On the Road Again!

Today marked a small milestone in my recent training log.  After being knocked on my butt for a the better part of a week by a head cold, I have now logged four days in a row.  It's a small victory but each day has been 15 minutes longer than the previous so that I am up to 1:15.  Today was not super-cold according to the thermometer but it felt much colder on the skin.  It also felt slow.  After last week, who cares!?  I'm happy to be running.  It is such a critical part of my life that living without for more than a few days wears on me.  One advantage of the chill in the air was that last night's mud was this mornings solid ground.

The last few runs (both before and after the hiatus) were completed in the New Balance MT 101's.  Admittedly, I was skeptical at first but have since become a fan.  My dad and I discuss running shoes and techniques at length and I think I've convinced him that less is more, which is one of the features I appreciate about the 101's.  From what I can tell, the heel and forefoot are roughly the same height.  As such, they give a similar benefit to running barefoot but with the added protection of a rock guard under the forefoot.  After reading "Born to Run" my dad is sold on the idea that heel striking is generally not a good thing.  Ironically, wearing through the heel of two paris of Nike Kantaras a few years back  didn't bear much weight.  Nonetheless, he's a fan now.  Growing up in Alamosa and doing our fall cross-country training at Cole Park, we ran barefoot on the grass all fall.  We did not do it because we were trying to be "minimalists" or make a statement, it just felt good and we could run faster without shoes.  The occasional twig, mud, gravel helped us toughen up our feet.  As I recall, I only had one major injury during my years running high school cross-country or track and that was a season where we didn't spend much time at the park.  I was also running in a pair of Saucony Procyons.  The heel on those was quite a bit higher than the forefoot and, to make matters worse, the heel was PU and I believe the forefoot was EVA.  I liken this to pulling a cement mixer behind a sedan.  The upper on the 101's isn't the most comfortable I've worn but it is fine with a pair of Smartwool socks.  I've yet to take them out on a "hardcore" trail but they've handled the roads around our house better than I expected.  Gravel tends to penetrate the forefoot of most shoes but not these.  I really enjoy my Vibram KSO's on wooded trails but there is a huge compromise in speed when running on any sort of rocky surface, including country roads with crusher fines.  They're great around town or on a treadmill.

The treadmill is an interesting place for the Vibrams.  The smart runner uses that winter training device to improve his form.  If you listen when running on a treadmill you'll either hear yourself clomping along (the hollow space under the machine makes it act like a drum) or you, hopefully, won't hear yourself at all.  I call this "quiet running."  A person would really have to have some ninja skills to run silently but it's a nice goal.  The idea is to run as fast as you can as quietly as you can.  This is achievable outdoors as well, especially on crunchy trails.  If you breathe with your mouth a little more open than usual, you can silence your breathing and then try to eliminate any noise from your footfall.  A few summers ago, I was practicing this technique on Miner's Creek Trail in Creede, CO and actually startled a deer while I was running at almost full speed.  I arrived within arms length before I realized she was there and slammed on the breaks.  The sound of the gravel scared her off but, had I been a cougar, she would have been an easy meal.  I wonder how many mountain lions have thought this of me.  It's probably better not to know.  "Quiet running" outside is a treat, to me.  On a windless day, without the sounds of my feet and breathing I have a sense of flying through the trees.  After a few minutes, a person becomes keenly aware of every twig crunching in a bush just out of view or barking marmot standing on a rock.  These are the runs that you never want to end.  

Musically, things are progressing towards an upcoming recording session.  I am preparing a little Mozart, Strauss, Stravinsky, Mahler and more.  I've spent a good amount of time on each of these and am pretty ready to put them aside for a little while and eat some turkey.

Today was far from a "perfect" day but definitely a good day in both categories.  Anyone in the Durango area is invited to the First United Methodist Church on the evening before Thanksgiving for an ecumenical service featuring an all-comers choir.  If you have any inner American Idols needing exercising, please come and join us at 5:30.  I'll be conducting the choir on a piece called "A Simple Thanksgiving" by Joseph Martin.  There will be homemade pie following the service.  Win-win!  

I'm still alive... but the mouse isn't

Ok, "Still Alive" is a bit of an exaggeration but not too far.  To compound last week's "embarrassingly low" mileage we have this week's cold, illness, whatever you want to call it.  I had hoped by Monday to be back on top of things and starting a steady progression of mileage and runs to discuss here but no such luck.  After struggling to make it through last night's choir rehearsal (read: ears plugged, head oscillating between being stuffed up or running like a faucet), I couldn't wait to go to bed.

The upshot of this is that I have been doing a fair amount of very focused practicing and even read a really cool book about the subject.  "Music Practice Coach" by Lance LaDuke is a very good read.  There are many funny stories and lots of reinforcement with his "SMART" system.  I am excited to share it with my students and hope they enjoy it as much as I did.  This is a required text for next semester.

So the coolest part of my day?  I think I taught my dog to catch mice.  Living out in the country, in an 1890's cabin is very cool.  Lots of trees, deer, elk, beavers, bears, and, unfortunately, mice.  We put out a great deal of those green cubes, traps of varying sizes, and the landlord put screens over most of the cracks between in the floor.  None of this has had the decisive effectiveness of Hannah Banana, or Hannah the Fearless as she is now called.  (For those who haven't met her, Hannah is a 9 year old short-haired Dachshund).  As I was sitting on the chair, drinking my coffee, a mouse ran across the floor.  She looked at me as if to say "Look Dad, a mouse, what do I do?" To which I replied "Get it, Hannah!" In the blink of an eye she jumped off the chair and pounced on the mouse.  Without even a twitch, the mouse was laying belly up, covered in slobber and clearly dead.  I told Hannah "Leave it!" and she looked up at me and wagged her tail.  Much praise, doggie snacks, and the best belly rub of her life followed as I disposed of the critter.  To my knowledge, Hannah has never killed anything but I couldn't be more pleased.  I'm all for "respect life" and "every life is precious" (my parents are kind of hippies) but when the possibility of Hantavirus or plague come waltzing in my house and leaving little "presents" every morning, it's search and destroy.  To make matters worse, when it's not frozen outside, there is a very healthy snake population on our little side of the mountain and the last thing we want is a rattlesnake colony under our house.  I am very proud of our little ball of fur.  I am truly surprised by how quickly she dispatched it too. She really just ran up to it, bit or squished it (I'm not entirely certain which) and left it.  That's my girl.

Hopefully I'll be back up and running (literally) this weekend or early next week.  Since there's nothing really on the horizon, I'm ok with taking this week off, setting some goals, doing some planning, and getting back to it next week.  In the meanwhile, I'm off to do a bit of strength training indoors. 1-2 sets of 100 pull-ups, any style.  I find that pull-ups do a decent job working abdominal muscles as well.  Perhaps its the tightening the core to engage the larger movers.  Good luck.  Don't forget the hand sanitizer!

Do what you must...

Ok so as much as I'd hoped to post this week's totals for practice and running... the numbers are pretty embarrassingly low, so we'll save that for next week.  We got quite a bit of dense, wet snow Saturday morning, but as of Thursday, I knew something was funny.  I seem to have acquired my annual cold (sore throat, achy bod, tired).  I only get about one of these a year and it's usually at Christmas so hopefully this is it.  So here's the moral of the story... do what you must.  Today, I spent most of it sleeping on the couch and trying to shake this thing before Monday.  Church commitments couldn't be avoided so I did what I had to.  I don't think I've ever sang a low G or F before but I did pretty well.  The higher notes kind of kicked my butt though.  I'm usually good through F but D was all I had today.  (Look at me, I sound like a real singer!) Saturday, I had to shovel the driveway (and the porch about 3 times), stoke the fire, and practice some audition music.  I got a good amount of work done, but why Strauss felt it necessary to write for E-flat clarinet 2 octaves above the staff is beyond me.  Friday, I committed to attending a Chamber Choir Concert.  The Liebesleider Waltzes are loads of fun.  I made a commitment to clean the house from top to bottom, so I did.  See the thread here... despite not feeling up to it, I kept my commitments.  Somedays, that's a victory in itself.  I hope to be back up to speed with training and practicing tomorrow.  Daylight savings should help this.  Go out and keep your commitments and manage the rest, maybe even make the rest something beautiful.

The "Perfect" Day.

As it is now, this blog is still under construction.  I am working to make it look just so.  According to the Enneagram test I took last week, I'm a Type 1... prone to perfectionism.  We'll see where this goes.

After noticing how busy I was between practicing and training, a friend asked me a few years ago, "so, what would your perfect day look like?"  I didn't have a great answer at the time I just told them something about having both running and clarinet-ing (I hope you'll permit me the indulgence of inventing a word).  Recently, I've thought more about what are known as KRA's or Key Result Areas.  Sometimes a run is just a run but perfection in this sense is defined by what measurable goals are being met.  

According to Itzhak Perlman, students should practice no more than 3 hours a day.  According to Arthur Lydiard, athletes should train somewhere in that range too.  What a coincidence!  One other statistic to consider is that Malcolm Gladwell did a study on violinists in Berlin and found that those that achieved "world class" proficiency had accumulated 10,000 hours of focused practiced.  Generally this took about 10 years.  So if we do a little math... 3 hours/day, 7 days/week= 21 hours/week, 50 weeks/year (two off for a little R and R)= 1050 hours/year!  By these numbers in a little less more than 9.5 years a person will be "world class" provided that their practice/training is focused and specific to their growth.  With running, that's usually easy... get to full volume, put on the HRM and stay within the zone, throw in some high quality speed sessions and a long run or two and there you go (ok, it's not quite that simple but that's the basic Lydiard model).  With musical practice, it's really easy to be lulled into less than focused practice.  Because we're dealing with neurons and not muscles (generally) progress can be much faster but it can be lead awry very easily too.  

So what is a perfect day?  "Perfect" is not a great word so maybe we should ask, "what are the KRA's for this day?"  I think my answer is already here... 3 and 3.  The nice thing about this is that it leaves plenty of time for other things including eating, sleeping, lounging, reading, blogging, etc.  Tony Robbins says: "Most people overestimate what they can accomplish in a year - and underestimate what they can achieve in a decade!"  So, my friends, go out and become world class.  Even if you already are world class, imagine where you'll be in 10 years!

In other news, the Caveman Gym at Texas Creek is open for business.  On Thursday we'll be expanding to include some free weight training.  At the moment, we're a body weight only type of establishment. Caveman weight training is a system I developed living in Creede, CO whereby a person uses rocks and body weight in place of formal weights or machines.  More on this later.  

Have a great day, go make yours "perfect."

Welcome to A Clarinetist Runs Through It

Hello!  Welcome to my blog.  I am excited to offer this so that people can enjoy the details of my seeming dual life.  I also hope to use this blog for a little self-motivation to motivate me to keep on top of my projects.  What you ask?  If you haven't figured it out from the title, I would sum my life's work up as a constant balancing act between music making and running.  Each of which are extremely important to me and usually have some interesting stories to go along with them.  Here's what you can expect from this blog:  I'll offer a "30,000' view" of my activity in these areas with some details about training, practice techniques, shoes, reeds, concerts, races, rehearsals and sometimes some extra goodies (I also enjoy fly-fishing and have some tasty bread recipes).

I live by the personal philosophy that the mind fuels the body and the body fuels the mind.  I believe that a balanced life is key and that neither physical activity nor intellectual pursuit can provide all that we require and, as such, we not only should, but are required to engage in both for a well balanced life.

Historically, I've been pretty bad about keeping a journal but in the past year have seen tremendous value in keeping reasonably detailed logs for both running and clarinet practice.  I'm hoping this venue provides a stimulus to expand upon those logs which are mostly numbers and timings.  With this blog, I hope to inspire not only my students, friends, colleagues, training partners, and the like to evaluate their own methods but also provide a place where I can reflect and muse upon my own.  Feed back is always welcome those please keep it something your grandmother would approve.  This blog is about inspiring people to be their best and so let's leave trash talk elsewhere.  If you have suggestions for ideas you'd like me to address, please feel free to leave those suggestions in the comment box and I'll handle them as I can.

Thanks for checking this out.  Look for updates on a regular basis.