Internal Drive

Tomorrow will be Friday, April 1st.

As we in the Mid-Atlantic shift from an unusually long lasting winter to the four weeks of Spring before Summer starts on May 1st, I'd like to begin an exercise regiment that I can begin, continue and never end. In the past I've always been able to begin an exercise program, but it's the continuing/maintaining aspect that's been problematic. Whether it be weather, work, family or my Type 1 Diabetes, I've always had a ready made excuse available to quit doing the exercise program long before the desired outcome has been achieved. So I'll ask you, what do you do to keep the motivation factor going when you want to give up?

Here are a few bullet points to better describe what I enjoy and what I don't enjoy:

• I don't enjoy running just to run!! A lot of individuals say that running by yourself allows you to think about various subjects that invade your brain when you're on the road. The only subject I think about when running alone is when is it going to be over!! Running with another individual or with a group may be different because of the interaction factor, but now all of the sudden your exercise program has become a group exercise program and at the end of the day I don't want to have to rely on other people to get me in shape (see title of post!!)

• I very much enjoy running when there is a ball in play. I love to play basketball, soccer, volleyball, tennis, team handball etc. You get the idea. It doesn't ever feel like running when there's a purpose to it. The problems with the above mentioned activities are numerous. Multiple individuals working around varying schedules and available resources to just name a few. But again, I'm counting on all of these other entities for my workout benefit.

• I don't enjoy getting up at the crack of dawn to workout. I've never been a morning person and I don't know if I can ever become one.

• I do enjoy working out at night. That's probably because for the majority of my adult life that's always been when athletic activities have taken place due to everyone's schedules.

So as I've been writing this I can summarize by saying that I don't like to run by myself, I like playing with others, I can't stand working out early and I've always participated in sports that are played at night.

But my worry is that by relying on other individuals, read team sports as a middle aged male, I'm not owning my own workout program long term.

I'm thinking I really need to look into a bike of some sort. Less pounding and wear and tear on the knee joints and I can do it on my own for a long time. Now I will probably have to adjust my workout schedule somewhat because it's not entirely safe to constantly bike in the dark, but we've got a fairly safe rather large neighborhood that I could probably map out a nice little route to circumnavigate around a few times a week.

So that's the plan. I'm going to start looking for a bike and pray that my internal drive will keep me motivated to work out an exercise plan to help with the really important things in my life, my wife and two sons.

Look for posts in the coming weeks about what model I've chosen and how I'm currently doing.

Dudes Weekend in Virginia

I had an awesome time this past weekend in Mineral, VA on the banks of Lake Anna with four high school buddies. For the most part, I only get to see them once a year because of the usual suspects, geographic location, family and work. But this has become an annual event because John's wife Paula suggested we all get together for his 40th birthday five years ago to get his ass out of the house!! This was the 2nd straight year we've held it at Dave's awesome vacation/soon to be retirement home in rural VA. After enjoying a lunch with my nine year old son Ryan and my parents/his grandparents at school on Friday, it was time to start the 3 1/2 hour trek slightly northwest to Mineral. I arrived without any problems from the GPS and was greeted by the gang that had already arrived from central PA. I was also told that we'd be a man down because our one buddy, Chris, had to stay back home in NY to attend to his ailing wife and their three kids. It was definitely a good news/bad news situation. Good news = more beer and food for the rest of us. Bad news = missing his snarky comments and humor for the 36 hour weekend!!

Highlights of the weekend include:

• Getting out on Lake Anna on Saturday afternoon on Dave's boat. Despite the cool air temperatures, just an awesome time on the water with the guys taking in all the views.

• Tavern On The Rail restaurant in Fredericks Hall, VA. Don't know how these people do it, but they serve a great seafood dish appropriately named Frederick's Hall Casserole. I say I don't know how they do it because nobody lives near this place and they have great food. Well worth the trip to the place if you're in the area.

• Dave making an outstanding sausage chowder for lunch on Saturday.

• The smells coming from the basement due to the consumption of varying foods and alcohol. This can only be appreciated based on my vast experiences with these guys having known them for just slightly under 30 years to date.

Lowlights of the weekend:

• Waking up on Sunday morning to find two inches of new snow on the ground. In the immortal words of Greg Wallis, currently living in Syracuse, NY, "I came down here this weekend to get away from this shit!!"

• The smells coming from the basement. Some of you need to visit a doctor or two to see what in the hell is wrong with you in your old age!!

All in all, a great time was had by all and hopefully next year we can get the group weekend back up to a six pack.

March 2011 (con't)

Since it seems I have no common sense this evening when it comes to this blog, I'll just continue my wandering thoughts from earlier right now!!

• Ryan's teammates have all played before and some are very skilled. We're working individually with him on catching passes, dribbling and boxing out while not so much paying attention to the overall dynamics of the 1-3-1 half court trap!! Needless to say, it's a work in progress. The good news that I mentioned earlier is that he seems to enjoy it and that he's having fun.
• Dylan, our almost five year old, is a complete handful in every way. Not having any brothers or sisters growing up I never had the pleasure of experiencing what our two sons are going through right now. With that being said, he's not a bad kid by any stretch of the imagination. He worships his older brother who has the ability each and every day to play Jedi mind tricks with him which has a tendency to be a real problem. He also has some "friends" at his daycare who are a little on the rambunctious side and he's more than willing to participate. He loves sports; baseball, basketball, soccer, golf, hockey. He really takes after me in that he could play all day if given the chance.
  
• On the Type 1 Diabetes front, my most recent A1C level was right at 7.2%. I didn't do any better than my last reading in October but I also didn't do any worse considering a torn meniscus in my left knee which has kept me out of serious exercise for most of the first three months of 2011. I need to schedule my MRI and subsequent surgery soon so as to not completely blow off summer.
• Work is busy which is very good.
• Kendra and I need to get out on more date nights.

I promise to write more.

March 2011

As I continue to be a slacker on this blog, I do realize that at some point I will pay much more attention to it in the future than I have in the past. With that being said, I do have a few updates about what's been keeping me away from my writing responsibilities!!

• Our oldest son Ryan just turned nine years old a little less than two weeks ago. Hard to believe how fast he's growing up. He's also participating in his first team sport, basketball, and he really seems to enjoy it despite the fact that many of his teammates have considerable