Where in the World is Jon of All Trades

I have a new website and a new blog attached to it.
jonofalltrades.net
Please check it out, let me know what think, leave comments.
This blog will be winding down, but please continue to keep up to date with my whereabouts on the new website and blog.
Sorry to be short, but must run and pack up the car.
We're headed to LA and have a long road ahead,
literally.
Signing off
Jon

Running in Atlanta

Killing the Messenger

I posted on Facebook how running in Atlanta "sucks". To be fair, I don't particularly care for running in Los Angeles. Also to be fair, when I got to Atlanta I hadn't been running, so I was out of practice, I was and still am a little heavier than I like to be when I run and then of course is not getting out early enough or running in the evening when it has cooled and the sun is down or nearly down. Still there are plenty of places where I have been guilty of all of the above and more and still had enjoyable running experiences.

What's Gone Wrong So Far

1st Run: The climate was pretty perfect and the bike path rolled along pleasantly through lovely shaded neighborhoods. I took off in my Vibram Five Fingers and ran along the path to help cushion the impact. I should have really taken it easy and kept it to a 20 minute run. Because of not being used to the "bare-foot" shoes my calves ended up being sore for a good three days. OK this one's my fault.

2cnd Run: It was freezing. In the 40's. The day before I was dying from the heat and humidity. I actually had a really nice run. It did however remind me of how relatively out of shape I am.

So Far So Good

3rd Run: The run started out nicely enough, however 10 minutes in to it I was gasping for air and sweating like you wouldn't believe. It was Mother's Day, so I cut the run short and vowed to devote more time to running so it would be less torturous.

4th Run: Today's run. I was out by 7:30 which I thought was fine because it was still in the low 70's. Wrong. By minute 13, I was suffocating. I decided to head towards downtown because, well I hadn't headed out that direction. I was running along the PATH, a really nice bike bath network they have that runs all throughout Atlanta. The lovely trees that had protected me from the sun when I had taken the PATH the opposite direction became fewer and fewer as things got more urban. The concrete and asphalt reflected the sun and heat back up at me. The surroundings more bleak and gray. My shirt was soaking wet by this point and I was wearing a running singlet that was super light-weight and made of "Dri-FIT fabric to wick sweat away and help keep you dry and comfortable" . I shudder to think what I would have felt like in a cotton T.
The next few miles were not fun, not pleasant and had me thinking of all the things I could do besides run to keep in shape. However by the time I made it back to our neighborhood, in Inman Park with its trees and shade and beautiful houses, I realized that I would have to work around Atlanta's humidity, by getting out earlier. And that I would need to find some trails not on asphalt or concrete, maybe a little outside of Atlanta, to do my long runs.

Conclusion

Running in Atlanta will never be like running in Montreal, San Francisco or Chicago and it obviously can't compare to the trails in Mammoth or Corvallis, Oregon. Like LA, I'm going to have to make adjustments. The heat and humidity are only going to get more intense. So unfortunately for me it looks like my days of sleeping in, as few as they've been are over.

It's still a great way to explore a new city.

LA Marathon

LA Marathon 2011

It's been a couple of months since I ran the LA Marathon. I had planned to run my fastest time to date while only running 2 days a week, a medium run and then a long run. I was going to supplement this with a lot of cross-training of all different sorts.

As fate would have it, due to injury and then circumstance I didn't do even that much running and not very much cross-training either. In fact in the weeks leading up to the Marathon, I didn't do a lot of sleeping or resting, working 12+ days and being under the stress of moving and selling our house.

To say I was unprepared would be an understatement. But of course I was going to give it a try.

I managed to get some sound sleep in the two nights prior to the race.

My hamstrings had been tight so I decided to try out this Kinesiology Therapeutic tape. I seen various athletes use it so I figured I'd give it a try, even though I know you're not supposed to deviate from training and dieting routines or wear new gear the day of the marathon. I've shirked that advice off in the past and not suffered for it.

It was supposed to be cold and rainy. I've run in below freezing, snow, sleet, hail as well as in three digit heat so extreme weather was nothing new for me.

I new the course from the year before, so that would be a big help. Last year I bonked because I thought it was more downhill than it was. This year I could pace myself accordingly.

I got a lift in from a friend who I've trained with in the past and ran a few marathons with. She had been training with Students Run LA. I did one training run with them the year before. The organization, the kids, the adults that help are all an inspiration and I think being with them in the morning helped buoy me through a couple of times in the run.

This year more than any other was a mental game. The years of pushing my body, training, running the various marathons all helped me know what I could probably get away with.




When my legs started cramping at mile 15, I knew how to adjust and knew that I would be able to push through but that the cramping would most likely continue intermittently for the rest of the race and that in all likelihood other parts of my body would start to cramp as well.

They did. I also new that if I could make it to mile 19 and the Salonpas aid station, I could get sprayed down and that would probably give enough relief that I could get back to a decent pace compared to the hobbled crawl that I had managed in the last couple of miles.



That theory held true until mile 24 when I was really suffering. By that time the wind and rain had picked up considerably and was blowing against us.




I zipped up and tried to power through.

It was the hardest last mile since my first marathon. The big difference was that this time around I was looking forward to my next marathon, confident that if I actually trained I'd beat my personal best probably go under 4 hours and feel much better during and after the ordeal. My first marathon I thought would also be my last. It probably took me ten years to be ready to do my second. Now I can't imagine not doing at least one a year.

A Gaggle of Gadgets

Music on the Go
My History of Portable Music Devices

I have always preferred working out with music especially when it comes to running. Tunes have picked me up when I was lagging, pushed me uphills and quickened my pace. It used to be a real drag to have my music with me, sometimes to the point where I wondered if it was worth the effort.





Remember cassettes?

Heavy and clunky, bad sound and limited amount of music.



Better sound unless it started skipping which it invariably did. Still heavy and clunky.



This was my first MP3 player. It changed everything. I loved it.

I had various MP3 players with various pluses and minuses. Eventually they just stopped working and the software packages were always a bit funky.

Then came another game-changer:

Apple's Shuffle and Itunes

I loved my shuffle. I had to get new ear buds because the ones that came with the player don't stay in one's ears, the ease of use and size were great.

I bought various accessories including a waterproof case with waterproof headphones. Now I could swim laps with music. How awesome is that?

The battery in the Shuffle eventually stopped working. I used it all the time so I didn't think too much of it. So I bought a new one, and all was well. But then the second one died out, a little bit sooner than the first. So I wasn't thrilled with my latest favorite gizmo, but rather than switching to another MP3 player because I had all these accessories and so much music on Itunes, I stayed with the shuffle. Only problem, they "improved" on the Shuffle and came out with the Shuffle 2, which didn't fit into any of the accessories I had. Fine.

I did end up finding a very cool set of headphones that the Shuffle 2 fit into which eliminated the wires.




The Shuffle 2 in its wire-free headphones.

I was hooked again and happy. And then the shuffle died. I bought a new one. It died relatively soon. I had received 2 free ones, one as a gift, one at a raffle. So I wasn't too frustrated when they lived too short of lives. I was wearing them all the time, several hours a day. I was doing a big landscaping project and they helped make the hours and work go by.

But when I went to replace this shuffle, again Apple had "improved" it and came out with a new shuffle.





The blue device was the latest in the Shuffle evolution.

Its controls weren't on the device but in the earphones cable. Again the earphones that came with it kept falling out. Of course I had ear buds that I liked but they didn't have the controls for the shuffle, so I had to buy an adapter that did.

The latest shuffle with its lame earphones, above are the accessories I had to get to make it work for me. Another problem was that I had gotten very used to not messing with wires. Luckily I'm pretty resourceful.



Functional but not at all fashionable. Skye calls it my "geekband"

It was better than nothing, sort of.

Then I found a device that work with my Iphone's Bluetooth system.




This was the best device yet because I could have my phone with me and my music and....
it stopped working after a couple of weeks. I should have returned it and I would have but I lost the receipt or kept forgetting to do it or something of that nature.

So I was back to the geekband.

Until I came upon the updated Sony Walkman at the Expo for the LA Marathon.



Light, easy to use, no wires to bother with and it interfaces easily with Itunes.

Walkman comes full circle, my first and last portable music device. Happy with technology again.

My Fitness History

College and Work

When I went off to college, I was an "intellectual". The focus of my studies were supposed to be literature and film. Pretty early, on as in months, that focus changed considerably. I was running on trails through the hills of the Hudson River Valley and loving it. In high school I was on the cross country team and hated it and sucked at it. I started doing a lot of dance and drama. I joined our school's Ultimate Frisbee team and competed with them against other schools. I backed away from both film studies and literature.

College and me weren't a good fit and I ended up dropping out after a semester and a half, returning to LA. I dabbled in a lot of odd jobs, which included working as a receptionist at a dance/exercise studio in Venice. I ended up taking a lot dance classes, yoga, aerobics and hybrids of the three. I decided I wanted to be a personal trainer. I started working out at Gold's Gym in Venice. Being my age I was all over the map as to what I wanted on pretty much every level. I ended up working in the film business as a set dresser, by route of moving furniture for Starving Students.

Moving furniture is a great workout. It focuses on two things that are crucial to so many things that are physical; grip strength and core muscles. After two decades of moving furniture, those two aspects of my physical being are fairly well developed.

Running

I love running on trails in the mountains and deserts and forests. I like running on the beach. I like running stairs. I don't like running on pavement. I like going for runs of an hour or so once a week or so. I hate running regularly. That may be because I have only been places where running regularly has me on pavement. I love being able to finish marathons. I don't care for 10k's and 5k's are really hard for me.

I did my first marathon when I was 22. I didn't train well for it but I did finish it. It was my hardest, least favorite to date. And I swore I would never do it again. I've since finished 8 more and am looking forward to the next one, whichever one it is.

Running Off with the Circus

When I was in the midst of my odd-job-athon which included ball room dance instructing, dressing up as a live Christmas tree on Rodeo Drive and a handful of retail jobs, I answered a help wanted ad;

Clown Wanted
No Experience Neccesary
Will Train

I of course followed up on it and was soon performing at childrens' parties as a clown. I picked up the skills of juggling and uni-cycling.
Around the same time, I got a job ushering at Le Cirque du Soliel. I was tempted to run of with them or maybe go train in Montreal, but it didn't make sense at the time.

Juijitsu

I dabbled around in martial arts, but nothing really got my interest. Then the first UFC came out and this scrawny Brazilian guy, Royce Gracie beat on all comers. I was hooked. I ended up training with the Machado brothers who are cousins to the Gracies. I would train as much as I could with my crazy work schedule and then I would end up going on location and training would stop for months. At the time the only parts of the country that had Brazilian juijitsu were LA and New York. I would then come back and it was like I was starting all over again. This went on for several years. I got my Blue belt under Rigan Machado but ended stopping because the roller coaster was too frustrating for me.

Four years passed and I was still missing juijitsu. After series of events, it turned out the there was a Machado studio miles from where I was living, and not just an affiliate but one where one of the five brothers, John was the main instructor. I started up again and have been doing it for the last couple of years.

Racing?

At some point years after that first marathon, I started running 10k's. I liked running with a bunch of people. I liked the event aspect of it. But pretty quickly into I got bored. Then I chanced upon the Urban Challenge ( I think that was the first one I did) It was kind of like the Amazing Race but in one city and in one day. I got hooked on these and started doing them with anyone who would race with me. Note: I appreciate everyone who suffered with me in these races, every race was unique and dear to me, so thank you.

Then I got interested in expedition races like the Eco-challenge and the Raid Gauloises, but they took too much time and money for me to get into. And then a mutation of the two happened in the form of races like the Tough Mudder, the Warrior Dash, and the Sparta Race.

The Now

I've collected all of these styles, fascinations, events, training techniques as well as others picked up here and there and am more ADD than ever. In the past couple of weeks I've done a bunch of juijitsu, some fitness kick boxing, juggling, circus class which included tight wire, Spanish web and trapeze, yoga, barefoot running, running with standard shoes, bicycling and Indian clubs. I'll be doing a Tough Mudder in So. Cal at elevation in a few weeks and then the Urban Dash in Atlanta at the end of June. In the next couple of days I'll grab my uni-cycle and pogo stick and start "training" on them.

Stay tuned for more "Fun-ctional fitness" reports. This was an overview, a history. In the future there will be tips and pointers and more fun stuff.

Be Well

Inman Festival Parade

Just down the street from where we live was a wonderful street festival. The parade was the highlight for us. Cindy loves parades so we found ourselves a nice spot and looked on as all sorts of interesting local characters marched by.







I couldn't figure these guys out until.....




Oh now it makes sense.



And these ladies are ????



Bridesmaids, a subculture I know nothing about except that it exists




Somehow I had read about this prior to the festival and of course my curiosity was peaked....

ATLANTA GNOME MARCH WORLD RECORD DENIED! Gnomes accuse Guinness of Gnomophobia, cites association with Leprechauns

Go Gnomes!!!!

There were gnomes a plenty.

Scary Gnome

Bringing up the rear was the Chinese Southern Belle club.

Atlanta here we are

Monday

I slept in for the first time in a long while, then got to the task of unpacking. It's amazing how much fit in our little SUV. I think we might have to name it, which is something I've never done with a vehicle, but it's not a car or a truck and really to little to call an SUV and I think it's going to be with us for a while so what should we name it?

Also went online to start finding out about Atlanta and how we were going to fit in . Skye and I took a nice walk to a Whole Foods Market down the street. It's around a mile and a half away so a bit to far to walk loaded down with groceries. However bicycling is a different matter.

Managed to find a gym within minutes of the house that has Brazilian Juijitsu classes, so I called up an made an appointment to take a class that evening.



So I went to this place X3 Sports not knowing what to expect and got my Gi on and started stretching and such, looking around taking it all in. For starters, pretty much everyone in the place was much younger than me. The warm-up was much more like when I first started many years ago. It was a workout in itself. Then we went over technique and drills and then open mat work. After rolling with a couple of the students, I worked out with the instructor, a black belt who also owned the gym. It was a very different style than I was used to and I became aware of several flaws in my game that were less apparent at the LA school as well as learning a few new tricks and techniques. I was happy to have found this gym, so close to our house.



Tuesday

After finding X3Sports with its juijitsu and yoga for me and potentially kickboxing for Skye, as well as having an aerial arts school to try out, the PE part of our Atlanta life was checked off now to look into local home school groups as well as the farmer's market scene.

I found a website that had a few farmer's markets and their dates as well as the Dekalb Farmers Market which Cindy had mentioned. It was open daily and in a regular building so I imagined something akin to the Ferry Building in San Francisco with goods from local vendors, although one comment on the website made my believe other wise which turned out to be the case. The market was in a huge warehouse building and the sign read Your Dekalb Farmers Market- A World Market. Inside it was huge with food from all over the world. There might have been a local section but since we weren't prepared to really do a shopping trip,(we were going to a home school park day after) and the place was over-lit, too cold and too much hustle and bustle, I overloaded and got us out of there.

We went the a park that was in the Atlanta Suburbs around thirty minutes north of us. The park was huge with stables on one end, several rec centers and playgrounds and shaded picnic pavilions. The website had conflicting times and it seemed that we were a bit early so we did some "car-schooling" while waiting. When people did get there it was a little intimidating, to approach a new group of "moms" and do introductions and such and then try to "fit" in, more of an outsider than normal. But the group was very polite and inclusive and Skye was off with one of the girls and then joined in on games of tag and climbing and in general hanging out. I was glad Skye had a good time, but it made me miss our life in LA, something I hadn't done much yet.



Wednesday

I went for a run today. It was the first time since the LA marathon and because I hadn't been able to find my running shoes I wore my Vibram 5 fingers. I only went for 4 miles, but between the humidity, not having exercised much recently and mostly the bare-foot aspect of things it was a rough 4 miles. I began to worry about the upcoming Tough Mudder.



Passed this on the run, will need to do some research.

Then it was off to kickboxing class. It would be the first time Skye had ever done something like it. For me it was a typical kickbox fitness class, not as much fun as the Kick, Fly, Breath class I had started doing back in LA, but Skye loved it. I mean really loved it and couldn't wait to get her own gear and do another class.

Now to go check out one of their farmer's market. I didn't expect too much because it was one Cindy hadn't heard of and it seemed to be small according to the website description. It was small but all local and the vendors were very nice. There just wasn't anywhere near the selection that there is at even the smallest farmers market in LA.



It was pretty windy, with high wind warnings, so maybe it was smaller and less attended than normal.





Thursday

I did my first yoga class in years which was great. What struck me was the make up of the class, four guys including myself and one woman. Interesting.

My calves were incredibly tight due to bare-foot run the other day and the kickbox class I'm sure added to my overall soreness. Skye was pretty sore as well so we pretty much chilled out and worked on her studies, getting organized and settling in.

Friday

We took a circus class today. It was a bit jumbled with new students, new instructors along with more advanced students and us. There was a lot to sort out in regards to accessing our basic skills on the various apparatus so we didn't get as much time on the trapeze as we had hoped for and none on the silk, but we did get to dabble with in things we hadn't really done before, like tight rope and the Spanish web, a long rope which has been covered by a soft cotton sleeve. An interesting place.

Skye did kickboxing class while I did Juijitsu which works out quite well. Again she had a great time.

All in all it was a great start to our new life on location.