Category Archives: 30Days

March into April 30 Days

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March is ending on a warm note, with April starting with some snow!  It really is Spring, it is just taking some time to get here!

April is a great 30 Day Challenge – Ride my bike every day!! 30 Days of Biking is pretty simple – get on the bike every day of the month.  I set this challenge out knowing that I won’t actually succeed – as with past years I’ll be traveling with a group of 8th Graders overseas and won’t have access to a bike!  We are leaving sometime on the 28th so I’ll miss at least the last 2 days unless something sweet happens.  Last time I was in Spain I took some pictures of random bikes around the cities and almost got a group of guys interested in checking out their bike share program!

My 30 Day Challenge for March was:

Unsubscribe, de-friend, unfollow – Time for some spring cleaning.  Clean out your inbox or news feed by getting rid of some unwanted/unneeded clutter!

This went super well.  I got ride of a lot of e-mail subscriptions – once you start it is easy to keep doing it!  Twitter was a little harder but every time I checked I looked for things I could get rid of and actually found quite a few random accounts I’d signed up for to enter a contest – like Amazon MP3 or Amazon Golden Box, Woot, Groupon.  I don’t really need their notifications in both my inbox and Twitter feed.  Facebook was the real challenge.  I think I did unfriend a few people, but I actually unliked several pages that weren’t really relevant and like Twitter were for contests and duplicates! RSS feeds wasn’t too hard, there are quite a few that I don’t read anymore or really ever!

I can’t really say that I’ve noticed a difference, but I’m sure less clutter is better!

For my other March goals:

  • I would like to continue doing core work every other day 16/31 days.
  • I would like to hit 50 miles running miles for the month.
  • I would like to ride my bike at least 10 times this month (hopefully some outside).

I completely forgot about the core work and didn’t really do anything. I did do some of my PT type exercises whenever my leg hurt.  I should at least do those daily!

March was actually the worst month of running this year!! Ooops… 31 miles.  Ugh.  Without a training plan and the inconsistency of our schedule it has been hard. Now that it is actually getting warmer I’ll be able to run with the kids on the weekend.  Plus I’ve been trying to ride more since I’m doing a 100 miler in a few weeks!

I did actually record 10 rides on my bike!! 3 of them were commuting and the weekend long ride! It felt great to be outside even if for some of my commute rides the trail had icy patches!!

50% isn’t terrible… right?

I’m going to recommit to the same extra goals – 50 miles running and core work every other day.  Since the monthly challenge is riding every day I’ll easily hit 10 rides!

Sign Up for 30 Days of Biking #30daysofbiking

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For the past few years I’ve signed up for the 30 Days of Biking Challenge.  It is a great way to kick-off spring and there have been some really cool stories through the years of people being inspired to ride and having their lives changed.  I missed the inaugural event due to Lyme disease, but have participated every year since.

In 2012, I was doing Project 365 – taking a picture each day – and dedicated April to taking a bike related picture each day!

Registration for this year’s event opened on March 1 and I was rider number 265 to sign up!

Here is my confirmation:

201430daysofbikingsignup

And my “pledge card”!

201430daysofbikingpledgecard

 

Of course I’m dedicating my riding and running this year to raising money for clean water projects in the Congo.  Your support of any amount is greatly appreciated!

February into March Challenge Update

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February didn’t go quite as I had planned.  I started out pretty good, but quickly realized that I couldn’t do the 7 minute workout each day without getting injured.  So I revised the plan to do either the 7 minute workout or the Lolo Jones workout each day.   I did corework on at least 20 of the 28 days in February, I tried to keep accurate records but didn’t always remember t0.  I totally forgot once, remembered while laying in bed at least once, and then got sick last weekend…  Now I just need to kick myself back into it and continue doing core work!

Overall, February has been a long month.  One of the coldest and snowiest years on record for the Twin Cities has meant many cold runs and hard to pull yourself out of bed mornings.  And lots of shoveling snow.  March is traditionally the snowiest month, so that should be interesting!  I think we’ve had 3 days above freezing in 2014 and something like 40 days that have been sub-zero at some point during the day. We’ve also had an unprecedented 6 days with no school.  Ugh!  We have done our best to embrace winter, Art Shanties, Ice Caves, and snowshoeing, but all the super-cold has meant that it has been hard to get the kids out to enjoy the cold weather!

February numbers:

5 trainer rides – I had hoped for 8.

Ran 33 miles – I had hoped for 50.

Here’s hoping March will be a better month.  With changes in our schedule, I was hoping to be able to start biking to work – but it looks like there will be snow and ice on the roads for the foreseeable future.  I still have my old steel road bike and I might try to get it ready for winter biking.

March 30 Day Challenge

My 30 Day Challenge for March is:

Unsubscribe, de-friend, unfollow – Time for some spring cleaning.  Clean out your inbox or news feed by getting rid of some unwanted/unneeded clutter!

This can be done all at once or each day. I think I’m going to focus on one area each week and get rid of 7 things.  So today I’ll unsubscribe from 7 e-mail newsletters, next week 7 Twitter Followers, then 7 Facebook friends, then 7 RSS feeds.  Then I’ll just find 3 more things to get rid of!  When I did this before I found that once you start it is hard to stop!  I think the hardest challenge will be the RSS feeds, but that will potentially have the most time saving focus for me!

Other goals:

  • I would like to continue doing core work every other day 16/31 days.
  • I would like to hit 50 miles running miles for the month.
  • I would like to ride my bike at least 10 times this month (hopefully some outside).

How did you do on your February goals? What do you have planned for March?

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January into February Challenge Update

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7

7 (Photo credit: mag3737)

I exceeded my January Challenge of “Get rid of something every day”!

During the last few days of Christmas (winter) break I was able to do some cleaning in the basement.  When Caleb was born we basically took all the stuff from his room into the basement! I threw away some broken baby equipment, broken electronics, and some other junk.  I also created several boxes of garage sale stuff that will go to my school’s annual garage sale.  I added some books and clothes to round up the variety of other stuff!

I lost track of how much stuff I actually got rid of but it was definitely over 31 items.   Did you participate? What did you get rid of?

I also took on the January Challenge of running 50 miles laid out by Minneapolis Running.   Unfortunately, I didn’t quite make it.  I ran 39 miles total.  I was on track and then one Sunday I hurt my back getting Caleb out of the Rav4.  I took almost a week off and then did an easy run.  Looking at the calendar of my workouts they are all over the place! The biggest challenge to consistency has been my wife’s work schedule and then the ridiculous weather we’ve been having.  Though some of my runs were actually on days when school was cancelled and day care was open!!

I also did 1 bike workout a week with the longest being 1:15.  And a couple of snowshoes!

Looking into February my challenge is to do the 7 minute workout each day!  If you haven’t heard about the 7 minute work out the New York Times has a nice article about it.  It is basically doing 12 exercises for 30 seconds each.  The exception in the app I’m using is that side planks are held for 20 seconds on each side. The American College of Sports Medicine’s Health & Fitness Journal has an article about programs similar to the 7 minute workout and has this to say about it:

The following is an example of a 12-station HICT program. All exercises can be done with body weight and implements easily acquired in almost any setting (e.g., home, office, hotel room, etc.). The exercise order allows for a total body exercise to significantly increase the heart rate while the lower, upper, and core exercises function to maintain the increased heart rate while developing strength.

Exercises are performed for 30 seconds, with 10 seconds of transition time between bouts. Total time for the entire circuit workout is approximately 7 minutes. The circuit can be repeated 2 to 3 times.

1. Jumping jacks Total body

2. Wall sit Lower body

3. Push-up Upper body

4. Abdominal crunch Core

5. Step-up onto chair Total body

6. Squat Lower body

7. Triceps dip on chair Upper body

8. Plank Core

9. High knees/running in place Total body

10. Lunge Lower body

11. Push-up and rotation Upper body

12. Side plank Core

The article doesn’t actually highlight the strength building aspects of the workout but does seem to indicate that overall health markers such as insulin and VO2Max can improve with a High Intensity Circuit Training workout.  There are also clear fat-loss benefits.

Right now we have the “Seven” app on our iPad to do the 7-minute workout. Right now that is working pretty well. It has a tracker but you have to do the workouts within at least 48 hours of each other or it will delete the record.  Which app do you use for the 7 minute workout?

Incidentally, Minneapolis Running also decided to do a strength (core) challenge for February.  They offer 5 great core workouts to try.  Their challenge is every other day.  I’ve done the Lolo Jones workout that they highlight and it is a good one!

For February my running goals will be to hit 50 miles this month and to average 2 bike workouts a week!

How did you do on your January goals?  What do you have in store for February?

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January’s Challenge 2014

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clutter

clutter (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee)

January – Get rid of something every day – After a busy holiday season of getting gifts and buying stuff for yourself on clearance it is time to remove something from your life!

This could be anything that is cluttering up your space.  One rule is that it has to be yours or you ask before getting rid of it!

We are blessed with so much stuff and I don’t like to get rid of things like that ugly metal shelving unit that I’ve had since high school. So it is good to get rid of things every now and then.  “Getting rid of” could mean several things:

Sell it – Craigslist, ebay, Garage Sale, etc…

Give it – Goodwill, Freecycle, “Free” sign, etc…

Trash it – Garbage or recycling just take it away!  Around here if something decent is sitting in the alley it could disappear! We’ve given and taken from this method.

We have a box of stuff in the basement that is waiting to go into my school’s annual garage sale.  I really wish there was a way to get rid of it earlier than that, but it is better to keep it for the sale than donate it to Goodwill.

One special note about this challenge is that you could do it a few ways.  The most literal would be to find something each day, but in the spirit of the goal it would be to get rid of 30 things.  Either way the challenge is to clean up your space!!

English: Fishing clutter The old stone-hoppers...

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