Update on the results from my Humorous Speech Contest post:

I won.

Now I have to prepare for the District Competition on Saturday, October 22nd.  There will be some good competition at the next one, so wish me luck!

Humorous Speech Contest

I have previously mentioned that I joined a Toastmasters group here in Tulsa back in April.  I’ve been attending regular meetings, writing and delivering speeches, and generally learning a great deal about my speaking style and areas where I could use improvement in how I deliver speeches.  For example, my biggest glaring weakness is in using my notes.  I can easily tie this into preparation.  With everything else going on in my life (work, baby, triathlon training) writing speeches usually ends up getting short shrift.  When it is my turn to speak, I usually end up writing my speech a day or two before I am scheduled to give it, and as a result, I don’t have enough time to practice it before I delivery the speech in front of my group.  That invariably means I lean too hard on my notes to remember where I am going with my speech, which means I am giving a less effective speech because instead of looking at the audience the entire time, I am glancing down to read my notes.  This one is easy to fix- practice more.

I also tend to get stuck behind the podium when giving a speech.  I’ve had this one mentioned to me several times.  This, also, ties directly to my reliance on my notes because if I were able to deliver the speech extemporaneously, I wouldn’t need to stand behind the podium.  I am always very big when I am on stage- I have a great speaking voice and I use excellent gestures when speaking- but when I stand behind the podium the whole time, the audience never really has a chance to completely connect with me because they can only see the top half of me.  This, too, is an easy one to fix- practice more so I can get out from behind the podium.

This leads me to the title of this post- Humorous Speech Contest.  Several weeks ago, my club sponsored a Humorous Speech Contest where several speakers were signed up to tell a humorous story or anecdote to the group for a chance to win a trophy and a chance to represent our club in the Area Competition on Saturday, September 17th.  I put together what I thought was a pretty humorous idea and brought my A-game to the speech.  You can probably tell from the picture up top that I ended up winning the competition.  So that is where i will be tomorrow morning at 9:30 am, giving a humorous speech in our Area Competition.  If I win that, then I move on to the District competition.  So wish me luck!

Triathlon Training

Two months ago, I decided to start training for a triathlon.  I’ve never been much of a distance runner, frankly, running from the car to the door when it is raining is about the extent of my desire to run.  I haven’t regularly ridden a bike since I was in middle school, and despite being on the swim team in high school, I haven’t swam for distance since 1998.  Why in the world, then, would I decide to do something so completely out of my element?  Today, I will tell you about my decision and what the race will entail.

I ran a lot when I was young.  I remember being the fastest kid in my class in grade school.  But somewhere between grade school and high school, *poof* I lost most of my athletic talent.  I was a somewhat awkward kid, not at all athletic and without the discipline to practice hard and get better.  I joined the swim team, actually the diving team my freshman year of high school but when I grew an entire foot in one year, suddenly I was too tall and awkward to be a successful diver.  I ran track for a few years as well, but always short distances.  I never had the stamina to run more than a quarter mile.  By the time I got to college, I hadn’t been active athletically for years.

Now, I’m kind of a muscle head.  I actually didn’t even start lifting until sophomore year of college when one of my buddies took me to the weight room.  I literally had no idea what I was doing.  I couldn’t have told you the difference between a bicep curl and a 12 oz curl.  But as time went on and I gained experience, I got better and better and in the process got stronger and stronger.

You may not believe this, but when I graduated high school, I weighed about a hundred and sixty pounds.  By the end of college, I was up to one seventy-five.  After college, I started to hit the weights more and more regularly.  By the time I got married in 2007, I had put on close to fifty pounds.  Now, admittedly some of that was around my midsection, but most of it was in the places that count.

And all of that brings me to the triathlon.  Every year for our anniversary, my wife and I do something exciting.  On our honeymoon, we went scuba diving and climbed a waterfall.  Our first year of marriage, we jumped out of a perfectly good airplane skydiving.  For our second anniversary, she was pregnant with our son, so we went on a vacation to Mexico and slept in hammocks by the beach.  Let me tell you, it was rough.  So when our third anniversary came up this year, we talked about what to do.  I had been considering training for this triathlon in September and threw out that we do the triathlon together.  She agreed and it was decided.  We upgraded our bikes, strapped on our running shoes and started our training.

There are three pieces to a sprint triathlon like we are doing.  The first is the swim.  We will be swimming 750 meters, or about a half mile, in Lake Heyburn just south of Tulsa.  The first time I hopped in the pool at our local YMCA, I nearly drowned myself.  I couldn’t swim farther than 25 meters without having to stop and catch my breath.  I thought for sure I’d end up half-drowned, being pulled out of the lake by the Triathlon lifeguards.  But as time went on, and as I practiced more and more, it got easier and easier.  Now, I’m excited because the swimming segment is where I think I can make really good time.

The second segment of the race follows the swim.  You hop out of the lake, grab your bike and ride for 10 miles.  This, too, has been a learning experience.  My wife and I have a couple of crappy $100 Wal-mart bikes.  We got them a few years ago and promptly hung them in the garage and forgot about them.  So when I pulled them down and started riding around the neighborhood, there was…shall we say…a period of adjustment.  Saddle soreness, if you will.  Ouch.  I took our bikes to the local bike shop in Owasso and had road tires installed.  We also learned about bike shoes and pedals that clip your foot to the pedal, allowing you to utilize BOTH pushing and pulling when you pedal.  With a typical bike pedal, you can only exert force during the pushing part of the motion.  Once your foot hits the bottom of the stride, you have to wait for the pedal to come back up to the top before pushing again.  With a clipless pedal, and don’t be confused, clipless is the name of the pedals you clip into, you are able to both push on the way down and pull on the way back up.  Twice as much force can be exerted by using both your quads and your hamstrings.  The result is, you go faster and are less tired because you also lose less energy when you are clipped in.

Of course, there is one glaring negative to being clipped in to your pedals.  And that is, you are clipped in to your pedals.  While clipping out is actually quite easy, it takes another period of adjustment and after 30 years of just taking my feet off the pedals when I wanted to put my foot down, I had to retrain myself to unclip before trying to lean over.  Yes, there were several times where I forgot and went crashing to the ground, feet still firmly ensconced in their pedals. Painful?  Slightly. Embarassing?  Absolutely.

The third and final leg of the race is the 5K, or 3.1 mile run.  This follows the bike ride.  You hop off the bike, change your shoes and hit the road, plodding towards the finish line.  As I mentioned before, I’ve never been much of a runner, so this has been the biggest challenge for me.  3.1 miles is a LONG way and after finishing a half mile swim and a ten mile ride, the last thing I want to do is keep running for another 3 miles.  But that’s the final part of the race and I am confident that the day of the big race, adrenaline will keep me going if my legs decide to give out on me.

Finally, I mentioned that my wife and I are training together.  For me, this has been the best part of this whole process.  We went out and upgraded our bikes together. We ride the bike trail together with our son.  We swim our laps together.  We run/jog/walk/crawl the miles together.  It has been a truly joyful experience and I have loved every minute I have gotten to spend with her.  And when we run the race 30 days from now, we will finish together, the same way we started it all.

Don’t You Quit

It is probably one of the most famous motivational poems in history.  I know throughout my life, I’ve heard it dozens of times in numerous different situations.  From little league baseball to middle school basketball to standing on stage during a high school musical.  I heard it at a fraternity meeting, during student government, and in one of my college courses.  I remember a manager reading it during a staff meeting once and I know I’ve seen it posted on the internet before.  It is an excellent reminder of how, when things seem like they are headed badly for you, to keep you head up and keep pressing on because you never know when things will turn around for you.

When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,

When the funds are low and the debts are high,

And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,

When care is pressing you down a bit-

Rest if you must, but don’t you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,

As every one of us sometimes learns,

And many a fellow turns about

When he might have won had he stuck it out.

Don’t give up though the pace seems slow –

You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than

It seems to a faint and faltering man;

Often the struggler has given up

When he might have captured the victor’s cup;

And he learned too late when the night came down,

How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out –

The silver tint in the clouds of doubt,

And you never can tell how close you are,

It might be near when it seems afar;

So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit –

It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.

Sitting Is Killing You

We sit so much.  You’re probably sitting right now as you read this.  How much do you sit during the day?  Eight hours?  Ten hours?  Twelve hours or more?  What about when you get home?  Do you sit in your car on the drive home?  Sit at a table to eat dinner, sit on the couch to watch TV, sit in a chair to read before reclining in your bed to sleep?  Sitting is killing you, and today I’d like to discuss what you can do about it.

Three weeks ago I converted my cubicle to a standing desk.  Where I once sat for eight to twelve hours a day, I now have the option of sitting or standing and I actually stand and work for about six hours out of my eight hour day.  Sitting for six or more hours per day makes you up to 40% more likely to die within 15 years than someone who sits less than 3 hours per day.  Even if you exercise, studies have shown that only reducing sitting helps reduce that number.

We know that 1 in 3 Americans is obese.  Obese people sit for 2 1/2 more hours per day than thin people.  What happens when you sit?  Your body goes into meltdown the moment you sit down.  As soon as you sit, electrical activity in the leg muscles shuts off.  Calorie burning drops to 1 per minute.  The enzymes that help break down fat drop 90%.  After 2 hours your good cholesterol drops 20%.  After 24 hours, your risk of diabetes increases.  Is it any wonder that people with sitting jobs have twice the rate of cardiovascular disease as people with standing jobs?

You’re probably saying to yourself right now, “my job requires me to sit at a desk for 8 hours a day.”  For many of us, sitting in front of a computer for your job is inevitable.  But there are ways to solve this dangerous problem without winding up in a body bag.  First, know that the recommended 30 minutes of activity per day are not enough.  You should interrupt sitting whenever you can.  For me, I started standing whenever I got on a phone call.  I was standing at my desk, I could still see my computer, but I was spending an hour or two standing instead of sitting.  After a while, I realized that I preferred standing to sitting, and I contacted our ergonomics department about converting my cubicle to a standing desk.  It was a simple process and took them about 30 minutes.  Now, I have a tray that pulls out from under my desk with my keyboard on it.  I can stand in front of my desk with my hands comfortably in front of me to use my computer, or I can move the keyboard down and sit at my chair.  I don’t even miss my lower desk at all.

This could be a solution for you.  I spoke to the ergonomics people who set up my desk- they told me that they had converted around 40 desks to standing workstations in the last year.  After converting mine, several of my coworkers became interested in converting their own desks to standing.  Most larger companies have ergonomics departments that can help you evaluate your workstation to see if it can be converted to a standing workstation.  Even if it can’t, they can help you find ways to be healthier during your day.  We spend so much time at our jobs, shouldn’t we try to make the time we spend there as healthy as possible?

But that’s not all.  You should take every opportunity to stand, walk, stretch and get away from the sedentary position most of us spend a full third of our day in.  Do like I did and stand during your phone calls.  Instead of sending an email, walk down to the person’s office.  Get up and walk around.  Go to the bathroom, go outside, do something to break yourself away from the desk.

It doesn’t stop at work, though.  People who spend 3 or more hours per day watching TV are 64% more likely to die from heart disease.  Of those who sit in front of the TV 3 hours per day, those who exercise are just as fat as those who do not.  Each extra hour of watching TV comes out to an 11% higher death risk.  If you spend more than 5 hours a day watching TV, you are 90% more likely to die from heart disease.

As you go about your day, I want you to think about how much time you spend sitting and look for ways to break the unhealthy cycle.  The human body simply isn’t meant to sit for long periods of time.  A hundred years ago, when we were all toiling in the fields and factories, obesity was basically nonexistent.  But since we can’t exactly run free in the fields til the end of our days, we have to help our bodies in other ways.  We have to stand up for our right to stand up.

I pulled most of this information from an article I read on Lifehacker.