2008 Goals Progress Report

No Comments »

June 30th, 2008

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.

Goals for 2008

1. Travel to a new country
   Done. Argentina, Uruguay, and Peru
2. Run 1/2 Marathon
   Done. San Francisco Half Marathon.
3. Finish Olympic Triathlon
   Done. Wildflower Triathlon.
4. Weigh 215 lbs or less and maintain that weight through the end of the year
   Halfway there. Finally got my weight down below 215…now to keep it off.
5. Max out my 401k ($15,500)
   Done. Had to max out early before switching jobs. Unfortunately, startups don’t offer 401k’s.
6. Max out my ROTH-IRA ($5,000)
   Done.
7. Make 10k in outside income (outside of my main job)
   $0 so far…
8. Learn Spanish (conversational level)
   Got some practice in Argentina and Peru but still need more work.
9. Post to blog regularly (1+ post per week)
   I know the blog posts have been a bit sporadic, but this post makes 21 for the year, which is about 0.78/week.
10. Read at least 2 books per month
    On track for this one. 14 books read this year. Full list on Librarything.
11. Take one photo everyday (project365)
    Not started.
12. Build and launch a website
    Well, technically this is done. I designed and launched nrgrunning.com for Nina (more on this later). Although the original intent of this goal was to build a “web application”, so that is still pending.
13. Start a company
    This one is on hold since I decided to join a startup.
14. Leave on an extended trip
    Also put on hold by the startup.
15. Learn Yoga
    Not started.

Wildflower Triathlon

No Comments »

May 6th, 2008

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.

Results

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).

More pictures on Flickr

Side Note

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!

Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is – Stickk.com

No Comments »

February 19th, 2008

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!

New Year’s Resolutions “Goals for 2008″

3 Comments »

January 2nd, 2008

Update: Follow-up on 2008 Goals

I don’t really like the term “New Year’s Resolution” because to me it implies an unrealistic goal that will be forgotten before the end of January. I prefer to think of my goals for the year, which is essentially the same thing, however I’d like to take them more seriously than the traditional “new year’s resolutions”. In other words, I actually intend to follow through on all of these goals. I will be writing updates as I make progress on this list throughout the year.

Goals for 2008

1. Travel to a new country
2. Run 1/2 Marathon
3. Finish Olympic Triathlon
4. Weigh 215 lbs or less and maintain that weight through the end of the year
5. Max out my 401k ($15,500)
6. Max out my ROTH-IRA ($5,000)
7. Make 10k in outside income (outside of my main job)
8. Learn Spanish (conversational level)
9. Post to blog regularly (1+ post per week)
10. Read at least 2 books per month
11. Take one photo everyday (project365)
12. Build and launch a website
13. Start a company
14. Leave on an extended trip
15. Learn Yoga

2007 Goals Update

No Comments »

December 29th, 2007

I just came across a list I created earlier this year that had my goals for 2007. I am not exactly sure if they were New Year’s resolutions or just goals I made for myself sometime during the spring. Anyway, I thought I would publish them here and show the progress I have made on each:

By Next Year, I Will…

No Comments »

October 29th, 2007

I have been living in San Fran and working at the same job for a year and a half now. The excitement and novelty of both have started to wear off, and I am ready for something new. I do really like the Bay area, and my job has been great for getting me back into computer programming. However, I feel that my learning curve seems to have plateaued.

I need to get back on track to accomplish my life goals. Therefore, I have decided that by July 4, 2008 I want to be doing one of these:

I know these seem like 3 radically different paths to choose from, but they are each major milestones that I would like to accomplish in my life. And they are each going to keep getting harder and harder to achieve the longer I wait. I think it might be possible to pursue more than one of these at once. For example, living abroad for a year while applying to grad school, and working on my side projects while abroad and/or in grad school in hopes of eventually turning one of them into a full company. Of course, this will not be easy. All three of these paths are relatively difficult, which explains why each are relatively rare.

It will take a lot of hard work and discipline to make this a reality. The first step is deciding what I want and setting the goal. Now comes the fun part of actually following through and taking control of my future.

Self-Motivation (using Rewards)

No Comments »

October 19th, 2007

I’ve decided to try a new method to motivate myself – rewards! Rather than punish myself for not doing what I know I should be, I am going to reward myself with something that I really want. So far, I’ve identified 4 major projects and associated the reward I will give myself for each when it is accomplished. Wish me luck!