Jorg's Brain Log

Week 41 has ended and I’m pretty happy about this highly productive week. Lets see what was in the plan and what made it to the end.

Basic schedule for week 41 (October 5 - October 11)

• Rest: Workdays get up at 6am and go to bed at midnight. 6 hours of rest.
• Running: 3 times in the morning. Getting the blisters away with 4×7 minute runs with 1 minute rest in between.
• Freediving: Pool session on Wednesday. Do a dry walk or static on 5 other days.
• Food: Start eating regularly 3 times a day on workdays. Not yet paleo style but no snacks after dinner! Soda light no problem.
• Mental: Read some books and start writing regularly again.

Rest hours to a maximum of 6 is still going great. Getting out of bed at 6am not so much. Did some long working evenings, stopping at 2 or 3 am. But that’s the price you have to pay when you’re in a working flow. I think I’ll keep at it as it goes now. As long as I still make the normal office hours it’s all no problem.

Running is going better and better. Did some good runs and ended with a good 5+ kilometers on the last day and it felt great. So I’ll up it to 3×10 minutes next week.

Freediving also going great, especially now that we have a dedicated pool place to train again! I forgot the dry workouts a little bit, but started on Wednesday with a 30 second empty lung, 1:30 and 2:30 full. Did a pool workout on Thursday with some pretty relaxed and long deep dynamics in a relaxed style. On Friday I managed to do a 1:30, 2:30, 2:50 statics with no contractions. Saturday was time for dry walks and it’s clear I suck at them: 0:38, 0:41 and 0:43 seconds. Lets practice this some more!

Food is going great all day long. No snacks, no strange binge out sessions! Only last week I had 2 snack evenings I really was ‘hungry’ and ate some stuff. Don’t know why, but I did. Didn’t feel bad when I did it. It seems to me that the only thing that will make sure I loose weight is when I start with the Paleo diet, which I will start in November again.

Reading and writing is up and running again. Started with some iJorg posts and read some great books as well. So I’m pretty happy in the end. It was a good week in all. Managed to do a lot of work.

So, how does the following week look like?

Basic schedule for week 42 (October 12 - October 18)

• Rest: Workdays get up at 6am and go to bed at midnight or a maximum of 6 hours of rest.
• Running: 3 times in the morning. 3×10 minute runs with 1 minute rest in between.
• Freediving: Pool session on Thursday. Do a dry walk or static on 5 other days.
• Food: Start eating regularly 3 times a day on workdays. Not yet paleo style but no snacks after dinner! Soda light no problem.
• Mental: Read some books and start writing regularly again.

Adam Nelson - My favorite shot putter

My son has started again with his track & field training. It’s great to watch him work on all the different athletics disciplines. Seeing him run, jump and throw in all kinds of different activities made me wanna be on the field again myself.

I’ve done athletics from the age of 6 until 16 and a lot of competitions in that time. And I was not too bad at it! I loved the decathlon, but my specialties were discus and shot put.

A few years back I went back to the field with Sanne and I think we trained for these disciplines for around 8-9 months. 2 sessions a week, technique, power, everything. Even a little competition again. But due to personal circumstance I couldn’t continue doing it.

But now that my son has started again, it’s a waste of time for me to just stand, watch and wait for him. So I talked to the club and as long as no planned youth training is making use of the facility, I can go and use it instead.

Yesterday was time for the first test. After a few years, how would I do and how would I feel. After 50 minutes of throwing, I already got some confidence back in speed and thrust. And best of all, it was so much fun to do it again.

Next day I really felt in my muscles that I did something new again. So let’s continue with this and see what it brings me. The minimum is a good feeling in the end.

The best excuse to have children is the fact that everybody understands when you are playing around. People don’t look strange at me when I’m building a sandcastle on the beach with my son. They don’t make funny faces when I’m rollerblading with my daughter. Or at least I’m not noticing it. And if they would, I wouldn’t care!

Too many adults forget to play and just have fun. Not everything in life has to be serious. Sometimes it’s good to let of steam by doing something ‘childish’ or fun that makes no sense in first sight. Go jump in the waves of an ocean. Or run down from the dunes as hard as you can and fall on your face. Do crazy, enjoy life!

Strange thing is that there isn’t a clear trend with adults with kids and without with regards to being playful. I know a father who has 5 kids and he’s still a stiff office clerk with no fun in him. I know people without kids who have fun as if they were a complete kindergarten class.

My kids remind me everyday that I need to have fun in live. They remind me of my own childhood and what was important then. Of course I have responsibilities now, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for anything playful in a day.

It’s time for some playtime in the swimmingpool and use the slides once again. Can you be faster then me?

Well, okay probably not my first running competition ever, but it’s been at least 15 years since my last one. I just inscribed for the “Sqware Najaarscross Bladel 2009″ run. And I’m planning to do a 6 kilometer run there.

So I still have 4 weeks for training before it’s time. I have to work my way up from where I’m now to a decent continuous speed without getting blisters or calve or foot pain.

This week I will do 4×7 minutes. Next week will be 3×10 minutes. Then I will tackle the 2×15 and final week will be for the 1×30 minutes.

I have no illusion that I can do a 6 kilometer cross run under 30 minutes. Time is of no importance, pleasure is! I want to run 6k without any physical pain other then my cardiovascular system working like crazy. Wish me luck!

End of the week and the start of the new one. What was on my list for last week?

Basic schedule for week 40 (September 28 - October 4)

• Rest: Workdays get up at 6am and go to bed at midnight. 6 hours of rest.
• Running: 3 times in the morning. Getting the blisters away with 5×5 minute runs with 1 minute rest in between.
• Freediving: Pool session on Wednesday. Do a dry walk or static when I feel like it.
• Food: Start eating regularly 3 times a day on workdays. Not yet paleo style but no snacks after dinner! Soda light no problem.
• Mental: Read some books and start writing regularly again.

All in all I can say that I had a good week. The early wakeup is doing me good and giving a lot of energy. The last run, today, was not so good. I started way to fast and payed the price halfway. Lesson learned.

Freediving in the pool was also fun, but not a good training at all. I’m really missing the dedicated lane to train seriously again. On Saturday we went to visit the Wiesbaden competition, and it was a lot of fun again. I want to train pool freediving again! Wow…

Food is going good. 3 times a day cycle is back again. Sometimes small snack in the evening that needs to be replaced with vegetables or something like that. But all in all I’m happy. Book reading is also up to speed so gaining new knowledge everyday with the speed of light.

Next Step

Jorg talking with Erik van Riet Paap

Now that the first 4 weeks are over, it’s clear that this schedule is a new habit and I see no problem continuing with the basic part. Now it’s time to add some small things again.

From this week on, I will be working from my home office again, so it’s important to keep up to speed and get out of bed early in the morning, like I did in the last weeks. While proven not to be a problem while working from an office, now I need to prove myself that the same thing is possible while working from home. Discipline!

Running will remain at 3 times a week. The coming week I will run 4 times 7 minutes and will see how it goes. If I keep a consistent speed I don’t expect any problems anymore, but you never know.

Sanne and I really need to find a solution for our freediving training. Dedicated lane is really a must have, so I’ll make this a top priority to arrange. In the mean time, we will keep doing one pool session per week for now. Furthermore I will renew my dry static schedule I wanted to do last month with a dry static/walk schedule. 6 days a week doing a pool training, dry static or dry walk session of max 15 minutes again for 4 weeks straight. Lets see if this brings enough diversity to keep me going.

In the coming 4 weeks I’ll keep the food intake the same. Focusing more on the time I eat and not in the evening anymore. Next month I start with paleo food again.

Mental part stays the same as well. Book reading is going great. I think I’ve got now 8 books in my new book closet that I didn’t read yet, so I don’t have to order any books in the coming month.

In short, the two changes I will implement is that I will do freediving 6 days a week and I stop eating after dinner, except for the weekends. In my new schedule it will look like this:

Basic schedule for week 41 (October 5 - October 11)

• Rest: Workdays get up at 6am and go to bed at midnight. 6 hours of rest.
• Running: 3 times in the morning. Getting the blisters away with 4×7 minute runs with 1 minute rest in between.
• Freediving: Pool session on Wednesday. Do a dry walk or static on 5 other days.
• Food: Start eating regularly 3 times a day on workdays. Not yet paleo style but no snacks after dinner! Soda light no problem.
• Mental: Read some books and start writing regularly again.

Sometimes change is necessary to get away from a (bad) habit. There is a natural resilience  against change when people don’t really see the point of change. That happens when they can’t fully understand the deeper meaning of the habit that has kicked in.

However, when they hear from their doctor (the specialist) that they really have to quit smoking or otherwise some serious consequences emerge that could threaten their existence, people most of the time understand what the bad habit will do if they continue and they take the steps to change.

Where people normally have a lot of problems voluntarily changing a bad habit, they seem to have no problems at all to make such a drastic change when they hear it’s life threatening.

Then you have the sort of people who don’t believe and trust the doctor and his bad message. They still continue with their bad habit and seek relieve by talking to other people who think the same as they are, therefore convincing themselves they are right even more.

Thankfully most people are smart enough to believe the specialist and quit smoking. They make the change and adapt to a new habit of non-smoking. Too bad that people sometimes need to find out the hard way.

Running is going great! Body is adapting and feet are going strong. After 3 weeks of dedicated training I’m started to feel better on the road. No more blisters at the moment and the  speed is coming back.

This week I’m starting week 4 of my first schedule to get back to speed with running in 8 weeks time. I’m now up to 5×5 minutes with one minute rest between each set and slowly increasing pace. It may not seem a lot, but I’m focusing myself to keep a good running technique during the sets, which is much more exhausting then just keep going with my same old bad technique.

My friends girlfriend Marieke uses www.afstandmeten.nl to track the runs she does. I started using it this evening to create some alternative routes for the coming weeks and months. Each week I run the same course 3 times and then switches to a route of opposite direction, so that I can keep fresh and excited about each week.

Here an overview of my first 4 weeks of routes  and the big route that I want to have under my belt end of the first season. Funny to see, that this is somewhat of the same route as some years ago when I ran the big loop regularly and sometimes 2 in a row.

After my first 4 weeks I want to do a 6k competition run, to see where I’m standing. It’s been a lot of years since my last race, so curious what time I can put down.

Another week has already passed and I’m pretty happy with the whole week as I look back. What was on the planning?

Basic schedule for week 39 (September 21-27)

• Rest: Workdays get up at 6am and go rest at midnight.
• Running: 3 times in the morning. Getting the blisters away with 6×4 minute runs with 1 minute rest in between.
• Freediving: Pool session on Thursday. At least 6 times this week: max 15 minute static schedule. Short but intense.
• Food: Start eating regularly 3 times a day on workdays. Not yet paleo style but no snacks after dinner! Soda light no problem.
• Mental: Read some books and start writing regularly again.

The resting part is going great! I’ve made some variables in my sleeping schedule. Basic rule number 1 is that I sleep 6 hours and that’s it. So, I try to keep it the same the whole week; going to bed at midnight (read/sleep) and get up at 6 in the morning. Sometimes there are priorities and things need to be finished. Or sometimes I’m in a working flow, that I don’t want to quit working yet. So I had a few occasions that I went to bed at 1 or 2 in the morning and got out of bed at 7 or 8 in the morning. In the weekend my only rule is to get out of bed at around 8 in the morning. Sleeping out is mentally refreshing.

Running is also going excellent. Last week 3 runs of 6 times 4 minutes, without any real problems. Only thing is that I feel my left calve and my right heel after 20 minutes of running. Not a real problem, but something to keep an eye on. No blisters or any other foot problems at the moment. I’m still taping my heels every time before going for a run. I probably go to my local sport store to video my running and examine my foot, to see if I use the right equipment for running. Next week 3 runs with a 5×5 minutes schedule.

Sanne and I did an excellent freediving session on Wednesday in the pool. We played a lot with alignment and technique, but still I’m missing a dedicated lane to improve. Outdoor season is over now and because of my busy schedule we will probably stick to the Wednesday pool training schedule. Dry static schedules are off for the moment. Maybe again next month.

Food schedule is going pretty okay. I’m back to eating 3 times a day and no snacks in the evening. But the weekends are still eat-all-I-can days.

Mental part is going okay. Writing is up and going strong again. In the last 3 weeks I’ve read 9 books. So that is 3 books a week. At the moment I’m reading around 6 others at the same time. Absorbing knowledge! The biggest one is Titan, a biography about the life of John D. Rockefeller. 760 pages written by Ron Chernow. Great read and this one alone will probably take until next weekend to finish.

What I’m learning with making schedules and therefore structured changes in my life is that I need to do it with small steps, stick with it for several weeks and then add, remove or change a habit or skill. So after the coming week I’ve done 4 weeks of good sleeping cycles, running, basic eating and mental homework that it’s time to change something again. Interesting weeks to come!

My schedule for the new week:

Basic schedule for week 40 (September 28 - October 4)

• Rest: Workdays get up at 6am and go to bed at midnight. 6 hours of rest.
• Running: 3 times in the morning. Getting the blisters away with 5×5 minute runs with 1 minute rest in between.
• Freediving: Pool session on Wednesday. Do a dry walk or static when I feel like it.
• Food: Start eating regularly 3 times a day on workdays. Not yet paleo style but no snacks after dinner! Soda light no problem.
• Mental: Read some books and start writing regularly again.

To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.

Anatole France

We are humans and not just cogs. Cogs don’t have emotion. When you give a cog the same input you always get the same output. Don’t expect the same to happen with humans as well. 1+1 is not always 2!

Humans have emotions, the need to have a passion for the things they do. The companies that grow and survive know this and embrace the fact that not everything can be planned and change is inevitable to survive. They know that the most valuable assets are their people that give the company a soul.

If we want to accomplish something big and we make the perfect plan it ‘could’ work. When we have a plan and the people involved have passion and believe that it’s going to work, you will succeed!

Legacy is a word that can bring many different kinds of emotions. Legacy in IT is most of the time a dirty word and brings feelings like old and difficult. Legacy in my personal live is a very beautiful word and brings me to the most important thing in the world: my children.

While I write a lot online about many different and sometimes very personal topics, I don’t write a lot about my children. Thinking about why, I can only come up with one answer: privacy. Still, it’s strange because a lot of my time is spend with my kids.

My daughter Indy is 3 years old. But if she hears this, she says she will turn 4 in only 4 months time so she can get to school. She’s my little pink princess. Problem is she really thinks that she is a little pink princess. But that’s all my girlfriends fault and a completely different story.

My son Rody is 8 years old and turns 9 end of December. He’s a Nintendo playing spiderman-ninja. He’s also the sweetest brother a sister could wish for. Well, most of the time anyway. He really enjoys private father and son activities. So for us a good excuse to go to a movie together and have some fun, while the girls stay at home in their pink dresses, dancing to Zumba music.

They sometimes are real little devils, but in the end they are children. My children, and my legacy. What I do in live reflects onto them. Which makes it so important to live a good live and raise them well.

In the end, they are my everything and I’m so glad that they are in my life. Kids, I love you!

(Okay, getting slightly emotional here. So time for a good action movie with Jason Statham)