Category Archives: Personal

2008 Fitness Goals

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In the spirit of Running Naked, it’s time to declare my 2008 Fitness goals, and to lay out my winter training plan. Here goes.

Looking Back

Looking back on my former 2007 fitness goals, my performance was mixed. I did not succeed in running the New York Marathon. But I did successfully complete the following:

  1. Finished the Jack Brown charity bike ride.
  2. Got my body fat below 10% (9% at lowest).
  3. Without a doubt, I am now in the best shape I’ve ever been in (and yes Myfanwy, it is nice to know I can kick my 20-year-old ass J ).
  4. While doing this, we raised over $15,000 for Team Continuum (against a BHAG of $10,000) (thanks again everyone!).

So all in, I’d give myself a C+ or B- on the goals (big hit for missing the marathon), which I’m really really happy with!

Looking Forward

For 2008 I’m shooting for three large goals.

  • I have agreed to race the Philadelphia Triathlon with some friends on June 22th. I’ve never done a Triathlon before, so this will be a biggie. Let me know if you’re interested in joining me.
  • I am going to run a marathon. I’ll either do the New York (November) or the Dublin (October 27th) marathon, and I’ll decide which closer to the time. I have a guaranteed spot in both. If you’re interested in running either of those, let me know, and it’ll influence my selection (although if my aunt runs Dublin, I’m in too).
  • I’m going to try to increase my weight to around 175-180 lbs by end of 2008, but keep my waist around 32-inches (i.e. muscle, not fat).

Lessons Learned (Hopefully)

Those are pretty aggressive goals for next year, and if I ask myself what the major risks are they are:

  1. I need to more slowly ramp up than last year and not train through injuries.
  2. I need to learn how to swim.
  3. I need to add a lot of muscle to my frame.

Winter Fitness Goals

With those risks in mind, I have the following goals for the winter (while I freeze in New York):

  • Weight: Go from 158 lbs to 168 lbs +/- 2 lbs by 3/31
  • Abdomen/Body Fat: Maintain abdomen at 32 +/- 2 inches through 3/31, and ensure abdomen is at 32 +/- 0.5 inches on week of 3/31
  • Swim: Be able to swim 1,000 yards without stopping by 3/31
  • Strength: Increase my 1-Rep Resting Maximum (1RM) by 5% over my November test by 3/31.

Basically the prescription is lots of swimming, weight lifting and eating. I’ll do some spinning/biking to maintain cardio fitness, and gradually start returning to running as well to test out the foot. I decided on March 31st over March 1st as the end date to give my body more time, and I think the goals, while aggressive, are achievable on that schedule.

As usual, I’ll track progress against these for all to see in my Nude Numbers posts.

Thanks for reading,

– Art

 

    

A Return to Normal

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Hi folks,

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks for me and my blogging fell behind. Let’s see:

  1. Got the first functionally-complete pre-pre-pre alpha of Vlideshow’s first product working (and no, I’m not showing it yet) and proved that the technology I need exists and works! Remains to be seen if the market exists, but one thing at a time, yes?
  2. I won the Six Pack Charity Challenge; Thanks to all who voted for me and congratulations to all entrants. All said we ended up raising $3,800 for Team Continuum with this stunt.
  3. Got really sick with my usual fall flu. That sucked. And after the flu, I managed to injure my calves pretty badly as I returned to lifting with them. Stupid me…
  4. I officially switched from Marathon training to my new fitness goals.
  5. Interviewed and got volunteer gigs at two great New York City organizations.

But that’s just lame excuses. So, today I’m returning to my prior posting schedule.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned.,

– Art

Retooling…

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Hi folks,

In case you’re wondering I’m behind in my updates because of Thanksgiving and because I’m still trying to do some winter retooling on my goals. Expect updates to resume next week.

In the mean time, if you haven’t voted in the Six-Pack Challenge I’ve put together a web-site (so you don’t need to be on Facebook) to make it really easy. Just go to this site to vote:

http://www.abclarke.com/6pack.html

Remember, please vote just once, and if I win we help raise another $1,400 for Team Continuum!

– Art

The Six Pack Charity Challenge

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Put Up or Shut Up

So, the week of November 5th has come and gone, and it’s time to pony up for the Six Pack Charity Challenge.

To refresh your memory, a bunch of folks I know have bet $200 each of our own money. To win the bet, we need to be voted as having the “best abs” as photographed last week. Whoever is declared the winner (and voting goes to December 1st) gets to donate his bet, along with EVERYONE ELSE’S bet to the charity of his choice (and strangely it’s only guys who are egomaniacal enough to try this…).

I’m playing for Team Continuum. My basic training plan was (a) train for marathon and (b) try not to gain weight. How did I do? Well, you can review the data in the “Nude Numbers” posts, but again a picture is worth a thousand words.

How to Vote…

I need your help. I think I have a chance to win – although there is stiff competition. Click on my photo below and it will take you to all the contestant photos. Once there, view the photos, select your winner, and then click on the vote link.

My face is obscured by the camera (hard to do a self photo without doing that) but rest assured it’s me. Please vote for whomever you think won, but I certainly wouldn’t begrudge you if you thought I did.

As a comparison point (apologies, but I don’t’ have many photos of me) this was me about two years ago. Feel free to let “effort expended” factor into your vote:

I’m not sure if I mentioned it but please VOTE FOR ME!!!!!

Thanks in advance,

– Art

Nude Numbers (#22)

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For reference, here’s last week’s data. Curious what this post is about? Click here to find out.

Summary

This is the week I have to come clean on my Six-Pack Challenge progress. I’ll post separately following this.

But I spent the last week in Mexico and did well on training in the start of the week, but got very sick at the end. Read on for more.

Subjective Data

Workouts earlier in the week went well, but starting Thursday the flu I’d been fighting off got the better of me (which was a shame since it got both me and J, and we were in Mexico). It was nice to eat-to-gain again though J. I also took my photo for the challenge… more on that in another post.

Objective Data

Click here for a PDF version of my dashboard.

Note: There is no Body-Fat data for most of the week because I didn’t have a way to do it in Mexico (and forgot on Sunday).

Assessment

Apart from getting the flu, the new plan started out well (“apart from that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?”). I swam a bunch in the large pool at the resort we stayed at, alternating drilling and swimming, and I found things getting easier over time.

I decided to take the next phase of training with a new philosophy; listen to my body more. So, once the flu set in on Thursday, I’ve backed off training. I’m still a little under the weather as I write this, but am heading the right way. Hopefully this way I’ll manage injuries better.

Plan

I’ll be re-jigging how I present this next week, but my plan for this week is (subject to recovering from my illness):

  1. 20-40 25-yard swimming laps
  2. 90-150 minutes of Spinning
  3. 2-4 hours of weight training
  4. Set and maintain a diet of about 3,000 calories a day (trying to gain between .5 to 1.0 pounds per week)

Presentation Notes

No changes to data presentation this week. As with last week, data is presented in SOAP Note format.

– Art

Help me raise money for people suffering from cancer