Adjusted Reality

I suppose I should update for posterity on Kerrville, even if I don’t really wanna. 😛

My lead up was sub-par, and this was the understatement of the year. I swam once on the Wednesday before the race in the lake (after not at all for about 6 weeks), and remembered how just fine, so that checked that box. I intended to ride my race bike outside but didn’t. I ran a few 1-mile tests and my calf kept cramping, so I just rested it and hoped for some race day magic. I had no expectations here. I was just interested in playing triathlon and seeing what the day handed me.

Nothing was notable about the day before, the drive and camper setup and packet pickup went fine, we forgot the sheets again and ended up buying too much crap at Walmart. If anything was out of the ordinary, it was dinner – shrimp risotto spinach salad, which took 2.5 hours because the restaurant was slammed – but it was an excuse to catch up with Matt, the only angst it caused was getting to bed a little later than normal.

Sleep was fine – not the best but not the worst, and after coffee, an english muffin, and poopin’ like 6 times, I felt adequately ready to do this thing.

My swim wasn’t fast, but it also was just fine. I ended up starting in the back of my age group and passing a lot of people, and I think I was passed by one person ahead of me. I emerged from the water feeling refreshed and good. Looking at my time and the bikes still in transition, I was in the mix.

The bike was actually pretty great. While I hadn’t been riding much, I spent a crap ton of time on my feet in Europe, which meant my legs felt pretty sturdy and strong if not super trained to hammer a bike. I remembered how to maneuver on DeathStar just fine (mostly…) and though I’m not accustomed to the pain of really racing and I’m def off my form, I finished over 18.5 mph, which was also still in the mix of my age group podium.

The run was an unknown, and likely to be stacked against me at my current weight/level of training, but I was ready to be pleasantly surprised. Unfortunately, I was also surprised by the stupid bottle cage that was on the back of my bike because I hadn’t ridden it outside since May and raked my right inner thigh over it. This produced a very large (and still weeks later very painful) bruise. At the time though, I though “hmmm, that’s going to hurt later”, and took off to see what the run course had for me. I jogged, not feeling great, calves a little tight, but hoped they would loosen up. SPOILER ALERT: they. would. not. First hill, about a quarter mile in, I felt rice crispies happen in my right calf (some sort of snap, crackle or pop). It was very jolting.

I thought I tore something, but I was also hoping that it would just work itself out. I walked around, I stretched, I asked if there was ice at the aid station (sadly no) and found that running was out of the question and my best speed was about a 30 min/mile limp. If I was in the back half of the race, I might have just finished anyway. However, my pride is not such right now that I was willing to potentially do irreparable damage to finish a friggin’ sprint triathlon I was participating in just “see what I could do”. So, for the first time in 13 years of sport, I walked off a racecourse. I went to medical; they checked me out and ruled out an Achillies rupture and gave me ice.

Fast forward to my chiropractor appointment, there was nothing acutely wrong after she stretched, poked, and prodded. I have a medial quad/hammy imbalance made worse by a month of travel and an angry piriformis. My calves are fine, that is just where the funk is manifesting. Dr’s orders: 3 weeks no walking beyond what I need to do day to day, 4-6 weeks no running, and lots of stretching, rolling, and icing. I need to resume some balance strength work to re-activate the muscles that decided to go to sleep in Europe, I’m encouraged to do all the swimming, and some careful biking (with good form).

I was not a happy camper race weekend as you might imagine, but I think it could possibly have been one of the best outcomes in the grand scheme of things. I have been really cavalier with my health and training since the pandemic. I had to think really damn hard that weekend about whether I still cared about being a triathlete, and the fact that I was REALLY upset when I walked off the course that day means that I do.

I re-read “Calm the F#$% Down” (a sports psychology book) while camping and it set my head straight and reminded me of a few things. My ability to focus is ENTIRELY broken right now and it’s screwing me over in all facets of life. I get stuck on internal/broad (plotting and scheming) way too much. I’m working on alternating between internal/external/broad/narrow with some exercises. Reaching for my phone to log onto work with one eye open first thing in the morning is a bad habit I need to break. Instead, I need to start with some meditation. Yeah, I know, I am side eying myself saying the M word but it’s amazing how much better I feel when I cycle my breath through my body for 5 minutes before I really wake up even if I can’t get my brain to shut up during it and maybe that will come eventually. There are many other things, but these are the ones I can put into practice immediately.

I gave myself the week after the race to be grumpy about it and wallow a bit as an athlete, and I got over it fairly quickly, I’m just ready to do the things to not have that happen ever again. I tend to be the most motivated to make changes when I’m fed up, and hell yes, I’m fed up right now. But, as Joel reminds me as the sanity to my megmaniacalness, I need to make slow, gradual, and deliberate change instead of everything (everywhere?) all at once. So, I’m starting to incorporate 2 good habits per week, until I get back to being a little closer to the 2018-19ish me.

Week 1:

1. Track my food and work on my consumption not being one of an arsehole
2. Start meditating again.

Not that any of this was a surprise to anyone but my goldfish brain, but tracking my food reminded me that I’m eating too much for my calorie burn left to my own devices, so I’m endeavoring not to do that anymore. Also, waking up after cycling my breath through my body for 5 minutes makes me feel like a much more amazing human in the morning. Yeah, even if I can’t get my brain to shut up sometimes (or sometimes I fall back asleep during it) and maybe that will come eventually.

Week 2:

1. Start training (lightly) again
2. Try to do more of my 9 good habits

In January, I started a to do list with 9 things I’d like to do each day that make me a good sturdy happy human: stretch, roll, ice, boots, meditate, training, do a hobby for 30 mins, play 3 songs on guitar, track food. I’m back to using that to do app and while some days I get 3, and some days I get 9, I’m trying to do most things more days than not. It’s lead me to a nice morning routine where I wake up after meditation, ride the trainer for 30 mins (with some actual gusto!), occasionally pick up some weights, and then do my first hour of work on the couch with my massage boots and icing what needs icing. That hits a few things on that list. I am exclusively biking (either indoors or out) right now because I need to earn the right to run again and swimming takes leaving the house not to go to work, which is not quite in my repertoire of things to do right now, and that’s okay.

This upcoming week, I need to do the scary one (I guess it’s October so it’s spooky season):

1. Start weighing again (and not hating myself for whatever number is on the scale)
2. Reunite with the squat witch

I can’t measure progress without metrics, and I need to measure progress to stay motivated. So, it’s time to start the second parameter of this (both input AND output) with the scale. I think I’ve given it enough time to “settle” after travel and the race, and wherever I’m at right now, I’m at, and that’s okay (she says, cavalierly, before actually seeing a number). Also, we have 2 personal trainer appointments scheduled, and I’m ready to have the squat witch wreck/fix my meatbag.

I keep trying to coerce 2022 to be 2018, and it’s just not cooperating yet, but I do have 3 months left for it to move in that direction. Hopefully restarting good habits will be the shove the year needs to get going.

24 days in Europe.

I’m not sure I have the words. It’s a good thing I have pictures. This is going to take a few posts, and I’ll sprinkle them into the “returning to real-life” ones this fall. For example, I “race” in a few days. I’m pretty confident I can limp through a sprint triathlon on very little training, but I won’t lie, I’m curious if I can make it through 3 miles of running without walking right now. Walking 10 miles and standing for hours? Sure. Running? Yeah…

Anyhoo, let’s get to the travel part. 🙂

We flew out at 4pm on Monday and using our time travel powers to blast into the future, we landed in Berlin at about 1:30pm Tuesday after a quick change in Frankfurt. I was a little apprehensive about a 10+ hour flight, but the plane was rather comfortable even in the coachiest of coach seats and with a cruising altitude of 40k feet it was smooth as silk. As the sun set, we were served some tortellini and salad for dinner, accompanied by unlimited wine/beer (we had 2 just to relax). I tried to get some sleep, and I might have found 45 mins total here and there, but I really just tucked into my book.

Like 3 hours later – since we had crossed about 5 time zones, the sun came up. It was bizarre. Then, they served us a veggie sandwich and some yogurt for breakfast and it was pretty much time to be awake again!

After deplaning, we waited for all our luggage. And waited… and waited… and finally we gave up on our coworker’s bag and headed to the hotel. The girls’ taxi driver was very calm, and the boys’ was apparently CRAZY and arrived the same time even though they departed 15 mins earlier. We checked in, took a very quick shower, and ambled to work for some meetings.

The Berlin wall was half a block from the hotel and was the backdrop to half of the commute. It was interesting that such a heavy and significant piece of history is now covered in colorful modern art and I didn’t take nearly as many pictures of it as I wanted. We toured the office, made introductions to faces that had previously just been names in emails, and had some in person meetings not possible before this trip, it was super nice to connect!

We ate doners and then our coworkers walked us almost the whole way home, and we paused at an outdoor bar for one beer to watch the sunset on the Spree.

We begged off quickly and slept for 12 hours. It was glorious!

After a lovely hotel room arm workout and breakfast, we assembled our crew and made the trek again to the office for a full day of work. It was very productive in the quiet hours of the German morning while everyone in the US was asleep and later we gathered for marketing strategy meetings in person in the same time zone (again, so novel). Then, my folks in the US started waking up and I squeezed in as many meetings as possible before they put a beer in front of me and then kicked us out to go have fun.

We took a train to the other side of town and went to a biergarten, where I had my first currywurst (it was… adequate… very much drinking/kids food).

After enough beer, I required somewhere that would serve me something else, so we wandered the streets of Berlin and made our way to a nightclub in an alleyway, which sounds incredibly sketchy but apparently is super normal here.

After a few hours of excellent company and conversation, we were getting sleepy, and retired to the hotel to have one more beverage/water before bed, and all of a sudden, the sun started to threaten the darkness much earlier than expected. The hotel’s breakfast had just opened, so we grabbed a bite to eat and then crashed. Jet lag is rough.

We didn’t sleep long enough but our orders for the day were to NOT work and to go sightsee, so we obeyed. We saw the Brandenburg gate, a beautiful park, the capital building, and then wandered along the Spree for a while before we stopped for some late lunch and listened to some awful tourists complain to the waiter that there was no AC. I get it, but do you see air conditioning around here anywhere? Please read the room city. It’s not like they can magic the mostly outdoor restaurant cold for you. Sigh.

After many kilometers (I’ll try to use the metric system here on out!) on foot for the day, we took the train back to the hotel, intending to perhaps get a little work done. We missed our exit and got off at one a few miles away intending to turn right around and catch the return train 5 minutes later. It didn’t appear, and then everyone was gone. I knew enough German to look at the signs that had schedules now said, “Police warning” and told my people we should probably vacate the premises and find out what’s going on. Officials directed us out of the station and out to the streets, where I overheard “die bombe”, and we confirmed later that they found an old WW2 bomb near that stop.

Apparently, it’s a normal thing in Berlin but was pretty wild for us. It also meant we had a pretty long walk ahead of us (5k+ in over 30C heat) and found ourselves sweaty, exhausted, and enough time just to shower and pack and get ourselves to the train. Luckily, we had some nice seats with a table, so I got some work done anyway, and watched the German countryside go by at hundreds of kilometers per hour.

Without incident, we arrived in Hamburg at around 9pm, checked into our hotel which was 200m away from the train station, and found excellent Turkish food right across the street.

More about Hamburg next time!

One of the reasons this blog exists, the main one, actually, is to preserve history.

It’s my own little slice, skewed through my view through my whatever-colored-glasses I’m wearing at the time, full of bias and error, but it’s useful to me. One thing it reminds me of is that in some years, I spent time meticulously crafting my meals for the week, ensuring that I was getting the right kind of carbs, highest diet quality, attending to my macros, etc. Yesterday, I ate a quarter of a leftover sandwich, five taquitos in the air fryer, and chicken tikka folded into a tortilla.

However, another thing I can remember through history is the years I’ve made the most progress, it’s not been about quality, it’s been about quantity, and I’m doing a decent-ish job there the last week.

Unfortunately, this just gets me BACK to where I was after a sub-par July, but the line is going in the right direction, so I shall call it a win.

It’s rather challenging to build muscle and lose weight at the same time, and I reread some history and found this in 2018 as well. I spent a few months plateaued while I picked up and put down heavy things, and then the weight started to fall off once I went into maintenance mode and prioritized diet and cardio with all the shiny new muscle. I was only about 5 lbs down from where I am right now when I won my age group and qualified for nationals. It feels like such a far stretch right now, but I need to remember to trust the process and sometimes things don’t happen on the timeline I want them to just by willing them into existence (but that doesn’t mean they’re not happening).

The cardio is going about as well as before:

Starting Tuesday after our last gym session and theater tickets, we are on pre-travel quarantine. We’re only leaving the house when absolutely necessary and masking up when we do. This means we’re saying goodbye to the elliptical for a while and back to running, biking, and swimming for exercise. I had a heck of a week at work and ended up missing a few intended cardio sessions, but I’m pretty okay with a short swim, a short run, an elliptical, and three bikes along with the three weights sessions clocking in at 4 hours total. I have to remember a very stripped-down workout calendar for me is some peoples #gymgoals so right now it can be mine too.

Speaking of the run, I absolutely cannot wait to get a few miles a few times a week in Europe in the beautiful 60-degree mornings. I expect most of my cardio will be walking, and some of my weight training will be 12-ounce (beer, Germany) or 4-ounce (wine, Paris) curls, but I would like to make sure I do some running as well given the beautiful weather.

Let’s talk about our imminent travels. I’m getting unreasonably nerv-cited for this upcoming trip. It’s mind boggling how much will occur in the next month before I board a plane home:

• Meeting colleagues/working in Berlin, seeing as many sights as possible in the short time we’re there
• Meeting colleagues/working in Hamburg, including the CEOs, and spending the weekend checking out the city, perhaps taking a river cruise and a bike ride.
• Talking to press and attending Gamescom in Cologne, and also checking out the city once that’s over (I’d love to find a great place to watch sunset overlooking the skyline).
• Spending a day in Brussels getting a street Belgian waffle and visiting the Grand Place and Mont des Arts
• Taking over a week in Paris to get hundreds of pictures of the Eiffel tower at different times per day (our hotel is two blocks away), eat amazing food and drink my favorite wine in the world, see a show at the Moulin Rouge, go to Disneyland Paris, and so much more (you might be able to tell where my research time has gone, heh)

This is not one of those “sit on the beach and drink pina coladas” type trips, and I am absolutely here for the adventure. I’m also VERY happy I had the foresight to make Kerrville triathlon (just a few weeks after we return) a sprint only, as I’d rather focus on this amazing opportunity and get my cardio tromping all over town than riding my bike for 50 miles @ 150 watts. I mean, I’m totally open to doing a bike ride (and actually planning on it with a colleague one day in Hamburg if all goes as planned), but it should be for funsies.

If I fall off the map for a bit, just know it’s because I’m travelling all around it. 🙂

It’s one of those weeks where I sit down without much to say but feel like rambling anyway, so here’s 88 lines about 44 things.

My poor, sore muscles:

Remember when I so brazenly said chest and shoulders was my easy day? The Squat Witch gave us a new chest/shoulder workout and two days later typing is hard. We did high set high rep (4×15) on all manner of press machines at different angles, I can’t even name them. We also changed up our back and bicep workout this week, but it wasn’t memorably bad as this one. I’m pretty sure leg day is still #1 for pain and suffering but this is damn close.

After Tuesday, we begin our two-week quarantine before travelling. I do NOT want to get sick and miss this trip, so I figure better safe than sorry. This means only leaving the space station when we absolutely must and donning multiple masks for any spacewalks necessary. This also means we have to stay home from the gym the next two weeks, so we’ll improvise our workouts the best we can from here, though we have plenty of equipment to do so.

However, when we go to Europe, none of the places we’re staying have gyms. So, once we arrive, it’s back to bodyweight exercises. Should be easy enough to cobble together a leg day like:

• 3×20 squats
• 3×20 reverse lunges each side
• 3×15 single leg piston squats
• 3×20 bridge lifts each side
• 3×20 calf raises each side

Back and Biceps might be more challenging, but seems like the internet provides:

• Some bodyweight bicep exercises (looks like the doorways will be getting some use)
• Some bodyweight back exercises (creative ways to use a towel)

Chest and shoulders should be decently easy.

• Since this site is kinda awesome, some bodyweight chest exercises. Spoiler alert, it’s all types of pushups.
• And, bodyweight shoulder exercises. These look incredibly easy enough to adapt to a hotel room.

I’ll hold off on making full workouts in case the squat witch wants to make them for us, but at least there are options.

As for the cardio, we’ve been averaging about 4x week, which isn’t quite where I’d like to be, but it’s close enough. The majority is on the elliptical machine, but I ran and swam once this week and biked twice, and mostly remembered how to do the sports, so that’s encouraging.

In Europe, even though I’ll completely drop swimming, I will try to squeeze in a few runs and imagine I will be very active walking or city biking everywhere. In an alternate 2022 timeline, I had hoped to be in condition to race Kerrville Sprint at the end of September but spending 3.5 weeks away means that our level of training only really nets “participation” levels again. C’est la vie. I can race triathlons other years; I can’t always spend almost a month abroad.

Things, and cakehole shoving:

I have kept a food log for the last two weeks. Sometimes I’m catching up a few days and tracking after the fact, but I’m making an effort to keep it up. Log says I’m right around 1500 (1516)/day this week, which is decent, but with my level of activity lately (not much), I should be closer to 1300-1400 average. Also, tracking after the fact probably means my accuracy is not 100% there. I’m sure there’s some other bits and bobbles I’m not remembering so perhaps safer to say around 1600-1700.

This is what my weight is doing this month after totally ignoring any weighing/tracking for the first half. It’s not awesome.

Hopefully two weeks of lockdown before vacation can also mean two weeks of good clean eating to make progress in the right direction. I continue to aim to try all the things in Europe but also keep the portions reasonable.

Goals ‘n Stuff

It is beyond crazy to me that 7 months have passed since New Years. While goal #2 is in progress (losing weight) and goal #3 didn’t pan out for the right reasons (become a two-time Ironman finisher), I still had other ambitions for the year.

Goal #1 – Work Life Balance – this is getting much better. In the last month or two, I have been able to hand off many of the extra hats I was wearing, which has really helped my workload. I have done some late night and weekend work, but this has been in place of some normal work hours, not in addition. If I were to meticulously log my time, I’d guess I’m pretty close to 40 hours a week right now. It’s just not a continuous 8 hours daily. I tend to bug out early to do chores, workout, eat dinner, and/or relax in the pool and return later in the evening to get some quiet focused time that’s difficult during business hours. The next step is to be able to work a contiguous 8, and that will take some level of further discipline on my part to confine message correspondence to specific windows throughout the day instead of the moment they come in.

Part of the balance I have been lacking is prioritizing any sort of recovery or injury prevention. I haven’t stretched, used the massage boots, rolled, or anything like that for quite a while. I will pat myself on the back that I have had two massages in the last two months, I need to do more. My back is holding up like a champ, it’s almost not worth discussing anymore, and my heel/calf is reasonably cooperating (but I have given it a nice long break without much running, so we shall see…). So, here we start again. Stretching is absolutely something I can do in Europe, and I shall endeavor to start again today and continue 3x week henceforth.

Some other notables from the goal bucket:

• Finding my pavlovian relaxation response: right now, it’s the pool and it’s doing wonders for my stress levels. I’ll have to figure out what happens in late fall/winter but that’s a problem for future me.
• Three new guitar songs: I’m about 1.75 in (Pearl Jam – Black is in the can, California Dreamin’ is allllmost there). I hadn’t picked up the guitar much in the last few months (race, vacation, covid, spending lots of time in the pool, etc) but I’m back to it a few times a week. It makes me happy.
• Paintings: ehhhh. I finished two, started two more, and they sit on the craft table. I have been less than motivated here (maybe I will be more motivated when the pool doesn’t call my name daily). Maybe I’ll pick this up in the fall/winter.
• Writing: I actually opened up my Fork Files, and took a look, and haven’t done anything else with it. It finally dawned on me this morning why I’m not doing this – I’m scratching and clawing for focus time to work, stealing it sometimes in early mornings, late nights, and weekends. I can’t justify adding a hobby that I also have to go in a hole for hours to concentrate on and spend even more time in my office with the door shut. Writing about my silly bard made and still makes me smile, and after two years perspective, I’d love to start taking that and working it into something someone NOT familiar to the campaign might enjoy, but this may not be the year.
• See the doctor: done! And, I need to go back and have a minor procedure later this year, which is no big deal, but I am not looking forward to because I have gotten away with a checkup and a wave every other year.
• Investment property: have talked a lot about it but kind of waiting on a few things and also deciding exactly WHERE to do this (is it Austin area or somewhere else?).
• Get the floor fixed: sighhh. Yeah, haven’t done anything about this. We may prioritize the master bathroom first since the tile is falling away from the wall at some points. Maybe both. Maybe I just continue to keep my head in the sand and do neither. Can someone just come in and fix my house for me without me having to decide things and bear the mental burden of making it happen?

All in all, 2022 is a VAST improvement so far on the two years preceding, and I’m hoping to make some progress on the most important thing (losing weight/getting buff) in the back half of the year and perhaps make some progress on some of the smaller objectives as well.

For all the big words I had here, I’m afraid I had very little action.

But not none. So, let’s catch up on life, liberty, and the pursuit of de-fluffification, shall we?

The good:

I have now completed week three of strength training with the Squat Witch, otherwise known as Brie, our personal trainer, who earned this nickname on our first leg day together. I can and do keep up with strength on my own, I know what to do, but gosh I get stuck in a rut and will do the things that are a little easier for me when working muscles instead of seeking out true gains. Having someone else tell you what to do takes away any of that temptation.

For posterity, our workouts right now are:

Leg day:

3×20 bosu ball squats, 3×15 stepback lunges to knee raise w/dumbells, 3×15 step ups on the box to knee raise w/dumbells

Back and biceps:

2×30 assisted pullups (10×3 different grips), 3×12 wide pulldowns, 3×12 narrow pulldowns, 3×15 wide rows, 3×15 low rows

Chest and shoulders:

(first four while balancing shoulders only on the ball) 3×12 bench, 3×10 alternating bench, 3×12 champagne lifts (arms together), 3×12 reverse flys

(standing) 3×15 front raises, 3×12 lat raises, 3×15 shoulder presses

I have ranked them in terms of difficulty. Leg day is a killer. It’s only three things but you only need three things. It takes 30 mins to do these three things. I feel like a baby deer after. Back and biceps are challenging but doable. Chest and shoulder day is my happy fun day since these are strengths for me and I probably could handle more weight but we’re working our way there.

The okay:

I have also done a pretty decent job sticking to cardio. Oddly enough, when I’m not faced with the need to do super long and challenging sessions, I seem to be better at fitting them in and not actively avoiding them.

The general “cardio” is ~30 minutes on the elliptical. I’m not trying to push myself to go brave the heat and run or bike outside this summer, and while I’d like to have more swims logged (hello, it’s right outside my door and I can go do it for 5 minutes if I only have that much time), this is good progress to be regularly doing SOMETHING instead of actively avoiding it. I think it may be at least three times per week that I comment to Joel, “I’m SO GLAD we took this summer off long distance triathlons”. It’s just stupid outside, even for Austin, and I’m not here for it this year.

I intend to get back to running on the treadmill a little, maybe splitting my time half and half on the elliptical, but there’s no rush. I just need to remember how to run a 5k off the bike in 2 months.

The bad:

I know how to lose weight. It is no secret to me. It involves tracking all the food that goes in my mouth with consistency and accuracy. It involves 1200-1400 calories most days. It involves sucking it up, buttercup, and I just haven’t been able to bring myself to do it. I’ve had many fits and starts lately where I’ve begun tracking on Monday and by Wednesday life is busy and the habit goes *poof*. Then, I get grumpy and stop weighing myself and then all of a sudden, it’s 3 months later and I’ve gained weight.

I’m not letting myself get to that point. I got back on the scale this week, even if I haven’t been tracking my food like clockwork, and each day I’ve been either 189 or 190. This means that July has trended about half to one lb up from June. It’s not ideal, and I wanted to LOSE weight, but in hindsight with my intake, it’s what I deserve.

So, I leave for a 3.5-week trip to Europe in 3 weeks. I could say eff it and I’ll get back to it when I get home, but I’m not. I’m going to at least try. If somehow, things go amazing, I could be 5 lbs down when I leave and that would make me feel happy and confident. So, starting today, I track all the things and I shall aim to have 100% logged for the next 3 weeks. I refuse to spend my first trip abroad dieting, and look forward to trying all the German, Belgian, and French foods and beverages, but maybe I can be a reasonable human being with the quantities. Also, I imagine that I will spend a lot of time on foot seeing the sights, and I’ll be trying to keep up with strength even if all I can do is bodyweight exercises in the hotel room.

So, for the millionth and first time, I start again. If anyone reads these entries, I’m sure you’re sick of hearing this, and I’m sick of saying this. However, when you get off track, even if it’s often, even if you feel foolish doing so, it’s important to be stubborn AF patient and persistent and get up at least one more time than you fall down.