Game One Recap
We played our first game last night, and even though we didn’t win, I thought it went pretty well. For a team that hadn’t practiced together ever, this was quite the learning experience for my teammates and I. (more…)
Back to the Field
After a few months off from playing, I’m happy to report that I’m finally going to return to Twin Creeks as part of a new corporate team! (more…)
In Lieu of Softball
Those of you who follow my Twitter account may have noticed that I’ve been trying to workout in the offseason. During the spring and summer months, I absolutely love playing softball. The weekly games of swinging a bat and playing the field really sheds the pounds as I try to be the fastest guy in my weight class on the base paths. I actually don’t steal bases, but I like to try and run out the ball from the plate to first base. And I get compliments on my speed, in spite of my size.
That being said, I’m trying to do as many push-ups and sit-ups as I can, to keep myself in a kind of pattern. This is going to take a little bit of nagging from certain people, and they’ve been pretty good about making that happen. I’m sticking to the whole 100 Push-Ups and 200 Sit-Ups programs that I found online and got permission from my doctor to pursue (in case you cared) it to week six. I just need to figure out what I can and can’t do, because it tends to fluctuate with each week that you progress. Week One might be at one level, and then Week Two could kick it up a notch based on how you do in the previous week. And so on, and so forth. I like the adaptive nature of it. Plus, it has an iPhone app, so it’s definitely awesome.
If you’re looking to see how I do, all you need to do is go to the bottom right hand side of the front page of my blog and follow me on Twitter. I’ll be posting my updates, there.
Fighting to Stay Awake
Today was a pretty busy day at work, and I started feeling a little tired at around 3pm. I didn’t get a whole lot of sleep last night, for some reason. I’m not sure if my fatigue was due to not enough sleep, too much work, one meal so far that day, or perhaps a combination of all three. In any case, I was really fighting to stay awake on the drive home and even conversation wasn’t helping me remain conscious. So I thumbed through my iPod and found Metric’s Black Sheep, and just played that at a really high volume. Of course, now the damn song is stuck in my head.
Here, have some Metric (and Brie Larson), singing Black Sheep from the Scott Pilgrim soundtrack:
Anyway, now that I’m finally conscious enough to write blog posts, I figured I would at least say something substantial.
I really miss playing softball. Maybe not the team itself, but I loved being out on the field again. Since I left my last company, I haven’t had any kind of activity to take its place, so I’m looking for something that’ll help me get back into the swing of being active on a weekly basis. But something with enough of an impact to really wear me out. I might wait until next year to go do pick-up games, but I would love to get a real team together again. I wonder if I could rustle up enough people to field a team in time for the spring season? I hope so.
Workout Update
So far, it looks like I might be falling behind on the working out thing. With relation to my sleep schedule, last night I went to sleep way early because I kept nodding off in my desk chair. Not to mention that throughout the day, I was trying really hard not to nod off at my desk. I need to find a way to elevate my desk so I can stand up and use it with a tall chair or something, because standing up I am totally unable to fall asleep. Better yet, I really wish I had that auto-lifter for my desk back when I worked at Yahoo. I had this desk at Yahoo that had a motorized lift on it. If I wanted to stand for a few minutes and work that way so I wasn’t sitting down all day without a break, I hit this button on it and let it rise up until it was at the proper height, and then I would stand and continue to work. I used it once every hour, every fifty minutes I would be standing for ten minutes, and then I would sit back down and lower the desk to the proper sitting height. It ruled.
Anyway, because I fell asleep early, I didn’t do my sit-ups and push-ups like I had planned to. So I got it done tonight, instead. I did 113 reps of sit-ups, and 30+ push-ups. Then I did thirty minutes of cardio. That’s pretty much my every-other-day workout right now. Cardio’s important, but I like how my abs feel after a hard sit-up workout. I’m using the 200 situps and 100 pushups program right now. For cardio, I’m using a combination of recumbent stationary bicycle, swimming, and my Dance Dance Revolution pad. Swimming is probably one of my harder workouts, because I use my twitch muscles and keep them confused. The bike is obviously a good leg workout, because I’m constantly keeping them moving. DDR is also a leg-heavy workout and its fun, because I have like 17 gigs of music to work out to, but it’s kind of hard on my knees for the jumps and the twisting around (when I want to show off to no one and get fancy). But in all three cases, I really work up a good sweat and have some water to cool down.
I try to stretch out as much as possible, but I’m still kind of sore from the softball game on Tuesday night. I was really feeling my quadriceps burning when I stretched them out, and my shins were also sore. My calves are tanks; I never feel sore there. I think for my next cardio, I’ll do swimming. The weather’s perfect for it, now. Not so much in the winter, with the rain and the cold weather and plus they don’t heat the pool. I’m sure I’ll catch pneumonia swimming out there from November to March. April, when it starts to heat up a little more, is a good month to start swimming.
I’m determined to lose weight. I need to be able to run faster for softball. And I want to start pulling the ball farther than short to mid center. I want to slap softballs against the outfield fence!
