For 2023:

• I did 453+ hours of tracked workouts (a new record 🥳!).
• I worked out on 274 days in some form.

How do I feel about this year?

On the health front, this year was lightyears better than 2022.

I started 2023 with some health worries, and I was recovering from a long bought of sickness and other weirdness in December. I shifted my diet heavily, and after a few months, everything looks good (and I’ve felt good).

Even better, I haven’t gotten sick much in 2023. I have done better at keeping my stress levels healthy, which helps my immune system. When Calico first started school I got a few bad bugs through him, but nothing major since then (knock on wood).

Biking

• I rode 277+ hours on my bike (just barely a new record 🥳!).
• I biked 137 days of the year (tied for 3rd highest on record).
• I covered 5,491km (the 2nd-highest year on record).

I did my longest bike tour this year in France. I rode 1,269km, and it was a fun route. I did a good job training for this tour (as good or better than 2022). I still have room for improvement with training and the tour pace. I struggled to take a day off in that initial 10-day tour because I was so excited. Given how busy Shepherd was this year, I did an excellent job fitting this into my life.

Strength Training

• I did 95+ hours of strength training over 106 days this year (shy of my goal of 3 a week). I averaged ~53 minutes per workout (I sometimes cut them short if I am not feeling the energy or something is off).
• I did 25+ hours of yoga over 67 days (my new goal is twice a week). I do a simple 22-minute yoga session on YouTube with a guy I like.

I haven’t broken this out before, but I’ve started doing strength training ever since I injured my back. This is due to Jeff in Boulder; he is an awesome dude and my trainer (one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, and I wish I had done it 10 years earlier). As Jeff taught me more and more, I realized how much fun it is to move your body in different ways. I find it relaxing, and I’ve been pretty good at doing three ST sessions a week, each about 60 to 90 minutes (mix of stretching, lifting, etc). I need to keep my core strong so my back stays happy.

What else?

Sick / Not 100%
I was sick for 4% of the year. That is much better than 2022, where I was sick for 11% of the year (and 2021 was 13%). The worst month was April, when I marked myself sick for 30% of the month. And I haven’t been sick since then, which is excellent.

For 2023, I was “not 100%” 13% of the year. I just started marking this in 2023. I wanted to know how often I am sick, if my energy is off, or if I am super tired. This is a vague metric, but I was curious if I could learn anything from it (for example, I marked myself “not 100%” after staying up with Calico all night because he had a high fever).

Sleep
This year, 76% of my sleep was rated as good sleep versus 75% last year. And I got “enough sleep” 67% as “enough” sleep versus 60% last year (7.5+ hours). I want to get both in the 80% range.

Back
My back felt great 92% of the time this year. That is solid; it mostly hurts if I work too long in my office chair.

What are my health/workout goals for 2024?

1. Continue to improve energy/stress management so that I don’t red line.
2. Maintain a good base on my bike so I can do long bike tours.
3. Do ST 3x a week for 60+ minutes (keeps back happy + its fun).
4. Do Yoga 2x a week (keeps back happy + its fun).
5. Aim for at least 30 min indoor bike ever day I don’t do a longer ride.
6. I want to shift some food habits by about 20 degrees. Specifically, I want to hit a 160g daily protein goal, shed some extra fat I am carrying, and change some bad habits around portion size & speed.
7. And a fun goal of being able to do 20 dips in a row by EOY (and if that is easy, go for 30).

Past years: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 workout summary.

2022 was a hard year… but we also had a lot of fun.

The year had a rough start.

We found out Lindsey was pregnant in January, but a few weeks later, we found out it was not viable (followed by a miscarriage ~6 weeks later). We’ve been trying to get pregnant for a while, and this was emotionally hard. It took me a while to process it as we were so busy. Lindsey’s health hasn’t been great since the miscarriage, which has been stressful for us. We are making progress there and are hopeful she will be back at 100% soon.

We spent the first six months of the year on the road with an epic road trip around Europe. We wanted to look at places that might make a more permanent home as Calico gets closer to starting school. Road trips are great as we spend so much time with each other. We had a lot of fun adventures. But it also wore me down since I worked insanely hard to get Shepherd.com to a good place. We haven’t reached a conclusion to this search for a home yet, but we hope to make a decision soon.

The Amazing

Lindsey and I have been married for eight wonderful years! She is a great PIC🙃. Calico turned six this year, and we had so much fun this year. I am thankful that I have a flexible schedule so I can get a lot of time with him. 

I did an epic 999km bike tour along the Via Francigena route in Italy. It was a mind-blowing experience, and these rides make my soul sing. I am looking forward to my next one…

What fun stuff did we do this year?

• We started the year with a massive road trip to explore places we might want to make a more permanent home (pictures here). We started in Montpellier, France, and then headed to Karlsruhe, Germany, Düsseldorf, Berlin, Dresden, Prague, and finally, Graz, Austria. After that, we were exhausted and took a long stay in Istria, Croatia (we love Croatia). Then we spent some time in France in Aix-en-Provence, and some short stays in Lyon and Bordeaux. It was good to get home after all that.
• While we were in Croatia, I did a 3-day ride over an old rail trail. Lindsey and Calico tagged along in the car, and it was a really fun experience. We also did our first tasting menu at an amazing hotel/restaurant in Slovenia.
• We took Calico on his first camping trip! Calico and I slept in a tent while Lindsey got a wonderful little cabin. We had a blast, and I am planning another one soon.
• I did an epic 999km bike tour along Italy’s Via Francigena pilgrimage route in October. It started in the foothills of the alps and ended in Rome. Here is a summary, and here are a ton of pictures. I did a much better job training for this one (which I am proud of as I wasn’t prepared for the previous one). The food was amazing, and I had a lot of treats.
• We visited dear friends in Dublin for Thanksgiving. It was so good to see Rose, Steve, and their new family member Evie. I got a cold that got in my sinuses which wasn’t fun, but I managed to rally for the second half of the trip. We hadn’t seen them since 2017, and I’ve missed them.
• My mom and stepdad visited us for Christmas! I wish they could have stayed longer as it went by too quickly. Calico loved having them here. I was frustrated as I hit some health bumps, which took time away from everything (trying to be kind to myself as it happens).
• I turned 41 years old with my lovely family!

The Challenges!

Health
As mentioned above, Lindsey has struggled for most of 2022 with post-miscarriage health issues. We think we are on a good path now and will know more soon (stress is lower). I was doing well health-wise, but December has been a mess. I think I am just exhausted at this point. I finally went to the hospital last week to get checked out (I was worried it might be Chron’s). They said everything looked good, and I most likely had really bad food poisoning and need to rest. I hope to be back at 100% soon.

Calico knocked a tooth out…
Calico started 2022 by knocking out a tooth at the playground. He handled it well, as it was pretty intense. He fell on a climbing structure, and it perfectly knocked out one tooth. Luckily the root and everything else were fine.

Energy
I ran into a wall several times this year. Between the miscarriage, travel, and work intensity, my energy management didn’t go well. It was a good learning experience; and I am sure I will do better in 2023. Running your own business is always hard, and the starting phase 100x harder than any other.

How did I do on my goals for 2022?

Fantastic on two out of three!

1. Shepherd is doing fantastic and growing like a weed. I’ll do a separate post with more details. We didn’t quite exit beta, but that is coming toward Feb/Mar. I am having so much fun with it 🙂.
2. We had a ton of adventures in Europe! And I managed one short bike tour and one long one.
3. I didn’t do well on energy, and I am paying for that now (and during the year). Lindsey and I probably need a real vacation where we go to a beach or mountain cabin and do nothing but rest (I’d love to find one with childcare/activities).

2023…

I am super excited about 2023! I have big plans for Shepherd! I am most excited about shipping genres and age groups soon. I’ve wanted that since the start, and we are finally in a place to do that (starting work next week and should have it ready to show by late March).

We will figure out where our more permanent home will be. Calico starts schooling in September, and we want to find a home for our family. We are feeling some stress over this decision (I especially don’t like being in limbo).

Longer 2023 post coming soon…

I spent 10 am to 5 pm on Thursday at a local Portuguese Hospital. It was weirdly a good experience and further cemented my opinion of how bad the American health care system is.

I’ve been having a weird fluttering feeling a few inches below my waistband for about 5 days. It isn’t painful, more like a muscle twitch/spasm. I am pretty sure it started on Saturday with a little flutter for 5 seconds but I can’t really remember. I did a new workout on Monday and that could have pulled something, along with another new workout on Tuesday… but who knows. Anyway, it started lasting longer and I was worried it was Crohn’s disease-related. I haven’t gotten an inflammation test since I was in the USA in late 2019 (with covid I decided I should just avoid the doctor for a while).

My anxiety was so high at that point I needed to go and try to get some answers and make sure it wasn’t serious. So I went to the emergency room as the first appointment I could get with a local gastroenterologist was July 1st (beats back home where the doctor is booked for a full 6 months and I have to ask him to squeeze me in somewhere…). And, Lindsey came with me to help, her Portuguese is much better than the two words I know.

I think we waited 5 minutes to see a doctor in the emergency room, he admitted me to get some tests to see what was going on. I think we waited another 20 minutes and saw the 2nd doctor. We talked to him for a while and he ordered some tests to look at inflammation and some other metrics. It was really nice as he actually talked to me and it was the 2nd longest I’ve ever gotten to talk to a doctor (the other being in Croatia). He wasn’t in a rush to get me out like every American doctor I’ve been to. Then I waited and got two vials of blood pulled, some urine, and then I waited for test results. It took a few hours and everything looked good, but he ordered a 2nd batch of tests as he had an idea it might be a microscopic kidney stone maybe. So I then got an x-ray and ultrasound. All done very promptly and efficiently… it was kinda amazing. Then I stayed there to wait for all the results (I read some really good books which was nice). Everything looks good and they made me a follow-up appointment for mid-June.

The cost? 40 Euros… and health insurance for my entire family in Portugal is around 175 euros a month. My guess is in the United States I would be looking at a bill between $900 to $2,500 dollars to me, plus paying $1,400 a month for shitty insurance that covers nothing before a $6,000 dollar individual detectable.

Friday I had more fluttering, but after Saturday it went away. My guess is a weird muscle pull given how many lunges and side lunges I did but who knows.

For 2017, I did a total of ~363 hours of tracked workouts. I worked out 265 days out of 365 days in some form. This was a good year for working out and I smashed my old record of 181 days. Having a baby helped as I walk him everywhere in his stroller and in Boulder that is a lot of hills :).

Fun stats:

I hiked/walked ~741 miles this year in ~264 hours (even better than 2015 when I walked Hadrian’s Wall).

I ascended 71,506 feet while walking/hiking.

I did ~68 strength training / rehab sessions. My back is feeling so much better!

What are my workout goals for 2018?

1. Go mountain biking a lot and see how I like it. I would like to find a sport to replace running.

2. Finish my 50km bike training program and keep that going. Then look at doing a long bike ride in Europe or the USA… maybe the Danube trail or Silver Route in the fall.

3. Keep doing my strength training/rehab 3x a week to keep my back injury healthy and get stronger to prevent future injury. Especially if I keep falling off my bike.

Past years: 2014, 2015, and 2016 workout summary.

2014 has been a very interesting year… It was one of the most stressful/traumatic years of my life combined with one of the absolute best years of my life.

The Amazing!
I came home for a big college reunion ultimate tournament in October 2013 and met up with an old friend and everything just clicked. She ended up visiting me in Scotland in December and we’ve been together ever since :). We got engaged in October and married on December 21st :). I am incredibly happy and excited to have her in my life!

What other fun stuff did I do this year?
– Lindsey and I went on an amazing trip to Spain & Portugal in late spring. It was a great break and nice to have some time off. We also had a great trip out to California in the Fall. And, one to New Mexico in March that was fun (although I got a bad sinus infection and was conked out for most of it).
– I did a 30 day challenge to live as if I was only making $12 dollars an hour. It was a good experience and you can read more of my thoughts on it above.
– I had a fantastic time at work meetups in Prague, Scotland, Vegas, and Texas. I had such a blast visiting with everyone.
– I said goodbye to all my paper books which was tough, but it feels good to not cart those around.
– I learned so much this year about myself and so many other things. One nice things about big challenges is that you learn at a very accelerated rate. I was very fortuntuate that a friend referred me to Vistage as it has been a huge help, and I recommend it to any CEO/BizOwners.

The Challenges!
This year had also had some big challenges.

Health:
Health problems suck, I hate being limited in what I can do physically, or if anything makes me feel tired and slow. This year has been a doozy in that regard… Short summary: in April I started having some pain in my stomach area, along with being very tired. After many specialists and tests I was told it was either cancer, tumors, or possibly crohn’s disease (not fun to hear). After a bunch more tests I got surgery in late August to get a biopsy. The good news is it isn’t cancer (always nice to hear after such a stressful period). The bad news is the doctors think it is crohn’s disease or possibly IBUprofen damage. I recovered pretty quickly from the surgery and felt a lot better since they removed twelve inches of my small intestine that was inflamed. Unfortunately, I started having some symptoms in early December and tests backed up that I still have some problems. So, I am still working on figuring it out :) . The doctors think it is crohn’s disease which seems to be a pretty made up diagnosis for something they don’t know much about, and they want to start jamming a load of pills down me. I’ve started the paleo autoimmune protocol eating plan, as a lot of people have had great success with it. It’s tough but hopefully over the next 6 months it helps me heal naturally. And I’ve got an appointment with a doctor in a few weeks to learn more about how I can help the pharmaceutical industry financially… This health issue has taken so much time and energy this year.

Sports Injury:
In June, I finally got a proper diagnoses of a sport injury I’ve had for 2.5 years. It turns out I had a torn disc… and I’ve been working to rehab the muscles around it + give it time to heal. I haven’t been able to do anything but walk and a few other things. It was very difficult to eliminate running from my life as it is a major stress reliever. I’ve slowly found some new things, and I am now doing a Yoga more, and a lot of walking & stationary biking. I’ll get a read on how it is healing in a week or so from the MRI results.

Life:
This year has been a very tough year personally and professional. It has brought a lot of challenges, I am hopeful it will improve in 2015.

I pushed way too hard this year when so much other stuff was going on. I moved three times, got engaged, got married, traveled for work or pleasure for at least three months total this year, and many other things. Next time I will be better about cutting out the superfluous stuff to give myself time to breath when having such a challenging year. Live and learn :) !

Overall…
I am very ready for 2015, and glad that I am alive and surviving!

Then flourish.

This might be one of the most interesting year’s of my life :). An amazing amount of awesome, some rough, and a lot of challenging. So a little dance for still being alive:

I’ve been dealing with some unknown health issues since late May. And, at this point I am really hoping there is a parasite clinging to my small intestine :). I should find out in the next couple weeks, and if not that I’ll have to get a fun little biopsy to nail down the problem. Not knowing what is wrong is the worst part of having something wrong :).

On the way home from a doctor appointment today a vulture/buzzard landed on the roof of a nearby building as I waited on a light, and I almost ran into a pink hearse sitting in the front of a church. Hopefully I don’t see The Grim soon :). Hilarious drive home!!!

Great news! The health care bill passes! Although trying to get a copy or real summary to see the changes.

Hopefully this brings some real change to the industry! One of our companies just got hit with 20% to 30% raises on rates this year, and they also had the audacity to tell us the insurance company says they are working hard to sell us on what they call “educating” consumers to buy plans with higher deductibles and so on (ie make more money). I don’t blame them as they are businesses, which is why the government needs to run their own health care, health care needs to be a right or it will continue to hurt our nation and our economic growth. My personal health care rates increased about 20% this year and I have a pretty low end plan meant for emergencies.

The functionally idiotic people of the USA have joined together and decided that Obama is a number of things, and as always I am amazed at how awesome Obama is to have mastered so many ideologues. Truly the man, nah the second son of Christ is a genius! I hope the liberal third reich arrives soon so that I can sacrifice small children to my new overlords.

What is wrong with these people? When did Republican start meaning crazy? When will the normal republican people start distancing themselves from these crazies? I would never want to be called a democrat, and that is like 10x better than what the republican party has become. Where are the logical people who want smaller government, to balance our budget, and who can focus on real issues? Instead we get stupid people who think Obama is not a citizen, disrespect him during his speeches, and think that he is a secret muslim/socialist/nazi. This shit weakens our country and makes Canada look like a good place to live (just kidding Canada).

Man I am so tired of hearing this bullshit, it sounds like Obama is being forced to drop the government health care plan and that fucking sucks. Health care is a right not something to make a profit off of. If there is any reason why our country is entering a decline and eventual demise it is because of the right wing’s ability to spread disinformation and not to enter any debate with facts. Who the hell wants to kill old people? Nobody, but if you can extend someone’s life by a week yet that procedure and similar are costing everyone in the country 40% than fuck old people, they can pay for that out of their pockets. I’m all for denying reality (friends will attest) but death is not something to be afraid of, and I’m tired of the right / christian right thinking you have to keep people alive no matter what. It is such a deeply ethical and personal question but as a society its going to come down to cost, insurance companies right now screw you so how the hell can the government do once. Not a glowing endorsement but I trust our government a lot more than private insurance companies who screw everyone I know over pricing and options.

As a small business owner whose team works remote it is ridiculous to think American can compete with the Aussies/NZ/UK/Rest of the world if we don’t provide health care to our citizens, espicially when our health care industry is 100% profit driven. I can hire quality people in Aussie and Europe and don’t have to worry about paying for their health care because it’s bundled into taxes. America still has the biggest pool of quality labor but that is going to change as salaries have to compensate for health care that is going through the roof. Eventually it will make more sense for us to higher a full time doctor than buy health care (half kidding).

On a personal level I see my dad screwed by the lack of affordable health care in that he can’t retire until he can get on a government plan at X age. And I personally have been at the hospital, asked how much something was by someone who does that procedure 20x times a day, and been told he has no idea as they outsource pricing. Crazy? Yes that is crazy. If you hook up someone to check their heart you should know what it costs for everyone. Instead some other agency checks your background and insurance and makes up some price.