Date: 01/06/2019 Day: 4 of 100 Weight: 254.0 Miles: 2.00 Total Time: 19:22 Avg Pace: 9’40″/mi
I ‘m getting faster. I took the dogs again today and even with them pulling off occasionally and heeding to nature’s call I still ran sub 10s again. My second mile split was 32 seconds faster than mile one.
It doesn’t seem like the progress should be coming this quickly. I’m only four days in. I’m not a runner, but starting day one running at a 10’37” pace then running at a 9’40” pace four days later (almost a minute faster on the pace) feels akin to bench pressing a 185lb Max day one and then hitting 225 day 4. It feels like a ridiculous gain. Maybe it was the pizza I ate last night?
I assume there’s going to be a plateau or regression somewhere. This amount of improvement shouldn’t come this quickly and I’m worried if it will have effects later in training. Should I be more cognizant of my pace? Should I slow it down? It’s day 4 of 100 ffs.
Perhaps I should concentrate on running more miles slower. Input from more experienced runners is welcome.
Date: 01/05/2019 Day: 3 of 100 Weight: 258.6 Miles: 2.00 Total Time: 19:46 Avg Pace: 9’52″/mi
No dogs today. I broke the 10 min mark as I ran just under a 10 min mile pace. My split was good too, I cut 15 seconds off the second mile. I’m starting to wake up a bit sore but I’m pretty happy about that, especially because I’ve been sleeping like a baby – something I never do.
I feel like sub 10s aren’t that fast but hell, how many 250lb+ people can get out there and run 2 miles under 20 mins in three days? Still feeling pretty good. It’s going to turn into a grind soon. I’ve been thinking about how to handle my first rest day – should I slowly jog it or just walk a bunch of miles?
Date: 01/04/2019 Day: 2 of 100 Weight: 260.4 Miles: 2.02 Total Time: 21:46 Avg Pace: 10’44″/mi
A smidge slower today. I took the dogs with me and when they stop to sniff around or inevitably do their business that takes a bit of time as well. I actually feel like I was faster today, especially at the start as my dogs burst with energy whenever we start a walk or run, pulling me along. I assume nature’s call just evens it all out.
Pretty much the same story today, ran 2 – walked 2. I’m okay with fluctuating a bit with weight (I woke up 3 pounds heavier today) and times at the start of this whole thing. I feel like you have to treat these things like investments. Markets fluctuate, but we’re looking at long term growth. Eye on the prize. I’m 2% done, son.
Date: 01/03/2019 Day: 1 of 100 Weight: 257.2 😱 Miles: 2.03 Total Time: 21:35 Avg Pace: 10’37″/mi
They say the first day is the hardest, but I have a feeling that this first day is going to be the easiest. Refreshed and rejuvenated off my Christmas vacation in Switzlerland, these first two miles came pretty easily. I thought about doing another one or two, but remembered this is a marathon, not a sprint – and decided to walk 2 more miles instead of running them for a total of 4 (but I’m only going to count miles I actually run).
Audiobooks are my best friend here. I enjoy reading, and getting lost in a book makes the time not so bad. If anyone reading this has any excellent audiobook suggestions, I’m all ears. As I mentioned in the original post, I just got through reading David Goggins’ Can’t Hurt Me and I could definitely use another page turner.
Anyway, I’m feeling great. Even though I just came off of vacation it was pretty active, as we snowboarded practically every day. 257 pounds seems like so much but I feel fine, it’s even more weird that I can run 2 miles at around 10 min/30 seconds which isn’t the fastest but like dang for day one it doesn’t feel too bad. I’m also purposely blurring the run maps. This is public, and I don’t want anyone to be able to look this up and see where or when I run.
Hubris is the name of the game today. I’m feeling like finding the will to post is going to be harder than getting after it every day. Time will tell.
We spent last Christmas in Thailand. This year, we spent our Christmas snowboarding the Swiss Alps in Zermatt, Switzerland and rang in the new year in Milan, Italy. There was so much to this trip, and I promised a long and inclusive video for everyone, but a documentary-style video comprised of 100’s of hours of footage from 7 people that attended the trip is going to take a long, long time.
So, in the meantime, I pulled some snowboarding footage from my GoPro and threw together a 6 minute recap of what some of the snowboarding was like while I wait for everyone’s footage to roll in and begin the long process of organizing and editing the final “Group Zermatt-Milan 2018/19 film.”
2018 is all but over, there are only 12 days left in the year. By just about any measurement, I’d say it was a decently successful year. I traveled to and through some new states including Texas, New Mexico, Florida, Louisiana, and Colorado. This was my first full year at Automattic. We moved across the country and bought a home. My team and I did our meetup in Playa Del Carmen back in March, and the last 5 days of this year, Kristen and I are heading to Switzerland to snowboard the Swiss Alps. It was a fun, comfortable year.
2019 is about getting uncomfortable. It’s about evolving. I’ve always followed the “sage” advice of tripling down on your strengths – getting better at what you already have an aptitude for. I’ve always been strong, so I lifted weights for years and became stronger. I’ve always been a decent student, so I went back to school and picked up a Master’s degree, graduating back in March.
It’s time to start tripling down on my weaknesses.
Now: I’ve never been a New Years resolution type of guy. In fact, I’ve never actually made one. I’ve always considered resolutions as “things people break.” I’ve always looked at motivation like a going and coming, fleeting feeling. Some days you’re motivated, some days you aren’t. I’m a firm believer in cultivating discipline, routine, habit.
Discipline, routine, habit, callousing the mind – this is the ethos of a man named David Goggins. I had read Jesse Itzler’s Living with a SEAL back in 2016 before it was well known who the person who trained Itzler, acting as the catalyst of the story was. I watched Joe Rogan’s interview with the man in February where he gave a condensed version of his life story. Then, nine days ago when it released, I picked up and read his book/autobiography “Can’t Hurt Me.”
It’s probably impossible to give someone like David Goggins a fair shake when recounting parts of his life, so I encourage you to buy his book or do your own research on him. For those of you who have never heard of him though, this man:
Completed three hell weeks in BUD/S (the hardest evolution of arguably the toughest military training in the world).
Completed the aforementioned training on broken legs.
Completed 52 ultra marathons between the ages of 30 and 42, winning some of them and finishing top 5 in most of them.
Holds the world record for pull-ups completed in 24 hours at 4,025.
Did I mention he did all of this with a hole in his heart? How about a learning disability? One of the few black men in special warfare? The list goes on.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Again, if you have any interest or doubts – do your own research. If none of this impresses you, you’re not being honest with yourself and the world around you.
The book was the icing on the cake in helping me determine what I needed to do next. I know I’m capable of doing more, and I decided to commit to something that I didn’t want to do, every day, for 100 days. As David Goggins would say: I’m going to do something that sucks, every day.
The Plan
The plan is two-fold, but it starts like this:
Every day, for 100 days, I’m going to run at least a mile.
Every day, for 100 days, I’m going to write about and share that progress.
Why
The why is the easiest part of this whole thing: because I hate running. I am a 260 pound man (at least at the start of this). The reasons why are a bit more complicated, but stick with me:
Why Run? Because I hate running, and there’s something to be gained from doing something you don’t want to do every single day.
Why one mile? I loathe running as it is, knowing I have to get up and run at all every single day is going to require immense willpower for me. Setting an unrealistic goal like “5 miles a day” or “300 miles in 100 days” is going to set me up for failure. Perhaps I end up doing a lot more, perhaps I end up getting just 100 miles at the end, the point is I know physically I can do one a day, the rest is willpower.
Why Share? Mainly because I’m not Mr. Social media. I’m a private person by nature, an introvert. It’s going to be uncomfortable sharing my slow miles and paltry distances. I’m doing this for me, but perhaps people will see my big ass do it with the hopes that realizing anyone can.
Why 100 days? After the first quarter of 2019 there’s a lot of work and travel obligations I’m not fully sure how to work around yet. I also want an opportunity to re-evaluate and modify my goals and 100 days feels like a good initial number and goal.
What about rest? Injury? The tentative plan is to lightly jog or even walk the mile every 7th day as active recovery, but I’m still going to complete the mile. I’m going to listen to my body. The plan is to not miss any days, but if I have to, I will make them up the next training session, and be complete within the 100 days no matter what.
Accountability
I’m going to post each and every day of the 100 days on this site.
Date: X/X/XX Day: X of 100 Weight: Miles: Time:
I will also be using my Nike Run App and FitBit Versa to track miles and time.
Goals
I’m interested in seeing how fast I can get, both in short distance running and endurance. Putting a number on this now seems silly, since I have no idea what I’m doing or talking about.
I’d like to culminate all of this in completing some sort of challenge as a new way to test myself, perhaps a marathon or obstacle run. More to come as the challenge evolves.
Ultimately, however, the main benefit here isn’t how fast I get, how far I can go, or about doing or completing any races. It’s not about trophies. The real trophy here is forcing my mind to do something for me that it doesn’t want to do. I surmise I’ll find the most real benefits there.
I’m far from perfect. I’ll never be as strong as a lot of people, as smart as a lot of them, or as fast. What I can do, though, is become the strongest, smartest, and fastest version of myself. 2019 is about taking the first step in that direction.
Are you interested in following this journey? There are some buttons on the right to help make that happen. I don’t run ads, I don’t e-mail, I just post.
This post proudly written in Gutenberg, the new block editor for WordPress. I’m really starting to like it.
I think it’s safe to say that this is what Nintendo has been investing all its time in.
After extreme disappointments in both Super Mario Odyssey and Super Mario Party, expectations were low to say the least coming into Super Smash Brothers Ultimate.
Nintendo, you did us so wrong
I wrote a brief post outlining exactly how the Switch’s Mario Party let us all down, but I didn’t get too much into Odyssey. I guess if I had to break it down in a few bullet points, it would go something like this:
Super Mario Odyssey:
Felt super cartoony – looked like a modern kid’s show.
It felt too easy, both to find the moons and moving around in the worlds in general.
It was brainless walking around, and when you completed a moon the map rearranged leading you directly to the next moon.
Coming from the GOAT Super Mario 64 it just wasn’t comparable. SM64 was perfect, refined, crisp – hours and hours of secrets and replayability. Odyssey felt like watching an interactive kid’s show where you occasionally pressed buttons.
I also wasn’t really a fan of Smash Bros. Melee or Brawl. Much like SM64, the original Smash on 64 was so good, that every iteration that followed felt clunky and goofy. I’m a Kirby player, and I really hate how he played in both successors. I didn’t really like the control of the Wavebird or Wiimote either.
Nothx
So, needless to say – I was a little apprehensive towards dropping another $60 on a Nintendo title.
HOWEVER, it was apparent after about 5 minutes of firing this game up that Nintendo was completely worthy of being absolved for their previous sins.
R E D E M P T I O N
The second the game loaded up I knew we were dealing with a polished, finished game. Not a rushed ass game like Super Mario Party or a kid’s show like Super Mario Odyssey. This felt just like it did when I loaded up Breath of the Wild, I knew it was something special.
You only start out with 8 characters, but after every match, you get a chance to fight a random new character. The coolest part is that the winner of the smash fights the new character. If you beat them, they join the fight – lose, and it’s better luck next time.
There are some odd 70+ characters available to be unlocked, so not being presented with all of that right away and having to work for it is really cool. It feels so old school too, the characters aren’t DLC, they aren’t lootpacks, they just show up randomly and you have to beat them to get them – I love it.
You do, however, get access to all of the stages right away – and there’s a lot. Aside from adding some really neat stages, they brought back all of the best stages from the previous games and threw out the crap ones.
Publishers take note: this is how you remaster a stage or game. You don’t change things around, you don’t add an artistic spin, you don’t change absolutely everything (I’m looking at you FF7 remake). You take a winning formula, you update the graphics, and you profit.
The gameplay is as crisp as it gets, controls feel responsive and purposeful – anytime you make a mistake you’re flagrantly aware it’s your fault. Thinking back to melee and brawl, there were so many times I felt like clunky character control or shit controls caused so many unnecessary deaths. That simply isn’t the case with the switch.
The animations are BEAUTIFUL. The moves match up with the characters so well, and the final smashes are out of this world:
I love how they bring in early Nintendo characters and gaming pop culture as pokemon-esque items to fight alongside you. You might get a character from street fighter uppercutting your opponent, you might get Shadow from Sonic time warping them, or you might just get a full out game of pong where the projectile damages your opponent. It has a very Ready Player One feel to it, and it’s just amazing.
I haven’t even started the story mode yet, worked on any of the challenges or achievements, this review comes one night after playing some regular ole’ smash with my family. You best believe there was a lot of this going on:
All night the victory screen looked like this
I have so much more to say about this game and I’ve scratched about 0.5% of this game’s content. I’ll probably need to write an updated review or append this eventually, but for now – I’m going to get out there and enjoy everything this masterpiece has to offer. 10/10.
I didn’t think this level of disappointment was possible.
I was so excited for this game. I mean, really, really excited. The first week of October I was at my company’s annual get-together (my colleague clickysteve does this more justice than I ever could in his post) when this game released. A few people at the meetup had it, and were asking me to play – but I had other plans….
I had already pre-ordered the game and had snacks, booze, family and friends waiting on an epic game night planned back in Texas with a single purpose in mind: Game on the new Mario Party all night long.
The stage? Me, Kristen, my brother, and his girlfriend. All of us had played previous Mario Party’s, but would come into this night fresh – not knowing the boards, minigames, nothing.
Turns out none of that mattered.
The maps are small. I mean, extremely small.
We went from this in Mario Party 2 on the Nintendo 64:
to this four generations of consoles later:
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
Even worse, all the randomness and skill is taken out of the game. No more Bowser, no more duel spaces, the mini-games are mehhhhhhh, and the worst part is there’s never any guess about who wins – even bad luck spaces or super bad luck spaces suck.
Where’s Bowser space where he randomly chooses to be nice and give you all someone’s stars? WHERE THE HELL ARE BONUS STARS?? Literally i’ve seen bonus stars for:
Ally space (WHO GOT THE MOST ALLIES??! RANDOM)
Spaces Traveled (WHO WENT THE FURTHEST, ALSO RANDOM)
The game places no emphasis on who won minigames or played strategically. Total crapshoot. Golden pipes are completely broken and can be abused.
So, to recap:
Minigame performance doesn’t matter.
Coins don’t matter.
If someone gets a lead, there’s pretty much no way to come back
In fact: Nothing Matters.
It takes about three games to realize it’s just a time suck. There are some other modes – rafting and music mode…. they’re pretty boring too.
Ultimately, it just feels like a rushed and unpolished game.
MC Impressions is a family owned and operated screen printing and embroidery business proudly serving customers in Claremont, California and the surrounding areas.
After developing a site for my good friend and expert hairstylist Rickey Windust, I was referred by Rickey to this small business to re-vamp their Business website.
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