Goals and Tending To Them May 23, 2008
Posted by jackdrew in Fitness.add a comment
Just wanted to throw up a quick note saying that I hit the 45 minute mark last Wednesday!
I’ve been quiet about it because before it, I hadn’t jogged in nearly two weeks due to weather and the fact we’ve been pouring a lot of sweat into the house. But last week, I finally got out and hit 45 minutes and it’s been that ever since.
Warmer weather slides ever nearer, folks! Hang in there and keep it up!
(Later I’ll post an interesting note about mp3 players, playlists and how they affect your pace.
-Jack
Sometimes We Surprise Ourselves May 14, 2008
Posted by Mike Oliveri in Activities, Workouts.Tags: karate, push-ups, kata, surprises, swiss ball, perfect pushup, kajukembo, nekobudo
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Our third class on Tuesday nights in karate has become as much about the workout as learning. We run kata for stamina and cardio, do a lot of horse stances and stretching to improve our flexibility, do several kicks for cardio (and warming up), various and sundry push-ups, and at least one tension kata which improves breathing and overall conditioning. Doing that week after week, it’s tough to see any real improvements, physically. I’m still at a weight plateau, but I’m seeing minor changes in my build and my flexibility and strength.
Tonight, however, I had a definite “wow!” moment.
We’ve got review again next week, and I’m up for my first purple stripe, which means I have to perform a lot of the material I already know all over again. It will be my longest review to date as well, as I’ve got a lot of material to cover. Tonight I decided to do a dry run through the whole thing, including a few repeats of things I felt were a little rough. Forty minutes of self defenses, wazas, and kata later, I also tossed in the other new kata I learned, a Kajukembo kata called nekobudo #1. I was dripping sweat and exhausted, but realized I hadn’t worked any calisthenics.
I dropped down for push-ups, figuring I’d be lucky to hit 10.
Instead I rocked out 20 good ones.
I could always hit 20 fresh, but I expected post-workout would be quite different. It’s the first example of how far the push-ups in that Tuesday night class have taken me. We sometimes do push-ups on a Swiss ball, for example, or use dumbbells or Perfect Pushup stands, which changes the intensity and focus of the standard push-up. We’ve joked about how easy they’ve made standard push-ups during the other classes, but again, I never imagined it would extend to an end-of-workout set.
Way cool.
How Quickly We Fall May 7, 2008
Posted by Mike Oliveri in Routine.Tags: goals, habits, karate, nikeplus, running, setbacks
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Out of habits, that is.
I met my running goal on April 20th, then haven’t run since. Sure, I meant to, but my schedule went all to hell when I started concentrating on karate and hustling to meet a deadline for a comic script. Then the cold weather came back, and…
Excuses, excuses, excuses. Time to get back on the horse.
I think I’m going to start another “run 10 times in 4 weeks” goal, thus keeping it simple and attainable. I joined a Nike+ program via Twitter for most miles in 45 days, fully expecting to get my ass handed to me. I didn’t think of it at the time, but that’s not exactly a motivator, is it? I think I’ll stay signed up and just hope I’m not last.
Achieving goals, even small ones, is a nice little rush. I was absolutely thrilled when I met that first “10 times in 4 weeks” goal, and I think I’ll try to capture it again. My ultimate goal is still the same: beef up my endurance and shed a few more pounds.
The important part is to keep that in sight for the long term and not let this small setback throw me off.
