My workout dashboard ended up working out well for a New Years resolution in 2009. I achieved my two goals of
4,320 Push-ups
13,500 Sit-ups
The hardest part was the Sit-ups and maintaining a consistent pattern across each month with my travelling work schedule. However, a more interesting pattern I noticed in the goals was why I had a major drop off in October and November. This is attributed to my early accomplishment of the first goal of 4,320 Push-ups in October, but still having more to do on the second goal. I would always do Push-ups and Sit-ups together; however, when I tried to keep going knowing that only 50% of what I was doing is bringing me closer to a goal it took the steam out of my effort.
After 5 vaccinations, 10 days of vacay, and a £ 594.00 plane ticket I’m ready to explore South Africa. My arms feel like limp noodles with all the Polio, Diphtheria, Tetanus, Hepatitis, and Whooping cough vaccinations they gave me, but I guess it’s better than catching the real deal.
I once heard that many things will catch your eye, but only a few will catch your heart. Therefore, the two that have caught my heart is travelling and the companionship of my father. He has definitely been a great example in my life and look forward to scouting around together on a wild Safari. However, in the event we are chased by the big five, then it’s every man for himself! Sorry dad, you should’ve eaten less cheese burgers
Without planning is like planning to fail, so this is our tentative schedule of events (likely to change daily)
Sept 12th – Arrive at the Johannesburg airport at 8:45 AM
Sept 13th – Explore Johannesburg and pick up a land rover for our self guided safari through Kruger National Park
Sept 14th – Drive out to Kruger Park for 3 days of bush-whacking with the Lions, Tigers, and Bears… Bears?
We will probably grab a chalet in Phalaborwa the first night and then head out to Letaba (a two-hour drive from Phalaborwa). Then head South for a sunset drive towards Nelspruit and land at Lower Sabie. Hang out for a bush walk in the early morning and then exit at Crocodile Bridge in the South-Eastern corner.
Sept 17th – Head South West for our cross country road trip through the heart of South Africa
Our plan is to explore the scenic garden route from Mossel Bay in the Western Cape to the Storms River which crosses the Paul Sauer Bridge. There is also the last remaining passenger steam train in Africa (Outeniqua Choo Tjoe) that traverses these hills.
Sept 19th – Spend Saturday night in Cape town and chat it up with the locals.
The tentative to-do list near Cape town are great white shark diving at Gansbaai, bungie jumping at Bloukrans Bridge (216 meters), Rappelling Table mountain, surfing, and sand boarding in the Atlantis dunes.
Sept 25th – Fly back to Johannesburg for our international departure on the 26th.
Sept 27th- Arrive in London and REST!
In the rare event that someone is actually reading this, then I would love any of your suggestions or things that I might be missing. We also haven’t nailed down any hotels yet so any comments would be great!
The workout dashboard has slightly evolved since my last post and it now includes triathlon mileage. As for pushups and situps, this hasn’t changed much but my monthly goals have been accomplished. This is starting to get me more excited about training for an adventure race or possibly a triathlon in the near future. The only problem is all the travelling I do for work. It makes it more difficult to have consistent training patterns, however hotel treadmills are a second best. As for another idea to add to my dashboard, I’m considering a way to track water consumption. Not sure how this is going to work but I’ll figure something out.
Even though the economy is in the drain and businesses are still collapsing, I was able to meet my workout quota for Q1. I’m still not seeing much of a difference with all these crunches and pushups so I decided to step it up with some curls and added the run rate of my mileage. The mileage includes any activities such as running, cycling, and swimming although I haven’t touched a pool this year.
Jordan's workout progress
I’m still trying to figure out how many calories I should be consuming a day and what types of food are best during training, but it sure is hard to find something other than a hamburger at a local pub for lunch. If you guys have a trusted website for calorie intake, then I would love to see it! )
Last week was my first official working day in the UK, which came after two exhausting months of processing a work permit and VISA. Fortunately, I’m here and lovin it!
The only difficulty I can’t seem to wrap my hands around is driving on the left side of the road. It’s strange that they moved the steering wheel to the right side but didn’t invert the pedals. The accelerator is still on the right and the clutch left, so lets just say it’s my first rodeo. Not only that, I just bought a new car for my assignment over here and during the test drive I really must have been freaking out the seller. He kept saying “Other side of the road!, You can’t turn here!, look to the right!” Well, bring on the challenge!
Another interesting change is the vernacular.. These guys keep asking me if I want a fag? You typically don’t say things like this in the states unless you want trouble, but here it translates to “Do you want a cigarette?” Another friend of mine, Hanna, keeps saying “Go on, get your fancy dress on”. Well, I’m still not completely sure what that means but I assume its costume. I should probably keep a list of all these somewhere and if you know of any others then be sure to comment!
Typically, I tend to bite off more than I can chew when it comes to New Year’s resolutions. My Big Harry Audacious Goals (BHAGs) are usually to stop eating chocolate, run a sub 5:30 minute mile, or anything that is drastically different than my typical behavior. Well, I have been consistently missing these BHAGs so I decided to change my approach.
This year I have used the ‘uoch’ approach. Take for example my Push-up and Sit-up goals this year. I would like to complete 4,320 and 13,500 respectively. At first this sounds like an unobtainable BHAG with no end in sight. Instead, if you use the ‘uoch’ approach that I adopted from Dr. T and take it step by step, then it seems manageable.
Below I have the YTD performance with monthly projections. This will also allow for historical compares of past performance.
Now the question is how long can I hold this up? Well, who knows! …but I plan on posting monthly results. If you start to see me slacking off, then feel free to comment with constructive criticism!
Nick and I took a trip to Sweden for a few customer visits this month and I decided to show him how to pony up and play real golf.
Unfortunately, golf is not like riding a bicycle for me. Even if I used to school Tiger back in my high school days I feel like a score near 100 on a nine hole game is a major handicap.
Oh, and for those of you who don’t know Tiger, he was my imaginary competitor on super Nintendo.
This being my first trip to Sweden I was also impressed with the landscape. I noticed similarities between the rock formations of Enchanted Rock in Texas and the west coast near Goteborg. It was full of giant slabs of protruding granite glistening in the sunlight with minimal vegetation.
Although this trip was only two days, I would highly recommend this as a great place in the summer for a week vacation at an ocean front bungalow.
I’ve officially had my first mountain bike race in the Italian Alps. I have also officially never felt such numbness in my saddle. For those male cyclists out there, you probably know what kind of numbness I’m referring to. I thought I almost lost the poor guy around mile 23 when I couldn’t feel anything. I’m not sure if it was the 5000 feet of vertical climbing along this 27 mile race or the relatively new seat, but all I could think about was finishing this beast!
Altitude of race course
(Course profile in meters)
I’ve had a few MTB races in the past including a 24 hour team event, but after 3 consecutive hours of racing on the saddle the ball game shifts into a new level. I noticed that my legs starting cramping after a 2 hour, 3000 foot, ascent to the apex where the downhill started. I polished off my 300 oz’s of hydration around mile 13 without knowing the distance till the next rest top and this is when things went awry. I noticed that my heart rate dropped below 135 bpm when it should have been averaging 175 bpm so my heart was ready to attack but my body was lacking energy to deliver. After another 7 miles of exhaustion I finally reached the must needed rest stop. I shoveled in about 300 raisins, 5 oranges, 2 bananas, and another 300 oz of hydration and felt soooo much better.
(NI Team)
Here is a picture of the fearless NI team that attended this race. As you can see, we all had our game faces on except I’m stuffing my face with a powerbar.
(850+ cyclists)
This was by far one of the best organized races I’ve been to from the volunteers and race markers to the pasta party and awards ceremony. I hope to attend this race next year with a few extra bottles of water!
Standing outside Old Town Hall at Marienplatz I started to ponder just how much fun a guided bike tour of downtown Munich might be. My preconceived notions of Munich were that its primary tourist attraction was beer, and alot of it. In fact, during last year’s Oktoberfest participants chugged over five million liters of beer while chomping down 200,000 bratwurst. To my surprise, this was not the only useless fact I would learn on my bike tour, but also a detour through Munich’s nudist meadow and a local surfing spot down the Isar river.
We jumped on our California Cruzers and hit the town passing through Hofgarten, Odeonsplatz, and lunch in the English gardens. From all the places I’ve been in Europe, the Odeonsplatz quadrant of Munich is one of the best representations of Baroque, Neoclassical, and Rodocco architecture.
A must see is the Residenz and interior of the Theatinerkirche. Also, the Hofgarten’s adjacency to the Konzlei and elevated Northern position in the city gives a great vantage point for snapping a few pictures of downtown Munich.
The tour also stopped in the English Garden where we ate like kings! Liters of Wiesen beer, half a grilled chicken with honey glaze, and a plate full of potato wedges. After finishing lunch, the afternoon took an interesting turn.
We all jumped back on our Cali cruzers and began navigating our way along the pedestrian walk ways when suddenly an old man wearing nothing but hiking boots passed me on the right. At first I thought I was losing it, but when I looked out into the meadow everyone was naked. The guide started laughing and gave a brief explanation of how this meadow never escaped the 70’s peace, love, harmony movement. Then, the next stop was one of my favorites where locals used surf boards to catch a 3 foot roller. It reminded me of the boogie bahn at schlitterbahn except free! I’ll definitely be hitting this place next time with board shorts.
Looking back, I’m now convinced that Munich has much more to offer than the beer gardens and I would highly recommend Mikes Bike tour. I think next time I’ll try the BMW museum. Fingers and toes crossed that they will let me do a test drive!
300 feet. I know you are probably thinking this is another stunt I pulled while driving around Italy, but this time the jokes on me.
In Italy, it’s all about service at the pump. Instead of allowing the auto-motorist to fill up their own vehicle they have decided for safety reasons that trained gas pumpers should do it instead. Therefore, Antonio, while smoking a cigarette, walks up to my car in his greasy overalls and asks for the key to unlock the gas tank. With the distinctive throaty voice of a chain smoker, he asked me “pieno?” (which translates to “fill ‘er up?”) I responded with “si, grazie” and then proceeded inside to purchase a candy bar. After paying the absurd 94€ gas bill, I gave a fair well salute to Mr. Dbag Antonio and headed on my way.
After about 150 feet I made it back on the highway and started to eat my snickers bar when I noticed someone pulling up beside me in the fast lane honking their horn and pointing frantically behind me. I took a look in my rear view mirror and my car had magically turned into a coal burning locomotive. Black smoke was bellowing out from all angles, and started seeping in through the doors. 200 feet out the car lost all functionality and I coasted another 100 feet where I waited till the smoke cleared before I went back to the gas station… Antonio must of missed class on diesel day.
400€ later, I had my car towed to the mechanic and took an hour taxi ride home. Tomorrow I’ll have to sort out how I’m getting my car back…
)
