mistake.

The worst sin of all, however, that I committed on race day was at the start line. It’s with mixed emotion that I even talk about this, because I know how it will make me look. Worse, I know how the story ends. The BuDu Racing Sportsman class was pretty deep. I was stepping up from Beginner class, and some of the Project529 guys even joked that I should be riding Expert. With the majority of the Project529 riders lining up for Sportsman class, we were all jostling to get closer to the start line. Then, someone said “let Brandon get to the front.” None of these riders are slouches. They are all accomplished riders. They were parting to let me go to the front. I was floored. They were communicating that they expected me to ride at the front. I let that get in my head, and decided that I would drop the hammer to get with the lead group and stick. Mistake.

If you want to know what stupidity looks like, there it is. No chart will better exemplify what a complete ass I am for how I ran my race. 15 minutes at or near 180 BPM is a really, really bad plan. A terrible plan. A non-plan.

When the gun went off, I shot out like a rocket, immediately locking on to the leaders. I was probably 6th or 7th in a train of 8 or 9. I know that there was one guy behind me for sure. I was riding like the wind. I haven’t experienced that kind of awe and joy of being in a freight train line of racers since I was coming out of turn 5 at Willow Springs in 1999 in the USGPRU motorcycle race. It was incredible. Up, down, around corners, were were collectively flying like a single arrow slicing through the air. Sadly, I wasn’t keeping my head. I was riding over it.

Then came the issues. I have never ridden at that speed in that close of quarters. This was only my 4th ever sprint type XC mountain bike race. I have no race craft. I have no idea what things to avoid. I now know a few.

New Rule: when you know there is a tricky climb coming up, do not cross axles with the guy in front of you. Someone didn’t clear a root, clicked out, and we all packed up. You can see it on the chart around minute 13. I had to jump off my bike and run it up the hill. I was caught out and surprised at how much that spiked my HR. I tried to settle my HR, but I didn’t want to lose the freight train. So I hammered. And hammered. And hammered. This despite alarm bells going off in my head, and my inner voice yelling at me to settle down.

Looking at the data for the rest of the first half of the race, from immediately after running my bike that hill, my HR was red lining. I just wasn’t racing smart. At all. Around minute 31 or 32 is where the wheels came off. Figuratively, because literally my front wheel bent. I have a unique talent for bending front wheels, as this is my third one in a single calendar year. In this instance, I was following too close, and someone in the train went down, the guy behind him went down, and I went over the handlebars when my front wheel was collected by his bike.

Mentally, my race was over at that point. I got up and tried to soldier on, but my heart wasn’t in it. I also was losing power. I could feel it on every climb from that point forward. My legs were done. I started going backward in the field, and then the Project529 riders started going by me. I felt shame. Shame that I had blown up. Shame that I hadn’t met my own expectations, or my perception of theirs. Shame that I felt like I had been training like crazy only to find myself in the back of the field.

Time and distance will give me the recovery I need. I made a bunch of mistakes during this race weekend, and I will not be making those mistakes again. On an email thread, talking about the race, one of guys suggested we take a minute to remind ourselves that this is a HOBBY. We are all dedicated fathers, husbands, and gainfully employed in fields which do not necessarily mesh well with loads of training. He went on to let us know that for him, mountain bike riding is about freedom, laughter and gravity. That we should all ensure that we remind ourselves of our top 3 reasons for riding before and after a race to maintain a level head and keep appropriate context.

Here are mine:

To always be improving
To do what others consider beyond the realm of possible
For the inner satisfaction I get when I am surrounded by my friends and peers when we toe the starting line together in pursuit of a personal challenge

Not as simple as his, but this is why I train. It’s why I race. It’s why I willfully suffer. It’s why I will be doing this for years and years. I know it’s a passion because my kids ask me about my ride/swim/run when I walk in the door before they ask me about work. Comedy.

I was beaten yesterday. Beaten by my arrogance. Beaten by not racing a plan. Beaten by a course. It’s OK. The big races are yet to come. Brian, Christian and Nate had amazing races, and I was really happy for them. It’s a sign of my own personal growth that I was able to put my own crap in a box and immediately congratulate them at the finish line. There we no excuses from me. No “should’ves” or “could’ves".” I just needed to look at the data and see what happened.

Upon returning home, I took a long soak and sulked. There, I said it. Then I fired up “American Flyers” to remind myself why I became interested in bikes when I was a child. I loved that movie. It still holds up. One day I will get a chance to raise my arms as I stand on a podium. Just not this day.

Since moving over to Amazon, I have been reading quite a bit more than I have been blogging.  There’s good and bad to that, but the upside is that I have discovered many new authors, explored many new ideas, and have a seemingly endless supply of suggestions to the inquiry “what should I read next?”  During 2012 I did a great deal of reading, but also took advantage of Audible on my phone and Fire HD for my commutes to listen to some great books as well.  Here’s my 2012 reading list, approximately in the order completed during the year.  The grand total came out to 48 books inclusive of novels, graphic novels and audio books.  I put down 2 titles that I couldn’t finish.

Title: Ready Player One Author: Ernest Cline Rating: 3.5/5 stars Quick Review: Nice throwback to pop culture and video games, but ultimately the story labored under the weight of a lack of a clear focus.  This felt like a child’s version of Reamde by Neal Stephenson.

Title: Wool – Book 1 Author:Hugh Howey Rating: 3/5 stars Quick Review: This book came recommended to me repeatedly on Amazon.  The first one was interesting, but…

Title: Wool – Book 2 Author: Hugh Howey Rating: 2/5 stars Quick Review: …I just don’t get it.  I read book 2 hoping that the story would progress and become more interesting.  Book 2 is a clear departure from the story arc in book 1, though you can see how they are related.  I am not sure I can find it in me to read book 3.  Each book seems to be longer than the last, and my interest wanes.

Title: John Carter Author: Edgar Rice Burroughs Rating: 3/5 stars Quick Review: Interesting base premise, and I will give a nod for originality given the publish date.  The story doesn’t hold up as well as I would have thought, and the story telling is a bit choppy at times.  It felt like a slog to get through this one.

Title: The Mote in God’s Eye Author: Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle Rating: 3.5/5 stars Quick Review: I did not grow up reading Niven or Pournelle, and discovered Pournelle via his many appearances on TWiT.  The story started very well, and captured my interest.  Once they were down on the planet surface (2/3 of the way through the book), the pacing and story telling fell apart.  I was disappointed with how hard it was to finish the book, but again, given the date of publishing, I give them both a huge nod, and look forward to starting Lucifer’s Hammer this year.

Title: Burning Entrepreneur Author: Brad Feld Rating: 4/5 stars Quick Review: I will admit I am a sucker for business and entrepreneurship books.  Granted this is essentially a repackaging of posts from his blog, Brad does a good job of creating a set of themes and matching the posts to convey the point.

Title: Mastering Mountain Bike Skills Author: Brian Lopes Rating: 5/5 stars Quick Review: Lopes is a legend, and does a very good job of communicating what is best learned by doing via the written word and pictures.  This book illuminated many bad habits I had picked up while riding and I have become much faster for having been able to process them.

Title: The Blade Itself Author: Joe Abercrombie Rating: 4/5 stars Quick Review: I had never heard of Abercrombie before hearing his name used on the Sword and Laser podcast.  I picked up this book and loved it.  It’s a bit long, which is one reason it didn’t rate higher.  Than and the strange side love story.  The ending was unexpected and pretty awesome, and I look forward to reading book 2 – Before They Are Hanged – this year, as well as starting Red Country.

Title: The Mongoliad Author: Greg Bear, Neal Stephenson, Mark Teppo, Erik Bear, Joseph Brassey, Cooper Moo, E.D. deBirmingham Rating: 1/5 stars Quick Review: I REALLY wanted to like this book.  I have read many of the titles by the list of authors.  My daughter is named for the protagonist in one of Greg Bear’s books.  But this book was just terrible, and one of the rare, rare few that I didn’t finish.  The story was belabored, uneven, and you could tell when the author switched.  It was very jarring to move through the narratives written by so many hands.

Title: Escape from Camp 14 Author: Blaine Harden Rating: 5/5 stars Quick Review: Wow.  That’s all I can say about the story recounted in this title.  The life of a child born into a labor camp in North Korea, and escaping…just wow.  Hard to imagine a life such as this, and makes me feel that much more grateful for the freedoms we do have.

Title: After Friday Night Lights Author: Buzz Bissinger Rating: 4.5/5 stars Quick Review: Great follow up to the original story.  Whenever I read historical retellings, I always wonder what became of those involved.  This is a harsh look at life after football for a fallen star with minimal life skills as a result of the high school football machine.

Title: Love Yourself Author: Kamal Ravikant Rating: 1/5/5 stars Quick Review: I found this title via a blog post, and it was cheap enough that I decided to hear why Tim Ferris thought so much of the title.  Given my disdain for Ferris as an author and a self promoter, I should have known better.  Shame on me I guess.

Title: The Power of the Dog Author: Don Winslow Rating: 4/5 stars Quick Review: I read this title after watching the movie Savages.  That movie was a pretty good story, but I felt like the book would likely have been better.  I didn’t want to read a book for a movie I had just watched, and this title was reviewed as the best Winslow title.  He’s a violent Elmore Leonard.  It’s a great story, though a bit overly drawn out and long.  The characters were very real and authentic.  Looking forward to reading more Winslow in the future.

Title: Batman – Earth One Author: Gary Frank, Geoff Johns Rating: 3.5/5 stars Quick Review: I really do like reading graphic novels, and this was a nice origin story brought to life.  I am not deep in the DC universe, so I don’t know how this one measures up, but I enjoyed it.

Title: Roadside Picnic Author: Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky Rating: 4.5/5 stars Quick Review: Also discovered via the Sword and Laser podcast. What an incredible premise for a story, and I loved it.  There is no doubt in my mind that the translation loses something from the native Russian.  There were sequences where I could hear the authors voice and I heard Russian inflections in my head.  Great story.  Some things were a little hard to parse, and I resorted to a wiki page to make sure I was interpreting certain events correctly.  The only real issue is the ending which was just…odd.  Not Stephen King bad, just odd.

Title: Kill Decision Author: Daniel Suarez Rating: 4/5 stars Quick Review: The story premise was an interesting one, but this was not as strong an effort as Daemon or Freedom.  Very unique and fresh ideas, but it felt like this one relied too much on technological whiz bangery than veering off into the “not there yet” level of technology to allow for a bit of escapism in the story.  It almost felt like Suarez was ready to be there by your side as you finished every chapter to say “heh? uh? pretty cool right??”

Title: Feed Author: Mira Grant Rating: 1/5 stars Quick Review: Another one that I couldn’t finish.  The writing wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t great.  The story wasn’t all together compelling either.  It was a narcissistic escapade masquerading as a zombie apocalypse story.  It just didn’t work.  Maybe it gets better in the back half, but I gave up on it.

Title: You Are An Ironman Author: Jacques Steinberg Rating: 3/5 stars Quick Review: I tend to consume athletic related titles centered around my current interests.  For now, it’s triathlons.  I read three titles this year, and this was the weakest.  The premise was nice – follow every day joes as they venture toward completing an ironman, and I am sure this would be compelling reading for someone at that stage of their life.  I am beyond that part, so the stories about the accomplished racers hold more interest for me.

Title: Untitled: Thoughts on the Creative Process Author: Blaine Hogan Rating: 3.5/5 stars Quick Review: When I finished this book, I liked it more than I do now.  The reason?  None of it stuck with me.  I honestly can’t tell you much about the book.  I have a nice feeling inside me for having read it, but there wasn’t anything which is memorable beyond a month from reading the book.  That could be user error.

Title: The Frozen Sky Author: Jeff Carlson Rating: 3.5/5 stars Quick Review: I read the novella, not the full novel which is available today.  Unlike Kim Stanley Robinson, the use of harder science didn’t get in the way of enjoying the story.  I found it hard to conceptualize the environment and antagonists based on the material provided, but again, potential user error.  Good story.

Title: What America Was Really Like in 1776 Author: Thomas Fleming Rating: 2.5/5 stars Quick Review: Was fun to read, but little things like math errors got in the way of my enjoyment of the title.  When basic math was wrong, it left me questioning the veracity of the content presented.

Title: The Passage Author: Justin Cronin Rating: 4.5/5 stars Quick Review: It felt like I was immersed in zombie apocalypse stories this year.  The Walking Dead (print and comics) probably contributed to that, but this felt like a very original take on the story.  Ultimately this is a tale of human survival and relationships, and the zombies (er, vampires) play a background role.  Great story.

Title: Makers: The New Industrial Revolution Author: Chris Anderson Rating: 4/5 stars Quick Review: As far as business books go, this is a pretty good one.  It has information collected in a logical manner, presented as a nice narrative, and ultimately compels the reader to go learn more.  My one major takeaway from this book was that I don’t know how to “make” anything.  I was inspired.  I plan to spend time in 2013 learning about 3-d printing and exploring some ideas I have had on the back burner for a while.

Title: The Twelve Author: Justin Cronin Rating: 3.5/5 stars Quick Review: The sophomore jinx is a tough one, and it appears to have bitten Cronin on this effort in this trilogy.  I wanted to care about how this one ended, but it felt like the story got away from him in the way books 4 and 5 got away from George RR Martin.  The editors need to do their jobs.  Had you asked me after “The Passage” if I would finish the trilogy, my answer would have been a resounding YES, but now I am not so certain.  I guess we’ll see what’s on my plate when it comes out.

Title: The Walking Dead Author: Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard Rating: 4.5/5 stars Quick Review: Book 17 was a bit jarring, and I liked it.  In truth, I have read the hardcover books 1-7 and the trade paperbacks books 15-17 this year.  I love how the show is just different enough from the books.  The story telling is always solid, though I am beginning to get fatigue from what seems like the same trope of “discover someone new, don’t trust anyone, something bad happens, wash rinse repeat.”  Like the end of season 2 of Jericoh, I would like to see the real world get reintroduced to this world in some form or fashion.

Title: Justice League Dark Author: Peter Milligan, Mikel Janin, Ryan Sook Rating: 1.5/5 stars Quick Review: Again, not a big DC Universe guy, but this one failed to capture my interest in any meaningful way.  I finished it, but I can’t tell you why.

Title: I’m Here to Win Author: Chris McCormack Rating: 4/5 stars Quick Review: What I love about athlete auto-biographies is that you can learn so much more about their beginnings and their private lives.  Sometimes that is fulfilling and interesting, and sometimes not.  In the case of Macca, it was worth it.  I knew he was accomplished as a racer, but had no idea how much he dominated other races, and distances.  This book did quite a bit more to humanize him than the nonsense he allows to represent himself when he is on camera or in front of a microphone.

Title: A Life Without Limits Author: Chrissie Wellington Rating: 5/5 stars Quick Review: What makes this story so compelling is how much more there was to Chrissie’s life before she leapt on the scene as a triathlete.  He on course exploits are very well covered, but again, I appreciate the humanizing of heroes, and learning about her diplomatic work ahead of her life as a triathlete, plus her world travels, was both eye opening and inspiring.

Title: Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World Author: Jack Weatherford Rating: 4/5 stars Quick Review: I got sucked into the history of Genghis Khan through the fictionalized accounts of his life by Conn Iggulden, starting with Genghis: Birth of an Empire.  The historical fiction was nice, but this was a very detailed, and historically accurate, recount of the life of Genghis.  You can tell that there was tons of research effort which went into this title.

Title: Cloud Atlas Author: David Mitchell Rating: 4/5 stars Quick Review: This is one of those books that you talk about for weeks after finishing to find out a) if other people have read it, and b) if they are as annoyed by parts of it as you are.  Mitchell does a pretty reasonable job of weaving many seemingly disparate stories into one volume, but it does feel a bit self-indulgent at times.  Having listened to this title on Audible, I give full marks to the talent, as the recreation as a performance was sublime, and the only reason this title scored as it did.

Title: 14 Author: Peter Clines Rating: 3.5/5 stars Quick Review: Not a particularly challenging title, but a fun, interesting, and novel storyline.  Though, at the end the story most definitely wanders into crazy town and you really have to suspend your disbelief if you want to finish the book.

Title: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running Author: Haruki Murakami Rating: 3.5/5 stars Quick Review: A novelist writing about sports can be amazing or a disaster.  This trended toward amazing.  What will stick with me most about this book is not the discussions about running, but rather some of the more insightful comments about what motivates runners (and triathletes) to keep doing what others would consider crazy.  My favorite quote was that “it takes a very healthy body to maintain a sick soul.”  Yes, there is a sense of sickness to some of the things I do with my body, so I can relate.

Title: Old Man’s War Author: John Scalzi Rating: 4/5 stars Quick Review: I keep hearing Scalzi’s name.  He seems to be everywhere these days.  While I slog through Red Shirts, I wanted to give Scalzi a chance at pre-redemption.  This story has done quite a bit more to capture my attention and interest than he has done thus far with Red Shirts.  I appreciate that he attempts to tackle challenging social issues combined with a post-industrial neo-colonialism.

Title: Saga Author: Brian K. Vaughn, Fiona Staples Rating: 4/5 stars Quick Review: After reading Y: The Last Man, I eagerly awaited a next opportunity to read anything from Vaughn.  If you haven’t read that whole series, stop what you are doing right now and order it.  It’s great story telling with a beginning a middle and an end.  Something Robert Kirkman could learn.  Pride of Badhdad left me wanting in a major way, so when I heard about Saga, I was hoping for the best.  The first trade paperback was interesting and compelling, and I await the opportunity to read book 2.

Title: Rape of Nanking Author: Iris Chang Rating: 4/5 stars Quick Review: Fascinating historical context of unspeakable crimes.  As a student in America, there are many pieces of history which are simply missing from our school system.  As I have aged, I have found history, from the points of view of other countries and cultures, to be of endless intrigue.

Title: The Power of Habit Author: Charles Duhigg Rating: 5/5 stars Quick Review: I was a bit surprised that what seemed like a pop-psychology book masquerading as a business book would make it so high on my list of reads for the year, but this was an eye opening book for me.  I found the use of examples from work to Olympic swimmers to be incredibly informative.  Most importantly, I have utilized information I gathered from my first read and have had a substantial impact on my life in one very small way – getting up and working out early in the morning.  For me to hit my goals, with the kids, wife, and my full time job all competing for time, I needed to change my habits.  I did, in very short order, with substantially positive results.

Title: Unbroken Author: Laura Hillenbrand Rating: 4.5/5 stars Quick Review: I loved the book Seabiscut when it came out.  The story came alive, and Laura Hillenbrand demonstrated her talents for constructing a narrative of past events, allowing the reader to relive them as if they were there.  She continued this with Unbroken, an amazing tale of survival and hardship of a WWII bomber crew.  Simply incredible.

Title: Tigana Author: Guy Gavriel Kay Rating: 1.5/5 stars Quick Review: This is one that I could not finish.  I was listening to it on Audible, and want to think that perhaps the strange names and places, when spoken, didn’t translate in a way that would allow me to keep track of who was who and where the characters were.  Ultimately, I cared little for the characters or their tale, which is disappointing because this came so highly recommended.  I may come back to it, as it wasn’t terrible, but I just gave up on it because of it’s length, and how little it was interesting me given the amount of time I had already put into it.

Title: Green Mars Author: Kim Stanley Robinson Rating: 2.5/5 stars Quick Review: For whatever reason, Robinson is one of those authors that I feel like I have to read, and that I feel like I have to like, though I can’t explain why.  His writing is super super hard science fiction.  HARD science fiction.  So hard that it can get in the way of the story.  In the case of his Mars trilogy (I read the first one a decade ago), it’s a series of short stories pulled together into a cohesive narrative.  Unfortunately, this one just went on and on and on.  I finished it, but had no desire to move on to Blue Mars.

Title: Steve Jobs Author: Walter Isaacson Rating: 4/5 stars Quick Review: The book is amazing.  An incredible account of one of my industry’s leading lights.  Isaacson does a masterful job of story telling, pacing, character building, and leading the reader on a journey.  Sadly, what I couldn’t get past was what a complete and utter asshole Jobs comes off as.  There, I said it.  None of the reviews I read (though I didn’t read many) hit on this fact.  Perhaps it’s the whole respect of the dead thing, but there was plenty of ink about how difficult Jobs was before he died.  I had always just attributed that to a challenging visionary.  This book paints a picture of a manic, controlling, manipulative malcontent.  I am in shock that anyone ever agreed to work with this person based on his behaviors.  Collective cognitive dissonance can be a powerful thing I guess.

Title: Unintended Consequences Author: Edward Conard Rating: 3/5 stars Quick Review: An ultimately forgettable economics book which tries to follow in the footsteps blazed by Freakanomics.  Maybe it’s because my schooling and work background makes the content of the book a bit pedestrian, but I wasn’t challenged by the content.  Unlike The Big Short by Lewis, it lacks characters upon which the story is built, which made covering a known corpus of content all the more interesting because of the players involved.

The world that I plan to end is the world where I have ideas about things I’m going to do instead of the results of things I did.

The world that I plan to end is the world where I feel like it might be career suicide to say that I won’t come to a 8A meeting unless it’s dire urgent, because I want to have the ability to see my kids in the morning.

The world that I plan to end is the world where I acquire more things than I retire/sell/donate.

The world that I plan to end is the one where I have allowed to lapse the fact that I brought my wife flowers on my way home from work every Friday.

The world that I plan to end is the one where I continue to perpetrate white collar crimes of humanity on my garage, and instead actually learn how to build what I really want out there.

The world that I plan to end is the one where I watch re-runs of certain TV shows over and over again.

The world that I plan to end is the one where I don’t fully utilize my vacation time each year.

The world that I plan to end is the one where I dwell on the near misses of greatness in my career, or on the amazing trajectories of the careers of people I know.

The world that I plan to end is the one where I first seek to be understood, instead of seeking to understand.

The world that I plan to end is the one where I stand on the sidelines during a the public discussion of a major public policy issue.

What will you end in your world tomorrow?

I was watching the most excellent “Gangs of New York” this weekend and something stuck in my head as it relates to the coming release of the Microsoft Surface.

Prepare for a little trip, as I am going to venture off into crazy town with this post.  Let me state now, very clearly – I have not used a Microsoft Surface.  I have passing knowledge of Windows 8.  I do not use on a daily machine yet, though I am very excited about it.  I have handled a few Windows 8 and Windows RT devices.

Back to the movie: In the opening scene, Daniel Day Lewis and Liam Neeson have at it with words, and then they have at with all manner of wicked weapons.  The point of the fight was to discern the group that can claim right to the 5 Points – where five streets came together in New York City.

Let’s draw some analogies to the computing world.  In this case, the natives led by Day Lewis, were fighting alone – we’ll call them the Apple camp.  The foreigners were led by Neeson, but in reality there were multiple groups who came to their side – 6 groups in this case.  Let’s call this the Microsoft camp with the aid of the OEMs.  To continue this analogy, the 5 Points is then the intersection of computing, gaming, content, games and apps.

Neeson loses the first go round, and thus sets up the rest of the movie.  It’s never stated clearly in the movie what events brought us to this conflict short of the soliloquy of Day Lewis tinged with xenophobic rage.  Though while the Neeson camp came with numbers, they did not triumph.

The Microsoft ecosystem, though while it had numbers, succumbed to the ferocity of the Apple onslaught.  It didn’t matter that the OEMs were willing to fight alongside Microsoft, they weren’t fighting an inspired fight.

The story moves forward a handful of years and DiCaprio (Neeson’s son) takes the lead in the movie.  His is a cause born of revenge.  Revenge is a challenging lubricant.  It doesn’t inspire others.  You will find yourself alone in your cause.  However, as DiCaprio transitions from fighting out of vengeance to fighting for a cause (specifically, ridding the 5 Points of tyranny and injustice), he begins to build his following.  He identifies a need in the population, and exploits it to achieve his specific goal.

Years of uninspired PC manufacturing was a cause born of complacency.  When it was clear that the iPad had dealt a serious blow, the reaction was that born of vengeance.  Do more of the same, and hope for a different result.  As much as it pains me to make this analogy, the Surface is DiCaprio in the third act of the movie.  How?  Keep reading.

Venturing on a bit of an orthogonal now.  Why do people love their iPads?  Why are they selling so many?  Well, they are great entertainment devices, and they allow people to accomplish most of their computing needs.  They are not full on productivity replacements.  Despite what Apple might tell you, or any of the fan boys, they are not legitimate replacements for computers.  They just aren’t.  Even Jobs intoned that people don’t need trucks.  Working on documents and spreadsheets on an iPad is not the most productive experience.  It can be done, but at a much lower productivity rate than with a proper keyboard, easy task switching.  However, the iPad did something much more critical – it inspired people.  They craved the device.

Apple talks about their iPad share, but they don’t talk about their Mac share.  They are controlling the battlefield by defining the metrics for success.  iPhones and iPads are the shiny new thing, and that’s what is being reported – and of course, they are the undisputed leader.  The reality, however, is that PC sales far outstrip iPad sales.  Many will say “for now” and they have reason to.  PCs, in their current manifestation, cannot solve the problem the iPad solves in an elegant way.

People need to stop thinking about Windows 8 tablets, and Windows 8 laptops, and Windows 8 PCs as if they are separate things.  Ballmer and company get this, and have begun referring to them as “devices.”  Devices.  This slight shift in nomenclature has the potential to tilt the battlefield back in Microsoft’s favor.  They can now claim numerical superiority.  Picture the headline – “Windows ships on 1 billion devices!”

Next orthogonal.  Have you noticed a lot of work or noise going into the Windows Phone 8 brand?  I have been out of the company long enough that I have no idea what they are doing over there.  It would not surprise me if the lack of a Windows Phone 8 brand marketing is specifically because the shift to that word – devices – is because the powers that be in big Windows (i.e the Sinofsky camp) want to report on Windows 8 licenses shipping on devices.  Remember, Windows Phone 8 is Windows 8 at its core.

So coming back to this DiCaprio as the Surface idea.  What was that all about?  Here goes…The Surface is a product that finally allows the legions of Microsoft fans to get what they want.  To get the laid back entertainment screen (apps, games, news, email), and a full up operating system for productivity work.  Let’s not forget the true killer app in Office.  It’s still very relevant.  Please don’t come at me with Google apps.  Even with our iPad, my wife still does virtually all of her work on her Macbook Air.  Why?  Convenience and productivity.

The Surface is pretty (so is DiCaprio, but that point is not relevant here).  It’s light.  Way lighter than any laptop.  It will weight just a teeny bit more than an iPad.  It’s way cooler than any laptop.  But most importantly, it is inspiring the OEMs.  It’s showing them that there is innovation and coolness left in the Windows legacy.  It’s demonstrating that the OEMs should necessarily roll over while the iPad eats their lunch.  But there’s something that Windows 8 gives me that I cannot get today – device nirvana.

Last orthogonal.  When I travel now, I have to make several screen related decisions.  iPad or Kindle Fire HD?  Kindle Fire HD or Kindle Paperwight?  Laptop or iPad?  I haven’t yet found my travel device nirvana, and it’s mostly because I am still tied to my PC.  I love having a laptop.  My 7” Fire HD is my goto device for consuming books, movies, magazines, games and the web, but I want to be inspired to create content.  I could never have written this blog post on my iPad.  Nor on my Fire HD.  Yet it took me a while to write it because I have my laptop hooked up to a big screen in my office, and as completely lame as this sounds, it feels like too much work to unhook everything and take it to the other room.  I would just as soon leave it here on my desk, because here is where I do real work.

The ability to rip a screen of an attached keyboard – exactly like the Surface – would allow me to plug in to work in my office, or take my laid back experience to the couch.  I could do my content creating while also having the ability to lighten up the device and do some content consumption.  Which brings this back to why it’s good for me.  You know who does really well in a situation like this?  The screen agnostic content provider.  Have you seen Kindle for Windows 8?  It’s in the Microsoft Store…you should check it out. <g>

I believe that Windows 8 is going to do well, though I think it’s going to take some time to get its legs.  If I were Apple, I would actually be very concerned about the reality of history repeating itself.  As Derek Sivers posted, ideas are fine, but execution matters.  Is it possible that Apple’s execution has only been great, and not brilliant?  They haven’t cracked the corp nut yet, so it’s not crazy to say that they haven’t truly capitalized on their brilliant idea by selling the majority of their devices to consumers.  Doing a version of a brilliant idea is at best a great idea, perhaps a good idea, but if executed brilliantly, well, that’s a nice outcome.  Microsoft has played that game before.  Windows (vs. Mac) and Office (vs. WordPerfect & Lotus) stand as testimony.

One of my favorite things to say is that “we are living in the future.”  I am unbelievably excited about all of the technological change that is going on right now, but I am in fact really excited about Windows 8 and what it means for the computing I do.  A Surface plus my 7” Fire HD?  That’s the lightest bag I have ever packed for any vacation.

Extra credit: super ultra mega crazy idea for Microsoft.  Allow OEMs to sell Windows 8 devices to enterprise account holding customers (this is a specific type of customer of Microsoft, and they represent a gajillion Windows licenses) without a Windows 8 OS on it.  Why?  Well, the “Microsoft tax” immediately goes away, and most of those companies have already paid for their licenses with the EA agreement (or whatever it’s called now).  As long as the device can see a System Center Server, it can be provisioned.  If I were a field person worried about iPads taking share in the enterprise, this sure would grease the skids for a bunch of Windows 8 tablets to fly off the shelves.