the finish is the start and mental toughness

First the updates
1. Had a day of interviews on the Coast it went well. People were very excited about the swim and what it can mean for the Coast. First did a TV interview on the morning news show followed directly by a radio interview. Both went well and both pledged to help where they could.
2. Met with Drew Allen, a long time family friend who owns a Pepsi distributership on the coast. He offered to help with contacts and a sponsorship.
3. Stopped in at the Lynne Meadows Discovery Center (a kids museum) in Gulfport and met with Betsy Grant, the mother of my best friend from 9th grade. I would like their museum to see some benefit from the swim and they offered any asssistance they could give.
4. Met with Kathy Short, the wife of Dr. Short, a friend of my father. They are also helping with Coast contacts and the Mississippi State Government. A wealth of ideas and opportunities.
5. Have pretty well decided that the charitable arm of Rocketkidz will be free one or two day camps for kids that will be health and fitness based. We will look to raise enough money to put on multiple day camps in each town. If the cash is there.
6. Had a recovery week swimming which was fun as I always get some fast workouts to do.
7. Spent the weekend in New Orleans with my wife. Had an incredible time. She is an incredible woman.

As each day passes this thing grows another leg. What I am begining to realize is that what I thought was the end, the actual swim, will in fact probably be the start. I am cool with that. It is a challlenge that will push me to the edges of what I know is possible swimming, but in essence it is a cry of HEY DONT FORGET ABOUT THE COAST! The kids there need this. A one day camp with education adn fitness and fun would be a day they didn't have to think about the troubles on the Coast. Our goal is to do 4-5 one day camps in each town. Each day would be the same, but we would offer it to a different group of 100 kids each day so as to get maximum impact. We would provide a means for them to carry on throughout the year as well. I am fired up about it. It is going to be a lot of work, but very rewarding.

The actual swimming is coming along well. I will do another long swim next weekend 5hrs. It is kind of weird. Right now typing 5 hours makes me begin to think about how long it will take, but in reality, once I get in the water the time goes by pretty quickly. The hardest hour is always the second one. I guess it is because it still feels lik you are on the way out and not on the way back. Shelly and I have talked a lot about mental toughness and her concerns with me being able to not go crazy doing all this. I have thought a lot about "mental toughness" and have figured out some things.
1. I decided from the get go that I would do whatever it took to prepare correctly for this swim as to do otherwise would risk not finishing it. Having done that I almost look forward to every single workout, no matter how long it takes me. Since I look forward to it, I never give myself the opportunity to dread them. I get a little boost everyday that I finish one.
2. I have the ability to ignore what I am doing. In other words, I just don't even think that what I am doing is that hard so I just keep on doing it. It never enters my mind to stop as I just keep on rolling.
3. I was reading an article on mental toughnes by Joe Friel (relatively famous triathlon coach) and he broke mental toughness down into four components. i have forgotten all but one of them. I could align myself with the three of them I have forgotten, but the one that caught my eye was confidence. I am confident that I will finish the swim in the time frame I have set for myself. The reasons behind this confidence are simply the facts that I am completing the training I need to and see and feel tangible results. I don't know how my confidence level would be if I were say swimming a meet. Probably a bit different, but possibly still confident enought to swim a certain time in a certain event. If that time was one of the fastest, I would think that I would have confidence in winning the event. What is interesting to me is that I do not race triathlons with the same confidence. I am confident I will win every swim and that I will do well on the bike, but I never feel like I will run with confidence to finish the race. I have come off the bike winning the race and beleived in my heart that other racers will chase me down. I press on the run and eventually they do. I have also come to realize that if I trained for the run like I have trained for this swim I will gain some confidence because I will know what to expect. That is the deal. Confidence comes from knowing what you are capable of because your training will dictate the paces you can hold and what you can expect on race day. You may not win, but you will be able to go out and have a performance expectation. In addition, if you have trained at certain speeds and paces, you will know how fast you have the potential to go. Then you go and do it. Now that I have broken it down it seems simple, right? Hahahaha!

I am sitting here getting ready to play an acoustic show tonight at a local bar. One of my best friends Bill Rhodes is in town and the band he played in in college is doing a reunion show. I was supposed to have my band together for this as well, but my guys bailed on the idea. No worries, I will go at it alone! I still got the rock in me.

I was thinking of tracking different weird stats for my training, like avg. calories a day, strokes per lap, etc. but to be honest I am not a numbers tracking type of person. I think this is part of the reason I love to have a coach. I just do whatever they say and don't question it. If I had to come up with it on my own I tend to do nothing. I never keep training logs etc. So you get the stats and other interesting things I think of when I am swimming. Here are some of them:

1. I take 360-366 strokes per 400 m in open water. I tried to count to 1000 a couple of times but my mind wandered. If I carry that out I will take 3600 per hour (6 min per 400m, so I cover 10 400's per hour) and if it takes 16 hours i will take approximately 57600 for the 32 miles.
2. I will try to listen to only songs I love for the hours leading up to the race. All this does is guaranty that I will get some god-awful song stuck in my head. Here is an example. This past week I had a 3 hour workout. I usually get up 30-45 minutes earlier than I am going to go swim so I can wake up and have some coffee/eat something. I listend to a playlist of songs that only has stuff I like on it. I hit the water and Mr. Jones by the Counting Crows popped into my head and stayed for the entire time. Suffice it to say, I am not a Counting Crows fan, I don't neccesarily hate them, but all I could imagine was this dude, Adam Durst's voice wavering all over sounding so whiny and serious...ughh I wanted to ram my fingers in my eyes. I searched through my brain to see what had malfunctioned and when I had heard that song and figured out it was 3 days earlier over breakfast in New Orleans. That just ain't right.
3. I swim with my mouth open. I don't know why, I just do. I guess I slowly let air escape my lungs as I put my head in. I swim a long looking like a humpback whale straining kids pee and whatever else is in the pool straight through my mouth. I need to stop this as salt water is probably going to tear my mouth up, not to mention I am going to be filtering plankton and sewerage and whatever else is in the gulf. Anyone who has any tips let me know.
4. I realized the other day that I don't stare at the black line in the pool. Some people dread staring at the line. I somehow focus soemwhere else, or just let my eyes go out of focus and not look at anything until i am just about to slam into the wall, flipturn and go the other way.

MUSIC SELECTION FOR THE WEEK: Wired All Wrong-Nothing at All. Got this free on iTunes a month or so and it grows on me. Kind of out there.
KISS-I Was Made for Loving You. Always reminds me of "playing" KISS. I was always Paul Stanley or Ace Freely. Me and this kid Kevin Riser used to play boat paddles and rock out to KISS ALIVE II and LOVE GUN when I was 9. My parents actually took me and 4 other 9-14 year olds to a KISS concert at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum. Some stoner blew dope the whole show and poured a 32 oz beer on my dad, then a 49 year old Pavorotti fan. Classic.

FOOD FOR FUEL-Mornings 1 cliff bar and 2 cups of coffee. During Endurox mixed half strength. Post swim Endurox and whatever else I can get my hands on. Usually a burrito. This may make some mad, but since I am swimming so much I eat and drink whatever I want within reason. I have to be careful though as I could eat a bag of Hot Tamales and forgo dinner. This is counter productive.

this has been a long one.
thanks for your support and continuing to read and dontae.
rocketboy

PS Stealth training begins this week...yes that means more training for other events.

i am a freak

That is an over or understatement, depending on how well you know me, so before you start trying to figure out why I declare my freakiness today I will explain. My heart may possibly be as big as a horse's, and I don't mean from a "he's got a lot of heart," standpoint. I mean physically my heart is either big as a horses or just extremely efficient and strong. For those of you who are not avid endurance athletes, heart rate is a key indicator of your physical fitness and a good way to measure your exertion level. Most athletes have a lower resting heart rate due to an "in shape" heart. Lance Armstrongs resting heartrate is 32. An average resting heart rate is between 60-90. My resting heart rate is 38. Maximum heart rates are approximately 220- your age. Interestingly his maximum is 200+. My max is somewhere around 175. WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN?? For reasons I don't know I am able to maintain a relatively large effort while maintaining a low heartrate by comparrison. Today was possibly the most freaked I have been by my heart rate.
This morning, Ed Hardin, a friend of mine, met me at my house so he could come row while I swam. I had 3.5 hours planned, but Shelly and I talked about it Friday and decided if I felt okay I would go 16000m or 4 hours whichever came first. We got to the lake at 5:45 and I was in the water for 6:00. It was still completely dark. Really a strange sensation to say the least. It was good for me though as I will be doing the 32 in the middle of the night so as not to have to swim in the sun. The first 4000 was a little slow as I couldn't see at all. I fell into a rhythm after the 2nd hour and really felt smoother than last week. I never even considered not swimming the full 4 hours and was easily on my 4000 per hour pace. I got some body glide for the neck chaffage this week and the neck felt pretty good too. So on and on I went feeling smooth and relaxed and hitting my pace. I figured my heart rate was staying below 120 and it was not going up. I finished up and stopped the watch. 3:56:14 for 16000 m. Average heart rate holding 1:30 pace, 97. BEHOLD THE FREAK!
On other notes, I have a media day in Mississippi next Thursday. I have a TV and radio interview Thursday morning in Biloxi and then a meeting with a lady who has big contacts to folks on the Coast. I am excited. It could mean a lot to getting the sponsorship going. On that note I had a friend from high schools father email and say he would personally donate $1000. I was blown away. I am the type to give a lot of what I have to others, but am amazed to find not as many big companies are lining up to. Maybe that's why they are big successful companies. I just know that if I am ever a big company and some yahoo emails me and says he is going to swim 32 miles (or run marathons or do pushups) for kids charities, that I will whip out the checkbook...fast.

MUSIC OF THE WEEK: I spent the whole ride to Prairieville today listening to a band called Verbow from Chicago that played the mid-late 90's. Dec 23, 1998, I think, two friends of mine and i were bored and we drove to New Orleans on a whim. We ended up @ Jimmy's and this band was playing. We were the only people in the club. They blew me away. A chick played cello through a Marshall half-stack and nearly peeled the skin off my face. AWESOME! Irony, I listended to 3 songs by them only to have My Poor Brain (no pun intended) by the Foo Fighters stuck in my head for 4 hours. I hadn't listened to that song in a month easy.

FAVORITE WORKOUT: Did this on Thursday and for some reason loved it. I think if i have a favorite interval distance, it is 400's. Just long enough to be long and short enough so I don't lose count.

1. 800 (every 4th 50 back or breast)
400 pull
200 kick choice

2. 4 x 400 @ 6:10 breath every 3
4 x 50 @ :45 pick up heart rate
1 min rest
3 x 400 @ 6:00 breath every 3
3 x 50 @ :40 fast
1 min rest
2 x 400 @ 5:50 breath every 3
2 x 50 @ :40 fast
1 min rest
1 x 400 @ 5:45
1 x 50--try to go :35 or :36

3. 100 easy

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: After finishing swimming for four hours I am staggering up the dock as blood begins to return to my extremities, my friend Ed who just rowed for 4 hours says, "Man are my hip flexors sore, that was hard work." I nearly passed out from my eyes rolling so fast. He gets a pass though as he rowed around in the dark and in circles for 4 hours.

rocketboy

why do it?

what motivates you?
what defines who you are and what you stand for?
what do you want to be when you grow up?
who do you want to be everyday?
if someone were to describe you to someone else who never met you, what would they say?
you mean you aren't getting paid for this?
is your heart in it?
are you for real?
can you make it?
are you really going to swim 32 miles?
why would you do that?

I don't have the answers to most of these questions. I ask them to myself everyday. They are hard questions and some have no logical answers. Last night I sat there fumbling for words when my father-in-law asked me one of the above questions. He didn't know it, but in essesnce he was asking me all of them. I tried to explain about everything, sponsors, the coast, proposals, swim a thons, but the words sounded foolish, as if the notion and idea that I could raise a lot of money for kids fitness was a joke. I shut up and let the conversation move on. In the end the idea made no sense to him. I would go swim 12 miles and swim everyday to prepare to swim 32 for nothing? It is funny how people react to the idea of this swim. They seem to be all in, all out, or simply it doesn't register. I am not a mountain climber. I do not have the "I swam it because it was there" mentality. I choose my challenge. This is not a race against others. It is a race against and for myself. We all have the moments in our lives where something has to give. We have to do "something". Many of us never seize what may be the one chance to do that "something". In a nutshell, that is what I am doing. In my past I have made and broken promises to myslef and to others. I have talked a big game. This time I am backing it up. How much of what we say on a daily basis can we deliver on? Many who know me have heard me talk of many things that I would like to do, restaurant ideas, quitting everything to start a new career, coaching, directing races, ironman, whatever. I truly beleive I will do many of these items but sometimes I put too much on my plate and some say you can't do everything. I may not do everything, but I will try to do as much as I can.
I will be 100% up front and honest with you. This swim is about kids, it is about the coast, it is about the unattainable, it is about swimming and it is about the biggest physical and mental challenge I have ever taken on. It is also about who I am and what I stand for. I have no horror stories. I have a great life. I am truly blessed. I am not super human or better than other people. In the end, I am just a guy who said,"I bet I could swim the length of the Mississippi Coast to raise money for the people there." How many times in life have you said you would do something and not followed through. Once, twice a thousand times?

I may not raise $1,000,000.00, but I can assure you all of one thing.

I will see it through to the end, until the 32nd mile, and at least one kid will live a healthy life because of it.
I guess that is two things.
I thank you all for your continued support.

rocketboy

PS and I may raise $2,000,000.00

stoked

12000 m (8miles)
2:51:37 (1:25 pace per 100)

I am stoked to say the least. I swam at a friend Darryl's ski lake today. It is cool because it is 400m one way so it is easy to break it up. The time went by pretty quickly, more so than if in a pool. Had two great support guys, Jody and Ty who rowed in circles for almost 3 hours. I also used watered down Endurox, essentially Accelerade for my nutrition. It seemed to work okay. It is hard to tell as when you swim for 3hrs your shoulders are going to hurt, whether that means your nutrition is working or not, I am unsure. I am most happy about this swim from a heart rate standpoint. Because of the wetsuit i am able to stretch it out and get a lot of distance out of each stroke. This also keeps the heart rate low and makes it easier overall. One negative was how much I had to sight. My neck will be sore tomorrow and i was actually finding it hard to lift my head all the time to make sure I was swimmming straight. I will say this, my speed per 800 picked up when i wasn't swimming all over the place so watching where you are going has its perks. I also feel like I wore a sandpaper necktie for a day or so as even though the DeSoto wetsuit I have has a low neckline and is extremely comfortable, anytime you turn your head to the side 3,000 times in a row you are going to get some chaffage. No worries.

We have some big days coming up from a sponsorship aspect this week. The contact at United States Masters Swimming is going to try and get the Masters Board of Directors on board for our swim and may possibly get it sanctioned. This is parramount to getting teams on board. In addition, I have a preliminary commitment from a guy at Accelerade/Endurox to help in a sponsorship realm. Another call to Times is coming in this week as we will know something one way or another from Nike. Finally, I sent in a sponsorship form to CLIFF bar.

Our website is up but not completely filled with content. It looks great, but know we will have information up this week. There will be a payment gateway for donations, picture, and information on the swim. We will also have t-shirts etc. available. Here is the address: www.rocketkidzfoundation.com.

MUSIC FOR THE WEEK: one of my employees gave me a gift certificate to iTunes and I ended up getting two classics.

U2: Under a Blood Red Sky: I could close my eyes and be transported back to the coast in 1986 driving around town listening to this tape over and over. U2 is the band that got me into music. It was like nothing else I had ever heard. It moved you emotionally. It made you want to be a rock star.

Journey: Greatest Hits: Who doesn't smile when you hear the beginning of "Anyway You Wannt It?". Classic cheese....velveeta style.

2. Book of the week: The Starbucks Experience: % principles for Turning Ordinary to Extraordinary

3. Quote of the week: Conditions are never just right. People who delay action until all factors are favorable do nothing. 
William Feather

Have a good week.
rocketboy

big week

35000 m this week. A little over 24 miles. The pool at Crawfish got moved to long course (there is a bulkhead that slides up and done the pool and it goes from 2 25m pools to 1 50m pool. This was of great benefit to me as it really makes you work harder. As the week started out, I had a hard time keeping my intervals, but kept positive and had a great week culminating with today's set 100x100's. My friend Mandy swam it with me. She is awesome and it helps to have someone with you during these swims. We finished in about 2:35-2:40. It showed me a lot about my fitness. Cardiovascualry I was not challenged at all. This is great as this whole swim will hopefully be an aerobic event (i.e. slow and steady). Muscularly I became fatigued as would be expected. I think if I had to put it into a tangible perspective, I could probably swim half way today. This may sound discouraging to some, but I have only been training for two full months so I am extremely happy. I still have 3 months to go. I have upped the distance and have so far remained injury free. I still have two big hurdles with my training. One is to get my nutrition nailed down. I have yet to start really experimenting with different sports drinks in the pool as most of my swims are only about 2 hrs. I can drink gatorade for these short swims. I need to start using something more substantial. I also may start using some recovery drinks to help stay strong. The other need is to swim in open water more. I have tried to schedule two long outside swims, but the weather has been uncooperative. I will try again on new years day or the 2nd. I am going to have to see how much longer I can maintain doing dry lands with the team as I am running of of time daily. I will start doing some core work daily at home. I may look at doing a full body circuit as well. I thought that some people may like to see sample workouts for their own use or just to know what I am doing. Here is today's
100 x 100
10x100 on 1:40 warm up
20x100 on 1:35 swim
10x100 on 1:30 swim
20x100 on 1:30 pull (10 w/ paddles 10 without)
10x100 on 1:35 swim
10x100 on 1:30 pull with paddles
10x100 on 1:30 with fins
Had to run outside and finish as the pool was being filled with kids!
4x100 3 sec rest
300 3 sec rest
200 3 sec rest
200 3 sec rest
100 easy backstroke

As far as other matters are concerned, I am still waiting to hear back from multiple sponsors. It has been a difficult 2 weeks in that regard because I have extra time to work on things, but everyone else is on holiday time. The big push comes on the 2nd.
Here are a couple of more things that I will try and do every week.
1. Favorite meal of week: Burrito on WW tortilla w/ chicken, black beans, cheese, pico, cilantro, corn salsa, jalapenos and chipotle bbq sauce.
2. Music for the week: found some old Dinosaur Jr. I hadn't heard in years, that and a band called Splender.
3. Book I am reading; I read Lynne Cox's Swimming to Antarctica- Stories from a long distance swimmer. Incredible swimming feats. Leaves you knowing anything is possible.
I also got some photos from my shoot. One is above it is after swimming/boiling in a wetsuit for 7000m. Funny.
Have a Happy New Year
rocketboy

music, haiku and rocketchix

Many of you who read this already knew that I played in college rock bands for many years and this is the constant tie in to music. I seem to always have one song or another going through my head. Though the basis of this blog is to keep you informed about the swim and how things are going, I think that a break from the black line on the bottom of the pool would be welcome. I know that it is late for shopping for Christmas, but here is some of my favorites music wise.
Muse: Black Holes and Revelations
Butch Walker and the Let's Go Out Tonites: The Rise and Fall of Butch Walker and the Let's Go Out Tonites
The Raconteurs: Broken Boy Soldiers
Tonic: Lemon Parade-about 8-10 old but great.
I am not the type to go on about how this band is so forward thinking or any of that crap. I listen to music to fire me up every morning on the way to the pool. The trip is only 5-10 minutes so I am lucky if I get in 2 songs. The other key to me is to not get some crap song stuck in my head for 2 plus hours. I find it amazing that I can listen to 2 songs on the way to swim and catch 2 seconds of the third not so good song on the way out of the car and that is the monotony stuck in my brain. Yesterday is a prime example, I listened to the following:
1. Muse-Hysteria pretty intense wakes you up kind of song,
2. Pearl Jam- Dissident
3. Four seconds of some 90's Michael Jackson song
I don't even know the name of the song but I think it is You Are Not Alone some feel good save the world drivel from the king of pop/child molestation. What is another phenomena altogether is the "How the hell did that get on my iPod?" dilemma. You have all been there, you are riding down the street with a friend and then Air Supply, "All Out of Love," or some Clay Aiken crap comes on and your distressed, caught in the act voice shouts out "How did that get on here?" knowing full and well it was there lurking deep in the bowels of the iPod waiting to come on, only when you are trying to act cool. Really unfair, but really when you downloaded that Supertramp album to hear the Logical Song, you had to know you were going to get Take the Long Way Home by default as well as 4 other big loser songs Supertramp wrote. I downloaded my friend Ryan's Michael Jackson Hits CD two years ago and when I got an iPod it got put on there with everything else.
I had a great week in other endeavors as well. Fellow tiriahtlete and business partner Susan Moss Hayden and I landed our big sponsor for Rocketchix, our women's only multisport series. This was a high coup. So is this.
Fluid action,
pallas athene glides
camaraderie abounds
We are putting on 2 tri's and are planning a 10k for next fall. Woman's Hospital will be the presenting sponsor for all three races.
As far as training is concerned I had a big mileage week 27,500 in four workouts and did drylands twice. I also got my wetsuit from Emilio at DeSoto Sport. I will write a review for it in another post, but suffice it so say it is comfortable and fast.
I could actually hang with Shelly in the pool yesterday in it. But this is a false sense of security as when I take it off she blows my freaking doors off. I feel great in the pool, strength is building and I feel like I am on the right track. Did an interview with 225 magazines and had a photo shoot at the pool yesterday. Nothing makes you feel like a bigger loser than referring to your own "photo shoot". I might as well refer to myself in the third person. I'll be sure to post some of the more losery pics.
THE ROCKETBOY WISHES YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS!

ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

turn and face the strain...i am not a huge bowie fan, but like this song. anything going through your head is cool when you are staring at the black line. this morning was 8000 meters. it actually wasn't too bad, and i held a good pace through the main set which was 5000 pretty much straight through. i am still feeling pretty strong as last week was a recovery week and i only swam a couple of times and (gasp) ran 3 times. one of my runs was hill repeats with my friend mike in cali. brutal. i will upload a picture of it in the manana as i don't have the cable right now, but sufice it to say that the elevation here is -8 feet below sea level and stays flat. the cali run was 16 x 200 or so hard with 200 easy down. i haven't run in two months and thought for sure I would be crippled the next day, but i guess some of the strength training i am doing is paying off as it wasn't too bad. to answer a few questions from an earlier post.
1. Erin-it is 59,000 yards in 32 miles. i am talking of individual workouts and the 4000-5000 range are short ones. i will build up to 15000 yard workouts. as with ironman yu never do the whole distance, you just keep building endurance.
2.Pato-good to see you this weekend. and yes i haven't posted due to work, travel for work, and being in the pool a lot. i also have been doing dryland circuits with 17 year old kids who are whopping my ass.
highlight of last weeks training was fridays workout which was only 4000, but it was straight through and in a wetsuit in the pool. i kept it aerobic and medium paced and finished in 53 minutes and change. i was fired up to be keeping 1:20 pace even if in the pool in a wetsuit. my goal for the event will be to hold 1:30 all day long. it's funny because this was the pace i "thought" i could hold when i first came up with this swim, but i quickly dismissed it as not possible. my coach is awesome and her workouts keep me challenged both in variety and in how fit they are getting me. this pace may actually be possible. this is huge as it takes me from my projsected 2 miles per hour to 2.5 or a time difference of 3 hours. even if i don't get thereit is a big jump.
on another note I am applying for my first "job" in, well besides restaurant jobs, ever. it has been challenging putting together my resume when i have 6-7 years of self-employment. it is for a job in a field i love so we shall see. i will continue to have the restaurant and do a few other things in the meantime.
changes indeed.
hope everyone reading this has a blessed christmas and happy new year.
rocketboy