Roman's miles

Utilizing your day. Rising the bar.

Do you constantly complain about the lack of time? Does your schedule slipper during a day as time goes and you miss some important stuff planned for the PM? It happens often to me and the missing part in my life is often running and workouts.
The always working recipe for me was getting to bed later, trying to V more complete tasks on the TODO list. Often, though, you can't make much at late hours and mind- or muscle-intensive exercise become unachievable at late hours even if you have a few before the day guillotine cuts your productive "today" from "tomorrow".

Ilia, my friend, taught me to swap the day edges for shoving planning and to make the most important (time-sensitive, risky-to-slippery, easy-to-defer, forgettable, etc.) very early. He wakes up at 5am, has first his swimming and workouts, and then starts the day. Very hard for me to do but I'm all envy.

Today my classmate, Kevin, told me he wakes up daily at 4.15am(!), has his run and workout, and starts (continues?) his working day at about 6am. Not that this fact would help me to wake up tomorrow but I'm sure such stories are exciting, motivating, and aspirational. Kevin answered my question "why do you do it?" with a very simple statement - "because I'm an person of achievements and love to get things done". Surely a motivating statement. And he's been doing it for already 6 years...

Technorati tags: wakeup, GTD

In an attempt to restart all...

The blog has bogged. I haven't touched it for months - last post in April. I didn't impress Thomas - MBA, travels, the new house, a new role, the pregnant wife didn't leave time for blogging. I though I had to sacrifice a few things to let others get through. A sad conclusion is the opposite. The less things you have on your plate, the less pressure you experience, the less urgency you feel, the lower effectiveness falls.

When you add more and more on your plate, the pressure increases, the craziness is building up, and most likely - your efficiency drops. But in absolute numbers you reach more. When you try pick up instead of prioritize, to scratch out instead of decrease a share, to stop doing instead of lowering the pace your internal pushing engine deteriorates, slows down, and may even die. The worst thing is the fuel that drives you - read the excitement of achievements - loses quality.

I knew it before. But somehow let myself to forget. The only way to climb is to push your self. To climb one needs targets - run a marathon, get the blog to top 100, complete an MBA, lose 10 lbs, earn money to buy a yacht.

I'm back to blogging, running, and pushing (how it is easy to write a promising blog at midnight instead of running:-). I'll blog about the same topics, about what I've done while in the oblivion, and what I'm up to. I'm planning to make the categories more meaningful and redesign the blog (for now changing my picture as the first step:-) Tomorrow is an exam on the law class. Not sure I'll find time to run. At worst, I'm putting this blog under the Running category.

Life is good! I'm back!

Technorati tags: restart, gtd, motivation

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly News

I'll start with the ugly news. Last couple of weeks I've been so busy with my job and studying that I didn't have time to blog whatsoever. At SAP we have tons of planning work for 2007 with my group and next week I'm on a global kick-off meeting in Singapore with the team. I also had my first test on Financial Analysis class yesterday and its preparation stole a good chunk of time (hope I passed it:-); another work is due tomorrow (on Strategic Business Communication). I'm very happy with the quality and the level of discussions in the class, the homework materials, which are hefty but very inspiring; and the professors are just amazing! Still the MBA consumes all my free time and nothing was left for blogging last weeks.

The bad news is I broke my marathon schedule.  Last Sunday I scraped out only a slice of time for a 11 mile long run (instead of planned 18) and missed this week's Wednesday-Friday short ones. I'm taking off to Singapore Sunday afternoon and hope to have a workout early morning. Really bad news is that in two weeks I have another week long business trip to Israel so the preparation is seriously under the threat - the marathon run is on March, 4.

The good news is about my family. After almost 7 years of  the "rest" we're again expecting! Our fourth baby's go-live date has been forecast yesterday as September, 22 (so Lia is on her 8th week). It's seems too far today and I don't know who's waiting it more - me, the kids, or Lia; she's struggling with either constant sickness or faltering, twinkling, spontaneous, and vanishing requests to eat - so she doesn't know exactly what she wants.

I guess this year will be a bit "under pressure" for me since there have been so many things happening together. But anyhow I'm very excited and sure we will be good (maybe with an exception for the marathon:-(

Technorati tags: pressure

A long but (almost) complete day

Today was a long day and I'm consummating it by a short blog with a few long sentences.

The day started very typically (6.30AM): woke up, dropped off my son at school, my wife a work, drove to the office for a meeting, came back home afternoon, answered emails, had a few short calls,  went to the school (we have a first exam in 2 weeks on financial analysis - brrr...), bought food for the dog, got home (10.30PM). Still not done - the running program has a 8-mile todo task of today - ran on a treadmill (1% incline for 1:15), got home at 0.20AM (tomorrow), wrote the blog.

Now done! (not yet)

Saturday we have two other classes (Managing in the Global Economy and Strategic Communications) and I have still some 150 pages to read. Will try to swallow now a dozen at least during an after-run cocktail:-)

When it comes from push to shove a phrase "4th and inches" rings in my mind. The more pressure you put the more output is produced. The only question is how no to wreck on the way:-) Will see how much gasoline I'll have by the weekend's end...

Technorati tags: GTD, MBA, running, marathon, pressure

10th week of marathon preparation. 15 mile long run

You may know I'm preparing to my first marathon which should take place on March, 4th. I'm working according to Hal Higdon's plan and today completed the 10th week. Sundays are my long-run days so today I did 15 miler. First time!

It wasn't very difficult and I completed the run on a slower than race pace (10min/mile) just in 2.5 hours feeling like I could run a few other miles. But still, 15 miles is tough when you do it first time.

I have other 7 long runs before the race and the remaining distances are 16, 12, 18, 14, 20, 12, and 8. The 18 and 20 milers are scaring, indeed but I hope I'll prepare myself mentally to these experiences. At the end, if it's not easy to run marathon why should it be so to prepare? Tomorrow is a cross-training day and I'm taking swimming lessons.

Technorati tags: marathon, running, target

Endurance Is

If you seek to train and check your endurance full marathon is a good test. If you're hungry for lifting your endurance to the limits there is a program 50 marathons until 50. But Dean Karnazes put it to a new level: 50 marathons in 50 consequence days! I can imagine how exciting it is and can't realize how disciplined and trained your body and soul must be. Waiting to see what Dean plans after that:-)

Technorati tags: marathon, running

Half marathon is done. What's a great day!

Some of you know that I started preparing to a marathon almost a year ago. Then a knee injury made me stopped my preparation and I put the dream off. A few months ago I decided to give another try to the plans and started training again. Many great non professional runners (Brad, Susan, Barb, Jason, Adrien, Uve - last three work with me at SAP) and many other very professional have been inspiring me for a long time. The wish of running 26.2 miles is very poignant in my dreams' list.

This time, thought, I decided not to go for all the way and start with half the target. Today morning I completed the first half marathon in my life (13m). It was heavy raining and at the last couple of miles the knee let know about itself again so I even had to stop a few times. But anyway, I got it for about 2:07 2:06:23 (the exact time hasn't been published yet). I hoped to run out of 2 hours and though it didn't happen I'm still happy I did complete the distance! The day started from a very positive note:-)

At noon I took a mug of hot tea and a Guinness and went to relax the muscles in our sauna. While the sauna was heating I had another great time watching Falcons against Steelers. The day was getting better and better (we finally won  in overtime 41-38).

The evening I spent contemplating about next adventures. I've registered for a full marathon in Alpharetta in March but probably will find another one before. I'm also thinking about getting on a mountain bike - it's good for cross-training and a first step to my big dream of a triathlon.

Next two days are for deep rest. I'll be enjoying the no training time, rehabilitating the body, and the echo of today small victory:-)

The running category on my blogs is back (didn't want to post anything there before today finish)

Technorati tags: running, marathon, alpharetta

The best of my first 92 blogs

I'm reaching the first hundred of blogs (this one is the 93d) and I want to group and re-publish links to the ones I like most. I hope you've found them interesting too.

On entrepreneurship:

• Why to become a founder?
• Business intelligence, SOA, and your grocery shop
• Falling corporate startups
• How to make your startup a "cool to be working in" company?
• Mossad, French Legion, or Taliban - what does your company look like?

On career planning

• Three questions employee should periodically ask themselves
• Work with pros
• Your current job -"a time to kill, and a time to heal"
• Are you waiting for a week-end to end or to start?
• Evolving from a software engineer to...

On managing

• How to manage Squidward in your team?
• Who is the ideal boss?
• Whom to hire for startup?
• Getting good at giving feedback
• How many of your folks will be working for you in a year?

Random ideas

• Committed or tentative?
• IT/Business - how to talk the same language?
• Three pragmatic isolations
• Resetting the targets (05)
• Email culture

Blogging with different pace during this year and making a blog not focusing on a particular topic I've somehow got a small but firm readership and I want to thank you all for that. Hope you'll continue enjoying reading my second hundred of posts too.

Marathon preparation. Two weeks passed.

2 weeks are gone. 15 yet to go until my first marathon. The long runs were 6 and 7 miles and though both of them I ran first time in my life it wasn't so difficult. I ran with pace of 9'20'' and the last mile speeded up to 7'30''. I had a bit of pain in muscles after the 7 mile run and I think I should have spent more time on heating and stretching before the run. Last week I went with my kids to an ice skating rink as a cross-training and today to water pool. The good thing is tomorrow is a day-off when usually I go to a sauna.

Next week I'm on the fourth week and the program has 9 miles as a long run. I'm sure it won't be a problem as I felt some resources left after the 7 mile run. The really big frightening number are still waiting for me:-)

Will update you every 2-3 weeks on my progress.

Marathon and my 17 weeks

So I've decided - I'm preparing for my first marathon!

The target doesn't look astonishing and if I do it I don't think I'll memorize next year as a year when I did my first marathon. It looks rather a bit frightening and intimidating but still appealing. It's a challenge - no doubt. I never was an athlete and never attended organized trainings. Episodically I attended a gym and ran few times a week 3-5 kilometers.

I started running again maybe 3-4 months ago and started with 2,5 miles. Then I increased the distance to 4-5 miles and went to the gym 6 days/week. I couldn't run without a target just for fun. I needed some mission to accomplish and I decided to start this preparation. I've chose the LA marathon that will happen on March, 19 next year. As a program to prepare I stick to Hal Higdon program that spans over 18 weeks and I have only 17, so I'll skip over a week. Yesterday I started my first week. It's a tough program: this weekend I'll run 6 miles but in 9 weeks I'll run 15 miles already. I told you it's frightening:-)

As you see I opened a new category "Running" and will publish blogs related to the marathon preparation only there (to let my readers distinguish and skip if they want). Wish me some luck and you're welcome to read about my runner's experience:-)

Technorati tags: marathon, running, target