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The advantage of a workout plan that increases intensity or duration over time is that your body is pushed to grow in strength and endurance. What’s interesting is that while our body can often surprise us with its capacity for growth, our minds tend to lag behind and make assumptions about our capacity that can make the increased intensity/duration somewhat daunting.

I found myself facing this phenomenon this morning, when my Week 5 workout of The Pete Plan Beginner Training moved to 7000 meters for the main workout piece. Only 500m more than last week, but for some reason, 7000 meters was a mental barrier that I just wasn’t feeling confident about. Probably didn’t help that I missed a couple of workouts last week, which left me feeling a little behind (though Pete’s Beginner Training includes 3 core sessions and 2 optional sessions, so I still got the basic workout in…I just typically do the optional sessions as well).

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The Concept 2 online logbook is seasonal, with seasons running from May-April, and as of this morning, we started the 2010 season. I’m very much looking forward to seeing how my stats rack up in starting at the beginning of a new season. One cool benefit is that I was the first person to log a four-minute piece, so for the time being I’m #1 in the rankings for that piece.

Took a couple of days off this week, which was probably a good thing. I’ve probably been pushing myself too hard again. I’m really eager to make progress, but sometimes you have to recognize that you can only progress so fast, and pushing harder than that can actually slow you down. Again, just need to remind myself that I didn’t get out of shape overnight, and I’m not going to get super-fit overnight, either.

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So, perhaps that title is a bit of an oversimplification. But I’m feeling pleased with myself for having logged over 200,000 meters rowed as of this morning, just over two months after bringing home my first rower.

The reality is that I was well on my way before I got into rowing, so I can’t really credit the rowing specifically with my getting fit. But I will say that rowing provides a degree of challenge that I just did not experience when using the NordicTrack, or just working out on the weight machine.

I also think that for a professional geek and gadget-head like myself, the combination of solid data tracking ability, plus an online community to share notes with, rank yourself with, and more, gives me all the more reason to stay connected and keep pressing myself for better performance.

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This morning I had my first rowing workout after installing some upgrades on my Model C. I added a PM3 performance monitor, which was the big upgrade, along with a framelock safety upgrade, and a new heart rate monitor that’s integrated with the PM3.

One of the cool things that the PM3 offers over previous monitors is a larger LCD screen that can display information in a more flexible fashion. So you can view performance information in larger text, view more information at once, play a simple fish game, etc., all with the same screen. Seems almost quaint in comparison with what you can do with a cell phone these days, but for athletic equipment, it’s pretty cool, and definitely better than what I had.

One of the display modes available allows you to pre-program a pace boat that you can race against. So for example, I set up a four minute warm-up, and set the pace boat to a pace of 1:59/500m, and was able to beat that pace by nearly 3 seconds. If you’re competitive like me, this is a definite motivator, since you don’t want to lose to a pace boat. You can also use the ReRow feature to row a previous workout setup and even set the pace boat to your previous split by split pace. Great way to keep yourself moving forward with your workouts.

The PM3 also introduces a removable smartcard (they call it a LogCard) that you can use to store custom workouts, and workout stats for up to 5 rowers. The cool thing about this is that if you have a smartcard reader (I happen to have one for work), you can simply install the Concept 2 LogCard reader software on your PC, and use it to easily upload your workouts to the Concept 2 online logbook, or export to a spreadsheet. This alone will save me 10-15 minutes of data entry per day, in addition to alleviating the need to write down my stats and carry a notebook up to my PC.

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Given the progress that I’ve been making with my rowing, I decided to reward myself with an upgraded monitor for my Concept 2 Model C rower, which I ordered this past weekend, along with a heart rate monitor that integrates with the rower monitor (my current HR monitor simply has a wrist-worn display, which I typically strap to the rower handle…works OK, but a little harder to read when it’s in motion). Because of a glitch in the order process, I had to call and speak with one of the Concept 2 reps, and the conversation only reinforced my opinion that this is one of the most customer-friendly companies I’ve ever dealt with.

The order shipped out on Wednesday, and I was pleased to see that despite it being shipped UPS Ground, it was slated to be delivered 2 days later (i.e. – today). What I didn’t think about, and now I’m kind of bummed, is that I’m leaving in a couple of hours for a work event in Richmond tomorrow, and that will probably be before the UPS guy shows up (though thankfully someone will be here to accept delivery). So now I will probably have to wait until Sunday to get everything hooked up, since I won’t be home until late evening tomorrow.

I guess it’s a good lesson in patience.

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When one thinks of the idea of stewardship, the first thing many of us probably think of is the environment. And certainly stewardship has a role there. But I’ve recently been mulling over the idea of stewardship and realizing that it applies to far more than just the natural environment.

From a Christian perspective, we are called by God to be good stewards of all of the resources that He has entrusted to our care. That includes our impact on the environment, yes, but I think we often overlook other important aspects of stewardship in our lives. For example, stewardship includes our financial resources. So when we’re making decisions about what to spend our money on, that is an aspect of stewardship. Likewise, our very bodies are gifts from God, and how we take care of them is an aspect of stewardship. Our time is another crucial resources which requires our stewardship and attention.

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One of the challenges I’ve been dealing with of late with my workouts is a sudden desire to quit that seems to show up around 1/3 to 1/2 way into my main workout piece. I’m guessing this is probably the point where muscle fatigue starts to set in, and/or when the muscles switch from one source of fuel to another (would love to hear from anyone with expertise in the physiology about which, or if it’s something completely different), but whatever the underlying cause, it’s surprising how strong the urge can be.

I’ve managed to avoid actually listening to the little voice that says “you don’t have to do the whole 6000 meters, you can stop now and still have a good workout,” but I’m curious whether others run into this and if so, what you do to combat it. I pretty much just try to ignore the feeling, and concentrate on getting to the halfway point, which is the point where things start getting (or seeming) easier again.

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Just checked my credit card statements online, and as I mentioned the other day, they are now officially a big ZERO!

One of my colleagues from work who’s also been on a quest to lose weight is fond of the saying “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” Well, I’d have to say that at the moment, I can’t think of anything I could buy that would feel as good as having paid off our credit cards completely. Again, there’s work to be done before we’ll be able to claim the mantle of debt-free family, but we’re making progress and that’s what matters.

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Yesterday was my softball team’s first practice, and our first game of our third season is Tuesday night. About half the team was able to make it to practice and it was a good practice. It was also the first opportunity for me to work with the team since starting my fitness routine in January. The results were pretty clear. I typically play outfield, and I was able to cover more ground, and make more catches, than I can ever remember being able to, even as a kid. And I’ve got more power batting, which is pretty cool too. Didn’t stop me from swinging at bad pitches, but hey, you can’t expect miracles.

Another milestone is that as of today, my wife and I have paid off all of our credit card debt. As I’ve mentioned in past posts, my wife picked up a copy of Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover at the library, and we both read through it and agreed to follow the steps outlined for becoming and staying debt free. We still have a ways to go to that final goal, including a somewhat daunting home equity line that needs to be paid off. But we started with well over $15k in credit card debt, and were able to plow through that in just a few short months, based on a combination of discipline and some fortuitously-timed windfalls. And it is a fantastic feeling to know that we no longer have credit card balances staring us in the face (and costing us interest) every month.

And the most important milestone is that today is my older son’s 6th birthday. Both he and his brother are a delight, and a joy, and I’m looking forward to a fun and wild birthday party later today.

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I’ve gotten in the habit of listening to podcasts during my workouts, since it’s pretty much impossible to read while rowing (I used to read while using the NordicTrack, since I had a book holder for it). Since I work in the software industry, most of what I listen to is stuff like DotNetRocks, Deep Fried Bytes, Herding Code, and similar stuff. But while trolling around on the Zune Marketplace the other day, I noticed that there was a Dave Ramsey Show podcast listed. It’s pretty much just a highlight reel from his radio show, but since I like listening to his advice to callers, I started subscribing.

One of the things that is helpful in listening to Dave Ramsey is being reminded of just how blessed our family is, and of the fact that we are pretty far along when it comes to implementing our Total Money Makeover, and getting control of our debt. In fact, once we get our tax refund (whether or not we should be allowing the feds to keep that much of our money is a topic for another post), we will be able to pay off the last of our credit card debt. While we didn’t start with as much credit card debt as some of the folks who call into DR, that’s still a great feeling, particularly since we really only got started with this back in late December.

It does make me kind of sad to hear many of these folks who call in who are clearly making some very bad financial decisions. One guy had filed for bankruptcy, and was asking Dave whether he should try to pay off the credit card he had been advised by a credit counselor to open to “build up his credit rating,” which he had gotten behind on. Another caller was 47, unemployed, and living with their father, while living off a severance package and being pretty casual about getting a new job.

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