One of my best friends got married last weekend. Erin and I made the trek to Greenville, SC, to dress hella fly, have a few drinks and get my bro married to a very brave woman. I took my camera, which I almost always do, with the 24mm attached but I didn’t take many photos. Mostly because I was a groomsman and holding a camera during the wedding would’ve been uncomfortable, distracting and just plain weird. I left the photo-taking to those who were hired to do it and the attendees with iPhones.
I did, however, take a few shots during the rehearsal dinner. We gathered at Fluor Field to root on the home team the Greenville Drive, eat hotdogs and brisket, drink beer and celebrate Jon and Kaylee’s final unmarried evening. Below are a few of the photos that made the cut.
Jon’s been a married man for five days now. I have to think it’s been the happiest five days of his life and I wish him and his gorgeous bride a lifetime of the same happiness.
Happy Monday, freaks! Monday is definitely Road to Bluegrass day but today it’s happening a little differently. Let me explain.
If you’ve followed by blog for any amount of time, you know my story. I was sick, I worked my ass off, I became well and now I help other people do the same thing. I love sharing stories about the workout plan I’m on, the races I’m training for, the classes I lead and the meals I prep. But you also know I do a lot of other stuff, too. Primarily taking photos of the cool places I go and sometimes live streaming myself drinking wine and deep frying shit.
While I’m kind of into the idea of keeping it all together in one place, I thought it was about time that I separated all things fitness from all other things I do. Enter JTFStrong.
I’ll be in the process of moving over all things fitness/health/diet to that site and its social media compliments as well as creating new original content for the site including workout plans, meal-prep recipes, videos, commentary and maybe even an eBook.
If you’re a follower of this site because of the fitness stuff, please take a second and follow the new one. If you’re on Insta or Facebook, it’d be way rad if you followed me there, too.
If you’re really interested in how training went last week, I’ve already posted about it on the new site so now’s a great time to get used to checking there and (hopefully) bookmarking it.
This site isn’t going away. In fact, I hope to include more different things here in the coming weeks. Maybe more creative stuff, I don’t know. Definitely more personalized writings and likely some videos of my dogs.
Anyway, this is exciting for me and I hope you guys can benefit from the stuff I write on the new page.
Erin passed me an article today that I nearly included in this list but I thought I’d make a few comments on it instead. Brad Stulberg of Outside Magazine wrote the article Why Do Rich People Love Endurance Sports? and brought up some great points.
The first thing most of us who lift heavy things or run long distances (read: more than the short distance between you and a closing elevator) is going to think is: Rich? Come on… Yes. Rich. In 2013 a Gallop-conducted poll found that the worldwide median household income is merely $9,733. The median per-capita income is $2,920. That’s annually, y’all. Compare $2,920 to your annual salary and you’ll soon find out that not only are you rich, but you’re of the filthy, stinking variety as well.
The article goes on to explain how even in our “modern” and “civilized” country, a huge portion of our citizens do not have access to proper facilities or safe places to train for endurance sports. One would think that running, arguably the cheapest sport to get into, would be free for everyone. And I suppose to an extent it is, but if you want to properly fuel, support your body, have access to training materials, not get mugged or murdered while you train and actually compete in races, one needs the financial means to make it happen. And let me tell you — there’s a lot to finance in this sport.
Enter the rich and successful guy.
So you tough it out. You go to school and you get the job and you get the marriage and you get the success and money you were looking for. You’re successful! You probably wear a tie to work and drive a BMW! I bet you have a rehearsed laugh and scowl at the IT geeks who wear t-shirts to work. You’ve made it, right?
Not necessarily. Having a comfortable home on the safe end of town and a job that gives you ample expendable income is great, but for a lot of us, that safety isn’t really what we’re looking for. Personally, I enjoy knowing my bills are going to get paid and that my wife won’t be harassed if she goes somewhere on her own in the parts of town we frequent. I like knowing nothing is going to be stolen out of my yard if I leave it out there at night and that I can sleep soundly every night without packing heat. You could say I even take it for granted. Because I do.
A lot of us do. And this, according to the article, is often where endurance sports come in.
Exercising as hard as I do gives me a reason to push myself. It gives me a reason to hurt — to feel like I may be in danger. It makes me learn how to deal with pain and it shows me time and time again that I’m able to overcome it and get stronger. Is it the same as having to fight for what you have? No. Will running my next half-marathon earn me a black hat with COMPTON spelled out across it? No. Does it give me enough danger to make me feel more alive than I do 40+ hours a week when I’m doing the “rich guy” thing? Hell yes, it does.
Here’s this week’s stuff:
Portobello Fajita Meal Prep by BudgetBytes
I got this earlier this week and I think it looks amazing. I like the idea of replacing the traditional steak or chicken in the fajitas with mushrooms and the “Cowboy Caviar” looks great, too. I’m super interested in the cornbread but I don’t know how it’s going to work macro-wise. I hope to make this in another week or two so I can actually calculate them. Follow up if you’re interested.
4 Bad Running Habits and How to Fix Them by Shoshanna Cohen via Bodybuilding.com
I think this was intended for folks new to the sport but there’s some Running 101 tips here that even the seasoned runner could stand be reminded about. Me included. If you’re just getting into running, especially, just know that despite this list and many others like it, you’ll likely break the “rules” and learn the hard way regardless. I know that’s how it’s worked for me.
Muscle Club Apparel Promo
Nothing to read here but Muscle Club Apparel is running a special through the weekend where orders of $35 or more will ship with a free tank! And let’s be honest, we can all use more tanks — NO SLEEVES ALLOWED!
Losing It in the Anti-Dieting Age by Taffy Brodesser-Akner via The New York Times Magazine
This is a long read but it’s an interesting topic. Break it down into parts if you need to. Ultimately, this is a study of how the diet culture a lot of us grew up with is dying off in a way with words/phrases like “diet” and “lose weight” being replaced with “clean eating” and “get healthy.” Statistically, people are happier being fat now than ever before — so how do you sell them lifestyle changing habits?
18 Uncomfortable Truths About Nutrition, Health and Fitness by Nia Shanks
You guys know by now how much I love Nia’s blog and I hope I’ve sent her at least one follower over the last several weeks. Her 18 Uncomfortable Truths… couldn’t be more spot-on and they’re relevant for everyone no matter your gender, age or where you are on your fitness journey. I read these and felt pretty guilty about a lot of them, but make no mistake, making you feel guilty is not the intention of this post. Rather, read through it, identify with some of her topics and learn to accept them as truths worth working with.
Free Fitness/Nutrition Guides from Nerd Fitness
This is awesome! You guys already know that I’m a big fan of Nerd Fitness anyway but this is a perfect place to go if you’re ever wondering why. Here, NF has put together FREE guides on newbie health mistakes, the Paleo diet, beginners workouts, weightlifting basics and more. In all, there are eight incredible guides written by a useful and non-intimidating source, all for free. You can’t beat that!
Music to Run Fast-ish, Lift Heavy and Punch Hard To
Nothing this week, y’all. Nothing.
But before I left work I had a conversation about the Dream Warriors so here’s this:
