The Joy Trip Project

First in line to register for the 2010 Wisconsin Ironman José Aguilar

It’s eight hours after the conclusion of the Wisconsin Ironman Triathlon. And on the streets of Madison all that remains is a litter of paper cups and discarded plastic water bottles. <>

A city maintenance man sweeps up the clutter with a leaf blower in front of the State Capital building as the 2009 Triathlon season for many comes to an end. But 50 yards away at the Monona Terrace the 2010 Triathlon season is just beginning.

 

Jose Aguilar was the very person to get in line for next years’ Ironman. When did his triathlon training begin?

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About 11PM last night

While many of this season’s triathletes were still crossing the finish line Aguilar and several others were getting into position for a spot in next year’s race. The Ironman training begins long before race day

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The way it works, they let the volunteers register first. And then when they’re done, the general people register. And then when this process is done, they open registration online.

By 8AM the line to register is wrapped around the lower level of the Monona Terrace in two directions. Volunteers who helped the day before get first dibs on the coveted positions. Aguilar, a massage therapist from Chicago, camped out over night to better his chances.

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I’m a little worried now. They said there were 3,000 volunteers yesterday. It almost looks like they’re all here.

The Wisconsin race is one of the popular triathlons in the Ironman series. Athletes from across the United States and around the world come each year to swim 2.4 miles on Lake Monona, ride 112 miles through the Dane County countryside and run 26.2 miles a full marathon along the streets of Madison 140.6 miles in all.

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I’ve done several other Ironmen before and I hear a lot of good stories about this course, particularly the bike segment, how technical it is, how challenging it is. And also the crowd on the run, they’re pretty intense.

The exciting event inspires professional and amateur athletes alike to commit a lot of their time and energy to getting ready. Nathan Chandler also from Chicago was second in line behind Aguilar. He says Ironman isn’t just a one-day race.

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Half the battle of Ironman… it’s a physical battle obviously, but it’s also a mental battle. So you know if you can do the training you can probably do the race. But the training is the race.

So for everyone standing in line their Ironman training starts now. Beginning a year in advance their race-day preparations will be the end result of decisions they make today. But Chandler says it’s important to keep in perspective the cumulative 140.6 miles combined swim, bike and run is a process you have to take one day at a time.

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You can’t look too far in advance. You know I’ve learned you have to keep short-term goals. And meet those short term goals. So you’ve got to forget about the 140.6 and worry about the weekly training goals.

Fortunately Chandler has a solid training partner in his sister Kristin Reingruber. She says sharing the goal of an Ironman finish will keep them both on track.

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It helps to have that extra person. You can call somebody to go on a bike ride. You don’t have to go out a ride 100 miles by yourself. It helps to have that training partner. So I think if we can do stuff together a little bit hear and there it will help us both, both of us stay motivated.

David Craig a Madison insurance salesman said training with a partner helped to get him through his first season to complete a shorter race.

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When I finished my half Ironman. I decided this Ironman thing was possible.

Motivated now to do the full race in 2010 Craig put his time in this year as a volunteer to secure his spot for next September.

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So that’s how I got into it. Of course being a part of it and seeing it and all that other stuff just go me excited.

Kristine Korevec is a five-time Wisconsin Ironman triathlete. Even though she qualified for the race in Kona, Hawaii next month She signed on this year as a volunteer.

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This race is the best day of the year for me. I think it’s so much fun out there and the people you’ll meet along the way and just the journey is incredible.

Those who arrived early to register will likely have a spot in next year’s race. With a head start of several hours aspiring Ironmen like David Craig who volunteered have a big advantage over     those planning to sign up online.

David Craig:

I hope so. I texted my wife this morning and said it looks like I should have gotten here earlier.

If you’re planning on participating in the Wisconsin Ironman you might want to plan on signing up as a volunteer next year and try for 2011.

For the Joy Trip Project, this is James Mills.

Documentary Filmmaker Ken Burns at the Outdoor Industry Annual Breakfast in Salt Lake City Utah

In his latest film, The National Parks: America’s Best which airs on PBS stations nationwide on September 27th Burns demonstrates that the preservation and protection of our wild and scenic places embody the most cherished ideals our American heritage and the legacy of our future.

In this podcast edition of the Joy Trip Project Burns shares the story behind this inspiring new documentary film.

Ken Burns (left) with John Muir historian Lee Stetson and writer Dayton Duncan

 

Music provided by the Conductive Alliance

A lot of businesses are starting to explore their creative side. Expressions of art have begun to creep into the culture of many companies. In boardrooms and at seminars across America the stage is set for performing artists    like corporate poet Gordon Boudreau.

“I write poems for whatever organization will invite me to do that,” Boudreau said. “And I use their raw materials the specifics of their culture to craft these very intimate specific poems that entertain and hopefully instruct a bit."

Boudreau is one of several former street performers who are showing senior executives how to have fun in the world of business. Lead by Carr Hagerman, the group known as OnTend Creative Partners is developing new strategies to raise the chuckle quotient among their clients’ employees and customers.

“We worked as consultants for Hampton Inn. It was the first time I had ever done such work,” Boudreau said.” And early on when we were in sort of the planning phases we were out at a bar with our contact a woman named Gina Valente and I had played a poet at this renaissance festival. Carr said to Gina, you should hear one of  his poems that he’s written. So I recited a poem and Gina’s eye lit up and she said “Oh my Gosh! Could you write an ode to Hampton and present it at these 19 cities? That we were going to tour with them. Do I did. And beyond any anticipation that I had, it was a huge hit people and they wanted copies of it. They wanted it filmed which they did. And then Hampton came to me ask me to write more poems.”

The tradition of commercial poetry goes back long before the day of Shakespeare. And as companies  try to define their corporate culture in different ways Boudreau says that poetry offers a unique alternate to business as usual.

“I think really at the very bottom of it all it’s a departure from powerpoint presentations,” he said. “And nothing against that, but I think people are a little tired of seeing the same graphs and charts.”

Gordy Boudreau and his fellow OnTend performers were to keynote speakers at the Outdoor Industry Association breakfast during Outdoor Retailer Summer Market 2009 in Salt Lake City Utah. In an amazing poem called the Ballad of Mount Gitchigumi, Boudreau summed up the culture and business of outdoor recreation.

Soil scientist/agro ecologist Jerry Glover

Out here on the Midwestern prairies of Wisconsin were surrounded by acres of farmland. This time of year as we ride road bikes along the creamy smooth highways of Dane County. From one township to the next it’s vast fields of tall green corn plants as far as the eye can see.

Photo by Michael Leland

photo by Jim Richardson National Geographic

Averaging between 14 and 17 mile per hour, we whiz past one corn field after the next. With ours heads tucked in the draft stream keeping pace with the summer training schedule the last thing anyone’s thinking about is the soil beneath our spinning tires.

It’s not just dirt you know. Earlier this summer during the Mountain Film Festival in Telluride Colorado I met a guy, a scientist who succeeded in changing how I’ll think about soil forever.

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My name is Jerry Glover. I’m a soil scientist/agro ecologist at the Land Institute in Selina, KS.

Glover was one of the many presenters at day-long symposium on food and where it comes for. He taught me a thing or two about why soil is so important to sustaining human life.

photo by Jim Richardson National Geographic

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All you have to do really to think about how important soil is, is pinch yourself. Because our flesh and bones are made up of elements: nitrogen, carbon Oxygen, hydrogen, Those comprise 97 percent of our body.

We’re also made up of other elements alike phosphorous, calcium, and magnesium

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These elements have to come from somewhere. It’s not like we take a breath we know suddenly transform a breath into bones and flesh and skin. It’s from the food we eat. And of course then we need to ask, where does the plants that feed us or feeds the animals that we eat come from? They get it from soil.

Unfortunately, Glover says there’s problem. Modern farming techniques are eroding the planet’s soil and robbing it of the vital nutrients we desperately need to survive.

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As soils erode wash away or degrade our abilities as humans to grow the food that we need to sustain our nice secure civilizations is degraded. And we see evidence throughout history. The Mediterranean civilizations that eroded and lost their soil, their civilizations collapsed. Likewise around the world, where people don’t have enough topsoil to produce abundant foods, they suffer political, they suffer social and economic crises, often resulting in wars, famines and you know a lot of serious problems that we don’t want to hand down to our children and our grand children.

Despite the lush green farm fields of our agricultural landscape Glover says the soil beneath is in serious trouble.

Click here to listen>> Soil

For more information on soil read the September 2008 issue of National Geographic Magazine:

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/09/soil/mann-text

This item came aross the desk this morning from the folks at Wend Magazine. The creative minds of Tappening, an intiative to encourage the consuption of tap water over bottled water, is spreading rummors. Adman Eric Yaverbaum is prompting consumers to make up falsehoods about the industry that delivers municiple tap water in plastic bottles. Check it out at www.Startalie.com. You can also listen to an interview with Yaverbaum posted to the SNEWS Live Podcast in April 2008. Click here for the link: http://cache.snewsnet.com/snews/podcast/Tappening.mp3

Chef Ming Tsai

Ming Tsai is the chef and owner of Blue Ginger Restaurant in Wellesley Massachusetts. He’s also the national spokesman for the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network and works with the Obesity Center at Harvard University. You might have seen him on his PBS cooking show Simply Ming. Tsai understands better than most that it’s harder than ever for working families and individuals to prepare healthy meals.

Tsai was the master of ceremonies during a day-long symposium on food during the Mountain Film Festival earlier this summer in Telluride, Colorado. In this interview he discusses some of our most basic issues that people in the United States face when making food choices at home, in school and at their local restaurants.

Click here to listen>>Simply Ming

Chicken with carrots made simple

Slow Food USA President Josh Viertel

If we slow down long enough to think about our food we just might come to realize there’s more to it than filling that nagging void in our bellies. We’re so pressed for time that we fail to think about the nutritional value of what we eat. Racing through the drive-thru window of fast food restaurants we pack faces with hamburgers and tacos loaded with fat, salt and empty carbohydrates. And worse than that, we really have no idea where this food came from, how it’s prepared or whether or not the people who made it are treated well and paid a living wage. And it’s not just the folks that flip those burgers and pack those tacos. There’s a complete food chain people who planted and picked the tomatoes, the lettuce and the cucumbers that become our pickles. What about them?

Josh Viertel is the president of Slow Food USA. It’s his job to help all of us slow down and make better food choices.

“As I see it, my job is to help Slow Food basically change the food system so that everyone can eat food that’s good for them, that’s good for land that’s good for the people who produce it and pick it,” he said.

Josh Viertel was one of several presenters at the Mountain Film Festival in Telluride, Colorado. This year the conversation was all about food and how we eat. Viertel suggests that every meal best served slowly.

Click here to listen>>Slow Food

Quang-Tuan Luong

In most films by Ken Burns like the Brooklyn Bridge, Jazz, The Civil War or Baseball he uses historical archive photographs that show us snap shots of time long past. And though there are plenty of old photos in his latest film “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea,” Burns also uses modern images taken by naturalist photographer Quang Toan Luong.

Luong’s images feature prominently in Burns’ National Parks film series due to premiere on PBS station nation wide in late September. Having visited all 58 National Parks at least three times each Luong’s photographs help to tell their story and show us clearly what they look like today. I had the pleasure of meeting Luong in San Francisco during a symposium on diversity hosted by the National Park Service called Parks For All. We met again at the Mountain Film Festival in Telluride Colorado a few later where I recorded this interview.

Click Here to Listen>>Quang-Tuan Luong

Click here to play audio: Pay It Forward

David Overlin receives $10 to give away at Summit Credit Union in Fitchburg

This story aired June 9, 2009 on Wisconsin Public Radio

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Several weeks ago David Overlin was given a $10 bill. He was one of few thousand people in Southern Wisconsin asked by Summit Credit Union to pay the money forward. In other words, Overlin was tasked with giving the cash away to someone who could use it more than he could.

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This is wonderful. This is quite a surprise for my day.

James>> So you just got $10. What are you going to do with it?

Overlin>> I’m going to give it to the United Way. That’s what they gave it to me for.”

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At select branches, anyone who came into the credit union at A particular day and time was given a crisp $10 bill to give away. But coming from a bank charity, that doesn’t sound like a lot of money.

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It doesn’t, but hopefully they’ll give away a lot of $10s to people. Hopefully everybody gives it away so that would be nice.”

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Actually Summit Credit Union aims to give away much more than that. Called Pay It Forward, the program aspires to stimulate the spirit of philanthropic giving among ordinary people. Campaign coordinator Alexis Endicott says they plan to do this at each of Summit’s 20 locations.

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It’s $1000 per branch so it’s $20,000. It could affect 5 or 6 different markets that we’re in and have an impact on schools or charities or just promote goodwill around each of those communities.

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Summit Credit Union’s offices include ones IN Madison, Beaver Dam, Baraboo, Lake Mills and Portage. And for some, these seemingly small contributions will go far beyond their local communities. Kari Myarland is among three residents in the town of Fitchburg who decided to support an overseas relief organization.

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We decided to pool our money and invest in Heifer International. It’s a philanthropic organization where you can actually buy animals and other things that you can pledge to other communities or countries. We’re buying a goat in Honduras so that we can provide a sustainable donation rather than something that’s consumable.”

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Sharing in the goat donation Karen Gaustad says the money offered up by Summit Credit Union helped her continue and expand her current levels of charitable giving.

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Well when I find the right source for giving, I always try to do something like that. This was easy to do. It that made it relatively painless accept for the video.

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Oh yeah, there’s one other catch.

Everyone who received a $10 bill was asked to make a short video declaration of how they plan to pay it forward. Posted on the Summit Credit Union web site each video can be viewed online by friends, family and interested observers…then voted on.

AGAIN, coordinator Alexis Endicott:

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It’s a rating system similar to You-Tube. The top rated video will win $500 for themselves and $500 for a charity of their choice.”

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Jeanan Yasiri, Executive Director of the UW Center for Nonprofits, said the Pay it Forward program is a good community gesture to promote individual charitable giving in tough economic times.

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The other thing that summit is doing that’s pretty important is they’re handing $10 to someone. But it’s then going to cause that individual to think about, “Oh, where can I give this?” And then, “Do I have the capacity to maybe match that with my own $10.” All of the sudden the gift is doubled. And the amount is really relative. It just engages that person in thinking about how they want to gift.

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You can vote for your favorite Pay It Forward video until June 15th at www.summitcreditunion.com

For Wisconsin Public Radio, This is James Mills

The new PBS film series “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea,” enjoyed its world premiere at the Mountain Film Festival in Telluride Colorado.  Festival attendees had the opportunity to see all 6 episodes of this 12-hour Ken Burns documentary on the big screen. Not at all once but over three days. As you can imagine the film lived up to expectations. The most beautiful landscapes of North America in the wilds of the west were the perfect backdrop to portray the history of our wonderful National Parks.

Though Ken Burns’ reputation as a filmmaker is well known, little do most realize his documentary film franchise has a literary silent partner. Dayton Duncan is the writer and co-producer of The National Parks film series. And while Burns shows us images of these wild and scenic places it’s Duncan who tells us their stories.