Category Archives: Entry

CrossFit for Hope

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CrossFit is combating childhood cancer and other deadly diseases through its inaugural CrossFit for Hope fundraiser, benefiting St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

It’s no secret that I’m addicted to CrossFit. If you know me at all, you’ve heard me talk about it or you’ve read some of my stuff on Facebook, Twitter, or my blog. When I saw that CrossFit was putting on a fundraiser, I knew I wanted to help out and could have fun doing it.

On June 9th, I’ll be doing the “Hope” workout, which is 3 rounds of:

  • 1m Burpees
  • 1m 75# Power snatch
  • 1m Box jump, 24″ box
  • 1m 75# Thruster
  • 1m Chest to bar Pull-ups
  • 1m Rest

One point is given for each rep. My goal is to get 150 total reps in this WOD.

If you’d like to help support this great cause, visit my profile on the CrossFit for Hope site to make a flat donation or a performance-based sponsorship based on the number of reps I actually complete in the workout. 100% of the proceeds will go directly to St. Jude. I’ve pledged $0.20 per rep to kick things off.

Thanks!

Trio of Fun

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When I pulled in to Meijer to pick up ice cream and Gatorade, I parked in front of this three-wheeled vehicle. The logo on the front says “TRI-FUN” and notice the skull-like hood ornament. I should have waited around to catch a look at the driver.

As I walked down the frozen treats aisle, I quickly noticed some pints of ice cream on sale, priced 3 for $5. I took it as a sign. Three is the number of the day.

Golf Courses Should Start With an Easy Hole

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The first hole should be playable with a fairway wood or long iron from the tee and it shouldn’t have any water hazards. It should also be a par 4. Par 3′s will slow down play too much at the beginning of the round and should also require more accurate distance control than can be expected on the first hole. Par 5′s easy enough to qualify for a good first hole are just a waste of a potentially fun birdie hole later in the round.

via Please Build My Ideal Golf Course | Evan Solomon

Evan, a fellow Automattician, wrote a great post about golf course design. His points about the first hole stood out the most for me.

One of the courses in Saginaw where I’m a member, Swan Valley, starts off with a tough par 3. Why is it so tough?

  • The back tees are 180 yards, but it plays uphill and usually into the wind.
  • Any miss left is out of bounds.
  • Starting at the tee box, there is a pond that stretches about 120 yards up the right side.
  • If you miss to the right of the green, a big slope will kick your ball further right.
  • The green is small.

Over the last two years I’ve played the hole 101 times with 0 birdies and an average score of 3.99. My overall par 3 average during that same time period is 3.7. That’s not how you should start a golf course. To make matters worse, hole #2 is a 555 yard par 5, which is nearly impossible to reach in two unless there is a hurricane wind behind your back and you hit the perfect tee shot. The course could easily swap the front and back 9s, but they don’t.

Automattic Worldwide WP 5k

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We brought back the idea of everyone in the company doing a 5k this week and inviting the world of WordPress to join us. Yesterday morning I went out for a 3.5 mile run, but it wasn’t very exciting.

The teams in our company get together in various locations to work together for a week since we all work from home and rarely get to see each other. This week I happen to be in sunny Seaside, FL with the rest of the Janitorial team so it was a great chance to do the 5k with members of my team.

Andy, Stephane, Erica, and I rented some bikes and went out for a ride around the area. I didn’t map it out with RunKeeper, but we went plenty far enough to qualify as a 5k. After riding for an hour or so we stopped for a swim in the Ocean and relaxed on the beach.

My First CrossFit Competition

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Nearly 70,000 people around the world competed in the 2012 CrossFit Games Open. It really is an open competition that anyone can join. It was my first CrossFit competition and will not be my last.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Open, I’ll explain a bit. Each Wednesday night, for 5 weeks, a new workout is announced online. Athletes have 96 hours (4 days) to complete the workout and submit a score online. Athletes can submit a video of the workout or complete it at a CrossFit affiliate where they can validate the score. I completed all of my workouts at CrossFit Full Strength in Phoenix, AZ, where I’ve been working out since early January. If you are ever in the area, it’s a great box with top notch coaches and a great community.

After each workout is completed, athletes get ranked according to the number of reps completed. The placing in each workout is used as a point total toward the total ranking. Low points are obviously better because 1st place in a workout is worth one point. The winners of the Open had 41 points in the men’s division and 26 points in the women’s division! Me? I had 91,945 points.

When the Open started I had only been doing CrossFit for 4 months (see how I got started), so I set a realistic goal to beat 10% of the guys. I finished 1,194th out of 1,554 in the South West region and 16,389th out of 22,174 in the world for men that completed all 5 workouts. That comes out to beating 23% of men in the South West and 26% of men in the world. BOOYAH!

Below you can see my leaderboards. In each workout the first number is my ranking in the workout and the number in parenthesis is the number of reps I completed for that workout.

I posted recaps of each workout on my CrossFit blog:

The Open is so cool because you get to see how you compare against people from around the world. Now I have a benchmark to measure against for next year’s Open. How much can I improve my fitness in the next year? The sky’s the limit.

Since the Open was 5 weeks long and I had to fit in that special workout each week, I was glad to see the end. But I have the itch to compete again in another competition as a way to push and test my body, not so much as a way to shoot for any type of win. I’m realistic about my strength and body without aspirations of being an elite CrossFitter. If I can make a version of me that is better than yesterday, I’m succeeded.

In this competition I was able to do things I wouldn’t dream of. An example came in the 2nd workout, a snatch ladder. Before the workout my PR in the snatch was 95 pounds. In fact, I had never attempted anything heavier. After easily knocking out 30 reps at 75 pounds, I spent 3 or 4 minutes failing to get 135 pounds over my head even once. I figured there was no way it was happening, but with 4 minutes left on the clock, I kept trying. Then I got it. And then I got it again and again. I managed to get 6 reps. A 40 pound PR not once, but 6 times!

I’d become addicted to CrossFit soon after my first workout on October 31, 2012, but competing in the CrossFit Games put the sport on another level for me. I can’t wait to see what tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year have in store. Where’s the next competition? Sign me up.

He’s a lot of us

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…there’s little about Manning that seems expensive. He’s a walking argument for simplicity and common sense and modesty — for the old way. He’s still married to his college girlfriend. He’s not all of us, but he’s a lot of us.

via On Peyton Manning… – Grantland

I finally watched the press conference. I can’t imagine a better way for Peyton to have started, “I sure have loved playing football for the Indianapolis Colts.” And how about that ending? “Thank you very much from the bottom of my heart. I truly have enjoyed being your quarterback.” Classy. One of a kind. I was getting choked up watching Peyton fight his emotions.

Also see Thanks for the memories Peyton Manning.

In My Golf Bag

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With all the club changes I’ve been making, my bag has quite an assortment of brands. Fourteen clubs from 5 manufacturers.

  • Driver: Adams Golf Speedline 9064LS
  • 3 Wood: TaylorMade RocketBallz
  • Hybrids: Adams Golf Idea Tech V3 (3 and 4 iron)
  • Irons: Ping i20 (5-PW)
  • Wedges: Cleveland CG14 (52, 56, and 60 degree)
  • Putter: Odyssey White Ice D.A.R.T.
  • Balls: Titleist Pro V1x
  • Rangefinder: Bushnell V2 Tour

The TaylorMade RocketBallz 3 wood could make my driver obsolete. The club hits the ball a mile and then some! It came in yesterday, so I’ll give it a week in the bag before I jump to any conclusions, especially since I bought the driver at this time last year.

I only buy pre-owned golf balls from Knetgolf. Unless you are close to playing scratch golf, there is no reason to pay full price for brand new golf balls. A dozen of the Titleists I play go for around $50 at the store. I usually get 10 dozen of them, lightly used, for $160. Do the math. When you hit a brand new ball a couple of times you end up with a pre-owned ball anyway. Are those first few hits worth paying 3 times as much? Over the course of a year you’ll save a lot of money hitting used balls and your scores won’t suffer.

If you don’t have a rangefinder in your bag, make the investment. You can get a nice one for $250 or less on eBay or if you watch for sales. A rangefinder speeds up the pace of place, takes the guess work out of walking off distances, and helps to improve your game because you’ll learn how far you really hit your clubs.

The Not So Great Tip

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It turns out the golf tip my buddy gave me a couple of weeks ago wasn’t so great after all. Focusing on a feeling of keeping the club face closed going back caused my swing plane to get really vertical. A steep swing is especially bad as you get into the longer clubs which are meant to be swung with a sweeping attack at the ball.

A few months ago, before I came to Phoenix, I bought a golf lesson package on Groupon. It was $179 for 3 one hour lessons and a 90 minute playing lesson with a pro at one of the Troon golf courses in Scottsdale. The pro’s name in Ken Carpenter and he has some game to back up his teaching. He played in the Phoenix Open, which is one of the top tournaments on the PGA Tour, and was once an instructor for Golf Digest. It’s safe to say I’ve never worked with anyone that has more knowledge of the game than Ken. His normal lesson rate is $140/hour, so the Groupon was a hell of a deal.

During the lesson, we worked outside at the range, but Ken had a camera and laptop setup there. After warming up he had me take a few swings and then showed them to me on the computer. I had the golf club nearly straight up and down at the top of the back swing. Not good. It’s difficult to make solid contact from that position and even harder to have any consistency.

He talked to me about the swing plane and helped me feel what the correct position was instead of only telling me, showing me in his swing, or showing me on a video. As I took my stance he guided my club and arms back into the correct position. I’ve worked on my swing plane before, so it wasn’t very difficult to understand and get a feel for.

A new thing I’d never realized was where my hands should be in relation to the shaft of the club and where they should stop. If I look back, it should feel as if my hands are stopping out there to my right. I’ve always swung my arms more around my body to change the swing plane, which brings a lot of unnecessary shoulder movement and causes other issues. When GolfTEC worked with me on shortening my swing it was always about my arms and we never talked about the position of the hands.

It didn’t take me long to get a good feel for the swing plane and I started hitting consistent shots. It was really nice to be taking lessons on the range where you can instantly see the results in each shot. When I didn’t make solid contact, the misses were still pretty damn good. You always hear people say that better players have better misses.

Correcting the swing plane should prevent a lot of slicing because a vertical swing tends to come over the top. A swing on the correct plane is hard get going on the wrong path to and through the ball.

My next lesson is in a week and a half so I’m going to spend some quality time on the range before then. In fact, I’m headed to the range now, before I play a round with the guys. I’m excited to see where my swing goes with the rest of the lessons.

Give it Five Minutes

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“Man, give it five minutes.” I asked him what he meant by that? He said, it’s fine to disagree, it’s fine to push back, it’s great to have strong opinions and beliefs, but give my ideas some time to set in before you’re sure you want to argue against them. “Five minutes” represented “think”, not react.
via Give it five minutes – (37signals)

This is something I struggle with. I’m going to try giving it 5 minutes before I respond to posts I’m passionate about.

WordPress.com for Windows 8

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Today, Microsoft released the Windows 8 Consumer Preview and with it, the Windows Store. And if you haven’t already heard, I’m proud to say that WordPress.com for Windows 8 is available today.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been working on the team at Automattic that’s been building the app. We were lucky enough to get some great support from Microsoft along the way, especially Jeff Sandquist, James Senior, Ben Thompson, Jaime Rodriguez, Lora Heiny, and Nazia Zaman who gave us everything we needed to make the app shine, including hands-on help from Microsoft developers and designers. We decided to focus on showcasing the best of WordPress.com for our first version of the app, and what better way to do that than with Freshly Pressed? We’ve been highlighting WordPress.com bloggers there for several years now, and all of that great content is now accessible in our app.

via WordPress.com for Windows 8 | Matt Thomas

It was a lot of fun working on this app. The last time I did any development for Windows was about 10 years ago using Visual Basic. We’ve come a long way! The Metro interface in completely different from anything you’ve ever seen out of Windows and I’m interested to see where it goes. If you have a blog on WordPress.com or you like reading cool content, check out our new app and let us know what you think.