10:00:00...

Is a number I'm starting to see a lot these days...in my sleep, in my head, on the faces of ninos and small animals. It's the number I think it's going to take to be allowed to compete at Kona next year. From what I understand, Cozumel is a slow and windy course. Last year, the last guy in my age group to make it through crossed with a 10:24. He's in Hawaii now, ready to go for this Sunday, the start of this year's Ironman World Championship. I want to be able to say that to myself a year from now...or to some friend when I can't make a sunday brunch - that I have to hop out of town to compete in the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii. Sure, I'm about that a little bit...though a whole lot less than one might think.

It's daunting, not just the 2.4 swim, 112 bike, 26.2 run (yes, miles), but fighting for something that other somewhat talented and hungry 25-29 year old men are going to be fighting for...treating every second like they matter because they all do. Of the hundreds that will be lined up in our age group, I'll worry about roughly 6 of them. They're the 6 who I can see now, every morning and afternoon, before I go to bed at night. They're pushing me every day to find my fights and bleed my miles, knowing that somewhere else on the globe, they're doing the same thing...all of us convinced that we're the ones entitled to this thing, one of the three tickets Cozumel can give to Kona.

Today was a light day. I woke up and hit the road for two hard hours on the new Cervelo. The rain has stopped in Los Angeles, finally (one day and a half), and I was out in time to catch the morning glow before the sun came up. Everything felt right. From there, I dropped my bike off, changed shoes and hit the road again, one hour and fifteen on foot - some hills, mostly quick tempo, mostly with the intention of putting some break in my legs in preparation for friday - tomorrow. Everything felt right. Considering I could barely walk correctly 2 weeks ago because of my blown left calf, I have new and ultimate respect for this process. It's magic and it isn't. I've learned to love the pain of rolling my legs - because if I don't love it and don't do it, then my body has every right to rebel, and I deserve to have everything I work for and desire and dream of taken away.

So tomorrow...

I need to test a couple things - lot of body, mind, some new nutritional elements. For the last 2 weeks, I've been logging 5 hours of training per day for about 5 days a week. The longest singular interval has probably been about 4.5 hours. Tomorrow, I need to get past my body and into my head. So here's what we're going to do...

Wake up at 5:30, ride to Santa Monica and lap Santa Monica before putting a loving hurt on my 7-9 cycling class. When it's over, I'll lap San Vicente before riding home, before leaving my bike and changing my shoes sometime around 10, a 4.5 hour ride. Then, I'll hit the road, aiming for 18-20 miles on foot before running into Equinox on Sunset just before 1, leaving me 7 hours into the day. I'll be drained and pissed and sitting in front of my buddy Colin in a yoga class. He's going to ask me to do a lot of disciplined, difficult, obnoxious shit (amazing too), and I am going to handle it. When my body is destroyed and my mind is on the edge of oblivion, I am going to eat some salt tabs and take on whatever comes like an unstoppable bastard. 8.5 hours. I'll drag myself home, hopefully delusional, eat something, pull myself together enough to head back to the gym at 545 to teach what will likely be the worst spin class in the history of Equinox. 10 hours...

Onward.

You Can Call Me Golden Boy, Some Do...

Today, I was asked by Equinox national to teach a class and walk and talk on a microphone for a charity called Best Buddies. Someone gave someone else 100,000 dollars and the first lady of California was there in the front row and one of the organizers tried to introduce me to her when I was helping another rider get situated on their bike and I gave Mrs. Arnold Schwartz this little chin flip like what's up when they were actually trying to organize a photo op. It was kind of awkward, I later thought when I really thought about it.

I took the class through a handful of songs, quickly realizing that none of the riders were into the kind of exercise suicide I teach in West Hollywood. When I walked out, I was met with some forms of praise, I think...I really have no idea anymore, am starting to feel like my perceptions are floating away from me or away from most of the world.

When someone came up to pay me, or mentioned my payment, they asked for an address where they could send the check, adding an unnecessary step to the equation and I felt like they were waiting for me to say something like oh no I could never accept payment...that having the opportunity to work for such a grand and worthy cause was payment enough. So I felt like a dick, but whatever...this is the machine, and you should have seen the machine in action today. No, I'm not talking about myself for once. When I talk about myself, I use words like Adonis or Gifted One or Golden Boy...

But you should already know that.

Camera Whore...

On Saturday, I spent all day learning how to safely take a class through Kettlebell training. Then my friend Mary wanted to make a video to post on her website. Then and I agreed. Then I posted it here.

It's Tuesday and I can hardly walk. When you tell people you are going to change their bodies in this town, it's like you become a prophet. In that fashion, Los Angeles has no equal. And this absolutely works.

Kettle Bells 101 with Reilly from Mary Rambin on Vimeo.

The Let's See How Many Posts We Can Do In A Day Because It's Sunday And Everyone Knows We Struggle On Sundays #4...

Think about this...first class down, 40 were there. Second class at 4 is always full. That's 50. That's almost 100 people in a single day. And I have a microphone...and the things I say are becoming increasingly less about fitness and more about...well, stuff like you find here. And that's just in one day.

All I'm saying...I'm just a baby at this. World, look the fuck out.

One Of Those Days...

An e-mail I wrote to my boss at at Equinox, titled "some stories just need to be told"...

Let me preface by saying THIS IS NOT GRIPING. I teach spin for one of my paychecks, I'm not capable of griping. Nor do I much believe in it. Life is what it is. That being said...

So I was working all day today, got your message when I got off at 5. Crapped out sound system, no sweat. I was on my way home and was going to burn a quick CD.

So I get home and my computer isn't "generating enough laser energy to properly burn." WTF, right? So I'm kinda screwed so I start digging into the back of my trunk, find 6 old, scratched and ancient mix CD's, start to sift through them, actually come up with a do-able playlist of pre I-Pod era songs...like Wheatus' Teenage Dirtbag -- priceless! No real choreography, I was just going to cowboy it. So I get to the boombox and test the first CD. It starts skipping. I'm fucked.

I have 11 minutes till class, realize I have an adapter at home to hook my I-Pod to the boombox. Traffic is bad, I'm an animal...I decide to run, literally run, by foot to Kings and Willoughby. So I do. I get home at 7:09, grab the connector, turn around, run back, remember quickly that the run back...unlike the run to, is completely uphill. I get to the 7-11, sprinting...again, because I'm an animal, when my left calf goes out. Really. Shot of cramps something awful and now I'm pulling out this spastic skip/hobble up Holloway, grunting like some wild animal, on the clock, battling to Alta Loma, where the hill REALLY starts. A doorman in front of the Sunset Marquis tells me something like, "don't give up buddy" and I make the turn into the parking lot, trek up the escalator, run into class at 7:16 and the fucking adaptor doesn't even fit.

Out of the 6 CD's I brought, only one of them, the first one I tested, is a skipper. I ditched it and pulled out a cowboy'd class, as expected...because if I haven't mentioned it before, let me do so now...I'm an animal - all about the adventure.

Dr. The Reilly Smith

...

I haven't been sleeping because I've been writing day and night and my eyes are blood shot always and people think there's something wrong with me often. I'm exausted, and now I can't walk on my left calf, but after everything, I get home and this is on Fuse, and it saves me, because I'm easy like that...

Oh, Fitness...