Everyone’s athletic career peaks at different times. For me (unfortunately), it was my last year of Little League in 1982. A good season was capped off by making the Carroll Township All-Star team. Yes sir, that’s me at the far right in the second row.

We had a solid team, but ran into a buzz saw in our third game of the tournament and lost in extras 2-1. If a few bounces had gone our way, I’m certain we would have made a run. I doubt we would have made Williamsport, but oh, what could have been.

Unfortunately, It was all downhill for me in baseball from there, and I didn’t play beyond Pony League. It was a good run, but life had other things in store, which, truth be told, have turned out pretty good in their own right.

Special thanks to mom for sending this one out to me a couple of years back. I figured it would be fun to share, given we’re at the start of yet another baseball season with catchers and pitchers reporting this week.

I’ve written in the past about why I decided to start a blog, but a blog post written by Matt Mullenweg (yes, that Matt Mullenweg who is a founding developer of WordPress) sums up why I blog better than anything I could write.  He advises us not to write with the hope of going viral. Instead, he suggests writing for two people – yourself and a single person you would consider the perfect person to read what you write.

I couldn’t agree more.

I didn’t start my blog with the hope of going viral or becoming some famous celebrity on the internet (whatever that means). I started my blog for two reasons:

1. As a personal journal where I could collect my thoughts, write them down, and share them. It has forced me to think critically about important topics and refine my point of view. In addition, it has been a great way to point people to useful resources I’ve found, collected or commented on. Instead of directing them toward a Google search, I can point them to an article I’ve written to get more information and understand my opinion.
2. I’m writing to create a digital record that future generations can read to understand more about who I was from the source, not from third parties or a random collection of social media posts or comments strewn about the internet.

I agree that once you stop writing to “go viral”, the process of starting a blog and keeping up with it become a lot easier. So if you want to start but are struggling with what to write about, quit stressing and just do it. It’s your blog, so write about what you want, and don’t worry if it never, ever goes viral. It’s still a digital record that you, your future self, and future generations can look back at to understand who you were at that point in time.

After ten years of coaching football, I’ve decided to hang up the whistle. It’s time to retire.

It’s been an amazing experience and quite a run. Little did I know when I dropped Brad off for his first football practice in 2004 that I would go on a ten year journey that would take me on an roller coaster ride of incredible highs and lows and introduce me to people who would become more than just passing acquaintances, but lifelong friends.

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Boiled down to its simplicity, life is about choices. Every day, we must make an endless number of choices about all sorts of things – when to wake up, what to wear, what to eat, what to spend our time on, who to associate with. The list goes on and on. The best part is that we are in control of these choices. While some have limited scope, others can influence what path our life takes, whether we succeed or fail, and in extreme cases, whether we live or die.

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Just like last year, I let the beard grow out over the holidays. I didn’t start as early, and I kept things trimmed a bit shorter, which seemed to work better. While it didn’t get quite as unruly, I’m still not a facial hair person.

Here is this years edition:

It’s getting shaved off in the next day or two. If you’re curious, here’s the link to last year’s edition. Interestingly, it’s almost a year to the day since I ended last year’s experiment.

With the beard coming off, it’s now officially 2014!

I had a decent 2013 when it came to fitness. I walked a lot, completing over 660 miles with my loyal Golden Retriever at my side (see the graph below for the monthly figures). I also made it to the gym quite a bit, mixing up a decent amount of cardio and weights.

So why wasn’t the past year great? I’m not totally happy with my weight. I’m toting around about 170 pounds, and my preference is to stay somewhere between 160 and 165. Overall, that’s my target goal for the next year. To continue working out as regularly as I did in 2013 while shaving off a few pounds.

So here are my goals for 2014. I wanted to document them for this upcoming year to make myself more accountable. I’ve also tried to make them as S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, time-based) as possible.

1. Log 160 days at the gym in 2014
   I want to hit as many weekdays as possible in the gym for either weights or cardio. I figure there are about 260 weekdays during the year, so hitting 60% should be attainable.
2. Walk 650 miles in 2014
   Since I hit 661 miles in 2013, hitting 650 should be achievable. I’d like to see if I can get as close to 700 as possible.
3. Eat healthier
   OK, so this isn’t very S.M.A.R.T., but I’ve got to figure out how to eat better. For starters, I need to be more conscience of my calorie intake, and then I need to be a lot more careful about the types of calories I eat. In other words, I need to cut down on things like refined sugars, junk foods, and items with ingredients like high fructose corn syrup. The key will be figuring out how to measure it in order to enforce accountability.

I’m pretty confident about numbers 1 and 2, but it’s #3 that I’ll need to concentrate on if I want to make it to my stated goal of getting under 165 by the end of 2014.

Well, now that I have it written down, it’s time to go and perform!

If you have any ideas or tips on how to eat healthier and measure it, please leave them in the comments. I’m all ears!

2013 wraps up my first full year running my own blog. Overall, I’d say I’m pretty pleased. Here are a few of the statistics from the blog and a couple of lessons learned.

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