{"id":2107,"date":"2014-03-18T13:03:14","date_gmt":"2014-03-18T20:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/o2fitness.net\/o2\/?p=2107"},"modified":"2014-03-18T13:03:14","modified_gmt":"2014-03-18T20:03:14","slug":"makeover-at-the-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/makeover-at-the-movies\/","title":{"rendered":"Makeover at the Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s been a pregnant pause since I\u2019ve updated this picaresque\u00a0series<\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0posts<\/a>\u00a0intended to depict my athletic rebirth: shhhhh\u2026can you hear it?<\/p>\n

Remember, I had fallen into disrepair. I was sitting too much and moving too little. I\u2019d fallen down on the job of staying fit, and I\u2019d vowed to turn my life around\u2026but I\u2019ve failed to provide the promised bi-monthly reportage of the journey.<\/p>\n

C\u2019mon, Brad! What\u2019s the dealio?<\/p>\n

The dealio is that I\u2019ve been thinking of you, dear reader. Seriously, there\u2019s an art to writing these comeback kid narratives, and I struggle to post when there\u2019s little to report. I\u2019m sparing you from the kind of drivel that would have you dropping me like a fedora-wearing hipster riding his fixie up the Eastern Sierra\u2019s Onion Valley Road:<\/p>\n

\u201cI came, I ran and I crushed. I did everything my coach asked me to do this week. Feeling great! More of the same next week. Thinking about buying a pair of not-so-minimalist running shoes. Can\u2019t wait to fill you in next Friday.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yawn, gap and stretch. And if I didn\u2019t care so much about my readers\u2019 user experience, that\u2019s the kind of narrative I\u2019d deliver, even if it were perfectly true (which it isn\u2019t). So I\u2019m attempting to shape these posts into an arc, a yarn, a tale, a chronicle, a missive that\u2019s neither too tall nor too small. Namely, a story that\u2019s compelling enough to keep you reading when you really should be getting back to that report your boss has asked you to deliver by the end of the day, or that dear yelping child pulling on the hem of your running shorts, or that Pinarello Dogma 65.1 you\u2019ve got tucked under the sheets on the barren side of your California king.<\/p>\n

\"Double-Indemnity1-e1395088479189\"<\/a>Question: what do\u00a0The Wizard of Oz<\/i>,\u00a0Star Wars<\/i>,\u00a0Repo Man\u00a0<\/i>and\u00a0Son of Flubber<\/i>\u00a0have in common? Why, the hero\u2019s journey, of course. To wit: An everyperson falls into an accidental adventure that morphs into a redemptive quest to capture the boon and to bring it back to share with the world. (Almost as\u00a0heroic as Fred MacMurray\u2019s career arc, which took him from the film noir classic\u00a0Double Indemnity<\/i>\u00a0(1944) to\u00a0The Absent-Minded Professor<\/i>(1961) and its sequel,Flubber<\/i>\u00a0(1963). What was poor Fred\u2019s boon? I\u2019ll get back to you on that one.)<\/p>\n

My point is that everyone appreciates a well-told everyman\u2019s tale, as long as the highs aren\u2019t too high and the lows aren\u2019t too low. At the same time, who wants to read about the\u00a0\u00dcbermensch<\/i>\u00a0who\u2019s just killing it every week, and has gone from doughboy to heart-lung machine in a month\u2019s time, outpeddling guys who ride 7,500 miles a year? Incipient admiration would morph into envy, which would funnel into hatred.<\/p>\n

Even my alter ego would quit reading this blog.<\/p>\n

On the same token, who would willingly consume the chronicles of a total loser \u2013 say, the story of a guy who reports each week that he\u2019s failed to perform the Pilates program his brilliant coach,\u00a0Julie Young of O2 Fitness<\/a>, designed for him well over a month ago. Ahem.<\/p>\n

Finally, there\u2019s little demand for a colloquy without a crisis, and thus far, that\u2019s precisely what this \u201cstory\u201d is, because we\u2019ve yet to nail the stakes to any kind of adventure that might prove the story\u2019s climax. Or anti-climax. Or something from which a denouement might flow.<\/p>\n

Enough. I\u2019ll come out with the truth: I totally fell down on the job last week. I missed four workouts. I consumed two cans of Pringles and swilled a bottle of Squirt. I was stressed, spent and dealing with the kind of\u00a0stuff\u00a0<\/i>that made working out seem trivial.<\/p>\n

Can you relate, mate?<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s my learning: One day\u2019s break: fine. Two consecutive days? Well, all right, take them if you must. Three consecutive days of inactivity? Not recommended when you\u2019ve spent most of the past two years practicing slouchdom. Four days of sitting around? Well, you might as well go back to start, because here come the butter-toffee macadamia nuts and Cherry Coke.<\/p>\n

The good news is that I pulled myself out of the sewer \u2013 again! \u2013 and put in 4.5 hours of training on the weekend \u2013 just what Julie slated on our Training Peaks package. Despite the Pringles and old-fashioned chocolate donuts (forgot to mention those), I\u2019ve lost five pounds. My pudge pockets are not quite as evident when I\u2019m riding in the drops of my road bike, and my chest doesn\u2019t jiggle (as much) when I run. I undoubtedly have more strength and endurance than I did a month ago. And after jumping back on the horse this weekend, I actually feel better than I have in a long while.<\/p>\n

Now \u2013 for that grand ordeal. What should it be?<\/p>\n

Run? Hike? Climb? Peddle? Paddle? It has to be an endurothon, it should take place in a wilderness-ish setting (big mountain road bike riding is fair game, too). I\u2019d like to stay in the Sierra Nevada or beyond. It can last more than a day. Should take place in August or September. No formal races.<\/p>\n

Email me at brad (at) sustainableplay (dot) com with your thoughts.<\/p>\n

Your fantasy adventure might well become my own. If I select your idea, you\u2019ll become the feature of a blog post. Imagine that!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s been a pregnant pause since I\u2019ve updated this picaresque\u00a0series\u00a0of\u00a0posts\u00a0intended to depict my athletic rebirth: shhhhh\u2026can you hear it? Remember, I had fallen into disrepair. I was sitting too much and moving too little. I\u2019d fallen down on the job of staying fit, and I\u2019d vowed to turn my life around\u2026but I\u2019ve failed to provide […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":2267,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[15],"class_list":["post-2107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletes-blog","tag-brad-rassler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}