This Is The Part...

This is the part where you want me to write about some thought-provoking epiphany relating to marriage that I had yesterday while running after midnight.

Or where I jokingly make fun of how social media has blunted the growth of our culture and humanity and hypocritically postmark my words with the hashtag #firstworldproblems in order to gain more traffic to my website.

Or how I was able to understand the joy of life itself after going on a long drive with a car full of groupies that had inside jokes about higher education that none of you will think are funny and religiously belted out the words to "Africa" by Toto throughout the duration of our road trip.

This is the part where none of that will happen because I'm sitting in an audience full of helicopter parents about to stand up and broadcast the academic highlights of their child's life and hand them a sheet of paper that now grants them access to the world of big kids.

This is also the part where I don't like being a grown up, with responsibilities that wear me out so much I begin dozing off in the middle of swimming laps. Please excuse me, I've got some new carpet to install.

#bigkidproblems

Dear Mom,

A few years back for a research project I polled a few of my friends and asked them to tell me what their Mother meant to them. Last night while in retro mode, I found these words on an old website I put together for an undergrad project. I thought it fitting to share these sentiments once again while we herald the women who raised us. 

For full effect, download "Dear Mama" by Tupac, and play at maximum volume throughout the duration of this post. 

For all of the mothers out there who put band-aids on our scrapes. Who made chocolate milk for us every day so that when we came home from school we had our snack waiting for us. Who would let us stay out on summer nights “another 5 minutes” so that we could play night games with our friends. Who would get up at 5:40 in the morning all winter to drive us to basketball practice in junior high. Who hugged, cried, worked, cooked, fed, cleaned, smiled, loved, and gave everything that you had in your life. Here is a simple note to let you know how much we care.

Dear Mom,

Thank you for always being my loudest fan in the crowd.

Brett S.

Dear Mom,

You are the pillars of my life.

Jonathan M.

Dear Mom,

Thank you for not telling Dad I got arrested that night.

Anonymous

Dear Mom,

You are my sunshine.  I can’t imagine my life without you.

Megan H.

Dear Mom,

I couldn’t ask for a better mother than you!

Jordan B.

Dear Mom,

I’ve never met someone so hardworking for her children’s sake.  No matter what you’ll make sure that we succeed first.  You are the bomb!

Taylor S.

Dear Mom,

I’m glad that they have a day when people can appreciate you for for the pain that I put you through.  Happy Mothers Day!

Your smart ass son, Jeremiah

Dear Mom,

Thanks for the circumcision.

Anonymous.

Dear Mom,

I don’t have the words to tell you how important you are to me in just two sentences.  I could fill up novels that would put J.K. Rowling to shame.  Know and never forget that I love you.

Sarah H.

Dear Mom,

I couldn’t have asked for anyone better.

Kari B.

Dear Mom,

To my battery mate, my design partner, my best of friends, and most of all, my Mom.  I love you.

Marcus M.

Dear Mom,

Thanks for never giving up on me.  Throughout my entire mission, and all of the surgeries I’ve had over the years.

Ben F.

Dear Mom,

I miss you more than you know.  I hope you are proud of the woman and mother I have become.

Laura H.

Dear Mom,

I’m thankful for everything that you have done.  You have always been there for me when I needed you, no matter what the situation.

Bryan U.

Dear Mom,

You are the woman that I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to be like.

Jennifer S.

Dear Mom,

Thank you for raising me to be independent and self-reliant.

Anne W.

Dear Mom,

I will always remember the day that you dropped the F-bomb in “the Happiest Place on Earth.”

Anonymous

Dear Mom,

I think you’re real neat.  I love you all the way to the moon and stars.

Laura W.

Dear Mom,

Thank you for having dance parties with me to cheer me up even though we are both terrible dancers.

McCall P.

Dear Mom,

Thanks for putting everything back together.

Joe L.

Dear Mom,

Thank you for teaching me as a boy, how to be a man.  For your unconditional love, wisdom, and devotion to my success I owe you and am eternally grateful.

Derek L.

Dear Mom,

Thanks for sending me money that you never told Dad about.

Morgan P.

Dear Mom,

Thank you for adopting me.

Anonymous

Dear Mom,

We often imagine our lives turning out a certain way.  I’m not sure if you imagined being where you’re at.  But my dreams wouldn’t come true without you doing what you do.

Ryan R.

Dear Mom,

You taught me how to believe, you showed me how to love, you helped me become who I am today.  I am so proud to be your daughter and so lucky to have you as my best friend.

Lauren G.

Dear Mom,

I heart you more than I heart chocolate.

Ashley H.

Dear Mom,

Thanks for your genes

Anonymous.

Dear Mom,

Thank you for monitoring your language while watching Jazz games when we have company.

Maddie M.

Dear Mom,

I love your determination with exercising and that you always love me no matter what.

Megan J.

Dear Mom,

Thank you for being a miracle in my life.

Scott W.

Dear Mom,

Thanks for not saying no to Dad the night that I was conceived.

Anonymous

Dear Mom,

Thank you for always being there for me every time that I call, and loving me despite all of my mistakes.

JBYM

Dear Mom,

Thank you for the support and trust you have given me in my life.  I may not have listened all the time, but I have always valued and appreciated your opinion.

Holland O.

Dear Mom,

Thanks for being the grace, wisdom, faith, and guidance which has mapped out a course for my life.

John O.

Dear Mom,

I’ll love you forever.  I’ll like you for always.  As long as you’re living.  My baby you’ll be. 

Brock B. 

What Heaven Feels Like

People may think that completing an Ironman is solely an individual achievement. But the thing is, it's really not.

It's much more than that.

For full effect, download "Dirty Paws" by Of Monsters and Men and play at maximum volume throughout the duration of this post.

You see kids it's not about the 800+miles I've logged over the last three months on my bike, on my shoes, or in the pool that makes a difference. It's not about sneaking into the fitness center after hours to swim laps, or doing a set of 2-mile stadiums after they shut the lights off. You want me to tell you that all of the slow motion black and white B-roll footage they shove into a motivational 60-second Nike commercial is what helps you become an Ironman. Well, that's not it at all.

Nor is it the dietary restrictions you place on yourself that turn you into practically a Vegan for a quarter of the year, relying solely on protein shakes and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as your nourishment. When your friends ask where everyone is getting grub this Friday night, you politely decline because you have a hefty bowl of strawberry yogurt mixed with coconut granola waiting patiently back at home. No, those 15 pounds you unload off your belly and thighs to shave a few extra minutes off your bike splits, those aren't what make you complete an Ironman either.

A blue-blooded snoot would say the key to being an Ironman is the money you are willing to burn for the sake of better gear. You want a 2014 2XU Men’s G:2 TR Compression Wetsuit? Or what about a Cervelo P5 Six Dura Ace 9000 triathlon road bike with carbon wheels? Surely the $249.99 you are willing to spend on Zoot Ali’i 6.0 running shoes will get you from the opening gun to the finish line that much quicker.

The thing is, it’s really none of that stuff at all.

When you are out swimming and biking and running around for six plus hours you play mental battles with yourself. You think. About yourself, about your life, about the direction everyone is headed, about deep junk that normally gets published in philosophy 101 textbooks. You think about the meaning of life, true story. And yesterday after wandering around St. George like a drunken lunatic on wheels the one thing I came to understand in between aid stations full of Powerade, pretzels, and pissboxes is that being an Ironman is not an individual accomplishment. Rather, being an Ironman is something shared by everyone.

Now I know that not everyone has the chance to get accidentally fondled in a lake by a 61-year old woman mid stroke, or scream obscenities to the sky at the creator of the known universe for making the “Hill from Hell” in Snow Canyon so bloody steep, or look funny as they run down Diagonal with their toes up only to keep their calves from cramping mid-stride. I know everyone does not have the chance to cross the finish line in spectacular glory with some unknown broadcaster blasting their name into the air proclaiming their athletic achievement. But the reason people put themselves through all of this physical torture is because they are surrounded by people who love them. People who care for them. People who cheer them on. And that is what makes them become an Ironman.

I discovered this yesterday as I came out of the water and saw a college roommate I haven’t talked to in over a decade yelling for me. Or when I biked up Highland Parkway and heard a buddy and his girlfriend screaming their guts out with homemade Ninja Turtle posters. Or how about when I came in to the second transition about to take off on a 13-mile run and four generations of women and a throng of my closest friends are chanting my name from the sidelines? You think nutrition, gear, or after hours workouts are the difference makers at that point?

Those are the moments where your switch from the bike to the run goes a little bit longer than normal because after gulping down GU packets and tying your shoes, all you can do at Transition 2 is sit on the grass for three minutes and wipe tears from your eyes.

I am lucky to have these people. You are lucky to have these people. We are all so freaking lucky to have good people placed in our lives. People that cheer for us. Lift us up. Motivate us to be better. People who sit out in the sun for six hours just to scream our names for a whopping 20 seconds. As stated earlier, being an Ironman is not an individual honor and accomplishment. It is something that is shared and earned by the hundreds and thousands of fans who work just as hard supporting each other.   

Running around for six hours does some crazy things to your head, believe me. And as I came to the end of the road yesterday I don’t know if it was because I was delirious or euphoric, but all I could do was cry. Mentally, physically, emotionally drained, surrounded by people who I love more than my own life itself welcoming me back home after a long and tumultuous journey, standing there in one of the most surreal moments in my entire adult life I held my face in my hands and wept like a child.

This, I thought to myself, this must be what heaven feels like.

Let's Blow Stuff Up

You want me to write a response about how ashamed I am that an 81-year old billionaire tosses out racist comments like a neo-Nazi?

Don’t get your hopes up.

For full effect, download “I Am So Sad, So Very, Very, Sad” by Crash and the Boys, and play at maximum volume throughout the duration of this post.

You want me to write a blogpost slamming an egotistical bigot who still lives in a time where there were two different types of water fountains in public? You want me to take a stance on a prick no one even heard of until TMZ blasted his reputation all over social media this past weekend, a man that the majority of us when asked about this event replied with “Donald Who?” You want me to rip his reputation to shreds and stand united with a world that does not stand for any type of racial discrimination whatsoever, I mean, because that’s what is trending right now, isn’t it?

Don’t get me wrong, the guy’s an insensitive jackass. For saying the cruel words he did about people who aren’t the same skin color, that is a terribly shameful act indeed. But do you want me to get all hot and bothered and throw a social media tissy fit ranting about the state of the American people and toss out hashtags left and right slamming his character and toting how this man should be burned at the stake? I mean, is that something you think should be a priority in every single one of our lives?

Because if you don’t think it is, well you’re as bad as the leader of the KKK, you racially insensitive prick. 

We live in a world that makes catastrophes out of things that don’t really matter. You have to admit that statement is true. As soon as those recordings were leaked on to the web it became the biggest nightmare since Watergate and the reputation for a human being was tarred and feathered like an upstart Mormon. Heck, this man was banned for life from an organization that he helps fund in the first place all because he made a few inappropriate comments to a girl he thought he trusted, comments that he made in his own living room of all places. Not at a podium, not in a press release, not broadcast in an on-air interview, he said these words while sitting on his couch in a pair of billion-dollar sweatpants tipping back his Metamucil. But nevertheless, he said them, and he should be banned for life!

Does anyone else feel this situation makes absolutely no sense whatsoever? Have their not been worse atrocities committed in the history of sports that have yielded lighter punishments? Remember when Ron Artest ran up into the stands in Detroit and beat the lights out of a handful of fans because they threw beer on him? He literally knocked people unconscious in a flat-out brawl. And then there was Brett Favre sending voicemails and taking pictures of his manhood and sending them to New York Jets reporter Jenn Sterger in an attempt to have an affair. Or what about how one of Boxing’s biggest promoters, Don King, was convicted of murder? TWICE! This frizzy-haired nutcase killed two different people and he is praised inside the ring! 

And yet the world we live in blows up when an 81-year old blowhard makes publically incorrect statements inside his own living room.

You would think we would look at the bigger picture, turn the other cheek and become better people, because we as a society have advanced haven’t we? We are better than that, are we not? We target bigger issues at hand such as solving world hunger, discovering cures for cancer, and ending violence in the Middle East.

HA! Are you kidding? We all want to jump on the bandwagon. We all want those 15 seconds of glorified social media fame. We praise the Miami Heat for turning their jerseys inside out to support a mild protest despite the fact that they don’t even play for the Los Angeles Clippers whatsoever. We listen to after game press conferences where the main topic of discussion is not the lack of defense or poor field goal percentage, but rather, how emotionally jarred the players felt when they walked on the court. We write blogposts about issues that six months from now won’t have a single ounce of value whatsoever.

You want to end racial discrimination in today’s society? You want moral and ethical values to be raised and faith in humanity to be restored once again?  You want the world we live in to become a better place for our posterity to survive?

Good luck. Because at the rate we’re trending, that’s never going to happen. 

For My Parents. Well, Sort Of...

A few weeks back I bumped into an old fire chief and his sweet wife in the bike store. Conveniently, this sweet couple are the parents of a girl I used to date back in high school. It’s been over a decade since I’ve seen either of them.

Cue sudden rush of emotions.

For full effect, download “Walk Home” by Thomas Newman and play at maximum volume throughout the duration of this post.

They say it takes a village to raise a child. Well, at least I think that’s what Hilary Clinton said somewhere in a best-selling novel a few years back. The phrase is cliché and overused, but the bottom line is no matter what family we come from, the biological parents are not the only people responsible for a boy turning into a man. Go ahead and nod your head in agreement with me on that last statement, because you know just as well as I do that there’s a list of honorable Moms and Dads floating around your history somewhere. Moms and Dads you meet in random bike shops, like the Ritchies. 

Kids, I know you’ve heard my claims that the village of Southern Utah is the place that helped me become a man. With that being said, there is no way I will ever forget the village that took care of me as a boy. That village was a place I’m not known in my professional career for praising very often, but at the same time, it is where I truly came into my own, with the help of quite a few people along the way.

As an A.D.D. driven creature playing with pogs and watching Saturday morning cartoons, you could say I was a “special” kind of kid. And I don’t mean special as in, “this-kid’s-gonna-go-far-because-of-his-ability-to-solve-calculus-problems-in-Spanish”, I mean special as in “why-is-that-drooling-weirdo-putting-grape-jelly-on-his-pizza?” I was out of control, unorthodox, and had pop culture icons like Jim Carrey and David Spade influence my annoying social skills. I was a rambunctious monster, and luckily, my childhood was postmarked with outstanding people such as the Ritchies, who came in to make sure I didn’t go too far off the deep end.

There are a quite a few parents I owe credit for voluntarily raising me over the years. On the south side of my house I had the Nelsons, who were kind enough to let me shovel off the basketball court in their own backyard and shoot hoops night after night. On the other side were the Willards, the classic next-door neighbor couple who were some of the best personal chaperones and guest cooks you could find. I had Larry and Kathy Mower, the former teaching me the art of detailing a car, the latter showing me the secret to decorating a cake. There was my former employer, Bruce Foust, a man that taught me the skill of keeping up a yard. And Pat Patterson, a wise sage who I stole bits and pieces from the way he delivered a speech.

I am grateful to have had these people in my life. I'm grateful for the Chuggs being patient with me as I exchanged blows with their son Cody over the years. I'm grateful for Darren Albright for not throwing me into traffic after I accidentally burnt a hole in the front seat of his car with a cigarette lighter. I'm grateful to Deanne Sheridan for teaching me how to play the piano. I'm grateful to Kim Robinson and Brad Ostler for being the best scoutmasters west of the Mississippi, and not torching my friends and I when we scratched the words "Kim Sucks" all over White Canyon. I'm grateful to Chris and Kathy Davis for being the hug I needed the night my Dad passed away.

The list could go on and on, I know that. But since our modern day attention span can only focus on blogposts that are under four minutes in length, I have to keep it short. One thing I will say is that I am grateful for the number of parents that put up with me over the years, and had the patience to not lose their sanity as life came our way. If I didn’t have them to keep me in line, who knows where I would be at this point?

As I stood in the bike shop with my old girlfriend’s parents, we talked, we laughed, we caught up on old times, we hugged in the aisle and then went our separate ways. Who knows when I’ll see them again? In fact, who knows if there will ever be another lucky coincidence that will have me meet up with any of my proxy parents again in a bike shop? It's been almost 12 years since I left Roy as an immature, foolish, naïve, six-foot-four punk, and not a day goes by I don’t thank the big man upstairs for blessing me with the collage of parents that raised me. 

And maybe, in the years ahead, I’ll be lucky enough to bump into a few more of them while standing in line at random bike shops. 

Swiiiiiiing, And A Miss...

When I was eleven years old I wanted to be Johnny Knoxville. This was evident by the hysterical number of gags I would pull on my friends and sisters that always ended as brutally as season nine of “Scrubs”.

And this is where I learned the principle of being grounded.

For full effect, download “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” by Harry Caray, and play at maximum volume throughout the duration of this post.

After my shenanigans, my parents would banish me to the windowless cell that I called my room, a cell lined with posters of NBA superstars and those glow-in-the-dark plastic stars we all used to stick to our ceilings with secondhand gum. There I would lay on my bed in the dark, pull out my vintage Audiovox cassette player, position the antennae at just the right angle, play around with the wheel on the front that would be targeted for 1320 KFAN, and I would listen to Steve Klauke, the baritone voice of the Salt Lake Buzz, broadcast games long into the night.

That was the best therapy I ever had for being grounded as a kid.

Now I know in the past I have blogged about my loathing for the sport of baseball. But before you roll your eyes in disgust and think this will be just another rant about the most mundane physical activity created since curling or test cricket, hold on just a second, take a deep breath, and hear me out as I relive my childhood memories through a 700-word blogpost.

You see, there once was a point in my life where baseball meant something to me, it had value in my eyes; or, in my ears, actually. On those lonely nights when I was banished to the basement for putting chicken seasoning in the showerhead of my sisters’ bathroom, or throwing a basketball at my neighbor’s little brother's face, the only thing to keep me company was the sure and steady monologue of Steve Klauke, giving me a play-by-play recap of my favorite minor league baseball team.

Those were the nights I tell ya. Back when dusk smelled like recycled barbecues and there was no such thing as a bedtime, those were the nights. And baseball, well, that was my asylum. Minor league baseball was my Christmas in summer as I would lay in bed and listen to my hometown Salt Lake Buzz engage in heated battles with teams like the Albuquerque Dukes, the Tucson Toros, and the squad who I thought was their arch-rival at the time, the Tacoma Rainiers.

And you see, I was a fan. Not some Robert De Niro-going-to-stalk-Wesley Snipes kind of guy, although I’m sure hardly any of you caught that reference to the absurdly dark film about a lurking baseball freak, no, I was a loyal Salt Lake Buzz fan, through and through. I could tell you the E.R.A. for LaTroy Hawkins, or the batting average of Chris Latham, to this day I know how many errors Denny Hocking made in 1996, that’s how devoted I was as an eleven-year old kid.

As a kid, minor league baseball was pure happiness. It was the extra scoop of rainbow sherbet you would sneak into your mouth when your parents had their backs turned after dinner. It was better than using a Game Genie to get unlimited spread fire and cheat your way to beating Contra. As a kid, those hours spent with a radio broadcast of a minor league team were better than Home Alone 2 and Space Jam combined. They were priceless.

It’s been years since those glory nights of summertime baseball, and you know what, every now and then I do get a little bit sentimental thinking about the Great American Pastime being transmitted to grounded little kids in the basement. Last week on a road trip up north I was surfing through the airwaves of AM radio and heard a familiar voice, a voice calling out phrases I haven’t heard since the Clinton Administration.

Steve Klauke: “Here’s the pitch, line drive to center field, Chavez back at the track, it’s up there, it’s out there, and it’s gone!”

Those were the nights, I tell you. Those were the nights.