Texas Med Center 5k 2011 Race Report 2/3: The Race

This post is the second of three that detail my running of a 5k last weekend.
 
I got off to a nice pace (I thought!) with the balls of my feet lightly springing me forward and level of exertion in a good range. When I looked down at my Garmin, though, it said I was on a 3:30 / km pace! Yikes, way too fast! Because I didn’t trust the GPS as much when surrounded by all those tall hospitals in the Houston Medical Center, I didn’t let up too much at first.
 
After more than a minute, though, I decided to pull back a bit. I was frustrated with myself for falling prey to the classic “rookie” mistake: firing out of the starting gate too quickly, spurred on by adrenaline and the paces of the other, much faster runners who start at the front of the pack. I just hoped that it wouldn’t kill my ability to keep up the pace later on in the race. Still, I was pretty optimistic; I had made this mistake in every one of my competitive races to date and it had yet to really hold me back. Plus, I was well rested and nourished, so I tried to adjust to the right pace and keep on trucking.
 
I finished the first km in 4:01 (WAY ahead of pace) but my heart rate was only at 166 BPM, almost exactly where I would have expected it to have been if running my pace, so I was optimistic that I had gained 21 seconds without it costing me much. If I could just stick to my plan for the rest of the race, I would kill my previous PR.
 
I finished my second km in 4:13 (Still significantly under pace) and my heart rate was doing just fine at 173 BPM. Just as had happened during my 10k PR run at last year’s Capitol 10k in Austin, it began dawning on me that, 30 seconds ahead of my 21:40 race plan as I was, I could actually break 21:00 (my 5k goal for 2011). I adjusted my race plan in stride; I would now need to run my final three km at a 4:19 pace and get the most I could get out of my final kick. I was feeling good, though, and this all seemed very possible. By this point I was feeling very overdressed, so I rolled up the sleeves of my long-sleeve mock and pressed on.
 
I finished my third km in 4:19 and my heart rate was just 176 BPM – excellent, keep on going! Toward the end of the fourth km was a 180-degree turn. Last year I slowed down and hugged the turn tight to ensure that I ran the shortest distance possible. The slow down felt good but the subsequent speed up was hard. This year instead I decided to swing out wide and keep up my momentum / pace. I’m not sure what the best practice is in this situation, but I think it helped me.
 
I finished my fourth km in 4:20 and my heart rate was still down at 177 BPM – I knew I had plenty of gas left for my final km. By this point in the race we were all very spread out and, after I passed a few runners on that slingshot turn, there really wasn’t anyone around me. There was someone about 30m ahead of me. From what I could tell, he was significantly younger and lighter than I was, so I became fixated on him as my must-beat target. This was just the motivation I needed to push me through this last km. Slowly I gained ground on him, but I made sure not to press too hard. If I could just close to 10m or less, I was sure I could leave him in my dust on the final kick.
 
As we approached the final turn, I pulled up even with this temporary arch nemesis of mine and my watch informed me that we were at 4.75 km. I had made it here in 3:11 – a 4:16 pace – and my heart rate was 180 BPM. My total race time at this point was 20:04 so I could beat 21:00 if I could just execute my 55 second 250m final kick. My nemesis, unfortunately, was all gassed out and offered no competition after I passed him, so I had to look inward for the motivation on this final stretch.
 
I pushed forward with what felt like everything I had. Looking at the data now, it appears that I temporarily sustained a 3:05 pace but that this gradually slowed down to about 3:30. As I came into the last 50m, though, I could see the clock ticking away at 20:54, which helped me find that extra gear and fly into an all out sprint (~2:30 pace, according to the Garmin). One of the advantages of being the only runner around is that the crowd around the finish line has no one else to cheer for, so you know they’re cheering for you. As I gritted down for this final sprint, the crowd reacted positively and the cheers grew louder, which really helped.
 
The final 250m took me 54 seconds (average heart rate: 183 BPM). Interestingly, my heart rate had been climbing to 186 during the first 200m but then, when I went into the full sprint, it dropped to 180, only increasing again once I slowed down after the finish line. I suspect this has something to do with the transition from the lactic acid energy system to the ATP-PC energy system, but I’m not sure exactly why / how.
 
My official race time was 20:58 – a new PR and under my 2011 5k goal. I finished #48 of 961 runners (95th percentile), #39 of 447 men (91st percentile), and #2 of 49 in my age group – men 30-34 (96th percentile). After the race there was a great after party. Lots of good music, natural food, sports drinks, and, of course, beer! After official race times were posted, they stopped the music to give out awards. Since they gave awards to the top three finishers in each age group, I won an award for the first time!!! What a thrill! It must have been a pretty weak / sparse competitive field, but I’ll take it!

Texas Med Center 5k 2011 Race Report 1/3: Preparation

This post is the first of three that detail my running of a 5k last weekend.

Saturday I ran my first competitive race of the year, the Texas Med Center 5k. Last year I PRed in this race with a time of 21:43, thus meeting my 2010 goal of running a 5k race under 22:00. This year my training runs had been coming in around 22:00 so I didn’t think this would be the race at which I would meet my 2011 goal of running a 5k race under 21:00. However, I did think I could PR again so I set the following goals for this race:

1. PR
2. Chip time < 21:40
3. Run final km faster than any other kms
4. Run final 250m < 0:55

To accomplish these goals I planned to run my first four kms at a 4:22 pace. The fifth km would be at a 4:22 pace until the final 250m, at which point I would kick it. This kick should result in a 54-56 second final quarter km rather than the 66 second quarter km that would result from staying on the 4:22 pace.

As I didn’t think I could push the pace much lower than 4:22 for the rest of the race and keep it up, this last kick was going to be especially crucial – the 10-12 seconds it would shave off my time would be the difference between setting a new Personal Record and failing to do so. I knew from my training that I had the capability to execute such a kick so I turned to nutrition to ensure that my body would have all the resources it needed on race day.

I consulted with the experts at The SHOP about my race week nutrition program. They refreshed my memory about the different energy systems involved in such a race (aerobic, using oxygen and fat for most of the race, then anaerobic lactic acid using glycogen for the final kick). In a race as short as a 5k there clearly wasn’t a need to engage in carbo loading (the efficacy of which has been questioned anyway) but I would still want to ensure that my body came into the race with as much glycogen stored as possible to fuel me for that last kick. We also modified my daily breakfast a bit for more balance of carbs, protein, and fat, resulting in me feeling fuller and more energetic throughout the rest of my days.

The day before the race I rested, hydrated, and drove along the race course with my GPS on so I could visualize the km markers and get a feel for the changes in elevation (which were almost non-existent). We attended a Symphony performance that night (a whole evening of Ravel!), which kept me out a bit later than optimal but also ensured that I was relaxed when I went to bed.

When I woke up at 5 I really had to go to the bathroom, so I knew that I was well hydrated – but not so much so that it had woken me up in the night – resulting in good, uninterrupted rest. I usually get up at 6 but I like to start race day breakfast early just to ensure that digestion has plenty of time to complete – I never want to be blindsided by indigestion in the middle of a race and far away from the nearest bathroom!

Race start time was 8:30 and I arrived a little later than intended, about 8:10. It then took awhile to park, which stressed me out a bit. Note for next year: arrive by 8! The outside temperature was about 36 degrees F but rising quickly due to the clear, sunny skies. At this temperature (and based on memories of last year’s race, which was COOOOOOOOOLD and windy / wet), I arrived really bundled up: Under Armour Cold Gear leggings + long sleeve mock, shorts, gloves, wool cap, and – of course – my Vibram Five Fingers Bikila running “shoes.” As I got out of my parked car (T – 10 min until start, ahhh!), I could feel that, regardless of what the thermometer said, it was way too warm for all that insulation! I ditched the cap and gloves and jogged to the start line.

While waiting for the starting gun, I could tell that there were many walkers / slow runners far forward (In larger races they are staged to start later than the competitive runners.) so I made sure to line up pretty close to the starting line. After the gun went off, it was only two seconds or so until I crossed the starting line and my timing chip registered that I was “in play.” I hit the “start” button on my Garmin ForeRunner 405 CX (GPS / heart rate monitor watch) and I was off!

Green Job Creation Is the Wrong Argument

A friend of mine asked for my response to an article titled “The False Promise of Green Jobs.” The article contends that “green” governmental policies will not result in net creation of jobs because:

A. these new green jobs will be offset by job losses in the “conventional” energy sector and
B. green energy is more expensive than conventional energy so its increased costs will cut overall productivity and spending.

In response to A, all I can do is wonder if anyone really bemoans the rise of the IT sector (and IT jobs) at the expense of, say, the typewriter industry. Clinging desperately to obsolete industries may prop up employment in the short-term, but it ensures a decline in competitiveness in the long term.

In response to B, I can’t disagree more with the notion that “green” energy is more expensive than “conventional” energy. We currently externalize the environmental, health, and social costs of producing energy “conventionally,” such that the price the consumer sees is much lower than reality. Our governments also provide significant tax breaks and incentives to conventional energy companies, which allow them to sell energy so cheaply while still generating record-breaking profits. This is all part of an implicit contract we have that guarantees citizens access to limitless, incredibly subsidized energy. Capture the true costs of conventional energy and take away all of the big corporate incentives, and I think you will see a very different cost comparison result.

Furthermore, this author is very narrowly only considering green energy generation when making claims about costs. However, he neglects the companies making great advances in greener energy distribution, storage, and efficiency, all of which make energy – regardless of its source – much less expensive. My company, for example, reduces a business’s energy costs 25%, freeing up capital that can be used for, say, employment.

The biggest fallacy of all in this article, though, is the focus on job creation. If a government is pursuing a policy in the name of creating jobs simply for the sake of creating jobs, well, that’s socialism. This isn’t a big surprise coming from a Scandinavian (where governments are generally relatively socialist) author. In the US, though, where we claim to be capitalists, green businesses should be supported not because they charitably create jobs, rather because they make sound economic sense, increase energy security, and help us operate as a much more robust, independent, efficient society.

My green business has created only two green jobs so far and we plan to create many more. However, policy arguments focused on green job creation alone are totally missing the point.

2011 Goals

Last year I defined many yearly goals and, as I described in my 2010 wrap-up, I accomplished many of them. Looking back at the system for goal definition and tracking I set up, though, I’ve found several areas for improvement.
 
Most notably, I need to focus more on measuring outcomes, not just on the ways of attaining those outcomes. Most of my goals last year were very “tactical,” e.g. “accomplish XYZ each week” and I lost sight in some cases of the bigger picture. This year I am defining higher-level strategic objectives first and revisiting them frequently to check whether or not meeting my tactical goals is helping me achieve them.
 
Relationships
 
My objective here is to maintain positive, engaged relationships with my friends and family – as well as to meet new interesting, positive people. Last year I tried to quantify my success in this area by tracking how many times I met up with others – physically or virtually. I easily achieved my targets but I’m not sure there is necessarily a correlation between such activities and meeting my objective. This year I will measure success in this area in a more qualitative way: by tracking my feelings. I will periodically check how good I feel about my personal relationships. To start, I am trying out a website called Mercury App for this tracking. If I really wanted to take it to the next level, I would track how my friends and family felt about their relationships with me too – but I’m not ready to impose that on others just yet!
 
Health
 
1. Body Composition: I’m beginning the year at 39 pounds fat and 156 pounds lean. I’d like to finish the year at < 30 pounds fat and more than 160 pounds lean. There are two components to this objective:
 
Lose fat: To lose fat I am aiming to create a daily caloric deficit of 250 calories. Getting adequate activity for calorie burn has traditionally not been much of an issue; my major challenge has been in restricting caloric intake. Although I generally eat healthy, natural, good foods, I eat a lot of them, sometimes when I’m not even hungry. I like the way food tastes or I use it for procrastination or the obsessive-compulsive side of me just wants to see the food gone because it feels more clean / complete that way. This year, each time I eat, I will ask myself, “Am I hungry?” “Am I savoring / appreciating this?” I will track how many “no” answers there are, ultimately going for zero on an ongoing basis.
 
Gain muscle: Last year there was a wide range of intensities in my resistance training workouts. This year, I will track how exhausted / sore each workout makes me and, whenever the result is suboptimal, adjust that workout the next time for a better result.
 
2. Increase flexibility: I’ll measure this with a pretty crude – but valid – metric: the distance between my the tips of my fingers and the floor when bending forward, straight-legged, from the waist. My starting point is 10″ so I have tremendous room for improvement! Last year I tried and failed to focus dedicated workout days on stretching. This year I’m trying a more “decentralized” approach, spreading out a little bit of stretching every day. This includes stretching immediately after each exercise activity and going through a full body stretch routine each time I sit down to watch TV. I’ll tally a “demerit” each time I catch myself having skipped one of those stretch times and aim for zero such demerits on an ongoing basis.
 
3. Volleyball: I failed to meet last year’s objective of winning a men’s A tournament so that is back on the list for this year. One way I can give myself a better chance is by creating more opportunities. Last year I only entered two tourneys all year; this year I need to enter more. I’ll also add winning a BB coed tourney to the objective list for this year as I am hoping that Katie and I will start playing 2s together consistently. I also plan to attend at least one volleyball skills workshop this year for more focused improvement than just playing.
 
4. Running: I hit my running goals quite early last year but now I have a better idea of where my current limits are. My objectives for 2011 are to run a 5k race under 21:00 and a 10k under 45:00, taking about a minute off my PR in each event. I’d like to finish top 5% overall and top 10% in my group at least once this year. To achieve these objectives I will continue my 5k and 10k training runs, introduce additional aerobic training and add sprint workouts back into the mix for the first time in several years.
 
 5. Balance: To round out my health and well being, I have resolved to continue reading at least one book for pleasure each month and to introduce a new practice of taking time each morning for meditation. I’ve found this so far to be a very helpful exercise in centering myself before each day, reflecting on what is really important, and preparing for the hustle and bustle that follows. To measure ‘balance” in my life, I will once again let my feelings be my guide, polling them periodically.
 
Professional
 
1. Smart Office Energy Solutions: As I learned last year, setting goals / objectives for a business this early / dynamic and then trying to measure myself against them 12 months later is a real exercise in futility. As such, within Smart OES we will continue to set goals, measure our performance against them, and update them frequently as our business changes. I personally will track my feelings about “how it’s all going” at Smart OES.
 
2. Relationships: Last year I mentored three entrepreneurs on an ongoing basis and many more professionals on one-off or temporary bases. As anticipated this was a highly rewarding experience and this year I hope to increase the scope of this part of my professional life. Instead of just tracking the quantity of mentorship I am providing, though, my objective is to provide more real value. Therefore this year I am asking the people I work with to rate me on how much value I contribute and to provide feedback regarding where I can improve. I will also do a better job this year of engaging my own mentors on a weekly basis.
 
3. Development: Last year I successfully read one professional book or article each week but I have come to realize that reading the material alone isn’t enough. Top business schools teach with the case method because applying knowledge to real situations is much more valuable for development of business skills than is just reading something. Accordingly, this year I have set aside time each Friday to apply the lessons from each week’s book to my own business / life.
 
Last year I also successfully worked on new language development each week. Working on it a little each week is just a means, though. My objective this year is to use the new language skills I’m developing. With trips to Italy and France already planned, I can brush up on my existing languages but several potential trips might also give me the chance to study for and then practice Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, and German.
 
4. Brand: Last year my professional brand as a global greentech executive went from relative obscurity to gaining some recognition. I finished the year with 50 Klout, which is only one [very course grained, very social media-focused] way to measure. This year my objective is to reach 65 Klout and to contribute two original pieces of thought leadership. I welcome ideas of other ways to measure the success of my professional brand!
 
Service
 
GIVEWATTS is growing by leaps and bounds and I am so incredibly proud of what we have accomplished. This year will be even more demanding but I know we can really take this organization to the next level. The Board has its own metrics of success and I frequently poll the CEO for feedback on my performance as a Director. I intend to contribute significant time to both Rice and IMD this year but I’m not sure how to measure the efficacy of my contributions. Again, ideas welcome!
 
There you have it, my 2011 objectives and targets. It took me over a month to publish this so you can see that I’m already behind!

US Cleantech Energy Policy => #fail

A recent post by Battery Ventures VP Mike Dauber on the Obama administration’s challenge to cleantech entrepreneurs generated some discussion among my friends and colleagues. One point of focus was whether or not this really is our “Sputnik moment” and, if so, whether the race to the Moon was really worthwhile anyway.
Responding to this point first, any reader of my blog will know how strongly I feel about our successful efforts to put a man on the moon. Aside from all of the economic benefits the follow-up to this program yielded, the greatest benefits were less tangible. JFK’s challenge inspired a nation (the world?), galvanizing us to achieve a nearly impossible goal in a nearly impossible time frame. And the nation responded with the very best of its capabilities. Nearly 50 years later, the race to the Moon still inspires at least this engineer / entrepreneur / leader and, I suspect, many more.
That said, saying that cleantech is our new Moon race doesn’t make it so. I look around me and it definitely doesn’t feel like a Moon race. Some of the nation is divided about whether cleantech efforts are valuable but most of the nation is blissfully ignorant about what cleantech even means. I wasn’t alive during the Moon race, but I believe that it captivated the nation almost entirely. Those who were alive, feel free to contradict me. So my first response to the administration’s attempt to paint cleantech innovation as “the new Sputnik moment” is: #fail. It will take real leadership to inspire that kind of moment, not a few soundbites in a few speeches.
Now, when it comes to evaluating this post and the White House policy that it references, I can’t claim to be objective because I am professionally right in the thick of it. Objective or not, though, I’ll tell you exactly what I think.
The stated policy to use government funds to incent cleantech innovation is, at best, ineffective and, at worst, intentional BS that just pays lip service to a current “buzz” topic. As Dauber pointed out in his blog, almost all government funding goes to university / research labs where they work on multi-year / multi-decade cycles and are completely insulated from commercial outcomes. The result: technologies that may pay off in 20+ years and may or may not ever be economically viable.
There is also a great deal of stimulus money going to large, established companies to deploy existing (and often outdated) technologies in the name of cleantech. This includes smart meter deployments and solar installations. While this is a little bit more helpful because it produces results in the here and now (and helps some companies move a little further along the scale curve), it does nothing to foster innovation, it lets large companies live temporarily in a capitalist fantasy world (in which their products / services are paid for by an irrational consumer) – which doesn’t actually help them in the long run – and, most importantly to me, it does absolutely nothing to incent / motivate/ support small business entrepreneurs. Of course, fostering small business entrepreneurship is another alleged goal of the administration since these organizations are the source of so much job growth but, if that really is the goal, put your money where your mouth is.
So where does that leave the cleantech entrepreneur? Looking for capital from traditional private sources: VCs, etc. That sounds well and good except that the VCs aren’t investing much in early stage cleantech deals. There is lots of great PR about the $4B invested last year in cleantech – that sounds great! When you dig deeper, though, the vast majority of this is mezzanine (late-stage) investment in companies that are already quite mature (relative to new startups) and project finance (e.g. financing the construction of a wind farm).
So you have cleantech entrepreneurs like me, with a market-validated concept that is so much more than just green for green’s sake. Smart Office Energy Solutions reduces office and office-like building energy consumption by 25% with payback periods of less than two years for our clients! You don’t have to be a green zealot, you don’t have to care about our nation’s energy security, you don’t have to care about dwindling energy supply for this to make sense – you just have to care about saving money, which we do so much better than the traditional, capital-intensive retrofit solutions that are already out there. And yet we’re spending months out there trying to raise capital from professional and private sources that are still pretty risk averse / gun shy from the beating everyone took in the recent downturn. Oh and by the way, the government just passed regulations to make it harder for us to legally take investment from private sources! We are the exact poster child of what the administration claims to want to support and yet we are killing ourselves just trying to move along.
Maybe I’m wrong about this. Maybe our idea sucks. Maybe I’m just very bad at raising funds – it is my first time, after all. I readily admit that this is quite possible. But I see many other great ideas / entrepreneurs out there in the same situation while, at the same time, the capital markets are throwing ridiculous bubble-style money on social media companies that have yet to show any true value creation.
I was in Washington DC the week that Obama was elected and I was electrified / excited. In front of the Lincoln Memorial I signed a huge card to him. Above my signature I wrote, “Lead us to a better energy future!” Instead I’ve seen him spend a lot of political capital getting more people insured by a healthcare system that is totally broken (Stay tuned for a subsequent blog post on this.) and take very few, ineffective steps on energy.
A better energy future will not be attained by doling out government funds for slow, academic research and deployment of existing technologies. In fact, it isn’t the government’s position to dole out funds for these purposes at all. The government has no competence in taking risks and it is actually built from the ground up to avoid such risks. Doling out funds should be left to private industry so that efficient capital markets can determine what gets funded. If the government wants to help – and I believe it should want to help – it should set a better economic context to motivate cleantech endeavors. This means eliminating massive tax breaks for dirty energy production and ceasing to subsidize energy as heavily as we do throughout the value chain. This means more money for the government to reduce its insane deficit and more motivation for investment in newer / riskier startups.
Finally, the government should step up and show some true leadership. Create a sputnik moment by inspiring people. Obama has many more eyes on him than I do but, as long as he continues to fail in this regard, I’ll keep trying to inspire people from the ground up. Day by day I get a little bit further and I have little bit more effect. If Obama lets me beat him to inspiring a generation to focus on cleantech, then shame on him.

The IMD Global Leadership Challenge is Over!

I’m so grateful for all the support I received in my participation in IMD’s Global Leadership Challenge! I finished #27 out of 5,380 contestants from 124 countries on five continents and I couldn’t have done it without all of the help I received.

The contest was broken down into three sections, each of which embodied a different aspect of global leadership: Open, Pioneering, and Collaborative.
The Open section was essentially a test of global political, commercial, and historical knowledge. It reminded me a lot of my IMD MBA “International Political Economy” course. As with the initial quizzes in that class, I fared poorly in this event, garnering only 115 out of the maximum 400 points. Still, it seems that others found the questions challenging as well; my score was still #543, top 10% in the event.
Pioneering was a matching game, matching pictures of pioneers (individuals or organizations) who have profoundly affected the world with pictures of the results of their innovations. I did better in this game, earning 358 out of 400 points, which was good for place #45, top 1%.
My best event by far was Collaboration. In this section each contestant wrote a short quote in response to, “Imagine you could be someone else for one week. Who would you be and why?” Then three months of online voting revealed the most popular responses. My quote was:
“I would be…myself. I can’t think of anything more worthwhile than working feverishly to address the global energy challenge with innovative business ideas. Entrepreneurs can change the world. Many of us may fail, but those who ultimately succeed ensure that none of our attempts has been in vain.”
This turned out not to be very original as many other quotes also bore the “I would be myself” theme. However, thanks to the efforts of my friends, family, colleagues, and others, who not only voted for my quote but also called others to do the same, I finished with 532 votes, #18 in the entire contest, earning me 392 out of 400 points.
The Collaborative section is clearly the one that boosted my total score up to #27, top 1%, and that is incredibly fitting. In real life as well my major achievements are attributable to the contributions of others, whether those on my immediate team or those who provide me with the support I need to achieve on my own.
Tremendous thanks go out to those who kept voting for me day after day and, especially, to those who engaged others to join them. As always, I stand on the shoulders of giants and I only hope that I can give back even a fraction of what you have done for me.

Intense Workout at The SHOP

This morning I had one of my most intense workouts in recent memory, courtesy of The SHOP. The SHOP is an awesome gym in Dallas. It is a no-frills, high-intensity gym with lots of heavy equipment – it’s basically what Rocky‘s gym would be like. It is owned and run by a good friend of mine, Drew, who also blogs about fitness / nutrition.

Although I have referenced The SHOP several times in my blog, this was my first time actually visiting. I was in Dallas to pitch Smart Office Energy Solutions to the newly formed Dallas Angel Network last evening so I stayed the night and scheduled a workout before driving back to Houston.
This morning began early with a 04:55 alarm. After a brief pre-training breakfast (just a grapefruit for me; a yogurty / oatmealy / fruity concoction for Drew), we were in The SHOP warming up. Warming up was necessary because The SHOP is in a non-temperature-controlled garage environment (coherent with the raw, hardcore workout philosophy) and the temperature this morning was in the low 30s Fahrenheit.
We were joined about 05:30 by one of The SHOP’s regulars, a professional athlete who also happens to be a Rice alum. Drew played on Rice’s national championship-winning baseball team that sent many players to the pros and it is partially through that network that he winds up coaching so many professional athletes. I suspect that they like the same things in his methodology that I do: a highly analytical approach (What else would you expect from someone who double majored in hemical and environmental engineering?) and a commitment to research / results, not fads.
I made my requisite excuses about taking it easy because it was my first time (and I had a long drive ahead of me that wouldn’t be too comfortable with a traumatic muscle strain / pull / tear); then at 05:45 we had “wheels up” and began the workout in earnest. We started with box jumps and sledge hammers. I was barely able to jump up onto the first level of boxes; when they added three more levels I had to swallow my pride (and resolve to improve!) and stick to the first. I had never used a sledge hammer before, but there was something immensely satisfying about slamming it into a huge tractor tire with all my force. It took me awhile to get the technique down (and I still have room to improve) but it was fun.
Next up were deadlifts. It has been a long time since I have deadlifted and this time I chose to use a trap bar instead of straight bar just because I had never done it before. I kept the weight pretty low but it felt good and I’m sure my glutes are going to be sore tomorrow.
This was followed by push press and glute ham raises. Push press (standing military press with a little help from the hips) felt good but my form had me catching the weight too much with my back. I did half my sets and then switched to incline dumbbell press for the other half. Glute ham raises were a joy – by which I mean basically the opposite of joy, but the severe pain they caused brought about joy that they were accomplishing their objective.
The next round featured ring pushups and single leg hip thrusts. Ring pushups are done with hands grasping gymnastics rings (for additional stability work) and feet elevated. Because that’s not hard enough we also wore weight vests – 20lb for my first two sets and then 90lb for the last one. The last set took me to total failure and I only managed to squeeze out that last rep with an epic grunt.
The grand finale comprised two circuits of heavy rope drills. Each circuit had three 20-second variations: short alternating arms, long alternating arms, and two-arm power slams. I had never done heavy rope drills before and I was really impressed with just how much of a workout 20 seconds of super anaerobic activity could provide. When we arrived at the last variation (the power slams) of the first set, I challenged everyone to go shirt-off (which was humbling since these guys were way more ripped than I . . . for now!) – it was freezing cold but our internal furnaces were going full bore.
I mistakenly thought we were only doing one circuit so I really sold out on the power slams, completing a couple extra reps after my 20 seconds were over – I didn’t want to leave anything out there. Much to my chagrin, Drew informed us that we were only halfway there. After the first two variations of the second circuit, I was totally spent. Again I had to swallow my pride as I wussed out of the final variation. My heart rate was through the roof and I was feeling faint / nauseous. I was bumping up against my limit and the last set would surely have pushed me over – not something I needed right before hopping on the road for four hours.
Afterward we refueled with pumpkin-berry-banana-yogurt-oatmeal-flax seed-protein shakes which, after a few minutes of deep breathing / recovery, I was able to handle. Wow, what an intense experience – lots of new (for me) movements and nothing left by the end. This inspired me in a few ways:
  1. I had forgotten how much I loved morning workouts. Despite the exhaustion level I achieved, I remained pumped and energized all day. It also feels great not to have the “I need to find some time to squeeze in a workout” monkey on my back all day.
  2. The caveat here is that I clearly need to do a better job of fueling up before morning workouts so as to avoid the depletion at the end. In the last year I’ve reached that about-to-faint level four times and actually thrown up on one of those occasions. Each time it was a morning workout after not consuming much nutrition.
  3. Anaerobic activity is awesome. In recent years I’ve tended to think of aerobic activity as my main weapon in my fight against body fat but this morning’s workout showed how effective anaerobic activity can be as well. By the time I left Dallas at 10 AM, I had already burned more than 1,900 calories – the most I’ve burned before 10 AM as long as I’ve been measuring! Without doing much else all day (spending a great deal of the time stationary in the car) I finished the day having burned 3,800 calories – 550 more than my daily goal.
I was very excited about my first ever The SHOP experience and it didn’t let me down. Now I need some rest as the soreness is already starting to set in.
Official The SHOP post including limited video of this workout: here.

2010 Wrap-Up

Wow, 2010 was a hell of a year! I got engaged, got a dog, started up a company, lived in Switzerland for the summer, and really advanced a number of my personal and professional goals. A year ago I posted my resolutions for 2010 and periodically I have posted status updates (one week, one month, three months, and seven months into the year). Now is an appropriate time to look back at what was accomplished, what was not (and why) before putting forth goals for 2011.

Relationships
1. Date night once a week with Katie
2. Spend social time in person with friends or family once a week
3. At lease one Skype or phone call with distant friends or family once a week
I am pleased that these relationship goals were far exceeded almost every single week. The Switzerland trip was helpful in keeping distant relationships alive with personal contact but, even without it, I was Skyping with friends and colleagues around the world frequently.
Health
1. Calories in less than 3,000 per day: I originally targeted 3,250 calories per day then revised down to 3,000 as it became clear that that would be necessary for me to reduce body fat. By midyear I was still averaging 3,141 calories consumed per day and my final average for the entire year was 3,119. While I failed to meet my goal, 3,119 is MUCH less than the 3,700 I averaged last year and the 3,900 I averaged the year before. At my age my base metabolic rate should be getting a little slower each year so this trend of improvement is good.
2. Calories out greater than 3,250 per day: I originally targeted 3,500 calories per day but revised down at the same time that I adjusted my consumption goal. By midyear I was averaging 3,163 calories burned per day and my final average for the entire year was 3,168 so I failed to achieve this goal as well. This is a huge drop from my 3,750 average the year before (although it’s unfair to make a direct comparison; the year before my expenditure was based on estimates while this year I have been using BodyMedia, a much more consistent measurement), which I attribute to the non-pedestrian lifestyle of Houston, lots of sitting at a desk (When there are no other employees in your company you rarely get up to go ask someone down the hall a question!), and more socializing leading to more skipped workouts. For the first half of the year, some of the workouts I was doing simply didn’t burn very many calories either. Wii Fit, for example, really is fun but not hard. Midway through the year I eliminated it from the workout rotation and my average daily expenditure increased a bit after that.
Even though I missed both my intake and expenditure goals, I still maintained a caloric deficit throughout the year. By the end of the year I theoretically burned about 17,500 more calories than I consumed, meaning I theoretically should have shed about 5 pounds of body fat. But did I? Bod Pod analysis at the end of the year indicated that in fact I lost about 2 pounds of body fat. While that is positive, it is far short of my goal. In the year to come I will multiply the BodyMedia measured caloric expenditure by 99% as that produces results more in line with the actual fat loss I achieved last year.
3. Maintain lean weight greater than 155 lbs: Although cutting was a higher priority for me than gaining muscle, I didn’t want to lose strength and lean mass. Despite a few dips throughout the year, I generally stayed above this 155 lb lean mass threshold and finished the year with about 1 lb of extra muscle.
4. Less than 90 g fat intake per day: I failed to achieve this goal every single week and ultimately disregarded it. Fat gets kind of a bad rap in the US; it is a very essential part of a complete diet. The calories I was consuming were relatively balanced and came from fresh (mostly local) sources and that is my real priority.
5. 1 hour of Wii workout / week: See above for explanation about why I eliminated this goal.
6. 1 hour of flexibility work / week: I adhered to this pretty strictly for the first half of the year but A. it was tough to meet my calorie burn goals when devoting so much time to stretching and B. I just really had a hard time getting psyched up for it. I’m a big believer in doing what motivates you; exercise shouldn’t be a chore. So eventually I began incorporating flexibility into other areas of my life (like reading), freeing up dedicated exercise time for higher-intensity activities.
7. Win Men’s doubles “A” beach volleyball tourney: Failed. I competed in only two tournaments this year with a #3 out of 5 best placing. Heading to Switzerland for the summer (prime tourney season) hurt my opportunities and the last tournament of the season here in Houston (in which I was scheduled to compete) was canceled, wiping out my last chance. Doh!
8. Run three races: Accomplished by early April
9. Run a 5k race under 22:00: Accomplished by the end of January! My PR going into 2010 was 23:45 but my first race of the season brought me a new PR of 21:43. As I trained throughout the rest of the year I brought my best time down to 21:07.
10. Run a 10k race under 47:00: Accomplished by early April! I originally set this goal at 55:00 but my training run times were coming in in the low 50s in January. So I revised this down to 50:00 but my first really hard training run (in preparation for a March 10k race) finished in 47:50. So I set my new target at 47:00, which I barely missed in the March race (47:02!) but blew through at a 10k race in April (45:56).
11. Swim 2,000 consecutive meters: Accomplished by the end of March.
12. Read one book for pleasure each month: Accomplished (even read one more!)
Professional
Relationships
1. Mentor / help at least one person each week: Accomplished!
2. Engage at least one of my own mentors each week: Accomplished!
Development
1. Read at least one professional book, book summary, or article each week: Accomplished!
2. Develop foreign language skills at least once each week: Accomplished!
Productivity
1. Post “to do” goals at the beginning of each day and accomplishments at the end of each day: Accomplished but I’m not sure this was as useful as it could have been. Look for a subsequent post from me about this issue in greater detail.
Smart Office Energy Solutions
1. Close $100k seed investment round by end of March: Accomplished! Even oversubscribed by 50%!
2. Several other goals that were no longer relevant weeks into 2010! Perhaps it was a bit naive to post annual goals for a business so young and dynamic; more fundamental targets might be more appropriate.
Professional Brand
1. Present original thought leadership / research: Accomplished by end of July (Leveraging Social Media for Executive Careers)
2. Earn 300 twitter followers: Accomplished by end of August (finished the year with 400 followers)
3. Achieve Klout level of 50 for social media influence: Accomplished by end of December
4. 5 daily LinkedIn profile views: Failed. There were some peaks and troughs but I spent most of the year at the same level: 2-3 views per day.
5. 1000 blog hits per month: Failed. Again, peaks and troughs but most of the year was spent between 300 and 500 views per month. One reason I’m sure was my decline in content production (53 posts in 2010 vs. 78 in 2009 and 197 in 2008!).
As hinted at earlier, I’m currently giving serious thought to my social media strategy for 2011. 2010 was a great year of experimenting and data collection but 2011 needs to be more focused.
So there you have it: some successes, some failures, some almost-successes, and some total flops. I’m proud of the successes and have tried to learn from the failures. I’m also proud of having adapted goals as I moved throughout the year; some goals became irrelevant and I didn’t stick to them blindly; some goals needed to be tweaked and I did. Goals are great to have, but one must not lose sight of the bigger picture. The next post will be about adapting these learnings into goals for 2011!

A White Christmas

Katie and I spent this Christmas with her family in Minnesota. I have been there several times since we started dating, but always during the summer. Both my parents earned their PhDs at the University of Minnesota so I grew up with plenty of warnings about the Minnesota winters; this was my first time experiencing one first hand!

On the flight up we had the fortune to sit next to Michael Skelly, whom I voted for in the 2008 congressional election. It turns out that 20 years ago he and his wife-to-be were celebrating their Christmas and engagement with her family in Minnesota as well. They are still together and doing well so hopefully that is a good omen for us!
We arrived late morning on the 24th and were less-than-thrilled that our economy car rental had been “up” graded to a minivan. Is this how it works? As soon as you are engaged they start automatically putting you in soccer mom vehicles? Oh well, it got us where we needed to go and had plenty of room for transporting around others. My mom had arrived the night before so was already situated and ready to party.
We spent the afternoon at Katie’s parents’ house, where it was truly a winter wonderland. Minnesota is on pace to obliterate previous December snowfall records and there were feet of the white stuff everywhere. As Katie and I were already suffering from Max withdrawal (He was being very well tended by good friends of ours in Houston.), it was helpful that her parents have a golden retriever too.
We spent Christmas Eve at her aunt/uncle’s house, which was filled to the brim with family, food, and song. The Martin clan (Katie’s mother’s side) definitely has a much more musical orientation than I grew up with but they seem willing to accept me anyway. 🙂 I won the coin toss and the other boyfriend (Katie’s sister’s) had to don the Santa outfit and bring presents for all the kids. He was a good sport about it and hammed up the role.
Christmas Day was spent at Katie’s parents house. We had a tremendous Christmas breakfast, opened presents, and then spent awhile playing in the snow. Snowball fights, snow angels, snow fort construction–even a snow scavenger hunt for hidden tins of Katie’s mother’s famous dark chocolate waffle cookies! It was a blast and our four-year-old nephew who loves pirates was particularly excited when we began firing snow cannon balls from our snow pirate ships!
The evening was spent at the new house of Katie’s brother and his family. When I first met him 10 years ago, he was still in middle school. Now he is married, expecting a second child in March, owns a house, and has already served his country with a foreign tour of duty. I’ve seen many middle school “good kids” somehow lose their ways as they grew older so it is heart warming to see it the other way around: good kids growing into good adults with good lives. And it helps that their first son is frickin’ adorable. 🙂
Katie’s family threw an engagement party for us on Sunday, which was really fun. There were family members, friends, and–of course–lots of food! It was fun meeting some new folks, catching up with some whom I hadn’t seen since the very first time I came to Minnesota, and just generally feeling incredibly welcomed into a big, awesome family. Katie’s family catered the entire affair, which I know was a real undertaking, but the end result was just marvelous! We capped off the evening with a bonfire to celebrate Katie’s aunt’s birthday–a big old bonfire in the middle of the snow!
We returned on Monday after a wonderful trip that was too short. I don’t understand all of these complaints I had heard about Minnesota winters. Sure there was a lot of snow, but that was very welcome to this snowball fighter. Sure it was cold, but there was so much warmth from family and friends that you could hardly notice. So, while I am currently enjoying the 70-degree weather back in Houston, my first Minnesota winter experience was pretty darned good.

Happy Birthday, Smart Office Energy Solutions!

Wow. One year ago today we incorporated Smart Office Energy Solutions. As impatient as I am, it is never moving along quite quickly enough for me, but it is still important to look back at all we have already accomplished in a relatively brief time.

When we incorporated last December, we had completed tremendous analysis of the building energy efficiency industry. We had identified a very specific market gap, a large segment of potential clients that were being under- or unserved, and we had sketched out a rough solution that we thought could fulfill that pent-up need. In short, we had the makings of a business. At the time, our business was built on hypotheses and analyses, but instinct told us that we were onto something.
The year since incorporation has been focused largely on customer development. We have been using prototype products to validate our hypotheses, challenge our assumptions, and test our business model with paying customers. We raised a seed round of funding to finance these efforts and we have now developed a strong emerging brand. All of our close work with clients has also yielded new insights into generating maximum energy savings–insights which we have developed into intellectual property.
So here we are at the precipice of a new year. In some ways, very little has changed. For example, we are setting out to raise a new round of investment–exactly as we were doing this time last year. In many ways, however, our world is totally different. As we look to the future, we have a business plan rooted in proven facts rather than hypotheses. We have an extended team of contributors many times larger and more effective than the original set of founders. We have a growing set of stakeholders (clients, investors, policy makers, resellers, suppliers, policy makers, and cleantech pundits) who believe in what we are doing and provide daily encouragement. Moreover, through our modest efforts thus far, we have eliminated almost a full megawatt-hour of energy use, saving more than 10,000 tons of CO2, the equivalent to having planted more than 200 trees. Relative to our grand ambitions, that isn’t much–but it’s a great start!
As I have blogged about before, this path hasn’t been easy. There is great uncertainty as we develop a market that doesn’t exist yet with an approach that hasn’t existed before. I must always give credit to my secure bases, my business and personal relationships who provide the support I need to keep going; without them I would be lost.
So happy birthday, Smart Office Energy Solutions . . . many happy returns!