Training at Tigerbar

So Laura has been bugging me to post about my training. Seems like a simple enough thing to do. After all, Laura cranks them out like they grow on trees. The problem for me is Adenosine TriPhosphate (ATP), or rather lack thereof. As in I do not have enough of this left in my body after a day of training to coerce my fingers to move across a keyboard. OK, so maybe I could at least do that...but the pushing down part is out of the question.

By and large my life consists of three things...in varying amounts: Train, Eat, Sleep. I wake up sometime between 8:00-9:30am. After breakfast and a decent amount of moaning and groaning (popular topics include whether or not my right leg, left shoulder, fill in the blank with a body part, will function at all that day), I am at the training facility by around 10:30am. Contrary to popular opinion similar to that of my father's:), Olympic hopefuls in the 21st century do not wake before the sun rises to begin their morning calisthenics and the pursuit of that pesky gold medal. Behavior like that is akin to handing out personal bombing coordinates to the axis of injury evil. We sleep, sleep, sleep. At times 12 hours or more (sans anyone with a 2.5 year old daughter named Rowan). The first two questions asked by Coach Dan (Pfaff) as we enter the facility are, "How do you feel, and how long did you sleep"? Even at that, I am often the first athlete to be asked these questions as most of the others do not arrive for another hour or two.

I then proceed to train like a madman for the next 6-8 hours. If you really want to know the details of what 8 hours of training look like, then leave all kinds of comments alluding to this aforementioned desire and I will post an example day. For now, lest I roll your eyeballs back into your head, I will skip forward to the crashing in a heap on the couch part, where Laura tries to assist me in the lifting of her wonderfully prepared meals to my mouth. Shortly thereafter, I am asleep in bed, dreaming of what horrors in long chain destruction Dan has planned for my oppressed abductor region that next day.

My caloric needs have also been boggling. I literally eat all day long, and I never feel full for longer than half an hour. Dan calculated my caloric output/intake at somewhere between 6000-8000 calories a day. This has certainly changed our grocery budget a bit!

Laura and I made a particularly large and risky leap of faith to move to California for this Olympic year. After almost two months of training, I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that we made the correct decision. Coach Pfaff is among the world elite in the circles of track and field coaching. He told me my first day that I would receive my PHD in Decathlon by the time he was done. So far he is keeping up his end of the bargain. Dan is heady to say the least. I told him the other day that he was just barely dumb enough to relate to us...much smarter and he would be an ineffective coach. Fortunately for me I am somewhat of a dork/jock. A Jork you could say. Dan and I seem to really connect and my technical training has been off the charts. Each day my brain is maxed out for comprehension and learning. Dan is also a spiritual man who cares as deeply for our souls as he does our bodies. This creates a wonderful synergy to the training life we all have here in the Delta.

Well, thanks for tuning in. Hope this gives you a glimpse into what I'm up to. Thank you to all those who have helped make this year a possibility for me. Your generosity has/is allowing me to attain the goal I have set out to achieve...to become the best Decathlete I can, leaving no doubt behind. My dream is that this achievement might coincide with a chance to compete in the Beijing Olympic Games.

Included are a few pics from training that have been snapped by some athletes. Proof that I am at least not completely making this stuff up. There's also one of Dan roaming around the grounds.

Sincerely heading to bed,

Joe