Triathlon season is just around the corner and before you know it you’ll be racking your bike and walking to the swim start. How well you will do is largely dependent upon properly planning your season and then executing that plan. This Monday evening at 8:00PM EST, yours truly will be co-hosting The Triathlete’s Coffee Shop with an episode dedicated to planning your perfect 2010 triathlon season. I will be joined by Race with Purpose triathlon coach Javier Gomez, Justin “Mango”, and professional triathlete and head coach of Team Continuum, John Hirsch. Special guests will also include my friend and USC Triathlon Head Coach Rad Hallman, and more.

You will not want to miss this episode as we’re going to provide you with the opportunity and the tools to put your 2010 plan together in a way that will help you to achieve and exceed your goals. This episode is for triathletes of all levels and experiences from first timers all the way to veteran Ironman finishers.

Post your questions in advance or bring them with you to the show. You can participate by listening to the show live by calling (724) 444-7444 code: 32637, or through your computer over the TalkShoe webcast. At TalkShoe, you’ll also be able to ask questions electronically and chat with other listeners and tri-tweethlete community members. Click here to access the TalkShoe Page.

In the meanwhile, if you have great tools and tips that others can benefit from, post them here as a comment. You can also reach all of us on Twitter at any time by following @mangorunner, @crash_gomez, @j_hirsch, @radhallman, and @coachadam. We’ll meet up with you Monday night at The Triathlete’s Coffee Shop.

This past weekend, I drove through the Snowmageddon in Ohio to show up at 7am on Saturday morning for the Spin-a-thon at the Central YMCA in Youngstown. Long story short, the Spin-a-thon was first postponed and then rescheduled for next Saturday. As with every challenge, this presented a new opportunity as I got to hang out with the organizers of the ride and got to try out the new Schwinn AC Performance bikes on a four-hour indoor ride of my own. At first glance this bike looks like an enhanced version of their Schwinn NXT, with more hand positions and a computer console. However, upon closer examination, this bike is a true departure from the traditional group indoor cycling bike and brings us much closer to the set up of a road bike on a trainer. To be specific, the AC Performance Bike has the following new features:

• Aero and road handlebar positions – more realistic
• Stem length adjustment – better individual bike fit
• Virtual Contact Resistance technology – magnetic resistance instead of the friction resistance created with felt pad and spring – smoother ride
• Road saddle – more adjustments and truer to outdoor bike
• M-Power performance console – a computer that measures power through wattage – can finally measure how much work you are actually doing

I’m sure there are other differences but these were the one’s that drew my attention. The biggest change by far is that the bike is no longer a fixie, meaning that when you stop pedaling, the front wheel keeps spinning. If you are still confused, on your old spin bike when you stopped pedaling the front wheel stopped also as it was directly connected or “fixed” to your pedals. What this means in practice is that with these new bikes you lose the benefit of the big flywheel helping to pull your legs around through momentum, and more importantly it means that if you are used to standing up and running during your workout, this will no longer be a break for you or easy to do.

Those with experience in the old bikes will feel a “hitch” when trying to stand and pedal. This is not a hitch, but simply the fact that your pedlas are no longer directly connected to your wheel in a one-to-one relationship. You’ll really need to drop your body weight and spin using both legs together and raise the resistance considerably to maintain a seamless spin while standing. Essentially you’ll have to do a “freeze” the entire time you are standing up. If you don’t ride outside, you’ll probably think something is wrong with the bike. If you do ride outside you already know what I’m talking about, it’s like trying to stand up and pedal on a flat road or downhill when there isn’t enough gearing or resistance under you.

The impact of this is that instructors who have been credentialized or certified as indoor cycling instructors with no outdoor riding experience will need to by necessity have to adjust their rides to be more life-like. No longer will they be able to teach a ride that bears little resemblance to an outdoor ride with instructors wearing tennis shoes and standing up in Position 2 (a standing run) for the majority of the ride and calling it a cycling workout. Personally, I’m very pleased about this turn of events.

This also creates the potential for a much tougher ride in a number of ways. If your butt hurt while riding in class before it may really give you issues now because with the previous fixed gear bikes you could stand up more often to get a both a breather for your lungs and your butt, and equally you would get the benefit of distributing more of your weight to your feet even while seated because you had built-in resistance to press against. With a free wheel to put more weight or to stand up on your pedals, you’ll have to a) wear clipless pedals and cleats, and b) add significant resistance to the bike to simulate riding uphill.

I’m not opining on which bike provides a “better” workout, because that depends upon your specific workout, I’m just saying that for the same workout on two different bikes, these AC Performance Bikes will kick your tush. I think that traditional indoor fitness cycling enthusiasts will absolutely hate these bikes, and roadies and triathletes will be thrilled that they finally can do a sport-specific indoor workout without having to drag their own bike inside on a trainer.

So should you buy one for yourself? Jury’s out on this but if I’m correct in understanding the price to be around $3,000 for one of these bikes, in my humble opinion, for $3,000 I could stick my own bike on an awesome Computrainer, add surround sound and a killer flat screen and still have enough to buy some chocolate milk when I’m done. You can read more about these bikes at Indoor Cycle Instructor.com.

How’d I do? (The Outcome Goal) This week closes out the first month of the year and I’m excited that with all of the ups and downs I succeeded in losing an additional 1.5 pounds bringing my total loss for the month to 4 pounds for a current weight of 212.5 pounds. I weigh myself at the same time of the week and the same time of the day right before I workout in the morning. The amusing thing is how much weight I lose when measured after a workout of only one hour. After today’s workout I dropped from 212.5 to 208 pounds. What I like about it is that the post workout weight makes a great target for the next week’s pre-workout weigh in.

I use three levels of performance measures. Less than Expected, Met Expectations and Exceeded Expectations.

Met Expectations Overall, for week 4 of 10 I gave myself a self assessment of Met Expectations, recovering from last week’s slide and got myself back on track. And I was definitely concerned because I know that the sins of one week definitely carry over to the next. So this result even though it may not seem big from a magnitude standpoint, was pretty pleasing to me.

Report Card – Week 4

January 25 – January 31:

Caloric Intake/Nutrition = Met Expectations

Portion size: Much better, the only poor day I had was Sunday evening when I splurged on CPK and tried both their fish tacos and had my traditional Halloween pizza.

Eat Healthy Breakfast: Are you kidding me. Being in New York this week, our friend Carolyn provided us with fresh squeezed juice every morning. We even took up the daily ritual entitled, “Guess the secret ingredient”, which included lime, cactus fruit, pineapple, ginger, apple, and others depending on the day.

Eat light every three hours: Much better at this as well.

Eat fresh whole foods: I throw the daily fresh juice into this category as well as great salads almost every day.

Avoid junk food and sugar: Pretty good except for an ice cream party on Saturday night that accompanied the game “Apples to Apples” with a whole slew of characters in the old neighborhood.

Eat protein first: Still difficult to get enough isolated protein to make this work.

Stop eating 60 mins. before going to sleep: Nah, we stayed up late and crashed by necessity.

Caloric Expenditure/Positive Stress = Met Expectations

January 25 – January 31:

Workout early: Not really but it didn’t hurt my ability to get my workouts in.

Min 45 mins of Cardio: Had a great week in this area primarily because my friend Kamal secured a pass for me to workout at Equinox in Scarsdale. Special thanks go out to Anthony Cichessi, the manager over there who couldn’t have been more helpful and generous. I really took advantage of both the Stairmasters (4600 PT) and the Gauntlets (SM916) as we don’t have access to either of those machines back here. I also adjusted my training schedule for the Los Angeles Marathon a bit so that I could run 20 miles in 18 degrees with my good friend Phil at Rockies on Saturday. And I have to say that the result of that run was very encouraging. By the way, help me wish good luck to Phil who’s running his first stand alone marathon in Austin, TX next Sunday.

Resistance training: Again, I took advantage of the access to Equinox to lift most every day I could.

Recovery/Adaptation = Met Expectations

Sleep min of 7 hours per night: I slept a lot.

Conclusion: A solid week that resulted in only a pound and a half of weight loss but put me back on schedule in almost all of the right areas. Good job. Results from all of the other great folks participating in this challenge can be found at the 10 in 10 blog. Have a great week.

Do you workout with a trainer in your local gym? Do you see trainers working out with other members and think, hey that’s the life, they get paid to boss their clients around and count to 8 or is it 10 or sometimes 12? How hard can it be to get paid to workout all day while getting free massages from their attractive and fit colleagues? And how many of you look at these trainers and think, they must have been jocks in high school or maybe college and yes they know how to lift weights and live an active lifestyle, but they can’t possibly be any more vapid or one dimensional? On the one hand I can’t argue with any of these statements, after all, I was a full-time trainer and I did it for over ten years back in the 80’s and 90’s in Los Angeles, and I did count to ten and boss my clients around and worked out multiple times each day. And yes, I even got free back massages from attractive and fit colleagues while getting paid to do so.

On the other hand, I always felt just a little bit embarrassed back then because we didn’t have “real” jobs, had a bad taste in my mouth when people would roll their eyes at me or my friends when we’d tell them what we did for a living. “Gigolo Job” was what it was most commonly referred to as. And hey maybe it was, but in that little community of trainers, greatness emerged. And I feel proud to have been part of a group of the smartest, dedicated and most determined group of human beings I’ve ever worked with. It was here at Sports Club/LA that I learned that we were not in the service business, we were in the experience business. It was also here at Sports Club/LA that I learned about transformation and how transformation is not defined in terms of effort or desire but in terms of measurable results, or benefits that are sustainable over time.

For the past fourteen years, I’ve worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Los Angeles and New York and during that time, I constantly worked to pass those simple messages on, sometimes with success but more often than not it was quite the struggle. Many of the folks I worked with saw my background in exercise science as less valid than those with degrees in accounting, engineering or business. At best it was met with a sense of amusement. Their lack of ability to grasp the concepts of creating experiences that delight and measuring their performance by the performance of their clients isn’t because the people there aren’t as smart or dedicated, to the contrary, PricewaterhouseCoopers professionals are razor sharp, some even brilliant. The issue is that the system rarely supports thinking in those terms; the dominant drivers of chargeability and billability run directly in the face of creating an end result that truly delights and is sustainable.

I love that social networking and customer experience and business transformation are all now “hot topics” in business today. We were doing all of those things thirty years ago and it didn’t require an initiative or a center of excellence or an investment request to do so. It’s just what we did. I love that there are businesses like The Human Performance Institute that has an incredibly successful business helping executives realize that performance is not created through finding more time to work but rather by putting more energy into the time that you have, by achieving a dynamic and holistic balance in all areas of your life, by getting the most out of your physical, mental, spiritual and emotional energy. Duh, that’s private training 101.

What amuses me is that all of these tenets were so clear and obvious to us back in that gym in Los Angeles and while business schools and multi-nationals companies search for and pay six figure salaries to executives who can help them to achieve even a modicum of success in these areas, all they had to do was look down the street to the gym on the corner. Because every day, dedicated trainers across the country and throughout the world are delivering on all of those promises, many without even knowing these are issues out in the “real” world. In that gym on the corner, clients are walking out the door transformed, they have received experiences that delight, they are a part of a vibrant and positively contagious community and they refer their friends to that business establishment and trainer every chance they get. And how many businesses wouldn’t love to achieve those metrics? Over the next few posts, I’m going to do what I’ve wanted to do for years but never did, profile some of the trainers I had the honor and pleasure to work with, those that just might change the way you think about private trainers from now on.

But don’t be too in awe just yet, I’ll let you in on another secret; we never actually did keep count when you were lifting, we just always relied on the fact that you didn’t. Three more. Or is it four?

How’d I do? (The Outcome Goal) During week 3, I succeeded in losing .75 pounds and am now at 214 lbs, and overall I’m down 2 lbs from my starting weight.

Peter Gabriel, No Self Control

I use three levels of performance measures. Less than Expected, Met Expectations and Exceeded Expectations.

Less than Expected Overall, for week 3 of 10 I gave myself a self assessment of Less than Expected, sliding back from all of the good work I did in the first two weeks because of a complete #failwhale related to portion control. The Peter Gabriel video above says it all! I ate two full pizza’s this week without even knowing it in two different days. Well of course I knew that I did it, but it’s back to the addictive personality. Being back in NY this week, I found myself out at lunches and dinners with friends and got caught up in that all too easy self convincing attitude of “It’s only one time”. For me, my nutrition and “feeding” needs to be a stand alone event where I get the food, eat the food and finish, separate and apart from other distractions or activities.  It’s far too easy to get caught up in the moment and then realize that I consumed the gross national product of Uganda before the evening was complete. The result is that all of my great routine built up during the prior two weeks is snapped and I’m forced to go back to the beginning. I lied where I had gotten to, that place where my body tells, me “Hey idiot, you’ve eaten enough and if you eat any more I’m going to make you feel sick.” But if you keep piling on, your body won’t be able to tell you. Just like a muscle, it adapts to the behavior you impute on it. Major need for a quick refresh to get back on track. Only seven weeks left.

Why am I rating myself Less than Expected when I still lost weight? Just like in Week 1 when I actually gained weight, the outcome goal does not always reflect what really matters and that is my behavior in executing on and achieiving the process goals I’ve set forth for myself. Yes, I lost .75 pounds, but in reality, that’s just blind luck, or more likely a timing issue. I know from practice that what I do nutritionally on one day doesn’t show up in my weight for five to seven days. All this means that my work is REALLY cut out for me this week, just to stay even.

Report Card – Week 3

January 18 – January 24:

Caloric Intake/Nutrition = Less than Expected

Portion size: Horrible. As described in my preamble. Enough said. Cut the portions down to levels not required by Attila the Hun!

Eat Healthy Breakfast: Healthy but I allowed the portion size to creep up here as well.

Eat light every three hours: Not even close. I ate every three hours on some days, skipped meals on others and ate light then heavcy, then even heavier then light. Yuck!

Eat fresh whole foods: Probably the positive side of the nutritional elements. I did eat a lot of whole fresh foods, just too much of it. The one change this week is living off of Carolyn’s juicer. Each morning, we’ve been playing “Guess what’s in the juice?” So far she and Cindy haven’t tried to put in my athletic socks. Brett Blankner and Christine Lynch would be really proud, as they also have been on the smoothie kick, but we’ve gone one better because we’re using Carolyn’s heavy duty auger.

Avoid junk food and sugar: Not too bad with sugar this week. None of Aunt Duck’s oatmeal raisin cookies to graze on.

Eat protein first: Kind of a mix here. I can still be much better. Who am I kidding? I didn’t eat protein first, yet again. No self control, cue the Peter Gabriel song.

Stop eating 60 mins. before going to sleep: Average at best with a number of late nights grazing.

Caloric Expenditure/Positive Stress = Met Expectations

January 18 – January 24:

Workout early: Got out early on the weekend but still not regularly starting my days out by working out or running. I know how important this is because it really does set the tone for the rest of the day and allows me the flexibility of getting in a second workout later in the day or evening if my schedule allows.

Min 45 mins of Cardio: No problems here, and was happy that the issue in my left calf didn’t rear its ugly head again, even with me getting in 48 miles of running this week including a 19-mile long run on Saturday followed by a 10-mile run at Rockefeller Park on Sunday. Total time training for cardio and resistance was 11 hours.

Resistance training: As you can see from my Joe’s Goals report above, I only lifted two days this week. So important! Need to do even better.

Recovery/Adaptation = Met Expectations

Sleep min of 7 hours per night: Not much to say here. I slept a lot.

Conclusion: Stop being such a glutton! Not much more to say than that. Keep up the good work on getting in my runs (I’m only a few weeks away from the Los Angeles Marathon) lift even more and drop this BS weight. Do the things I know I need to do. Results from all of the other great folks participating in this challenge can be found at the 10 in 10 blog. Have a great week.

How’d I do? During week 2, I succeeded in losing 4.75 pounds and am now at 214.75 lbs, and overall I’m down 1.75 lbs from my starting weight.

Below is my report card from the past week. I use three levels of performance measures. Less then Expected, Met Expectations and Exceeded Expectations. Overall, for week 2 of 10 I gave myself a self assessment of Met Expectations, building on the good start from week one and working even harder in a few areas. Recall that in week one I actually gained 3 pounds but knowing that I was doing what I needed to do, I persevered and the results this week have been positive. That said, I still have plenty of room for improvement.

Report Card – Week 2

Caloric Intake/Nutrition = Met Expectations

Portion size: Better. But still have a lot of work to do here! I definitely had a few slip ups but I consciously recall walking away from food when I otherwise would have continued to eat. And wouldn’t you know it, I didn’t starve in the process.

Eat Healthy Breakfast: Continued my breakfasts of cottage cheese although I threw in a bit of cereal on occasion.

Eat light every three hours: Still a work in process, but eating frequently did help with the typical hunger I might otherwise feel.

Eat fresh whole foods: Probably still my weakest link. Still a slave to too many processed foods. Trying to hit the salad bar immediately after working out to avoid last minute convenience choices.

Avoid junk food and sugar: Good except for an indulgence in Aunt Duck’s oatmeal raisin cookies that were irresistible. Continued to avoid chocolate and it’s getting easier.

Eat protein first: This one is most difficult because protein is hard to come by at every meal around here. Need to get more creative.

Stop eating 60 mins. before going to sleep: Better as well, only having some dried apricots at the one hour mark.

Caloric Expenditure/Positive Stress = Met Expectations

Workout early: Still not getting into the gym as soon as I wake up. I think this is because there is still so many moving pieces in the other parts of my life and I’m trying to attack those first thing in the morning as well. I did get out and run on Saturday and Sunday before seven am, so its getting better.

Min 45 mins of Cardio: No problems here, and was able to return to running after my lay off due to the calf injury, including an 18-mile long run on Saturday.

Resistance training: Unfortunately the return to running also meant that I slacked off on the resistance training which I know is absolutely critical to building lean body tissue.

Recovery/Adaptation = Met Expectations

Sleep min of 7 hours per night: Pretty good about going to sleep early this past week, which also allowed me to get up early feeling much more energized..

Need to continue what went well and work even harder on what didn’t as I move into week 3. Love seeing all of the great results being posted on the 10 in 10 blog. Keep up the great work and don’t be discouraged about any lack of expected progress in the outcome goal, keep focusing on those process goals and the outcome goal will take care of itself.

Some of you already know that I decided to jump into the public mix and join this years 10in10 challenge, essentially the Biggest Loser without the threat of getting kicked off the show and without the ability to win a lot of money. This community/challenge was started by our Twitter and podcasting friend Nigel. The objective is really simple. Lose 10 pounds in 10 weeks.

On Monday January 4th, we all weighed ourselves and posted our weights on a Google Docs spreadsheet. I weighed in at the gym just before working out. I came in at a NFL Quarterback svelte 216.5 lbs, except that I am not now, nor have I ever been a member of the NFL Quarterback fraternity. Blacklisted from that as well. I wasn’t surprised by the 216.5 weight; after all, it isn’t a good or a bad number, it’s just a number, a benchmark from which to measure performance and change. Now with an outcome goal of 10 pounds in 10 weeks firmly in place, I set out to develop the process goals that if implemented would positively affect that number. Note: I acknowledge that weight management is materially affected by stress, emotions and psychology, those elements that fall into the Spiritual, Mental and Emotional dimensions of human performance, however the process goals I chose for this endeavor are exclusive to the Physical dimension, as I felt the physical foundation needed to be solidified first or the desired accomplishments in the other dimensions would equally fail. I placed these Physical process goals into the following categories:

• Caloric Intake/Nutrition
• Caloric Expenditure/Positive Stress
• Recovery/Adaptation

How’d I do? During week 1, I succeeded in gaining three pounds and am now up to 219.5. So why am I not freaking out? Well, for a couple of reasons. The first is that I was on meds for my head cold when I did my initial weigh in which may have had me dehydrated aqnd therefore lighter than I really am. Case in point is that I did my weigh in yesterday before my workout and came up with 219.5. I did another weigh in after my workout and weighed in at 215.5, that’s a 4 pound swing in under two hours, all of it related to hydration. But being conservative, I’ll use the observation from before the workout and will hope to see improvement in the coming weeks from doing one thing, executing ruthlessly on the process goals I’ve set out for myself.

Below is my report card from the past week. I use three levels of performance measures. Less then Expected, Met Expectations and Exceeded Expectations. It doesn’t make much sense to get more granular than that, although I recognize that there are valid reasons for gradation. Overall, for week 1 of 10 I gave myself a self assessment of Met Expectations, a good start with plenty of room for improvement.

Report Card – Week 1

Caloric Intake/Nutrition = Below Expectations

Portion size: Clearly I still fall into the trappings of being a child of depression parents and still feel the need to clean my plate

Eat Healthy Breakfast: For the most part I now eat cottage cheese for breakfast which also helps with the eat protein first process goal

Eat light every three hours: Not sure I’m eating light and trying to eat regularly but not exactly hitting the every three hour mark

Avoid junk food and sugar: I’ve been off chocolate since January 1st, which is my biggest sugar vice, but I’m still eating too much bread and carbs

Eat protein first: Starts of really well with breakfast but I know I ate Mexican a few times and did fall into the trappings of the chips on the table

Stop eating 60 mins. before going to sleep: Just failed at this one.

Caloric Expenditure/Postive Stress = Met Expectations

Hit the gym early: Been going to gym but usually around lunch time, not first thing in the morning as I’d planned on doing. Lots of good excuses but no matter, I still haven’t been getting it done. I also missed two days this week due to other commitments.

Min 45 mins of Cardio: I pulled the muscle in my left calf on Tuesday on the treadmill but didn’t let it deter me. I quickly switched to more hours on the bike and walking steep inclines on the treadmill to keep up the routine. Would have been a higher grade but I missed Monday and Sunday due to other commitments.

Resistance training: Lifted weights Wednesday, Thursday and Friday for a total of three days this week. Also given that Wednesday was the first time I’d done squats and lunges in ages, it took me until Saturday to recover functional ability in my ass and hamstrings again.

Recovery/Adaptation = Met Expectations

Sleep min of 7 hours per night: For the most part I’m getting more sleep now than I ordinarily do, but I still need to work on reducing the negative stress in my day to day life. Obviously my career has a lot to do with this at the moment. I still need to do a lot more on this front.

Now it’s on to do even better in week two. Best of luck to all of my friends who are engaged in pursuing their own 10 in 10 objectives. Wishing you all continued success.

You all know that I love technology and I love automobiles.  Let’s be honest, I still drive a ‘91 Ford Explorer that even off the line, cost less than the stereo I had Howard Becker put into it. People thought I was crazy because I dropped the truck off on La Cienega the day I took possession and didn’t get it back for three weeks. But when I did, BAM the truck was amazing, it was like driving around with the Counting Crows playing in my back seat – crazy sick!

Growing up in Los Angeles, every weekend two things would happen. The first is that on Sunday mornings I’d hook up with the Santa Monica Trail Runners and head up to Sycamore Canyon or some place north of Malibu to the run trails before the first NFL game. Along the way, we’d pass all of these RV parks along PCH, and on the one hand, I’d think, man don’t these people have homes? Do they all live like Jim Rockford as PI’s for $200 per day plus expenses? On the other hand, I totally envied them that they could live on the beach anywhere they wanted to. The second thing that would happen is that on the radio and TV, every twenty minutes we’d hear another commercial for the 42nd Annual California RV Show at the Fairplex in Pomona. And it was announced in that same voice that announced the Monster Truck Rallies at the Los Angeles Coliseum, you know the one, “Sunday, Sunday, Sunday“, I know you all just said it out loud with me.

Long story short, I never knew anyone who went to that RV convention or who lived in one on the beach north of Zuma. And then about four years ago, I went to a place called Deer Meadow Campgrounds in Cook Forest, PA with Cindy and her family. You guessed it, it’s a campground with RV’s, hundreds of them, maybe thousands of them. And let me tell you, if you want to know where money is being spent in this economy, look no further than the RV community. There are rv’s and then there are RV’s, including buses that cost upwards of $750,000. Are you kidding me? Some are even amphibious!

I’ve decided that Tour Bus is a more palatable term for snobs like me that still get embarrassed at the term RV. I know it’s rediculous but hey, I’m still evolving. In any case, in Cook Forest, I had a great time doing what I love to do, which is to run trails and cycle 100 miles out into nowhere just to get lost. And thankfully I’ve been invited back many times since.

So today, I’m making it my mission to enlighten other cynics like me to how super cool there tour buses, I mean, RV’s really are. I’m going to the Ohio RV Show in Cleveland. From what I can tell, I should be able to broadcast live from at least a few of these vehicles that are all tripped out with Wifi and satellite uplinks. Follow me on twitter at twitter.com/CoachAdam. Why should SWAT have all the fun with their toys?

Who knows, one day I might be a super successful management consultant engaging with clients and team members from anywhere that my explorer personality takes me. Jealous? A little.

Her name was Ellie, but it didn’t start that way. Nineteen years ago, she was adopted by Cindy in Manhattan Beach, CA and because she was so little and was always hiding, Cindy and her roommate didn’t even have a chance to name her. They simply called out “Where are you little girl?” and the name “Little Girl” stuck. Years later when I came into Cindy’s life, I found that she came with two cats, a huge 20lb Russian Blue name Wally and apparently another tortoise shell calico, although I think I didn’t see her for the first six months because she seemed always to be hiding behind a water heater, or up in the rafters or somewhere else to be safe from humans. I couldn’t help but make it my mission to learn more about this shy little animal to find ways to socialize her to the outside world. I think what I really wanted to do was to let her know that humans were not all bad, that we could love and care and provide shelter and comfort to even the most mistrusting. Living in the Palisades, I often let Ellie and her brother wonder in our fairly large backyard where her natural instincts took over. Even though Ellie’s markings gave her almost perfect camouflage, I learned to find her by the chattering of squirrels and birds in the trees; apparently, they considered her to be a clear and present threat. And it was this little girl cat that I saw from my office one afternoon dart across the backyard and in midflight tackle another cat who had found its way into our yard. Yes, the little beautiful cat was a serious bad ass when it came to protecting her turf and her family.

It was also there that we began to bond as much as she would with any human besides Cindy. And for obvious reasons as it was a little creepy calling out “Little Girl” around the neighborhood, my pride and embarrassment made me shorten her nickname to L.G. but L.G. was a bit too locker room for such a delicate lady so eventually L.G. evolved one day into Ellie, a much more appropriate name for such an elegant, wonderful and beautiful creature.

While her brother Wally lived his life in perpetual schizophrenia, one minute cuddling up and drooling on us and the next tearing our arms and ankles to shreds, Ellie lived her life quietly, serenely, never breaking anything, never missing her litter box, never intruding on anyone or anything, unless they threatened her family.

Time passed and Ellie made her way with Cindy and me from Manhattan Beach to Playa Del Rey, to Pacific Palisades and finally to Scarsdale, NY where she became a mature lady. And then as fate would have it, Ellie’s health started to deteriorate. First she became deaf and then blind in both eyes. At first she would wander around our basement bumping into boxes and tables and we wondered at that point how a deaf-blind kitty would be able to find her food, water and litter box at a minimum. But she did. Every day, multiple times a day, for years she would make her way up a flight of stairs by herself to join Wally and us, to drink from her bowl and to be a part of the family. Wally and Ellie were inseparable. Wally used to groom her with his rough tongue as well as fight with her, but he was always there for her, except towards the end of his life, when Wally seemed to know that his condition was deteriorating and he separated himself from being around her, almost like he was grooming her again, but this time for life without him in it.

Two years ago when Wally died, we only assumed that Ellie would follow right behind. But instead, Ellie, the cat who never wanted or needed human contact became our closest family member, literally. She became the true matriarch of our home making her way up the stairs in our house, and while blind and deaf would jump high up on the bed to make lay on Cindy’s chest or even crazier, balance on Cindy’s shoulder when she would sleep on her side. The little ninja cat would make her way around our house as if she had complete use of all of her senses jumping over dog fences and onto beds, couches and furniture with complete ease. When we finally brought Ellie out to the new house in Ohio, within hours she acted like she had been living here for years, even when we were moving furniture around and repositioning her litter box and our bed. Our friend Carolyn, who saw her even this past month in her house was so impressed by her ability to adapt to new surroundings, said she thought Ellie was faking. As challenged as Ellie was, nothing seemed to phase this kitty and she became the family member that Cindy and I admired most of all. She loved life and like her brother she never let anything and daunting as blindness and deafness get in her way of living every minute.

We knew she had a mass over a year ago, but at her age, we decided not to biopsy it because we had agreed that we weren’t going to put Ellie through the same torture that we subjected Wally to trying to keep him alive, driving day after day to the Animal Medical Center in Manhattan, hoping for a miracle that, of course, never came. When it happened, it happened rapidly. One day she was jumping up onto the back of our couch, balancing on the top, and two weeks later, she was gone, the past 10 days she was barely able to walk from her bed to the litter box without our help. She dropped from eight pounds of beauty and grace to three pounds of skin and bones and when she would stumble trying to get back to her water bowl you could hear the sound of the thud when her hips hit the ground. Just to be close to her and to give her human contact, we slept on the bathroom floor next to her because she couldn’t walk far enough to get to our bed. It was amazing that this little girl cat who spent the first 16 years of her life doing everything she could to hide from human contact became addicted to it or maybe it was just that we became addicted to her. Yes, I’m sure that was it. I unabashedly admired her self sufficiency, her ability to go through life with all of the good and all of the bad, and she never let it affect her basic lifestyle. I so badly wish that I had more of her qualities, because as blind and deaf as she was, she seemed to see life so clearly, focusing only on what mattered most and we felt blessed that this included allowing us to have emotional and physical contact with her and her with us.

We went to the vet yesterday with the premise to deal with her eyes, one of which had become filled with blood again because of the stress of the move, but deep inside, we knew that there was much more wrong with her than that. So we dealt with the obvious ophthalmic issues and then begrudgingly or knowingly accepted being referred to an internist to look at her, hoping with all of our hearts that she just needed fluids and perhaps a quick shot to help her regain the appetite, strength and vitality that she demonstrated only two weeks earlier. But deep down we knew there was much more going on. I had seen my mother drop from an elegant 115 lbs to a skeletal 70 lbs before she passed away and that path was brutal and filled with unbearable pain and unnecessary abuse with the inevitable outcome unchanged. Ellie’s path was looking eerily similar.

As expected the prognosis was not good. The options were untenable, put a frail old friend through a battery of surgeries and chemo that she most probably wouldn’t survive and be tortured during the process, or take her home to starve while letting the cancer ravage her body for an hour, a day, or a week until she couldn’t get up and would die as a result of a cardiac event while using what little energy she had left to try and find her way dutifully to her litter box. The third option, that which was unspeakable, was to play God, to say goodbye to her with some level of decency and dignity. So at 7:15PM on December 2^nd, with Ellie lying peacefully on my chest wrapped in towels with water bottles to keep her body temperature warm, a young veterinarian we had only met barely an hour before began injecting her first with a thick white sedative to put her further into deep sleep and then with the chemical which would permanently stop her heart, taking her away from us forever and taking away her life. I watched the viscous fluid make its way into the catheter while barely able to breathe, feeling like I should somehow scream out “STOP, Don’t do it, I want her to Live”, but I didn’t, I couldn’t because deep down I knew that this was the only humane solution. How hypocritical is that when imposing death is considered humane. The little sweet cat we loved so dearly who had been with Cindy for half her life and with me for years was gone.

Her end was incredibly peaceful, she just fell asleep. And in that moment, Cindy reached out to take her in her arms to tell her that she would finally be seeing Wally once again; that Wally was waiting for her, to groom her, to play with her and even to fight with her forever more. I can only take solace in knowing that as our tears continue to flow, her pain is gone and she is at peace.

If you haven’t heard it already, USC football lost once again to an unranked team (and a Pac-10 opponent) severely hindering its hopes for another Pac-10 championship and BCS Bowl appearance.

Now what I’m about to say may seem like heracy given how dedicated I am to the USC Football program, but here I go. The USC team is just not that good this season and they have bigger problems than their annual lapse of concentration. Hans Tessalar of The Los Angeles Times writes:

“The surprise from the 16-13 loss to Washington on Saturday is that the Trojans have now played two bad games in a row.”

That isn’t a surprise, that’s a fact. The team is flat, uninspired, slllloooowwww, soft, without field leadership and inexperienced. The highly touted offensive line got pushed around the field by both Ohio State and Washington. The play calling looked more like that of Jim Tressel than “Big Balls” Pete.

Now we’ve had stupidass losses before, Oregon State, Cal, Oregon, Stanford, and Stanford but in each of those games there was a clear reason including the famous “they had a running back that was so small our defense couldn’t see him” excuse.  I didn’t say they were good excuses, just clear. But in all of those seasons the team rebounded and asserted itself as the dominant force in the Pac-10 if not in college football. Why? Because those teams still had something that was undeniably “dominant”, an offensive line, a defense, a quarterback/wide receiver, Thunder and Lightning, something that you could look at and say, yup, we got cocky and complacent and blew it, but we’re a solid team and we’ll adjust and they did.

This season is different. This team is not dominant ANYWHERE! Not even in special teams. In short, this is NOT the type of USC team we’ve become accustomed to. This is much more like the teams of the drought years, and I can say this because from the year I started college to the year I graduated grad school I had to endure loss after loss to both UCLA and Notre Dame. I for one do not want to go back there again.

But I digress, the biggest issue that nobody is talking about is that this isn’t an issue of getting their quarterback some experience in games. And the issue is not that USC is losing, it’s that they might not be able to get better.

The secret sauce in USC’s success is that any team they have faced on a Saturday afternoon since 2001 has never been as good as who they have faced every day in practice. Yes the key to USC’s success is that because they have been so dominant that they have practiced to the level of USC Football, the level of their competition has largely been irrelevant as very few teams have been able to rival the speed, athleticism, inspiration and focused passion and play calling of a USC Football team.  So Saturday’s games have been really an extension of team scrimmages rather than a test of ability or execution. Now throw in Pete Carroll’s inspired leadership and a Norm Chow offense and you have magic. But they couldn’t have done it without both of these factors. Inspiring medicoracy might get you a surprise performance but it isn’t sustainable and it certainly doesn’t lead to national championships.

With the team this season being so average in every way, they won’t be practicing against competition that is as good as let alone better than who they will face on Saturdays. And the old adage of “the harder you sweat in practice, the less you bleed in battle” may not apply, because while they might put in the effort, they simply won’t have the competition across the line to MAKE them better.

And that should be frightening to the USC faithful.