This quick overview of my plans of training for the current goal will not be followed precisely. I just want to describe my intentions and a bit of theory.

To start off, the training is spiked by the urge to enter a half marathon with coworkers to show support for the company’s fundraising goals and look like I want to fit in. However, there are two caveats that urge me to really not care about the race.

• Number 1: The race (Rock ‘n Roll marathon) costs $120 to enter. My employer is going to add $100 to the foundation whose cause it supported by the race. Their intention is to raise $6,000 dollars by the workers in my company. That suggests 200/per racer and 30 racers (estimate). That is difficult to imagine because my coworkers are ALL underpaid (except for a select few of the sales managers). And there are only around forty employees total, with the majority of them very unlikely to care about a stinking race.
• Number 2: I am not an employee; I am a subcontractor. In this case, my political motivations are limited as I have been there for almost one and a half years and have not  been given sign that they plan to hire me. This provides very little incentive to try to up my connection to the company and help them earn more for their donation foundations. I refused to support their weekly auto-deduction plan that they push all their employees to contribute to, because I am not an employee and therefor do not get any benefit for looking a little better. Hire me on to your crew and I’ll contribute.

With that being stated, I will get on with my ambitions for fitness.

I HATE RUNNING. So, I really do not enjoy the idea of a half marathon. I do enjoy biking, hiking, swimming, etc. My problem with running is shin splints. As a two hundred plus guy, I have never, even in high school, been able to run over two miles for more than two days in a row without getting pains in my shins for a couple days in a row. When I was in my mid twenties, I decided to give running a shot. I ran three miles at a time at a jogging pace of near a half hour per day and I would go twice a week. My legs ached all the time. I did this for a couple months with no progression toward less pain. So I did not have much ambition to keep abusing myself. Not only that, but running is super boring.

In the last couple years my fitness ambitions have made a fairly drastic change. I used to enjoy the bodybuilding goals: get strong and be tough, while putting in much effort to stay on a strict schedule of lifting and dieting. This has morphed into a whole different perspective on eating, which I will have to write about one day. But this lends way to not caring about the 1-2 grams/day of protein intake and watching carbs, blah, blah, blah. These days I really only care about building skills and gaining flexibility through my exercise. I became very limber over the course of two years since 2012 and I am slowly losing that now. I want to be flexible with great balance and know how to fight. I also love riding the bike, but not on the side of the road like all those skin-tight orange and pink wearing nutcases you see. Like running, that is extremely boring. I like to ride around the downtown area and some trail riding on occasion. I also would like to develop some martial arts skills.

The Overall Plan:

Week 1 thru 3

• Monday thru Fridays: get off work and go to the gym that I used to attend, which is 20 bucks a month and is geared toward Olympic weight lifting. There is plenty of floor space for stretching and a bit of dumbbells and normal gym equipment, however the majority of the place is padded up for the clean/jerk routine. There is a dry sauna and showers to use and they let you lift barefooted, which is a major plus in my book.
  •  Plan is to do a standard rotation of basic lifting exercises as far as legs, arms, back, shoulders, etc throughout the week using the dumbbells.
  • The majority of my workout regime should align with how I did it in the last chunk of time that I spent at that facility, when I was active. That plan was to rotate between clean/jerk/squats to pull-up/chin-ups to stretching. That gives a well rounded workout where you leave exhausted and totally limber. This should be around 30 minutes max. I work fast, hard, and do not take any break except to drink water and do a slight stretch between exercises.
  •  After that, I will spend at 45 minutes at minimum to stretch my whole body.
  • Next, 15 minutes or so in the sauna for a relaxing and very beneficial end to the regime.
  • During the week, I would like to take a short jog twice to encourage my cardio. Only would like to run for 10 – 20 minutes per session.
• On weekends: no gym, due to their hours and the fact that I need a couple rest days. I would like to get out and ride my bike to stay active and strengthen my legs and cardio a bit.

Week 4 thru 6

• The changes that I would expect to make would be very little.
• Monday thru Fridays: at the gym, skip all heavy leg training and only do chin-ups and stretching, along with the sauna and shower.
  • After or beforehand, I plan to stop by the park to go for a couple laps around their track which is about two miles around a small lake. During these laps, I will do zero jogging and do a cycle of walk/sprints.
  • If I go for the race, I will not do the running for a few days beforehand to reduce the chance of shin-splints.
• On weekends: there will be zero change from the first three weeks.

As a note to all of this, my plans are to restart my martial arts training in the process and play with the bowstaff and also buy some nun-chucks to play with. I have been swinging my contractor badge in a nun-chunk-like manner for a couple months steady to slowly begin a practice. But it’s not like I do it for anything more than a minute at a time (to/fro truck and office).

I know anyone who happens to read this will chuckle a bit and think I am silly for saying that the bostaff and nunchuck are a goal. What am I, a Ninja Turtle?!! Well, the idea behind those skills are not to fight with, but to build hand-eye coordination. And it just looks cool to be able to twirl a stick or two sticks on a chain. I think it is fun. I kept in a good daily cycle for a few months last year with the bostaff.

A benefit of the bostaff came in a real way one night. Upon the first night of meeting a few ladies at a meetup group, we were at a bar and I was explaining something… I don’t know what. But as I was talking, during a hand gesture, I knocked over an empty beer bottle. Normally, this would have careened off the edge of the bar and shattered. However, the bottle hit the bar and did a dull bounce, I caught the bottle after the first bounce. I stopped talking for an instant and they all looked at me shocked and one of them even said “Holy Sh*t!”. I looked down at my hand and it had the bottle in it. I sat it on the bar and finished my story. Somehow, my hand had caught the bottle because it had known how the bottle would bounce and was adept at catching the bostaff from twirling it many hours each week. On that very same night, at the same bar stool. The same girl that exclaimed before was talking and hand gestured and she knocked a full beer off the ledge. I caught that bottle almost instantaneously and it didn’t even spill a drop. I tell you, the results of that bostaff were tremendous and surprising.

My hand-eye coordination has been wearing thin lately though, it has been eight months since I have whirled the staff more than a total of one hour. I would love to get back into it.

For exercise, I refuse to do regular exercise more than moments at a time. I only want to PLAY. If anything is boring, it isn’t going to be in my regime. Also, I honestly do not care about being extra strong. As a big guy anyway, I am plenty strong for nearly any activity. If anything, I want to be able to beat the crap out of anyone who endangers me or my loved ones.

I only care about flexibility, balance, and skill building.