Category Archives: Human Capital

Raising Fit Kids

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Towards a Self-Directed Life

They say we should teach about subjects where we don’t need notes.

Fit kids is that subject for me.

  • Our kids are 10, 11 and 14
  • We live in one of the fittest zip codes in America
  • Our kids are competitive in whatever they set their minds on
  • Most importantly, they are happy, engaged and a core part of every team they join
  • We’ve been raising them with intent, since before they were born

I threaded the outline for the video last Friday.

Winning means NOTHING if you lose the relationship.

Children carry an embedded option for the most common challenges of aging

  • something to do
  • someone to share experiences with
  • someone to love

Don’t blow it by being a bozo (at the game)

If the family has a special sport, swimming for us, then think in terms of minimum weekly frequency

None of our kids had to “be a swimmer” – all they needed to do was swim a little bit

Every. Single. Week.

Touch the water, once a week, since they could stand up

5-8 hours a week of jumping, climbing, twisting, spinning – All Summer Long

Very Consistently Undertrained

Our kids have done a lot since they were little.

What they have not done is specialize in a specific niche, or train like an adult.

I’ve also been careful to match my encouragement to the way the kid likes to train

  • Long days
  • Fast days
  • Mix of days

The kids decide what and how much – my role is to up-skill and keep it fun.

Ironman Finish – more than 11,000 days after I was born

10,000 Days

From the time a child stands up…

…to realizing their maximum adult potential

About 10,000 days

Longer in my case!

Several important realities flow from this timeline:

  • We control less than half of those days!
  • We don’t even control what we think we control – for example, effort at practice
  • It will not be the parents’ call – without a deep love of exercise, the kids are DONE as soon as they get out of the house, sometimes before!
The most important relationship in a child’s life is the quality of their parents’ marriage
Choose coaches, and mentors, based on the quality of their non-athletic lives

What Do We Control?

  • Modeling Personal Excellence
  • How our children see our marriage and other relationships
  • Sleep & Nutrition Habits
Spending my time, and giving my attention, to create a link between Fun and Work

Leave Room To Load Later

  • Middle School
  • High School
  • The Collegiate Level

None are a final destination!

Give the athlete somewhere to go when they leave you.

Being a badass breeds confidence – this impacts everything

Start With The End In Mind

Where do you want the athlete to be when they are done with their competitive career?

  • Resilient
  • Courageous
  • Persistent
  • Healthy
  • Enthusiastic

Use sport as a vehicle to teach these traits.

Start today!

Keep these traits front of mind when you’re tempted to make it about winning.

A teacher’s job is to fill the world with positive memories for the student to carry forward

Sunday Summary 9 October 2022

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Top Threads

  1. Training Update (Managing Fatigue & Coach Engagement)
  2. Data on 50+ at Ironman Hawaii, my speedy pals
  3. Zone 2 isn’t slow, bottom-up fitness
  4. Raising Fit Kids, blog & video tomorrow
  5. Athletes Overestimate Training Load Required for Health

Endurance Training Tips

High Performance Habits

Change, Choice and a Feeling of Running Out of Time

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A buddy reached out…

I do not want to derail any of the Twitter conversation regarding fat burning/race fueling/weight loss.

But, I’m suspicious there is a story as to how much impact can be had regarding fat burning in the long-in-sport masters athlete. 

Can you teach a system to burn fat after it has fueled on white hot carbs for years?

Or, am I just too inpatient looking for results?

Some of us older folks don’t have years to figure it out.

I think about these points all_the_time!

  1. Can I change?
  2. Is it too late to change?
  3. What if change doesn’t work?
  4. What’s a reasonable time horizon to give change a chance?

I start by reminding myself of the game I have decided to play.

I am going to spend 1,000 days doing my absolute best to get in shape

That’s my game.

Use my experience, my network, my time… and embrace what’s required, in order to move towards SuperVet Fitness.

Life is not about change.

It is about choice.

Figure out your game, then choose what’s required.

Time.

I am running out of time.

But I have had this “running out of time” feeling since my late-30s…

…and here I am!

So I have both “limited time” and more time than I realize.

Back to Choice.

How will I CHOOSE to use my time?

Play the game, make better choices, accept what the journey requires.

Results, success, achievement, getting somewhere…

Every single day, I am asked a question along those lines

  • How long will it take to improve?
  • What should I expect?

The only way find to find out is to take the journey.

Q3 2022 Family Financial Review

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I had a friend ask me if I thought “cash is king” in the current environment. My answer is more than can fit in a tweet so here you go.

Key Point: when we read reports of monetary policy tightening, I think we are being misled. On a historical basis, policy remains accommodating.

The collective is lousy at remembering history.

US Federal Reserve Total Assets

The value of everything, in the world, has been inflated by the actions of Central Bankers. I think everyone accepts that point. Thing is, it is impossible to measure the scale of the inflation.

In recent memory, the best example will be to cast your mind back to when crypto was a one-way bet.

Asset inflation feeds upon itself, until it doesn’t.

The increase in the size of the Fed’s balance sheet has been a strong tailwind and dominates our collective memory.

If you’re 35 and under, then unprecedented monetary inflation is the only environment you’ve ever known.

Time for another chart.

As at 12 Sept 2022

Here’s a chart of our current reality (black line).

We’ve lived the rate increase, but assets prices have not adjusted to the new reality.

Why?

  • The economy is rolling along – the tailwind was powerful, and strong
  • It is unclear where the Fed’s massive balance sheet is going – there has been 13 years of QE – who wants to bet against another round, I don’t
  • There remains plenty of OPM (other people’s money) and leverage

VTSAX Yield (1.5%), VBTLX Yield (3.4%), VMFXX Yield (2.1%)

Those are equity, bond and money market funds I track, as at last Monday.

US 30-year Mortgage Rates 2015-now

Mortgage rates appear to have jumped.

However, let’s have a look at the next chart.

2003-now

Rates are only just getting back to their 2003-2008 level, a time when people were hardly holding back on real estate.

So what do I think:

1// Assets could get cheaper – I don’t see any case for a melt up.

2// If the Fed materially shrinks their balance sheet then assets will get a lot cheaper. Cutting their balance sheet in half takes us back to 2015.

3// Sit down and ask yourself “what if” asset prices drop to 2015 levels, a 50% reduction. Odds are, you have your interest rates locked in. So the main risk will be short term cash flow due to unemployment. How might you protect yourself?

4// Having a year’s core cost of living in an “emergency” fund makes sense. Personally, I didn’t reinvest the proceeds from a Q2 asset sale. My reserve is enough to navigate a nasty recession without selling anything further.

So a “prudent cash reserve” is King.

I don’t think it makes sense to liquidate positions, and pay extra taxes, because risk assets might fall in value.

I do think it makes sense to look at family spending and see the allocation between: essential, discretionary and luxury. The ability to adjust spending downwards is a useful hedge in an unpredictable world.

Keep living and sharing experiences with those you love.

Time and shared experiences are true wealth.

Sunday Summary 11 September 2022

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Top Threads

  1. Building a Metabolic Edge – Eat Like A Hobbit
  2. My favorite Training Zones Resources
  3. My network on Road vs TT Frames
  4. Loading Tips from my summer talking with Johan
  5. Lessons From Last Week’s Training

Endurance Training Tips

High Performance Habits

Four Questions to Help Self-Coached Athletes Achieve Their Best Season Ever

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Running to a podium finish at Ironman New Zealand

Each week I post my Training Review on Twitter.

My review is driven by four questions:

  1. What went right?
  2. Did I hit my minimums?
  3. Where can I trade stress?
  4. What can screw things up?

My questions track to actions:

  1. Keep
  2. Add
  3. Trade
  4. Remove and Address

Across the week, I take notes and when I take my back-to-back recovery days, I review the week.

++

What Went Right?

You are going to be tempted to “progress the week.”

Unfortunately, in highly motivated populations, this leads to breakdown, and missed gains!

Better to repeat the week & keep what works

++

Did I Hit My Minimums?

Last Thursday, I gave you a Training Intensity Allocation.

Let’s see what that implies for my last week: 15 hours total => 900 minutes

  1. Strength => 90 minutes
  2. Stamina => 720 minutes
  3. Intensity => 90 minutes
    1. Tempo => 54 Minutes
    2. Threshold => 27 minutes
    3. VO2 & VO2+ => 9 minutes

Is there a training segment that I’m avoiding?

Think outside the box, there are many interesting sessions that are hybrids of strength/intensity.

Use the small allocations wisely and have fun with them.

++

What Trades Make Sense?

First Two Tips:

  1. Repeat don’t progress
  2. Hit the minimums

If I want to ADD then do a TRADE.

Example #1: I like to run in the hills. However, I don’t need to run up a mountain every week! Across a week, a fortnight, a month… I manage my “elevation load” between weeks.

Example #2: I’m relatively strong for my age and category. I trade Strength load to accommodate more Stamina within my week.

Example #3: Max HR test last week? Add more Zone 1 to start the following week. Balance the intensity mixes across more than just the week. Give yourself time to fully absorb your highest intensity sessions. Same thing applies for sessions that cause significant muscle damage (plyometrics, downhill run load).

Example #4: get to the source of your life stress:

  • Sleep
  • Alcohol
  • Energy deficits
  • Spontaneous tempo
  • Over-reaction
  • Excessive load
  • Too many goals

If I want to better absorb training then reduce the stress caused by choices outside my core goals.

Endurance training, done to the best of our ability, offers an incentive to straighten out our lives.

++

Avoiding Ruin – What Might Screw Up Next Week?

In the acute sense… Avoid The Injury!

Take time to address the little niggles while they are still little!

Dial the program DOWN before the injury is created.

Trade low quality days for high quality weeks.

In the chronic sense… going down an unsustainable path feels great, ride up to the day before you fall apart!

Consider, then address, areas of instability:

  • Relationships
  • Sponsors
  • Finances
  • Emotions
  • Habits

How to make this happen?

Put it in your calendar!

Make an appointment with yourself, daily.

Example: 10 minutes every day on mobility and one positive action to reduce long term stress.

Little positive steps have big impacts when applied over long time horizons.

The ability to bring these habits into your athletic life gives you a skill set to improve all aspects of your life.

Figuring It Out

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Dad, a little before I came on the scene

My Dad and I have a weekly call.

On the call, we try to figure things out.

We joke that we have been having the same conversation for years.

We get a lot out of our conversation, even if there are recurring themes!

After hundreds of calls, I’ve figured some things out:

The energy I spend planning for the future is wasted. The future that arrives is always different than expected.

I keep fooling myself that buying something will make my life better. Thankfully, I have a system to slow my ability to act on my feelings.

Time shows us what better looks like. The actions that actually make my life better have been the same for a very long time.

Do what needs to be done. Do the actions. That is it. Enjoy the actions!

There’s no more to be attained. One of the reasons I left finance was I had taken enough from society. Ironically, I got the idea from Warren Buffett. I pulled the pin at 31, Warren’s 91 and still rolling.

My life only needs to make sense to me. Warren might be right.

Consider Declaring Victory! When you arrive where you were trying to get to… before pushing onwards… stop, look around and ask, “Is there anything I can learn from the experience?“

Apply the best advice, from those who know you well. When Dad turned 60 he told me to “create roots”. I was newly married, at the peak of my athletic career (36) and living between Bermuda, Scotland, Australia and the US. A few years later, I moved to my wife’s hometown and stayed put.

Cautious optimism beats pessimism every single time. Keep what works, change slowly.

Sunday Summary 28 August 2022

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Top Five

  1. Serious Athlete’s Guide to Building Your Training Week
  2. Legs up the wall, eccentric lowers to settle your hamstrings
  3. Heart Rate does not capture metabolic stress
  4. How to Shake Up Your Basic Week
  5. Swim Game coming September 11th – Get Back to Swimming
    1. I will ask you to do nearly everything bilaterally

Endurance Sport

High-Performance Habits

A Step-by-Step Guide for Getting To Better

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A framework for better

When I’m in the Doom Loop, my problems appear outside my control.

So the first step, is getting myself out of the loop.

Start by reaching out.

Social Connection – absent connection, clarity of thought suffers.

It won’t feel this way from inside the “doom loop”

A useful warning signal is getting caught in negative feedback loops.

I’ve written a fair amount on depression:

  • 2022 ideas for all athletes
  • 2014 ideas for overloaded parents
  • 2013 ideas for high-performance athletes

I won’t rehash here. I will say simply…

When my problems appear to be outside my control, when the normal setbacks of daily living are getting me down, when my mind is caught in a doom loop…

Time to SEEK

  1. New Environments
  2. New Ideas, People and Experiences

Give the mind an opportunity to find a better fixation.

At first, anything is better.

With time, from outside the doom loop, we can curate our attention.

Separate from getting past the doom loop, this technique is how I found my wife!

Are You Sure Your Problem is The Problem?

I work as a fiduciary advising families about risk, ruin, health, life, human capital… you name it. A common concern is concentration and fear of loss.

Whatever is keeping you up at night, split it in half.

Then pay attention.

If you are still worried then it’s not about your worries.

There is something else driving your anxiety.

Anxiety is an interesting emotion – it feels a lot like excitement.

Anxiety can be mapped on to enthusiasm for new experiences and positive fixations (see step one, above).

It is not possible to plan our way out of a doom loop. We must act!

What to do? I have no ideas for you!

All I can offer is questions…

  1. What are you doing when you laugh out loud?
  2. What person makes you feel good when you see them?
  3. What environments make you feel serene?

My list: exercise, solo, trees, water, quiet and a list of five people who “make me feel good”

Use your list – go, act, do…

I’ve been writing about One Thing for 20+ years. The most rewarding periods of my life have been characterized by a quest for One Thing.

My theory of One Thing is simple, but not easy!

  1. decide what will make a difference (see 123 in section above)
  2. do what is required to move towards your thing (this is uncomfortable to start)
  3. give a nice no-thanks to distractions & poor habits (via negativa)

Let’s recap:

  • Offer the mind new things to focus upon
  • Exit the Doom Loop
  • With clarity, decide on your One Thing
  • Map anxiety onto enthusiasm for moving towards your One Thing

Let’s end with a story.

I’m working on getting back in shape. Now, “getting in shape” has a different meaning for me than many. My doctor tells me I was “in shape” already.

…but it wasn’t the kind of shape that lets me live the life I want for my future self

…and it wasn’t working for my mental health (2022 depression link above)

So I changed my approach, and ramped my social connection back up.

Life is better.

That’s it.

Better is the win.

I’ve been using the WayBack Machine to access my old writings
This is a screenshot from my first landing page
I’ve been telling myself to enjoy the journey since 2000

Sunday Summary 14 August 2022

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Top Threads

  1. Uncovered my #1 limiter – Zn1 “duration” workouts
  2. Did lactate tests to see where to target “duration” sessions
  3. Going to pull together Twitter FAQs for How to Endurance eBook (outline)
  4. Jim Brown is a great follow for down-to-earth tips & clips
  5. Applying Jason Koop’s book to my own training

Workouts & Working Out

High-Performance Tips