Superwife - Camo belt - D

My wife of 8 years and mother of our three kids. She started TKD after the birth of Odie, our third child.

Princess - Camo Belt - D

Our seven-year-old daughter. She was originally supposed to be a spectator to Cowboy, but jumped in and has proven to have an incredible talent for the martial arts.

Cowboy - Camo Belt - D

Our six-year-old son. He is small for his age, so starting him in TKD is what got us into this mess. He is very close to our Chief Instructor, and his spirit is twice as big as he is.

Odie

Our youngest son, born in April of 2006. By the time he is old enough to start, we should all be Black Belts.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Soul of the Dragon


Last week of the UWBT.

For a couple of days there I had all but given up hope that I was going to be able to finish on time. After a couple of big runs, and 500-pushup days, it's starting to look like I'll finish the running on schedule, possibly the pushups as well. Including today there are 6 days left. As long as I don't take any breaks, I just might be able to call what is left of the UWBT a success.

If you look back to the beginning, there were a lot of things on there that fell by the wayside--PV's, Books read, sparring, forms, etc. I think maybe I was a little overzealous with how much time I estimated it would take versus how much time I actually had. With the next challenge I've added a lot, but it remains to be seen if I've made the same mistake again.

The UWBT, "Spirit of the Dragon," was designed to get me back into the martial arts/fitness mindset--to essentially just get into shape and make working out a daily requirement in my life. This challenge, the "Ultimate Camo Belt Challenge--Soul of the Dragon," is designed to take me to the next level of fitness and capability in the martial arts. I've kept the same events along the lines of pushups, situps, and running, and jacked up the requirements a little (going for 15,000 pushups/situps, 350 miles walk/run). But I've added more to it to develop my skills rather than just get into shape. Specifically, I've added pullups (3000), lunges (10000 each side), sidekick extensions (5000 each leg), and an additional cardio event of "other," in which I'll be doing 3 hours of cardio (45 minutes every other day) per week other than running. Typing this out the numbers look big--but when broken down by day they're doable.

One thing I need to remember while starting this new program is the biggest lesson I learned in "Spirit." I took essentially the whole month of September off. This put me in such a bind that I have never caught up, except briefly on the muscular stuff. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise--since in order for me to make significant progress I had to train to a level much higher tha the UWBT was designed for. Instead of the prescribed 1.4 miles per day, my average run is around 4 miles--sometimes twice a day. Instead of the prescribed 70 pushups/situps per day, I have regularly accomplished several hundred per day. Obviosuly, this has yielded much greater results than I would have seen had I remained on schedule. So--raising the requirements for "Soul" shouldn't be that big of a deal, since I've been doing well over twice the requirements for "Spirit" for quite a while now. Bottom line--if I sit for a month on this one, like I did on the last one, there will be no catching up. The price for big mistakes on this trip is failure.

In an effort to cheat get ahead align the challenges with the beginnings of a month, I'm starting "Soul" today, even though "Spirit" doesn't end until the 6th. Since I'm ramping it up pretty hard to finish strong, this should launch me ahead quite a bit right from the beginning.


CHALLENGE STATUS

PUSHUP: -554
SITUPS: -1464
MILES: -17

Labels: