Tag Archives: Personal Training

Happy New Year!

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Happy New Year!

It is with great pleasure that I say farewell to 2010 and greet 2011 with open arms.

2010 was a very exciting year for me:

1) I finished 5 sprint triathlons! Read more at http://aricintraining.com

2) I set the foundation for my triathlon training dashboard. More to come later.

3) I survived a near death experience thanks to being stung by a bee while riding my bike!

4) I am the author of one of the top not for profit flight simulator blogs in the world. Check it out: http://arealityofmyown.wordpress.com

5) I learned the value of what it means to be honest and sincere in a good friendship.

6) I was able to help a leading cloud computing company understand their business better with some creative analytics and visualizations.

7) learned that I still have a lot to learn.

8) Universal Studios Hollywood is a much smaller park than I expected.

9) I learned how wonderful it feels to have someone by your side through thick and thin.

10) I know that for all the wonderful changes that occurred during 2010, I know 2011 will have many more to come.

11) Learned that there is never a perfect answer to anything.

Overall, I think 2010 was a year of challenges that truly tested my devotion to achieving my goals. I know that I will only achieve them if I am consistent with my perseverance.

Cheers to an awesome 2011!

The Start to Today’s Journey

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Started the day off with my espresso machine.

Then moved to pushing/pulling/flipping a limp, falic looking punching bag around in my own sweat.

Then it was time to dodge stoplight/stop sign runners while retrieving my long lost phone from home.

Finally, work… where horns honk, lights flicker, and its just me and the Macbook Pro.

Yep, it is the journey that counts… perhaps more so than the end result.

Vote: Which Route Should Aric Run? « Aric In Training

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With my impending 8-mile endurance run coming up tomorrow up tomorrow, I thought I would allow the world to vote on which route I should run.  All routes are roughly 8 miles in length and all have flat and hilly areas to them.  If you are familiar with the greater Santa Barbara/Goleta area, you will have better insight into these routes.  If not, just vote randomly.

This poll will remain open up until 5 minutes prior to Aric’s departure for the workout, which will be sometime Dec 27th morning (PST).

The Hollister/Cathedral Oaks Route linky.

The Airport/UCSB Route linky.

The Mission/Upper State linky (with gnarly hill!)

The Waterfront/Mesa Route linky.

Looks like the Airport/UCSB route is winning…



















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Thank you very much!  I will post the run workout results shortly after I recover!









via aricintraining.wordpress.com


Please head over to Aric In Training and vote for the route of his run on Sunday.  He wants the world to choose his route!



			

	

				
					



	


		
		
How Do You Know It Is Time To Start Clean?


				

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Life is one giant circle.  Seeing life as a linear graph just does not work for me.  Here is why:


1) The calendar is a revolving set of seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, and months.


2) The sun comes up and the sun goes down, everyday.


3) Businesses operate on a quarter system, meaning every 3 months, the same planning processes are restarted.


4) The hands on an old school analog watch, go in circles.


5) The earth is round and you can circle for years and never see the whole thing.


Very much like watches, days, quarters, and the earth, our careers are circular.  With each new challenge, we face it head-on, conquer it, and then move on to the next one, building our networks, skills, and experience with each cycle.  


It is the end of a cycle that most intrigues me.  At this point, you start to realize that the next cycle does not tickle your fancy like it did previously.


For some, the constant need for new and bigger challenges often dictates their next step.  It is almost too human of a need to be challenged and when that does not happen, human feels bruised.  Granted there are circumstances beyond our control, but when the circumstances beyond our control supercede the challenge, the human needs to start clean again. 


Starting clean means new environments, new systems, new people, new seeds, and even new watches, but you can’t alienate the old. Afterall, we are building upon the old.


The very thought of knowing when to start clean can be a fascinating challenge in itself, proving that starting clean, is the right thing. Be human, it is okay to start clean.


How do YOU know when it is time to start clean?  Please leave a comment, I am very interested in everyone’s view on this subject.


 

			

	

				
					



	


		
		
Immersion, The Good, Bad and the Ugly!


				

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Immersion is the concept of surrounding yourself with a given subject to concentrate on learning it.  But, do you really know what you are getting yourself into?




The GOOD


The good is that immersion is a very efficient way of learning something.  You can jam pack a lot of information in a very narrow window of time.  Picking up the basics of a new language or skill is possible over a long weekend.  




The BAD


Immersion usually occurs for a limited time.  From a day to a few weeks, immersion is not something that you want to do for long.  The learner risks burn-out as the human body needs to time break old habits and adjust to the new knowledge. 




The UGLY


Immersion can overwhelm the learner.  In such a short time, a lot of information gets thrown at you. While it is important to absorb as much information as possible, sometimes grasping the larger picture and concepts is all you can do.  




 My weekend at the Total Immersion swim clinic was definitely, the good, the bad, and the ugly.  But, I would do it again in a heart beat!  


1) It was good because I made huge improvements with my swim stroke.  


2) It was bad because it was so short and I wish I had a little more than two days to grab all the information and absorb more detail.  


3) It was ugly, by the end of the second day, my brain was so overwhelmed with information that it was almost exploded.  




Have you ever tried immersion and experienced the good, the bad, and the ugly? 

			

	

				
					



	


		
		
Visualizing a Training Plan « Aric In Training


				

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Visualizing a Training Plan


October 14, 2009 · Leave a Comment






As I start building my training plan for 2010 for the fourth time, I quickly realized that my problem with producing the plan is that I can’t visualize the progress. This is a problem with with the example plan that my trainer shared with me a while back.


I can see the progression of the endurance phase, that is just a matter of increasing bike/run distances each workout.  But when you move into speed and intensity workouts, how do you show the progress visually?  Training Peaks WKO+ software uses an rTSS metric derived from a number of variables.  The purpose is to normalize every run so that you can compare it to other runs despite route, elevation, weather, etc.


It is something like this that I think I need to develop for myself that shows the progress of intensity, yet handles more simplistic endurance progress.  If I can find something that can show intensity/distance/etc/etc of strength workouts, bike workouts, swim workouts, and run workouts all on the same playing field, I think I would find my missing link.


Clearly something like this does not exist.  As I mentioned before, Training Peaks offers something close, but I am unwilling to spend the $100 just to test it. Besides, I am on a Mac, which they don’t support.


Visualizing a triathlon training plan…  not as easy as it sounds!


Does anyone have any suggestions?















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Categories: Fitness ·  Goals ·  Running ·  Swimming ·  Tools ·  analysis ·  triathlon training 
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via aricintraining.wordpress.com


This is a recent post from my triathlon training blog, AricInTraining.  Seeking some help in regards to creating visualization of a triathlon training plan.



I am a visual person and need to visualize the progress.  If you have any suggestions, please email me or leave a comment.



			

	

				
					



	


		
		
How Many Fingers Are On My Feet? « Aric In Training


				

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How Many Fingers Are On My Feet?


October 10, 2009 · Leave a Comment






Ah…  primal running has come to Aric In Training!


Vibram FiveFingers and barefoot running have become the latest fad.  A fad it might be for the time being, but I firmly believe this primal footwear will be as popular as those strange Uggs.


After reading all of the information published about the benefits of barefoot running, I decided that I must have a pair.  Unfortunately, my first experience with FiveFingers was somewhat limited due to availability.   However confident I was, the tight fit and my fat, deformed toes presented a problem that I worried about, but felt that the size 41 was the best solution.


BUT, today was the moment of truth.  I received a call from a saleswoman at Santa Barbara Outfitters informing me that my size 41, FiveFingers KSO had arrived!  Woohoo!  This city slicker just got a lot closer to primal, barefoot running.


I hurried downtown after work and there they were; perfectly pretty black KSO’s.  Didn’t even bother to put them on, I just grabbed the box, paid and high tailed it home. At home, though, I spent about ten minutes getting the left one on (the left is the funkiest of the two feet), but only about one minute getting the right one on.


Ah...  primal shoes for the outlier! 


Ah…  primal shoes for the outlier! 




My feet are in a paradise that they have never felt before!  Oh my…. the breath-ability, the room, the flexibility, and even the power!   My feet, for so long, have been trapped inside shoes that were designed for normal people.  As you all should know by now, I am not normal… I am a very happy outlier living amongst normals.


The openness of the design, the toe sockets, and the heel cup are just perfect.  My arch can do what it wants and my toes can flex as they please.


The next big test, besides getting them off, is going for a run!  Tomorrow…  tomorrow I will be like a kid in a candy store.


More to come!















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Categories: Commentary ·  Fitness ·  FiveFingers ·  Running ·  Tools 
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via aricintraining.wordpress.com


Check out this post from triathlon training blog… AricInTraining.  The FiveFingers are really cool!