Hey, still super busy, but one of the things I have been working on is migrating to a different host for this blog, so apologies if things look weird for a while.
A couple of notes on that – first, the theme hasn’t been fully customized yet, and that will be one of the last things I get to, so expect the appearance to be wonky and to change some. Second, some of the images didn’t import over properly, so I will be working on updating those as I get time. Third, this blog is important to me, but is not in my top five priorities at the moment, so it will be a while before I get it done. My goal is to have all of the technical and design stuff taken care of by February 28th, after which time I will start focusing more on content at that point.
Speaking of content, for the reasons outlined above, content will be irregular and sporadic this month and in March should start rolling out regularly according to a schedule. I know that nobody really cares about how the sausage is made, only how it tastes, but I am just putting that out there.
Finally, a quick wrap-up for January. The first and quickest update was the decision to do a social media fast. It went pretty well and was interesting to note how much of going to Facebook and Twitter was automatic and without thinking. I’d pick up my phone and instantly start typing Fa or Twi before catching myself. There were a couple of times that I logged on intentionally in order to check on something specific or reach out to someone that I only have their social media, but didn’t consider that a real breaking of the fast. I am going to continue in February mostly fasting but checking in a bit more regularly (I am still working on the SOP for doing social media and am going to largely continue fasting until I have nailed that down).
Fitness goal was to do a marathon in a month, and I completed it with nearly 10 days to spare so just kept on going. The “marathon” stats I wanted to post because it was an interesting comparison to look back at Oct/November when I did this for the first time supporting the Whittier Boys and Girls Club. Also, before I get into the numbers, and I wasn’t really targeting 26.2 as the finish line in either case, it was just through the end of the run that took me over 26.2.
WBGC Thirty Day challenge stats were 28.2 miles with an average pace of 22 minutes, 13 seconds (22’13”). Unfortunately I didn’t really total time at that point, and it did include a fair amount of walking as I was just getting back into exercising and was trying to avoid injuries as I knocked the rust off. My January challenge run was 26.7 miles with an average pace of 16’20” and a total time of 7:16:13. Obviously I am still not setting records (and it is crazy to me that in my younger days I was better than half that pace!) but I can only deal with the body I have now, so I am really happy to have shaved nearly 6 minutes a mile off the pace. I was obviously running way more than walking this time around, and I am looking forward to repeating this challenge for my birthday in August.
Fitness challenge for February will be focusing on stretching. I am going to dial back running to 3-4 times per week and doing daily stretches. This is the one I am looking to start with, but if you have a favorite routine, please let me know! This one is going to be harder to measure objectively but hopefully I will have some good results to report back. Why stretching you ask? Well, Ryan turned me on to this cool YouTube channel called The Bioneer and while that dude is crazy fit and I am not looking for that level of fitness (I’ll post more on my personal ambitions later), I really like his pillars of fitness which basically equate to: strength, endurance, agility, decision making, and explosive power. January worked on endurance, February is for agility. Decision making and being smart is something I am focusing on throughout the year as well, and will be writing about what books I am reading, or listening to at another time.
Anyway, that’s me updated. Hope you have a great month, and I will be posting a few more times this month – targeting once a week with short updates like this.
Random Thoughts 