kentcowgill.org/blog

I'm posting a bit more than a day or two per post, hoping I can catch up to current before too much longer.

August 8:

I think I'm supposed to do week 3, day 2, column 3 for push ups today, but I'm not sure. I'm more sure about doing week 1, day 2, column 2 for chin ups. Regardless of what I've actually worked up to, this is what I'll be doing for the day.

Push ups: 27 then 19 then 19 then 15 then maxed out at 25. Resting about 90 seconds between sets for a total of 105 in about 8 minutes. I actually think I could've gotten one, possibly two more out of the max set before total collapse, but I just stopped at 25. But the really good news is that today, I hit all the targets for week 3 day 2. Hooray!

Chin ups: Not quite so good. 9 then 8 then 6 then 4 and two halves and then maxed out at 2 and three halves. Yes, I tried to get more than two on three separate tries. And failed. Rested about 90 seconds between sets for a total of 29 in about 7 minutes. This is definitely more than I've done so far, but it was still short of the target. I think I'll probably end up repeating this one, too. Small bummer. But overall I'm still feeling good about my generally forward progress with the chin ups.

August 9:

Just to wrap up where I've been along the path to 100 consecutive push ups and chin ups so far, I've created a little chart tracking my progress.

This gives me a lot of hope - I can see, now that I've laid it all out, that I'm making some real progress. At times it feels like I'm taking a step backwards for every two steps forward I'm making, but I can see the method to the madness.

Thanks to Lisa's parents being in town to help out after Lisa's wisdom teeth extraction, I got to get out on my bike both days without feeling guilty about leaving her with Matthew! I got out and cleaned up my CamelBak backpack, loaded it up with about 3 liters of water, filled my tires up to 110 psi, and took off. I went just a few more miles today than I did last Sunday, so the total was almost 32 miles. The route was pretty similar to what I did Sunday, just following the trail a little further. Courtesy Google Maps again, here's my route for today:

View Larger Map

Lisa and I interviewed a few potential nannies on Sunday, and we had to take her parents back to the airport, so I took another day of rest on August 10.

August 6:
Push ups: 27 then 20 (wow these seem tougher than last time, but) then 16 (wow, that's a step back, right? but I'll keep going and) then (oh crap I realized I was doing the wrong week, so I'll skip back down to) 15 then (so now I'm 4 ahead of where I should be, assuming my math is right, so the max out target number should really just be 21 for me but I ended up and) maxed out at 14. Hard to compare directly, but I will anyhow. Last time I did 84, this time (resting about 60 seconds between sets) was 92 in about 7 minutes. Not bad. Better than last time, sort of, even though I did 5 too many in the first two sets. At least Friday should be OK.

Chin ups: 7 then 7 then 5 then 4 then maxed out at 4 and two halves. Resting about 60 seconds between sets, for a total of 27 in about 6 minutes. Obviously, I missed the target for the max-out set. We'll see how the rest of the "week" goes. I just took a peek - good thing I'll have 2 days rest before the herculean effort of doing 41 in about 11 minutes.

Also, I replaced my bike tires today. Strangely enough, the first one was again difficult, and the second one not so much. I didn't think I'd get rusty after not having done it in a week or so. I was fairly sure I had managed to damage one of the innertubes putting the super tight brand new tires onto the rims, but they seemed to hold 80 psi for a couple of days.

As far as a physical update, my triceps and pectorals are definitely looking better, and I'm noticing more vascularity, which to means translates to less subcutaneous body fat. Again I'm kicking myself for not taking measurements beforehand, but such is life. I have a record of at least my weight, though that doesn't always tell the whole story.

I'm really sore from the kettlebell workout yesterday. I really threw my hips, hamstrings, and gluteals into it - literally - and I'm definitely feeling it. And I felt it right through Thursday, so I took the day off. Also, Lisa had her wisdom teeth removed earlier in the day, and I had extra Daddy duties (in addition to loving and caring husband duties), so honestly I was a little pooped. But I had decided to skip everything on Thursday ahead of time, so I don't feel like I'm copping a major excuse.

August 4:

I'm really glad I took the opportunity to rest over the weekend. I feel like due to the bike riding, I could possibly use a little extra rest for my triceps since they seem to take a lot of the abuse of supporting the weight of my torso on these multi-hour bike rides I've been taking, but I guess it won't hurt too bad if I just start in to the push ups tonight. No sense in putting it off any more. And if I stick to a Monday, Wednesday, Friday routine, then I get two whole days of rest on the weekend. Well, resting as well as I can supposing I ride my bike over the weekend. Which supposes I'll find time to get it to a bike shop and have my tires replaced. I wonder... is it like a car where if you replace one, it's safer to go ahead and replace them both? I think with the distinct lack of crumple zones on my bike, I'll opt for playing it safer and replace them both.

Push ups: 30 then 22 then 22 (the last few are getting tough, and) then 20 (wow, I don't think I can pull off the max-out set, but I'll try and) then maxed out at 20. Trying for 21 had me collapse. Rested about 2 minutes between sets, for a total of 114 in about 11 minutes. 114. That's getting up there. I missed the max-out targets for all three of the days in week 3, so I think I'll just repeat it. Days 1 of week 3 is only 99 pushups in about 6 minutes. I'll keep a positive outlook for Wednesday, AKA week 3 day 1 redux. Hopefully with this slight step back, the max-out targets are more within reach.

Chin ups: Exhaustion test. I did 9. Not too shabby. 300% of my original in about 3 weeks. I can live with that, assuming I don't think too much about how far I seem to be from what I used to be able to do, much less the current goal of being able to do 100. Doing 9 consecutive chin ups qualifies me to start from column 2 in week 1. Column 2 of week one looks fairly tougher than column 1 of week 2. I hope the rest between sets allows for enough short term recovery to hit all the targets. I'm not fond of repeating weeks.

August 5:

Kettlebell. 3 circuits from Kettlebells the Iron Core Way. No ab stuff. It's important to note that I'm not skipping the ab work because I can't do it. I just don't want to. Not only have I done enough ab work in the past, but I really, really don't want to smear my sweaty self all over the floor. Once again I forgot to find a towel beforehand. Also, even as recent as a month before Matthew was born, when I was doing my boxing workouts, I used to do several minutes straight of crunches. I first aimed for 3 minutes, but after a while that wasn't a challenge any more and so I tried to see how many minutes of crunches I could do. I think I lost count after 5 minutes.

On a side note, it's too bad that every other week or so there's an exhaustion test. It's also too bad that I need to rest for at least a day after the exhaustion test. Why? Because for the rest of the program, I'll have no way to know what the heck day of stuff I'm supposed to be doing on any given Monday, Wednesday, or Friday. This is due to the fact that I've decided that those are the only days I'll be doing this stuff, and the exhaustion test will get a day of its own. Which will throw the schedule a little out of whack each time the exhaustion test comes up.

It used to be easy - Monday? Sure! Day 1 of whatever week. Friday? You bet! That's obviously day 3. Now I have to search backwards through my training log to figure out what I did the last time, and then cross reference it with the website to see what's supposed to come next. So that's an unexpected benefit of keeping this log - some degree of organization and a reminder (if not at least a way to figure out) what's coming next. But it's a pain.

It's been a while since I've posted anything technical. Possibly, upon reflection, because it seems that there's very little at my current job that sticks in my craw enough to feel the need to vent about it on my blog.

So instead I'll talk about an itch of mine I recently felt the need to scratch.

My listing of tags to the right was pretty bad. I came up with an algorithm to show tags with higher post counts in a bigger font than tags with lower post counts. But it was pretty sophomoric. In fact, I poked fun of my algorithm in talk I gave about photo processing in perl at this years YAPC::NA where I made a comment about this algorithm as a "highly complicated and sophisticated formula derived by minutes and minutes of trial and error".

I reproduce it here for your amusement:

<span style="font-size: [% ( tag.num + 80 ) / 8 %]px">

But I had a flaw.

Every time I noticed some of the tag fonts get too large due to me posting more and more posts with tags, I had to manually tweak the formula to give the font sizes a gentler slope - so the larger fonts didn't get too large.

Google to the rescue. I googled for tag cloud font size algorithm and found a font size variation algorithm that looked promising.

All I needed to do was use min and max from List::Util, and add this code to the backend before sending my data off to Template:

use List::Util qw/min max/;

my $tag_min = min map { $_->{ num } } @tags;
my $tag_max = max map { $_->{ num } } @tags;

for my $tag_row( @tags ){
  $tag_row->{ fontsize } = get_fontsize(
                                          $tag_row->{ num },
                                          $tag_min,
                                          $tag_max,
                                          $MIN_FONTSIZE,
                                          $MAX_FONTSIZE,
                                       );
}

... given that @tags is an array of hashrefs containing tags and their respective counts.

What's the get_fontsize look like?

{
  my %font_cache;
  sub get_fontsize {
    my( $count, $min_count, $max_count, $min_size, $max_size ) = @_;

    return $font_cache{ $count } if $font_cache{ $count };

    my $weight = ( log( $count ) - log( $min_count ) )
               / ( log( $max_count ) - log( $min_count ) );

    $font_cache{ $count } = $min_size
                          + round( ( $max_size - $min_size )
                                   * $weight );
  }
}

Which leaves a much more sensible hunk of code in the template file:

<span class="tags" style="font-size: [% tag.fontsize %]px">

August 2:
I got out on my bike today. I had to raise the seat and attach the seat post rack to carry some tools, spare innertube, patch kit, wallet, phone, and my portable tire pump. But I couldn't find my portable tire pump, which made the tools, innertube and patch kit pretty worthless. Sure I could patch a hole or change the tube, but I still wouldn't be able to inflate the tire after fixing or replacing the tube. But I had spent so much time collecting everything and readjusting my bike, and my "Matthew's Nap Timer" was running out, so I just left it all attached and got on my way. Here's the route I took today:

View Larger Map

From my house to the turnaround, I took the longer path, and it's about 9.5 miles. I didn't measure the shorter route from where I turned around, but I'd guess it's about 8 miles. So today's ride was about 17.5 miles.

The rest of the day, I decided to do nothing. That's right, absolutely nothing. I think I was starting to experience some of the symptoms of overtraining - basically I was going all out with just too many activities. I also think it was a mistake to split the chin ups and push ups into separate days - each exercise uses much more of the same muscles than I would expect.

But on Sunday, I got out on my bike for a little longer of a ride.

August 3:

View Larger Map

From my house to the turnaround, it's about 12.5 miles. I took the exact same route both ways, so that makes today's ride about 25 miles.

Drawing the lines of the route in google maps is a little tedious. Maybe next weekend I'll stick to some easier to plot routes.

This is, of course, assuming I replace my tire(s?) by then. I have a giant bulge in my rear tire, with thinning rubber that looks like it's just about to pop. Thankfully it didn't while I was on the road.

I'm glad a random stranger stopped near me at a road crossing to point this out to me by asking me if I felt the wobble. Having no idea what he was talking about, I thought he was perhaps crazy. But after he pointed to my tire, I saw what he was talking about. And of course I felt the wobble (ok, it felt more like I was riding over a bump) from then on - in fact I could think of nothing other than how bad it felt, how could I possibly have not noticed it before, and exactly what position will my body end up in when I have a horrible wreck due to tire blowout.

July 31st:
Push ups: 27 then 19 then 19 (the last 5 of which were really tough, but I'll keep going and) then 15 (oh crap those last 5 were really hard, how can I possibly do the max and) then maxed out at 13. Rested about 90 seconds between sets for a total of 93 in about 8 minutes. Supposed to have been 105, but I ran out of steam for the last 12. The good part is that this was a full 9 more than I did two days ago. The bad part is that it looks like I'm going to have to repeat week 3. That's OK - missing the max-out targets for week 3 looks like it ought to adequately prepare me for ... week 3.

No kettlebell today. I want to make sure I don't get in danger of overtraining. Which I very well might be dangerously close to doing at this point - I've started an awful lot of activity lately, some of it quite intense. Because 93 pushups are a lot harder than about 24 chin ups, I'm thinking of moving my next kettlebell workout to Friday, right after my chin ups. Saturday will be pushups only, with maybe some biking. Sunday should be a day of rest. But maybe some biking. Due to scheduling (i.e. when I get home from work, it's usually my job to take over with Matthew), there's pretty much no opportunity to get on my bike and go somewhere throughout the week. Sure I can throw the bike on the stationary trainer, but it's just so much more motivating to get out and accomplish something.

August 1:
Chin ups: 5 then 5 then 4 then 4 then ... are you ready? maxed out at 8! Sure, the last two were just barely countable, but I'm pretty sure I got my nose up to the bar at least. And everything before, I had my chin well above the bar, whereas previously I only got my chin to the level of the bar. Rested about 2 minutes between sets maybe just 1 minutes between the third and fourth sets - I honestly lost count - for a total of 26 in about 10-11 minutes. Give or take. These really felt good. I'm noticing in the last few days that push ups actually seem to hit my biceps a little, because I could feel them after my push ups yesterday, and I think they were a little sore today. I honestly didn't think that would be the case, but I can't argue with the way I feel.

I just realized that since I'm done with week 2 for chin ups, I need to take an exhaustion test. I'm fairly confident I won't be able to hit the minimum to get into week 3 (16 consecutive chin ups!) - I may have to start in the 6-10 push ups column of week 1, which will only be a little tougher than today was. And now I'm envisioning working my way through 2 weeks - the first two weeks - of column 2, and then only exhausting myself into column 3 of week 1. Now I'm thinking I might have to go through all three columns of all 6 weeks, which might mean I'll be through this in 19 weeks. Why not 18? I had to repeat column 1 for week 1 already. This is much further out of reach than 6 or possibly 12 weeks.

But maybe I'm being too pessimistic, and I'll actually be able to move through some of these levels a little faster. Time will tell.

No kettlebell. I was exhausted.

July 29th: The push ups day I'm dreading. I'm feeling mostly OK, but a little tired and sore.

Push ups: 25 then 17 then 17 then 15, which were tough - I don't think I can do the last max out set, but then I tried anyhow, and - I maxed out at 10. Rested a little too long between the first two sets, but then about a minute between the rest of the sets, for a total of 84 in about 8 minutes. Supposed to have been 99 in about 7. I can go for the 105 in about 8 minutes on week 3 day 2, but I suspect I'll end early on the max out set again. Hopefully I'll at least be able to hit everything before the max out set, and maybe hit the same 10 on the max out set, so maybe I'll hit 90ish or so. Week 3 day 3 is a bit too far away for me to be able to speculate on how I'll do, so I won't. Later on I recalled that earlier in the day I had demonstrated one use of a swiss ball to some coworkers - push ups! Resting my feet on the ball. I did about 3. Maybe that's what kept me from hitting the 25. Hrm. No.

Kettlebells: That's right - I didn't do any kettlebell training Monday, so that means I get to do at least two circuits today. I'll maybe go for the third. And I did. And the third circuit was a little tougher than the second, and was topped off by some abdominal work - most of which I skipped due to excessive sweat of the back area, and my desire to not get too much sweat on the carpet, and the lack of a nearby towel. Also, I was pretty tired at the time. I did the rolling situps - new to me - since it looked like I didn't have to recline all the way to the floor.

July 30th:
Chin ups: 6 then 5 then 5 then 3 then maxed out at 6. What's that? More than the minimum on the 3rd set? Yes. I didn't write it down on the way upstairs and couldn't remember if it was 6-5-3-3-6 or 6-5-5-3-6. So I opted for the latter, to play it safe. Rested about a minute and a half between sets, for a total of 25 within about 8 minutes. The very last one was a struggle - I almost gave up at the half way point - but I hung in there, and gave it a final kick to get my chin very near the bar, and feel good enough about it to call it a solid 6. Friday should be a breeze. But what's the big upside to today? The first set was 6, and I'm pretty sure I could've done at least one more after the 6. Even discounting the potential 7th, that means I can already do twice the number of consecutive chin ups as I could do just two weeks ago. That's 200%! Granted, I need to be able to do about 3,300% of my original to meet the goal. Or rather just 3,100% now :)

July 27th: Exhaustion Challenge, push ups. 31. Kind of disappointing. But that's OK, I'm only getting into week 3. And I'm still at the highest level, which I'm assuming means that (as long as I can continue to hit the goals) I'll be that much closer to getting to the 100. I may have tired out my triceps earlier on my bike ride when I was putting most of my weight on the front, riding standing up and leaning on my arms. Regardless, I'm looking ahead to day 1 of week 3, and I'm scared. On Tuesday I'll be going for 99 in the space of about 7 minutes. That's going to be rough. But I'll keep you posted.

July 28th: I'm feeling pretty beat up, and almost didn't do my chin ups. I spent a lot of energy changing the tube on my bike tire... twice. Thanks to the pinch flat I gave myself putting the first one on. Man those tires are tough to get on and off when you're not in practice. I say this because while I struggled mightily getting the tire back on the first time, the second time seemed much less difficult. All of that aside, no excuses for the push ups or chin ups until I'm done, so...

Chin ups: 4 then 4 then 3 then 3 then maxed out at 6. Resting about a minute between sets, for a total of 20 within about 6 minutes or so. Thought for sure I'd struggle at the end, but somehow I managed to pull out one more than the minimum on the max-out set. Week 2 is officially under way, and I'm so far at the mark. I just noticed I don't seem to be too enthusiastic about getting more than the minimum on the max out set. Meh.

No geek update.

So I ended up buying a kettlebell and getting back on my bike.

Saturday (July 26) I bought a 25 pound kettlebell, and could hardly wait to start swinging it around. I went through circuit 1 of the Kettlebells the Iron Core Way DVD, which was a basic warmup followed by two three (I found out later) circuits of some basic kettlebell exercises. Even the warmup had me sweating and huffing. And I was running short on time, so I just did 1 circuit. All I can say is this: it's very difficult. I'm glad I didn't buy the lighter 20 pound kettlebell, because I didn't want to sell myself short. Also glad (at least for now) I didn't buy a heavier one, either. I'd like to make sure I've got the techniques down pretty solid before going heavier. Oh, and maybe get the initial full body soreness out of the way, too :) Because I was fairly sore the following day. But it didn't stop me from doing it again.

Sunday I did the circuit twice. And then Lisa wanted me to do the first part with her. So I did. But the second circuit on the DVD was a little bait and switch - they added exercises to the second circuit! So the second "circuit" was longer than the first, and with more stuff! How dare they! Just kidding, of course, the added exercises just really sent my sweat glands into overdrive. I got a really good workout, and I don't think I'll be ready to do this again Monday. I noticed the backs of my forearms are a little sore from frequent hard contact with the kettlebell. Either my technique is off, or this is just one of those things I'm just going to have to get used to.

(I found out later that this is primarily technique - I need to learn to flip the kettlebell (and my wrist) around a vertical axis and bring my wrist to the kettlebell - not bring the kettlebell to my wrist. Which causes impact. Which causes soreness.)

I also rounded up my bike shoes and helmet, filled my bike tires with about 95 psi of air, and took off. Lisa had taken Matthew and Spike out for a walk, so first thing I wanted to do was to catch up to them. I made a loop around the park a block away, then swung back towards the house - but no sign of them. So I took off to this bike trail bridge (going over W Peterson Ave in the map) I finally figured out how to get to. I have no idea how many miles I ended up doing, but I was out about an hour. But then I remembered I could plot arbitrary routes with Google Maps, so here's the actual route:

View Larger Map

Turns out it was about 6.5 miles.

About a third of the way back, I noticed my rear tire getting lower, so I slowed down and kept most of my weight over the front tire. Two thirds of the way back, I was riding on the rim. So I had to walk it the rest of the way home from W Foster Ave. Bummer.

July 25:
Super tired today. Woke up very early, had a pediatrician's appointment, so a slightly fussier than normal baby. Also, I worked from home. I also had a sleepy baby, so I got more work done today than if he hadn't just been shot full of drugs. But I had to get through the push ups and chin ups today, so...

Push ups: 15 then 15 then 12 then 12 then maxed out at 20. Resting about 2 minutes between sets, for a total of 74 within about 11 minutes. The count for that last set is no typo - it's twenty. I have no idea where the gas came from, but I apparently had enough in my tank for 5 more than the goal for today. Since this is the successful completion of week 2, that means I'm due for my next exhaustion test. I'll do it Sunday. If I feel good enough, then I'll start week 3 on Monday, otherwise Tuesday. But if I do Tuesday, I don't think I'll get 2 days off in a row again for a few weeks since I'll certainly want to go back to having day one on Monday as soon as possible. So I'm really going to shoot for Monday :) As far as the exhaustion test goes, I'm almost hoping I can't do more than 25 (even though I know I'll be able to) since the amount of pushups for that level looks really daunting at this point.

Chin ups: 5 then 4 then 4 then 3 then maxed out at 5 (and a half, but again - no halfsies). Resting about 2 minutes between sets for a total of 21 within about 9 minutes or so. But even without the half chin up at the end, I've still hit the minimum for day 3 of week 1. So that means I get to move onto week 2 day 1. Which is only 19. And after 2 rest days (no exhaustion test for chin ups since I haven't made it through week 2 yet) that should be a piece of cake on Monday. Or Tuesday. Nah. I think even if I push the push ups to Tuesday, I'll still do the chin ups on Monday.

No geek updates lately.

As far as a physical update... I doubt I've lost any noticeable fat, or put on any serious pounds of muscle, but I'm pretty sure I'm noticing that the muscles I use for at least the push ups (triceps and pectorals, mostly) seem to look and feel better these days. I wish I had started measuring my body fat before I began any of this. I only estimated it around last week, right as I was finishing up the graphing program. But I'm sure my estimate was way off, as I basically pinched the skinfold sites with my fingers and thought something like "Yeah, that's about 9 millimeters". Highly inaccurate. But even with that, I was at about 24-25% body fat, which equals 40 pounds of fat out of my 180 pounds of total body weight. Given the amount of fat I see around my midsection, I'd say that's probably not too far off. I suppose maybe I'm afraid that if I take the actual measurements, I'll actually be at a fairly higher percentage. Which would be depressing.

I'm still torn with what kind of workout I want to start doing after the hundred pushups challenge. I keep reading up on kettlebells, and would like to give them a serious go. Or there's the P90X program. Or there's my old pyramid workout - though that doesn't seem to be enough of a departure from the hundred push ups challenge to keep me terribly interested. Or I could start up my boxing workouts again, assuming the sounds of me pummeling my punching bag in the basement isn't too loud to carry up to Matthew's room and bother him. Or get back on my bike. Or hey - I could do pretty much all of them :) But not much seems to really strike me as simplistic as what I'm currently doing - hardly any equipment, hardly any setup time, it doesn't last long enough to make me start sweating too much (at least prior to week 5, where instead of 5 sets there are 9(!)), and if need be I can break away and take care of Matthew if he's crying. It's also about all I can do to keep myself from running out and buying a kettlebell. Maybe I'll do that, and start getting familiar with swinging one around, so long as it doesn't interfere with what I'm doing for the hundred push ups program.