Well, as you can tell my plan to write 5 posts a week in August was basically a miserable failure. I wrote 5 posts the first week, but after that I think my grand total was about 9, with a few more sitting in the draft stage. Oh well, nothing I can do about it now, look for a few more to come out next month as I finished up those drafts.
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
“The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
That’s one phrase I remember from college. I’m not sure where the phrase originates from, but I’m pretty sure I heard it from the head of the CIS program at GVSU, and professor for one of my final undergrad classes. At the time I thought it was a little strange to be coming from a technology professional, because we were inundated everyday with how once we get out in the “real world” if we didn’t keep updating our skills and staying on the cutting edge we would get left behind. As I go through the beginning of my career however, I am beginning to see the wisdom of that phrase.
Lately I have been reading a book called Blogging Heroes. A spur of the moment grab from the library, it interviews 30 of the top bloggers at the time about their experience and advice for blogging. The book is a little dated, published in 2007, but most of the bloggers they interviewed were still relevant, so I thought it would be a decent read. While it was interesting, what I found most intriguing was their perspectives on blogs. Most started their blogs in the early adapter stage of blogging, and talk about how they didn’t know where blogs were going. What was so interesting to me is that if I changed the word blog into social media, Facebook, or Twitter it looks remarkably similar to many articles I read today. Will ____ survive the test of time? Does ____ really add business value? Are ____ too personal and biased to be considered journalism? Across a period of four years and a ton of technological advances, the same questions are being asked now. Today, blogs are mostly taken for granted as a good idea that will be around for a long time, now it is social media that is being questioned.
As I look at other aspects of technology, the phrase rings true as well. Printers today are wireless, vibrantly colored, direct-from-camera enabled, and yet, I spend as much time un-jamming and power cycling them as ever. Today I program mostly in coldfusion, jquery, php, and asp.net, but the concepts I first learned in basic HTML and Java still hold true and influence how I code. Despite how connected and networked our everyday lives have become, the go to utility to test a connection (ping) has been around since at least the early 80’s, probably before I was even born.
It seems, especially concerning technology, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
For August, I am working on getting back into blogging on a regular basis. I enjoy it, it helps me polish my writing, and it is the one new year’s resolution that I really haven’t been making any progress on. So this month, I will be writing five posts a week, either here or at teageek.org (my tea blog that has been seriously neglected as of late) It’s been a while since I have really written anything, and five posts is a lot of content to come up with in a week, but it should be fun, stay tuned!
I’m finally writing a follow up to last months challenge, not TV for a month. It was an interesting challenge because it was both a lot easier and a lot harder than I thought it would be. it was a lot easier than I thought to not watch TV when I was by myself. Reading a book, going for a run, or working on a website were all there to fill the gap, and it really wasn’t that hard. What was a little difficult, which I didn’t expect, was how much I watch TV with other people. My girlfriend and I watch TV together almost every night, and the few times (twice) that I “slipper up” was with other people. All in all, it was an interesting challenge I would recommend, you get a lot more free time, and it’s nice to switch things up, especially if its a beautiful Michigan summer!
I also am taking July off from challenges, everybody needs a summer break of some kind right? Look for a new post in August!