Friday, May 27, 2011

So I Lied. Well Kind Of...

Remember when I said I might hold off on another training streak? Truth was I already had it my mind that I was going to start another one.

My current priority list looks as follows
  1. Take care of family stuff.
  2. Work.
  3. Learn more work related skills and continue physical training.
  4. Blog when have some extra time.

It sucks that the blogging has fallen at the end of my priority list but I know I'll be back in a more consistent rotation once I've gotten used to things. I mean if I don't blog they I don't get comments like this:

Even without a daily training streak blog from you, I'm still encouraged and motivated by you, bro.

And Eris isn't the only person who has something like this to me. Its pretty cool when you feel you've motivated other people in some sort of way.

So here's the super short version of this past week's worth of training. I like to call it Super Secret Solo Training (S3T) since a lot of it has been on my own at random times of the day.

5/21/11 6PM - Pool Swim
5/22/11 8PM - Long trainer ride
5/23/11 8PM - 6 mile run
5/24/11 730PM - Strength Training
5/25/11 8AM - Technique trainer ride, 6PM - River swim
5/26/11 930PM - Technique run
5/27/11 6AM - River swim

Obviously my training is all over the place right now. The hardest part of all of it is just making myself do a workout. I've missed group workouts the last several weeks from just not being able to wake up in the morning. I know, I know I have a kid now but I know there are people out there doing way more with their time with way less sleep.

Friday, May 20, 2011

Much Respect to Crossfitters

Just tried to do "Chelsea". I only did about 11 rounds. That's not even half way!

Ask Questions. The 2011 Version

In today's age we really have no excuse to be left wondering about most questions. Long gone is the waiting for answers period of wondering about something then having to wait until you get your hands on an Encyclopedia or ask someone who may have the knowledge you are seeking.

Today, with the internet, most answers are literally at our fingertips. You won't find answers to the bigger questions such as "why am I here" but you may find something to guide you to your personal answer.

So what are the hottest resources available to us in 2011?

  • Google. The search engine is by far the most powerful resource. It amazes me how so many people still don't know how to utilize this tool. You can literally ask it anything and it will find some kind of answer for you. If you're results are obscure it means your query probably was too. Like everything it takes practice to utilize it but if you use it everyday you'll ability to find answers quickly will vastly improve. Here's more tips on how to use google search specifically.
  • Wikipedia. This is the modern day Encyclopedia. You'll find a lot of factual information on it. The big criticism about it several years ago was that since the content was user generated that it had a lot of information that wasn't accurate. Now you don't have to worry about that so much because there are so many writers/editors that the content has become more reliable. I mean they even have a wiki article on the Reliability of Wikipedia.
  • Other People. The original way of finding answers. But now you have social resources such as Facebook and Twitter. Curious about what everyone thinks about something? Just post it to your Facebook wall or tweet about it and you're bound to get a response.

So go out there! Find answers to your curiosities.

I do warn you though. Mastering these skills can be somewhat like opening Pandora's Box. You may find your curiosity to be never satisfied.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Master of Snooze

I have become a master of the snooze button. The good news is that I've stuck with my commitment to continue and develop my programming skills. The bad news is that its taken me pretty late into the night the entire week. That combined with my little guy crying sometimes during the night results in very little sleep.


6:30AM

Team Run

After only 3-4 hours of sleep and hitting the snooze button about 8 times I finally got myself out of bed to go to run practice.

The workout was pretty tough. My main goal was just to make it there. I didn't even think about doing anything intense. Coach Tyler had a different idea. I don't remember the details but I think I did several pretty hard 800s. My legs were pretty spent at the end of it but like I said I was satisfied with just making it out there.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

I Do Remember How to Swim!

9:00PM

Swim

It seems like ages since I last swam. It was actually about three weeks ago to be exact.

Taking that much time away from the water can be daunting. Swimming is such a feel and technique driven sport that you've got to do it all the time to be good. One of our coaches always talks about how crazy he thought it was that swimmers would spend thousands of hours in the pool only to get a several second gain on their swim time.

So I had my reservations before going to the pool. At first I was going to do a Master Swim class but then I convinced myself that it would be too intense. I ended procrastinating for quite a bit longer. In the end I eventually built enough motivation to get at least a 30 minute swim.

The swim went surprisingly well. My biggest take away is that I think I'm in a much better spot mentally with swimming. I expect some pretty big gains with the rest of this year's training. I even gave myself a personal rule to never touch the wall with my hands. I used this in order to force myself to do flip turns. It was a great time!

A Digital GTD Tickler File

My GTD workflow has been going well. I had to skip the last couple of weeks because of the whole parenthood thingy. I've been meaning to share how my GTD system works here but to be honest its rather geeky and pretty involved. Once I've got it 100% hammered down I'll share what I do.

In the meantime here's a link to a digital tickler file that I created using the code described in this post. I couldn't find something like this anywhere online so I went ahead and created it myself. I have a physical Tickler File in my filing cabinet but I don't keep much in it as I've been trying to make my workflow more digital.

Hope it helps!

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

My First Date with "Cindy"

I tried to wake up for the morning team bike but there's something about becoming a new parent that messes with your sleep schedule. I can't quite put my finger on it.


Anyways the alarm rang at 5:15, I woke up and mumbled some half awoken encouragements to my wife about how great of a job she was doing and then passed back out. Woke up again at 6:15 only to curse myself for sleeping in. By the time I was finally out the door at 6:30 it started pouring down rain and thundering. DRAT!

10:00AM

Trainer at Home

Several hours later I was finally on my bike. I've been using the JetBlack Z1 Fluid HYDROGEL trainer and I'm not quite sure how I feel about the ride. Its nothing like the Kinetic Trainer we use at EF. The biggest adjustment I've had to make is that the JetBlack seems to have so much more initial resistance. Gears I would normally hit with the Kinetic seem impossible to hold with the JetBlack. I guess in the end it'll be better since the more resistance will make me stronger but there has been an adjustment period.

I ended up only riding for about 25 minutes. My Mom was flying into town so I wanted to squeeze in as much as possible before she arrived to the house.

"Cindy"

I've mentioned before that I've been interested in doing crossfit but didn't have the time. Since I was working out from home I decided to go for my own mini version of a crossfit workout.

The workout was "Cindy" which I've heard great things about. I only did three rounds which I'm sure is pretty lame by crossfit standards but I'm trying to squeeze in as much as possible with little time.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Training Streak Broken

The title of this post is one of the first things a buddy commented to me after the birth of my first child. Obviously because of my two week disappearance from blogging its been quite the adventure so far.

It was crazy I had literally just finished writing this post when my wife revealed to me she had been labor for about an hour. Let me tell you, helping your wife through labor is no easy task. Its a lot of physical work. So much that I was going to consider it part of my training streak. I'm tempted to document all of it here but I think the reason why it hasn't been described from the male's perspective so much is because it seems like a right of passage for first time dads.

I will say this: bring warm clothes because hospitals are cold, bring plenty of snacks for you and your wife (she loved cliff shot blocks), and be patient. The labor took over 44 hours. For those of you keeping track from triathlon perspective that's about four Ironmans for elite athletes and at least two to three for everyone else. My wife's a warrior. I told our coach at EF that I'd be scared of her whenever she decided that she would try out a triathlon. I don't know how you lady's do it but I do have a new profound respect for all mothers.

Going back to the streak. Yeah, its over. It was great I had made it to 113 straight days of working out. I could honestly say not only did I think I was close to if not the best shape in my entire life but I also felt like I had the most consistency and control over my life as well. Then the little one arrived. Things got kind of chaotic but like everything you adjust and move on. After the first five days I made a mini attempt to get another streak of about four days going (bike/run, long run, stretching, brick/strength) but I decided that it would be best to focus on what's most important right now, my family.

This isn't to say that another one won't start tomorrow but in the grand scheme of things its moved down my priority list. The little guy does seem like he'll be quite the competitor though. He had "the ideal term heartbeat" all through those 44 hours of labor. I'm going to have to stay in somewhat good of shape to keep up with him.

More Projects Please

I've decided that I've neglected developing my programming expertise for far too long. Sure, I do a lot of reading and I come up with a lot of ideas but I never go through with starting or finishing them. Sometimes I think I should find a job as a professional thinker rather than programmer.

Since today is my first day back at work I wanted to spent the majority of the day programming, including free time. They say that you should love your profession so much that you want to continue doing it in your free time. To tell you the truth I'm not sure if I feel that way about my profession but at the same time I haven't given it an honest shot. I've read books and learned about a lot of new interesting things but I haven't spent enough doing what it all boils down to: coding.

So I coded up a new project and shared it over at github. The code basically creates sequential integer directories given an integer that specifies the end point. It seems trivial but I wanted to do this for several reasons:

  • I needed an excuse to code.
  • I wanted to learn more about Ruby.
  • I wanted to practice doing TDD.
  • I needed to create 31 sequential folders for GTD. I had been meaning to create a digital tickler file but never got around to it. Following the Don't Repeat Yourself principle I decided to use this as an opportunity to code rather than sit there and create 31 new folders by "hand"

Like I said this seems trivial right now but if I recall correctly a mile seemed trivial two years ago and look how far I've come.