Jorg's Brain Log

Already two weeks of sport are over and it feels great. I’m still searching for a flow and for a right schedule for all the sport I want to do. Just testing things out and searching for a good feeling.

Running goes well, as goes fitness. How much I missed fitness… It feels good to lift weights again! A real testosterone booster for me. Regular sports on regular intervals works pretty well for me. As long as I keep going, it’s not hard to stay on track.

It’s the resting I’m worried about! If I rest for a few days, starting up is much harder already. So for the coming time I keep a busy schedule with minimum rest. In the last two weeks I’ve done the following for now and I need to tweak it a little bit more.

• 04 m fitness
• 05 t fitness
• 06 w running / snowboarding
• 07 t fitness / freediving
• 08 f fitness
• 09 s running
• 10 s -
• 11 m fitness / running
• 12 t fitness / swimming
• 13 w running / snowboarding
• 14 t freediving
• 15 f running
• 16 s fitness / snowboarding
• 17 s fitness / running

This morning I woke up from a terrible pain in my tooth. After an hour of trying to forget the pain I gave up and called the dentist. One hour later I was in his chair and he confirmed my fear of a big inflamed tooth. Time for a root canal treatment…

Well, as I’ve heard enough (terrible) stories about this treatment, I wasn’t too pleased with it. Especially because it was already inflamed and pain killers wouldn’t help. Nice. But to be honest, it wasn’t that bad and the pain wasn’t worse then a normal drilling session with the dentist.

After I came home I wondered what the dentist did to my tooth and looked it up on Youtube. To be honest, I didn’t expect it to be such heavy work. Looks pretty intense to me! Glad I didn’t know it beforehand! I’m already looking forward to my next appointment where they will finish the job! brrr…

I like snow and I like running, but the two just don’t mix together. I’m trying to keep myself to my running schedule and it goes pretty while, but because of the heavy snow fall in the last weeks in the Netherlands, it’s pretty hard to up the speed and get some serious mileage in my body.

Running on snow, and sometimes part ice, is pretty tricky. While it is not as slippery on snow as you would expect, you’re still running with some additional tension to the muscles which your normally don’t have. I noticed this today after a good run of 40 minutes. When I came home I felt muscles in my feet and legs I never felt before after running.

Let’s hope there will fall a fresh pack of snow soon or that it melts away soon. The icy stuff that’s on the floor now is really messing up my running schedule.

After the busy December month we end the party weeks with the birthday of my daughter Indy. She turns 4 today, so congrats to my little girl. I hope you have a nice day!

Besides the normal birthday party there will also be a nice children party where we go to a big indoor playground. This will be an exhausting and heavy day for the parents I think!

One of her wishes for a gift was a nice stuffed animal. A cat or something like that. After searching for something special I’ve found an interesting robotics cat for her. It’s amazing how lively this cat is. The sounds she makes and the facial expressions are oh so real. Wowwee makes some amazing products! I’m wondering what kind of toys we have 10 years from now.

Bought a nice book for my son Rody about the work of M.C. Escher. His work was used in the movie Labyrinth and I’ve always been fascinated by his work. Below probably one of his most famous drawings.

I already announced it a few weeks ago, Project 99! The new year has come and it’s time to start again. The holiday’s are over and it’s time to focus. It’s time to start with Project 99.

Why another project? Well, everything is a project these days. If it has and end-goal, it’s a project. And what’s better then to give a good name to it to get inspired when you think about it.

The number 99 stands for 99 kilo’s. One of my first focus points during this project is health, and with health you also think about a healthy body. In 2009 I did a lot of food and sports experiments to figure out the last pieces of the puzzle and I think I’m now ready for it. I guess I was 19 years old when I still weighted in the double digit range, and it’s time to get back there.

So the goal of P99 is the weigh less then 100 kilo’s, which is a big task for me. And it wouldn’t be a real Jorg project if it didn’t have some interesting sub-goals in it.

The different focus points of the project can be found in:

1. Cardiovascular training (running, swimming, cycling)
2. Weight lifting
3. Nutrition
4. Specific sports (snowboarding, freediving)

I’ve set some interesting goals for the coming months. So I’ll write them down below.

The project starts on Monday January 4th and will end after 24 weeks. That’s is June 20th, the time I want to run a marathon. It’s all divided like this:

• Total time 24 weeks
• 2 cycles of 12 weeks
• Each 12 week cycle consists of 3 x 4 weeks schedules
• And each 4 week schedule is divided in weeks
• which are then divided in days.

So in total I work with day, week, 4week, cycle plans. And every next step can change due to the fact where I am the day before. This way I don’t set a fixed schedule that isn’t flexible to changing circumstances.

Weight

In the first 12 week cycle I want to reach a weight of max 109,9 kilo’s. Monday morning I will weigh myself, so then I know I much I have to lose. This way I have another 12 weeks to do the really hard part of another 10 kilo’s that I have to loose.

Cardiovascular Training

I’ve set some separate goals for each different discipline below:

Running

At the end of the first cycle I want to do a half marathon and at the end of the second cycle a full marathon. In between I will do some additional competition runs to get used to it.

Swimming

I’ve also got the goal to do a 10k swim this year. But I first want to do the first month before I do something concrete with this. The first half year is already pretty exciting like it is.

Cycling

Somewhere I also want to pick up cycling, so that my goals of doing a triathlon can be accomplished. Furthermore, it would be great to do the Alpe d’Huez one day… so who knows.

Weight lifting

A month ago I started with weight lifting again. This is so much part of me as a person that I just can’t live without it. I just love to lift heavy weights and I will probably never stop doing so.

For the first 12 week cycle I will build up my strength again and the end goal for the second big cycle is to be pretty close to some old personal best again AND to train at the new Shark Sports facility.

Nutrition

After a lot of experiments in 2009 with nutrition and some other body hacks, I’m now ready to make some permanent changes to my eating habits. It’s time to switch to Paleo again and start out some veggie tests as well.

Specific Sports

The sports that I do that aren’t for a general purpose like losing weight, except only to have fun and enjoy it are snowboarding and freediving. Both sports give me so much pleasure. If the general goal is reached during this project the performances in both sports will for sure improve big time. So some specific goals would be fun as well. As I don’t compete in snowboarding I just keep this sport as a purely ‘have fun’ goal.

Freediving goals are more clear. 4 minute static in water, 100 meter dynamic with fins and a 75 meter dynamic without fins before the end of the project.

On Monday it starts and I will then publish the somewhat more concrete schedule for that day.

1. My time with my kids and all the vacations we had this year with them.
2. My girlfriend Helle moving in with me
3. Saying goodbye to the rat-race  and starting my own business again
4. I learned to love running!
5. Found my love for freediving again.
6. My first snow vacation that made me hooked to snowboarding
7. The year I became a professional writer
8. Found my roots
9. Turned knowledge into wisdom
10. Helped a lot of people

Now that the year is almost over I’m also almost done with the last book of this year, which is a management book by Matthew Stewart. Great read by the way! Bought it yesterday and already I’m at page 200. I’ll try to finish it this week.

As I kept a reading list this year it is easy to look back what I’ve read this year. It’s probably the most I’ve ever read in a year! 121 books. That’s 10 books per months, or 2,5 book per week. Wow, I’m proud at myself.

The 5 books that made the most impression on me, or that I clearly remember from the whole bunch are:

1. Titan
2. Free
3. Blink
4. Inside Drucker’s brainn
5. The Big Switch

This is for sure one of the habits I’m most proud of, taken in account that I wasn’t a reader at all 10 years ago. Let’s try to read even more in 2010!

Imagine this; getting out of bed at 5:30 in the morning. Packing your snowboard stuff and getting in the car at 6. Driving 300 kilometers and arriving on location at Winterberg, Germany at 9 in the morning. Buy a 1-day ticket and snowboard for 6 hours straight with only a 15 minute wurst-break. Get back in the card at 3pm and drive back to home and arrive at 5:30 pm. Take a shower and get at the diner table at 6pm.

Sanne, Marieke and I just did that! And  I must say it felt like we had a long weekend-vacation with this trip. Amazing to go from the clear flatland of the Netherlands to the small mountains of Winterberg and have a whole day of snowboarding.

Okay, it was not Solden in Austria, but it still beat the hell out of the indoor terrains here in the Netherlands. Great stuff! And for sure something we have to more often.