The Outdoor Journey

We’ve moved!

John — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 01:01:04 +0000

Yes, this publishing project has come back to life. Just not here.

We’ve refined our mission and can now be found at TerraFreak.com. Come! Join us for great new articles, profiles and everything you need to have a grand adventure outdoors!

Sins of the Semester I have great aspirations of being the Super Multi-Tasker. Fortunately,...

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The Interview That Never Was

John — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 17:22:10 +0000

A few years ago, I had the great pleasure of striking up an acquaintance with John MacLaren, fitness coach and former Navy SEAL. John was kind enough to talk about the importance of strength training for endurance athletes as well as some of his work with actor Tom Jane, now of the HBO series “Hung,” to get buff for his role in the superhero movie “The Punisher.”

During one of our many chats, John started talking about his older brother Jim and how proud he was of his accomplishments. He went on to describe how Jim was 300-pound defensive end for the Yale football team and one night in 1985, while riding his motorcycle in New York City, was broadsided by a 20-ton bus. He was pronounce dead upon arrival at the hospital. Abbreviating the story a bit, his brother survived and left the story missing his left leg below the knee.

Jim recovered and went on to compete in the Hawaii Ironman and the New York City Marathon. It was during the bike leg of one of his 1993 triathlons that a van was misdirected onto the closed course. Jim hit it and was launched head first into a telephone pole, breaking his neck and leaving him a quadriplegic.

“That guy is your brother?!” I asked. “Man, I never made the connection. Everybody in triathlon knows the story of Jim MacLaren. He’s an amazing and inspirational man.”

We discussed trying to set something up where I would interview Jim and do a piece about desire, willpower and what it takes to overcome obstacles and do so with a smile on your face. For reasons I can’t recall, we were never able to get that interview going and I was saddened to learn this morning that Jim passed away earlier this week. He was 47.

You can learn more about Jim’s life from his web site and this brief remembrance at Triathlete Magazine.

The family is asking that Jim be remembered by making a donation to the Challanged Athlete’s Foundation through the Jim MacLaren Memorial page.

Since thinking about Jim’s death today, I can only think of just how fitting the following is. When Meher Baba, Pete Townsend’s spiritual advisor, died, the act was not mourned as a loss, but rather a celebration. In the eyes of his followers, Baba hadn’t really died.

He simply dropped his physical body.

Looking for the Gentilcore Interview? I ran an interview with strength and conditioning guru Tony...

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Training for Ultra Running

Chef Emanuela — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 11:30:02 +0000

This is a great short video on what it takes to be an ultra runner.

ULTRA RUNNER from Cedar Wright on Vimeo.

Five Resistance Training Myths in the Running World To keep up with the latest triathlon training tips, as...
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Where in the Hell Have I Been?

John — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 17:47:36 +0000

To all three remaining readers, my apologies for the appearance of abandoning this project. I won’t go into any great detail on the why aspect of my absence. It’s just not that interesting as there are no major illnesses, life-changing events, or any other heart-wrenching dramas in my life. There are two simple reasons:

Lack of energy. I have a “real” job, family responsibilities and made the daft decision go to back to school and slog through a fairly challenging pre-med curriculum. Having the mental juice to sit down in front of a computer at night to write good content, not just cookie-cutter pablum, just isn’t there.
Lack of interest. Yup, although I love endurance sports, I’m bored with the subject. Once I started back in school, I thought I could juggle all of my responsibilities with proper time management. Well, I got bitch-smacked one semester and realized time management is a farce. The real skill is energy management. To stay on top of my studies and keep peace in the family, something had to give and that was the long weekend runs, swims and bike rides. I had to find something that could be trained in 20-minute increments. So, since I wasn’t training for races anymore, I lost interest in exploring the topic.

Now, this does not mean I am shutting the site down. Not by a long shot. At the risk of coming off like a pretentious ass, there are some great articles in here. I still have several articles in various stages of completion that I will wrap up and post and when I get my life back, in about 10 years or so, I will return to endurance sports.

Thanks for your support over the past couple of years and please do continue to drop by from time to time. The best way to know when I’ve published something new is to subscribe to the RSS feed. Or, if you want, you can friend me on Facebook or Twitter, and I’ll let you know when the next article is posted.

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A Pirate’s Conquest of Ironman St. George

John — Sat, 08 May 2010 00:13:46 +0000

One of my favorite amateur endurance athletes to follow online is the Dread Pirate Rackham. We’ve tracked each other’s exploits for the past three years — me more than her since I’ve pretty much been exploitless since going back to school — and I’m a huge fan of her sense of humor and quick wit. We also kind of met on Heartbreak Hill during the 2007 Mt. Taylor Winter Quad. She was part of a relay team and was walking down Heartbreak because her race was over. As a soloist, I was going up that friggin’ hill and barely recognized her between curses.

Well, ol’ Rackham wrote a beautiful post about her experience at Ironman St. George. If you want to know what it’s like to do a full distance triathlon, take 10 minutes to give it a read.

Training with the munchkins Cheers to triathlete and winter quad heroine Jane, aka, the...
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Farewell, but not Goodbye, to The Daily Grind

John — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 17:57:52 +0000

One of my favorite bloggers appears to be hanging up his hat: Joseph Vinciquerra of The Daily Grind. He’ll still be around on Facebook and for those of you who are into that (including me), I would encourage you to hook up with Joseph there and continue to follow his exploits and learn from his experiences.

Farewell Randy Pausch Professor Randy Pausch, the Internet phenomenon and accidental inspirational lecturer,...
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John — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 22:34:15 +0000

I’m apparently in Twitter mode here with all of these short updates. I have several feature articles on tap and just haven’t made the time to get them done. I’m considering changing directions with The Outdoor Journey and will address that once summer arrives. In the meantime, here’s a great quote from Hugh Jackman on his diet prep for Wolverine. Love the Aussie sense of humor: ““I think we’ve wiped out entire gene pools of chickens,” he said. “I know to any vegetarians out there, I really apologize. It’s just so much tofu you can eat.”

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Cycling Siren: Buying Motivation

John — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:58:14 +0000

The 2010 road racing season is getting underway and if you’re having some challenges getting inspired to get your ass off the couch and on the bike, Hilary Crowley (aka Cycling Siren) has a few tips to get you motivated.

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Beginning meditation

John — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:00:43 +0000

From Steven Barnes: “The most powerful safe form of Meditation I know (not all safe meditations are effective, not all effective ones are safe) is called “Heartbeat Meditation.” It is simplicity itself: you sit and feel your heartbeat in your body. The more you relax, the easier it is to feel. After you’ve mastered this, you can feel your heartbeat in your yoga, your Tai chi, walking down the street, going to sleep, or any other time. Powerful. Try it for a minimum of 15 minutes a day. It is a darned fine beginning to a personal practice.”

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“You’re killing your children…”

John — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:37:01 +0000

Words from Chef Jamie Oliver to a mother after reviewing what she was feeding her children every week.

If you’re a parent, you should watch this. I’m not sure what we can do to change this on level that it needs to be changed. I’ll leave that up to people smarter than me. However, we can all start this movement where it counts most: In our homes.

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