30x30, Personal Project

30 x 30: #2 – Take a day hike

2014 06-28 Start of the HikeIf you want to find out how in or out of shape you are, go for a hike. Seriously, I knew I’d been lazy recently, but holy hell! I was hoping to cross four things off my list this week but only got to three, but YAY! Nine out of thirty (30%) done.

I’m still not sure that the sign was right, because our trackers definitely said longer than 2.5 miles, but I’m glad I did it! My friend Peter hiked a bunch of mountains last year and asked me a bunch of times and I always said no. When I was making my list I knew I needed to add it to the list and I did, but sheesh it was freaking exhausting. It was about a two-hour drive up and we hiked Mt. Tecumseh, 4003 ft/1,220m in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and it took a little under four hours (up and down).

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Workout Wednesday

Workout Wednesday – June 2014

NYC WalkingThis is just a quick post, mostly because I’m sure everyone is tired of hearing about NYC. Don’t worry, there’s only one post left after this which will be all art all the time!

I’m finally getting back into the swing of CrossFit and have been to at least one session every week for the past three weeks. My trip to NYC affected this, but I will go on Friday! Thankfully I walked a lot, as in upwards of 30,000 steps a day, while in NYC, photo to the right from my FitBit, but I need to get back into CrossFit and start seriously training with running again.

I think I’m to the point where I can run and CrossFit at the same time, but the last time I tried it I was so tired that week I just felt horrid. The major hurdle coming up is that it’s getting hot enough in the afternoons that I will be forced to run early in the morning (more 5AM days) or later in the evening. Ugh. But I won’t slide backwards!

Books

Book 280: An Unquiet Mind – Kay Redfield Jamison

After hours and hours of discussions about a personal relationship with someone who experiences bipolar disorder/manic depression and recommending I read this book on multiple occasions, my therapist finally made me take this book with me after an appointment one week and I’m glad she did. I won’t go into that relationship here, as it wouldn’t be appropriate, one day I might write about it on my other blog at some point, but I doubt it, so on to the book.

I was pleasantly surprised as I read this book with how easily accessible it was. I was concerned it was going to be too scientific and not personal enough for me, but I feel it struck an excellent balance between the two. In the last few chapters she goes in-depth into how and why she decided to write the book and one of the big decisions had to do with her personal experience and how it influenced her entire career and research focus and opportunities.

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Workout Wednesday

Workout Wednesday – May 2014

Better late than never, but here’s my monthly recap. I’ll blame it on my social calendar and my exhaustion of finally getting back into the CrossFit swing.I did go once last month and was very proud of myself, but then immediately took two weeks off. Ouch. But this past week I started back again and have already been twice in addition to maintaining my pseudo-running schedule at the moment.

On the left I realized that just getting there is a huge accomplishment and wrote an entire blog about it on my other blog, on the right is a photo that the coach took during our Monday class and I was really hoping I didn’t make it in, but I did (on the left) but thankfully that means there is photographic evidence I went!

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Personal Project, Willpower

The Willpower Instinct Project – Week 8, 9 & Wrap-Up

McGonigal, Kelly - The Willpower InstinctAs I said two weekends ago I was struggling to finish up the project. I did finish reading the book and the review will post tomorrow, but I just had a couple of rough weekend sin a row and didn’t take the time to blog about the last two chapters. This’ll be a quick recap of those chapters and my final thoughts on the project.

Chapter 8: Infected: Why Willpower is Contagious focused primarily on how your willpower project isn’t just yours alone. We were told to spend time identifying when/if other people affected how we approached challenges. Do the people we identify with or want to be like help or hinder our process? The experiments for the week were to take a few minutes to remind ourselves of the goals every morning, find a positive role model, go public with the our challenge and find others to support you.

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