Jorg's Brain Log

It’s easy to loose focus! I tested out a few variables since the beginning of this year and it struck to me how fast this happens. Weekly schedules, daily schedules, task lists, project management overviews, goals, etc. All these tools are here to help me, but somehow they also distract me from my original focus.

It’s time again to focus on what has to be done from a day to day, week to week, year to year period. I will dedicated the rest of today to this to make sure I don’t loose it again.

Excellent weekend! Just how I like them. Filled with interesting, fun and productive hours. Meeting people, enjoying conversations, writing some stuff, do some sports. Nice!

Friday was my mothers birthday and she took the family to a Mongolian restaurant. It was an all inclusive price, so unlimited meat, fish and drinks. I’m still full. It was fun to see my son Rody prepare his own meat on the grill and eat like there was no tomorrow. The 2,5 hour eating window was too much for my daughter Indy, so after around 45 minutes at the table she had enough and went exploring. The owner brought a big bag of toys, paper and pencils to play with and even emptied a restaurant table for her to sit at. Great restaurant, great service!

Saturday morning it was skateboarding time. My son, who is now completely hooked on snowboarding, is just not satisfied with 1 or 2 weekly visits to the slope. He wants to be on a board everyday of the week. While it is impossible for me to drive him to the snow everyday, it is possible to step on the next best thing: a skateboard. We have a great skate-park 100 meters from our house and an very big indoor skate-park called Area 51, a mere 5k away, where they also teach skateboarding in a very chilled manner. So he had his first lesson and is stoked and already wants to go again.

Saturday afternoon and evening was spend with my girlfriend and we had some tapas in a restaurant and watched the movie ‘Chloe’, which I give a 6,5. It was a nice evening out. These days I leave my celllphone at home at such occasions, and it gives a lot more rest. No checking emails or news, just enjoying the moment! Good times.

Sunday morning was snowboarding time. My son is busy with his final (gold) course, so I could do some snowboarding by myself with some friends. After Rody his course we stayed an hour longer and had some fun on the slopes. The completely redid the slope, jumps and boxes last week, so we enjoyed ourselves a lot.

As Helle, my girlfriend, was away this day and the kids with their mothers for till Monday I had a few hours of private time in the afternoon. Did some much needed reading, because I’ve read just a few books this year. Read ‘the monk and the riddle‘ in one sitting. Great book on setting priorities in life and going for it. Recommend it!

Helle returned at the beginning of the evening and it was time for food. I prepared my first mussel meal for this year and it was great food. I really enjoy a good meal that takes a long time to eat. In the evening we relaxed some more by some writing and reading. The end of a very good weekend!

This week really has been a cleaning-up-week! First I took care of the biggest mess in the garden behind our house where there was still the foundation of our own ice skating ring we had made this winter.

Second there was my office that had become a real mess after not looking at it for the last few weeks. It’s pretty obvious what kind of negative impact this had on my way of working! It’s been far from optimal in the last two weeks.

And last, I digitized all the papers that were still on my desk, so that I don’t have anything lying around anymore that can distract me. A new habit has been born: as soon as I’ve received mail (the paper version), I digitize it and store it in my dropbox folder.

It’s funny to notice that the more you clean the more clear you become in your head! In the last few days I had more clear ideas and visions than in 2010 as a whole. Only don’t let my girlfriend know this, because she will use this cleaning thing against me…

The fist two weeks of the second month started pretty good, but the second half was really crap, thanks to the stupid fall.

Besides the little weightlifting problem I also had trouble with running. Not due to injury or something else, but due to all the snow and ice on the road. It was just to dangerous to do some outside running.

March will be filled mostly getting back in running and preparing for my competition run beginning of April. And of course the snowboarding vacation will give me some good sports moment!

April will be start of the second 12 weeks of training, where some things will for sure be different.

Yesterday I took up the promise to take my son to the snowy mountains. We decided to go to Winterberg so that he could do some snowboarding on real snow for the first time.

We left pretty early in the morning at 5:45 and we arrived 278 kilometers later in Winterberg (Germany) at around 8:30. Pretty uneventful ride and only snow on the road in the last 5 kilometers or so.

It almost appeared that we still were in the Netherlands. There were more dutch cars then German on the road here. So after a quick McDonald’s breakfast we changed into our gear and headed to the first ski-lift.

My son was pertty excited to see ‘mountains’ with snow like this for the first time when we went up the hill. Arrived at the top it was clear the snow was not in its best condition anymore, after all the melting during day time and light freezing at night.

Still we managed to make the best of it and after 3 hours of  snowboarding my son really had enough of it. It was fun to be  together with this trip and to see him enjoy the few real snowy downhills and struggle with the icy downhills for the rest. I guess he learned a lot, and maybe next year it is time to introduce him to the famous alps!

Damn, it has been 1,5 week since my hard hit on my left shoulder while snowboarding and it still feels weak. I tried to do some back training today, but that wasn’t a great success.

While doing some pull downs I was sure the machine was broken. The first two sets went perfect but the next set felt like the left arm of the machine wasn’t oiled anymore. I needed to put in a lot more effort on the left side then on the right!

After some checking on the machine without weights and noticing that there was no friction it came to mind that it could still be my shoulder. After some searching in my anatomy book I think I might have hurt my Glenohumeral Joint, so that when I put some real force on it  I feel the power leaking away, so to speak.

It has no use in continuing my powerlifting cycle for now, so next week will be a week of rest and then there is still two weeks to go before the snowboard vacation and I will do a trusted colgan cycle for those two weeks. Working on range of motion and doing some interval workouts.

After some hard work it’s great to take a day off. Just relaxing and no computer. Mobile phone turned off and no distraction.

Sitting at home and doing nothing doesn’t work. So we decided to visit the sauna and enjoy a good relaxing massage in the end. This together with some good food and a visit to tanning salon made it a good day.

And of course I couldn’t resist  to turn on my computer, but instead of doing some work, I wrote this post. So another day well spent!

If you’ve never been to the sauna, read here about the benefits.

The fall of last Monday has some more impact then expected. When I’m following schedules it is sometimes hard to listen to your self. As I’ve planned my whole sport-week in advance, it gives me a big feeling of guilt when I don’t execute it exactly.

So, it took me some time to accept that I have to take rest to recover. The fitness schedule on Thursday was already hard on the left shoulder and on Friday evening I noticed a pretty big pain in my left quad muscle during snowboarding.

Normally I set myself over these pains, but this time something was different so I had to stop. And instead of doing fitness and some good tricks on the snowboard, I decided to put down the intensity and take it easy from now on and get some rest till Monday.

First there was guilt, but today after a day of no sports and rest, I accepted it! Sometimes you have to accept the facts and work around them. It’s the trick to recognize the facts as soon as possible, so you don’t loose a lot of time.

Again, wise lesson learned and one I can use more in my personal and professional life. It was a good week!

Yikes! That hurt! Did a big jump today on my snowboard. Fault was that I didn’t check the ramp first and just hit it full speed, presuming it was still the same angle as the day before. I was wrong…

The photo shows what happens when 125 kilos lands on a left shoulder and a head.

Tricky thing was that I have never used a helmet before and this was actually the first time I used my new helmet. Thanks Casco for saving my head! (Can I now get a new helmet from you guys? )