Arrived in Cologne today. The flight was great, though business class probably had something to do with that. I typically fly coach, but for work trips with flight segments over 7 hours, business class is acceptable. I flew Northwest Airlines this time. The seats were amazing. The automatic adjustment controls let you get the perfect fit dialed in. To sleep, the seats reclines to practically horizontal. Other nice-ities included super-high quality headphones, personal media centers for in flight music and movies, and high quality food and snacks (including alcohol if you are into that sort of thing).

Despite the comforts, I didn’t sleep more than an hour on the flight. With the +9hr time difference from Seattle, I took off at 1pm and landed in Cologne at 11am. I was really tired when I landed (having been up almost all night by Seattle standards) but was determined to beat jet lag.

I immediately put on my running shoes and proceeded to get lost in Cologne. I love touring a city by running around. In this case, I wasn’t paying attention and ended up getting a bit turned around. In the end, with the city bordering the Rhine River and some large landmarks (like the DOM) it was hard to get too lost. I hit the weight room at the hotel and then showered…feeling wide awake again.

The city itself is really beautiful, with the Rhine waterfront promenade and the Dom Cathedral and the center-points. There is also some great shopping to be had (again…if you are into that sorta thing). There also seem to be more restaurants per capta here than anywhere else on the planet, each with copious outdoor seating.

In the afternoon, the city was surprisingly quite for a Saturday. I was really wondering if there was some concert or event that had occupied everyone’s attention. Maybe David Hassellhoff was in town?

Later in the evening I realized that people just tend to go out much later than in America. At 7pm, things were pretty quiet and empty. By 10pm, there were tons of people out everywhere.

For whatever reason, Cologne seems to be bachelor and bachelor-ette party-central. While enjoying my dinner at a table outside on one of the main thoroughfares, I saw no fewer than 20 bachelor and 20 bachellor-ette parties walk by. They are hard to miss. The men/women are all dressed in uniform,walking around in packs, making a raucous and forcing the groom/bride to-be to do all sorts of embarrassing stuff.

It’s now midnight Cologne time (9am Seattle time, up >24 hours right now) and I am ready for bed. Tomorrow, I plan to get to Dusseldorf or take a boat trip down the Rhine to Mainz. Gonna soak up the view from my hotel (see pic above!) for a little while longer and hit the sack any minute.

-Auf Weidersehen!

I’m off to Germany tomorrow for the next 9 days. This was really a last minute thing. We’re doing research over there (yes, this is a work trip)….and I was asked to go. Can’t say I have an issue with it!

A few years ago, I went to Munich and traveled a bit around Bavaria. It was absolutely beautiful.

This time, I’ll be staying in Cologne. Hope to take a boat tour down the Rhine, spend some time in the countryside (this is castle country!) and spend some time exploring the city by bike and foot.

If you have any ideas of things to do over there….let me know!

Our emotional states are the result of routines that we run consciously or subconsciously.

Think of 3-4 negative emotions that you feel on a regular basis. Now for each, write down the exact things you do right before you feel that emotion. See a pattern?

Now think of 3-4 positive emotions that you feel on a regular basis. Again, write down the exact things you do to feel that way. See another pattern?

These things you do could relate to your physiology, your language (self-talk) or your mental focus and thoughts.

We run the same routines over and over and get the same results. If you want a better result, change up your routine.

It’s going on this weekend. Check out the live coverage.

It’s the premier event in the world of long distance running. It’s one of the oldest ultras’s in the world and perhaps the most challenging 100 miler around. The Run is conducted along the Western States Trail starting at Squaw Valley, California, and ending in Auburn, California.

As if running 100 miles downhill wouldn’t be difficult enough, the Western States course features over 15,000 of climbing and 20,000 of downhill…all on gnarly trails.

Scott Jurek, local Seattle-ite (and Vegan!) was a seven-time winner. He’s not racing this year.

If your legs work. Take the stairs.

I’m amazed at how many folks in my building take the elevator. My building only has 4 floors to begin with.

The fit folks tends to take the stairs. The ones who need the exercise the most (but are completely capable of stairs) don’t.

We sit around at enough at the office, take advantage of any opportunity to get the blood flowing.

A great post by Scott Adams. My writing skills are marginally above average. My humor skills are woefully below average. Reading his blog on a regular basis is a great way to learn from osmosis.

…or at least it is to me. Also the most expensive I’ve ever had, at $50; but gosh…it is really really good.

Visit Seven…it will definitely improve your score.

It was a lot of fun. Definitely glad I decided to mix things up for a day and check out Red Rocks. Also managed to learn something this time around (how to play Craps).

Pics here.

The sea of poker tables are from the World Series, which was going on at the Rio. My friend was playing in it. Note to self: Never. Never ever….sign up to play in the World Series of Poker. There are only a few things I would ever want to do in a room for 3 days straight, and poker isn’t one of them.

Went hiking to the top of Tiger Mountain today, about 15 miles east of Seattle. It was a good 5 mile round trip hike, with a steady climb on the way up.  The rain held off and we were greeted with a nice view of the mountains and The Sound from the top.

 Photos here.

I started this mission as a 30 day challenge. Through day 20, I followed the protocol. Then, things got very busy for me at work, and I did not have the time to even get in the gym for 30 minutes twice a week. I did my last real weight workout 20 days into the mission, and did another (abbreviated) workout 24 days in.

That said, I did continue to monitor my bodyweight and body-fat, and made a conscious effort to eat more high quality food even when I wasn’t working out. In a way, the last 10 days of this experiment were really about just letting my body recover completely and seeing how that would impact my stats.

In my last post, I did a recap of the strength gains I saw after 20 days on the program:

“So in 20 days, I’ve managed to INCREASE my Squat by +26%, Chest Press +10% with +3 added reps, Chest Fly +11%, Pullover +30% (with 1 less rep) and Leg Press +12% with 1 fewer rep.”

Throughout the month of May, I’ve seen my bodyweight and body-fat fluctuate a bit. I didn’t see much change during the middle of the month, but saw quite a lot of progress during the end of the month. What change did I make during the end of the month?

Quite simply, during the end of the month, I ate more <high quality food> and trained less <in fact, I didn’t do any significant weight training during the last 10 days>. While from a psychological standpoint I felt like I was getting slightly weaker, the stats showed that I was indeed getting stronger.

The net results showed that I had lost 3 pounds of body-fat and gained >5 pounds of muscle in a single month. <see chart above>

This is a big insight for me, that my body needs time and lots of rest to gain muscle mass.

I am going to keep up the High-Intensity training protocol for another month, but cut back my training to once a week and see what happens.