Michael’s World

We (all three of us) were sick with head colds for the entire weekend, and still got a load of stuff done this evening.

It still doesn't feel real to me.  I think it's probably my way of dealing with the change.  Then again, still no official word from headquarters that I actually have the job.  Fortunately, that's not terribly uncommon.  Some people don't get their welcome package until after they start.

My trusty notepad and pen have been helping me out a lot as I scribble out ideas and things to do, before they are entered into the computer for move planning.

The house is starting to look quite bare except for our staging area with all of our packed stuff in it.  At this point I'm not worried about whether we will be done in time, but rather can we get it all to fit in the two cars.

I'd take pictures on the way up to Virginia, but since we're traveling overnight there won't be much to see until we're there.

Hopefully I'll be able to post again before we leave, but if not, I'll try to be back online when we get our broadband connected, hopefully early in the week.

Move to Stafford - 14 days
New Agent Class -  27 days

I added updating my blog to my GTD list in iGTD, but somehow managed to put it off each week saying I'd take care of it for the following week.  I apparently have been doing that for about five weeks now and finally had time to sit down and write something.

With much help from our family, we're finally just about ready to move on, which gives us two weeks to finish things up before moving to Virginia.  I'll be close at work but should be able to finish up everything nicely assuming the last few computers come in on time for me to set up.

I've also had to cram lots of additional things into my schedule in order to get ready for the academy class on September 2nd.  Time management is definitely a must.  Fortunately we knew back in March and were able to start preparing for our next adventure.  I can't imagine only having a couple weeks to prepare.  If we only had a couple weeks, we wouldn't all be moving up there.

The house is almost ready to go, we just need some more general cleanup but the bulk of the work is done at this point. Hopefully this won't turn into death by a thousand cuts.

I can't wait to begin this new journey and learning experience.

As you can probably imagine, finding time to blog isn't terribly high on my priority list.  It is on my list though, but it's taking a while to pare through the rest of the tasks in preparation for our move.

We met with my applicant coordinator in Tampa and learned a lot of great information.  She strongly suggested getting back with my previous workout group which I had already been thinking about doing.  I'd much rather suffer here and make things easier for me in Virginia.

I just finished my second week of exercising and I can honestly say I enjoy the soreness and getting up at 4am to go to the gym, as odd as it sounds.  I've been working out by myself for long enough to forget what it was like to push yourself to compete with others (type A personality much?).  In the other gym people always asked me for advice, but nobody wanted to work out with me.  No big surprise there considering the grueling workout schedule.  I'm hoping my time spent now will help me pass on the first attempt and I won't have to worry about the physical test itself as much, which will be nice considering the rest of what they put you through.  The key will be not to injure myself, but still train as aggressively as possible.

I'm trying to tie up all of the loose ends at work, and I ended up creating a lot of extra work for myself.  Instead of spending the last couple months coasting along, I decided to cram in as much as possible, including computer upgrades for just about our entire division.  After that, it's on to developing a troubleshooting guide for the staff to follow, or getting my replacement up to speed, depending on how things work out over the next few weeks.  At least I'll leave my friends/coworkers in a good position technologically.  With any luck the server should pretty much run itself at that point.

71 days to go! 

We recently went to Animal Kingdom and I thought I would share some photos from the trip.

Katelyn and I now have a new favorite band - The Wiggles! Our favorite tracks include:

• Toot, Toot, Chugga, Chugga, Big Red Car
• Hoop-Dee-Doo
• Lights, Camera, Action, Wiggles!
• Fruit Salad
• Hot Potato
• The Monkey Dance
• Wags The Dog

I must admit, if Katelyn falls asleep in the car, I'm likely to keep listening to their music (and enjoy it).  I highly recommend The Wiggles to any parents out there who are looking to entertain their young children and not go crazy while doing so.

I've been trying to gain weight recently by drastically increasing my calorie intake and do less cardio workouts in order to build more muscle.  I generally take two 900+ calorie shakes a day as snacks plus regular meals, and it's still slow going to gain anything.  I think my new workout is burning off more calories than I imagined it would.

Taking a break also hopefully gave me time for my legs and foot to completely recover.  Building up gradually this time should ensure a lack of injury which I can't afford to do for the next 6 to 8 months. 

I actually miss running and will try to get back into doing shorter runs (less than 5 miles) in order to keep my strength up and my weight up and make sure my legs remember how to sprint at a decent clip.  In September I'll be running in the hills and need to make sure I can keep up with the pack of people who have actually run on hills before.

I haven't posted anything recently since we've been too busy getting things done in preparation to move later this year and again early next year.

My latest favorite tool is the iGTD application by Bartek Bargiel, which is available for free (payment requested) from his web site.

It's helping me keep on track for my different projects at home and at work using David Allen's Getting Things Done methodology.  Kelly is reading his book right now, and one of these days if I have time I'll read over it as well.

With all of the projects going on right now, I don't know when I'd have time to read it, but from what I have seen, my planning method is already very similar to his.

My main issue right now is not planning the right amount of time for a particular project, especially around the house.  I would never have guessed it would take almost an entire day to redo a flower bed in the front yard, replace a few other plants and relocate them to the back yard and do a lot of weeding.  We still have more weeding to do, and I'm going to try to keep up with it instead every couple of weeks instead of doing it all a couple times each year.  I suppose by that I mean keeping up with it until mid-August until we move to Virginia.

Yesterday's run brought with it the now familiar outer leg burning. I did a bit of research and found a few studies which deal with the leg pain I have been having, which is very similar to those suffering from Anterior Compartment Syndrome.

I found an interesting study from 2002 on "Changes in Lower Leg Anterior Compartment Pressure Before, During, and After Creatine Supplementation" (Potteiger et al) which discusses the pressure differences between a baseline, 7 days of supplementation, 35 days of supplementation and 28 days post-supplementation. To make a long story short, my daily dosage with the loading stage nearly doubles the baseline anterior compartment pressures.

The results from Friday's run becoming easier at around 5.5 miles are probably linked to a slight dehydration as the result of the run. Evidence to this assumption can be found from a 2006 study on "Creatine Supplementation and Anterior Compartment Pressure During Exercise in the Heat in Dehydrated Men" ( Hile et al), which is also from the Journal of Athletic Training. This study shows that as hydration levels decrease, so does the anterior compartment pressure due to a lessening of the fluid in the muscles.

Today I tried stretching out the muscles periodically, and also did some toe lift strengthening exercises. I'll try running again tonight at last night's average pace of 7.3 mph. If there isn't any improvement in my symptoms I'm going to stop taking the Creatine supplement and deal with the slower progress in strength gains.  My main goal is endurance over sheer strength which will keep this from being too much of an issue, although the strength gains have been nice.

Either way I'm going to have to switch some of my cardio over to elliptical or bike based training until the symptoms are under control-with or without additional Creatine supplementation.

Friday I ran 6.2 miles in an hour, which is almost a record slow pace for me in the past year, superceeded only by last week's 5 mile run.

Saturday I decided to suffer through a 10 mile run in the hopes that it would strenghten my sore right leg.  It wasn't the bad sore, but felt weak from lactic acid burning.  I started off on the treadmill at a slow 7mph and had to drop to 6.8 at about two miles.  At about 5.5 miles the leg pain stopped instantly.  The last 4.5 miles I took relatively easy in order to avoid any potential setbacks, but I was able to bump my pace back up to the usual 7.5 for the last couple miles with no recurrance in pain.  Usually a mile at an 8 minute pace (7.5mph) would be enough to cause issues.

Today I'll try to average about 8mph on the treadmill for my pre-workout two mile run and shoot for 7.2 for my 3 mile post workout run today.  If all goes well, I'll hit the track for my regularly scheduled 6 miles of interval training tomorrow.

The next step is to get my pushups to increase which generally means doing more pushups.  Lots more pushups…

For some reason, my legs are feeling like I haven't run in months. My knees are getting sore from running and so are my calves. I'm thinking this has something to do with the Creatine, weight gainer or possibly the attic incident.

Hopefully it will clear up soon. I can't believe how much I miss running. Tooling along at an average of under 7mph when I'm used to averaging 8.2-8.3 for a two mile run is mildly depressing.