Kinda Crazy for a Saturday

indexThis morning I woke up at 4:45 AM. Kinda crazy for a Saturday huh? I had my alarm set for 5:00 AM, so I got up a just a little earlier than I had planed. I really need to consider that everyone else in the house is not quite as excited about waking up early on Saturday as me.

Saturday, is usually the day I run 6 miles at 7:00 with the local running group. But today was not typical. I made a decision to take things in a little different direction. If you read my last post I have a 90 plan to make some changes. Today I took some action, instead of running 6 miles at 7:00 AM, I started my run at 6:30 AM, just a little earlier than normal. My plan was to run 9 miles, just a little farther than normal. I did some quick math and thought to myself, if I run 6 miles in 59 minutes I will run 9 miles in about an hour and a half, just a little more time than my normal Saturday run.

After about 5 miles in to my run, I noticed that I was not running as fast as I have been lately, I was holding back a bit since I knew that I going to run 3 miles more than normal, I wanted to have a little extra energy in the tank so I would be able to finish the 9 miles. During my run I thought that 9 is not a very round number and if I were to give it just a little extra effort I could do 10 miles. I cant even remember the last time I ran 10 miles. As I ran I just keep on thinking if I just give it a little extra effort,just a little more. Today I ran 10 miles and only took just a little extra effort.

Now its post run and I am doing a couple things to recover

Eating a little better today.
Drinking a little more water today
Getting a little rest so I can recover faster.
Taking a little better care of myself.

Little changes, great results!

 

Whats your 90 Day Plan?

90 Day PlanStarting today and for the next 90 days,  I am going create some forward momentum in my life.  For the next 90 days, I am going to take action on the things that will get me the results that I want and get me to where I want to go. To accomplish my goals I won’t have to reinvent the wheel, however it will require me to make just a few small adjustments in my training plan.

The focus of this 90 day plan will be on running, life goals, business and overall health. I am not going to spend a ton of  time writing  out a really big plan , I am just going to to jump in and get started.  The majority of the changes that I need make I  most likely already know what to do and if  get stuck along the way I will just type a question into a search engine and get the question answered.  Its time to stop over thinking everything and just start taking action!

My 90 day plan will be fun and exciting.  I am going at it with focus and clarity and will allow the plan to be adaptable to change. I am going to take action and create a pattern interrupt that will force me to make the changes and reach my goals. I will make choices action that will give me great results.

My outline to “Run” my life for the next 90 days

  • Take Action but keep it simple, since I can only do one thing at a time.
  • Have a reason and a desired outcome for each change that I plan to make.
  • Focus on the quality and not quantity
  • Take care of myself
  • Stay positive
  • Pray
  • Get rest
  • Eat healthy foods
  • Drink lots of water
  • Renew my commitment daily
  • If something is not working figure it out and start again, because obstacles can be over come.

90 days, I think, that’s about all it is going to take for me to make some big changes, November 30th will be here before you know it, its time to get moving.

By the way, I just crushed a 45 minute work out on the elliptical and I feel great!

If you liked the blog please leave me a comment.

Have an awesome day!

Howard

Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. 
Try to be better than yourself.” -William Faulkner

What I pack in my running bag

Do you run? Do you have that special bag that you pack all your running gear? I’ll share with you what I pack in my running bag and how important it is to me to take the right things on my run.The first thing I pack is my wallet, I don’t need my wallet for running, but I take some cash so I can stop to get a banana, a water, a sports drink and depending on how much motivation I need maybe even a coffee.

I also pack some GU energy gel (not the Octane one, it has to much caffeine for me and most of the time I am wound up enough from coffee ) I have a  GU gel and some water about 15 minutes before I run. I pack  a towel because I plan to work hard and at the end will need it to dry off from my extreme effort.  I pack an old race shirt  so I can change into it so that I am not all sweaty on the way home, those old shirts also help to remind me what I can accomplish when I have a plan and am laser focused.

A couple other things that you will  find in my running bag are  icy hot,  the armband holder for my phone,  my new Yurbuds sport earphones, they are awesome I like them because they don’t fall out of my ears while I am running.

Here are the 3 Things I never forget to pack:

  • The right Attitude, I don’t leave home without it.
  • Enthusiasm, for before, during and after my run
  • A sense of accomplishment,  I take it back with me and carry it around until my next run.

Oh yeah and one more thing,  sunglasses, I heard this in a song from the 1970’s:

“Let me put my sunglasses on.
That’s the law around here, you got to wear your sunglasses.
So you can feel cool.”

Have a great day!

Be sure to hit me up on twitter

https://twitter.com/HowardValentine

running bag

 

 

Taking care of Velvet

Its Saturday July 12, 2014 and man have I been busy. I got up around 5:30 AM and got had my first cup of coffee to get me going and out the door. I was running a little earlier so I started my run at 6:45 AM. My run today was great, 6 miles of bliss, not my fastest but the weather was just perfect and I enjoyed every minute.
After the run we went for coffee and I ordered an extra coffee to take home for a little extra fuel for all my Saturday projects that I had lined up.
Do you have pets? If you don’t and want to keep busy on Saturdays you may want to get a few. We have 2 Labrador Retrievers, 2 cats who are sisters and roam all around the house and two cats that just kinda hang out downstairs. In addition, like that’s not enough we have 3 hermit crabs, a beta fish and Velvet our resident overly enthusiastic middle of the night wheel running hamster.
My mission is today has been to make sure that everyone is happy and healthy, between a cage cleaning for Velvet, water changing for the beta fish and other general upkeep I am not surprised that it is already 2:30 in the afternoon, this day is flying by fast.
Now its time to get outside and start to work on my afternoon projects, I am going to trim the trees and bushes in front of my house and give the grass a quick once over even though I don’t really think it needs cut yet, but I will make it look nice.
Sometimes I wonder where I get all this energy to do all these projects, I don’t think I would have half this energy if it were not for trying to live healthy, being a runner and lots of coffee.

Time to get busy. Have a great day!
Hamster

Just keep moving.

If you don’t fall down you cant get up. Anything worthwhile takes time and effort to get better. Think of Thomas Edison who failed time after time until he finally created the light bulb. I am personally grateful that he did not give up. Just think, you may be just at the point of a breakthrough, if you are working on a worthwhile project keep going and don’t give up. The great things happen when you just keep moving.

“You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!” Rocky

I still have dreams.

How did you use your time today? Did you use your time to do what you love? Did you use your time to achieve your dreams? Do you still have dreams? I know when I was a kid I dreamed that I could do anything, somewhere those dreams got sidetracked. Now I have resurrected those dreams, I am looking at my life and what I want to achieve and am surrounding myself with people that can contribute to my growth and my dreams. I am surrounding myself with people that think like me and want to dream like me. I am going to challenge myself to get better and better everyday. I feel like I am back on the right track.

“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.” TE. Lawrence

Getting things moving.

Hey, whats up?
This is my first blog post and I am just going to let it rip. Today is Sunday June 8, 2014 and its about 1:00 PM in the afternoon and I am feeling great. I just want to let the world know that I am here and ready to start posting some awesome content to my website. Anyway my name is Howard and I have been on the net since about 1996 when it was the world according to dial up, oh what fun those days were waiting for a web page to load. I remember all the stuff, bulletin boards AOL, ICQ and Hotmail. Time has gone so fast it seems like yesterday. Is time going fast for you too? Now fast forward to 2014 wow so much has changed, now we have twitter, Facebook and Instagram to keep us occupied. The question I have to ask myself is, how am I using all of this awesome technology to make my life great today? Well the first step is this website and this post to let the world know that I am here and ready to blog.
Today, right here and right now I am taking action. I could have put off blogging today, I can say I am not ready, I am not in the right mindset or a hundred other reasons why I could not post here and get this website off the ground. It feels great to take action to get moving and get the creativity flowing. I have greatness within me and I am ready to let it out. So what can you do today? You can do anything!
I set a goal today that I am going to get out on my bike and go ride at 3:00, I could make up a bunch of excuses why I cant go out to ride today, hum lets see, here are a few: it may rain, Sundays were meant to stay at home, I need some rest, I can get a few things done around the house, I could do some cleaning, cooking, organizing, you name it I could name tons of things that will keep me from doing what I want to do and that is ride my bike. Well here is the fact, listen very closely because this is my pearl of wisdom for the day, ready? Here we go…. I, am the boss of me. There you go, I am the boss of me. Whats that mean? Well I guess if I am the boss of me, you are the boss of you. So get going and do something you want to do today and oh by the way, Live your great life today!