Jorg's Brain Log

In the last few weeks I’ve written a lot, but not regularly. I need more spreading in the words I type.

Some stuff I write is related to news and in that means time  sensitive. That means that I wait with writing that certain news post, it is already old news. Now, it doesn’t matter to me to be the first to break certain news but to give insightful opinionated news. A small delay, depending on the news, shouldn’t be a problem. But still, there is some time pressure to deliver and it’s hard to work ahead, because news hasn’t happened yet.

Other stuff is writing where there is no time stamp attached to it. The stuff I write about is timeless and is informative in nature, but not news worthy. This is the stuff that can be prepared in a long outburst of writing.

Now that I’ve learn that I work best with outbursts of writing in the evenings and regular relatively small writings in the morning, I should plan my writings more and what it will be about. This together with the fact that I have to accept I have a busy life, but still had a need to be creative with my writings, make me come up with a new writing schedule which I can renew my vows with.

• Personal Blog - 3 times a week – personal diary
• iJorg – 7 times a week – news and in-depth, so morning work!
• Life Skills – 3 times a week – timeless tips/tricks for your life
• Sharkbait – 1 time a week my personal freediving training diary and maybe add a training article one in a while.
• Shark Freediving – 7 times a week – news and in-depth, so morning work. But at the moment I’ve got a little bit of a struggle to get my question answered if I should continue with this one. For now, I make the commitment of writing for a week again, and see how I feel about it. So report back next week.
• Book – I tried to do daily writings for this one. But it turns out I write better when I do this in a burst in the evening. Yesterday evening I did 4000 words in one sitting and that works better for me, and gives much higher quality content then spreading it through all the week.

Writing Schedule:

• Morning: iJorg, Shark Freediving (Daily blogs)
• Evening: Personal, Bait, Skills, Book

Lessons learned: use news worthy articles to keep my writing discipline high and inform. Use my inspiration bursts to write creatively. Let’s see how this will work out after a week.

How did the first week of planning go? I’m pretty happy but especially the last few days could have gone somewhat better. The plan was to do the following:

Basic schedule for week 37 (september 7-13)

• Rest: Workdays get up at 6am and go rest at midnight.
• Running: 3 times in the morning. Getting the blisters away with 9×2 minute runs with 1 minute rest in between.
• Food: Start eating regularly 3 times a day. 2 times strict and dinner with the family. Paleo style.
• Freediving: Regular depth session on Wednesday and Pool session on Thursday. Everyday a max 15 minute static schedule. Short but intense.
• Stretching: 3 times in the morning. Loose up the body with a 30 minute stretch session.

Mental work: Read some books and start writing regularly again.

Rest went okay! Managed to do it 100% right, so lets continue. Running was also okay and no problems on the feet.

Freediving went partially okay. I did do static on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. But that’s two missing at a minimum. So I have to step it up and make it at least 6! Depth session didn’t fit into the schedule, but I did a good pool session.

Food was just plain bad! Well, the only positive thing was, that I was eating again 3 meals a day. But not at all Paleo food and still snacking a little bit in the evening. I didn’t do any stretching at all! Didn’t make the time for it.

Mental work was okay! Reading goes like crazy. 3 books last week, so I ordered 5 new ones already. Some very interesting titles. Writing is going well, but not regularly. I’ve got creative bursts that can last as long as 6 hours, but it only happened 3 times this week, including this one. It’s better to do 7×1 hour then to do 3×6.

So plan for the coming week:

Basic schedule for week 38 (September 14-20)

• Rest: Workdays get up at 6am and go rest at midnight.
• Running: 3 times in the morning. Getting the blisters away with 7×3 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.

If you do, you’re a lucky person. It makes focusing so much easier! Last time I wrote them down was in February of this year and in the mean time I did a lot of soul searching and asking myself the right questions.

I managed to make it even clearer to myself by making the following elevator pitch:

I’m passion-able about People, ICT, Business and Sports!

It only took 33 years to find out! Small price to pay to have focus, dedication and goals in your life. Before you ask: my kids, girlfriend and family fall in under the people topic. What you’re looking at are the main topics that have some subtopics in it as well. For example Sports is the place for freediving, fitness, running, swimming, etc, etc…

So what are your passions?

Procrastination

That means short for getting things done! I’ve noticed that after coming back from a vacation or something else that means a break in my regular schedule, that I need way to much time to get back in action.

This time I’ve taken the bull at the horns and decided to don’t step into that trap again. All the time watching out for my big enemy mr. procrastination.

The focus of the moment is to keep doing things that I’ve set in my schedule. Get out of bed early and run. Do some freediving schedule. Eat right. Read. Write. Etc.

All the time keeping in mind that time is unreplaceable. August was a strange month. New job at the office made focusing on my other blocks difficult because it was a BIG new block. But now it fits in with the other block again. So time to keep going and start-up my other blocks on a regular interval as well.

Expect loads of stuff on my blogs again! I still have an archive for iJorg alone of 3500 words that still have to be (back)published. This evening I’ve updated the Sharkbait site with 4 articles and this site with 8 posts. 2500 words. Create!

The long road has started. My training for the marathon on 2010 is on its way with its first baby steps. The general plan is clear and now it’s time to be consisted and keep up the pace. The general plan is layed down and the first building block been specified. So how does it look like?

September/Oktober 2009

Build basic stamina. Get into 30 minutes runs without hurting my feet. I’ve got a lot of problems with my shoes and blisters. For sure I’ve got to solve this in this first period. I’ll do a 6 km competition run at the end.

November/December 2009

Build up the distance to around 30 km a week. 90 minute runs with around 14 kilomters to cover should be very much doable. I’ve done a lot of  12,2 km runs some years back in 60 minutes, so it should be possible. But running longer than an hour has already been a long time ago. Do another run competition of 6-8 kilomers.

January/February 2010

Competition build block 1. Extend stamina to at least 20 kilomters and 2 hours of running. Join a 10k competition.

March/April 2010

Competition build block 2. Run a half marathon. 50 kilometer per week and around a max run of 2:15 hours.

May/June 2010

Competition build block 3. Marathon time. Building to 62 k per week and in the end complete my goal. Let’s enjoy the journey!

The last months I’ve experimented a lot with regards to food, physical training, mental/social and creativity and all in all it was very interesting.

Problem was that I was focusing all the time on one thing at a time. So now it’s time to bring it all together. Not at once! But one step at a time. Block by block.

On Monday I will start again with some pretty basic stuff that has to be done. Running is one of the things with the highest priority, but other things like rest, food, freediving, stretching are also high on the list. So those are the blocks I will be starting with.

Basic schedule for week 37 (september 7-13)

• Rest: Workdays get up at 6am and go rest at midnight.
• Running: 3 times in the morning. Getting the blisters away with 9×2 minute runs with 1 minute rest in between.
• Food: Start eating regularly 3 times a day. 2 times strict and dinner with the family. Paleo style.
• Freediving: Regular depth session on Wednesday and Pool session on Thursday. Everyday a max 15 minute static schedule. Short but intense.
• Stretching: 3 times in the morning. Loose up the body with a 30 minute stretch session.

Mental work: Read some books and start writing regularly again.

Back home! What a day. In the last few days the weather has stayed the same and we’ve entertained ourselves by visiting several cities and mostly the swimming pool at the camping site. Entertainment enough for the kids and us. Last days at the camping had come.

We started this morning by checking out from the camping at 10. Halfway to our hotel in Caen, we decided to change plans and directly drive to Paris as it was almost the same distance.

So after a 450 kilometer drive we arrived in busy Paris at around 15:00. After an hour more driving we finally arrived in the center and we parked in our secret little garage we know, which is only a 200 meter walk away from the Eiffel tower.

The kids were amazed by the big thing and really wanted to go up. As I have never been to the top before, I decided to go to the top alone. When you are on the second floor you think you’re already high. But it’s peanuts compared to the real top! What a view! And fortunately the weather was good again!

On the floor again Indy and Rody were clearly impressed by the whole experience. Very nice to see such reactions on their faces. We took a long walk through the center of Paris and ended up in a small local Pizzeria that served us some excellent food.

After that it already turned dark outside and we slowly walked back. There is always something to do and watch in Paris. Streetperformers were dancing and spitting fire. Enough to keep the children in trance the whole time. Because it’s the tower its birthday the got some special lights on the tower this year that go on and flicker every hours for 10 minutes. Crazy view!

Around 22:00 hours we went back to the garage and drove back to our home in the Netherlands. Rody made a bet with me that he would be awake longer then me. Not a smart bet, because I was driving, so falling in sleep was no option for me.

Indy was already sleeping before we left Paris. Rody one hour later and Helle did her best staying awake for me, while I was driving. She almost made it back home but the just before entering the Netherlands she couldn’t hold it anymore and away she was.

Excellent vacation, especially for the kids! Some great experiences and surely something to remember. Can’t wait until the next one.

In total I made around 800 photo’s. After selecting the ones I couldn’t throw away I still had around 300 to keep. One look at a photo and complete memories come back. Great invention.

Weather has changed big time! No more 30 degrees but 20-22 with big winds, which are creating very big Hawaii style waves. The surfers love it, and after some careful dips in the water, me too!

It’s very humbling to float in the ocean and see a house of a wave coming to you. Sometimes I duck and let the wave come over me and I look at it come by. Amazing sight! A little bit too much force to take my underwater house and camera with me in the sea. If I get caught by a wave it sometimes takes around 20-30 seconds before I come up again. Thank you, freediving!

Of course no condition for the kids and for a warm-blood mammal like my girlfriend Helle. So loads of swimming pool and city visits to explore the nearby cities.

Looking at the forecast weather will not be changing a lot in the coming days. No problem, because the kids are having loads of fun and we manage to get some rest in the mean time. The evenings are always great at a camping. All together doing some games and watching 44 road runner episodes I brought on my computer. I don’t think Helle liked that last part so much…

Tomorrow we’re going a little bit further away and visit an island…

On Saturday morning we drove to the famous Mont Saint Michel. I’ve been here before as a kid and I really wanted to go again. It was only a 50 kilometer detour from our route, so worthwhile to visit it again.

Mont Saint Michel is nothing more then a rock with a big church built on it. In the last centuries some houses has been put on the island as well. There is a road from the mainland to the island that used to get flooded when the tide was high, so that you can only reach the island with low waters.

When I was a kid this was still the case and I remember crossing over the road to keep in front of the upcoming water, because my parents left a little bit late. Nothing has changed I guess with them.

Anyway, due to all the mud and canals in the bay of the island, the water doesn’t come over the road and the parking places anymore. So the real spectacle is lost. However I understood that the France government has decided to fix this in 2011 by building some sort of big hydraulic dam.

The visit itself was great. Beautiful place with a LOT of tourism, but even on this small island and probably because we were there early, we found some good rest places to drink some coffee and get a snack. Great visit and we will surely visit it again when the road will be covered with the sea again, like it should be.

And on we went to the camping site in Bretignolles–sur-mer. The last 100 kilometers took almost 2 hours to complete, so I didn’t expect that. Loads a small roads to get to our place. Not a lot of tourism as would become clear in the coming days.

Camping site and caravan are great! Very quiet, not a lot of people. Good swimming pool. 200 meter walk to the beach. Only thing missing is a close by play-field for the kids to walk to without our supervision. The camping roads and caravans are placed in a maze of some sort, so we can’t let the kids walk around freely.

Wifi is free, so I can get my daily dosage of Internet usage. I’ve got a minimal connection at the caravan, but it’s enough to go my google reader and GMail every now and then.

The weather is great! Good temperature and today around 30 degrees  in the shadow. The beach is also great, but as we are stationed at the golf of Calais we’ve got some pretty serious waves! Surf dudes are walking around from the campers to the sea and back. Pretty cool environment to be in.

Kids are having fun in the sea and sand. Good excuse for me to dig some holes and make some castles in the sand. The pleasure of having kids is that you have a good excuse to behave like a kid yourself as well!

Today is the second day of our summer family holiday. We’re going to bretignolles-sur-mer on the West France coast.

Yesterday we drove from Eindhoven to Mondeville near Caen, which was a distance of almost 600 kilometers.

We left at 9:15 in the morning and arrived around15:30, so it was a pretty good drive. Kids no problem at all with entertaining themselves in the car, so that was easy as well.

Arriving at the hotel it turned out we were way to early for check-in and decided to go visit the nearby coast which was 20 kilometers.

After arriving at the beach it turned out to be quite windy. So windy that the sand of the beach was sandblasting our legs, so the kids were pretty fast back in the dunes. I couldn’t resist the urge to at least stand in the water with my feet and feel the ocean. Mysterious…

After our short beach visit we decided to get some food (crepes/pancakes) and walk on the boulevard. Indy amused herself by getting on the trampoline with the bungeejump cords so she could do some massive jumps and salto’s.

Rody had fun collecting shells afterwards on a part of the beach were it was somewhat less windy. It’s always amazing what you can find on the beach! Beautiful!

Returned to our hotel, we received the key and put our stuff in the pretty small room. It was good enough for 1 night with a toilet, shower and 1,5 bed. But for sure not more! After a pretty loud neighbour party stopped around 11pm, we’ve got a decent night of sleep.

In the morning we had some good breakfast and the kids took all the little cheese out of the box and made sure that our money was returned in the form of food. Good for them. Now we’re going to drive to Mont Saint Michel, the famous island with the church in the water. More about that in a follow up post.