Ringing in the New Year

Hello again.  Now that 2010 is coming to a close, it is time to look ahead to 2011.  I have already reflected back on what I set out to accomplish during this year, and now I need to think about what I want to spend 2011 doing.  I've got a very small, more modest list so far.  Maybe I'll come up with a longer list later on today after I post this entry, so here goes. 

1.  Improve my penmanship.  

This might sound like a bizarre sort of thing to do or work on, but believe me, my handwriting is atrocious.  At my job, sometimes I need to write a few things down for a co-worker or someone else, and when I look at the garbage that I am writing, I sort of laugh about how bad it is.  It is something that I should probably develop, so it is something I am going to try to improve on.

2.  Play Chess.

A long time ago I bought a book about how to play chess, and I never read it (surprise, since I hate to read). But now, I want to play some chess.  It just seems like something I can learn and take up as a hobby, and with a few places to play online, it should not be that hard to find people to play against.  

3.  Watch more movies.

I have not seen any movies.  Well, I have not seen very many movies.  If it is not a comedy, especially an immature goofy comedy, I most likely have not seen it.  I don't have a list in front of me or anything, but feel free to email me or post comments or tweet at me movies that I need to see.  Odds are, I have not seen them.  I will keep a list of movies that I see and post them throughout the year.

That's all I've got.  Not very ambitious, I guess, but after failing so many times last year, I needed to pare it down to a doable amount.  I did not put any sort of weight to reach or anything because I feel that I have basically plateaued at 172.  If I get below 170, so be it.  I am not going to sweat it any more.  One thing new that I did was sign up for The Daily Mile website, which will be kind of cool to keep track of throughout the year as I work from Half Marathon to Half Marathon.  I did already sign up for the Hospital Hill Half Marathon, and we're only about a year away until I run my first full marathon at Disney in January of 2012.  Hope everyone has a great New Year's!  Please sign up for email on the side so that posts can be sent right to your inbox.  Also, follow me on Twitter at @kyleseiwert.  Until next time...later.

2010: Year in Review, Part 2

In case you missed it, the 2010: Year in Review, Part 1 can be found right HERE.  I've been up since 5:30 this morning (Sunday) as I just could not fall back asleep after waking up.  I hate that.  So now that it is 9 AM, I figured I would kill a little more time by starting to finish up my 2010 Resolutions list.  Time to see if I won the year or not.

7.  Hit the driving range twice a week between May and September.

I like golf, but don't play it very often.  I figured if I were to work on it a little more, it would make it a little less terrible every time I went out.  Going out and working on my swing twice a week would keep me somewhat sharp, and maybe I would be able to have some consistency for once.  I did not make it to the driving range once.  Not one time.  I live less than 2 miles from a driving range/golf course, by the way.  Fail.  (3-4)


8.  Put more money into savings.

I'm not going to go into details on this one.  Fail.  (3-5)

9.  Get better about spending smartly.

This could go either way.  We did not do too much traveling this year, save for a trip to St. Louis in June, and with my running, I've stopped buying beer as often as I had in the past, which was very often.  Overall, I'd say I didn't buy things I didn't need, so yeah, we'll go win.  Luckily Twitter is free.  (4-5)

10.  Never be late on paying a bill.

I must have been having a financial crisis last year when I wrote these.  I think I became concerned with buying my car, and I just wasn't exactly sure how to budget for it.  But really, it was never a concern.  This was an easy win.  (5-5)

11.  Attend the dentist for dental cleaning, twice.

This pretty much was only to use the dental insurance perks that I was paying for.  Delta Dental pays for two teeth cleaning sessions per year, and I did not take advantage of that at all in my first year of paying for it.  So this year, I did.  I also had to get a filling, only the second one I've ever had.  Win.  (6-5)


12.  Get a health check up before April.

Another perk of my health insurance (of which there are very few) is a free visit for a check-up.  I did not have a primary care physician when I got here, so I just went to the closest doctor I could find.  And that was in January.  So, another win to close out the list.  (7-5)

There you have it.  I won the year, but barely.  Goes to show that even a small win is nice to see, and that it is difficult to achieve your goals, but pretty fulfilling when you do.  Granted, some of these were very basic, they were things I either had not done or needed to do, which is pretty much the point of resolutions in the first place.  OK, someday before the new year I'll be posting a list of 2011 resolutions, but I can't imagine coming up with 12.  I've only got one so far.  Until next time...later.

2010: Year in Review, Part 1

We're counting down to the end of the year, and while running indoors using the treadmill has been going pretty well, as well as you can imagine running in one place while looking at the wall/TV can go, there really isn't a whole lot to report on.  I start a 12 week training program on 1/17/11 to get ready for the Eisenhower Half Marathon at the beginning of April, so until then, there really isn't a lot of running/fitness type stuff to talk about.  So I thought I would go in a little bit of different direction and talk about New Year's Resolutions.  Everyone makes them.  Everyone fails to achieve them.  No big deal, right?  THERE IS ALWAYS NEXT YEAR!  Well, maybe this year is next year, you know?  For 2010, I had set a few resolutions of my own, and of course, I missed on quite a few of them.  Setting up a goal/resolution list seems like something I would have written about last year, had I had a blog set up, so naturally, covering the list of things I set out to achieve/fail at the beginning of 2010 seemed like a good way to fill a column.  I thought it would be a good idea to get it out there that not every goal is attainable, but there is no reason not to put them out there and go for them. 

Yes, I did in fact come up with a pie-in-the-sky list of 12 resolutions, and posting something like that here at the beginning of 2010 would have been a good way to keep myself accountable towards my goals.  Let's go through them, with the gory details about what worked and what didn't.  I did actually write these down and take them up in my closet, that way I was able to see them on a daily basis.

1.  Weight 175 lbs at some point during the year.

This was accomplished on 9/9/10.  The starting point for this was 206 pounds, and I started dropping the weight by joining a "Biggest Loser" type contest at work (Not St. Francis Hospital, remember?)  It lasted for 18 weeks, and I think I only gained weight on two of the weekly weigh-ins.  It helped that a bad weigh-in cost a dollar, because I hate carrying cash on me, so having to find a single dollar was always a pain in the ass for me.  Anyways, I'm currently weighing in at around 172, and have not crept back above 175.  So, we can call this one a win. (1-0)

2.  Take a multi-vitamin every day.

Ha.  This one sort of makes me laugh.  Not really sure what I was going to accomplish with this one, but I chose a multi-vitamin that twice (2X) made me actually throw up!  A freaking vitamin!  This lasted less than a week before it got crossed off.  So, fail. (1-1)

3.  Never take more than 5 days off between workouts.

Starting running helped this one, because I always felt like I was working towards something big, and I didn't want to quit.  Following Hal's training guides kept me on the task at hand.  There was one 7 day stretch where I went without hitting the gym, but I was working in KC for the week, and then took a trip to Iowa immediately after that.  Didn't really have access to a gym, per se, so I don't really count this week.  I call this a win. (2-1)

4.  Read one book a month.

ONE.  ONE BOOK.  I hate reading, which you'd probably never figure from the way I carry on and on and on over here.  So my goal was a very minimal ONE book a month.  Did not happen.  Not even sure I ever picked up a book to read in January.  Fail.  (2-2)

5.  Buy more new music.

I've been hesitant in the past to buy an album from a group based on one or two songs.  I threw that into the wind this year, buying albums from artists without hearing a single song from it, or from hearing a song only once or twice.  Some worked out, some didn't.  Not a huge fan of the Phoenix album, but loved the new Roots disc.  I call this a win.  (3-2)

6.  Weigh myself on Wii every single Sunday.

I've got the Wii Fit board, and I like that it tracks your weight and workout times, and stuff like that.  Honestly, I use it almost exclusively for the Yoga poses, which is quite the workout.  But, sometime around February, I stopped using it.  I think I used how my clothes fit, and where my belt loops were, to determine if my weight was dropping.  And it was.  So, this is a fail. (3-3)

There is no way I am going to bore you with the next 6 on the list...until next week!  Enjoy the weekend, and you'll just have to sit on the edge of your seat to see if I ended up pulling out a winning record for the year or not.  Also, if you made it this far, feel free to share this list to show people that setting goals is not easy, and that it is OK to fall off of the horse as long as you plan to get back up.  Retweet, email, whatever.  Also, remember to sign up over at the right hand side (if you are reading on The Blog Website, not on unwind.topeka.net) to have new posts emailed to you directly when they are posted.  OK, enough self-promotion.  Until next time...later.

Learning the hard way

Truth be told, I was sort of running an experiment on myself last week.  I work in a lab at a hospital here in Topeka (due to new Social Media regulations, I can no longer say which hospital, but it is VERY CLOSE to St. Francis) that is equipped with a blood bank.  Once I started running back in March, I was right smack in the middle of a mandatory one year period where I could not give blood due to an accidental needle stick that I received at work.  I've never been so mad at myself.  A totally avoidable accident, for sure.  Either way, what it meant was I was unable to give blood for a year, due to the rules of blood donation.  This was a big deal to me because I had given blood on and off in my life, but never really saw the importance of it until I worked in the lab.  To make it doubly important, I am Type O Negative, which means that they use my red cells for traumas and other events.  The "universal donor", if you will, in that every patient can receive it without any hemolytic reaction.  On the off chance I received Hepatitis C or HIV, they allow for a year to see if any of the virus becomes prevalent in the potential donor.  I'll spare you even more of this part of the story, but I received a clean bill of the health from the hospital employee nurse in September, and I was ready to start donating blood again.

Now, at this point, I was about 3 weeks away from running the KC Half Marathon.  I had no idea what would happen if I donated blood before the run, so I avoided doing it.  One unit of blood donated would take away about 7% of your oxygen transportation, and I figured that might be kind of important when it comes to running 13.1 miles.  The week after the race I went in to donate, but the hospital had been having difficulty keeping platelets in stock, so I ended up donating a double unit of platelets instead.  Another platelet donation a couple of weeks later, when I was actually back doing more running, did not seem to affect my workout ability.  The real test came last week when I decided to go ahead and donate some red cells.  I had a little extra time when I went in, so I actually signed up to donate a double unit of red cells through apheresis.  This would knock my hemoglobin down two grams, or 14% of my oxygen carrying capacity.  No big deal, I thought, I would just give myself an extra day to recover.

Like I said, I sort of had an idea of what I was getting myself into, but I had to know what kind of toll it would take on me since I plan on giving blood as often as I can.  I just know now that I shouldn't do it within a month or two of a race.  As for the running, it was tough as hell.  I set myself up to run 3 miles on the treadmill, and by the end of the second mile I was as winded as I've been since probably back in April.  It was exhausting.  I could feel my legs cramping and getting tight, even though I had stretched out like normal.  By the time that run was over, I was spent.  The next day I set my goals for a 4 mile run, just to see if it would be as tough as the first run.  It was better, but not by much.  I don't want to say I underestimated how tough it would be, but it certainly isn't something I would recommend to someone who isn't already into running.  I mean, that might be enough for people to stop running.  But, live and learn, I thought it would be a good experience and something to write about.  Since I don't start training for Abilene for another month or so, I should be back to full strength when that program begins.  I'll be donating again in April once that race is completed.  I'm hoping I can find a way to make it work so that I can continue to donate while running and training for future races.  Do you donate blood?  How does it work for you?  Feel free to comment, and, until next time...later.

Tough luck

Shout out to the USA World Cup committee for giving it their best shot in an effort to land the 2022 World Cup in America.  Apparently having the World's biggest competition in a place the size of Connecticut, that will be hotter than the sun, and most likely have an impossible time getting people into and out of the country (Qatar) was a better idea than growing the game in the most successful country on Earth.  Oh well.  England continues to get the shaft every time they bid for it, and the game means much more to that entire country that it does here.  But really, this announcement is like the NCAA deciding to have the Men's Basketball tournament in Oslo, Norway because they want to develop college basketball in a region where it is not already established.  Yeah, I guess in a really lame way that makes sense, but it is what it is.  I would imagine that if the USA does not get the bid in 2026, it will never get it again.  I suppose time will tell.

I capped off today's news by hitting up the gym for a 4 mile run, followed by a visit to my chiropractor.  After laying in bed for three days last week, I needed to be adjusted in a big way.  I am back to full strength now after my stomach illness, so it has been nice to be able to knock out some good runs.  Hopefully that does it for the rest of the winter in terms of being stuck in bed.  I'm hoping to get back to running around 16-20 miles a week until I start prepping for this Half Marathon in Abilene, the Eisenhower Marathon.  Should be a good race to use to ease back into some longer distance running.  A completely different run than KC, with Abilene being very flat, of course, but challenging enough to keep me interested on the way to Disney.  By the time I start training, I'm looking to be averaging around 8:40/mile and take it from there.  On the treadmill it is a little bit difficult to gauge what my time is because the Nike sensor isn't exactly perfect, but I think I'll have the general idea.  Anyways, have a good day, thanks for reading, and until next time...later.