cesimpson

Workout

Pull Ups to failure

17x @ BW

1RM Back Squat

315#

Dips to failure

32x @ BW

Recap

In November I set some goals for my birthday. Yesterday was that day and over the last 2 weeks or so I’ve been testing against each of my goals.

Overall, I’m pleased.

One Year Ago

A birthday, especially as one gets older, is a nice time to consider the previous year and set goals for the year ahead.

One year ago…

…I did not have a blog. I had talked about making one, but never got around to actually do it. In July I was encouraged by my good friend to create this blog. I am super-happy I’ve done it.

…I weighed about 175-180#. My 1RM deadlift was around 300#, 1RM Overhead Press was around 100#, couldn’t do a full squat clean anywhere close to my power clean 1RM. I had not yet rowed a sub-2:00 500m. Today I weigh 160#, DL ~400#, Squat > 300#, Strict Overhead Press > bodyweight, and can row an all out 500m in about 1:35. My cleans are better, but still suck.

…there were no women involved in my workout routine. Today I have Charlotte and Sandy. I love them both.

…my overall fitness was pretty much shit. Since then I ran up 1000+ steps in under 8 minutes (and raised some nice cash for a good cause in the process).

…I was a vegetarian. My son’s peanut, soy, egg, hazelnut and cottonseed allergies, and a talk with my doc about the advantages of fish, all made me reconsider. After 10+ years, I have resumed meat consumption.

…my little girl was learning and becoming familiar with letters. She knew the alphabet and was just starting to associate sounds with letters. Today she can easily write her own name and many other words (she wrote on my birthday card, “Happy Birthday Daddy, Love Vivian”). About a week ago she read her very first page, completely unassisted. It was from “Are You My Mother?” by P.D. Eastmann, and is the page where the mother bird comes back to the nest and finds the baby bird hatched. “Do you know who I am?” The baby replies, “You are not a dog. You are not a cow…. You are not a boat, or an airplane or a SNORT! …you are my mother.” Yep. That page. I couldn’t be more proud.

…I was a member of a different team at work. In the last year I became a founding member of a brand new team. We are User Experience specialists, within a larger application development team. We build internal applications for the largest car rental company in North America and we’re responsible for the creation and on-going maintenance of almost a dozen products, mostly used to order and purchase, maintain, account for and sell all the vehicles in our world-wide fleet. There were two of us - a lead and an entry level position - who made the jump on 1 November. Today we number 6 specialists + a manager. It’s quite a challenge. We have a lot of work to do for such a small team, AND we have to do strategy stuff too - figuring out process, how we fit into the bigger picture, how are we going to grow and how fast - but couldn’t be happier about my decision to make the move.

That’s a lot for one year. Looking back, I’m quite pleased.

Over the next year I’d like…

…to be still around 160# (though 165# would be acceptable if it came, literally, 100% in muscle.) I think 10% body fat is ideal for me. I’m willing to experiment with a little lower, but I’m generally happy here.

…a 1000#+ Raw PL total, a sub-7:15 2k row, a sub-2:30 800m run and a 200+ SSST w/ 16kg KB.

…a sub-7:00 Master The Met stair climb.

…to be doing more strategic work at work. Right now, with busy times and small staff, I’m busting my ass just to keep my head above water. There’s little time for strategy, policy, setting priorities, high-level architecture. I’d like to be 40/60 strategy/tactics in one year (and a promotion would be great…just in case boss-man reads my blog).

That’s what I got.