Category Archives: Inspiration

DAWS, Inspiration, Ultra Marathon Training

Jessica Goldman is crazy awesome!

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If you’ve never heard of Jessica Goldman then you just may start to hear about her in the next few weeks. You see, she’s running from California to New York looking to break the world record for the women’s US transcontinental passage starting on April 16th. That’s 3,197 miles if you’re playing the home game. To do so she will run between the two city halls of San Francisco and NYC with a GPS tracking device that records her position at regular intervals, as well as other requirements to prove her success in the journey. Also, she’s doing this solo pushing a special stroller to carry supplies. Oh, and she’s doing all this on a plant based diet.

Her journey isn’t all about doing the trip solo and breaking the world record though. Along the way she will raise money for the Brain Injury Association of America (BIAA).

I am looking forward to tackling my own run of 500 miles with five other runners starting in August of 2015 for the Do Away with SMA (DAWS) charity. With this in mind I cannot imagine a journey of over 6 times that distance and running 3 times as long for time! Doing 19 back to back marathons is crazy so I do not know what you classify doing 61 back-to-back 50 milers!  We’ll just call Jessica awesome until the English language comes up with a new word to justify her unique level of heart and determination.

In the mean time if you’d like to follow Jessica along her journey, visit Jessica’s Facebook Page, give it a “Like,” read her blog and if you can spare an extra Lincoln for the BIAA then throw her a fiver. Finally, be sure to keep a lookout over the next few weeks because that crazy chick running by your window pushing a stroller full of camping gear and all natural trail mix is crazy awesome!

Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try. – Gail Devers

Happy Training & Good Luck Jessica!

Brian

Inspiration

Mou Ichido

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When I was 19 years old I started taking martial arts lessons. I eventually earned my black belt in an Okinawan style of karate called Shorei Goju Ryu. Throughout the years I trained in karate there were several key lessons that have stuck with me to this day.

The most memorable stems from what my sensei jokingly called, “The Great Okinawan Lie.”  The “lie” was a Japanese phrase he used on the mat almost daily. He would tell us repeatedly, mou ichido (pronounced Mo-EE-Chi-Doh). In Japanese, mou ichido translates to “one more time” and conveys a sense of one’s repetition of something as part of a process.

There’s a lot to be said about repetition and muscle memory; how it can help us perform without thinking whether that is the way we do our job or how some runners can seemingly on instinct run a specific pace and come in within a few seconds of their target goal each time regardless of the distance of the race. The conscious effort to continue or to do another repetition leads to a habit or muscle memory that becomes over time, second nature to how we perform. We begin to perform on autopilot. However, we must consciously push mou ichido and strengthen that muscle memory and our very resolve to continue when otherwise we don’t feel like it or are just unmotivated.

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Muscle memory comes after 1000s of repetitions, but you have to choose to practice, train and do it, mou ichido.

To this day I still find myself repeating the mou ichido mantra during training sessions. One more time, one more repetition, one more rep, one more set, one more lap, one more mile and sometimes, one more step.

Happy Training

Brian

You can follow me on Facebook at Running Down a Dream 23!

Inspiration

There’s always time for something…

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I got up early today on New Year’s Eve and drove to my gym  (LA Fitness) as I usually do to find that they weren’t open yet. The gym is opening two hours later for some reason. I’m not sure what that reason is since tomorrow (not today) is a non-working holiday for the US and many other countries, plus we as a planet (for the most part) will celebrate this evening not this morning.

Anyway, now that I’m off my soap box… I drove back home and was a little ticked since I had this plan to do two-a-day workouts all week and I am off to a bad start already. I hope there’s warmer weather for a run or two on Wednesday!

So I decided to whip out the Insanity DVDs and see what kind of damage I could do. First, I did the Cardio Abs video that’s about 16 minutes long. I forgot what kind of workout Shaun T can put you through given 16 minutes. Holy moly my abs burn! Then since I wasn’t sure if LA Fitness would be open later today I doubled up and did the Cardio Recovery video that’s 32+ minutes long to get a little more abdominal work and a good stretch.

I could have hit the showers and called the whole thing a wash allowing myself to be ticked off enough to let it ruin my day…or worse my workout!  We’ve all been there right?  Something blows our mind, we’re off schedule and we just say to heck with our workout as a result.

Even if I had half the time I would have still done the abdominal work because there’s always time for something…

Happy Training & Happy New Year!

Brian

DAWS, Inspiration

The Big Announcement! #DisneyTrail

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For the past few weeks if you’ve followed me on Twitter, Instagram, DailyMile or Facebook then you’ve seen the hashtag #disneytrail along with a countdown for today!

What is the DisneyTrail you ask?  The DisneyTrail is a journey to make a difference, it’s a worthy cause and a new ohana coming together. Let’s start from the beginning. A few weeks ago I received a phone call at 9 o’clock at night from a friend of mine asking me to do something a bit crazy. A fellow runner and friend was putting together an ultra run event to raise money to start a foundation for research to fight a terrible disease called Spinal Muscular Atrophy.  1 in 40 people in the US are a carrier of the gene that causes this disease and few if any survive the genetic disorder.  Our fellow friend and runner, Joe Kolinsky, lost two brothers to the genetic disorder and wanted to do something to make a difference and the idea of the DisneyTrail was born.

On August 17, 2015 we will start a 19 day journey running from the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco, CA to the gates of Disneyland in Anaheim, CA.  Myself and 5 other dedicated athletes with the help of a rock star support crew will run the entire distance together covering close to 500 miles (more if we get lost) or approximately a marathon (26.2 miles) each day!

For details, please check out our group’s blog.

Please follow us as we raise money and awareness for this worthy cause to not only help a dear friend, but also a community of silent victims who desperately need a cure.

This journey will be like no other I’ve experienced and it starts, today!

Happy Training!

Brian