Michael & Liz are Bloggable

Back in August 2008, Liz and I went vegetarian for the entire month. It was a good experience. It's not something I would want to do again, but we definitely learned from it. It was difficult to stick with it during the entire month especially when we got into the late teens and 20's.

I like using August as a month to change your life up a little bit. I think it's always good to do something different that challenges you, but to do it for an entire month is even more difficult. It's much like the concept for the TV Show "30 Days", where Morgan Spurlock does something different for 30 days. So instead I'm doing 31 days because August is the month I chose. It's really a boring month: you're looking forward to Summer ending, it's the only time you follow up a 31 day month by another 31 day month, and when you were in school it was the month you went back.

So this August I am changing things up again, it is "Me vs. Machine". The concept is simple:

For an entire month, it's the miles I travel in a car vs. the miles I run and bike. Can I travel more miles in the month running and biking than my car does driving?

So here are the rules:

• Any time I go anywhere by car, I have to count my miles using the odometer. Whether I drive or am a passenger, it all counts.
  
• Running and biking, whether that is outside or inside the gym, counts as miles for me. Walking or playing sports does not count.
  
• Do not dramatically alter my lifestyle. If I would have gone someplace, don't skip out because of the challenge. This will be a TOUGH rule and something I will struggle to follow.
  

There's no doubt it's going to be a very tough month. Just thinking through all the places I go, some of them aren't just right down the street. Two I have in mind are church, which is exactly 19 miles away, and the dog training facility, which is 7.6 miles away. I gotta come home too so that makes the trips 38 miles and 15.2 miles. How do I make that up quickly? This is definitely going to be a challenge.

In any given month I fill up my car 3 to 4 times and probably drive about 1000 miles. A majority of those miles are just between home and work but that trip is short enough that I can bike it. Work is exactly 5 miles away so technically if I bike to and from work every day during the month, that's 220 miles for the 22 days. And if I run as much in August as I did during June, that'll be another 140 miles. I probably won't be able to maintain the schedule as much as I want to, but I figure if I can accumulate 300 miles, that would be good enough to beat my car.

I came up with this idea earlier in the year around March. I pegged June and August as potential months due to the favorable weather. June didn't quite work out so August it is. There are tons of advantages to doing this. Not only would we be saving on gas money during the month, but it would also help me achieve my goal of being in better shape and having stronger legs for the marathons and races I have coming up. I also can't believe that I won't lose some more weight from all the exercise. Really the only downside I can see is that the dogs and Liz will suffer. Every day I come home for lunch and during August I won't be doing that. I also am home before Liz these days and I probably won't be most days in August.

I'm not blind to the struggles that I will face:

• I have a stupid mountain bike and not a road bike. Makes biking hard and I don't feel like buying new tires.
  
• August is the time Kidstuf begins to start back up so I may have to go to church at one point or another during the weekdays.
  
• Biking during rainy weather will be tough. I need a parka.
• There will be times when I have to bike home in the dark after softball. I need some lights on my bike.
  
• Of the 5 miles to work, 1.5 miles of that is on the road and the last 3.5 is on a trail. Honestly, I can't STAND biking on roads around cars. I can't stand driving around bikers on the road so it pains me to think I'm going to be one of those people holding cars up and getting in the way.
  
• It's still crazy hot in August, sweating and exhaustion is a factor.
  
• I have to pack my lunch.
• What if my bike pops a tire on my way to work?
  
• I have to shower every morning at the work showers in my building. And with lunch, my backpack will be HEAVY and FULL.
  
• I may not be as social as I'd like to be. Football will be starting back up and that's not the time to be a hermit.
• Softball season will be wrapping up. I've been told I can have a permanent locker at the Rec Center so I can store my stuff.
  
• Fall Soccer season will be starting at that time too.
• Both soccer and softball games start at 6PM and 7:30PM, that's a long time to not be home for the dogs. Those days we'll just have to leave them out of their crates.
  

This type of challenge is what I was talking about in my last post about how Liz has to put up with my crazy crap. She will definitely be affected seeing as I won't be home to take care of the dogs like I normally do and I will always be tired and complaining from the biking and running. So a big thank you to her for supporting my insanity.

Do I think I will beat my car? I think I will but not in the way I want. I'd like to do it using every day tasks, through biking to work and running for my marathon training. But I get the feeling I will have to do extra hours of biking at the gym and on the weekends on trails. I'm definitely not running more than I have to (since I'm already running 30 to 40 miles a week) so if I add anything, it will be biking. I really don't want to have to do that, but my car (from now on referred to as "WhoDey") is going down and I'll do everything I can to win.

So at this point it's all about preparation. Getting together all the things I need in order to succeed. I'll be working on that in the next few weeks and will keep the blog up to date on my miles as the month goes on.

2 quotes for inspiration:
“We choose to go...not because it is easy, but because it is hard, because that goal will serve to measure and organize the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.” -JFK

“Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are.” -Bernice Johnson Reagon