Lessons Learned

I’ve been meaning to post this for quite a while now, and it’s high time in finally did.

Over the last 10 months I’ve finished two obstacle course races and two half marathons. And over that time I’ve learned quite a bit about succeeding at accomplishing a goal.

Nobody else is going to put in the miles for me

Ironically enough, this hit me not when I was out on the road by myself but when I was doing the Warrior Dash with my great friend Jumbo. Jumbo is more fit than I am, so when we started the race he went off well in front of me. This left me “alone” to just run the race. As my feet pounded the ground and I could only hear the sound of my breath and those around me I realized that it’s just me. Jumbo wasn’t coming back to help me along. Nobody else in the race was going to carry me to the finish line.

I have to do it for myself

With the above thought in mind, the next lesson I learned was that it has to be for me. Whatever the reason is – lose weight, get fit, accomplish a life goal – I have to want it for myself. I can’t do this to fill someone else’s desires for me. They’re not going to put in the time, effort and energy. If you don’t want it for myself, no amount of motivation is going to keep me going.

There will be times when I just don’t “feel it”

Over the last 10 months I’ve been blessed to run in many great areas. My run through Sydney in August was just amazing, if very hilly. I’ve run along the Mississippi river in Minneapolis. I’ve run along the water in San Diego many times.

But I’ve also been stuck in areas where the best place to run was through an office park. There’ve been times when I’ve left work with little energy and even less motivation to get out and run. There have been many, many times when I just didn’t “feel it”, or, frankly, feel like doing anything.

Those are the toughest times, but there really is one solution – lace up your shoes and get out the door. The longer I sit there, the more that feeling is going to set in, and the harder it’s going to be to overcome it. I need to remember – when I finish, I’ll be glad I did it.

Make the decision

I really want to expand on this point later, but for right now I’m going to post it here. Everything I do in life is a decision. Hitting the snooze button in the morning is a decision. What I eat is a decision. Working out is a decision. And it’s not a one time decision; it’s a decision that must be made every time the opportunity arises.

Four times a week now I make the decision to get out for a run. No less than three times a day I make the decision on what to eat. And every morning I make the decision on the snooze button. Do I make the right decision every time? With the exception of the running, no. But I know it’s my decision.

I’m not a victim. Bad habits don’t own me, I own them. I make the decision to let them get the better of me.

And now, far more often than not, I’m making the decision to live better.

Running Log

Week of 17May

Day	Distance	Terrain	Time
Monday	4.56	Flat	50:10
Wednesday	3.50	2% Treadmill	40:00
Total	8.06

Running Log

Week of 10May

Day	Distance	Terrain	Time
Monday	4.00	Flat	42:39
Wednesday	4.00	Flat	43:27
Saturday	10.03	Flat	1:51:15
Total	18.03m

Running Log

Week of 3May

Day	Distance	Terrain	Time
Monday	5.02	Mix	57:44
Wednesday	5.03	Mix	54:00
Saturday	6.06	Hills	1:07:22
Total	16.11m

Running Log

Week of 26Apr

Day	Distance	Terrain	Time
Monday	3.53m	Flat	38:21
Wednesday	3.52m	Flat	36:12
Friday	8.03m	Flat	1:29:07
Total	15.08m

Running Log

Week of 19Apr

Day	Distance	Terrain	Time
Monday	4.56m	Flat	50:02
Wednesday	4.49m	Flat	50:11
Friday	4.01m	Flat	37:58
Total	13.06m

Running Log

Week of 12Apr

Day	Distance	Terrain	Time
Monday	4.45m	Flat	50:19
Saturday	7.08m	Flat	1:21:23
Total	11.53m

Running Log

Week of 5Apr

Day	Distance	Terrain	Time
Monday	3.35m	Flat	40:20
Wednesday	3.73m	Flat	39:54
Friday	3.08	Warrior Dash	34:27
Total	10.16m

Running Log

Week of 29Mar

Day	Distance	Terrain	Time
Monday	3.07m	Hills	35:25
Wednesday	3.07m	Hills	38:22
Friday	4.17m	Flat	46:48
Total	10.31m

April Goals

The writers of the previous goals have been sacked

April goals:

Monday – Run
Tuesday – Cross train
Thursday – Run (with form drills)
Friday – Cross train
Saturday – Distance run

Week	Monday	Tuesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
1	40 mins	40 mins	40 mins	30 mins	Warrior Dash!
2	50 mins	40 mins	40 mins	30 mins	7 miles
3	50 mins	40 mins	50 mins	30 mins	4 miles
4	50 mins	40 mins	50 mins	30 mins	8 miles

And because this is not just about me getting fit physically, but also mentally, I’m adding a goal of reading 50 pages per day during the week. I have about a million computer books I’ve been meaning to get through, and it’s time I started focusing on them. If I want to continue to improve my business, I need to continue to improve myself.

RunKeeper

Full props to my friend Marie for turning me on to this. RunKeeper is a free iPhone app that tracks your run path via GPS, giving you total and split times, as well as elevation information and calories burned.

Best part – it’s free!

Running Log

Week of 22Mar

Day	Distance	Terrain	Time
Monday	3.30m	Flat	36:56
Wednesday	4.19m	Hill training	58:44
Friday	3.03	Flat	33:00
Total	10.31m

Running Log

Week of 15Mar

Day	Distance	Terrain	Time
Monday	1.5m	Flat	na
Wednesday	3.01m	Flat	29:45
Thursday	2.93m	Flat	31:28
Saturday	4.49m	Mostly flat	46:10
Total	11.93m

The run on Monday just didn’t work well – not sure well.

Running Log

Week of 8 Mar

Day	Distance	Terrain	Time
Wednesday	2.5m	Treadmill (2°)	30:00
Thursday	2.8m	Mostly Flat	27:30
Saturday	4m	Treadmill (2°)	45:15
Total	9.3m

Running Log

Week of 1Mar

Day	Distance	Terrain	Time
Monday	2.5m	Treadmill (2°)	30min
Wednesday	2.5m	Treadmill (2°)	30min
Thursday	2.5m	Treadmill (2°)	30min
Saturday	4m	Treadmill (2°)	47min
Total	11.5m

Running Log

Day	Distance	Terrain	Time
Monday	2.5m	Treadmill (2°)	33min
Wednesday	2.5m	Flat	30min
Thursday	2.5m	Treadmill (2°)	32min
Saturday	4m	Treadmill (2°)	47min
Total	11.5m

Mapping a Run

A while ago my friend Jumbo turned me on to Map My Run, a web site that among other things lets you log your runs and map them out. While I don’t care much about the ability to log my runs – I’ve got a blog for that – I do like the mapping functionality. It’s hard to estimate how far a run is without driving along the path later on. While cool, for me that capability just wasn’t worth paying Map My Run.

Out of curiosity, I searched Google to see if it was possible to draw on Google Maps. Sure enough – it is! The simple trick is you have to have a Google account (and who doesn’t?), and you go to My Maps. You also get the ability to save your maps as well. Instant run log capabilities, and it’s free!

If you want info on how to do it, check out Google Maps.

Running Log

Day	Distance	Terrain	Time
Saturday	2.5m	Flat	30min
Total	2.5m

Note: Due to illness, I was unable to run during the week of 14Feb10. However, I missed running terribly this week which I figure is a good sign. Saturday included a trip to the gym as well.

Running Log

Day	Distance	Terrain	Time
Monday	2.5m	Treadmill (1.5 incline)	31min
Wednesday	2.5m	Treadmill (1.5 incline)	33min
Total	5m

Note: Did not run on Thursday due to family obligation. Saturday run did not happen due to illness – hard to run when you can’t breathe.

Running log

Day	Distance	Terrain	Time
Monday	2.4m	Flat	29min
Wednesday	2.4m	Flat	29min
Saturday	4.0m	Treadmill	48min
Total	8.8m

Note: Did not run on Thursday due to soreness.

February Goals

Goals for the first half of 2010:

10Apr – Warrior Dash. My main goal here is just to finish. I’m not overly concerned about the time. Secondary goal is to have an absolute blast.

6Jun – Rock n Roll Half Marathon. Beyond just finishing, I’m hoping for a time of 2:30.

February run goals:

Week	Monday	Wednesday	Thursday	Saturday
1	2.5 miles(f)	2.5 miles(f)	2.5 miles(f)	4 miles(f)
2	2.5 miles(f)	2.5 miles(f)	2.5 miles(f)	4 miles(f)
3	3 miles(h)	3 miles(h)	3 miles(f)	4 miles(f)
4	3 miles(h)	3 miles(h)	3 miles(f)	5 miles(f)

(h) – hilly (f) – flat

Beyond that, I intend to still do some form of resistance training every Tuesday, and add crunches/push ups to my Monday and Thursday runs.

Running log

Day	Distance	Terrain	Time
Monday	2.4m	Flat	35min
Wednesday	2.4m	Flat	30min
Thursday	2.4m	Flat	33min
Saturday	4.1m	Flat (Fiesta Island)	Unknown
Total	11.3m

It all starts with the snooze button

For more time than I can, or care to, remember, I’ve wanted to finally start making some changes in my life. Not the least of which was to stop procrastinating, tie up the million or so loose ends in my life, and lose a few pounds in the process. You know, simple goals.

If you read my personal blog, you’ve seen me post no less than three sets of New Year’s Resolutions. I also have a (usually) weekly post called the Friday Five which has an “Exercise” section where I list off the exercise I’ve been able to accomplish in a given week. In reality, both of those traditions have become little more than a running gag. In the end I’m still just as lazy and just as overweight and just as out of shape as I was when I started.

I needed a clean break from the past. I decided that the start of 2010 was going to be my year. Now there’s nothing special about 2010; no great epiphany on January 1st, no angels, no singing, and no sunbursts through the clouds. In fact, January 1st, 2010 was just like January 1st, 2009, and just like January 1st 2008, and ….

And there in lies the problem with New Year’s resolutions. Well, at least the problem for me. While logically it seems like there’s a nice clean break between years, and a perfect time to start anew, the reality is that January 1st is just like any other day on the calendar. And 2010 was on track to be just like any other year.

One of the blogs I subscribe to on Google Reader is The Art of Manliness. The site is about bringing back the ideals of the post WWII man, as well as a lot of self-improvement articles. I was flipping through my Google Reader and I came across an article entitled, “The 'Secret' to Becoming a Better Man in 2010”. Intrigued I read it. It makes a very simply point in a very eloquent manner – it’s all about discipline. The fact is you have time/ability to do anything; you just have to do it.

I started off with something very small – the snooze button. That may sound small to you, but to me it was huge. My love affair with the snooze button goes back a couple of decades. When I had to wake up early, the question from Karin wasn’t, “When do you want to get up?”, it was, “What time should we start the process?” When I was by myself, I’d hit snooze for a good hour or more.

If I could conquer the snooze button, then I could conquer anything.

I’m proud to say that with the exception of one slip-up, I’m snooze button free for about the last 3 weeks. And it’s fantastic. I have time for breakfast, a long shower, catching up on Facebook, the whole enchilada.

That has become the impetus to my improving other areas of my life; I’m tackling todo’s going back months, I’m replying to emails in record time, and I’m back exercising again.

And that’s the reasoning behind this blog. A very good friend of mine, Dave “Jumbo”, has walked this path before me and has been very generous with advice. One big piece of advice was to start some form of a journal or blog.

I wanted something separate from my normal Jersey’s Musings blog, as the Exercise section had become a joke. Thus the new blog. The focus here is not just on becoming physically fit, but mentally and emotionally fit as well.

What are you going to see here? That’s a great question. I’m honestly not sure yet myself. I plan on posting my workouts, articles I come across, and other miscellaneous thoughts. Frankly, I’m expecting this blog to be more self-centered than my personal one, if you can imagine such a thing. But I wanted to make this public, partly because I want some form of accountability, and partly because of the chance that someone might find something worthwhile or inspiring here.

It’ll be an interesting journey either way.