My 2011 Resolution Review

December, a time of family, celebration, and oh yeah, realizing it’s time to own up for how you did with your New Year’s Resolutions. While I had a few rough spots, all in all, 2011 was a good year for me.

Complete a Triathlon (Olympic Distance)

This is probably the one I am the happiest about. I remember setting this as a goal last year and it seemed so far from realistic that I really didn’t think I could pull it off, but I did!  I completed the Olympic distance Grand Rapids Triathlon in June. It was a ton of fun, a lot of work, and if you are interested in one at all you should definitely do it!  If you want the details you can see them here.

No Ice Cream

This one was actually a little easier than I thought.  Sure, the occasional bowl of moose tracks was really tempting, but it was a lot easier than giving up pop was last year.  Surprisingly, it has helped me to change how I am going to set goals for myself in the future, who would have thought little old ice cream could be so philosophical.

Develop one new website/service

Another one I was able to complete, I actually set up quite a few sites this past year.  I think my favorite though was this site for my friend’s comics – jakerohdy.com.

Become proficient at shooting a handgun

While I don’t think that I will be winning any USPSA contests any time soon, I have become a pretty good shot. I ended up buying a Browning Buckmark .22 and have had a blast shooting it.  I’ve also shot a few other .22’s, a couple of 9mm’s, a Glock .40 cal. and a .38 special revolver.  Given that I had never shot a pistol before this past year i would call this another win.

Blog once a week

Ah yes, blogging, the one I set every year and then fail to deliver.  Based on the total blog posts I have written (52) between brentswisher.com, teageek.org, and thewebcounts.com, I actually made it this year to the equivalent of one post a week, but I can’t really count this one as a success. I had wanted post weekly to teageek.org and haven’t written there since August.  So I guess this is a sort of win, but since technically the goal was once a week, I’m going to have to classify this one as a failure.

Monthly Challenges

This was the first year I tried to complete a different challenge each month, and it was a fun and interesting test run. Here is how they broke down:

January: Lose 15 Pounds
February: Work Out 5 days a week
March: Read 10 books in a month
April: Clean/De clutter Entire Apartment
May: None
June: No TV
July: None
August: Write 5 blog posts a week
September: Find a new workout
October: Vegetarian
November: Decrapify for Christmas
December: None
As you can see I missed a few months entirely, and while I didn’t totally complete some of the challenges, I usually did make progress.  It was a fun learning experience and helped me to keep things interesting.  I’m going to do something similar next year, but want to take some time to think about how it went and what I can do to make it better.

Well that’s it!

The Official Count:

4/5 Resolutions Successful
4/9 Monthly challenges completely.

Onward to 2012!

Introducing – Jake Rohdy Comics

As part of my new year’s resolutions, I wanted to create at least one new website. Last night I launched Jake Rohdy’s Comics.  While technically I have created a few sites this year, this is definitely the biggest, and I have enjoyed working on it. It’s nice working with a “creative type” (he hates being called an “artist”, even though that is totally what he is…) because then they can come up with all of the images instead of me struggling with them. I also was able to learn a lot about WordPress, and I will probably share some of what I found that worked / didn’t work in a later post.

Anyways, I just wanted to announce the site, you should check it out….http://www.jakerohdy.com

My First Triathlon

Back in June I finished my first triathlon. It was the Olympic distance (1500M swim, 40K bike ride, 10K run) of the first Grand Rapids Triathlon, and I had a blast.  I ended up finishing with a better time than I thought I would: 3hrs 11min. It was really an interesting experience, and something that I think just about everybody could enjoy. I wanted to share some of the things I learned along the way.

1. Make a training plan:  This seems like a no brainier, but I found it really helpful to have every day planned out.  That way there was no, I’ll do it tomorrow, I don’t need to today. I started with one from beginnertriathlete.com and went from there.

2. Make it public: Tell people what you are doing. A triathlon is something that most people are curious about, and it really helps keep you motivated knowing that everyone you know is expecting you to finish it.

3. Have fun:  I’m not going to sugar coat it, the amount of time you need for training sucks, especially at the end.  Do whatever you can to mix it up.  Bike really early one day and watch a sunrise.  Run really late at night after the rest of the world has gone to sleep. Go swimming on a lunch break.  Anything you can do to break up the monotony.

4. Don’t be hard on yourself: If you miss a day, or a week, or even most of a month of training, don’t just give up.  Accept that you can’t go back in time and change it and just do your best to get back on track, starting today.

5. Get good shoes: I tried putting off getting new shoes even though my old ones were really worn out and it made me miss two weeks of training because I hurt my knee. As soon as I got the new shoes it stopped.

6. You don’t need a new bike: They are expensive and anything with tires will work.  What you should do at a minimum though is get non-mountain bike tires.  You could do it on them, but it would suck

7. Body Glide: Use it, enough said.

8. Enjoy the moment. During the race, don’t stress about finishing last, or not making it. A triathlon ins a really fun experience, one that the vast majority of the world will never experience. The buzz in the air, the wind in your hair, enjoy it. You’ve worked hard, now reap the reward.

Well, that’s just a few of the things I think would be helpful.  The one other thing I can say, if you are thinking about doing on, is just do it. It’s not that scary. You won’t die. You won’t drown. I talked to a lot of people who were in far better overall shape than I am who said they wanted to, but they were worried about one part or another. Finishing a triathlon (especially a sprint distance) is not some magical thing only super-athletes can do, it just takes a little dedication. If you want to do it, just go for it.

-brent

My 2011 Resolutions

Happy New Year!

As I mentioned in my last post, I really like setting resolutions at the beginning of the year.  I’m a pretty goal oriented person, and even if I fail at the original resolution, it usually leads to something that I am glad I did.  This year I am going to try something a little different.  I have a few year long goals, but I am also going to focus on a smaller goal each month, something I couldn’t or wouldn’t want to do for a whole year.  Well, enough talk,, here are my New Year’s resolutions for 2011.

Complete a Triathlon (Olympic Distance)

This should be quite challenging for me, the closest Michigan triathlon is the Grand Rapids triathlon on June 5th, which gives me just under 5 months to train.  I think it’s possible, but will take a lot of work.  An Olympic triathlon is a 1.5K (.93 mi) swim, a 40K (25.1 mi) bike, and a 10K (6.2 mi) run.  The biking won’t be a problem. and the run shouldn’t be too brutal, but the swim will be tough.

No Ice Cream

Last year I didn’t drink pop for the entire year, so I thought this year I would try something similar.  Ice cream is one of the things I am routinely bad about eating, so I thought it would be a good choice.

Develop one new website/web service

Pretty simple, I want to design/develop at least one new web site or service.  Could either be someone else’s, or something of my own.  I’ve got a few ideas, but haven’t decided on one, so if you’ve got something you need some help working on, let me know!

Become Proficient at Shooting a Handgun

Just to be clear, I’m not planning a murderous rampage or anything.  I have enjoyed shooting rifles since I was younger and have always wanted to learn to shoot handguns.  For my birthday I got a free private shooting lesson at a local gun range, and plan on shooting at least once every other week until I’m a relatively decent shot.  I’ll be looking at buying a gun in February, so anybody with suggestions, feel free to let me know!

Blog at least once a week

Pretty basic, last year I started http://teageek.org and will continue posting there, with some changes.

Monthly Challenges

Like I said earlier, instead of just yearly resolutions, I am focusing on something different each month.  It’s pretty simple really, each month I’ll choose one thing to challenge myself, and at the end of the month I will measure how it went. A few ideas I have are not eating out, no television, etc.  Each month I’ll post what I’m up to so you can follow along if you want.

Well that pretty much wraps it up, if you have any good ideas for a monthly challenge be sure to let me know.  Hope everybody has a great year!