Kick Out The Funk

There is good funk:

James Brown.

George Clinton.

Sly and the Family Stone.

At its best, funk is a perfect recipe of soul, jazz, and Rhythm and Blues that deemphasized melody and instead placed emphasis on the downbeat—so that white guys everywhere with poor rhythm and a terrible body awareness could understand what it means to groove. Yes.  There, I've said it. Funk helps white guys dance. Well, funk and vast quantities of malted hops and barley.

Nothing transports me back to the late 1960's like listening to the "Godfather of Funk" himself, James Brown. Music, like language, is more than just a tool to communicate. They both help us understand how people within a culture think. Plain and simple. We study languages to understand the way people think. We study music to understand the way people think.

What makes Papa's Got A Brand New Bag,War, and Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine so awesome are there ability to infuse unprecedented levels of sexual mojo to whoever dares listen to these libidinal masterpieces. Seriously, why do I always feel like I want to dress like Shaft and have the same swagger whenever I listen to JB?
Then, there is the BAD funk:

You wake up in the morning to look at your workout(s) for the day and feel overwhelmed by the prospect of spending more of your discretionary time with your ass on a bicycle, or running miles than sitting on a couch and allowing yourself to eat chocolate covered almonds and drink good stout. The best thing about the end of my season—which has culminated with REV3 Iron Distance at Cedar Point the last two years—is that I spend at least two weeks recovering, eating whatever the hell I want, whenever the hell I want.

I find that the Funk starts to creep in about two months after you've started your base training. You know what I'm talking about....
It's December and you have started your training for your first race..... in June... and realize... it is going to be a long, long winter.

There is good news. You can shake off the funk. A couple of good workouts in the gym and you are back to feeling like Bootise Collins. For me, there is also no substitute for sleep. Admittedly, I am still a total slacker when it comes to getting my butt in bed early. You would think that I would have no choice in the matter—than after getting up at 5:30 a.m. for a 3 hour training day—my body would go into a voluntary coma. Nope.

Does anyone else do this?

Do we as triathletes just enjoy pushing ourselves to the absolute bring of sanity? Wait.. don't you really have to be insane to even do this in the first place?

Kick it out.

The Funk.

Seriously.

ADDENDUM:


I will have an awesome product review in my next post and some exciting news.

More soon. Train Smart!