My New Year’s Resolutions

It’s baaaaaaaack! After a short Christmas vacation I am back and in full effect for 2011. I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and got lots of new reading glasses for Christmas because I have a lot of material ready, locked, loaded in my cocking gun, and it is ready to be grouted.

The first blog of 2011 just so happens to be on a snow-covered Monday morning which means (all together now) M-Y! L-I-F-E! M-O-N-D-A-Y! Yaaaaaaay! I didn’t think I would ever resort to a Peewee’s Playhouse delivery, but I couldn’t help myself.

With the new year comes resolutions. We all have them, we all start them the first week of January, and we all give up around Valentine’s Day. I think one of the main reasons we as society don’t always follow through with our resolutions is because we don’t have anyone holding us accountable for our resolutions. If no one knows what you aren’t doing, then there is no one to keep you in check. And it is my hope that by laying my goals out there for all to see, that I too will be less likely to cheat when I know others are creeping via cyberspace.

Thanks to Algebra II Honors, I have been able to develop a successful formula that follows ” y = mx + b” form. I have comprised an algorithm of resolute expressions that would keep my mind, body, and soul in tact for 2011.  Some people only keep one or two of the three in balance and thus there resolutions fall through before Spring Break starts. So, without further a due I give you my New Year’s resolutions for 2011.

Over the last year or so I have become fairly religious and have grown my faith and relationship with God like my boy Justin Bieber. I have made a conscious effort to read my first book ever, “The Holy Bible,” but wasn’t always consistent with my education. So for 2011, it is my first goal of reading my dailies well daily. And with so much going on in 2011 and so many life altering events en que I would hope and pray not stray away I say. “Or I can make things out of clay and lay by the bay, I just may…What do you say”?

Hopefully by keeping my mind and soul balanced I’ll be able to work on the body aspect. I have set many physical goals for 2011 some of which are more fun and some are for strictly aesthetic purposes. The first of which begins today with training for my second half-marathon. I thoroughly enjoyed my first go and would like to continue on that path (again, puns are always intended).

The first college try I just wanted to finish without stopping, walking, or peeing which I successfully accomplished at the average time of 2:19ish. My next challenge is to complete 13.2 miles in under two hours. That would require keeping a pace of about 9 minutes per mile. And with my favorite Christmas gift, the new iPod Nano, watch accessory, and some hot new beats I plan on completing this task by 3/5 or 3/12 in the either the Red Rock Half-Marathon and Six Tunnels Half-Marathon in Boulder City.

After that, I’m going to be fat for a week eating tons of Lucille’s BBQ Pulled Pork and all you can eat sushi before starting P90X. My goals with P90X aren’t really concerned with the completion because I am pretty strong-willed but I am more worried about feeling uncomfortable with the Tae-Bo and Yoga. I am not flexible at all and cannot even sit Indian style (or Native American style for you politically correct readers) so this presents quite a challenge.

Then comes the wedding and honeymoon upon which I will gorge myself with plenty of the beer, wine, and all the thin-crust pizza I can get my hands on for the month of June. Upon my return I will ease myself back into physical activity with Summer softball as the starting second baseman for the “Nine Inch Males” where it is my goal to hit for the cycle. A simple goal which may be more strategic than competitive and realistic, but I’ll give it a whirl.

As of August 1, I will embark on the big boy training for the Rock n Roll Las Vegas Marathon. I’ll reload with some new fresh gear which will hopefully give me the motivation to run for a stupid amount of time on 12/4/11. After completing the “half” I had no desire to ever double it but I feel like I am half way there and might as well do it while I am young so I don’t look like this guy when I’m older.

I would also be able to work on some new activities and hobbies this year that aren’t crocheting and building ships in bottles. I’m not sure that this is a resolution with a set goal or not but I would like to become a more well-rounded cook. I would like to think that I am pretty good cook from watching so much Food Network and I love grilling, so I would like to expand be grilling abilities this year beyond salt, pepper, and heat to marinades, experimenting with different wood chips/charcoals, and more rare cuts of meat with help from my new and second favorite Christmas gift…

Grilling is not just a fun hobby but it is a healthy alternative to eating Gummi Colas and drinking real colas. I have always been a fat kid at heart and love my snacks but it is my goal for 2011 to implement a “quality over quantity” plan. I hope to minimize bad carbs because “carbs are the enemy” and maximizing lean proteins. That coupled with having two new vegetables a month should give me the “Marky Mark 10-pack” I am hoping to obtain by next Thursday or so.

Another recent and obvious hobby of mine is blogging. I enjoy writing and would like further this newfound pursuit. I would like to provide better material in a more professional format in hopes of one day taking my talents to South Beach to make some real writing scrilla. Whether that means stepping up my freelance game through more advertising, whoring my bodies of writing out to other prospective customers, or furthering my education in this field of study.

However, I don’t write just to write for myself, I really enjoy criticism both constructive and assholic. So, please keep the comments, likes, messages, and overall feedback a-comin’. Thank you to the thousands of football bloggers who are unwillingly sent to my uniform blogs and especially everyone who reads consistently I wholeheartedly appreciate it, and if you help the spread te good word, I’ll give you a shout-out 1999 “Total Request Live” style.

To 13.1 and beyond…

Well, I did it. 3 months of half-assed training, my first half-marathon is finally over. I completed my first halfsy in 2 hours 20 minutes and 11 seconds. My original goal was to complete it without stopping or walking which was a lot easier than I thought. Then as training increased I set the goal of 2:30. I wasn’t playing to win the game like Herm Edwards but if I would have taken my training more seriously I definitely could have improved my time.

This was obviously my first so, I don’t know how many other marathons are but I would find it hard to believe that there are many that are more fun the Rock n’ Roll Las Vegas Marathon. Plus, a lot of the fellow and veteran runners said Las Vegas has the best. There was over 32,000 people running in it, it had a Health and Fitness Expo, there must have been 10 bands along the route, and it was extremely well-organized considering the room for error.

Going into the halfsy, I wanted it to be the stepping stone to the LA Marathon in March. But after having completed the halfsy, I have no motivation to complete a full whatsoever. I don’t if it is because I feel like Forrest Gump as a child with braces on his legs right now but running a full marathon is off of my to-do-list for now. The actual training aspect of it is fun while you are running, but it just is annoying and gets boring when you just have to run for hours at a time. And training for the full would require running for about 5 hours if I do it correctly.

I am not completely ruling it out but it is no longer on the Current Assets side of my ledger. That being said I am not going to give up being active and eat Snickers all day as good as that sounds. For the remaining month of December I want to return to my roots of basketball. Nothing is better than playing on the hallowed ground in December and I would like to extend a formal invitation to all my ballers and shot-callers to join me.

I have devised a tentative schedule for the remainder of the month to meet all demographics of Las Vegas. Here are some of the dates: 12/8, 12/11, 12/13, 12/15 , 12/18, 12/21, 12/23, 12/28, 12/30. I’m down to play in the evenings or on the weekends. At UNLV or outside in Summerlin. At the Multi-Gen or at Sunset. These are tentative dates and if no one wants to play you can find me playing by myself without a ball like Shep from “Above the Rim.”

After the first of the year, I will return to my training for another half-marathon. I really enjoyed this last one and if anyone else would like to join me as I run across the Southwest (of Las Vegas) I’m down to get down. There is the Red Rock Canyon Halfsy on 3/5  and there is the Hoover Dam Halfsy on 3/12 March too. Both are cheap and I heard they’re fun because of the scenery even though they both are pretty hilly, I’m down for either.

http://www.halfmarathons.net/usa_half_marathons_nevada_red_rock_canyon_marathon.html

http://www.halfmarathons.net/usa_half_marathons_nevada_six_tunnels_half_marathon.html

Towards the end of the halfsy, I will begin to hear the faint sound of wedding bells in the distance, which could only mean one thing… P90x time! Starting in the middle of March will give me just enough time to look like Gerard Butler in “300″ for the big day. Pete already bought it, so when I sadly move out after a glorious 5 years, I will be sneaking out his DVD and dumbells in the moving boxes as my parting gift. He won’t know because he doesn’t read this anyway.

God knows that I’ll definitely be putting on some wine weight after the wedding and honeymoon, which may be just the motivation I need to train for the full marathon. Maybe by then I’ll have some newfound motivation to continue on through Las Vegas Blvd for the full 26.2 miles, instead of stopping at Mandalay Bay. And if not whatever I’ll half-ass another half.

If anyone would like to embark on these sporting adventures with me I would be happy to have some teammates. Whether we are working on our pick-n-rolls, running while rapping, or doing the upper body part of P90X, it is always nice to have a buddy to keep you motivated with a good man-smack on the butt. “Is that something you might be interested in”? If so, shoot me a comment, email, Facebook message, text, telegram, homing pigeon, message in a bottle, smoke signal, or just yell from below my patio.