Training for a 5k Starts Monday

The title is a little narrow for what I am trying to do, but I’ve had it. I am ready to shed the weight and get myself together. To do that I have a plan and I have a goal. I’ll lay it all our here in this post and chronicle my progress on the blog as I move along…the ups and the downs.

A little background on last year. I purchased P90x back in early 2010. I started in January and finished the entire schedule with a few missed workouts here and there. I felt amazing as if I were some super-human about halfway through it. My endurance was up and I could run without sucking wind afterwards…something I hadn’t felt in years.

I started revisiting P90X after a week or two of finishing the first round but I didn’t stick with it. Quickly and before I knew it time passed and then the holidays came and the food with it and I just let myself go. Yes, after all that hard work. I am at that point now where I feel that enough is enough and I am ready to go back again. I believe in the P90X program because I have seen my own results and that is why I am going to hit it again.

I am going to lay out my high level goals first and then break it down into smaller goals that I can accomplish as I go forward. Additionally, to keep myself honest, I will be regularly blogging and updating my stats. I have a P90X spreadsheet on my Google Docs that you can view and follow along with my progress. (I may do a blog post just on the spreadsheet alone.)

Weight: I want to get to 175 or as close as possible. Currently I weight 210, so that means I need to loose 35 lbs. I am not sure I can get that far due to my body type. If I can’t I will be happy to get to 185 lbs. I also know that as time goes on I will be gaining muscle mass which will offset my weight goals some.

Endurance & Fitness: I plan on running a 5k with my Dad on August 27th, 2011. This is the high level goal that I need to reach and my motivating factor. To get here I will go through P90X and during the Phase III start adding some running to my schedule ramping up and continuing till the 5k on the 27th.

To make these goals I need to break them down into smaller goals that seem easier for me to concentrate on and achieve.

First Goals: Finish week 1 of P90X, loose 2 lbs, and blog or podcast about it.

Again, check back and see where I am at each week. You can leave comments here or follow me on Twitter to track my status, cheer me on, or do it with me.

By the way…I want to thank Annie Fulkerson for finding me on Twitter the first time I did P90X and provided encouragement. Hopefully she will be around for this time too. Follow her…she is awesome.

My Presentations from Create South 2011

These are my talks that I did at Create South 2011. I know I told everyone that I would have these posted by the end of the day on Saturday when Create South was over, however with the storm that blew through Myrtle Beach  that night it made the hotel Internet act up so I am posting these today.

Photography Hacks [link]
Additional links for this talk

WordPress: Security and Backup [link]
Links from this Talk

My Half Life

Today I turn 42. Not really a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Just a year older than last year. I still feel the same as when I did when I was 40, 30, even 20 something still to a degree. I don’t think I have changed a whole lot, I still get excited that I can buy a six pack of beer.

Age hasn’t really bothered me before…actually that isn’t *entirely* true. When I turned 30 I thought things had peaked, but in reality it was just the page turning and another chapter of “The Big Adventure”. I bought my first house and got married at 32, had a son at 33, bought my first real new car (I never shied away from used.), helped run my first new business, and eventually got a new full time job. It seems that every year has had its challenges.

I didn’t think much of 40 but now as 42 is here I can’t help but focus on the number and I know why. It’s because of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. It is one of my favorite series of books and in the story the number 42 has a significant part, and now that I am turning 42 that number is sticking in my head. That said, as I am trying not to think of my age, people also like to point it out. I guess its an attempt to feel better about their own chronological disorder, and say “it’s not how old you are, it’s how young you feel.” Well, I still feel young and stupid, so let’s see how far that gets me.

Time marches on, and me along with it and that is okay. I wouldn’t say I was worried, or scared about the future or even death…more like weighted concerned. There is still a lot to be discovered, and a lot to still get excited about.

Pinewood Derby Wrap up

Today we had the Pinewood Derby Races for Pack 205 and it was a huge success. Someone likened it to Christmas. There is a huge buildup to the big event and after it is over there is a void, and you are exhausted. It didn’t go off without it’s glitches though.

On the Friday night before racing everyone is told to bring in their cars. They are weighed and impounded for night. Afterwards, all the names of racers are put into the software that runs the track so on Saturday morning at 9am the track is ready to run. Well….after check-in about 9pm Friday it was discovered that the track software wasn’t installed on any machine and even less, not tested. Of course any IT pro will know that this is a perfect storm for everything *not* to work.

Turns out things didn’t. I don’t know if the software didn’t work because of hotfixes or patches to Windows over the year, but after a few hours and a search for a new track management package things were working once again. It had a couple of glitches, but overall it worked well. I have to give Jason Jones and Jim Smith credit, since I really had nothing to do with all that.

Aside from the software issues I think that all the kids had a good time. Everyone was in good spirits and good winners and losers. Even our Pack Master told me that for once he didn’t feel stressed and was able to enjoy himself, and why not.

My son did pretty well also, during Friday nights check-in some kids gave him complements on his car and a couple even dug the “Mario” characters he drew freehand on the side of it. Somehow I even managed to make the car perform a little. He got a close third (close to second) in his heat, and of course got a 3rd place ribbon. He was happy, and that is all that matters.

Well almost all. 🙂 I got 1st place in every run of my heats against the other parents. Now I didn’t really build my car to beat anyone, I just enjoying making them. It is kinda sweet for me because when I was in scouts, I got 3rd place. Still have the ribbon to prove it. My Dad still tells me to this day that I *should* have had 1st. We re-ran the race and it was close, but of course the judge’s kid and a friend of theirs got 1st and 2nd. Dad didn’t argue it figuring it wouldn’t really do any good if that is the way they want to run things. Besides, I barely remember the race, but I do remember building the car with my Dad and that is all that mattered.

Snow in the South

I love snow. We get it once or, if we are lucky, twice a year. Every year I wish for one of those times to land us a White Christmas. This year I got it even if it was just on the tail end of Christmas Day which was a nice end to the holiday.

Once, when I was much younger, I was watching the news and saw that they were calling for snow in Myrtle Beach. I thought to myself that is something that I had not seen before, snow on the beach. In the next moment I found myself in my car heading down at about 8 in the evening on a Friday night. As soon as I got there, stepped out on the sand, and took about 10 paces it started. It was totally worth making the trip down to take a walk on the beach as the snow fell.

Usually when we get snow here in the south, it only lasts a day or so before it melts, however it looks like with cold temperatures lingering that this one will be with us for a while. There were times today that it was snowing heavier that I had seen in a long time, so I couldn’t pass on the opportunity to create a video showing some of the scenes that were around my house.

Color Wheel



Color Wheel, originally uploaded by kreg.steppe.