Don’t call it a comeback.
The runner in me never left.
He just had to wake up.
It had been 10 long years since I last ran a half marathon, even longer for a five-mile jaunt.
But there I was toeing the starting line for the Jazz Half Marathon last month and the 110th annual New Orleans Athletic Club Turkey Day Race on Thanksgiving.
Earlier this week, the co-leaders from November Project-New Orleans presented me with the Positivity Award, which is given out to a member who isn’t necessarily the fastest or loudest, but is a steady influence at workouts and does his or her best to promote and grow the November Project movement.
November Project allows members to write guest blogs and I took this opportunity to bare my soul a bit about how much the organization – and those involved with it – mean to me.
I’ll link to it here and copy and paste what I wrote underneath it.
Humbled – Guest Blog By Tyler Mayforth (NOLA)
Surprised.
Speechless.
Humbled.
Those are just a few of the adjectives I could use to describe myself when Mia bestowed me with the Positivity Award on Wednesday. I’m sure anybody else who received the oar in the past felt the same way once their name was announced in front of the group.
Mia explained that one of the biggest reasons she and Glenn chose me was because of my relentless promotion of November Project – or myself, depending on how you look at it – on my social media channels. If you’re my friend on Facebook or follow me on Instagram or Twitter (I’m easy to find if you search for my name), just about every Wednesday or Friday I’ll post something NP-related from that morning’s workout. Those sunrises on the lakefront are too beautiful and the images our fearless co-leaders capture of us are too good not to share.
Social media comes easy for me, like it does any Millennial. It’s also in my job description at work, so there’s that.
The unbridled joy – and smile on my face in just about every single one of those pictures – doesn’t. At least it hasn’t in the past.
That changed when I was introduced to November Project back in January.
Ever since I graduated college, I lacked structure in my life. I had it as a college athlete at the University of Delaware, but after that, nothing. I worked odd hours in newspapers and got too reckless in my spare time. Can’t say I was too proud of my decisions from ages 23 to, let’s say, 30 (I’m 32 now, for those wondering).
Once I moved to New Orleans in August of 2015 and started my first 9-to-5 job, I knew something had to change. If it didn’t, The Big Easy would chew me up and spit me out.
First, I found a gym. Fitness is a huge part of my life.
Then I signed up for kickball. The competitive fire in me will never die and I couldn’t think of a better way to make new friends.
Ten months ago, the best of both worlds came together: fitness and friends. Better yet, fitness and family.
It may sound cliche, but November Project does become family. Visit another city with November Project and you’ll see that first-hand. I traveled to Chicago last month to cheer on former New Orleans NPer Allison Rogers in the marathon and attended four different NP functions: a sign-making party on Saturday, the Cheer Station at mile 22 on Sunday, the post-race party on Sunday night and the pop-up workout on Monday. I felt welcomed at every turn. Plus, you wouldn’t believe how many people – runners included – yelled “November Project” or “F–k yeah” throughout the day on Sunday as I traversed the Windy City to find different vantage points.
I wake up at 5:30 am just about every Wednesday and Friday because I know all of you will be there ready to push yourselves up and down the ramps, steps and everywhere in between at Champions Square as well as up and down those levees (That we devour for breakfast) at the lakefront. Plus, I also want to hold myself accountable – something I failed to do for far too long. Don’t tell anyone this, but I’m a morning person now.
And perhaps two of the best things about November Project are that it’s free (I mean, you pay for the gas it takes you to get to and from the workout site, but that’s it) and you get out of it what you put in. I am continually surprised at the lack of affordable gyms in New Orleans, but November Project lets you sweat away those calories while running and doing bodyweight exercises free of charge, at your own pace.
If you read this far, I owe you a high five or a hug. Your choice.
Above all, thank you for accepting me for who I am.
Thank you for pushing me to become a better man.
Thank you for being awesome.
When the opportunity presented itself, I jumped at it.
My girlfriend offered me a chance to run the Crescent City Classic since she had two charity bibs – one from her father’s doing and one from her own – and I wasn’t going to pass up the chance to run a competitive 10K for the first time in a while.
The Crescent City Classic is held the Saturday before Easter each year and it winds through the streets and neighborhoods of New Orleans. One of the largest 10Ks in the United States starts on Poydras Street and ends at City Park.
I told myself in the days leading up to the race that I wouldn’t take off from the start and get swept up in the emotion. I’d take it easy, settle in and pick it up as I saw fit.
Well, that idea lasted all of two minutes until I stepped on the starting line.
Adrenaline took over and I took off like I was back in college running at the University of Delaware as soon as I heard the crack of the starting pistol.
I quickly realized I didn’t have the ability of my college-aged self and regretted my decision when I got to the 1-mile mark. My goal was to “go out” or run the 1st mile in about 7 minutes. When I looked at the clock, I came through in 6:06.
As much as the next 5.2 miles hurt, I couldn’t stop smiling. It’s not that I’m a glutton for punishment, because I’m not. I just really enjoy competitive running and it had been forever since I put myself in that atmosphere. Things just felt “right.”
My 5K split was 20:16, which averaged out to a 6:32 pace.
By the finish I had slowed down to a 6:47 pace and crossed the finish line in 42:02.
I wanted to break 45 minutes and did that. I wanted to prove to myself that I could.
Who knows when the next race will be, but I’m glad I had that opportunity.
Before last Saturday I had never thrown up from a workout.
If you’ve read this blog at all since it’s creation, you know I love to stay active, go to the gym and that I was a former Division I cross country and track & field athlete. In other words, there have been no shortage of opportunities for me to blow chunks.
I just never did. My body had never found its breaking point.
That all changed this past weekend when I flipped the tire once again at 504 Fitness.
It had been a while since I last attempted that challenge. You know, the one where you have five minutes to flip a 400-pound tractor tire as many times as possible.
I woke up last Saturday feeling good and decided to give it another go. One check of the weather revealed that the temperature had finally cracked and it much cooler than it was the last time I went out there (60 degrees versus 92 and humid), so it was all systems go and I set my eyes on 90 flips, which would break the gym record.
I started strong and even had a small cheering section out there (two people).
I hit 20 flips per minute for the first two minutes and put myself at 65 with three minutes to go. I dug deep with each one and even impressed myself with that pace.
Then I hit the wall — and I hit it hard.
Each flip brought me closer to the record, but the tire got heavier and heavier.
By the time the last flip rattled off the cement ground, I broke my own personal record of 80 flips. I managed 82.
Jon asked to take a customary picture to show my exhaustion afterward and I obliged, sprawling out on the tire. I could have fallen asleep on it right there.
I walked around the gym a bit, then went outside. Breakfast wanted to say “Hey.”
To say the weather wasn’t ideal for tire flipping last Saturday would be an understatement of the century.
Then again, it’s September in New Orleans. What else should I expect?
The temperature sat in the low 90s, but with the Heat Index, it felt like 102.
As soon as I got into the courtyard outside 504 Fitness, Jon laughed and said, “You sure know how to pick what days you want to do this. Better you than me today.”
Inside the gym I told him I wanted at least 75 flips. That would be two more than my previous best of 73 and average out to 15 flips per minute. Plus, knowing the No. 1 guy on the board was no longer at the gym and The Board is only for current folks, I’d slide into the No. 1 spot and desired to better my mark before that happened.
Once I got in the heat, I questioned if 60 were even possible. It was brutal.
One by one, though, I turned the 400-pound tire end over end. I felt stronger than I ever had doing it, but didn’t want to push myself too hard, too soon, and pass out.
Jon yelled “60” right around the 3:30 mark, so I knew something was going right for me as sweat poured down my face.
Thirty seconds later, “70” echoed through the courtyard and I pushed harder. Jon urged me to keep moving. Constant movement is key.
One thing I’ve found over the years of being an athlete is that there is no better competition than what fuels you from inside. You are your No. 1 rival.
By the time the tire thundered on the ground from the last flip, I smashed by personal best of 73 with 80 flips. That’s 16 per minute, five more than I wanted.
I’m proud of my progression, but I know I can do more. I’ll have to wait until next month to attack it, because once a month is more than enough of that.
This past weekend I competed in my first disc golf tournament, hence the title of the post. I picked up the sport a few years back while living in Texas and continued playing in Georgia and then to New Orleans, where there are a few area courses.
Here are a few takeaways that I had from the tournament held at Lafreniere Park.
I’m looking forward to the next tournament, whether it be a true singles format or a doubles format where I can find a partner to play with. Until next time, though…
Something outside recently caught my eye at work.
Back in February it was all of the Mardi Gras floats rolling by.
https://twitter.com/tylermayforth/status/693155988921135105
This time, though, it wasn’t something on the street. Rather, on the water.
From our vantage point on the 17th floor, we can see for miles and one of those views is Lake Pontchartrain (I can’t spell it for the life of me. Thanks, spellcheck).
On this day, a storm formed in the distance and a waterspout — a tornado on the water, if you will — popped up. Don’t worry: There aren’t any sharks in the lake, so Sharknado: New Orleans couldn’t have happened (Uh oh. Did I give them an idea?).
Unless you’re directly in the way of one, they’re harmless but incredible to see. It was the first time I ever witnessed one and I’m sure it won’t be the last one either.
A few weeks later, I was walking home from work and I glanced to my right and saw a wall of rain coming down the street. It was a literal wall of rain and closed quick.
“We’re about to get dumped on,” I told a guy walking in the opposite direction.
Luckily, I had an umbrella — because it storms every afternoon in the summer in The Big Easy (They don’t call it monsoon season for nothing) — and up it went. As soon as it snapped into place, the rain came down in buckets and lasted for 15 minutes.
Before last month, I had never seen a waterspout or been attacked by a wall of rain (but I have seen them cascade over the city). Both happened within weeks of each other. The weather in New Orleans is crazy. There’s no other way to say it.
Of the many things New Orleans does right, festivals and Mardi Gras are on top of the list. Seeing as I already experienced my first Carnival Season, it was time for me to knock off another huge item on my Big Easy Bucket List — Jazz Fest.
For those uninitiated, Jazz Fest — formally known as the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival — is a two-week celebration of culture and music held at the New Orleans Fair Grounds Race Course. It started in 1970 and has since grown into a destination music festival for hundreds of thousands of fans due to the wide variety of artists booked for both weekends, ranging from No Doubt to Neil Young and just about everything in between.
Two days caught my eye the most: the first Sunday and the final Saturday. Red Hot Chili Peppers and J Cole headlined the former, while Snoop Dogg and the legendary Stevie Wonder would close the latter. Fortunately I secured tickets for both days.
The first Sunday, as you can see from the picture above, was absolutely beautiful. There were very few clouds in the sky and the sun scorched down, which made my fair skin a target. Needless to say I forgot a key ingredient for “festing” — a hat.
The next Saturday wasn’t as lovely from a weather standpoint. Ominous clouds hung overhead and eventually it let loose with more than two inches of rain in less than two hours’ time. The Fair Grounds quickly turned into a knee-deep marshland.
A common theme tied together both days, though: Fun.
It didn’t matter what the weather did: People were going to enjoy themselves at Jazz Fest whether the sun beat down or the rain left knee-deep mud around.
Sure, I would have loved to hear Snoop Dogg and Stevie Wonder just as I did Red Hot Chili Peppers and J Cole, but it wasn’t to be. What the second time out there lacked in music made up for in company and good vibes as no one in the tent we were hanging out in allowed the rain to dampen their spirits.
I can see why festivals are a big thing down here. Can’t wait for Voodoo.
Bowling has never been my specialty.
Actually, I’m pretty horrendous at it.
A “good” score for me — or a “successful” game — is when I manage to break 110, which doesn’t happen that often. Truthfully, anything above 100 is a cause for celebration. If my score touches 150, it means the spirit of Pete Weber inhabited my body for that game.
Yet when my kickball team decided to join a bowling league through PlayNOLA to keep the good times rolling after kickball ended, I was all for it. After all, it would be with people that are genuinely fun to hang around with and we’re in the same boat.
PlayNOLA held the league at Fulton Alley, a boutique bowling alley in downtown New Orleans. It’s a little pretentious inside and the pins are oddly set on strings, but all in all it was a fun spot to kill a few hours on a Wednesday night.
The league ended this week and “Ebowla” lost in the semifinals. We didn’t even think we’d make the playoffs, so for us to get that far was an accomplishment.
How did I do? Let’s take a look at my scores over the weeks.
|
Date
|
Game 1
|
Game 2
|
|
2/17
|
119
|
|
|
2/24
|
111
|
87
|
|
3/1
|
119
|
|
|
3/9
|
125
|
117
|
|
3/23
|
98
|
106
|
|
3/30
|
153
|
128
|
All in all, I guess I didn’t bowl too poorly.
I’ll never be good at bowling, but it’s a fun way to check your ego.
Ever since I got out of newspapers and began working for the USTFCCCA in August of 2015, I had to figure out a new way to quantify my impact as an employee.
In newspapers, particularly during my time as a page designer at the Athens Banner-Herald, I relied on certain benchmarks like how the elements on my pages accentuated the stories, the physical layout and things of that nature. From the first page I designed in Athens to the final one in August of 2015, I felt I made progress.
Now that I’m in more of a public relations/marketing role, my focus has changed. No longer am I creating something that I can hold or see on a newsstand. Everything I put out now ends up on our website; so with that, I began focusing on page views.
No matter the medium, page views are driven by the quality of content and I knew with my journalism background that quality content wouldn’t be a problem.
And the numbers prove just that.
Since August of 2015, page views have increased quite a bit on the USTFCCCA website. I could almost call it a coincidence, but I know we’re doing great work.
If you look at the graphic I made for the featured image, the red bars signify the numbers from 2014. The green bars are what we’ve done with me on the staff.
Both September and October saw 23-percent increases over the previous year. Then in November, we shattered single-day and monthly page view records. And while December’s numbers dropped, the NCAA Division II Cross Country Championships were held in December last year, so that accounts for many of those lost hits — and even knowing that, those numbers aren’t bad in a down month.
From here on out, my goal is for those numbers to continue to trend upward and to grow our reach on Facebook and Twitter. I already started doing great things on Facebook with our “Facebook Feature Friday” series (more on that another time) and Twitter has been strong, but I would like to see it as strong during track season as it is during cross country season.
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