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It’s hard to believe that we are already over halfway through 2010. The good news is that means that I am now past the halfway point for my Project 365! 184 days down, 181 days to go.
If anyone is interested in following along, here is the link to my Project 365 photoblog – http://timchurch-project365.tumblr.com/
Some recent photos:
Category: Goals
As one of my goals for the year, I have decided to attempt the massive undertaking that is known as “Project 365″. If you are not familiar with this concept, Project 365 is a photography project where you take one photo everyday for one year. The idea is to get lots and lots of practice which will hopefully improve my photography skills. I also hope to learn some new techniques and figure out how to use the manual settings on my camera.
This is something that I have talked about doing since around 2007. After finally buying a DSLR camera and following my friend Eric Wilfong’s Project 365 last year, I am finally ready to give it a shot myself.
I have created a new photoblog specifically for this project – http://timchurch-project365.tumblr.com. The photos will also be posted to a set on Flickr.
Category: Goals
Sticking with my annual tradition, here are my goals for the year:
Category: Goals
Final Count: 7.5/15
2009 was a crazy year for me with an international move, tons of travel (15 countries), unemployment, and an engagement. But even with all of that going on, I was able to accomplish alot. Here is the summary:
Category: Goals
Marathon Training & Injury
One of my goals for the year was to finish a big race like a marathon or half Ironman triathlon. I figured that running would be easiest with all of my traveling this year, so I decided to train for a marathon. After running for a couple months to get a decent base, my sister-in-law Nina, who is a running coach, made a great training plan for me. Then I fully committed and registered for the Amsterdam Marathon in October (which was about 6 months away).
My training went well for the first 5 months, and I made a lot of progress. I was to the point where an hour long run felt like an easy day. Before this, the longest I had ever run was 13.1 miles in the San Francisco half marathon in 2007. But I got to the point in my training where I was basically running a half marathon or more every week! For me that was quite an accomplishment unto itself.
Unfortunately, though, this story doesn’t have a happy ending. In the middle of September, about one month before the race, I went out for a long run in Zürich. It was to be my longest run yet at 3 hours (about 3/4 of a marathon). The run started out fine but just as I got to the farthest point away from home (it was an out-and-back run), the arch of my right foot started hurting. I could tell that something was wrong, but I had no way to get back home other than to run/walk it. So I hobbled along all the way back, most likely exacerbating the injury along the way, until I got to an area I knew and could get on the bus home. And that was the end my running career, for now anyways.
My own diagnosis is a stress fracture, but I haven’t actually gone to a doctor to confirm this. For now I have stopped running and am trying to keep off of it as much as possible so that it can heal. I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but I know that it had nothing to do with the training plan. I had been adding distance very gradually and had had no problems up until that day. I suspect that it was most likely due to not replacing my running shoes quickly enough, but my orthotics and/or bad running form might also be to blame (or maybe something else completely, who knows?).
On the bright side, we already had the trip to Amsterdam booked so now I could just go and enjoy myself. Plus, Emily had signed up for the Amsterdam half marathon, so now I could be her cheerleader/photographer.
Amsterdam
Emily and I went to Amsterdam two weeks ago, from October 16th to 19th. It was my first time ever in Amsterdam or in the Netherlands; Emily had already been there once before earlier this year with our friend Ben Shapiro. The city is definitely very unique with canals literally everywhere. I was surprised by how the canals were so integrated into the city and by just how many there were. The other thing that is impossible not to notice in Amsterdam is all the bikes. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a city where biking was embraced so heavily. While there were marked bike lanes almost everywhere, I was still a bit surprised that there wasn’t a better biking infrastructure. I’m not really sure what I expected, but I just found it strange that the bike lanes were often blocked by tourists and weren’t more isolated from the cars and pedestrians.
Over the weekend, we were lucky enough to stay at a friend’s apartment rather than a hotel. We stayed with Luke Miller, who is one of Emily’s friends from work whom I had met earlier in the year in Paris, and his sister Tegan. They were very generous to let us stay with them, so thanks again Luke and Tegan! Oh, and they have the craziest shower I’ve ever seen in my life, complete with lights, radio, steam, and more.
Sunday was the day of Emily’s race. The marathon started in the morning, but the half marathon didn’t start until 2 pm. The race started and finished at the Olympic Stadium, which was walking distance from Luke’s apartment. I watched Emily start then walked around the city and got some lunch while she was running. Most of the public transport was closed down because of the marathon so it was a bit difficult to get around, and I actually didn’t get back to the stadium in time to see Emily finish. I thought I had made it in time, but she ran faster than she had expected! Her final time was an impressive 2:01:54. Way to go, Emo!
Our flight didn’t leave until late Monday evening, so Emily and I had all day to hang out and explore the city. We spent most of the afternoon at the Van Gogh Museum, which we both enjoyed a lot. Other than that we just walked around and then headed to the airport for our flight that evening.
So even though I didn’t get to run the marathon, it was still a good weekend. Emily had a great race and we had a good time. Thanks again Luke and Tegan!
Category: Goals, Health & Fitness, Travel
This is a very long overdue follow-up on my personal goals for last year. So how did I do? I accomplished 9.5 out of 15 goals. Not bad.
Category: Goals
Travel:
Programming/webdev Goals:
Other:
Category: Goals
At the beginning of the year, I set some ambitious goals for myself for 2008. Now that we are officially halfway through the year, I thought I would check in to see how I’m doing. I think I’m doing pretty well…7 out of 15 down. So far, so good.
Category: Goals
This past Sunday, May 4, I finished my first ever Olympic distance triathlon. Well, not just finish but did better than I ever expected. I was very happy with my time and proud of the accomplishment. I was surprised to learn yesterday, that I am now the first in the Church family to complete an Olympic tri. My brother has done just about every other athletic event imaginable, but apparently as far as triathlons he has only done sprints.
I did the Wildflower Triathlon, which is known as the “Woodstock of triathlons” because everyone camps out all weekend at the event. It is located on Lake San Antonio about 4 hours south of San Fran. We drove down Friday after work and camped out both Friday and Saturday nights. During the day on Saturday, we watched/cheered on the triathletes doing the Long Course and walked around the festival expo area. It was nice to be able to get a feel for the course before doing it myself, but Saturday was a very long day for me. It was hard to sit around waiting when I just wanted to get my race over with.
On Sunday morning I was ready to go. I wasn’t very nervous; I felt well prepared and well rested. Luckily, I was in one of the first heats, so I started at 9:15 am. The swim was 1.5 km (~.9 miles) in Lake San Antonio. It was frustrating because there were so many people swimming on top of each other that I had to keep my head out of the water for the first 1/4 mile of the swim, which is more tiring than just being able to swim normally. But after we got around the first buoy, people started to separate out. As I finished the swim, I felt like I was around the middle of the pack for my heat. The 40km (~25 mile) bike route starts out with a long climb up Lynch Hill. I felt good coming out of the transition and started passing people on the way up the first hill, but after about halfway up, I realized how long the climb actually was and I had to slow down a bit to make sure I didn’t use up all of my energy too soon. The rest of the ride was an out-and-back that went over another 3 big hills. Going down the back of one of the hills, I got up to 40 mph — a new record for me. The ride felt pretty good and I definitely passed more people than passed me. The last leg was the 10km (6.2 mile) run. I hadn’t realized how brutal the run was going to be. The first 8 km are almost all uphill, and then the last 2 km are a steep downhill into the finish line. My legs started cramping up on the run and I had to stop and walk to stretch them out for awhile around the 7km mark. But I was able to keep going and finally make it to the top of that never-ending hill. As I came down the finish chute, another guy was trying to pass me and the two of us ended up in an all out sprint across the finish line. I think he beat me out in the end, but I was just happy to be done with the run and to have finished the race!
My goal for the triathlon was 3 hours: 35 minutes swim, 1 hour 30 minutes bike, 55 minutes run (I completely forgot to take transition time into account when making this goal). I ended up beating my goals for every single event, and still beating my overall goal by 9 minutes even with the transition times added in. My overall time was 2 hours 51 minutes and 8 seconds.
| Swim (1.5 km) | Transition | Bike (40 km) | Transition | Run (10 km) | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:27:11 | 00:04:01 | 01:22:46 | 00:03:07 | 00:54:00 | 02:51:08 |
I placed 85th out of 247 finishers in my age group (Men 25-29) — top 35%, and I placed 519th overall out of ~2400 — top 22%.
Results can be found online in two places – Tri-California Events and BazuMedia (bib # 5398).
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Between my Stickk.com weight loss commitment and the great tri training plan that Nina made for me (Thanks Nina!), I have managed to lose about 14 pounds in the last 10 weeks. I’m sure that not carrying around those extra lbs certainly helped my time in the tri!
Category: Goals, Health & Fitness
So I came across an interesting new startup on Techcrunch the other day – stickk.com. The idea is to make a “contract” with yourself to help you reach your goals. Basically, you are putting up real money which you will lose if you fail to meet your goal. This obviously gives a big financial incentive to follow through and hopefully accomplish your goals. You can designate the money to go to a charity, an anti-charity (for example, if you hate guns than you don’t want the money to end up going to the NRA), or to a friend. Having the money go to a friend is like making a bet and having an objective 3rd party hold the money for you until you see how it turns out.
I think it is a great idea and have decided to try it out. So last night, I made a contract with myself to lose some weight. One of my goals for the year was to weigh 215 lbs and maintain that weight through the year. So I am using Stickk.com to help motivate me to get started. Wish me luck!
Category: Goals, Health & Fitness
