2010 has turned out to be the longest and best year in the books. This past year has been all change and evolution and to top it off, New Years Eve 2011 continues that trend and probably will be my best New Years Eve. So what have I done so far tonight? - passed out, woke up, worked out (Insanity), cold shower, and ringing in the new year all pajama and hoodied up watching some awesome flicks with some other lazy bums. Yes NYE 2010 PajamaJammaJam is in full effect. I am officially entering 2011 in a complete relaxed and chilled state of mind. My resolution?...keep the peace of tonight with me and enjoy life. 2011 is definitely going to top 2010 considering I will be a father in a few short weeks. The longest marathon of my life is about to commence and it's going to be no sleeping, bottle feeding, poop wiping awesomeness. 2011 is Linkin's year. Here is a look back at 2010...
Balance. Balance is supposed to be the source of peace and happiness in our lives but who has the time to figure out what balance is let alone achieve it. Our worlds move so fast we barely have time to even realize we are out of whack, but if you just pause for a moment the answers usually come rushing up and slap you in the face. I've found the secret to be pretty simple for me. In my case, I focus on 3 simple things - mind, body, and soul. Everyday I feed my trinity and my life is better for it. Each aspect isn't necessarily exclusive despite being completely different components. The things you do to take care of yourself can fall into any combination of mind, body, and soul. Lately to feed my mind I have been reading a lot. I have been reading plenty on health, nutrition, and fitness which enriches my training. Formulating food strategies is definitely amplifying the results of my workouts. My energy levels are high and my body composition is moving along the path I want it to take. Many would stop there and focus solely on mind and body...actually probably only body (and really only physical appearance and not actual health).
Balance: Not so much
Soul should definitely have as much attention as mind and body. For me feeding the soul is all about emotion. Help someone with something - anything, listen to some epic music, create something - If it's food, I want some, except dessert, I don't like sweet things (makes cutting out sugar pretty easy for me lol). I spend time everyday with my wife (mostly couch time since shes 9 months pregnant!) and always make time for some kind of other relaxation activity. I used to spend a ton of time playing video games and watching movies. The past couple of months I haven't played any video games at all (extremely, extremely out of character for me) and my movie watching time has greatly decreased. I think I may be addicted to health and fitness related activities lol. All in all everything I have been doing as it relates to taking care of mind, body, and soul decreases my stress levels. I usually don't stress about much at all but it would take a lot to throw me out of whack, especially now. Live long and prosper.
Looking back at some of my favorite movies and games there seems to be a common thread. The music. I didn't really realize it until recently when I watched Inception. I sat through the movie constantly thinking wow this music is amazing. Hans Zimmer has to be one of the absolute best composers on the planet and my absolute favorite piece of music he has composed is "Time".
Another huge standout for me is the main theme from one of my all time favorite movies "Last of the Mohicans" by Trevor Jones. The end scene of that movie is one of my favorite scenes in any movie and with the music, is the definition of epic.
"Your Hand in Mine (Goodbye)" by Explosions in the Sky really defined "Friday Night Lights" which became one of my favorite sports movies right along with "Rudy" and the theme by Jerry Goldsmith.
And lets not forget the tremendous scene at the end of "Heat" punctuated by Moby's "God Moving over the Face of the Waters"
My favorites in the world of gaming are also supported by tremendous soundtracks as well.The Halo franchise has "Halo Theme (Mjolnir Mix)" composed by Martin O'Donnell who also composed pretty much all of the music for the series. All the music is great but the theme defines Halo.
As good as the Halo music is I believe it has now been surpassed in the series which is probably now my favorite - Mass Effect. The music by Jack Wall is ridiculous and the main trailer music for Mass Effect 2 is the BEST! It's a song called "Heart of Courage" by a group called Two Steps from Hell who have composed some of the best epic trailer music in movies and games.
Every one of these songs resonates very strongly with me and contributes to who I am as they have served as sources of inspiration and motivation for many of my actions and decisions. Our lives are a series of moments and those moments can be defined by a single piece of music. I've found some of my moments in these songs. That said, I leave you with this...
This past year I decided to stop growing older. I used to have the mindset that as the years roll by my physicality would begin to diminish and by my 50s would be completely inactive in all things physical. What low expectations I had. Back in August I stumbled upon a video on Youtube of Doc Horton himself (Tony Horton, creator of P90X) proving just what a 52 year old can do. The ridiculous shape Tony was in really drove home how young I actually am and gave me the belief that your abilities as you age are not determined by some number but by the choices you make. Here is a guy who set his own bar for what he would and would not be able to do regardless of his age. I now view every year going forward as year of improvement rather than a year of fading. Here is Tony at Venice beach August 2010:
And if you think that is impressive look up Jack Lalanne's(Yes the kitchen power juicer guy) birthday challenges. I believe he is 96 now and still going strong. What is a birthday challenge? It is something to you do to push yourself to the limit on your birthday; A sort of personal milestone. For me I believe my 28th Birthday Challenge will be to run 28 miles. Should be fun considering the farthest I have run before that was 12 miles during the Tough Mudder Tristate and before that 4 miles one time during training lol. Man do I hate to run lol. If you can't wrap your head around Jack Lalanne doing any challenges, remember before he was the old man pushing his Power Juicer on infomercials he was this guy and a fitness revolutionary ----->
Oh and here are some examples of his ridiculous Birthday Challenges:
1954 (age 40): swam the entire length of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, underwater, with 140 pounds (64 kg; 10 st) of equipment, including two air tanks. A world record.
1955 (age 41): swam from Alcatraz Island to Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco while handcuffed. When interviewed afterwards he was quoted as saying that the worst thing about the ordeal was being handcuffed, which reduced his chance to Star Jump significantly.
1956 (age 42): set a world record of 1,033 push-ups in 23 minutes on You Asked For It, a television program with Art Baker.
1957 (age 43): swam the Golden Gate channel while towing a 2,500-pound (1,100 kg; 180 st) cabin cruiser. The swift ocean currents turned this one-mile (1.6 km) swim into a swimming distance of 6.5 miles (10.5 km).
1958 (age 44): maneuvered a paddleboard nonstop from Farallon Islands to the San Francisco shore. The 30-mile (48 km) trip took 9.5 hours.
1959 (age 45): did 1,000 star jumps and 1,000 chin-ups in 1 hour, 22 minutes and The Jack LaLanne Show went nationwide.
1974 (age 60): For the second time, he swam from Alcatraz Island to Fisherman's Wharf. Again, he was handcuffed, but this time he was also shackled and towed a 1,000-pound (450 kg; 71 st) boat.
1975 (age 61): Repeating his performance of 21 years earlier, he again swam the entire length of the Golden Gate Bridge, underwater and handcuffed, but this time he was shackled and towed a 1,000-pound (450 kg; 71 st) boat.
1976 (age 62): To commemorate the "Spirit of '76", United States Bicentennial, he swam one mile (1.6 km) in Long Beach Harbor. He was handcuffed and shackled, and he towed 13 boats (representing the 13 original colonies) containing 76 people.
1979 (age 65): towed 65 boats in Lake Ashinoko, near Tokyo, Japan. He was handcuffed and shackled, and the boats were filled with 6,500 pounds (2,900 kg; 460 st) of Louisiana Pacific wood pulp.[19]
1980 (age 66): towed 10 boats in North Miami, Florida. The boats carried 77 people, and he towed them for over one mile (1.6 km) in less than one hour.
1994 (age 80): Once again handcuffed and shackled, he fought strong winds and currents as he swam 1.5 miles (2.4 km) while towing 80 boats with 80 people from the Queensway Bay Bridge in the Long Beach Harbor to the Queen Mary.
Today begins my 2nd round of Insanity!(Insanity is an interval based cardio workout program created by Shaun T). Today is also a milestone in that it is the first time I made it through an entire workout full bore without stopping! It was still pretty tough - if it wasn't tough then I wasn't doing it correctly. Feels great after doing nothing last week. Last week was my first real recovery week in the past 3 months (just completed a round of P90X+) in which I did absolutely no workouts. I try to give myself a full recovery between regimented workout programs to let my body heal up micro trauma in the muscles and prep myself for the beating to come.
Gotta say I was a bit restless the past week. I find it pretty difficult to take a step back from fitness. At the beginning of the year that previous statement would not apply to me at all as prior to this past March, I didn't workout for probably 4-5 years lol. Despite having trouble pulling myself back from workouts, today came with the usual necessary psyche up to finally get myself into workout mode. I battle myself almost every day to get up and actually work out and the same thing always happens. I win the battle and feel awesome after the workout. Even though I didn't stop through the entire workout I really didn't sweat as much as I used to during my first round of Insanity. I also didn't drink as much water (used to drink 4 bottles in about 45 minutes and today only 1).
I am hoping I will see as much improvement through the 2nd phase of Max workouts (Max workouts - more difficult movements for a longer duration in the 2nd month of Insanity) as I have seen today with phase 1. These initial 45 minute workouts go by so fast compared to P90X which take about 1 hour and usually a followup ab workout for 20 minutes. I should complete the 60 days of Insanity by the end of February which is when Asylum releases! It's said that if Insanity is practice, Asylum is the game. That followup program is supposed to be a BEAST and somehow work in weights with the crazy cardio?! Asylum is gonna be awesome! Not that Insanity wasn't a beast in and of itself. I remember my first round where I had to take breaks during the 15 minute warm ups lol - did I mention prior to that I didn't work out for years? Let me end with a few embarrassing images LOL.
NEVER AGAIN will I let myself get into that shape LOL. Wow.
So here I am with a brand spanking new blog! I guess I'll write about why I decided to write a blog in the first place. This blog exists as a catalog of my thoughts, ideas, and emotions over the course of time. I figured it would be pretty funny to look back and see what kinds of things go through my mind and how the events of my life unfold as I stumble through it. At any given point I feel like I have found the "definitive" me only to find soon after, that I have once again redefined who I am. People said you become the person you will be for the rest of your life during the years after high school. It's been 9 years since then and I feel like I am still undergoing that process. Just the past year has brought tremendous change to my life. I have become a home owner, got married, rediscovered health/fitness, and have a son on the way. 30 is fast approaching and I don't feel old or aged in the least. In fact I feel like I am getting younger. My prime is still far ahead of me and I hope to take full advantage when it comes. I'd like to look back at this post and find that I was 100% correct about my hopefulness of the future and look back at this blog as a whole and laugh about my varied rantings. On that note, here is a recap of the past 10 years via Wedding Montage! lol.
