Seen on the run: Remembering Black Wall Street and the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre

Artwork on display near the OSU-Tulsa campus, situated in the heart of the Greenwood District – home to what was once called “Black Wall Street” before the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

NOTE: The following is an adaptation from the book “Outsider: Tales from the road, the trail and the run.” It has been updated to reflect the name change of the events of May 31-June 1, 1921, in the Black Wall Street area of Tulsa, as well as that of the district north of downtown.

***

There are some things I’ve learned while on the run. Sometimes I’ll take a route by the baseball stadium. It’s a fairly new ballpark for Tulsa’s Double-A baseball team, and it’s a nice one at that. You can actually get good beer there (not just the swill most ballparks serve), and they shoot off fireworks at the end of Friday and Saturday night home games. Any seat in the house is good, with picturesque views of the downtown skyline clearly visible over the outfield wall.

The ballpark sits at the corner of Greenwood Avenue and Archer Street, once the nexus of what used to be called America’s “Black Wall Street.” Back before 1921, Tulsa’s Black community had built up some thriving enterprises just north of downtown. But an accusation was made – a black man assaulting a white woman, something that was never proven – and that set off an armed confrontation between white residents of the city and folks who lived in Tulsa’s primarily black north side.

This mural, painted on a wall of an elevated portion of Interstate 244 in Tulsa, depicts the heights of Black Wall Street and also the violence that befell it. Starting on May 31, 1921, white mobs went on a rampage of murder and arson that leveled what was, at that time, one of the most prosperous Black communities in the United States.

It was a bloodbath. The Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 left Black Wall Street a charred, broken ruin. An untold number of black-owned business and homes were burned, and while official figures on the number of dead are in the dozens, most historians put the body count in the hundreds. Black Wall Street was dead, and it died violently.

Northside residents rebuilt after the attack, trying to recapture the glory that the neighborhood once held. To an extent, they succeeded, but urban renewal projects, including a highway loop around downtown, razed many buildings and cut through the heart of the area. As the years passed by it degraded into a warehouse district with few tenants and high crime. In recent years it’s been revived as an arts district, with lots of cool galleries, music venues, clubs, restaurants and bars. There’s a hotel in there, too, and a great little park that’s home to concerts, a farmer’s market and people just hanging out or grabbing some grub from food trucks.

The corner of Archer and Greenwood, the heart of what became Black Wall Street in north Tulsa.

There’s also that baseball stadium, and across the street from it, a smaller, less conspicuous park that was built to commemorate the losses of the race massacre. It’s called Reconciliation Park, and it’s an incredible little green space. People who visit and take time to read the placards installed at various stations will get a chance to learn a few things about what were undoubtedly Tulsa’s darkest days. It’s great that we have this park; I wish it was bigger, maybe more dramatic, something befitting of all that was lost in 1921. I realize that doing so might have inconvenienced those who built the ballpark, the television station not far away, and all the trendy businesses nearby. I just hope everyone involved in the establishment of these places understands their prosperity is built on the ashes of someone else’s long-ago broken dreams. The Tulsa Arts District is a jewel for my city, alive with people and commerce. But that was also true of Black Wall Street in 1921. It just so happened that back then the people who flocked here were of a different hue than the rest of the city, a fact leaving them relatively powerless to stop the nightmare that burned the heart of their community to the ground.

I usually run through that park at least a few times a week. I make a point of it.

A view of downtown Tulsa from the top of Standpipe Hill in the Greenwood District of north Tulsa. Greenwood was once home to a prosperous business and residential area of primary Black residents, but was burned to the ground in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre 100 years ago. Residents would rebuild, but urban renewal – including the construction of an interstate highway pictured here that ran through the heart of Greenwood – prevented the area from regaining its former glory.

Bob Doucette

Pandemic pounds, body image, and why people are asking the wrong questions

I’m just saying, maybe we should ask different questions about our fitness during the pandemic.

There are two competing messages in regards to what has happened to people’s fitness during the pandemic.

The first goes something like, “Here’s how to lose all those pandemic pounds!” Or something like that.

The second is a stiff counter narrative, admonishing people to give themselves grace if they’ve added a few, and scolding those who, in their minds, are guilt-tripping people over their inability to uphold a body image ideal during a stressful time.

In both cases, the focus is more or less on appearance. What I’m going to suggest is scrapping both narratives for something more useful.

But first, let me tell you a personal story. It goes like this:

When the pandemic hit the U.S. in earnest about a year ago, my gym shut down. I did workouts from home for a couple of months until it reopened. I waited to see how serious the gym’s management would take COVID-19 safety protocols, was satisfied with their work and started up again. So I began lifting hard, eating to gain some muscle, and running less. Seeing that in-person races weren’t on the horizon, I figured I’d go all-in on the lifting and run just enough to keep up a measure of cardiovascular fitness.

The good news is that I got a lot stronger. I gained some muscle mass. And I was “fit” enough to do some of the more taxing things I love.

The bad news is that without the normal fall race season, I didn’t have that one piece of my training that kept my weight in check: long runs, speed work, and plenty of mileage. Once summer ended, I didn’t switch to race training. I just kept doing the same thing I’d been doing since May.

As my strength gains peaked in February, my body did what everyone’s will do: Plateau. It’s inevitable that any strength program has a shelf life, and the fact that I was able to use mine for nine months and see gains throughout that time is astonishing. But even then, a ceiling was reached.

I got stronger during the pandemic. But I let some things slide that are biting me in the butt right now.

And by consistently eating more than normal (sometimes by design, and sometimes because work-from-home = easy access to the fridge), my body did what a lot of people’s bodies will do: It stopped using those extra calories for muscle-building and started storing them as body fat. There’s a term for it: insulin resistance. And it’s a bad thing. So while I picked up a good amount of strength, I also gained a bunch of extra weight in all the wrong places: in my belly, around my waist, and very likely around my vital organs. Needless to say, that’s not healthy.

I found that as I got heavier, all the other things I liked doing – running, biking and hiking – all got harder, and not just in terms of being winded. My back, hips, knees, ankles and feet all let me know that carrying around a lot of extra weight was doing harm.

So I have a choice: live with my new pandemic pounds or get rid of them.

Going back to my original point about the two competing narratives: In both cases, the focus is on the wrong thing. On one side, you’ve got someone urging you to look your best, and on the other is one telling you to love your body as it is. On the surface, neither is necessarily wrong. But the question they pose is.

What should the focus be? Answer: How is my body performing?

How I see it, body “performance” is examined in two ways. I’m going to use really general terms to keep it easy. One way is “internal” and the other is “external.”

Internal includes things such as how well your cardiovascular system is oxygenating your body. Is your heart working harder than it should? How’s your blood pressure? Does your current physical condition compromise your immune system? Are the habits you picked up during the pandemic negatively affecting your metabolism? How well are you sleeping compared to pre-pandemic weight gain? Are your internal organs functioning properly? How does your blood work look? If the answers to these questions fall to the negative side, this isn’t a question of “body love.” This is a question of your short- and long-term health prospects.

External has to do with how your body moves. Are you more gassed from walking a flight of stairs? Are you finding that your back hurts more? How are your hips, knees and ankles feeling when you’re out for a longer walk? Or when you run? Or after a tennis match?

If you’re more athletically inclined, how are your times looking on your training runs? Or when you’re on the bike? Are you falling further behind your pre-pandemic athletic performance? If the answer is yes, then you’ve got work to do if you want to regain those abilities.

The fact is this: We beat ourselves up with false narratives on body image. BMI is a joke, but it’s still used. We look at “the ideal” and conclude we’re slacking if we don’t resemble fitness models or Instagram stars. All of that needs to go away if it’s undermining your mindset. I’ve seen plenty of people who don’t have the right “numbers,” whether it’s body composition, BMI, weight on the scale, and so on, but their bodies look just fine and they are physically capable of doing all the things they love (my fastest 5K time happened at a weight that was 15 pounds more than when I ran my second-fastest time). And often, they are internally very healthy people.

But if your body is not performing well – internally and externally – then now is not the time to hold back. If you can’t run or play a sport like you want to, or hike as far or as much as you used to, then the joy of those pursuits is stolen.

If I’m going to get back to this form, I’ve got some work to do. And body image has nothing to do with it.

More critically, if your body is not performing well internally, then you’re staring down a future filled with potentially expensive, painful and possibly debilitating health problems. Let that go on too long, and they can cascade. If your pandemic pounds aren’t hurting you and you’re fine with how you look, don’t let anyone guilt you into doing/feeling anything. But if those pandemic pounds are robbing you of your health, it’s time to act.

Bob Doucette

The Covid Chronicles continue: Losing income, friends getting sick, and finding ways to deal

Innovate where you can, bro.

This was going to be a fun weekend. That was the plan, anyway. I’ve got a longtime friend from Colorado who’s probably forgotten more about backpacking then I’ve ever learned, and over the winter he invited me to join him and a group of college kids who were going to do a four-day trip into the backcountry of Arkansas’ Devil’s Den State Park. He was teaching a university course on the subject, and the trip was a way to practice what they’d learned.

Needless to say, the trip isn’t happening. Not after all this virus stuff. And I get it. Aside from the contagion risk of meeting up with a group of people from all over the place, and potentially getting or transmitting the bug to people we’d meet in the towns leading to the park, it’s  not a good idea. I think you could still get away with a close-by solo camping or backpacking trip, but even then, it’s not a great bet.

Again, this is a small problem in an ever-growing sea of much bigger ones. And some of those have hit home.

Last week, 3.3 million people applied for unemployment assistance as the first big wave of layoffs hit following nationwide orders that “non-essential” businesses close until the COVID-19 outbreak is subdued. That was a record, some four or five times more than the previous mark. This week, that astounding number was dwarfed by the 6.6 million who applied. Those are jaw-dropping statistics, and frankly, I cannot imagine what it would be like to be looking for a new job in these conditions. What we see unfolding now might make the Great Recession look mild, and we all know how painful that was.

Personally, I knew the other shoe was going to drop sometime. Working in the news business, we’re heavily dependent on two sources of revenues: subscriptions and advertising. The good news is that subscriptions and online readership are up. The bad news is that advertising is way down, and seeing that advertising is a huge part of how my employer makes money, the pain is sharp. What that means is everyone in the company is going to have to eat two weeks of furloughs — unpaid leave — over the next three months. That’s a bunch of money we won’t be getting, but I still consider myself lucky that I’m employed. Being laid off is far worse. I’ll weather it and hope that things calm down soon. But I’m not counting on it.

As for other things going on: My neighbor, the older fella who got sick with the virus, is on the mend. Great news, because we were worried about him.

But I’ve got another friend who is in the middle of his own coronavirus odyssey. He’s a doctor who, a couple of weeks ago, was in front of a suburban city council urging them to enact stricter stay-at-home measures to stop the spread of the virus. A week later, he came down with the virus himself.

He texted me the news a little less than a week ago, telling me he thinks he caught it while treating patients at a hospital north of Tulsa. The availability of personal protection equipment — N95 masks, face shields, etc. — is limited, and at that hospital it was only given to staff who were treating people with confirmed cases. In his case, he was seeing patients who were thought to be potential cases based on their symptoms, thus he didn’t have the gear given to him that others got. And hence, the infection.

You can read more about what he had to say about it here. The weekend and early part of this week was rough, so I’m hoping things get better for him soon. I can’t express the worry I feel for those in health care right now.

On a lighter subject, I’m still learning new ways to stay active. I might not be backpacking, but I’ve found ways to use backpacks for fitness. Nothing like loading up a backpack and doing walking lunges up the hill. I think that loaded pack might find other uses, too, and I’m still looking for other ways to challenge myself physically. I don’t see my gym opening up for another couple of months, so I gotta make do.

And for now, we’re still allowed to go outside to walk, run or bike as long as we keep our distance. I do hill repeats on the bike. I go run. The other day, I decided to run one of my downtown routes, mostly just to see how things look with so much locked down.

It’s quiet. Parking garages are empty. No one is going into restaurants. Car traffic is light. If I wanted, I could probably run across most downtown intersections without even bothering to look for traffic. Construction is ongoing at two high-rises, but other than that the only “activity” I saw was a guy walking into an eatery with a box full of supplies. I’m assuming the restaurant is still doing takeout and delivery. But I worry about the Tulsa Arts District and all the businesses that are there. Restaurants, bars, taprooms and concert venues are all closed. The baseball park is empty and will stay that way.

This Friday would be the First Friday Arts Walk, which usually brings hundreds of people there to tour the museums. A park there usually hosts free outdoor concerts. If there was a baseball game scheduled, thousands more would come. Add a show or two and hundreds or thousands would be added to their numbers, and the Arts District would be hopping. This weekend? It’ll be a dead zone.

And for good reason. Coronavirus infections are spiking, hospitalizations are surging, and deaths are beginning to mount.

It’s hard for everyone, even if you’re not sick. We’re losing income. Jobs. Missing friends. Unable to see family. And all those travel plans are toast. All of it’s been replaced by boredom at home, worries about money and the overhanging dread of the question: “What if I get sick?”

And I think that’s why I’ve been adamant about exercising. I haven’t missed a workout yet. I’m still running. Yeah, none of this is as epic as the lifts at the gym or as fun as those group runs and races we’re missing now. And it’s OK to grieve that. But you have to find something to cope with it.

So that’s my goal for next week, and every week going forward until life gets back to some sort of normal. I hope you can do the same. Find that things to help you deal.

Bob Doucette

At the trailhead or on the starting line, the coronavirus may wreck your plans

Climbing Mount Everest has been canceled for the year because of COVID-19 concerns.

The news cycle tends to dominated these days by one thing: the novel coronavirus known as COVID-19.

It’s going to affect pretty much all areas of life for us here in the United States, and from what I can see, things are just starting to ramp up. And “all areas” include those things that we love to do the most: live adventurously.

As an example, China took the extraordinary step to close the north face of Mount Everest for the season. Not long after, Nepal announced plans to close the south side. Himalayan mountaineering there and on the other peaks is pretty much shut down now.

I can imagine that’s going to be a similar story in a lot of places outside the Himalayas. Given the severity of the outbreak in northern Italy, it wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine a near-dead climbing season this spring and summer in the Alps. Certainly that will be the case in the Italian Alps, and as the disease progresses in neighboring countries, it may be a quiet year in European mountain towns for some time.

I don’t know what that means for us here in the States. For now, there haven’t been any restrictions on travel inside the country, but should we experience the level of outbreak seen in Italy, it could happen.

Local races can draw hundreds of competitors and thousands of spectators. Will these events still happen this year?

There’s something else, too. The same community that heads to the hills for adventure also tends to find itself on starting lines. From 5Ks to ultramarathons, and any number of cycling races, the spring usually brings on a ton of events that draw outdoor athletes from all over the place.

Close to my neck of the woods, we’ve got a local half marathon and full marathon coming up next month. In late April, the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon – a big event by most standards – is on deck. In my city, Tulsa, we’ve got an IRONMAN triathlon set for late May, and the annual three-day Tulsa Tough cycling race series in early June. All of these events draw anywhere from several hundred to several thousand people, be they competitors or spectators.

Will they still happen? It’s difficult to say, but the NBA just suspended its season indefinitely after two of its players came down with COVID-19. College and pro leagues initially looked at playing games with no fans as a way to salvage television revenues and not endanger the public, then came back and canceled events and postponed seasons. Some of the same conditions that are giving these organizations pause exist in running and cycling events, especially the big ones. Will there be a Boston Marathon this year? A summer Olympics? Should there be?

And what about us? Should we be out doing the adventure thing? Should we be racing? Some of that is personal, for sure. Foremost on our minds ought to be one group of people: those most likely to suffer the worst effects of the disease. You never know who might give it to you. And then, who you might bring it to. At this point, I’m playing it by ear. I want some mountain time, but no summit is worth someone else’s health.

One last thing: Don’t underestimate the financial impact all this mess is going to have on the businesses you know and love. People whose shops depend on adventure tourism and sports are going to be hurting. I’ve got friends who are race directors, and know a bunch of people in different outdoor industry circles. Their experiences are going to be a lot like those who count on fans showing up to regular sporting events. If you think canceling a race is no big deal, think about how many businesses in Austin lost out when South by Southwest got canned. It’s no different for businesses (hotels, restaurants, bars and gear shops, to name a few) that are connected to big city races, as well as all those mountain town enterprises that make or break their year by how well the high summer season goes.

Looking for advice from me? I don’t have much. Take care of the things you can control for you and those around you. And when the time comes, be there to support those who are going to take a hit from this outbreak. Aside from that, buckle up. It could be a bumpy ride.

Bob Doucette

For runners, there are too many near-misses when it comes to cars

We’re looking out for you. Please look out for us.

About a week ago I was out on a run, hoping to kick it into high gear on the last mile of a 3-mile jaunt. The weather was great. I was feeling pretty good, if a bit gassed. And as I approached the exit of a corporate parking lot in downtown Tulsa, I saw it: a commuter pulling up to the street, looking to make a turn.

I locked my eyes on her because I know how this goes down. She’s looking for cars on the street to see if it’s clear to turn. She’s not looking for me. And sure enough, she pulled right up into the street and stopped when she saw traffic, then finally noticed my movement close to her passenger side fender. She sheepishly looked my way with an apologetic smile, then turned into the street.

I know the law gives me the right-of-way to keep going, but I’ve played this game long enough to know otherwise. I stopped just short of her car because otherwise she would have driven right into me. Even in a pedestrian-dense place like downtown, people’s habits are trained to see my streets – any streets, for that matter – like they were driving in the ‘burbs. They’re only looking for other cars. Runners are an afterthought.

That’s why I’m cautious at intersections. Maybe overly so. But I don’t want to end up on someone’s hood, or under an F-150. Might makes right in any auto-pedestrian collision, law be damned. It’s just the way it is.

***

I got to thinking about this latest near-miss (there have been a few) because of some news in my state. It hit me pretty hard.

On Feb. 3, a driver speeding along a thoroughfare in the city of Moore, an Oklahoma City suburb, slammed into a group of high school cross-country runners. One runner was killed outright. Another died soon after. And just this past week, a third victim succumbed to his injuries. All involved were where they were supposed to be, running on the sidewalk.

Three promising, young lives, all cut short. Three grieving families who must be ripped to pieces right now. Three more runners whose lives came to an end through no fault of their own.

The circumstances surrounding this tragedy are different than what I’ve experienced in that the driver was drunk. But at the same time, the incident underscores just how vulnerable runners – any pedestrians, really – are when they’re navigating our communities on foot and in proximity to automobile traffic.

If you live in a rural area or a suburb that’s light on regulations concerning sidewalks, it’s hit-or-miss when it comes to safe places to run. Even when sidewalks are present, you’re still not safe.

We’re told to run against the flow of traffic so we can see what’s coming. To wear bright, reflective clothing. Maybe even headlamps and flashing lights attached to safety vests, just so we can be more visible. To cross at intersections, and only when the walk/don’t walk light gives us the OK. But even then we’re all one distraction away from a driver leaving their lane or breezing through a stop light… and right into us.

I don’t want to break my leg or crack open my skull when I’m on a run. I’m a solid 190 pounds, but that’s nothing compared to the 5,000 pounds of steel and glass a lot of you choose as your ride. And that’s why I’ll stop cold if I feel a driver isn’t paying attention.

***

So here’s the rub: I don’t know what the solution is. There are park trails I could go to that are sufficiently separated from the streets as to be practically immune to auto-pedestrian collisions. But if sidewalks aren’t meant for people to, you know, walk on, then what’s the point?

I guess all I can do is lend a voice to it. Paying attention to the road also means paying attention to what’s near the road. When you’re at an intersection, it means looking for people who might be crossing. It means not being in a rush just because someone isn’t moving through as quickly as you’d like. It means looking both ways at traffic – street traffic as well as sidewalk traffic. And if you’re driving in an area with a lot of pedestrians, it means slowing down and paying even more attention to your surroundings.

The car culture in this country runs deep. It’s entrenched to the point where cities, despite their best efforts, are ruled by how to make auto traffic flow smoothly. Anything on foot is mostly an afterthought. But a change in mindset is needed. Cities are only growing and becoming more dense, and with the cost of driving only rising, you can bet more people are looking to live and work in places where they don’t have to drive if they so choose.

In other words, when you’re behind the wheel you need to put those of us on foot on your visual checklist before hitting the gas. We’ll try to be safe, but you must do your part, too. A dent in your front fender could be all she wrote for us.

Bob Doucette

Fitness Friday: Seven reasons why your training is failing, and how to fix it

A lot of folks started their year with the “new year, new me” vibe, and a good percentage of those people had their eye on fitness. Six weeks into the year, it’s a safe bet that a good chunk of them are already losing steam.

It happens every year. People get excited about transforming themselves. The join a gym. Hire a trainer. Change their eating. Try things like running, CrossFit or something else. And when the initial excitement wears off, they find themselves disappointed in what they’ve achieved.

For most people, there are plenty of reasons why they peter out. The good news is that almost all of them are fixable. Let’s go through it.

You get out of it what you put in… or not

Anyone can move some weights around or lazily move on an exercise machine for a few minutes. Workouts aren’t about checking a box or collecting a participation trophy. A half-hearted attempt at fitness only results in wasted time.

The solution: Challenge yourself. If something you were lifting becomes easy, add weight next time. A 3-mile run no longer taxes you? Pick up the pace. Intensity is rewarded by results. The term “progressive overload” is used to describe gradually adding difficulty in your exercises over time. If you don’t, your body will adapt to what you’re doing, and you’ll actually regress. Don’t let that happen. Put a little more weight on the bar next workout. Increase your speed on your run, on your elliptical session or on the Stairmaster. Added stimulus equals improved performance.

Your phone owns you

By this time, cellphones are ubiquitous. We don’t leave home without them. We don’t leave anywhere without them. We take pics, make videos, check social media and read notifications. They suck us in and exercise our thumbs in endless scrolling. Even at the gym. Between sets, you reply to just this one text. Then check your Twitter. Or Facebook. Again. And again. And again. The next thing you know, it’s been five minutes between your last set and the latest TikTok you just had to watch. And before you know it, it’s time to go. Oh well. There’s always tomorrow to get them gainz. First, lemme take a selfie…

The solution: Leave your phone in your locker. Or in your car. Or at home. With the exception of a few fitness apps, or maybe as a source of music, the phone serves no purpose during your workout, and if the distractions from, say, EVERYTHING ELSE on your phone add up, the benefit of the fitness apps/music is outweighed by what you lost in terms of time and productivity. Trust me. Whatever your phone is trying to tell you, it can wait an hour while you get your work done.

Speaking of time-sucks, you’ve got a bad case of the chit-chats

You meet some cool people at the gym. When you see them, you talk about training. And your kids. Or maybe last weekend’s hot Tinder date. Or the latest serial killer show that’s now streaming. And as the babbling rolls on, the time between sets grows. Productivity? Gone, like a fart in the wind.

The solution: It starts before you walk in the door. Make up your mind that you are there to train. There’s nothing wrong with a little chit-chat but keep it short and get to business. If a longer conversation is to be had, catch up with your buds afterward. If someone keeps talking to you, acknowledge them, but go on to your next set. And if you’re the person holding someone else up, apply a little self-awareness and let them do their work.

Your diet sucks

You’re working hard. Sticking to the plan. But dude, those cookies aren’t going to eat themselves. Or that pizza. And lemme have a couple more beers before I turn in for the night. But will someone please tell me why the scale isn’t moving, and why I don’t have a six-pack?

The solution: You can’t outwork a bad diet. Do you really want to change your body composition? Athletic performance? Overall health? Eat foods that are better for you. Eat what you need to stay fueled and build, but don’t let that be an excuse to order the richest item on the menu at Cheesecake Factory. And while I dig a beer every now and then, alcoholic drinks are empty calories. They don’t call it a beer gut for nuthin’. Be smart about what you put into your body.

You’re grinding down

Sleep? I’ll sleep when I’m dead! Coffee will keep me going. Or a Red Bull. And I’m doing a 90-day runstreak! And a 30-day challenge! And if this amount of working out is good, then more is better! CrossFit 6 days a week! Yeah baby! But… <CRASH>

The solution: This ain’t hard. Get your sleep. Take a weekly rest day. And remember that more isn’t necessarily better. Work hard but work smart. Understand that as you accumulate fatigue over time, your body will eventually grind down, you’ll get injured, you may get sick, and your gains will cease. Recovery is just as important as the training. Don’t be a bonehead. Learn when to let off the gas.

When it comes to training plans, you’re all “Squirrel!”

Yeah, your training plan is cool, but then you saw this guy’s article in Musclehead Mag. And then there was this super-hot Insta-gal and her take on some sort of squat challenge (I mean, she’s got 100,000 followers!). Mr. Olympia does this! Hafthor Bjornsson does that! I’ll try it all! And then you go… nowhere.

The solution: Identify your goal. Find a plan that will help you achieve that goal. And then, with monkish resolve, stick to the plan. What’s that? You didn’t hear me? STICK. TO. THE. PLAN. Bouncing around from one idea to the next is a ticket to mediocrity. See your plan through, ya knucklehead.

You can’t find motivation, and you need an inspiration fix

You’re scrolling through Instagram looking for your daily dose of fitspo. “Please, someone give me a meme! Or I’ll never make it to the gym!” And on and on it goes as you hunt for the next thing to jolt you into action. Every damn day. But just like a drug, the effects weaken over time until eventually you become one with the couch. Netflix binge, engage!

The solution: Inspiration and motivation are basically the sugar rushes of fitness. The occasional kick in the pants will get you going, but you can’t rely on either for the long term. Instead, you must build discipline. Discipline takes time. It’s boring. It requires (gasp!) compliance with your training plan. But if you commit to being disciplined in your training, guess what it builds? Strength. Endurance. Form. Muscle memory. Habits. Add those together, and what do you get? Results. Comply with your plan over the long haul and leave the fitspo memes behind. You’ll be better for it.

That should cover the bulk of it. Cut the crap, keep your eyes on the prize and achieve your goals. Let’s get to work.

Bob Doucette

Fitness Friday: A 3-day strength training plan for those pressed for time

Lift hard/run hard? Sure, to an extent. And the truth is, some people don’t have the time to be Superman or Wonder Woman.

Funny thing about fitness: Not everyone’s goals are the same.

It runs the gamut: Weight loss, getting that beach body, improving strength, boosting endurance. Some folks are training for a competition of some sort, be it in physique sports or some sort of race.

In January, I wrote a couple of posts about strength training. In those posts, there was one prediction (if you do this, you will get stronger) and one assumption, and it was a biggie: that you will be able to commit to lifting six days a week for 45-60 minutes.

I think it’s a doable proposition. But for some people, it’s not. Whether you’re time-crunched or you have other fitness goals that make such a schedule impossible to keep, some folks can’t hit the iron that often. But that doesn’t mean you should chuck the idea of strength training entirely. You just must change things up and properly scale your expectations.

Every fall for the past eight years, I’ve trained for longer-distance goal races ranging from half marathon to full marathon length. As training plans for these races progressed, the mileage and time commitment grew. There was no way I could do a heavy deadlift day right before embarking on a 13-mile training run. Even shorter runs (in the 5- to 8-mile range) were incompatible with the rigors of an intensive weight training schedule. So I made a compromise: During race training, I jacked up the miles and eased back on the weights.

I still wanted to focus on the big lifts and compound movements, though. But during race training, running was first priority.

What I came up with was a plan to lift three times a week, using a total body format. So, that meant that each workout used the same movement patterns I described in the first week’s Friday Fitness post: Squat, press, pull and hip hinge. Furthermore, each day started with one of the bigger lifts being the emphasized exercise of that workout, with other lifts coming behind it in priority and difficulty. Here’s what that looked like:

Monday (squat emphasized)

Barbell back squat: Warmup, then sets of 10, 7 and 5, increasing weight

Incline dumbbell presses (3 sets of 8)

Lunges (3 sets of 8)

Pull-ups (3 sets of 6-12, depending on ability)

Wednesday (press emphasized)

Bench press: Warmup, then sets of 10, 7 and 5, increasing weight

Goblet squat (3 sets of 12)

Kettlebell swings (3 sets of 12)

Barbell rows (3 sets of 8)

Friday (hip hinge emphasized)

Deadlift (warmup, then sets of 8, 6 and 4, increasing weight)

Overhead press (3 sets of 8-10)

Chin-ups (3 sets of 8-12)

Leg press (3 sets of 12)

You’ll notice that each workout has some sort of pulling movement (pull-ups, chin-ups or rows), and that’s by design. And you can always adjust the exercises you do depending on your preferences or limitations (machine lat-pulls can sub in for pull-ups or chin-ups, for example). But the lift portion of your workout should be no more than 40 minutes long. That way you’ll have time to do your run, ride, swim or other endurance session without having to cut it short.

How did that look for me? The last three years, I’ve used this plan alongside half marathon training workouts. Days where I had longer runs, I didn’t lift. And I didn’t lift on planned rest days. My schedule looked something like this:

Half marathon training workout schedule

Sunday: Cross train (bike for 30-60 minutes)

Monday: Lift, 5-mile run

Tuesday: 8-mile run

Wednesday: Lift, speed workout run

Thursday: Rest

Friday: Lift, 5-mile run

Saturday: 12-mile run

Obviously, this will look different for each person. You may not want to run that much, or you need to run more. Tailor it to your own needs.

But if you’re an endurance athlete, you should do some form of strength training, and this is a good blueprint to get it in a way that dovetails nicely in your endurance training.

And what if you’re not an endurance athlete, you’re pressed for time, and three workouts a week is all you can get? The lifting schedule still holds. If you can give it 2 hours a week spread out over three days, you can work on your strength needs on this plan. Tack on 20 minutes of some sort of conditioning (check out the interval training ideas I had two weeks ago), and you’re spending 3 hours a week getting the strength and conditioning you need.

Last thing: While this sort of plan can be beneficial, you’ll want to manage your expectations. Three workouts a week is not going to get you looking like Mr. Universe or The World’s Fittest Woman. Your strength gains will be in proportion to the work you put in. And you’ll want to make sure your caloric intake matches the amount of work you’re doing (too little and you’ll break down; too much and you’ll gain fat). But if you can give yourself 3 hours a week spread out over three days; you’ll be far better off than skipping it altogether with the thought that you don’t have time to exercise.

Next week: We’ll look at the things that can undermine your fitness goals, and ways you can fix that.

Bob Doucette

Fitness Friday: 5 things you need to do for proper recovery

When you’re working hard to get in shape, don’t overlook the need for recovery.

There comes a time in any sort of training where you’re dragging. Things start to hurt more. Soreness lingers longer than it should. And your energy levels aren’t there.

These are tell-tale signs that your recovery habits aren’t cutting it, and if you don’t do something fast your progress is going to grind to a halt. Even worse, you might get injured. And none of us have time for that.

With all the information I’ve given you in the previous four weeks, this might be the most important thing you’ll read to date. You must give yourself proper recovery. So, let’s look at the various ways you can do this.

You need proper sleep: Getting a good night’s rest is critical. I know this is a major issue for a lot of people, but it is something you must work on. The more you push yourself, the more time you need to snooze.

Sleep is when the body goes into overdrive to repair and strengthen your muscles. You can train hard and eat well, but it will all be hamstrung if you don’t sleep right. The winner of the 2018 Boston Marathon, Des Linden, said in one interview that she gets between 9-10 hours of sleep a day. Given the number of miles she runs and the intensity in which she trains, you can bet that she needs it. And in getting it, Linden continues to perform at an elite level. Same goes for any athlete. Try to get 8-9 hours a night.

You need proper nutrition: I’m not a nutritionist or a dietician, but what I can tell you is if you’re training hard, you need to give your body what it needs for recovery. Don’t short-change yourself on protein; try to eat about 0.7 grams of protein per pound of body weight daily. And what I like to tell people, “eat your colors.” If your diet is primarily shades of brown and white, you need to change that. Fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts and so forth all need to be in your diet. And don’t think you can eat junk if you’re popping multivitamin pills and drinking protein shakes. Get those 6-10 servings of fruits and veggies daily and lean toward healthy carbs like white rice. Good fuel equals good performance – and good recovery.

If you’re a runner and you’re training hard, you need a periodic “step-back” week: In any decent marathon or half-marathon training program, you’ll notice a couple of weeks on the schedule where your mileage goes down instead of up. That’s by design. Every month or so, dial back your miles by about 10 percent, and shorten your weekend long run. You’ll go into the next week fresher.

If you’re hitting the weights hard, you need a periodic deload week: This is a lot like the step-back week for running. Successful strength training includes progressive overload over time, but every so often you need to have a week where you dial back the reps, sets and weight. Yeah, go ahead and lift. But take the weight down in all your main lifts. Multiple hard weeks of training tend to tax your joints and fry your central nervous system (symptoms of this include low energy). How often you do a deload is somewhat subjective, but most people do it once every 6-8 weeks. I’m getting a little older, so I’ll train hard for four weeks, then do a deload on the fifth. Trust me, you’ll bounce back fresh and strong.

Take your rest day weekly: Once a week, take a day where you don’t train. At all. No weights, no running, no cross-training. Go for a mellow walk if you want. But don’t train. You need that day to recover. But what about all those 30-day challenges and run streaks, you say? Dump ‘em in the trash if you’re serious about your training. They’ll only get in your way.

Next week: Some people don’t have time to hit the weights six days a week. And some athletes, such as runners, can’t afford to lift that much and still get the miles they need. I’ve got a solution for that.

Bob Doucette

Fitness Friday: Running intervals to build speed, torch fat

Good-ole running is a solid way to work on your conditioning goals.

The last couple of Fitness Fridays have been heavy on the weight training side of things, so I wanted to go in a different direction this week. Let’s talk conditioning, and then go over a couple of run-based plans that will definitely up your fitness game.

Fitness is basically two things: strength and conditioning. Strength is the ability to produce force. Conditioning is the ability to produce work capacity. If that sounds nebulous, let’s get down to brass tacks. A strong person can lift and move heavy things. A conditioned person can carry out rigorous physical activity for prolonged periods of time. A good athlete is a person who exhibits high performance in both areas.

And this even includes people in very specialized areas. Strongman champion Eddie Hall, who set a world record deadlift at 1,100 pounds, used swimming to make him better in competitions. Elite marathoner Jordan Hasay can deadlift twice her body weight. The two are nothing alike as athletes, but respective to their fields they are both strong and well-conditioned.

And they set a good example for you. It doesn’t matter if you want to be strong as a bull or able to run long distances at a good clip. If you have a good balance between strength and conditioning, you will be better at what you choose to do, and healthier overall. I went through some basics of strength last week. Now it’s time to talk conditioning.

Let me say at the outset that running is both the default exercise of choice for conditioning (or “cardio,” as you’ve probably come to know it) and a much-maligned activity in some fitness circles. It’s the default because it’s a natural human movement. You ran around as a kid. You ran laps in PE class or for whatever sports program you were in. Aside from running form techniques, running is about as intuitive as it gets.

It’s maligned because some folks see it as a way to get hurt (I think that’s overblown) or believe that other forms of conditioning are superior. Run too much, they say, and it will inhibit strength gains. There are grains of truth to all of this, but generally speaking, a good running program with moderate distances and different types of workouts offers a lot of bang for the buck, and without nearly as much downside as detractors would have you believe. Yes, it will be hard to build strength if you’re running 30, 40, or 60 miles a week. But we’re not going there, at least not in this post.

One last note before I get into the meat of it. The workout ideas I’m going to throw out there in this post will be for people who are already doing some running. If you’re a beginner, you’ll need to start slower and much more modestly and build up your running base before trying what I’m going to present here. A solid Couch to 5K program is going to be right up your alley. Tackle that and you’ll be ready to go to the next level.

Now for the rest of us. You can get fit running 15 to 20 miles a week. But your body will eventually adapt, and when it does, you’ll find your fitness levels stagnate or even regress. Adaptation is a bummer. So that’s why we must challenge ourselves by making things hard.

And that’s where intervals come in. What are intervals? For running, intervals are when you run at a challenging pace for a specific distance or time, then slow down to an easy recovery pace for a short time. Once that recovery period is over, you ramp up the intensity again.

A basic interval run might look like a “race pace” 400-meter interval, followed by a 200-meter slow jog or walk, and repeating this process for about eight rounds. That will give you about three miles of movement. A “race pace” speed should be a hard effort, akin to running but not being able to hold conversation during the effort. Your rewards: torching excess body fat, improving your cardiovascular capacity and gaining experience running at challenging paces that might have made you pause. Try it and see what you think.

400-meter warmup

400-meter race pace 200-meter recovery walk or slow jog, x8

400-meter cooldown (light jog)

As you get accustomed to this, try kicking up the speed on the race pace intervals.

Here’s a place where you can work on some speed.

Too easy? Let’s kick it up a notch. But I’ll just warn you right now:  It’s hard. It’s called a ladder, and it’s a whole lot of no-fun work with big rewards.

How it works: After a moderate warmup, you’ll run a certain distance at a challenging pace, or maybe a desired race pace. Then you’ll slow down to a light jog for 400 meters. When that recovery interval is over, you do a longer race-pace run, then slow down to the light jog. And the next interval has you go at an even longer race pace interval. When you reach a peak distance on the “fast” intervals, you’ll then shrink their distance until you reach the “fast” interval distance that you started with.

If you’ve never done this before, start with a “baby ladder.” It looks like this:

400-meter warmup

400-meter race pace 400-meter recovery jog

800-meter race pace 400-meter recovery jog

1200-meter race pace 400-meter recovery jog

800-meter race pace 400-meter recovery jog

400-meter race pace

400-meter cool-down

The first time I did this, it trashed me. And this isn’t even the full monty!

Here’s the full ladder:

400-meter warmup

400-meter, race pace 400-meter recovery jog

800-meter race pace 400-meter recovery jog

1200-meter race pace 400-meter recovery jog

1600-meter race pace 400-meter recovery jog

1200-meter race pace 400-meter recovery jog

800-meter race pace 400-meter recovery jog

400-meter race pace

400-meter cool-down

That’s a lot of work, a lot of intensity, and a decent amount of mileage, to boot. It’s important to remember that during this workout, you never stop for a water break, never stop to walk. You’re always running. As you adapt, increase the speed on your race pace intervals.

The best places to do this is either on a track (one lap is 400-meters, so it’s easy to keep track of distances) or on a treadmill (distances are going to be on the control panel). It will be a little harder to track your speed on the track, though most sports watches can help. On a treadmill, you can set precise speeds.

Do this speed workout once a week, mixed in with your regular runs or other conditioning routines.

Your weekly run schedule might look something like this:

Monday: 3-mile-run

Tuesday: 5-mile run

Wednesday: Speed work (ladders or other form of speed interval)

Thursday: Rest

Friday: 3-mile run

Saturday: Long run

Sunday: 30-minute cross train (bike, swim or some other form of conditioning)

Next week: I’ll get into some other ideas for conditioning, and not all of them will involve running.

Bob Doucette

Looking back on my last ten years: A storm, but with rays of light

Looking forward to whatever lies ahead. (Johnny Hunter photo)

At the end of the year, everyone got reflective on the previous ten years. I decided to wait until my next trip around the sun came to pass.

Or something close to it. Next week, I’ll hit one of the milestone birthdays. The Big 5-0. Yeah, I know. A strong fear of ageism gives me pause even mentioning the number, partially because I still feel like a 30-something and admitting otherwise might (erroneously) bring on a bunch of “OK, Boomer” darts hurled my way. I’m Gen-X, ya knuckleheads. Get it straight.

The fact that I’m getting off-track might, indeed, be a sign of advancing age. So, let’s get past all that. Some thoughts that are rolling through my head right now go something like this…

I spent the first full decade of my adult years working lots of hours for low wages, all to build a resume and reputation that would land me a better gig. By age 28, I got that job, and my career got much more interesting and profitable.

That allowed me, in my 30s, to take a whole different path. That decade was all about exploration. I rediscovered by love of hiking and the outdoors and hiked my first 14er. I took up jujitsu and eventually became an instructor. I traveled to China, Thailand and several places in the Caribbean. I won’t lie, my 30s were awesome.

And then my 40s showed up. Like a storm.

That promising job turned sour. My oldest brother – a friend, mentor and confidant – got sick. Then I got laid off and spent four months looking for work just as the country was coming out of its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. And my brother ultimately succumbed to cancer. All that happened within 16 months of what was the worst time in my life.

Finding new work meant uprooting from the community I’d lived in for two decades. Even with a new gig, bankruptcy became a real possibility. To this day, the relatively good times, financially speaking, of the prior decade are just a memory. The middle class ain’t what it used to be.

But it wasn’t all bad news. Amid the storm, there were rays of light.

I took up running. And then trail running. I met some fantastic people in the running community and eventually ran my first half marathon. And then seven months later, my first marathon.

I still found time to hike, camp, take road trips and climb mountains. I met more great people in these endeavors, from many states. Tougher, more rewarding ascents followed. And solo road trips and hikes.

In 2011, I was looking for an outlet to write about these experiences, so I started this blog. I wasn’t expecting it to be anything more than an opportunity to practice a craft I love, and hopefully people would get something out of it.

Seven years later, I wrote and published a book. I’m not on any best-seller list, but it is by far the best thing I’ve ever done in my writing career.

As my next milestone approaches, I’ve got plans to do more. And looking back, I know there is value in the struggle. I’ve found that I write better from a place of pain, and if not for the wounds I suffered in my 40s, I’m sure anything I produced would have been less than what it is. I mean, you can appreciate the blues to a point, but you don’t really get it until you’ve suffered. That’s the weird thing about the human condition – those sufferfests might break you, but if they don’t, they will make you. Struggling through the storms gives me a better place to see other people, too. I see your gray areas, your flaws and your tragedies and I get it.

I’ve got this thing in my head that believes age is just a number, that I can run and hike and bike and live out loud and as hard as I want, even when the AARP comes knocking at my door. I’ve always had a bad case of Peter Pan syndrome.

But I’m OK with that. Because it means I’m going to run trails, line up for races, lift hard, camp in the cold, exhaust myself on mountain ridges and seek solace and understanding in lonely, wild places. I’ll keep trying weird foods, especially those in other lands, if I get that opportunity again. And I’ll sit down for a beer or three with just about anybody, because all of us have only so much time, and really, we’re in this thing together, like it or not.

And above all, I want to be a better human. How many crises could I have avoided and how many people could I have blessed by just doing that.

What will the next ten trips around the sun look like? Who knows? Each decade has been vastly different from the others, so I can only imagine that will be the case again.

So off I go, toward the second star on the right and straight on till morning. I don’t know any other way.

Bob Doucette