Tag Archives: goals

Books, Goals, Learning, Practice

Practice Learning: the Books and Audiobooks I Finished in 2014

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I set a goal to read at least 24 books in 2014 and listen to at least 24 audiobooks. I read 27 and listened to 32 (34 if you count repeats).

Here are all the books I read in 2014 (* = favorites):
1)    The Power of Your Subconscious Mind, by Joseph Murphy
2)    How I Made $2,000,000 in the Stock Market, by Nicolas Darvas
3)    The Power of Awareness, by Neville Goddard
4)    How to get Started in Active Trading & Investing, by David S. Nassar
5)    You’ll See it When you Believe it, by Dr. Wayne Dyer
6)    Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by William J. O’Neil
7)    The Science of Getting Rich, by Wallace D. Wattles
8)    The Game of Work, by Charles A. Coonradt
9)    Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds and Confusion de Confusiones
10)    Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, by Gary Vaynerchuk
11)    How to Make Money in Commercial Real Estate for the Small Investor, by Nicholas Masters
*  12)    Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius (free ebook downloads)
13)    How to Buy & Sell Apartment buildings by Eugene Vollucci, Stephen Vollucci
14)    The Success Principles, by Jack Canfield
15)    Survival is not Enough, by Seth Godin
16)    You Can if You Think You Can, by Norman Vincent Peale
*  17)    The Idea Factory, by Pepper White
18)    Free Culture, by Lawrence Lessig
19)    Notes from Underground, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
*  20)    Zen in the Art of Writing, by Ray Bradbury
*  21)    Wen-Tzu, by Lao-tzu
*  22)    Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
23)    Open Horizons, by Sigurd F. Olson
24)    Utopia, by Thomas More
*  25)    Five Dialogues, by Plato (free pdf of Plato’s Dialogues, not just the 5)
26)    Wake Up & Live!, by Dorothea Brande
27)    The Magic of Believing, by Claude M. Bristol

Earlier in the year I went through my book collection and found that I had well over 100 books that I haven’t yet read. I made myself a new rule that I had to read at least 2 books I already own for every book that I buy. I think I actually have a couple read books in the bank.

These are all the audiobooks I listened to in 2014:
1)    Get Rich Carefully, by Jim Cramer
2)    The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey
3)    Coaching for Breakthrough Success, by Peter Chee, Jack Canfield
4)    Screw It, Lets Do It, by Richard Branson
*  5)    Eat and Run by Scott Jurek, Steve Friedman
*  6)    Finding Ultra, by Rich Roll
*  7)    The Long Run, by Mishka Shubaly – audiobook (Kindle $1.99 or free with Kindle unlimited)
8)    Abundance, by Peter Diamandis, Steven Kotler
*  9)    Choose Yourself!, by James Altucher – audiobook (Kindle $0.99 or free with Kindle unlimited)
*  10)    The Obstacle is the Way, by Ryan Holiday
11)    I Will Teach you to be Rich, by Ramit Sethi
12)    The Plateau Effect by Hugh Thompson, Bob Sullivan
13)    Stein on Writing, Sol Stein
14)    Contagious, by Jonah Berger
15)    Epic Content Marketing, by Joe Pulizzi
16)    10% Happier, by Dan Harris
17)    Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
18)    The Intelligent Entrepreneur, by Bill Murphy
19)    Quiet: The Power of Introverts, by Susan Cain
20)    How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, by Scott Adams
21)    Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure, by Tim Harford
22)    100 Great Buinesses and the Minds Behind them, by Emily Ross and Angus Holland
*  23)    MASH, by Richard Hooker
24)    The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie, by Andrew Carnegie
*  25)    Delivering Happiness, by Tony Hsieh
26)    Conscious Capitalism, by John Mackey, Raj Sisodia, Bill George
27)    1,000 Dollars & and Idea, by Sam Wyly
28)    Understanding the Mysteries of Human Behavior: Great Courses
*  29)    The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield (listened twice)
30)    How to Stay Motivated, by Zig Ziglar (listened twice)
31)    The Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
32)    The Entrepreneurs Toolkit: Great Courses

All audio books on this list were purchased through Audible.com (Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks)
, using their Android app. I have a Platinum monthly membership, meaning two credits per month, generally good for 1 audiobook each. I purchased a couple audiobooks when they were on sale as well.

I find that most audiobook narrators read rather slowly. The Audible app allows you to play at up to 2x speed or slowing to 0.5x speed. I usually listen at 2x. Probably 90% of my listening was while in the car.

I also downloaded some public domain audiobooks from Librivox.org and found another Android audio player app that allows changing playback speed without messing up the pitch (no chipmunk voices) called Maple Player.  Librivox narrators are mostly just regular people who volunteer to read public domain works, so they aren’t always great, but it’s free, and I’m grateful for their work. I didn’t make it through any of these free audiobooks. I started listening to A Tale of Two Cities when I was out of Audible credits, but didn’t finish before the new month’s credits were available. Sometime I’ll go back and finish it.

I’m going for 30 books and 30 audiobooks for 2015. I’m hoping to drive less, so I might not make 32 like I did in 2014.
If you have any questions about any books on my lists or want recommendations, leave a comment or click the little envelope button above or below the post to send me an email.

Goals, Running

2014: It was a very good year

2014 was a great year.

I accomplished a lot more than I expected. I’m faster than ever, more aerobically fit and had my best year running.

I wanted to break a 20 minute 5k and did so this year. It wasn’t an official race, but I ran about 19:42. I didn’t warm up either. If I had, I think I would have been closer to 19 min. Sub 20 minutes isn’t my ultimate goal, but it was the first on my way. Next is sub 18 min.

Throughout the year, I broke my weekly mileage PR a number of times, including two weeks in a row in my December push, 77.1 mi and 77.3 mi. I expect to go beyond that sometime in the next couple of months.

I also had several monthly mileage PRs. Breaking 200 mi in a month was a big deal for me. And December’s 312.1 mi is huge. I’ll probably beat that in 2015 as well, but I don’t have any specific plans to do so.

I achieved some racing goals as well. In April I set a 41 minute PR at the Mt. Si Ultra 50k, finishing in 4:35:04. I was only couple minutes off from the finish time that I visualized leading up to the race.

In May I narrowly missed my 5 hour goal at the Soaring Eagle 50k by about 5 minutes. Without knowing the course at all beforehand, I did pretty well. And I had my first top 5 finish, though the field was pretty small.

In June I also narrowly missed my finish time goal, 5:30:00, at the Rattlesnake Ridge Run 50k by only 1:15. Finishing 10th was awesome.

Unfortunately, I didn’t make it to my first 50 miler, rolling my ankle three weeks prior.

But in September I ran the Sri Chinmoy Self Transcendence 7 hour race. I missed my reach goal of 50 mi, but did well to beat my primary goal of 40 mi. Officially, I finished with 42.784 mi, finishing 3rd.

This winter I’ve been running some shorter races primarily to work on improving my speed. Earlier in the year I set a goal to win a race. At the time, I meant an ultra, but I didn’t specify in my actual wording of the goal. I’ll leave it up to you as to whether it makes a difference, but I’ve now added “win an ultra” to the list. Anyway, I won my first two shorter trail races, an 8k and a 5 mi. I finished 3rd in the third race and have two more to go, possibly three if I feel up to a 5k or 10k the weekend after my upcoming 50k.

I set my most recent 2014 goal on Dec 7. I’ve already been running everyday since Aug 13. I wanted to push myself a little more and decided to finish out the year running at least 10 mi each day. I ran over 10 mi for 25 days straight, averaging a little over 11 mi for Dec 7-31. I did doubles once. And triples on my last 10k race day, a short warm up, the race, and a short run with the dogs once I got home. But I got in my mileage everyday.

As for my goals for yearly totals, I didn’t really set any until a few months ago. I’m not sure exactly when, though. I wanted to break 2000 mi for the year and 200,000 ft gain. I broke 200,000 ft gain the end of November, so I increased that to 230,000 ft. With my big December push and my final run of 2014, I ended up with 2003.8 mi and 234,799 ft gain. This was a big build up year for me. I only hit 1000 mi on Aug 21, so I did my second 1000 mi in 4 months and 10 days, and I took November fairly easy. I’m already thrilled with my year running, and that all makes it even better.

I’m currently working on my 2015 goals and will post something in the next month. I’m working on some big plans.

Hope your 2014 was as great as mine and 2015 is even better.

Goals, Running

Goals VS Expectations: to Strive or to Settle

I never really bothered with goals until the past few years. During my run on Monday, Sep. 15, I was thinking about the upcoming Sri Chinmoy Self Transcendence 7 Hour Race, which I’m running on Sep. 21. I’ve gone back and forth over what goal to set for myself.

One moment I’m thinking about how far I might be able to go on my best possible day. Then a competing thought comes in and tempers my goal with my reasonable expectations.

Based on my 50k times from races earlier this year, my reasonable expectation is breaking 40 miles. If I run the first 50k (about 31 miles) in the same time I ran for my PR in April, I’ll have about 2.5 hours to cover 9 more miles, which I could almost walk.

I’m faster now and can better manage my effort over the distance. If everything goes right, I think I can hit 50 miles. I haven’t run the course, but I know the park and there are a few very small hills. Cumulatively, they might be too much for that kind of effort. I can still try.

Anyway, I kept having these thoughts battling over what my goal should be for the race. Then I realized that if I limit my goals based on reasonable expectations, there’s not much point in setting a goal. I want to strive for my goals, not settle. They should be beyond my currently perceived limits. How far beyond those limits is more a matter of time-frame.

There’s nothing that says you can’t have different levels of goals for the same situation or event either. I’ll have my reach goal of 50 miles. I’ll also have my 40 mile goal for if things aren’t quite going my way.

And I’m OK with failing. I won’t be devastated if I don’t make 50 miles. I know that I will have given my best effort. There’s always next year, or I can go out on my own. And if I do reach 50 miles or even close, that will be awesome. Then I’ll raise the bar next time.

Uncategorized

I Don’t Need a Race to Run: Missing WR50 for Future Adventures

By the time this publishes, runners will be a couple hours into the White River 50 Mile Endurance Run. I was planning to be one of those runners, but after rolling my ankle three weeks ago and not healing quickly enough, I decided against it.

I made the decision last Sunday, and it kind of sucked. All year I’ve had several different goals to look forward to. I ran 50k races in April, May and June as training for a 50 miler this year, which I thought would be WR50.

Without the goal on my horizon my mood took a nose dive during my run Sunday evening. I might even go so far as to say a little depressed. I briefly lost my reasons for running. Considering quitting to do something else even crossed my mind. Focusing on races obscured my real love for just running.

Often when I’m in a negative mood I end up pushing the pace or vert. I pushed the pace on Sunday, not too hard, but it was nice to run faster than I usually do. It did the trick too. By the end of the run my mood lifted significantly. I was running just to run.

Sometime in the next couple days I realized that my 50 mile goal for the year was not specific to any race. I chose WR50 mostly out of convenience. It’s close enough to home and the date worked for me. Really, I just want to complete the distance in one shot.

Since cutting back mileage a bit after rolling my ankle, I’ve been looking over maps at trails I’d like to do. There are a number of trails I could link up for 50 miles, places that I’d like to explore anyway. A few might be a little longer too.

That was part of why I decided to skip WR50. I think I’d probably be alright to finish, but I don’t want to jeopardize all the other adventures I want to go on this year. I’d rather take the time to heal now than potentially be out longer from further injury.

In the meantime, I’ll be sticking to non-technical stuff for a little while longer. And I’m not giving up on races. I like the community and they make great goals to keep motivated, as long as I don’t get so single-minded.

I hope everyone has a great run down at White River. Maybe I’ll be there next year.