The Masters Athlete Survival Guide
We explore thriving as an athlete after 40. Each episode, we’ll dive into tips, hacks, and inspiring stories from seasoned athletes and our personal experience. Whether you’re a weekend warrior or a competitive pro, this podcast is your playbook for staying fit, strong, and motivated
The Masters Athlete Survival Guide
Addiction to Excellence: Mark Thill's Athletic Journey
Mark Thill shares his lifetime journey as a dedicated athlete across multiple sports and how his passion for excellence became the foundation for his coaching philosophy. His story exemplifies how maintaining athletic pursuits throughout life can lead to extraordinary physical capabilities even in our 60s.
• Beginning with basketball in sixth grade and developing a 44-inch vertical jump through persistent practice
• Competing in arm wrestling using innovative training techniques like bicycle inner tube resistance training
• Experiencing windsurfing as a true addiction that occasionally required divine intervention to moderate
• Developing profound training wisdom including resting heart rate monitoring and listening to body signals
• Discovering the power of proper nutrition for recovery after physically demanding activities
• Finding unexpected rehabilitation through pickleball after foot surgeries left him with limited mobility
• Coaching others with an approach focused on meeting athletes where they are rather than imposing rigid standards
The journey matters more than the destination. Mark emphasizes that his most euphoric moments haven't been his personal achievements, but rather helping others improve physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
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New episodes come out every other Thursday!
Welcome to the Master's Athlete Survival Guide, where we explore the secrets to thriving in sports after 40. I'm John Catalinas and, along with Scott Feig, we'll dive into training tips, nutrition hacks and inspiring stories from seasoned athletes who defy age limits. Whether you're a weekend warrior or a competitive pro, this podcast is your playbook for staying fit, strong and motivated. Let's get started. Fit, strong and motivated, let's get started. And we're back. I don't know how it happened, but, scott, let me do this one alone. So apologies in advance and, scott, thanks for abandoning me.
Speaker 1:I am not hurt If you're going to leave me here in Aurora Studios alone. What am I going to do? I'm going to bring my pickleball friends in, because their stories are better than my stories. So today I have Mark Thill and if you know Mark, you know that he is a superior human being. I want to call him a pickleball coach, but he sort of only plays a pickleball coach on TV. He's just a really great athlete that really likes to help people, which I guess is the definition of coach. But we're going to tell some stories and be old men and sit around here in Aurora Studios and talk about his life. Hi, mark.
Speaker 2:Good afternoon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, whatever, see, we're already old I just woke up from my nap. Did you yeah, did you take your Glucerna or your Ensure?
Speaker 2:Yeah, nice.
Speaker 1:Nice, nice, mark, you know the best place to start. And again I apologize because I think I talk about like, if you listen to the episode with Frank Collins, I refer to you guys as my summer camp friends. I spend a lot of time with you, but I don't know you. You know I don't suspect you're a mass murderer, but you know if you are. I don't know you, um. You know I don't suspect you're a mass murderer, but you know if you are. I don't judge, um, but I think it would probably best tell me a little bit about yourself so we can all learn a bit more okay, let's see well um.
Speaker 2:Married for 40 years, oh my god to the same person, or is?
Speaker 1:that 10 different women the same same lovely woman. Oh God bless Sue.
Speaker 2:Yep, that's her name, Sue. And let's see, I've got a son and a daughter. And let's, my new addiction is pickleball. I have a tendency to get addicted to sports. Oh nice and.
Speaker 1:Do you have old addictions?
Speaker 2:Yeah, like my addiction started off with basketball track, high jump, competitive arm wrestling, Sure.
Speaker 1:As one does yeah.
Speaker 2:Cross-country ski racing. Windsurfing that was an absolute addiction. Oh, and I did some racing with that too. Fly fishing still active at that Traditional archery, archery hunting and pickleball.
Speaker 1:Nice, nice. So that laundry list of pretty amazing things that we're going to delve into, is that lifelong? Did that start at I don't know 15?
Speaker 2:Yeah, like sixth grade, nice. I remember I was not a natural athlete. The kids always seemed to be faster than me and they knew more about the sports. However, if I liked that sport, I always seemed to be able to draw the self-motivation to do the hard work and stick to it. My dad, being my hero, was very, very good in basketball, so of course I wanted to be like him. Sixth grade, a friend was over at my house one day after school and we were both trying out for the school team and when I say try out, you had to try out and make it because there was a lot of kids. Do you remember those days?
Speaker 1:where you could not make the team. That was actually a possibility.
Speaker 2:So he had played basketball a little bit and and I hadn't. So we had these really high ceilings in the house and, um, old, an old village home, and he says, well, can you touch the ceiling? And I says I don't know, can you? So he jumps up, gets three fingers, puts, puts three fingerprints on the ceiling. That that's pretty good. I tried, I couldn't get within a foot of the ceiling, so now I had a goal.
Speaker 2:It's like I better learn to jump or I'm not going to be any good at basketball, yeah right. So it took me like a year to just get one finger on that ceiling and finally I touched it and about oh, maybe a month or two later I got all three fingers up there and then I just was addicted to jumping and next thing you know my mother's yelling at me like who's putting all these fingerprints on the ceiling. I end up being a high jumper in high school and in college and my vertical jump maxed out at around 44 inches by my senior year in high school, which, for someone who did not have the natural talent to do that, it just proves that if you dedicate some time to something, your brain finally figures out oh, you want to do this, and it starts to adjust.
Speaker 1:Maybe your brain, my brain doesn't figure out much, but you know, and it starts to adjust. Maybe your brain, my brain, doesn't figure out much, but you know. Spoiler alert, the the thing, the common theme, the little I know about mark. The one thing I know is that you really come across as somebody like, oh, I have a goal, I'm going to work incredibly, damn hard to achieve it. Um, I think a lot of people would look at at like they would try to jump and touch the ceiling and not make it and go oh, maybe I'll play baseball. So, uh, kudos to you, thank you. Yeah, all right, so have you always. I don't want to, I don't want to skip down the laundry list of things that you do, but I I guess the the large question that keeps coming up with all the uh, over 40 athletes that come on. Um, did you take a break? Did you ever stop being an athletic?
Speaker 1:actually sort of yeah but not a hundred percent yeah, because I mean a lot of people like I have a good friend, he's an attorney and he he's a attorney, so that means he's moved up in his firm, he's got two kids, he does not have a moment for himself. Therefore, you know, the first thing to fall off is, you know, his pursuit of his own sports while he's sitting on the sideline watching his children Incredibly gratifying. I think everybody enjoys it. But I just see this natural cycle of there's always this's always this pause in people's or not always, but there's a lot of time there's a pause in people's lives when it comes to just you know personal pursuits.
Speaker 2:So, to answer that question, I never got really overweight or anything like that. I never lost my cardio Cool but I did back off big time when we had kids. Yeah, I wanted to put them first, to be the best dad that I could, and so we did a lot of active things like hiking, fishing, cool Camping, so there was never like that softening up period. I did always keep up with my pull-ups and stuff like that, cause we have a pull-up bar in the basement and that's to me that's a staple exercise to do.
Speaker 1:Well, I think just the hike. I mean, there's so much research out there now and I why do I bring this up every episode? But the 10 minute walk is like the new, like baseline of if you need to do something, at least do that. So hiking with your family checks so many boxes. I applaud you and it shows, because you're a guy, I can actually ask you this on a podcast how old are you? 66. Yeah, no one would know that. Yeah, you are incredibly fit, incredibly mobile. Really, you know you're, you're mostly with it. Every now and then we lose you, but you know that happens absolutely.
Speaker 1:That's what those afternoon naps are for yeah.
Speaker 2:so I remember with my, my dad telling me when I was younger. He said you know, when you're doing a job like late in high school I worked at the country club. And he says, boy, this is great, you're getting outside work. He says, think of it, they're paying you to get in shape. So take the hard jobs, I love it. So when my son was growing up, I wanted him to be an athlete, and so the one day he asked me. He says Dad. So we're walking out of the grocery store and I'm carrying this little bag of something that weighs about a pound and he's carrying the big heavy bag of dog food. He says, dad, I'm the little guy. How come I'm carrying the heavy stuff and you're carrying the light stuff? I said it's secret training, mark, you're developing your muscles. So yeah, I've got a plan.
Speaker 1:He says, oh, oh cool, that's funny my dad always supported my athletic endeavors and I was ridiculously strong as, especially as a collegiate athlete. But he would always say to me like why do you pay to go somewhere to like, lift heavy things? Get a job. Yeah, just go get a job, get a really hard job, and and he I mean literally.
Speaker 1:He probably said that 400 times in my life. I never did because I'm a bit of a prima donna, but it makes sense and it's reflected in when you look at people, our age-ish, the people who have been lifelong mobile or lifelong working hard or lifelong in some sort of movement sector, still move pretty well. So you know, takeaway number one from uh mark is uh, don't stop. Well said yeah, thanks, I'm pretty good at this, aren't I? Um, all right, so I can't gloss over. I cannot gloss over because I've never met anybody other than a couple like world's strongest man behemoths and I forget the guy's name. I met him, the Canadian, who's really the world's greatest at it. You arm wrestled.
Speaker 2:Yes, I know it would seem odd looking at little me.
Speaker 1:Well, it's not. It's not even odd looking at little you. It's just, it's not a pursuit that that you know. You don't go to your local. I don't know arm wrestling gym and arm wrestle.
Speaker 2:Just all the pieces connected. In grade school we, from sixth grade to eighth grade, we pretty near arm wrestled every day during lunch hour.
Speaker 1:Really, that was like the cool obsession at the time. Oh, neat.
Speaker 2:And there was one guy we're probably not going to say names here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Unless he did something awful to you you can mention him, and it was Bernie.
Speaker 2:Oh hi, Bernie, Bernie, it was beat the champ. Oh shout out to Bernie and no one could beat him.
Speaker 2:And that was my goal. It's like I've got to do it. And eventually I was beating Bernie and now I was the guy to beat and we just got stronger and stronger. And a funny thing that happened. I had this little secret technique of using a bicycle inner tube, an old inner tube. I would put my hand in it, wrap it around the post in the basement, put my elbow on a table, and I would wrap it around the post in the basement, put my elbow on a table and I would work it from the the winning position so it'd be stretched to the max over the top. Then I I would stretch it from, so I would be pulling from the losing position. You know, just in case someone got the jump on you. And it was a real good tool. But now you got to remember why was it an old inner tube? It had a hole in it, right yeah. So I had this thing maxed out in the losing position and the darn thing gave up.
Speaker 1:Then I punched myself. I punched myself right in the face.
Speaker 2:Nice, ok, this is stupid.
Speaker 1:But I give you credit because now you can go on websites like for Rogue and stuff and pay $700 for a machine that basically does what you did with an inner tube and somewhere to tie it to. Yeah, um, that's amazing. Um, I don't want. I am so fascinated by this whole arm wrestling thing. You and I'm not letting you gloss over anything you mentioned I worked and I got stronger, other than the inner tube. You, you, you did like arm wrestling strengthening what'd you do?
Speaker 2:I used to take the easy curl bar with the v in it, yep, and so my big thing that, um, you know, try to not saying it braggadociously, but I would take 125 pounds and reverse, curl it and do that like 10 or 12 times. Okay, and, and there's a reason for that, because when you arm wrestle, rather than just going for the win, if you pull your opponent's arm away from them, that's similar to an easy curl reverse curl motion.
Speaker 2:So that was my ace in the hole. So we did that, we did the dumbbells, did the pull-ups let's see what else and a lot of arm wrestling.
Speaker 1:So this was. This was pre-high school you were in.
Speaker 2:Yes, started off in grade school and I wrapped it up in my early college years just because of the bar scene no, but it where I'm going with this is like I always complain, I complain, I complain about everything.
Speaker 1:But like when I was like a high school shot putter, there was not a lot of resource out there to know how to train as a shot putter because pre-internet right it was I had a book and I actually had this flip book, like the old cartoon books, and that's how I got technique done. But for you to figure out how to train arm wrestling back then, like did you just kind of you just kind of figured it out on your own right, exactly, yeah, yeah, that's a. I mean, I'm sure right now, if we went on our phones you know, the computers in our pocket that there's probably armwrestlingcom and it's got 4,000 views and 800 YouTube videos of things to do. Um, I, I think that you know we are sort of the last generation that basically had to kind of figure that kind of stuff on on our own and I applaud that because that's niche upon niche upon niche.
Speaker 2:yeah one of the cool things that I think uh, just just, uh creeped into my memory was, you know, like Daniel Boone and those guys, they used to arm wrestle sometimes and I thought, you know, I never liked the fighting part. I thought, well, you know, if I ever get in a predicament, maybe I can arm wrestle my way out of it, you know, and I think I never fought at all in high school. I think maybe people were intimidated.
Speaker 1:You know, because I was the champ, you know. Yeah, no, I mean it's weird, but I think you know I forget until you mentioned it. But I think, like you know, throwing your arm on a table and sticking out at somebody back then was a bit of like a dominance challenge, right, like, hey, I can out-arm wrestle you. And you mentioned things. I couldn't think of the guy's name, but it's Devin Lariat, who I think might be the best arm wrestler there is. I watched him arm wrestle a guy that I don't know. He might have weighed 900 pounds. The guy was a monster. And Devin's sitting there smiling because you talked about things like it's not just left to right trying to push someone's hand down, it's in, it's out, it's changing hand position. I was amazed how much is going on in, you know, arm wrestling that, like a guy off the street like me, like I'm sure you could crush me, and it's not strength, it's probably deep in technique, right, like you could tell what, if I think I'm doing and just be like yeah, odds are you.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't crush you, but if I was lucky enough to get the jump on you, it would have been technique, yeah right, not strength. Right, yeah right, no doubt.
Speaker 1:That's outstanding. I'm thinking back to my sixth, seventh, eighth grade existence, and I don't think we did anything like that. That's actually very, very cool. I don't know if I did anything. I may have just played Atari. Was Atari a thing yet?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it was.
Speaker 1:No, my current obsession with Evel Knievel. I'm obsessed with Evel Knievel, alright, so we got through sort of early. You say you high jumped in college.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, so you were okay at it.
Speaker 2:Where'd you go to college? Cobleskill?
Speaker 1:It was a two year at that time.
Speaker 2:Now I think it's a four year.
Speaker 1:They all are and they're all, uh, universities now or something. Yeah, um, that's cool. I I loved college track and field, that was. It was a big part of my collegiate experience and I was. I enjoyed it immensely. I think it made a lot. I mean it wasn't great, right, it was division three, whatever, um, but I think it forged a lot of who I am as a human being, because team, because I mean, like you mentioned, with getting cut from basketball failure, I mean, you know, especially in like high jumping is a little like, you know, like shot put you only get so many throws and then that's it yeah you know, when you're doing high jump, you basically go until you fail.
Speaker 1:So I mean, there's an inert lesson right there that you know if you want to get better, you need to get to that next height. Um, were you good? Were you okay?
Speaker 2:I thought I was pretty good but, I was always against these. Uh, average height would have been like six foot three and I'm five, eight, yeah, and sometimes they're like six, five, you know yeah, so they actually rooted for me. That the tall guys from the other teams.
Speaker 1:They're like dude. You are really rocking this.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I was all right. My best was 6'4". Really yeah.
Speaker 1:Dude, that's very impressive and again, I think this speaks to who you are as a human, whether you recognize it or not. But that's technique too.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:I mean jumping too. That is not. I mean jumping straight up only gets you so far. It's really timing and technique and body awareness. So, yeah, cool, cool, cool, cool. Uh. So we went through, man, you just spewed out a whole laundry list of fun things to talk about. We arm wrestled and we played some basketball and now we've high jumped and I I footnoted it here in my little notes because this is because you you actually called it out um, I had a windsurfing obsession it was extreme yes, yes in fact it was such an addiction that sue and I, before we had kids, yeah, we would never commit to our friends for the weekend.
Speaker 2:Like what are what are you guys doing Friday, saturday, until we got the wind forecast just in case it was that big warm 30, 40 mile an hour blow that you just long for, so we wouldn't want to miss out on that.
Speaker 1:So did you live here always?
Speaker 2:Yes, or you always been in.
Speaker 1:Western New York. Okay, so it's all. Lake Erie, lake Ontario, windsurfing, exactly Okay yeah, I, you've been in Western. New York. Okay, so it's all. Lake Erie, lake Ontario, windsurfing, exactly Okay. Yeah, I mean, it's extremely. I mean I have a friend that surfs on Lake Erie, so I mean, but I've seen lots of windsurfing, a lot of kite surfing now these days.
Speaker 2:For anybody that's never done it, it's like, yeah, I've never done it. When you're really on a nice board and it's as if, when you skip a flat stone across the water, it's if a giant took a flat stone which would be your board, skipped it across the water and you are riding on that skipping stone. Really, that's the sensation, huh, because you're skipping from, like in the Inner Harbor, when the waves that chop is maybe two to two and a half feet. You're just skipping from wavelet to wave really only a four.
Speaker 2:I've never noticed that a fourth of your board is touching the water. Okay, a lot of times people would ask me is your board touching the water when you're doing that? And I was like, of course it is. Why do you? Everyone keep asking well, we can see that that blue thing sticking out the bottom all the time, which would be the skag. Okay, it's like. Okay, it's an optical illusion, like when you take um uh cards with pictures on them and you fan them and it makes like a movie, yeah, but yeah, I'm just skipping along right on the top and it's so is this skeg.
Speaker 1:So the skeg is like a keel on a sailboat, basically is that what? That is, it's like a rudder there's only on a fast, oh like the back, yeah, a little fin looking thing.
Speaker 2:Yes, okay, okay there's no on the fast short boards. There's no center keel okay, or center board it's just just the uh, just the skag in the back, yeah that's amazing and I gotta believe that takes.
Speaker 1:Obviously it takes balance, but it's got to take some upper body strength.
Speaker 2:That just basically yeah, I used to do pull-ups like crazy on the off days, just so when it did get windy I'd be ready. Yeah, so I would do lots and lots of pull-ups at home.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, um okay, back to my spoiler alert.
Speaker 2:Oh, mark wants to do something, so he's going to train for it and focus on it, and I'm sure the obsessed about the technique thereof, right no doubt I mean even, for we used to freestyle moves and the best way to practice freestyle would be with your sail in the backyard with no wind and just flip it around and spin it and do your pirouettes, whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there were times where we felt that same sensation of no wind coming down, a wave faced at 15 or 20 miles an hour. Next thing you know, your sail is absolutely neutral because you're going as oh, because you're going 15 as fast as the wind that makes sense. Coming down the wave faced, you feel the zero wind and you could do all these funny spins with the sail and pirouette on the board and it was a.
Speaker 1:It was a beautiful thing. I really hope one of our listeners used to live next to you so that right now they're going. Oh, that's that guy. He's been in his backyard with just the sail just dancing.
Speaker 2:He was so weird.
Speaker 1:What was he doing? Oh, that's what he was doing. Okay, that makes sense. So that was the weekends for the Thills, huh.
Speaker 2:More than that, yeah, oh, yeah, see, and I was self-employed, so when it was windy I'd find an excuse like oh, no, work today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, that's fine that's that's fine. Did you ever go any like? Have you ever done it anywhere else other than right here?
Speaker 2:yeah, my brother, my mom and dad. They're in florida so I got to sail there with some of the best in the world yeah, really that was pretty neat and, oh, I was so fortunate to be on vacation during pretty manier gale, forest winds, yeah, which everybody says oh, I was on vacation, it was horrendously windy it was great yeah, like the guys that I used to read about in the wind rider magazine. There they were right there swapping stories, you know, and that's cool and I'm sure they were right there swapping stories.
Speaker 1:That's cool and I'm sure they were incredibly welcoming, because the thing I've learned about really good elite athletes is that they're the chillest human beings. They're welcoming, they're like I'm glad you're getting it after it, brother. They're not trying to belittle you in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 2:Especially if you don't appear to be a threat to them as a close competition, sure, sure, they'll basically spill their guts and tell you anything that'll help you.
Speaker 1:Now, how old were you when you were? I mean, do you still windsurf?
Speaker 2:I do a little bit, but I had to back off just because of old age and some injuries Old, age.
Speaker 1:how dare you? How dare you? Old age is just a number. That's what they tell me, yeah.
Speaker 2:So basically, probably my late 30s was when I started tapering. There was a period where I didn't go that much because of our kids. Yeah, and honestly it was such an obsession that I knew it was an addiction. I remember praying for the strength to not go as much as I did.
Speaker 1:It just oh Lord, please let me be less obsessed. Yeah, Nice.
Speaker 2:And my prayers were answered. I thought there was never going to be a day where I would be able to say no if I had the time and the wind was there.
Speaker 1:It just Well, I will tell you, tell you, mark, you are always going to have some facet of your life. That is a, a pursuit, and even I, I can see you at 80 being the world's greatest I don't know, uh pencil colorer there you go you are definitely going to get after something. Always is my guess. Um, you mentioned your kids. How old are your kids now?
Speaker 2:oh, let's see, it's a test. Oh, it's a test, isn't it? You should have prepped me on this.
Speaker 1:I should have prepped you on this, well you could just generalize it they're in their twenties.
Speaker 2:No, I can tell you exactly. Cause today is my daughter's birthday.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God.
Speaker 2:And awesome. No, we worked it all out.
Speaker 1:I know, yeah, so she's 30 and my son is 35. Oh, nice so and and nailed it did. Well done, well done. Check. Hey, sue, if you're listening, he knows he pays attention. Um, did they pick up any of dad's like, uh, tendencies to obsess?
Speaker 2:um mark ended up. He I really, really wanted me to be the athlete.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And he had natural talent. But he's the intellectual. Oh, that pays the bills.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's a software engineer.
Speaker 2:Nice but he did get into rock climbing and now he's getting more athletic now later in life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that happens.
Speaker 2:He rock climbed at RIT on the team there.
Speaker 1:Wait, wait. I love talking to you. You are flipping stones I didn't know existed. There's a rock climb.
Speaker 2:There's a collegiate rock climbing team yeah, they actually started it there, yeah is that is that for speed distance.
Speaker 1:I don't know, I never got um, I think it'd be speed on the bouldering course, you know stuff like that.
Speaker 2:I, but I never got a chance to watch them compete, so yeah, well it's funny because I compete in arm lifting, which is a weird subset of strongman.
Speaker 1:But the really successful, especially under 100 kilo people, are all rock climbers and their hand strength and shoulder strength and body awareness. It's otherworldly Like, I think, if I had to start over and I wasn't a big blob, some sort of rock climbing.
Speaker 2:I think it's really cool.
Speaker 1:It's super cool. You know I may have obsessed and watched that Alex Honnold free solo documentary a zillion times where he climbs, like you know, without a rope, without anything, and I think it gives me nightmares and like makes me incredibly excited. So I have learned something else from you. Look at that, there is collegiate rock climbing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so my daughter? Yeah, she is the athlete, oh yeah. Yeah, I knew right from when Sue was carrying her in the womb, mark would give these soft kicks. Jen was like boom. Nice I said, she's got quick twitch muscle fibers. She's going to be an athlete. Oh my gosh, so she was just a natural.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And she, let's see level nine gymnast. I don't know what that means but okay. Like level 10 is like Olympic level.
Speaker 1:Oh, no kidding. Yeah, they wanted to try her out, for for the olympic uh, to qualify, to train and and I'm glad we didn't yeah because that would mean homeschooling and it doesn't sometimes mean like giving like I know this happens in hockey, where you end up giving your children to some other family exactly and they? There's a word for it that I can't remember.
Speaker 2:So we had the big talk. It's like okay, jen, do you really want to go out to Texas and do this? Because do you want to give up your friends and do this? Because if not, we're wasting everybody's time to go out to do all the testing just to say, hey, I qualified to train, so it was a family decision and we made a good choice. So she did. Let's see, she did a lot of years right into high school gymnastics, but that gave her such a tremendous base for other sports, oh, I'm sure. So she set the school record at triple jump, she, high jump, she I'm sorry, she long jumped. And then she was a two-time indoor and out, indoor and outdoor pole vault champion. Oh there's, but you see. And then she got a scholarship for that in college and it was quite a quite a ride okay.
Speaker 1:So the one thing I've I am seeing is that, genetically, the fills have body awareness, because I, you know, I only recognize that because I don't. That genetically, the Thills have body awareness, I only recognize that because I don't. And everything you mentioned takes a high level of knowing where you are in space. Things like pole vault, things like rock climbing I don't have it. So it's one of the things that I both aspire to and applaud in people who do so. That's awesome. I love that your kids are athletic. I, uh, I applaud that for sure. And, you know, hopefully they carry on dad's tradition of never stopping. I feel like that's not an option. I feel like that dad would be like have you considered trying this why?
Speaker 2:don't you try this.
Speaker 1:And the worst case hey, why don't you out the pickleball? Um, all right, so we need, I need, I still have more winter. I'm sorry I derailed this. Oh, I have more wind surfing, cool, I'm just I'm. I don't even know the questions to ask. Because to, though, like I completely, other than seeing them when I'm on the beach getting blasted with sand because it's too windy for us regular humans?
Speaker 1:um you're out in waters that don't look like you should be out in. You know when you're really hauling ass and you probably are at your best and having your most fun. I'm looking at you like is that?
Speaker 2:is that guy gonna die? Yeah, is that guy gonna die?
Speaker 1:yeah, um, how this is? This is such a basic sailing question and my friend tom is probably to yell at me because he sails, I understand, downwind. What do you do then? Do you just have to walk back up the beach? Can you tack up wind?
Speaker 2:It is. It's the coolest thing where something about the wing development, design of the sail and the configuration of the hull of the board and your skeg. Sometimes longer boards have a center board but you can actually cut into the wind at I don't know 45 degrees or whatever.
Speaker 2:You can head upwind oh, so you can tack like a sailboat would absolutely oh no, kidding and so we would, um, just do a little bit of an upwind tack in the beginning on our reach, and then we'd carve the downwind jibe and basically do a long figure eight.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That was our technique on the short boards.
Speaker 1:All right, you just made a figure eight with your finger, which made me ask this question. Is there such a thing as windsurfing racing. What makes you good? Is it ballet on a board or is it racing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's freestyle, where you do fancy tricks and stuff. Then there's also races. There's slalom races, where you have the short boards and you're just ripping super, super fast, and there's the longboard racing where you've got a bigger, longer board. That's full flotation with the big center board and you can really point up into the wind, okay and tack, and so you'll have a bunch of buoys that are out there and you've got to go around this buoy, then head to that one and come back, and so there's upwind, downwind, oh that's cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because, as a nobody that knows nothing like I, will clear. I will watch the america's cup in those those sailing ships that cost more than all the money. I will watch the america's cup in those those sailing ships that cost more than all the money I'm ever going to make in my entire life times. 10. Um, I can only imagine that there's some technology out there for those guys at the highest level on a board going upwind at some ridiculous speed. Yeah, is it Is windsurfing. Take a. It seems to me the uninitiated again that it takes a lot of physical endurance. Is that true? Like I mean.
Speaker 2:Believe it or not, the most tired thing when I would be done windsurfing is my legs. You'd think it'd be your arms.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And the reason being you start off using your arms, but we wear this thing. It's called a harness okay, and it's sort of like a climber, like a pole climbers belt for oh okay, like an electrician so it goes around your buttocks and there's a hook up in front around where your belt would be.
Speaker 2:and once you've established you're on the plane, the track that you prefer and your board is skipping along pretty good, you pull your booms in a little closer and you hook a line that hangs off your booms into that hook. Oh so basically you could almost sail no hands.
Speaker 1:I was going to say so. You're not bearing the brunt of the sail in your hands, so you're kind of steering with your hands, but your legs, I'm assuming, are shock absorbing, exactly, and sort of tilting and driving. Oh okay.
Speaker 2:So just to clarify something the windsurfing, this is not the kite sailing. This is the one where the sail is attached to the board. It's like a miniature sailboat, but it swivels.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm glad you don't, kitesail, because that's another one I completely don't understand and I have no idea how you get upwind with that.
Speaker 2:It scares me.
Speaker 1:Because I've seen, you know you've been tropical places where you see someone out and I'm sure it's the best part of doing that, but they hit a wave, they launch themselves 27 feet in the air and they carry for 60 feet 60 feet.
Speaker 2:There was a guy right here at Hamburg Beach.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I was considering. Everyone said, mark, you've got to try this kite sailing. It's amazing, yeah. Well, he was a novice and it was a windy day, yeah, and he had his kite sail there. The big boys were out already, okay, and they said, no, it's too windy for you, don't do it. He goes, okay, I'm just going to rig it up and just sort of feel how it feels. Next thing, you know, it lifted him up off the beach two streets in. He landed in a tree, oh, and they had a mercy flight out of there.
Speaker 2:Oh my God.
Speaker 1:So I immediately knew that this was not for me. Yeah, like it's too risky. No, I get that because I was driving past. It's not naya wanda park, but it's the one farther down where they have the hydrofoil boat races.
Speaker 1:Um, and there was a guy when I used to work up there before covid um, flying kites. He just I was always there with a couple pretty kites up in the wind and he made and I stopped, I had to talk to him um, he made some of them himself, but the one he was flying was what he called a power kite and it really kind of looked like a square parachute. And he goes, yeah, I just built this one. I'm just trying it out. And I'm like, oh, that's cool. And as I'm talking to him, this, this square that was probably I don't know maybe the size of four, eight by ten pieces of paper together lifts him off the ground and carries him about 10 feet and drops him back down. He's like, yep, works. I'm like, oh, okay, yeah, power of the wind, I get it now. So, yeah, so we still windsurf a little right.
Speaker 2:A little bit Does.
Speaker 1:Sue windsurf. Is it like a couples thing Like do you windsurf together?
Speaker 2:She was very, very good yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, your wife is shout out to Sue. She's a great pickleball player. I mean to see her on the street. She just seems like this little demure nice lady that might bake you cookies. You put a paddle in her hand and she wants to murder you.
Speaker 1:And she can do it 11 different ways. It's very impressive. Um shout out to sue. Okay, I'm mentally going through the list of things that mark has done in his life. He's like the secret life of walter middy. Uh, where are we next? Oh, so in the winter, when it's not windy although I please tell me that there's aren't that people don't put skates on windsurfing things and do that unfortunately they do.
Speaker 2:Do they really, yeah, we're not going. We're not going there. You haven't done that okay, that that seems.
Speaker 1:you know what that screams scandinavia. To me, that just seems like uh, it's frozen and I've gotten, you know, I've gotten out of the sauna and I have heat stroke. What stupid thing can I do? Oh yeah, let's go down a fjord Cross country. You've done some cross country skiing, true? Yes?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Big time. Oh, he said oh, yeah again you know what this means, folks, that he found it, that he trained for it and he got pretty damn good at it.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, yeah, see. Yeah, yeah, it was another addiction. Nice, but it was a fun addiction because sue was able to do it with me and the kids all uh. Both mark and jen, yeah, both uh. Both learned how to do the skating style on the cross-country skis.
Speaker 2:So yeah, they. Now let's see, how did this start off? We, we got. We, our whole family, we had five kids plus my mom and dad. We all had cross-country skis. So we did it a little bit um in the winter time and my but we had junk skis.
Speaker 2:They were okay um fish scale oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, mohair, oh yeah, I forgot the mohair strip once when you're of all things, I had a hernia operation and sue had got me some nice fast skis for Christmas when we got married. Yeah, and I broke the rules. I wasn't supposed to be doing anything for like a month, and when I went to the doctor to check me out and I had already been skiing like 15 times and he saw my flexibility. He says, oh, you're good.
Speaker 1:You can do anything you want. Yeah, I bet that that would be a master's athlete rule number two just because the doctor says you need to wait eight weeks, I've yet to meet anybody. That's not like. Well, you know, I felt pretty good at three weeks, so I did it yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's fine so I liked the sport and I I met some racers at Burncliff one day and I thought you know, I think I want to dabble in this, yeah. So fortunately I met some elite, olympic-level mentors early on with some great common suggestions which you know. When you get two or three people saying the same type of thing, it's like wow, that's got value. Yeah, it must mean something. So I would love to share those tips.
Speaker 1:Oh, please, please, please.
Speaker 2:So number one was less equals more. So don't overtrain. If you were to find that perfect level for the day, every day, made a chart and this is how much Mark or John should train, and if you were to go over the line, over-train just by a smidget, you're actually robbing yourself of the rest of the week because you might not recover for tomorrow or the next day. You're going to feel weak, you're going to feel drained and you might even be injury-prone. So less equals more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. I think that I mean that translates to all 40 plus athletes in any endeavor. Because you see, I mean, look at it more basically novice novice 40 year old decides to go to gym. Novice 40 year old trains in gym, trains like a 20 year old because that's the last time they've been in the gym, goes all out or maybe do not go as all up, but goes way past where they're capable at that point, feels horrible, don't enjoy it, hurts, done, I'm not going, not going back. So, yes, okay, rule one less is more, love it.
Speaker 2:I should write these down yeah, um, and when you do flirt with just under that perfect line every day you're fresh, you're positive. So, yeah, flirt with just a little under the max. So, number two if you don't feel fresh at least one day a week, you're probably over training. Take a day off or do an easy workout that day. It's that's your number one indicator. I should feel fresh and revived at least once a week. Yeah, hard to do, that's your number one indicator.
Speaker 1:I should feel fresh and revived at least once a week. Hard to do. Well, that's a great lesson, because I think we've framed you as a slightly bit of an obsessive athlete, and even an obsessive athlete folks is willing to take a day off to let sort of recharge and refocus. That's outstanding.
Speaker 2:So this was really interesting. This next one that's outstanding. So this was really interesting. This next one. They said just get an established heart rate before you get out of bed. Of course, if you need to relieve yourself, you do that. Then you go, go back, lay down and just totally relax and get a resting heart rate. And you want to make sure you don't just do it once. You want to to have just an average heart rate for an average day this week, next week, whatever that is Now when you get into your training regimen. If all of a sudden someday you're in bed, you're nice and relaxed and your heart rate is like six beats above your average, that's a warning.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You probably should take a day off. Maybe you're, if, if you're not over trained, maybe you're coming down with something. Either way, back off that's. That's your warning, right there okay, so what?
Speaker 1:so, when you were having these conversations, how old were you then, like how long ago is?
Speaker 2:this um. I was around roughly 29 to 30 years old.
Speaker 1:So here's the thing. Here's another thing, folks, so I have this big, fancy, super expensive Garmin watch on that does my heart rate variability.
Speaker 2:Oh, it does it all for you, but here's the deal.
Speaker 1:Somebody sitting in Aurora Studios today figured that out, I don't know, 20, 30 years ago, and that sounds like that's more applicable and less sciencey sounding, which I applaud. Right, it's just a very basic. Anybody can do it. Are you where you think you are? And because heart rate variability in you know, in the modern vernacular is like the new, like metric, like big word yeah, I know, but the reality is that just do what mark said and you kind of know where you are cool.
Speaker 2:So another one which was absolutely huge for me is when you have a win winner's day, not winter's day a winner like you won the race that when you have a winner's day, but it wasn't on race day.
Speaker 2:It could be be a Tuesday, wednesday, thursday, not on event day. For some reason you are super powered. You're fast, strong, mentally clear for no special reason, like you might've even done a fairly hard workout the day before. So what do you do on a day like that? Don't test it, it's so tempting, like, okay, john, I'll challenge you for pull-ups today or I'll race you to the top of the hill. And what that's going to do is it's going to break your regimen of what you were supposed to do. It's going to rob you of tomorrow because you're going to overtrain today, and it could affect two days later. Even so, when that does happen, you just crack a smile and say great, the training is working. It is working.
Speaker 2:Now here's the cool part when it happens, you look back the past few days and say, okay, what was it that led to this awesome performance today? Was it my sleep? Did I get the perfect amount of sleep uninterrupted? What did I eat? My hydration, my caffeine, my stretching, my stress levels? What the heck was it? Now it happens again, maybe a week, two weeks later. Try to look back and find those common things. Eventually, if you're lucky, you might be able to find the key ingredients for a winner's day and superimpose those on event day. I like that.
Speaker 1:I like that concept that you basically figured out how to compete without, like, actually just peeking at a competition. And then, because in a competition you kind of want to be ultra relaxed and I think one of the best ways to be relaxed in whatever a competition is and I think one of the best ways to be relaxed in whatever a competition is whether you are actually a competitive athlete or you just push yourself to the local 5K or you just want to go run is the fact that I know I'm ready for this and, like you said, picking out those variables that like and they're very generic variables, right, you're not getting blood markers, you're just figuring out did I get nine hours of sleep and does that work best for me? Or, like I'm always, I'm always the opposite, opposite end of the spectrum. I can tell you that when I'm at my weakest is after I've had four plates at a chinese buffet, and I'm not gonna tell you why. I know that, but I've tested it a few times and uh, it's true.
Speaker 1:So no, that that man you are. This is amazing.
Speaker 2:This is like mark's guide to life well, just to add a little more enthusiasm to that, it works, oh, I bet I can remember getting out of I can remember getting out of bed at the hotel room. My wife was there to um cheer for me at a real big cross-country ski event. I got out of bed, bed stood up. I says, oh my gosh, today's the day I feel like a million bucks and you just don't get that very often, you know.
Speaker 1:No, you don't. And you know I've been. I mean, I was a pretty successful collegiate shot putter. I've been. You know, I was national champion a couple of times as a master Highland Games. I went to world championships and what you just touched on is you know the word superpower is probably used too often in this kind of realm, but if you can get out of bed without panic, without doubt you know you're there, I mean you may not win, because there's always someone better, but you're gonna perform as optimally as you can, right, I mean?
Speaker 1:which is all you can ask? That's outstanding. Yeah, cool, are we do we are those mark's rules to life? Are we done with mark's rules to life?
Speaker 2:we're just scratching the surface. No, I bet, I bet. No, that's that's outstanding.
Speaker 1:That's outstanding. Well, that's outstanding.
Speaker 2:That's it for cross country. No, that's fine, we don't want to burn that out.
Speaker 1:No, I give you credit for cross country. So my sister bought me I had never cross country skied and back in the day oh my God, high school probably, so that's the 80s, early 80s Bought me the skis where you need to wax them and all the waxes had like a I don't know four or five degree window of when you're using the correct wax. So here I am, a novice skier. You know I'm sort of a clumsy oaf. Uh, I'm sure I probably weighed down 275 pounds. So I had these skis with this huge bow in it, right Cause it's got to support your weight and you have. I don't know if you're unfamiliar with these kinds of skis. There's glide wax and there's grip wax and they have these narrow windows of temperature that they're useful for. And if you get outside of that temperature, either it doesn't grab or grabs too much. I never solved that. It grabs too much. I never solved that. It's difficult, I never solved that it's chemistry on skis.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I never, ever, and you know the. They were the old school three peg bindings so you were stuck in your skis so, god forbid, you got out. But still like, I went to college south of here in fredonia and it's kind of wine country and just recreational cross-country skiing on a snowy-ish day through a vineyard outstanding it's. It's like moving meditation, it. I really enjoyed it. I that that's something I should consider pursuing again. I really enjoyed that. Thanks for the inspiration, mark. Sure, where are we now in the laundry list of mark's obsessions with stuff? Uh, we did arm wrestling. We did. We always started basketball. We did arm wrestling, high jumping, windsurfing, oh, oh, I love this one best of all because I feel like this is the most oldish man, ultra meditative, looks cool. It can go as far or as little as you want.
Speaker 1:You fly fish, right, I love fly fishing. I think fly fishing is I don't even know how to describe it, because I used to do it with my dad when I was a kid and tying a fly and spending time on a medium-sized river where you're just laying a line out all day. It's one of those, it's one of those movements for me. Keeps you in the moment. I love it um. Do you still fly fish?
Speaker 2:oh, yeah, yeah. And another thing sue and I, we share that together, which makes it even more cool, I bet.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and in fact she whoops me quite often, because she's like a ninja, I get it the first time that happened, she was kind of timid.
Speaker 2:You know we're driving home. She says, like you're not mad at all that I caught more fish than you are. I said, oh my gosh, no, it's like the ultimate compliment to the master when the student surpasses.
Speaker 1:But just so you know, Mark, I mean you are a unique individual. A lot of guys would be like, yeah, we're never going fishing again. You suck, Never mind.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, no, that's awesome, and I love how you guys share their pursuits. That just builds your relationship and also gives you something to talk about at the end of the day when she catches more fish than you Fly fish around here, I'm assuming.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, we have a lot of really pretty good fly fishing around yeah, yeah um well, the creek right here is loaded right now, right there yeah, with steelhead. Yeah and yeah. We fish wherever we can, although pickleball is terribly interrupting our fly fishing.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, on behalf of all of us, I'm sorry yeah yeah, but um, I, I, I enjoyed fly fishing.
Speaker 1:I learned on streams that you know were the width of a kitchen table, where you'd basically cast a couple of times in a pool and then hike another you know thousand yards to the next pool. Um, I, I, I love that with my dad. That's one of my best, that's one of my favorite memories with my dad, again, because it was just two guys out in the wilderness. Uh, he taught me to tie flies. I usually tied some horrible flies. They worked. Um, he bought me an orvis rod and reel which, at the time I had no idea what he bought me, but holy crap yeah
Speaker 1:and, uh, I I enjoy fly fishing. Uh, karen and I went on vacation and we were out in yosemite and some of those big, wide shallow creeks. There'd be a guy just I mean, it looked like a postcard, you know, the mountains are behind him and he's just putting his line out. I'm like this is this is pretty cool. I'm glad you still fly fish. I'm sorry that pickleball is getting in the way. Um, before we get to pickleball, though, I think this, this is the thing that I really wanted you to be on, because in this era of joe rogan cam haynes, all these adventure hunters you're, you're knee-deep in archery too right yeah, yeah, another addiction well, I think.
Speaker 1:I think archery lends itself to addiction, because you can't half-ass archery and be really good at it, especially if you're going to hunt with it. If you're going to hunt with it, I think the animal deserves the best out of you, right? Absolutely yeah. So did you start in target and move into hunting, or did you always bow hunt and do you rifle hunt at all?
Speaker 2:Yes, both. Okay. Yeah, the archery thing was as a youth. I was naturally attracted to it and then, as I got into my early 20s, a real good friend of mine was already the top archer as far as getting nice bucks on a regular basis, and he basically showed me the ropes in no time and got me on the fast track to to learning how to hunt the elusive white tails. Oh, the elusive white tails.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's just been a fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Hobby that, uh, sue is fine with it, and I do all the processing of the venison myself. Yeah, so we get some really nice meals um lean, low fat, good protein yeah, that that's awesome.
Speaker 1:So but you, I mean, do you target practice to prepare for hunting season or do you actually just target practice for the joy of bow, arrow and target?
Speaker 2:they're both yeah it's very, it's a lot of fun just plunking arrows. However, when it gets close to the season, I try not to take a lot of long shots on paper, okay, and try to never, ever miss, and not I'm trying to say that that's outstanding. I know what you um in a humble way, because if, if you challenge yourself to long shots on the 3d targets those are foam, deer right or paper targets you're building a a negative confidence if if you're outside of the kill zone on a deer from long, long range shots. So what I like to do is just keep every shot for like the last six to eight weeks leading into the archery season, where every shot I take intentionally would be very, very accurate. Okay, for the respect of the deer.
Speaker 1:Amen.
Speaker 2:And it and it just builds my confidence and when um I'm blessed with that opportunity when a whitetail comes by, I know what my um effective zone of effective range is and and it works out very well, very well for me now you've you've spoken, I mean when we've talked other times about.
Speaker 1:I mean I'm sure you hunt with a compound bow no, you don't, you don't even hunt with a compound no, it's a traditional recurse, you man that's outstanding. So what I mean, what kind of ranges are you talking with, with a, with a recurve inside of 20?
Speaker 2:yards yeah okay.
Speaker 1:So you got to be a good hunter and a good arrow shooter. That's a technical term people arrow shooter, yeah, um, got it, but wow, so that?
Speaker 1:so that's a whole discipline. So you got to get within. You know, 20 yards of a of a deer, which is a challenge, you know that could be a sport unto itself and then have a perfect shot, you know, and not freak out with target, and you don't have all those. I don't want to call them crutches and like uh, offend the whole compound bow thing, but there's, you know, there's releasers and sights and all that right, you know all those yeah yeah, so just really wow.
Speaker 1:You're like a mountain man, I love you we were very fortunate.
Speaker 2:Uh, the archery club that sue and I belong to, it's hawkeye bowman and the president of our club when we joined was the world champion 3D longbow archery. You're kidding? Yeah, around here. World champion? Yes, really Richard Glenna.
Speaker 1:Hey, shout out to Richard.
Speaker 2:So God rest his soul.
Speaker 1:Oh sorry, Richard. Yeah, Still shout out to you.
Speaker 2:Yep, wow, but he was able to share the wealth of his knowledge, and so there was a bunch of us that were able to receive that information, and prior to that, I shot compound Sure as one will.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right, so I have one. I guess, man, you just make it so easy to ask questions. I mean, I know physically what's the difference, but is there a fundamental difference between shooting a recurve and shooting a compound? When it comes to, like in my head, where I think the difference is in my understanding of a compound, when you get to full draw it eases off a little, you can hold full draw a little easier. Is that true, or am I?
Speaker 2:lying on a compound, absolutely yes whereas on a recurve or a long bow, yeah, it stacks actually, and it gets to that point it gets harder and harder. Okay, so, yeah, that's one difference. The other thing you don't, we don't use sights right, so it's sort of like the pool stick, the long pool stick, that really the the pool stick, is your arrow.
Speaker 1:Yeah and you? So you're sighting off, off like the tip of the broadhead.
Speaker 2:Yes Wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, wow, that's outstanding. Yeah, tree, are you in a tree?
Speaker 2:stand, are you? I do both. Yeah, I hunt on the ground and out of a tree, wow, and I've also got this tree saddle, which I love. What?
Speaker 1:is it's?
Speaker 2:like sort of like a lineman's um.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay so you kind of hang, yeah, you hang there and you got the knee pads on okay, yeah, so it's not a, it's like a temporary tree stand almost that you take with you everywhere but it's very stealth yeah like I've been in like fairly bare trees, yeah, but you, you, you come off, you straighten your legs and you're at a 45 degree angle, look like a fat branch. Yeah, look like a fat branch, because humans don't stand that way. Humans are vertical.
Speaker 2:I've had deer like glance up, like oh, it can't be a man, right?
Speaker 1:that's what you know the deer is thinking like no idiot would do that. That cannot possibly be a hunter. Yeah, yeah, nice, wow, wow, that's great. And you're, we're filling the freezer every now and then, huh, yes, we do. That's outstanding. I'm a big venison fan. I'm proud of you. Um, okay, so, man, I am running out of disciplines for you, so I guess I have. Before we get into pickleball, which we should probably touch on since, uh, we're pickleball pals. Um, you're an old man, I'm an old man. Have you hurt yourself?
Speaker 1:oh yeah, have you, oh yeah oh, yeah, he said with much like yeah, did you hear the sigh folks lucky to be here oh yeah oh, not, not so much be here, but talking competitively about things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, yeah yeah, oh, way back in my 30s I had a terrible L5. I was ready for surgery, okay, and the neurologist, he looked me over and he says you know, mark, you're in very good shape, got some pretty good abdominal and obliques, but do you use them? And I said, excuse me, yeah.
Speaker 1:He says yeah, tell me like how do you use them? And I said excuse me.
Speaker 2:He says, yeah, tell me, like, how do you lift? And I said, well, you know they say to use your legs, you know. So I try to get in a squat position. Like you know, we had to help a lot of our buddies move couches and things back then. You know everyone was moving in their homes and apartments, so I would.
Speaker 2:I said I bend down, squat, get my hands on the heavy object and lift up with my legs. He said, oh, that's great. He says no. So the weight goes from your arms through your shoulders and somehow to your legs. Where's the weak link? And it dawned on me. I was like, oh my gosh, mark, you idiot, it's the core, that's the weak link and that's what's hurting me.
Speaker 2:He says, okay, so you never use your core when you lift. I said no. He says what I want you to do is I want you to train yourself to use your obliques and your abdominals to tighten those areas up, sort of like a shock absorber on a car to absorb the weight so your spine doesn't take the load. And I want you to use this technique, even if you've been down to pick up a feather, when you get in the car and sit down when you get out of the car, when you walk off of steps, in case it might be slippery when you're on a hiking trail. I want you half engaged all the time and we'll talk in about three to six months see if we can skip the surgery.
Speaker 2:I never looked back. I never had to get the surgery. To this day I don't do any core exercises other than just using them all the time when I do my lawn on the riding mower it's like a hour and 10-minute abdominal workout because it's so bumpy, so they're half engaged, so that my spine is not getting all that bouncing Nice.
Speaker 2:So if you don't apply this and this is new to you you're welcome, you're welcome Because it could really save your longevity of your sports. And, yeah, they should teach us this in grade school. Yeah, they don't yeah okay.
Speaker 1:So the fact that, um, you learn that your back is sort of important and your core is sort of important is, uh, another one of mark's life lessons. I'm, I'm impressed. You know, that's like you have an arc through your life, like I feel like you learned the lessons earlier than are in pop culture. Like everybody worries about core, now everybody works about heart rate variability. Now, everybody that arm wrestles uses, you know, stretchy bands that they bought. That probably cost 50 bucks a pop. I applaud you. Okay. So injuries L five. What else is there else? Yeah, of course there is. It's a pop. I applaud you. Okay. So injuries L5. What else?
Speaker 2:Is there else? Yeah, of course there is. So over the years of my job being landscape, pushing a fertilizer spreader across lawns, the main joint in my big toes just got like worn out and very bulbous. Oh, and it was so annoying that I I had to get special shoes. Um, in order to not be um, irritating when I walked, I bought some actually spring steel insoles so they wouldn't flex as much. And it was so annoying. I ended up getting surgery on both the right toe and the left toe. Yeah, and my rehab was not very successful. Uh, three, three years later, sue and I would be crossing the trout stream together and you, usually she, would hang on to me for for crossing the riffles and the current. Well, I was hanging on to her with a walking stick and it wasn't easy. I could not go on my toes to change a light bulb and I just accepted that and I said well, I'll adjust, I don't need to do some of the stuff I used to do. I'm happy with my blessings that I have and that's fine.
Speaker 2:I can still fish, I can still hike, but you know, just got to be careful with this and then one day she comes home, she says you know, um, I want a pickleball paddle for christmas. Okay, I tried it with elena.
Speaker 1:Okay, I really like it oh, wait, wait, wait, we can't. So you didn't drag her into pickleball. Oh my god, wow, yeah, okay, yeah, I did not know this.
Speaker 2:It's no sue. My blessing from heaven my wife. She's awesome she says uh, but I want you to get one for yourself too, okay I said are you crazy? I can't do that with my feet, the way they are, she's no. No, hon, not that you have to play, you can just stand in one spot and just whack the ball back, just sort of be like like a ball server to me just so I can learn it you know, I said I get that, okay, I can do that right then she talked me into going to watch her at beginner lessons, nice.
Speaker 1:And then they somehow tricked me into getting a paddle in my hand and doing a little bit of the dinking and what's trick the obsessive guy? Yeah, he's probably really hard to trick.
Speaker 2:And so, long story short, I started playing casually. Yeah, and my feet didn't hurt, in fact, they felt better. Oh, okay where are you going to get two hours of therapy where you're lunging?
Speaker 1:and squatting and shuffling and really not paying attention to it. Yeah, you'd be bored out of your mind doing that at home. Oh, so you never did anything for the bunion-y things on your toes?
Speaker 2:Well, they removed them. Oh, did they they surgically removed them. But I just didn't have any range of motion or strength. After that it just didn't come back. The rehab.
Speaker 1:Maybe I was just too wimpy with what they told me, but it didn't work no, that's amazing, that's, that's hysterical, that like that was like made your transition to pickleball especially like, especially like, okay, so I probably know no, 60 players, you're top one percentile of mobile, quick humans.
Speaker 2:So isn't that a blessing? Yeah, right. So after like a month and a half I started feeling pretty spry. I said oh my gosh, I can now stand on my toes again Like, say, if you wanted to reach up and get something off the upper shelf, you know. And I came home after playing indoor I was still pretty warm and I says I want to test my vertical jump. Oh, geez, of course. And my mind said yes. And I said okay, and we still live in the same house.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:We bought my mom and dad's house. Okay, so there's those ceilings, you know, and I got like a whopping six inches Nice.
Speaker 1:It's like wow.
Speaker 2:Well, they say older gents, you know, they can't jump like they used to. Like man, my mind said you can do this, but the body? Just didn't respond so I was like okay, well, that's sad, I can live with this, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, fast forward to midsummer, because that was middle of winter. Fast forward to midsummer. Come home nice and warm. So I'm still pretty warm. Come home from pickleball. I'm going to check my vertical jump. I feel like I've gained a lot. You know, they're kind of applauding me when I get some overheads once in a while 18 and a half inches Nice, which is like off the charts for our age, for old people?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And not to forget and not to belittle what you said, but it's not just the 18 inch jump, it's the landing from 18 inches. That's impressive to somebody. I mean, I take this back to like when my parents were this age, or even my grandparents, who were probably younger younger when I knew them, they probably were in their 50s and they seemed ancient. They weren't jumping, they weren't landing from an 18 inch jump.
Speaker 2:so, yeah, that's that's outstanding so that was exclusively, exclusively from playing pickleball safe, safely, and stretching before and after I play. That took these muscles and they made them long and elastic rather than short, compact, uh, and it just worked out great and so, oddly enough. So now sue's complaining about the fingerprints on the ceiling. Well, I was just.
Speaker 1:I was thinking that at some point, like if you go to the phil household, don't look up because there's like 40 years of fingerprints on the ceiling.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. You know and here's a cautionary tale to all you out there that aren't Mark. Mark stretches before he plays pickleball, do you, Do you? You don't, you don't. If you're one of my friends, that aren't Mark, you do not. You pick up your paddle, you groan a little um and you go on. You go on the court and you play. Mark is over in the corner doing leg swings to like ballerina level mobility, um, that's something that's going to serve you forever is is the keeping muscles you know, loose and elastic and and usable.
Speaker 1:That that's. That's pretty impressive. So, sue, drug you into pickleball.
Speaker 2:Yeah, isn't that something.
Speaker 1:So your ability to quote unquote, coach, and you're really good at it, I listened to you without hesitation. That's just from the nature of the Phil obsession with if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this very well Is this? Is this where this is coming from?
Speaker 2:Um, I think it stems from my brother teaching me windsurfing. I love, I love the way he was able to get into my head and just get me on the fast track, okay, and, and I've used that technique. I teach, uh, fly casting, okay, and I use that same strategy to, and I work with the person at the level they're at. Sure, that's good coaching.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Absolutely you are really naturally good at it and I applaud the fact that you do it in other disciplines as well, because you really do have a way of you see the whole athlete and you address you pretty much address what they're willing to address, like you're not so heavy handed that you want to say to somebody oh, you know what, you should lose 175 pounds before you try to play pickleball. You know you are like well, let's start with seeing if you could bend your knees a little like very, you know. Whereas you know, you know, when you come at me, uh, you criticize about 400 things and I'm doing them all wrong and I accept that. I absolutely accept that. But um, mark has made me a better player.
Speaker 1:Just two ways, suggestions that I never think of, which is, again, is a hallmark of a great coach, and then just watching you play. Um, you absolutely practice what you preach. Uh, you are low. I mean like, and everybody does this now right, like people who don't have a coach have YouTube slash coach. Uh, I've seen so many things on YouTube that you put into practice all the time staying low, staying supplele, staying focused on the ball, understanding where you're gonna go. Um, you know, I know it's funny, it's transitioning. I think pickleball has, you know, been sort of stuck in the corner as, like an old person sport, uh, it's transitioning into, not so much. I mean, you look, I can't think of that girl's name who's so dominant? Oh, annalee waters yes unbelievable she's.
Speaker 1:She's otherworldly in just what she can do, both with her body and how she plays the game. It's, it's crazy. Uh, I suggest, if you don't know anything about pickleball, that's a great place to start if you want to see it at its highest level. But don't try to hold yourself to that standard. Um, but you know you go on there, mark, and you know I see people doing drills, focusing on things, and you do that intuitively. I can't say enough that you are about as great a pickleball player that I've ever seen for sure. Liar, no, it's true, and I will. I will reign that back in with what. Who was the relative of yours that came one day? Andy Thompson, andy Thompson, remember that name? Yeah, is he Andy Thompson? Is he a? Is he a cousin? Is he?
Speaker 2:a, he's a cousin, okay yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, I, I, I think until that moment I thought of myself as you know, I'm pretty good at this. I can hang and bang with the best of them. And then Andy showed up. Oh, you were there that day.
Speaker 2:I was there that day. Oh gosh, how humbling, but what an eye opener for all of us.
Speaker 1:Well, first of all, he's a really good guy. So he didn't. You could tell he didn't shell us like he could shell us For sure. He missed nothing, I know you could tell at one point he sort of threw it into a different gear just to try stuff, and it was like me playing against Andre Agassi. It was amazing. He's a good. Is he a good all-around athlete? Because he's a great pickleball player.
Speaker 2:He loves tennis and also paddleball.
Speaker 1:Oh, I've seen that. That's the thing in the box with the walls right. It's outdoor like a heated court.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he loves them all equally and he's been doing paddle sports for his whole life.
Speaker 1:pretty much, yeah, which probably for most people starts with tennis, right, I mean I think. Although I ran a. Who is it at pickleball? That's been playing pickleball for like 30 years. I didn't even know it existed. Ball that's been playing pickleball for like 30 years. I didn't even know it existed. Yeah, somebody mentioned that to me. It might have been pat. I think she was a gym teacher, that would make sense. And she told me like oh yeah, we were doing pickleball 30 years ago. Like what?
Speaker 2:she's like the senior woman.
Speaker 1:Yeah, pickleball hero isn't she so good, she's so good. I, I envy her. I hope to be her when I grow me too, me too For sure we left injuries. Was that it? Our toes were going to fall off and our back was going to break.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so far Knock on wood. Not bad, I think that's it.
Speaker 1:That's not bad who. You are sitting right now in Aurora Studios. You don't look prone to injury. I have such fear for people that clearly look like if they fall they're going to hurt themselves. You fall, I'm going to laugh at you and you're going to be fine. You know, it's funny you say that I feel the same. I would roll, you know. We just know tuck and roll, whatever.
Speaker 2:Yep or land and push up position, whatever you got to do, because that's.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's one of those things to age gracefully is the ability to. I mean you've, I'm sure you have somebody you know or have heard the stories oh they, they tripped on stairs, they fell, they broke their hip and they're in rapid decline. It's like, oh my God, I am so afraid of that.
Speaker 1:So, no, that's great. That that's I mean. For all that, all that really hyperactive, hyperactive stuff that you've done. Um, those are the only injuries. Uh, we talked about your obsessive training. I love your obsessive training. I love that. It's purposeful obsessive training and the Marx rules to life in the middle are really great. How's your nutrition? Do you nutrition? Is that a word? Pretty good, I'm always looking for suggestions, yeah everybody is.
Speaker 2:Well, anybody that cares is yeah you've sort of ramped up my thoughts. You know, talking with you sort of refreshed my priorities with nutrition. So yeah, sue and I have been really working on eating healthy foods for two reasons. One, to keep our weight down. Number two is to allow our bodies to heal from the taxing of playing hard pickleball. I'm not going to kid you, I'll take a nap a lot of times. I took a nap today as a matter of fact I'm a big fan of a nap.
Speaker 2:I played four hours because they were in need for extra players.
Speaker 1:I said I better get a nap in because, John, I want to be fresh when I do this interview with.
Speaker 2:John, that's right. But you know I didn't used to eat properly. Yeah, no one did. And you know, that day when you're, it could be like a family picnic or something, and whatever it is. You overdid it. You did an odd sport and you go, it could be like a family picnic or something, and whatever it is, you overdid it. You did an odd sport and you, son of a gun, I'm going to be sore for two or three days. I wish I was smarter and didn't do it. So you know, because you know, because you know all right. So this went on for a lot of years, all the way up to my early thirties.
Speaker 2:And then a friend of mine gave me a little briefing on proper nutrition, wouldn't you know it? I had one of those days where I overdid it. I was out on our property, I was cutting brush all day long, my back was sore, my legs were sore, neck was sore, pretty much everything. You almost feel like you've got the flu or something. You just beat yourself to a pulp and I made it a point to eat the best I could Fish dinner, three different vegetables, hydration, omega-3s extra the flax oil, anything I could get, because I knew I was in trouble. You know what I got up the next morning? Oh my gosh, I could literally do this again. I recovered. It's the first time in my life that I had a remarkable recovery after beating myself to a pulp.
Speaker 2:Not that I want to do that all the time but it just shows how proper food will do its job. Keep it all in perspective, of course.
Speaker 1:No, and they refer to I. I mean, there's a saying these days of food as medicine, and I I don't think the. The meaning is that you know, you let yourself get ill and then you need it to to heal yourself. I think a lot more is. It's like driving a super tanker. Right, if you eat correctly, you course correct. And again out to Sue. I think you really, you really won the lottery when it came to wives, by the way. Um, no doubt, the fact that she's on board with both your you know your sports obsessions, but the fact that she's willing to eat correctly, um, you know, when Scott and I talk, some people are really hamstrung by the fact that you know someone in their family isn't there and wants to order Domino's pizza every night, and you know, domino's pizza smells pretty good. You know, I'm looking at a piece of salmon, or I'm looking at like you know a.
Speaker 1:Whopper. I don't know which way I'm always going to go, but there's so much out there. Uh, we, we just had a friend of ours on john rockman johnson. Um, he does some things with supplementation and I just sent off a blood uh sample that he gave me for. Um, he's got this oil that balances omega-6 and omega-3s. Uh, I'm really interested in if I have it. I feel like I might have a deficiency because there are some days it's just like, like you mentioned, the feeling like you got hit by a truck non-specific why, do I feel like you got hit by a truck?
Speaker 1:Non-specific, why do I feel like I got hit by a truck? I feel like there's a deficiency and I don't know where that is. So I'm interested about that. So that is incredibly cool that you, I mean, and just because it's fashionable, I'll ask you is it three meals a day? Is it six meals a day? Do we fast?
Speaker 2:No, I'm not into the fasting I feel like I've never been diagnosed, but I could be slightly hypoglycemic, so I don't like to go too far in between meals. So I'm like a four meal a day person okay, and it's the only way I can keep my protein levels up. I'll do a mid-afternoon high protein snack. Um, fortunately I'm not at your weight so I don't need as much protein.
Speaker 1:So it's that can be. It's got to be close to be impossible for you.
Speaker 2:So yeah, it'll just be like a 30 gram protein with um.
Speaker 1:Let's see some different fruits in there just just for flavor and taste, and no, you are super fit and you're super active. I mean, how often in a given week? How often are you playing pickleball? Oh, that's the dirty question yeah, I mean it's all right that I know of you're doing tuesdays, wednesdays, thursdays, probably both days on the weekend well, I I.
Speaker 2:The teaching days are wednesdays and fridays. I forgot about friday, so I would say uh almost every day an honest five days, okay and um yeah, but you know that that's, that's sort of the.
Speaker 1:I think that's what's building the popularity of the sport. You can do that, I mean, and it's self-regulating. You might not be you where you're running around like a madman getting every shot, but you can play five days you got to divvy it out.
Speaker 2:You know it's interesting. Um, I can remember saying to a friend last year I saw his name on the roster like almost every day, a lot of days in a row. Yeah, like, wow, you must be in really good shape. You're playing every day. You know right, I could never do that yeah, now it's like flash forward people. Yes, it can well, who is it? Me and chris? Yeah, we're. We're like doing marathons when they're begging us to stay at the nine o'clock.
Speaker 2:We already played two hours like okay, that's kind of neat, yeah two hour.
Speaker 1:Two hours is is hard. I mean, two hours is I've played pickleball, four hours is I'm gonna need to go home taking that kind of draining? Yeah, it's, it's a lot, especially if you're, if you're playing, playing, if you're really getting after it for and you don't have a zillion people where you're cycling out too often. Four hours of pickleball is I'd love to know. Like my watch. I'll look down, I'll get six, seven thousand steps. It's like, oh I, I, I worked that much. But yeah, that's the thing. Awesome, cool. Anything else, anything I missed? Let's put it all out there. Brother, did I miss anything? Let's see. We talked about your obsessions with every sport under the sun. We talked about your weight training and your nutrition. What do you got for?
Speaker 2:me, how about the epic day of windsurfing? I like it. Can we reel that? Oh yeah, oh, I love this. Yes.
Speaker 1:I absolutely want to hear about the epic day of windsurfing. All right, Well, tell us where are we.
Speaker 2:When are we, we are on Lake Erie, okay, and it blew gale force for two days in a row, which is like around 30 to 45 knots, which is miles an hour roughly Right, roughly yeah. And so we were sailing inside the break wall, okay, and even there the waves were big, sure, and then the fourth day was storm force, which is even upgrade.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 2:The open water forecast was. It sounds like a BS here, but it was 15 to 20 footers. We get 15, I never, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I mean I'm sure I've seen it. It's rare, very, very rare Lake Erie. I'm sure I've seen it, but honestly I wasn't thinking like, oh, I guess I won't go boating today.
Speaker 2:So that was Saturday, jesus. In the Western New York Wind Surfing Club, the family once a year annual picnic was scheduled for Sunday. Okay, I think it was at Avangola State Park, okay, but one of those beach parks yeah, beach park. So that was Sunday, so overnight the winds subsided down to like 15 to 20.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's nothing, yeah, whatever, but the waves were still 15 footers yeah.
Speaker 2:So we had like Hawaii type waves, wow, and they were massed high Our masts are 15 feet.
Speaker 1:Oh my God.
Speaker 2:Your buddies would disappear on the other side. I believe it. So we were just on cloud nine Weirdos.
Speaker 1:Weirdos Loving it yeah.
Speaker 2:And coming down these smooth wave faces. Yeah, and that's where I experienced the sail actually luffting because you're going faster than the wind. The waves were so big they were blocking that 15 to 20. They were blocking the wind. Oh, you're getting a trough and there'd be no. Wow weird. So, that was the epic day Wow.
Speaker 1:So I used to do some work in Bermuda and we had downtime and we went deep sea fishing on a hundred foot boat. A hundred foot, yeah. We were out in 12 foot waves in the, you know in the Atlantic. You were on a windsurfer in 15 foot waves. You I don't even want to know about the stones that you own, because, good Lord, because I'm literally on this hundred foot boat and, like my, my toes got tired because my feet were trying to grab the deck, because you'd see a boat, well you know, 500 yards away, and then you wouldn't because it would be 15 feet below you, and then it's 15 feet above you.
Speaker 2:yeah you got to keep your eye on the horizon or you're gonna get seasick, so I broke two boards from big, big landings.
Speaker 1:Wait, yeah, you broke fiberglass yeah they were fiberglass yes, lord yeah, ski market sold them right, yeah, and so I brought it back.
Speaker 2:It had.
Speaker 1:It didn't like fold in half but it had like a big stress.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay so I brought it back. It's under warranty, oh. And then, like a month later, it happened again and then they then they said okay, we talked with the uh corporate manager and we we have a deal for you. We're gonna upgrade you to this um maui approved board. That um, it's a little, it's an upgrade, but we're not going to charge you. However, you're not going to have any warranty anymore.
Speaker 1:That's like okay, yeah, exactly this. This nut job is like you know oh look there's a hurricane, I think I'll go windsurfing. That sounds like a plan, so what it was is.
Speaker 2:Lake area is like a washing machine with the chop oh so sometimes you'd get this amazing jump off the lip maybe 10 foot of air off the lift dropping into a 10 foot trough that that equals 20 feet, so now you land, but you're not always landing on smooth water. There might be like a bushel, bushel basket size piece of chop and you're laying, you land on that, and that's just enough to to break two boards and to not have a?
Speaker 1:warranty on a third folks. Yep, wow, wow, but that was so. In conclusion, that was fun for you, that was epic that's an epic day yes, oh my god.
Speaker 2:Well, it's not like a dirt bike, where you're jumping off this mound of dirt and you're hoping you land safely because you're gonna bust your collarbone. And water is very forgiving, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm sure it's very forgiving when you're dropping 20 feet in it. It might be a little harder than normal.
Speaker 2:You're not free falling. Your sail is like a parachute because it's all engaged, the sail. The sail is engaged as you're dropping it's, it's, it's in the wing position.
Speaker 1:So oh yeah um, yep, so I will. I will tell you this about myself. Uh, mark, I am. What would we call me risk averse oh uh, like, like roller coasters?
Speaker 1:no, uh, actually amusement park rides? No, so, uh, 15 foot waves on a? No, no, I, I applaud, I applaud your epic day and I, I I can see by the smile on your face that is definitely something that at you know, at the end of your life, when you're laying there, it's gonna be like, oh sue, I loved you and we had such a great life. But do you remember my epic day of windsurfing?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I think this is a great place to wrap it up. I think we've learned a lot about Mark, and I reserve the right to have you back again, because I feel like you have a bajillion stories. Oh, he's got something. See, he's got something. He's waving at me like no, I've got something. Yeah, I do Just quick.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no take your time so as seniors, as masters, that's us.
Speaker 1:Athletes.
Speaker 2:You know we've got to remind ourselves that we are in the fourth quarter. We need to prioritize our desires, adjust to where our fitness is at this moment. It's a moving target, so don't be too proud. Adjust to be safe. So the satisfaction that I have reached from achieving my goals over the years it's pretty memorable, as you can tell, and it was really nice to rehash all this. However, the most euphoric times that are so memorable and just screaming at me have not been about me. It's been about helping others, whether it's through emotionally, physically, spiritually. Well done, and that's kind of one of the reasons why I really like teaching, coaching, whatever.
Speaker 1:You're very good at it.
Speaker 2:It just uh. You can really make a good day for someone, and I love sharing that.
Speaker 1:Well, it's you know. Here's the lesson that I don't even know that you know that you, you gave us all. You didn't mention a goal, you literally didn't mention I wanted to do this time, this distance, this height you didn't you focused on. I wanted to do this time, this distance, this height you focused on. I want to be really great at the process. I enjoy the journey way more than the destination and with what you're saying, with where we are in life, modern medicine, we could have 40 more years of the journey. Um to to focus on destination and say I'm not at those places that I said I was going to be at 50, at 60, you're framing it wrong, right, like, look at you, I, you know you are just one of the more centered human beings I've ever met, and it's because it's the journey, not the destination. Well said, yeah. So that's even a better place to stop, because look at you teaching us stuff.
Speaker 1:I still reserve the right to have Mark back. It was still pleasant for him to be here. It was additionally great that Scott wasn't be here. I feel like this was a much more efficient podcast. You can comment down below, unless you're Scott, in which case keep that to yourself and we'll talk to you next time, folks. Thanks, mark, you're welcome. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others, post it on your social media or leave a review. To catch all the latest from us, you can follow us on Instagram at Masters Athlete Survival Guide. Thanks again. Now get off our lawn, you damn kids.