Advice for parents of grown up children

These words/thoughts/insights resonated with me.  They were comments from a NYTimes article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/28/booming/when-theyre-grown-the-real-pain-begins.html?src=me&ref=general&_r=0

• "Never want more for your children than they want for themselves"
• "Listen to their problems and sympathize with them"  try not to solve their problems for them unless asked.
• Try to not let their problems become your problems, otherwise they won't want to tell you about their problems for fearing it would become your problems.
• “Don’t hope for anything.”
•  "keep your mouth shut and your arms open"

SF Half Marathon

Ran in the 2012 SF Marathon - but only the 1st half marathon.  Finished in 2h01m10s.  Better than I expected going into the race, since I haven't been running much.  But not as good as I wanted to run.  I wanted to break 2hours.  The golden gate bridge portion of the race slowed me down too much.  It was too crowded, and I was dodging people left and right trying to go by.  The adrenaline from racing and the motrin before the race seemed to help a lot, since I was not feeling that much pain in my foot or knees.
I may have to try running in a half marathon event, rather than by myself to see how I would do.

It's alive!

My little brush with ED is now over.  Everything is back to normal working condition.  It probably was the cycling that did it.  All I did in the past month was cut out all the long (2+ hours) bike rides.  I still ride my bike to work, play tennis, run, walk, hike, swim.  About a week ago, everything was back to normal.  I am relieved that this was just a brush with ED and nothing more.  Hopefully I won't have to deal with this for a long time.

ED2

This is a follow-up on my post on June 4th.
Two weeks have past since I became concerned about my state of being (ED).  Not much have changed, I'm not cycling except for a couple of commutes to work.  I jokingly describe my situation as like a bicycle tire with a fast leak, you can pump it up, and the tire will stay in riding condition for about 10 minutes, so if you want to use it, you need to pump up the tire, and ride hard and fast to get to where you're going.  Yesterday (6/17) was the first time in the last two weeks, where I don't feel as if I'm losing "air" quickly.  Although I'm still not as sensitive and as easily aroused as before.  I'm still remarkably calm about this situation considering that I LOVE sex.  Still have not felt compelled to use the Viagra sample that I was given two weeks ago. Will continue to monitor the situation, and update if anything pops up. 

ED

This Saturday (June 2, 2012) is the first time I can remember where "morning wood" did not happened.  If it did happen before it was never a concern.  It was noticeable now, because I've notice that I'm not as hard as I used to be.  If my "tire" pressure was supposed to be at 35psi, it has been at around 32psi for the last year or so, and last week it felt like it was at 25psi or something.
I'm alarmed about this development, but I'm not freaking out about it YET.  I'm thinking this is probably due to the heavy cycling that I've been doing in 2012 (I've put in almost 500 miles in the last 5 months, having not done too much cycling before that).  This means that I will lay off the cycling for now, except for the short bike ride to work (20 minutes each way), and monitor the situation.
Surprisingly, I'm not as freaked out as I thought I might be. This is probably because I think that this is a temporary condition.  If this situation doesn't resolve itself in a month, I won't be laughing about it then.  I'm also surprised that I shared this information with my friends pretty easily, no embarrassment or shame or anything.  We'll have to see where this takes us.

Another 50 miles bike ride

On May 5th 2012 I managed to go for a 50 miles bike ride.  It took about 4hrs30min.
Also rode to the Oakland Coliseum for a baseball game on 4/25.  19 miles each way.  Riding uphill is very hard, have to build up power and stamina for these rides.

Grand Canyon

My wife and I went to the Grand Canyon during spring break, without the kids.  They didn't like the idea of hiking it too much.  We went with the idea of hiking from the South rim down to the river and back in the same day.  While people do it all the time, the grand canyon website is very adamant that visitors should not attempt to hike from rim to river and back in the same day.  After doing it, I can see why they would say that.  The day of the hike (4/10/12) the weather was great.  We started at the Bright Angel Trail at 6:15am.  The temperature was in the 40s.  We got down to the river by 10:15am, at that it feels like it probably was in the 70s.  We were feeling pretty good, and felt this hike might not be as difficult as we had anticipated.  The hike is about 8 miles each way.  We started back up at around 11am.  By 12:30pm we were back at Indian Gardens, (4.6 miles from the rim).  We were still feeling great, but the temperature has now gone up to about 95F.  The last 4.6 miles up to the rim took 3 hours and 15 minutes.  We used up about 1.5 liter of water each on that last stretch. The heat and the 11 miles of hiking finally took it's toll on us.  We made it back to the rim, and did pretty good.  But had it been a much hotter day, (it routinely gets over 100F in the summer), we would not done nearly as well.
In any case, the Grand Canyon was GRAND and beautiful!  Well worth the hike.  We plan to do this hike again someday, but this time down the South Kaibab trail and up the Bright Angel trail.

more goals completed

1. finally did 80 push-ups in 2 minutes. needed every seconds of those two minutes to complete task, but got it done. now I will work to be able to 100 continuous push-ups

2. rode my second 50 miles bike ride ever, the first one this year. this was fun, much better than the first one I did, I took about 5 hours to it though. I will try to do 1 50 miles bike ride in 4 hours or less.

13 miles under 2 hours

1st goal of the year checked off.
Went for a run on Saturday 1/18/2012, intended to run the 13 miles, hopeful that I would feel good enough to do it. The weather was perfect for running, a sunny low 50s morning.
3 miles - 25:43 m:s
6.5 miles - 56:20
10 miles - 1:28:20
13.0 miles - 1:58:51
still in pain on Sunday. Feet, knees and thighs are all sore, will try to do some moderate cycling to stretch out the legs.

six-pack challenge follow up

By the end of the year, I got my weight down to 115 lbs (normally 118), and my body fat % down to 11% (normally 12.5%). Alas, I only got a 4-pack, rather than the 6-pack I was trying for. The top four showed up easy enough, but the bottom 2 were hardly visible. Neither I nor my wife won the challenge. We both agreed to extend the challenge date until end of June 2012.

2012 Goals

Health/Personal -

1. 1000 miles on bicycles, 350 miles on foot (only 20 and 7 miles a week respectively) in 2012
2. run 1 half-marathon in 2 hours or less
3. do 1 50 miles bike ride
4. complete 2 of the 4 army ranger's physical requirements: 80 push-ups in 2 minutes, 80 sit-ups in 2 minutes, 12+ pull-ups, 2 miles in 13 minutes (currently can only do the 12+ pull-ups)
5. body fat at 10% as measure by my scale (currently at 12%)

Wealth - to increase net worth by $100K. This can be accomplish by investment gains, increased savings or debts reductions.

Skills/Knowledge - learn two cooking techniques from this list: stir-frying, braising, soup, sauteing, sauce

Reading - to read 10 books.

I can't think of anything more substantial at this point. So this will be the list for 2012. We'll revisit this list occasionally during the year to track progress.

Thang

2011 Year in Review

Work - no changes, still employed

Kids - no changes, 3 kids, each growing older

Spouse - no changes, 1 wife, growing older

Travel - NYC in spring

Health - body fat % is now in the 10%-12% range, slightly lower than last year

- cycling more this year than in the past

- slightly more muscular than in the past

- endurance is not any better

- better effort to exercise than in the past

Wealth - not much changed, more savings, but lower real estate holdings value

Knowledge - not anymore smarter/wiser/knowledgeable/skillful than last year (maybe a little more competent in the kitchen)

Friends - have not gained nor lost any friends this year.