Day 20

2:26am
I'm up, feeling fine.

Day 19

2:54am
Took some doing, but I'm up. Got a group run in four and a half hours, that'll be fun. Weight is 173.4 this morning.

8:30pm
Was a good run, about 7 miles in a hour - good group to run with and I hope we do it again next week. Unfortunately I somehow forgot that Friday had been P90 Legs and Back workout and following that with a run has led to a condition that I'm calling "my butt has been beaten with a nail studded baseball bat". My glutes HURT.

Oh well. Builds character.

New Challenge! Mother in law is in town for a few days. Historically this has meant respectable amounts of wine would find out what it's like to be drunk. My plan is hang tough, fight the good fight, soldier on past temptation and abstain.
You've heard about a battleplan as soon as the first shot is fired (poured)?
Tune in later, gentle reader, and we'll see how it all shakes out.

Day 18 - I rebooted?!?

6:11am
I just woke up. No recollection of the alarm going off at 2am although I'm fairly certain I set it. Guess I'll need to find redundant alarm solutions again. Very weird. So yeah, 7 hours of sleep. I wouldn't say I feel better for having it right now.
I'll take my normal naps at noon and in the evening and start again tonight.
Weight is up a little, 174.0 lbs.

Day 17 - Bright eyed? Bushy tailed?

2:15am
Not so much, but I'll get better.

7:00am
Went for a nice run this morning, 58 minutes worth. Will map out how far later. Weight is 172.2 today. Making progress.

5:00pm
Been a wild day, very positive, very exciting. Hope yours was awesome too. BTW, run this morning was 6 miles - a decent baseline. Looks like the 5K won't be any problem in October and I should be able to do 13 in Nov keeping to my T/TH/SA schedule.
Good times.

Day 16 - Opps

4:01am
Sorry for the late update, got distracted by something shiny. Took the mountain bike out on the greenways, was a pretty cool ride. We've got a full moon, almost didn't need the flashlight.
Weight is 173.6 today.

4:16pm
Did the Shoulders and Arms workout today, man that's a good workout! Looking at the calendar, I need to get busy to make sure I have a decent showing for the Autism Ribbon Run in a couple of weeks. Think I'll run T/TH/SA with SA being a distance run. That should map well with the 13 mile half marathon planned in Nov too.

Day 15

2:18am
Hiya. Weight is 174.4 this morning.

Day 14 - Say Something Clever Here

2:16am
I'm up! Weight is 175. I backfilled the fitday.com info with the scale readings since I started this experiment. The graph is all over the place and highlights the fact that while weighing yourself everyday is fine, you can't assign too much importance to that point in time reading. Instead, keep an eye on the trend. I use the Mark I calibrated eyeball and standard issue memory to assess where I am, but there are plenty of tools to make pretty graphs and visuals for you. BTW, I highly recommend reading The Hacker's Diet by John Walker. It's unlike any other 'self help' you'll read. Incidentally, you may have heard of Mr. Walker, he founded Autodesk in 1982. You can read more about Autodesk history here.

And now you know.

12:48pm
Almost time for a nap, but a quick note first. I notice I haven't mentioned it recently but the 3 hour core nap from 11pm to 2am plus a morning, noon, evening 20-30 minute nap is still working just great. The schedule is very flexible, as long as I get a nap within an hour and a half on either side of 6am/noon/6pm then I seem to be able to bounce right back up again. I've even missed a nap with no lingering effects. However my experience is that being interrupted in the middle of a nap is far worse than skipping it all together. The one time that happened was not fun at all.

I see by the empty bottle of Courvoisier that we are out of time, so you stay cool and I'll catch you later.

4:11pm
Did the 3rd week P90 Chest and Back routine today and I'm dang proud of the results. The workouts are still heart breakers, but at least I'm able to crank out more reps of everything. The weekly pictures are showing a lot more definition too. I guess an hour a day of fairly intense workout will do that...

Oh, and I was just kidding about the Courvoisier.

Day 13 Nothing is ever as good or as bad as it seems.

2:29 am
Here we go. Weight is 175 this morning. Will run some miles with Rico around 7am, need to stretch pretty good, legs still sore from Friday's workout.

10:53am
Yep a good run was just the thing, was beautiful outside, cool and clear. Haven't measured but assuming a slow 10 minute mile we did 7 miles, feeling great. Hey look, tomorrow is Two Weeks on this schedule! Perhaps time for a review post - stay tuned!

10:53pm
Bedtime, back in 3 hours. Don't think I ate nearly enough today, just wasn't that hungry, drank a lot of green tea.

Day 12

Hello. Weight is 176 this morning. Legs are... sore.

Day 11

3:23am
Running a little late. Weight is 176.4.

4:15pm
Doing fine, just finished Legs and Back, good workout, making progress.

9:50pm
Life got a little more complicated on me yesterday. Still Polyphasic, still exercising, still beer-less. Yay for me.

Day 10 - Wouldn't be fun if it was EASY!

Double digit day! Woot! Going to try the Yoga X workout again, some coffee and gratefruit first however. This is the longest workout at 90 minutes. Weighed in at 179.4 today, wishing I'd gotten a body fat test done at the beginning. Oh well.

New feature time here at Wesproject! In an attempt to keep this as honest as possible, I will now record my diet and exercise over at fitday.com. To keep me motor-vated, I will provide you with the link to follow along.

I would have liked to use dietpower but it doesn't allow data sharing. www.Fitday.com is free and will get the job done - I recommend you check it out too if you want a solid tracking package. Also, www.calorieking.com is an excellent reference for finding the number of calories in a given food item (check out McDonald's sausage and egg biscuit, ouch!) and I'll be using it to supplant fitday's food database.

4:00am
Yoga X time, lets see if I can do the whole 90 minutes.

5:48am
Well, that was a heck of a thing. More practice is needed, but I feel good. Should be a very refreshing nap.

Day 9 - Neat!

Mornin! Seems like every time we have hummus and grilled chicken with pita bread I eat too much. It's good though. Anyway, Mr. Scale says 178.8 today.

Maybe he's just kidding.

So today is the Shoulders & Arms workout. I'm Planning to ride the bike to work and back today and do Ab Ripper X this evening. Fairly active day scheduled.

Side note, was kind of hard getting the feet out of the bed this morning, awake now, but man it was warm and comfortable. Gotta keep the eyes on the prize, eyes on the prize. Good news though, I'm only really sore when I move now (vs breathing), so I've that going for me.

I don't think I drank enough water yesterday, will tank up in a few.

I recommend this link for pain tolerance training. I got through it twice. Your mileage may vary.

6:41am
Excellent workout, feeling it now after the nap. Spent most of the 'morning' trying out three free, online, personal finance management products. Basically a Money or Quicken like product that isn't tied to just one computer.

Mint
Wesabe
Clearcheckbook

I'm still undecided, will weigh the pros and cons with you later. Please use the comments if there's one you like better!

UPDATE: The above are too limited for what I wanted to do however this one rocks!
Yodlee
I was able to set up all accounts including bank, credit cards,retirement funds and 401K, student loans and mortgage. Information updates automatically and best of all... FREE!

4:00pm
Good day today. I know I've been saying that a lot and frankly I thought this blog would have a lot more misery and challenge to it. Hopefully in a couple of weeks we'll get to find out how the sleep and workout schedule survives a vacation. Vacations are for me generally periods of decadence and high living, it may be too much for my focus and self discipline. See, there's your drama right there. Stay tuned.

9:44pm
Q) So what happens if you only get half of one of the 20 minute naps?
A) Nothing good brother, nothing good.

Day 8 - You are likely to be eaten by a Grue.

2:16 am
I'm up, weight is down again, 177 this morning. Plyometrics workout today. Was hard to get up this morning, but once out of bed I feel like its getting easier to become alert.

3:30ish
I've been zoning this morning, just killing time looking at the interwebs. Need to make a little bit better use of this hard earned time, maybe make a little plan the night before. More on that later.

5:50am
Alright! Plyo felt a lot better this time, man what a sweat. Now for some water, a little clean up and a nice nap. Later!

7:00pm
Good day today, after all the leg work yesterday and Plyometrics this morning I decided to take it easy today. All the naps went like clockwork and I found it very easy to wake up and jump right back to work, didn't feel fuzzy at all. Maybe I'm getting more acclimated.

Day 7 - **#**

2:11am
I'm up. Yay. Weight 178.6 lbs. It's 58 degrees outside.

5:53am
Cup of Coffee on startup seems to be a winner. Did Chest and Back again, some substantial increases from this time last week, I am pleased to say. Didn't walk this morning, but am cycling to work.
I feel mighty.

1:00pm
Cranked the bike ride in this morning, the mighty feeling has persisted through lunch, ran somewhere around 6 miles at lunch, felt awesome throughout. Hungry now though, time to raid the provisions.

9:30pm
Good ride home and had time to knock out ab ripper before dinner. Busy day, may be a challenge to make it to 11.

Why polyphasic?

Because there wasn't enough time in the conventional day. Life had become get up, go to work, come home, be daddy, go to sleep. Lather, rinse, repeat. The weekends were family, household shopping and chores, and occasionally a get together with the neighbors. The times I snuck away or diverted my attention to things that interested me I felt like I was neglecting my duties and family. And I was.
Eventually, for entertainment, relaxation, whatever, I compromised and began multitasking the evenings with beer. Not blacking out, puking, raving quantities mind you, but more than is healthy and definitely more than someone trying to get in shape needs.

The Everyman sleep schedule seemed a rather elegant solution. Attend:
*I now have 4 completely uncontested hours, in one massive clump, to do whatever the heck I want to do every single day. 28 hours a week!
*When I get home in the evening I go directly into Daddy mode and stay there, the family can have my 100% unfettered attention for homework, puzzles, boardgames, whatever.
*My going to bed time has been pushed back a full hour, the kids are asleep and the house is quiet. Wife and I have found this a wonderful time to reconnect.
*Since quality sleep is paramount to the whole experiment being a success, I can't jeopardize it with alcohol. Frankly those 4 golden hours and the rest of the happy byproducts are much more important to me than a 4 beer buzz.

So what did I do in my first 28 hours of me time?
*A fair amount of nothing in particular, watching the sun rise, walking the dog (wow, was she confused at 4am), navel gazing.
*Couple of hours of video gaming
*Walked 10+ miles, hopefully get back to running soon, been giving my calves a break.
*Spent 7 hours on P90x (probably the best use of time)
*Couple of hours of Spanish training.

All in all I'm astoundingly pleased with the last week. Looking forward to whatever comes next.
-Wes

Day 7 - Wut?

Sunday 16Sept2007

2:05am
I need to work on putting my feet on the ground as soon as the alarm goes off (the first time). Weight today is 178. Ate a lot of party foods yesterday and it shows. Oh well, do better today.

7:51am
Had my first oversleep, was supposed to get up at 6:30, woke up at 7:40. Feel kind of zombied right now. Coooffffeeeeeeee...

2:44pm
Lunch nap went like clockwork, went food shopping, chillin' with the family.

5:25pm
So I'm somewhere in the middle of the last nap, sleeping hard, dreaming about who-knows-what, when I'm rocked by a massive explosion - scared the heck out of me but I didn't open my eyes. There wasn't any follow up screaming indicative of a all out air assault, so I assumed I dreamed it.
After I got up I found the remains of one of the balloons the kids had brought back from the grocery store. The ceiling fan had eated it.

10:20pm
A great day, weather was perfect, finally cooling off. We all got a lot of outside time this weekend, kids went to sleep easy tonight. I'm looking forward to next week, feeling good!

Day 6 - Nothing to it but to do it

2:04am
Oh Hi! Kinda rough getting moving this morning. Weight is 176.2 lbs. Kenpo workout this morning, but not for a few more hours.

5:33am
Since it's Saturday and I'm not pressed for time, I decided to put off the workout until after the 6am nap. I'm also noticing that my glutes are really sore from the Legs and Back workout yesterday. Just thought you'd like to know.

7:51am
Well the Kenpo workout is a lot of fun and I worked up a mighty sweat. Would have been more intense but that both kids decided a Saturday morning is THE time to get up at 6:35. So it was a high intensity punching and kicking routine slightly tempered to minimize the number of times any given child was launched across the room.

BTW, did you ever think vinegar was so versatile? More tips in the comments.

9:49pm
Had a really good day today, my worries about keeping the nap schedule over the weekend turned out to be unfounded. It wasn't hard to accommodate the lunch and dinner naps even with what turned out to be the most social day we've had in a while.

I'm very pleased at how well these experiments are going.

Day 5 - An adventure is defined by its hardships

2:06am
Okay, I'm up. Went to bed a half hour early last night to see if that would make any difference since the previous two naps were less than optimal. I don't think it did. All I'm sure of right this minute is that I need to get out of this chair if I'm going to stay awake today. Back later.
Oh and weight is 176.6 lbs today. That's about where it was a week ago.

3:27am
Quick update, had a 2 mile walk, a grapefruit, 3 cups of water and am working on a single cup of coffee.
I. Feel. Magnificent.

5:32am
Just finished Legs & Back, not a bad showing for the first time through it. I'm still feeling really, really good. Ab Ripper this evening, got it on the schedule this time.
Time for some more water and then cool down for the 6am nap.

7:16pm
Had a good day, moved the evening nap up to 4:45 to try and get it knocked out before the family needs me and before the kids have the chance to come check on dad every 5 minutes. The nap was good, but I'm yawning pretty hard right now, I guess from the time change. Need to perk up, got another round of Ab Ripper X tonight.

8:10pm
Ab Ripper X = ouch.

Day 4 - Persistant optimism is a force multiplier

2:26am
I'm up, ISP is down. More later when I can get back online.

Sent from Blackberry

3:25am
AAAAaaand, we're back! Feeling pretty good this morning now that I'm moving. Was hard to wake up, 2 out of 3 alarms went off before I finally kicked my feet off the bed. Need to do better than that. Weight is 178.6 lbs. Going to see how well Spanish training works at this time of day, come back later, I'll let you know.

5:11am
Well, I don't recommend trying to concentrate for more than 30 minutes at this stage of the experiment. I was getting the answers correct, but by the end my eyes really wanted to close for a nap. Sitting still in general does not seem to be too good an idea. Got 30 minutes into the 90 minute P90 Yoga routine before turning it off. I'm sure it will help my over all soreness and it felt good, but the calming/soothing/stretching/relaxing was not helping me stay awake and alert this morning. I'm sure it'll be better next week when I've adapted more.
*****
It's occurred to me that I didn't do Ab ripper X yesterday like I was supposed to... I've got time now before the 6am nap so I better turn to.

8:50pm
Well it's been a pretty rough day, spent it at one of the remote offices, did get to close my eyes around noon, but it wasn't for the full nap. That made the 2.5 hour drive back a little challenging but it wasn't until the evening nap was interrupted twice that things got hairy. Once again I find that eating will give you a reprieve when you feel like letting the eyes close and I wonder how long that can be sustained. I am going to try to stay busy and see if I can hang in there until 11.

In case you're interested

Morning before work:
*One red grapefruit
*10 oz 1% milk, 2oz whey protein, 1/2 cup quick oats and 1/4 cup blueberries as a breakfast shake
*3-6 cups water
*Multivitamin

Morning at work:
*8oz coffee (black)
*One apple + One banana
*2 hardboiled eggs + 2 hardboiled egg whites only

Lunch:
*2 cans drained tuna fish with spicy brown mustard
*1/2 cup cottage cheese + 10 baby carrots
*3 cups water

Mid afternoon snack:
*One apple + One banana
*Hot green tea from bag

Dinner:
Grilled or baked fish,chicken, pork chop, or lean beef
Regular or Sweet Potato
Vegetable
3 cups water or Arizona diet green tea
Oreo cookie or some Hershey's dark chocolate

I use dietpower and a food scale to keep an eye on calories eaten and burned. Its a good tool and fast to use. I'm not religious about it or anything, but it helps illuminate trends. Also
one of these is very handy for making eggs at work.

Day 3 - That which must be endured, can be endured.

2:10am
I'm up, pretty groggy. Will update after getting something to eat and maybe going for a walk. Weight today is 180.2 lbs.

K, went for the walk first and observed a couple of things. I was weaving fairly noticeably and the hills seemed a lot harder than normal. My legs feel pretty rough. I'm pretty sure the Plyometrics workout is mostly responsible for that. Also at the 1 mile turn around, a hunger pang hit me like a truck. Soldiered on to the house and had a grapefruit and water, feel fairly human now. Thinking about some black coffee... Hmm, maybe some green tea instead, don't want to mess up the 6am nap.

6:28am
Alright, woke up from the morning nap about a minute before the alarm went off! Was worried about the Green Tea keeping me from napping, but it seems to have worked out okay. Today was P90X Shoulders & Arms and I feel pretty good about my performance for it. I definitely want to keep moving in the 2am to 6am hours, really seems to make a difference on my alertness levels.
I am HUNGRY!

9:39pm
Still rolling, noon and 7pm nap went pretty well, the MP3s definitely help cut the background noise and get me into nap mode. I'm kind of tired now and my eyeballs feel a little too big but other than that I feel okay. I am looking forward to 11 for bedtime but don't see any problem getting there.

I'm setting up my Spanish training cd's now too, want to use some of this freed up time to learn to speak a second language, mostly to talk dirty to my wife: "hola mi esposa, mi pingüino es muy grande y roja"

Tomorrow will be interesting, I'm going to one of the remote offices and will be performing a fairly major hardware swap during the lunch hour. Not sure where or when I'll get the noon(ish) nap. Guess I'll have to burn that bridge when I get to it.

Day 2 - If its worth doing, its worth overdoing.

2:15am:
I'm up. I actually feel sort of rested, am sore from yesterday's workout but yeah.. not bad right now. This morning weight is 180.6 lbs. Going for a walk.
*****
Two mile walk at 2 in the morning was very cool - maybe I'll dig out the telescope some time and see what I can see. Feeling good.

6:30am;
Up from the 6:00am nap, did the Plyometrics workout at 5 this morning, feel a little odd now but expect to shake it off after I get moving. Sun's coming up.

8:00am;
This is weird, rode the bike in to work, and I am feeling GREAT right now!

12:36pm;
Shaking off the 12 o'clock nap, have had a great morning, and feel quite good now. Used one of the Polynap MP3s found here which made a huge difference in being able to shutdown for twenty minutes or so.
Now for some food, I'm starving!

10:27pm;
Still rolling. I am looking forward to going to sleep. The 7pm nap was hard to recover from, I think having dinner then trying to nap is suboptimal. Will play around with that nap and see what happens.

I'm surprised at how well exercise is working with the reduced amount of sleep and how good I felt today. Hope it isn't just a fluke.

Back tomorrow!

Day 1 - Journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

7am Note:
Got up at 5am, figured out where I was, and jumped into P90X. In a word? Wowch. This morning was Chest and Back, lots of varied chin ups and push ups with some dumbbell back exercises. Wasn't pretty, but I finished. Took a 20 minute nap (sort of) then hit the shower. No biking today, have to travel for work. That's just as well as my butt is still sore from the big bike ride. Oh, and weighed in at 181.8 this morn.
Stay tuned, more later.

12:30pm:
Just woke up from 12:00 nap, was a little rough with office noise. Need to find something to listen to or some earplugs. Actually got some dreaming sleep though, I am encouraged. Now for some lunch!

9:40pm:
Just finished the Ab Ripper X workout. Best thing I can say about that is at least there's plenty of room for improvement. Tried out a nap at 7:00, that didn't go too well - will have to do something about the family racket or maybe go crash in the car. DietPower says I've eaten about 2050 calories today, I expect I'm going to need more with less sleep. Since it would disrupt the sleep I am going to get, I'm doing without beer or other alcohol while I'm polyphasing. I wonder what I'll end up missing more, sleep or a cold one...

10:35pm:
Well here we go, going to go get ready for bed then read for a few minutes and get some sleep. If all goes well, I'll catch you at 2am. Good night!

Schedule

Bear in mind, it's a work in progress:
Daily Plan

MS 150 Bike Ride

Did the 100 Mile bike ride in New Bern NC yesterday, went well although I underestimated the ride. I figured if I could do 77 miles with big elevation changes here at home, that 100 miles of flat coastal riding shouldn't be too much harder. With the wind and some fairly newbie mistakes regarding riding with a group (1800 other riders!) I ended up making it harder than it needed to be. The event itself was just awesome, the volunteers and logistics were great and it was clearly well thought out and executed.

So yeah, 100 miles. Seems sort of surreal today. Some of the team is still there for Day Two, I believe they're planning to do another 70.

For me today is a day of rest with the family and maybe some grocery shopping and final preparations for tomorrow's kickoff. I'm really looking forward to getting started.

BTW, have been sleeping 11pm to 5am for the last week except for last night. Let myself have an extra 2 as a reward for finishing the bike ride. :)

Not long now

I'm 6 days out from starting the P90x challenge along with a 4-4.5 hour a day polymetric sleeping routine. I'm getting my resources ready (including this blog) and am getting pretty fired up about it. I'll post details as they firm up. The general consensus is that there's no way I'll pull it off, perhaps I'll see if anyone wants to place any bets.