The Life and Times of the Watters Family

Updates To The "About" Page

Cam has been encouraging me to participate more in the development of this site so I have been working with him to update the “about” page. The photos and text were two years old. When you have little kids a lot of changes take place in that time span. This last year has been full of developmental milestones for both the boys. After reading The Well-Trained Mind last spring we decided to home school our boys.

They started school this last fall, Sean in first grade and Caleb in Kindergarten. It has been so rewarding for me and feels like such a privilege to be able to watch them absorb new concepts and ideas like little sponges. They are so eager and enthusiastic about learning. There have definitely been challenging moments throughout the year, but overall it has been my absolute pleasure to participate in their education in such a primary way. The idea of home schooling is somewhat daunting before you begin to investigate what resources and curriculums are available. The Well-Trained Mind suggests a lot of really good curriculum options.

Now that I think about it, it’s about time to start looking ahead to next fall and what curriculum we will choose for Sean for the second grade. At some point I’ll post what we have covered this year and my impressions of the curriculum we chose, as well as what we decide to use for next year.

Tiger Has Arrived

I’m posting this from my new (work) copy of Tiger. Looks cool so far. I just finished installing it so I’ll post more thoughts later.

Preliminary Training - Stage 6 - Day 2

Today was rough. I wasn’t motivated AT ALL this morning. Stayed up a little too late last night and I’ve just been having a crappy week. My left knee is in a brace already and now my right shin hurts right around an old injury from when I was a kid.

When I was about eight years old I was walking (running?) my dog down the street and a friend was sitting on his bicycle. Being the genius that I was, I thought it might be a good idea to hurdle (or attempt to anyway) the back tire of his bike while running at top speed. Unfortunately, for my shin anyway, I overestimated my leaping ability by a bit and ended up catching my shin on the improvised foot pegs that he’d made. Now, when I say “improvised foot pegs” what I really mean is a bolt that stuck out about 3 or 4 inches on either side of the rear axle. And when I say “caught my shin” I mean that this bolt actually penetrated my shin, cut through the muscle and took a chunk out of the bone. Now, for whatever reason, I never received any medical attention for this wound. Oh sure, my mom or dad put some kind of bandage on it for the 4 or 5 weeks it took for it to heal, but no stitches or anything like that. And now, when I run, it hurts terribly.

Anyway, needless to say, today wasn’t much fun. I kept my spirits up by making up cadences (which I will not repeat here) and ended up finishing pretty strong and in decent spirits despite the pain in my shin. I will say one thing for all of this training. It sure makes time fly. Seems like it wasn’t that long ago that I was just walking my route, but it’s really only been about a month. One down, a little over five to go.

Photos On flickr

I’ve started posting photos on flickr. I’m starting with the beginning of my iPhoto library, so these are pretty old, but it’ll be fun as I post more. I’m probably going to have to upgrade to a pro account pretty soon, but the free one will get me by for now.

These photos are from Christmas 2001, which is when we got our digital camera from my parents.

Preliminary Training - Stage 6 - Day 1

Today was first day that was actually painful somewhere other than my knee. When I jog, I’m at about a 10 minute per mile pace. If I could maintain that pace throughout the Marathon in October, I’d be elated. Hopefully, with nearly six months of training left, I’ll be able to work up to something like that. While finishing is my primary goal, my “stretch goal” is to finish in under 5 hours. For a guy that is currently at least 50 lbs overweight (that’s being generous and accounting for my body type), that seems like a fair, but challenging goal.

I’m starting to get bored with my route, but I can’t really do much different. Maybe I’ll try going the other direction on the trail, but I know that the trail doesn’t go a full 1.5 miles in the other direction so it’ll be interesting. Also, I like the fact that my current route is basically uphill for the first 1.5 miles. Anyway, I’ll see about changing it up a little bit on Friday.

Preliminary Training - Stage 5 - Day 3

Yesterday, finished up Stage 5 (5 min jog/5 min walk, x3). Again, it felt a little easier today. I spent most of the jog/walk visualizing the race and other athletic type things I’ve been thinking about trying after the marathon, like the STP.

After the second walking section, I decided to just jog all the way back home for the last 10 minutes instead of jogging 5 min. and walking 5 min. Somewhat surprisingly, it wasn’t as bad as I’d expected. Tomorrow I start Stage 6 (10 min jog/5 min walk, x2). It’ll be interesting to see how that goes.

What My Family Does While I’m At Work

They go to the Space Needle. Without Me.

Preliminary Training - Stage 5 - Day 2

My jog/walk felt a little easier this morning. Was able to fully jog all of the 5 min. sections without stopping early. On Tuesday I had to take a 30 second walking break in the middle. Gotta keep trying to get up earlier, though. Leaving at 5:45 am doesn’t give me quite enough time to take care of everything in the morning before work.

Top Search Strings For h2os.org

Taking a look at the traffic stats for the last couple of months, it appears the camels continue to dominate. In fact, they garner a little more than 20% of all traffic to the site. Aside from variations on “humping” and “camels humping” (the top two strings respectively), the second most frequently used search string to get here is “death of a moth” which takes them to this paper which I wrote in high school. It also represents a low point in my academic career as it is simply an enhanced version of an essay that Betsy had written for the same class and same instructor the previous year. She got a B. I got an A-.

Interestingly, this site is the top Google search result for at least two strings: Cameron Watters (somewhat obvious) and Brian Rollo (not so obvious). I really appreciate the fact that one of the results for Brian is a comment that he posted telling me I am good in bed. Maybe if I link his name, Brian Rollo to the website for his pool hall, I’ll stop being the #1 result.

First Day Back On The Trail

It felt really good to get back out there. Today was the first day of a re-started Stage Five: Jog 5 min/Walk 5 min; repeat twice. Because my route is out-and-back, it always takes me more than the prescribed amount of time. There are two jogging legs going out, and only one coming back in. I guess I need to turn around sooner. The knee felt pretty good, but the route I’ve been taking is uphill on the way out and downhill on the way back, and jogging back down the hills hurts a little. I may need to find a new route.

I left the house a little earlier (5:45 am) than usual this morning. I think I like training at that time better. Fewer people on the trails. Also, as Summer gets closer and closer, it’s getting lighter and lighter at that time so early doesn’t necessarily mean dark like it did even a month ago.

Preliminary Training - Stage 5 - Day 1

Since I wasn’t updating for the first couple of weeks, I’ll mark this as my official starting point for record keeping purposes. Here is some reference info as I begin. I’ll start with these three, and update every so often. Maybe weekly? Anyway, I don’t know if I should keep track of more stuff or not. If so, I’ll add it when I know about it.

Physical Data

Weak In the Knee

So far, my knee troubles have put me two weeks behind. Fortunately, I had about 4 weeks of extra time.

After about a week of issues, I started reading up on different conditions online. The condition that is most consistent with my symptoms is called chondromalacia patellae, or patellofemoral syndrome. Much of what I read suggested a program of stretching and strengthening the hamstrings and quads. I thought I’d give it a shot. Wish I’d done it sooner. After stretching my left hamstring for about 5 minutes (slowly of course), most of the pain was gone. To be on the safe side, I made an appointment with the doctor just in case. He confirmed my self-diagnosis and also recommended a knee brace. With the brace, I can now walk and jog pain free.

We’ll see how it goes tomorrow as I restart stage 5 of the preliminary training — five minutes jogging and then five minutes of walking, repeat twice.

Working Through The Preliminary Training

(NOTE: This post describes events that occurred between March 21st and April 5th)

As I’ve mentioned before, I was able to jump all the way to the third stage (of ten) of the preliminary training schedule. Step 3 is to fast walk (approx 15min/mi) for 30 minutes three days per week for one week. I started the preliminary training on March 21st. The first two weeks went pretty well. The fourth stage maintains the same pace while increasing the time to 45 minutes and adding one day of walking.

Mondays are usually a training off day for me, but the weather was great and I was full of energy. I decided to just go for a quick jog, which turned into a full on jog for the next thirty minutes. That may not seem like much, but for a fat guy like me, it was a lot. Anyway, needless to say I skipped my regular Tuesday morning training. I was now into stage 5, which is five minutes of jogging followed by five minutes of walking fast 3 times (thirty minutes total). Feeling a bit bad about skipping on Tuesday because I jumped the gun a little on Monday, I decided I’d do some cross training instead. That’s where I got into trouble.

Up until this point, things had been going fine with the walking and cross training. This time, though, when doing a “split squat” my left knee (the one that was back at the time) started hurting terribly. I stopped working out, and took some anti-inflammatories and figured it’d go away in the morning. Well, it didn’t. I was on the shelf.

My First Post

Cam is teaching me how to post entries to his (our?) blog.

This is my first and probably my last post. Isn’t it nice of me to humor him.

I’m Totally Straight, But…

Two different men asked me to take my pants down for them today.

Sadly, I obliged them both.

Choosing A Marathon

(NOTE: This post describes events that occurred between March 28th and March 31st)

I’ve written briefly about this in an earlier post, but I thought I’d spend a little more time on it here.

When I decided to run a marathon, at first, it was a little nebulous. Ok, I’ll run one someday. Well, when is someday? We’ve been wrestling with some potential major changes (currently under wraps) at home lately, and so I was kind of putting of selecting a particular race based on the conclusion of those issues. As it became clearer that there weren’t necessarily going to be hard answers anytime soon, I decided to choose a race now. I’ll just figure it out later if anything complicates my choice. The time to choose was now.

read more…

More Re-Design Tweaks

O.K. I’m experimenting with a wider version of the layout to see if I like it. My gut says the narrower one was better, but this may grow on me.

For those that are curious about such things, with the new banner image being three panes wide, and with 37 images to choose from, there are now 7770 possible combinations of photos and 46620 possible unique banners.

Choosing A Running Shoe

(NOTE: This post describes events that occurred between March 21st and March 31st)

Once I’d chosen a marathon training program, I started walking. The first two weeks of the training program were all walking. I was walking in a pair of very dated and heavily worn Nike running shoes from a few years ago. Needless to say, these weren’t going to be adequate once I started really running. Additionally, these shoes had been purchased without any attention paid to whether or not they were a good fit for my foot and gait. With that in mind, I set out to find some better shoes.

I’d heard a lot of good things about a local running supply store, Fairhaven Runners. One of the nice people there observed me while I ran up and down the sidewalk outside, evaluating my gait. Like many people, I overpronate. I tried on four or five different pairs of shoes from at least three different manufacturers. In the end it came down to the Brooks Addiction vs. the Asics Gel-Kayano. I took each around the block one more time, and I was pretty sure the Kayano was the one. Just in case, though, I put one of each on and took another quick turn around the block. After that, it was settled. It was definitely the Kayano.

Along with the shoes (approx. $135), I bought some 0% cotton socks (can’t remember what they’re made of) and they made a huge difference as well. They feel a little funny at first, but my feet don’t blister anymore. Eventually, I’ll add some shirts and shorts made from more runner-friendly materials, but I figure those can be rewards for training milestones.

Choosing A Marathon Training Program

(NOTE: This post describes events that occurred between March 9th and March 21st)

Having never actually run more than a mile or two in my life, I knew that running a marathon wasn’t something you just wake up and do one day. Or, at least it’s not something I could just wake up and do one day…without hurting myself terribly and, quite possible, irreversibly. So, considering my total lack of experience with long distance running, I knew that I was going to need some help defining and planning my training. Not being the type naturally inclined to join a group for this sort of thing, I hit up my old friends Google and Amazon for a little help. I found lots of options both places, but in the end I selected this book: The Non-Runner’s Marathon Trainer. read more…

So You Want To Run A Marathon

Yes, a marathon. More specifically, the Portland Marathon on October 9th. It’s close to home and, although I have little hope of qualifying, the course is certified as a qualifying course for the Boston Marathon. I guess that lent it some legitimacy in my mind. It’s also close enough to home that I can drive there. My grandparents live just south of Portland, so I’ve got a place to stay that weekend. Hopefully, I’ll be able to drag a decent sized cheering section to the race with me.

In addition to all of the walking/jogging/running that I’ll do to train, I’m also going to be doing some strength-training to improve my body composition and my metabolism.

Many people like to keep logbooks of their workouts in order to track progress. Most people do this in paper notebook of somekind. I figured I’d save the cash by skipping the paper version and post it here instead. That way, other people, if they’re interested, can track my progress as well. I’m a little behind with posting already as I’ve already started the pre-training regimen. I’ll catch up soon. Once I’m caught up, I hope to post daily or close to daily. At least weekly.

(see this post for some background)

Facing The Fat

I’m fat. That much is certain. On the morning of January 10th, 2005 I weighed two hundred seventy-two pounds. Now, that would be a fine if I were, say, 7′ 4″. Unfortunately, I’m only 6′ 2″. That gives me a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 34.9 on January 10th. Ideally, a person’s BMI should not exceed 25. While I realize that this measure isn’t perfect (weightlifters have high BMIs, but are not really “obese”), and is simply one of many indicators of increased health risk, it is nonetheless clear that I’m way out of shape. Fortunately, since January, I’ve managed to lose approximately 20 lbs, leaving me with a current BMI of 32.5. Beyond the health issues, I’m just sick of being physically this overweight from a practical perspective. I run out of energy much too quickly and most of the time, it just feels gross. It’s time for a change.

read more…

Re-Design Comments

Hey, I completely changed the look of the site and nobody said anything. Is it better? Worse. Equally as crappy?

Other than bugs that I don’t know about, this redesign is complete. I hope to add some new images to the banner rotation, but other than that, I think I’m happy with this (and hope to be for a long, long time).

UPDATE: Apparently WordPress doesn’t deal well with un-escaped question marks in the title, so this post wouldn’t accept comments. I’ve now fixed it.

UPDATE: There are now 34 different images in the banner rotation (2 images used to generate the banner), so there are 561 possible image combinations, but there are actually twice as many different possible banner images that can be generated (as the same two images can be displayed in two different orders). More photos coming all the time.