Project Miner

One of my best friends, Josh Netherton, is the kind of person who “goes for it”.  He’s been that way since I met him and it’s something I really admire.  Not only does he go for it, but I’ve never seen him fail.  Years ago, he proclaimed “I’m going to do a triathlon” and I quickly learned to not doubt Josh – even though his training food of choice was Taco Bell (which caused most of my doubts), I was there to witness him cross several finish lines.

In the last two years, he’s gone for it again, this time with his career.  He was running biology labs at Spelman college and growing increasingly unhappy.  So, he decided to pursue a career in web development and design, and went for it.  With little “traditional training or experience”, he quickly built a portfolio and landed a job at Ketchum.  Now a year or so later, he’s decided to go even further and do freelance full-time.  I have absolutely zero doubts he’ll be successful with it.  In fact, he’s working on re-designing my company’s website and so far, I’m loving what he’s come up with.

Now for the plug… If you need any web development or design work done, give Josh a shout.  I promise you’ll be happy you did.

It’s more like a “slight jog”, but I’ve been at it lately.  I started about four weeks ago, missing one week while I had the plague, and only jogging twice a week.  I’ve always boasted that “I hate running”.  And I really have hated it.  However, this time, I’m enjoying it.  A lot.  Weird.  So, what’s different this time?

• I’m running at night.  Typically around 8:45-9:00.  I’m going this late because the Atlanta summer is unbearable until the sun goes down, and because Ona goes to bed around 7.
• I’m bringing a water bottle with me.  I only take a half-dozen or so pulls from it, spitting most of it out, but it’s been a nice safety net.
• I’m concentrating on breathing more than I used to.  I thought about it and realized breathing is key to my athletic activities.  I remember learning that in baseball… breathing helped me hit, catch, throw, etc.  Imagine that.  So, when I run, I count steps per inhale and exhale – starting with 5, moving to 4 or 3 when winded. 

The original plan was to swim 2x per week and jog 2x per week.  Swimming is awesome, but hard for me to find the time to do.  It’s at least an hour, more like 1:15-1:30 round-trip.  I’ve been able to get to the pool twice (both times waking up at 4:45).  Jogging, I just put shoes on and go out the door.  So, for now, running wins out (I’m considering biking in place of swimming, though).

A couple of questions for the few runners who read this (hi Dan and Josh):

1. My left foot tends to go numb near the end of the run.  Shoes too tight?  Running funky?  I loosened them up tonight and it still happened.  Maybe it’ll end (the first few runs I was getting a runner’s stitch in my side, but Jol pointed me to stretches that made that vanish).
2. I “hit a stride” at about a mile in and take off and feel awesome.  Why does the first part suck so bad?  The last 1/2 mile of the first mile (follow that?) is uphill, but I don’t think that has much to do with it.  Is there something I can do to get loosened up (or whatever) earlier?

I just tonight went as far as 2.5 miles (started around 1.25 was at 1.75 most of the time).  Minus the numb foot, I felt great.  Katy is lobbying for me to run a race with her, but I’m not feeling that for some reason… prolly scared…. yeah, definitely scared.

I’ve decided to no longer write the tech blog from projectminer/techblog, and instead make it a blog off my company’s site.  So, bu-bye to old techblog (and the picture of Ona that I loved) and hello new tech blog:
http://www.versiteconsulting.com/blog

Just a quick update… last week was Ona’s first birthday!  And to celebrate, the whole family had the plague.  Good times.  Ona brought home some kind of stomach bug and Katy and I both got it also.  We were one super sick house last week and through the weekend.  Nice way to celebrate the baby girl’s first birthday.  Thanks to Mom/Ken and Jamie for coming over the weekend and taking Ona out of the house for a few hours so Katy and I could sleep and recover.  Those were true acts of love, and were MUCH appreciated.

I’ve got a ton more to write, but have to catch my train.  Hopefully I’ll get the ole blogging juices flowing again soon and write more in the next week (upcoming posts: “So much for October, or  how I’ve learned to worry and hate baseball”, “My ‘little’ sister is TEN years old, which makes me, like, older than 10″, “Eric 2.0 has begun again, aka ‘mid-year resolutions’”, and so on… plenty of stuff to bore my friends and family in the coming days).