I need a fitness goal. I’ve been reluctant to set any hard goals and deadlines because I’ve been slack in my fitness as of late and I’m fearful of not reaching those goals. Isn’t that the lamest thing you’ve ever heard? So I’m spurred on by Los’ RagamuffinTop Challenge.
I’m inspired by that challenge. In light of that I’m announcing a goal and training regimen to my blog readers. To be followed by weekly updates on how I’ve done, where I am in my progress and whether I’ve died along the way.
To that effect, I want to train for The Atlanta Half-Marathon on Thanksgiving Day following MarathonRookie’s Half-Marathon Training schedule. I enjoy running, but have always had knee issues so I’m giving myself plenty of time to work out the kinks.
Here are my current stats & goals:
1. Current Weight: 193lbs (yikes) Goal: 180lbs by Sept 1st
2. Current Miles/Week: (umm…yeah) Goal: 26 at the peak of training
3. Goal: Run the Atlanta Half Marathon on Thanksgiving Day…and live.
So today I got started. Over the weekend I picked up a new set of Nike+ kicks and the Nike+iPod sensor to let me track my runs and progress. I started today with a 3 mile run/walk. I say run/walk ’cause I’ve got to give my knees time to cooperate without falling off. So here’s to a new leaf and a new challenge. See you at the finish line.
This woman is a great wife and awesome mom. She's gone to Philly for a weeklong course. Have fun hon, learn lots and hurry home! Don't worry about us, we've got the boys coming over later. By the way, do you think minced steak can fit through the feeding tube? See you soon!!
Well, not much has been going on this week, hence the lack of posts. I have been very good about getting up and exercising each morning. I'm pretty stoked about that. It's time for me to get back in shape, as I've allowed myself to settle into the banker lifestyle over the last couple of years.
This Sunday Sunette leaves for a week long course up in Philly. That means it'll just be me and the boy at the house for the week. Luckily we've been able to round up some folks to help keep him while I'm at work. I'm a little nervous with her being gone, but I think we'll have a good time.
Gotta run, just a quick note as I grabbed my large latte from Fountain City Coffee and head into the office.
I just have to post this. Typical work scenario… we have Microsoft Office 2003 at our fairly large company. IT has been reluctant to move to Office 2007, thankfully. However, other companies have already made the switch and we're starting to receive the new office file types. Oh you didn't know that Microsoft changed the file types in it's new version of Office, and the new file types are incompatible with all older versions of Office? Where have you been?
You have to either download the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack, which we can't do because we're on corporate IT lockdown; or you have to use an online file converter like Zamzar, which we can't get to because it's firewalled (because we're on corporate IT lockdown); or you have to do what I have to do, which is…bring your Mac to work and use something like OpenOffice 3.0 to open the file and save it as an older version .doc file. How crazy is that work process?
I mean…what are all those people without Macs gonna do?
It's been at least a week since I've had internet access. For the week before that I didn't have much time to check my blog feeds. So now I'm faced with insurmountable Google Reader "debt". I'll have to put myself on some sort of "payment plan" that I can manage. Or do I just claim feed bankruptcy and let all the useful information go completely unheeded?
Well we made it back to the States yesterday, and back to our house today, after two weeks in South Africa with Sunette's family. Unfortunately I haven't had internet access since last Thursday morning so I wasn't able to post for the last few days while we were down there and the two or three days we were traveling.
We had a phenomenal time while we were there. As you can see from the previous posts, we visited a few game reserves, hiked around Hogsback and then Sunette's sister got married the Saturday before we left. I'll post some pictures from the wedding below. Keep in mind, I wasn't the hired photographer so I was going after the shots that he wasn't there to take.
It was a lovely outdoor wedding; a beautiful bride and handsome groom, perfect setting, perfect weather and a hopping dinner and reception. Sunette and I took ballroom dancing lessons to prepare since the new husband and wife are phenomenal ballroom dancers. Needless to say the DJ didn't quite play the same kind of music that we had practiced to. So can you guess which person at the dinner decided to break the ice a bit by providing a firm demonstration of the Tootsie Roll. Yeah, being the only American there, I had to represent. Needless to say the party and the dance floor loosened up a bit after that.
All in all, it was a fantastic time. I pictured it being essentially a photo expedition and that's exactly what it was, from capturing nature and animals to weddings and receptions. I definitely learned a few tricks and I feel like I got some great images from the trip.
Can I say that we missed Elliot something fierce? Luckily we were able to video Skype with him while we were there, which made it much easier to be away for so long. Now we're back home as one big ol' happy family. I'm sure the routine is just around the corner, but we'll see if we can fend it off for a few more days at least.
We're winding up our last day here in Hogsback before heading to Jo'burg for Sunette's sister's wedding. We'll be in Jo'burg for the weekend, then we fly back stateside on Monday. We're supposed to arrive in Atlanta on Tuesday night.
We've had a great last few days, going on a nice long hike yesterday and having a lazy day today. I've taken a few decent shots in the past couple of days, but they'll have to wait 'til tomorrow or the next day to post. It's been a little chilly these last few days, about 50 degrees or so during the day. Tonight we're huddled up around a fire, reading, drinking coffee and eating Brandy Tart. Mmmmmmmm. Needless to say, I didn't lose any weight on this trip for sure.
As promised, here are some shots from Sunday in Addo Elephant Park. I'll continue to post shots I've taken over the last few days, but my internet access may be limited a bit. We'll see.
All of these shots are from when we stumbled on a herd of about 40 elephants at a watering hole late Sunday afternoon. We sat and watched them for almost 2 hours. That's a lot of elephants.
I'm going to break this photo set up into two posts since there are a bunch. Again, Sunette and I were in Addo Elephant Park on Saturday and Sunday to view the wildlife. It covers over 405,000 acres and is home to over 400 elephants, black rhino, lions, and a whole bunch of other stuff. You basically are driving through the bush hoping to come across a few animals. They do have watering holes which are always good places to catch a glimpse. Here are some shots from Saturday. I'll post Sunday's tomorrow.
Edit: My blogging software, MarsEdit, is driving me a little batty. It's screwing with my categories and not posting the pics correctly. Hmmmm….
Well we returned from our visit to Double Drift game reserve and Addo Elephant Park today. It was a wonderful few days. This post will just be about Double Drift and I’ll post some pics and what not from Addo tomorrow.
Double Drift is a game reserve covering over 57,000 acres located about an hour from Hogsback, SA, just south of Alice, SA. They have rhinos, a few elephants, zebra, giraffe and tons more. We’ve been there once before and had a nice experience, seeing rhino and a bunch of other things. This time we went down on Friday afternoon with Sunette’s parents and two other friends. It was a little slow on the sightings, but we did run across this big guy.
After we made one drive, then headed over to some little cottages inside the park overlooking the Great Fish River. The cottages were great and we had a fantastic braai (grill-out) that night under the stars.
The next morning Sunette and I got up before the dawn to make one more drive, then head to Addo. Of course, being in the bush you’re more than likely to run into a few neighbors. This guy was waiting for me under the suitcase as we were getting ready to leave.
We ushered him out of course and continued on with the drive. As the sun was coming up there were some gorgeous settings for a couple tree shots. I’m trying to get shots of all the different trees that we’ll do a collection of at the house maybe. Here’s a silhouette of a Kiepersol Tree and a Thorn Tree. Those things look mean, and they’re all over the place.
The drive through the reserve that morning was gorgeous. We didn’t see a bunch of animals unfortunately but the Aloes were blooming and made for some nice shots.
We did catch a couple zebra checking us out.
From Double Drift we headed to Addo. Tomorrow I’ll post shots and a description of Addo Elephant Park.
