zack.kirsch.org

I did it! I woke up at (or before) 7am every day last week and ran. On Tuesday, I ran an almost continuous 3 miles. Unfortunately I started to get really tired and sore as the week went on. Thursday and Friday were the hardest days and I barely ran 2.4 miles each day.

This was a good experiment, but at the end of the week I decided that this was a bit too hard on my joints to do every day. I'm taking it easy this week on purpose. I haven't run at all so far, but I did play squash for 2.5 hours last night and am plenty sore.

I'm not giving up on the morning-exercise idea though. Next week, I'd like to put together a plan for 7am wakeups, 2-3 days of aerobic activity and 1-2 days of weightlifting. It may be more difficult, but I might try to immediately bus to Rain fitness (my local gym, right next to Isilon) to work out before work. Instead of high-impact running, I would do a low impact exercise on the elliptical.

I felt horrible the week before last. I was waking up late, being unproductive throughout the day and goofing around all evening. I was approaching depression territory as last weekend rolled around; I didn't want to talk to anybody or do anything outside of the house.

After playing video games all weekend, I not only needed a change, but I wanted a change. I decided to wake up at 7am on Monday, which is 2 hours earlier than my norm. It worked great on Monday. I had good energy throughout the day, got some good work done and really paid attention in my evening Computer Architecture class. I also had a good chat with my coworker Zach that day about his morning running habits and I decided to challenge myself again the next day.

I woke up at 7am again on Tuesday and went running in the morning! This was a first for me, because I never thought that I could work out first thing in the morning. The run went well even though I'm very out of shape; I did a very basic 20 minute run/walk workout. I was incredulous about how much energy I had throughout Tuesday. My daily regiment of coffee and diet soda was entirely replaced by waking up earlier and exercising. It worked so well that I challenged myself to do it the rest of the week.

I'm proud to say that I did it - I woke up at 7am every day last week and ran every day Tuesday-Friday. I definitely had my share of difficulties - running isn't as easy as it was when I was in better shape, but by Friday I was up to running 2.5 miles continuously. My ankles feel like they're ready to pop, but I'm resting them this weekend. Mother nature tried to deter me Thursday morning - it started pouring shortly after I started running and it stopped raining right after I stopped running!

I'm challenging myself again this week. I'd like to do another 5 days of 7am wakeups and workouts. I'd like to gain distance, speed and run for longer, but more importantly I'm concentrating on making this a habit. They say it takes 21 days to make something a habit and I would really like to make the running euphoria a habitual part of my life. Wish me luck!

I've recently become enamored with a really cool iPhone game called Flight Control. You play the part of an air-traffic controller who directs jetliners, small jets, Cessna's and helicopters to 2 different runways and a helipad. The game is only 99 cents, #1 on the top paid apps list and I highly recommend it. (Link)

I've been pretty addicted to this game for the last 2 weeks and I figured I'd share my high scores, since I think they are pretty good. :)

Update from 4/15/09, high score of 729!

Last week we had a big party at The Zoo. It went really well and we prepared all week because the theme was very unique: It was a "Back to the Future 80s" party. If you don't know what that means, you'll have to ask somebody else -- I'm tired of explaining it! We had about 50 people at the party (and I actually knew at least one or two of them), which makes it our most successful party yet.

Unfortunately both Katie and I got a bit sick the weekend after the party, which is to be expected. Except the small sickness grew into a big sickness -- soon both of us were calling in sick to work. (And it wasn't *just* to play hooky!) On Monday and Tuesday, I felt increasingly horrible. I had some normal cold symptoms like a sore throat and a slightly runny nose, but I was also very beat down.

During Tuesday night, I had chills all night and could not get warm. I woke up at 4am to put on sweats, turn up the heat and curl up in a comforter and a heating blanket. Katie insisted I take my temperature, which turned out to be a bit low at 96.9 degrees. These symptoms scared me enough to go to the doctor. I'm glad I did, because she told me I had the flu. Hooray! I don't think I've ever had the flu and I've got to try everything once, right?

Katie was feeling under the weather, but not as bad as me. The doctor told her she may have allergies and gave us more general advice for taking care of our variety of sicknesses.

Katie took good care of me -- I was relatively useless all week. I guess I was lucky that she was sick enough to stay home from work but healthy enough to help me out. Now I'm getting more healthy and she's getting worse. I hope she doesn't get my flu, because it was a horrible experience. Well, now its my turn to take care of her.

Aside from skipping work, I also had to skip school and get extensions on almost everything that I had due in the next 2 weeks. Tonight I worked my butt off to finish a project to turn it in before my extended deadline -- and in true Zack style, I turned it in 3 minutes before the deadline. Plenty of time!

Now that I'm getting healthier again, it really makes me appreciate everything I'm able to do. Its amazing how much of life I take for granted -- just being able to get up and have energy during the day is an incredible feeling! Being so sick that I'm not able to do anything productive makes me want to be that much more productive every day. I wish I could say this would be a life changing sickness, but I'll probably forget all about it in a week. If only I could write this down in to some kind of blog instead of just thinking about it ... wait a minute, I'm writing in a blog right now?

Note to future self: Appreciate life and be productive! Oh and clean your room; it's gotten messy and I doubt I'll get to it any time soon.

The last six months have been really difficult but Katie is finally arriving today! I'm so excited! I will be preparing the house for her move-in, while she is hopefully catching up on some much-needed sleep on the plane. Next, we'll be picking up our 3 new furry additions to the house: Coco the chocolate lab, Leo the fighter (my original cat) and Zoey the furball cat. Once we are able to get the animals settled, it will be time to celebrate Katie's independence, our togetherness and the new year!

I'm so excited to share my life with Katie again! There are so many times during a normal day that I'm thinking "I wish Katie could be here doing this with me." And now, she will be able to! There have been so many possibilities/opportunities in my head and now that the day is here, its time to get all of those out of my head and into real life! I'm sure I'm missing important items, but here's my current list of what I'm looking forward to, in no particular order:

* Puppy school with Coco. I hear he needs some obedience training; hopefully I can do better than I did with the Kirsch family's first dog (Autumn) or my first cat (Leo).
* Snowboarding, hopefully lots of it with an alpental pass!
* Studying together (my CS grad program and Katie's evening classes).
* Decorating our new "apartment within a house" basement.
* Being able to take driving and flying trips more readily.
* Exploring mutual homebody hobbies like: watching movies while eating popcorn and making popcorn balls, playing console and computer games, building puzzles, exploring new strategy board games...
* Perhaps some home-improvement things like a fence for Coco, shower-stool, insulating curtains...
* Exploring Seattle together, especially delicious eateries like Crepe De France!
* Putting together a sweet "office" (read: computer gaming room).
* Regulating/normalizing my schedule (and probably Katie's too).
* Going out to social events / parties as a couple.
* Beginning a new exercise plan together and sticking to it.
* Reading together; hopefully we can help each other find books to enjoy and be good about allocating time to do it.
* Cooking together and making awesome old meals like Quesadillas and stir-fry and coming up with some new meals.
* Being able to concentrate on Isilon work again.
* The possibility of creating a computer game in our spare time, with me doing the programming and Katie doing the artwork/design.
* Decreasing my phone usage!
* Starting a new exciting chapter of our lives together!

"Brick walls are there for a reason. They let us prove how badly we want things."
(From Randy Pausch's "Last Lecture": http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5700431505846055184)

This quote seems especially relevant while I struggle through a very tough time. I'm in a position where I do not have control of the most important thing in my life and it's incredibly difficult to deal with. I try to separate myself from this unsolvable problem, but I cannot. It may not be my problem to solve, but it sure as hell is the best problem I can think of solving.

I will not give up, and soon, we will find a way around this brick wall.