Erik’s Blog: Board Shorts and Business Suits

Did you know that in 2004 there were 8.2 million households in the US that had a net worth of a million dollars or more excluding their primary residence? Well neither did I. But msn.com knew. 8.2 million households. If we figure that each household has two income earners that means there are now 4.1 million people equivalents that are millionaires. That comes out to an average of 82,000 per state. This means the chances are good that you will drive past or walk past a millionaire (or millionaire couple) every couple of weeks if not days. Chances are probably good that you already know a millionaire.

So I bet you’re thinking to yourself, if there are that many people out there that are millionaires why aren’t I? Well I have been asking myself that question for the past couple of years. When I was a freshman in college I stated the goal that I would become a millionaire by the time I was 27. Well I have now just turned 24 and I am in debt. Big time. Approximately $90,000 in debt. $88K of which is due to undergraduate student loans and $2K of which is due to credit card debt. The circumstances are too long winded to discuss how I got myself into such debt as an undergraduate but it mainly deals with 4 things:

1. Not preparing enough to get scholarships (I come from a middle class Caucasian family, not too many scholarships out there for us)
2. Making the decision to go to an out-of-state college
3. Getting cancer
4. Not earning enough during school to help pay off loans

Let me first state that I wouldn’t complain about any of the decisions I made. I enjoy where I’m at, I am still with the reason I went out of state, and I have learned a lot from cancer.

Ideas that may work for you

Getting past that lets get down to how we are going to make a million dollars in three years. Since moving to Hawaii I have sold silver bars on eBay, I have resold surfboards, and I am currently starting web pages. Selling silver bars on eBay is a good racket if you have a good source for silver. If you can find a place where you can buy 1 oz silver bullion bars at $0.75 or less over spot (the current market price of silver) you can resell the bars on eBay for $1-$5 dollars over spot and then, as some do, even make money on the shipping and handling. Now if the market crashes in a two day time and you have a lot of silver on hand your SOL. However, look at the prices for that last 20 years, pretty steady with trends up and down. If you see it trending down and are worried, post a lot. If you don’t believe me go to eBay and check out the prices.

Next up is selling surfboards. I began buying surfboards because I saw a good deal one day on craigslist and decided I could try it for a week then sell it and make money. Turns out I made $100 on the first board I sold. Within three months I had bought, tried, and sold 15 boards and made $1200. Bad thing was people started catching on to craigslist and would sell them for a price where I could only net a $10-$30 profit. A lot of work for such a little profit. If you live in an area where people move in and out a lot I suggest finding a product that can only be used there, checking the classifieds, or craigslist, and buying and reselling. You sell in the same classifieds you bought from!

These are the only two businesses I have tried to start since moving to Hawaii. The bullion business slowed because I had no easy way of getting silver bars. The other, as explained.

These two businesses are great but they don’t accomplish one main thing. Earning passive income, letting my money work for me. When I was in college a roommate of mine told me of this book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I didn’t read it until this year and I had to kick myself at all the ideas I could have come up with in college to make money.

Within the book, Rich Dad Poor Dad the author Robert Kiyosaki explains how the rich have their money work for them while the poor work for their money. Interesting concept and it can be as simple as putting your money in a savings account. The way Robert Kiyosaki makes his money work for him is through real estate. He buys a house, apartment, or complex and then rents it out. This way someone else is paying his mortgage payments and possibly generating a small stream of cash while he waits for the property to increase in value. Even if it doesn’t increase he makes money from the principle payments every month.

Now this is no big secret, people have been making money off real estate for quite a while but it’s the idea behind the example. The author says his Rich Dad tells him to use his mind to make money then let the money make him money. (If you don’t have the book, get it. It’s cheap and a quick read. I have already bought a copy for my brother.)

How do you use your mind to make money? Simple you think of ideas. Just look around you at what you use every day. What could be improved? What could be easier to obtain? What service have you always wanted, chances are so does someone else.

How I’m going to make a million dollars

Although I don’t have the how down just yet I am much more motivated to get there after realizing I am just 3 years shy of my goal. My current venture is in designing web pages an finding a way to use them to make it for me. This has both aspects talked of in the Rich Dad, Poor Dad book. First off I will be using my mind to generate useful content and then having that useful content generate money for me. Did you know there are people out there making $5K to $10K a month just through advertising on their websites! I know this is not the case for everyone out there but why not me? I won’t know unless I try.

This whole idea behind generating income through a website is nothing new. I have actually tried before although it was furthest from a try. I started a website for about 10 days and had no useful content what-so-ever. Then for the past year I have been discussing with people the possibility of starting a few sites here and there but nothing came of it. Then my girlfriend and I were discussing a new site idea and the very next day one of my co-workers showed me a site called The Million Dollar Experiment. That was it, that night I signed with a hosting service and was on my way. Within a night I had a site up and running. I signed up through Netfirms who has a great service that generates web pages for you. It’s a blogging service called WordPress and is easier than ever to use.

So here it is, making a million dollars is added to the list. In the beginning I realize that things are going to be slow. The process of getting people to come to your site is tough and you need to be persistent with writing good useful content and getting your search rank up. Of course I am wondering are people going to want to read something about trying to become good a things, or everything for that matter. Won’t know unless I try. Stick with me as I try new things and learn the easiest ways to do this.

Week 1 of training for the 4 minute mile is in the books. It felt good to get back running. I am sticking to running around the Ala Wai right outside my place in Waikiki. Distance is 3.2 miles, a little longer on saturday.

Monday - 22:24
Tuesday - 22:36
Thursday - 24:14
Friday - 22:33
Saturday - 31:44

Played tennis on Wednesday, and also after my runs on Thursday and Friday. Ran a little longer on Saturday. I was up early to watch the University of Michigan football team suffer a sad, sad defeat to the unmentionable team. Drank a few pitchers with some friends (I don’t recommend beer at 8 am) came home for a nap then did a little running.

Gonna try and keep the running up this week. Working towards another 4 or 5 days of training. We’ll see how it goes.

It all started with someone I first knew as Tennis Star. My current girlfriend, not sure how she put up with me this long. I met her while in high school. She had just become state champ in Tennis and I had just become infatuated with a picture of her showing off her legs on the champions podium. Lucky for me, she was in one of my classes. She was shy, I was outgoing, so I needed a way to strike up a conversation with

her. Naturally I would boost my standing with her by congratulating, and calling her Tennis Star, every class period I would try to meet up with her afterwards and discuss her game. I knew nothing about tennis so I usually just ended up calling her Tennis Star and asking her how her day was.

One thing led to another, and six years later here we are living in Hawaii together. And six years later I am still bad at tennis.

My game started when I was young. I took a racket to the park, hit against a giant green board and then over it and then broke the racket. Didn’t like it cause I wasn’t any good at it. Since then I have played in gym class and maybe 30 times since I have been with Kimberly (girlfriend). I have gotten lessons here and there from her. Her father has showed me a thing or two, but nothing too extensive. I can hit the ball, put ok spin on it sometimes, and get it in maybe 50% of the time. I tend to hit long a lot, have not much of a backhand although I did start with a one handed, and can’t serve worth a darn. Which I am told is odd since I played quarterback and it’s “Just the same thing.” Yeah right, I say to that.

With that said I feel like I really need to become good at tennis. I have a girlfriend who would really enjoy it if I could rally and serve some games with her, plus its a sport you can play until you croak.

Her and I decided that trying to become a 4.5 tennis player was a reasonable goal. A 4.5 tennis player as told by a document at StateGames.org is:

4.5 = Someone who has begun to master the use of power and spins and is beginning to handle pace, has sound footwork, can control depth of shots, and is beginning to vary tactics according to opponents. This player can hit first serves with power accuracy and place the second serve and is able to rush the net successfully.

There you have the goal is added to the list, and has a completion time of six years. By the time I am 30 I will have become a 4.5 tennis player.

How I plan on doing this
I am going to focus on technique. Through what experience I have had playing tennis, and the massive amounts of tennis that I have watched it seems a lot like golf. Like in golf there are a million ways one can approach hitting a ball. So long as you get the club face around to square it shouldn’t matter the how.

However to become consistent you must practice the same technique over and over again. Thousands of people have played both golf and tennis and they both have only a few ways that people teach consistently. This is because people have figured out the easiest most consistent way to repetitively hit these balls.

I am going to stick with what has worked for my girlfriend and learn from her.

First Lesson

First lesson is to have key elements of each shot and make a list of them. Then write these down on a note card and keep them with you when you play tennis. For instance, today Kimberly’s father was in town and I had him give a few pointers on serving. He said a couple of key things to start out with. Like the serve is more of a push of the ball then follow through, not a swat or a wrist turn to add spin. Also keeping the head up, and keeping the shoulder closed until you are ready to make contact with the ball. Therefore the first card would look like this.

Serving

As you figure out more on your own and as you hear and learn more tips you can add, subtract and reorganize your card. Rewriting will also help you learn better.

That’s enough for lesson one. We will expand on this with the next posting, and really narrow down a method for completing the serve.

Acer XP Professional Golf Clubs

I just recently bought the Acer XP Professional Reduced Offset Golf clubs and in the process couldn’t find a very good review on them. Everything seemed generic and didn’t really help. I also wanted to know what the difference between reduced offset and progressive offset clubs and how it helped or hindered my game. Therefore I thought I would write my own review of these clubs.

Progressive Offset vs. Reduced or No Offset
First off let me say that I was originally using Ping Zing 2 knock offs called Z Model II. I got these clubs from a friend about 8 years ago and have been using them since. These clubs have what is called a progressive offset. This means that the point where the shaft and the club head meet becomes further and further set apart as the club number decreases. Therefore if you were a righty and were to address the ball with your club one would think the head and shaft would form a straight line down to the blade of the club (bottom of the face). But if you look at most clubs today the head (for a righty) is shifted to the right. There is a little bit of a bend in the club at the base giving it some offset from the club shaft.

This is supposed to help correct the most common mistake in golf which is the slice. The idea is that the club shaft and thus your hands are out ahead of the club-face and thus allows you more time to bring the club-face around to square. When the club-face is late in the swing most of the time it will keep the club face open (think of a forward slash as an open face with the o the ball like this, o/ .) This puts that spin on the ball creating the slice, and which is fixed if you have more time to bring the club-face around.

Take a look at some tour clubs also known as blades and compare them to yours. The tour clubs are straight from shaft to blade of the face.

Now having offset has its drawbacks. For one thing you loose feel. Now I suppose if you were to begin with offset clubs you could learn feel with these but I imagine that your swing would be tougher to master. Reason being because in order to move the golf ball deliberately your swing would have to be that much more out-of-whack from a good mechanical swing. You be the judge on that. Also these clubs make you loose distance in you golf shot. This I would imagine is because of the launch angle being different and club head speed being slower in the further back position. You’ve already begun your follow through while the club head is just reaching the ball.

Why I choose the Acer XP Professional Golf Clubs

Well, after not finding any reviews on the Acer XP Professional golf clubs I decided to go with them anyway. I was sitting on the fence for about 2 months using my Z Model II Ping Zing 2 knock-offs and heard the words that brought me to the other side. “I feel like I loose the feel of the shot with offset clubs.” With that a light bulb went off, baseball bats don’t have offset, tennis rackets don’t have offset, why should a golf club?

I had been playing golf off and on for a while and never quite felt like my arms were part of the club during the swing. I couldn’t feel that connection with the ball. I figured it was a good enough story for me to give them a try.

Review of the Acer XP Professional Reduced Offset Clubs

The Acer XP Pro golf clubs have a reduced offset that starts at half of regular progressive offset clubs, 3mm for the 3 through 7 irons, and goes down to 2 mm for the 8 and 9, then 1 mm for the PW and AW, with 0.5 mm for the SW. The clubs also have a cavity back which offers forgiveness for shots that are not struck on the center of the club-face. The cavity back distributes the weight to the edges so the club doesn’t twist and cause as errant shots.

From the start I could feel a difference in the two clubs. With my Z Model II’s I always felt like I was hacking at the ball and never really new where the ball was going to go. With the Acer XP’s it’s different. I imagine that it has a large part to do with the reduced offset. When I screw up a shot I can have a feel what the ball already did before I look up. This helps a lot with shot diagnosis.

When you make the change between offset and reduced offset you will also need to change some of your swing mechanics. Right now I am working on becoming a scratch golfer and using a very helpful book called Swing Machine Golf. One of the main things outlined in the book that I have found to help with making the switch is to initiate the downswing with your hips. You can do this by either straightening your left leg (right if you’re a lefty) or by just turning your hips. Along with this though you must also remember to keep your grip loose and bring your wrists through the shot.

I have found this method very effective at overcoming the slice that was supposed to be brought on by reduced offset clubs. This has also made me work on a much sounder golf swing.

The last thing that I noticed specifically with these clubs is the swing weight. By swing weight I mean the weight that it feels like you are swinging. Even though the Acer XP Professionals are just a few grams heavier they weight distribution feels remarkably different. Although this may not be the case for everyone I feel like it helps smooth out my swing and get a whoosh, rather than a clunk. Now this could be just switching to newer clubs and newer technology but the difference was noticeable.

All in all I would recommend these clubs to anyone who wants to begin the transition from progressive offset clubs to blades. The reduced offset gave me extra feel on all clubs especially the 3, 4, and 5-irons and have given me just another reason to get out and golf more.

To those of you using both Google Adsense and Chitika. I just wanted to mention that I tried the plugin Adsense-Deluxe with chitika and it worked! If you follow my suggestions for how to use the Adsense-Deluxe plugin as well as how to get text to wrap around the code you should be set and ready to go.

All you have to do is place the chitika code in the same place you put the AdSense code. Play around with it a bit and see what you come up with. I would also start the name for each of these ad blocks with chitika…

Another thing you will have to do is increase the maximum amount of ads that you can see per page. This is of course if you have more than 3 ads on any one page. I have also noticed that this plugin messes up sometimes. If your posts run on to another page and contain AdSense bringing the total to more than three then the ads will not show. Not sure if others had this problem. In either case if you can’t get more than 3 (three) ads per page in WordPress using AdSense-deluxe then follow these steps.

1. Go to WordPress and click the plugins tab
2. Next click the Plugins Editor Tab in the upper left corner
3. Next click on Adsense-Deluxe on the right under the Plugin Files
4. You must now edit the code. Don’t worry and think you will screw it up, it’s easy. First look for the line that says:

$MAX_ADS_PER_PAGE = 3; // MAX # of AdSense ads to allow on a given page

it should be about 40 lines down right below the first else statement you see and towards the middle of the page.

5. Now you have to change the max number of ads that Adsense Deluxe allows per page. I have changed mine to 7 so that I can have as many ads as I see fit. Just remember to read the Google Adsense TOS. They frown against spamming your ads all over the screen and say you should use only 3. Although I have seen pages with a lot more so if you know the story with this please let me know. Either way changing this also allows you to have 3 AdSense ads plus some chitika ads.

6. Now in the bottom right corner click update file.

You’re done. Now just follow the same steps that you already have for adding code and you can choose between Google AdSense and chitika. (If you need a refresher and AdSense-deluxe or on how to get the text to wrap go to my Using Google Adsense with WordPress page.

Pali Golf Course, Oahu, Hawaii - Rating 70.4, Slope 126 - November 11, 2005 - Conditions: Wet and Rainy

How to Read the scorecard:
Everything is pretty much self explanatory except the score. What I do is keep track of a few different things on my card so I know what I have to improve on and where I am doing things right. The first number in the upper left is fairways hit. This is any par 4 or 5 and gets a 1 if I hit the

fairway and a 0 if I don’t. On par 3’s this would be left blank. Next in the upper right is shots to get on. Then in the middle is the score. Finally in the lower right is the number of putts. (Note: If you add the two right scores you should end up with the middle score)

Well, what a nice round number to start with 100. Conditions at the Pali Golf Course were as usual, wet and raining or just rained. The Golf Course is located just over the Pali Hwy in the mountains on the Island of Oahu. The course was soaked but that is no excuse for a 100, although I am not too disappointed. I only hit 6 fairways, 2 greens in regulation, and had 2 pars. I also 3 putted 7 times and hit the ball out of bounds once. The course is fairly forgiving and I was able to find all but one of the errant balls.

The course layout is fairly hilly, however the hills are more gradual than choppy. I consider a “choppy hill” course to be one that you have to play a lot of lay-ups and hit over raveens. I would call this is a decent challange to work on your golf game. If you recall I am trying to become a scratch golfer and using Paul Wilson’s Swing Machine Golf. I will be explicity using the methods in this book for my swing mechanics and therefor will be providing tips and swing corrections (like a slice) based on this book.

Things to work on:

Takeaway - need to make sure I don’t move my lower body until the club is pointed straight back parallel to my shot line. Until this point only my shoulders must be taking the club back. If I don’t I find this causes me to reverse pivot which is using my left leg as the rotation axis where on the takeaway it should be my right. I should also be taking the club back with only my left arm, the right is just along for the ride.

Loose Grip - my grip tends to tighten down just before I reach the top of my back swing. This can cause all types of problems but for me on this day it was causing me to hit left a lot and pull the ball. In the book Swing Machine Golf Pual Wilson says to keep your grip a 2 out of 10 where 10 is the tightest. I must remember to stay loose.

There were of course other things but these were the most important. Stay loose and no reverse pivot. The picture on my first post shows a really bad reverse pivot. Check it out, it shows what not to do.

Until next time, work on your takeaway and be loose.

264 Unique Visitors and Counting
8 new Links and Counting
Numebr 7 Google Page Rank - keyword=good at everything

Congratulations those of you visiting the website. We have made it to 264 Unique visitors this week and we are not even 4 days into it. Also of note we made it onto Google’s Index and onto the first page of results for “good at everything”. So for those of you joining us from Google search. Welcome.

I have been busy sending out emails to friends and family members and including my web address within the closing or signiture. Make sure you’re doing this, it really helps. If you’re tracking your referring sites through your host or your counter service then pay attention to where you are getting these referrals from. If you are unable to track referring websites, ie where the visitor came from then I suggest swithcing to Netfirms as your hosting service. They track all this stuff and update many times an hour.

Lesson 2 - How to increase traffic and links the correct way

There are many ways to increase the amount of links you have to your site and thus increase the amount of traffic. For those who don’t know, increasing links is the best way to increase your google page rank. You need people to link to your site. This will in turn increase the traffic, then increase links, then increase traffic, and on and on and on and….

The way to do this I will be talking about today is by posting in forums and posting comments to others blogs. Now I am not suggesting spamming links. Spamming links, for those who don’t know, is when you just visit sites and forums and post your link with no valuable addition to the site or the content within. Google, the mother of all search engines, is said to be privy to this and will actually decrease your page rank. So I don’t suggest doing that here. They also count the content within the site you are linked from as part of their rank so it must be similar to your site or it will not effect your rank and could negatively effect your rank.

Instead what I am suggesting is doing something such as I have done. First off I have set a goal to get at least 1 link to my site a day for the next three weeks (added to the list.) To do this I decided I needed to either ask people with similar content pages to link to my site and likewise I would link to them, or to post in different forums and blogs with a link to one of my pages. What I am doing in several of these forums is asking people to become a part of my website by following my progress. I am asking them to become a fan of what I am doing. (See my section on accountability for examples of how this will help you. How to Become Good at Everything - Volume 1, Chapter 1

An example of one of my posts in these forums is at a running forum where I posted about my goal to run the 4 minute mile. Runners are notorious for encouraging everyone around them so I thought this would be a great place to start. I then included a link to my 4 minute mile category and asked them to comment there and keep track of my progress. I have been back several times to reply to posts at the forums and have seen a bit of traffic come to my site from these posts. I have also seen one new link from an outside website who came to my site through a forum post.

Try these methods out and let us know how you are doing. Tips are apreciated and can help everyone succeed at increasing traffic and help me to reach 500,000 visitors a month.

Lesson 1 - Accountability

How to become Accountable. Becoming accountable is the first step I have found you must take if you want to succeed at something. Making sure that you realize you are responsible for your actions will make you inherently want to better them. Take for instance working on a project at school or at work. When things are going right everyone wants to have a piece of the action. If your school project is on the right track you’ll tend to hear “Remember when I…” a lot. However if its headed in the dumper you’ll tend to hear “Remember when [insert name other than person saying this]…” The reason for this is no big secret and you can probably figure it out on your own.

We were born to succeed because if we didn’t we would die. At least this was true before civilizations came around. However the point remains the same. Most people want to be good at something eventhough a large majority won’t stick their necks out on the line to do it.

At work I tend to be a bit overkill in this arena and will take responsibility for others actions, even if I had only the tiny tiniest part in whatever happened. The reason for this is that I don’t think sitting around waiting for blame to be dealt is a good use of time. Realize what went wrong then figure out a solution. (Now I don’t mean to say that if anything goes wrong I am first to step up, even I know you must choose your battles wisely.)

How this applies to goal setting and accomplishment - If you become accountable for your goals it means someone else knows about them. I read a very good book about marketing and a huge portion was on letting people know your ideas and know your goals. The author says you should shout your goals and ideas from the rooftops, let everyone know. Most of the time people will over look what you say and carry on with what they are doing, but getting those few people to realize what your ideas are or what your goals are can be all the motivation you need to succeed. He mentions championing your ideas to succeed in business, I say champion whatever it is you are doing, and people will help you succeed in life.

The book I am referring to actually comes as two and both refer to this method. They are called Free Prize Inside and Purple Cow. Although they aren’t really goal setting oriented books, if you are at all interested in starting a business or marketing your ideas to higher ups at work, get these books. They will become invaluable as you start your career.

Now accountability can take on many forms. I am stating my goals and making myself accountable for completing them on this website. You may say the only thing I stand to inccur by not completing these goals is humiliation. This couldn’t be closer to the truth. However, I feel that this can be all the motivation someone needs if used correctly and hope to show you why. First thing is one must realize that you can become good at becoming accountable. If you just throw out goals and build yourself up only to laugh off when you don’t follow through, people may find you amusing. But it is in no way aiding you to accomplish anything. You must be sincere when becoming accountable.

By saying you are doing something and being sincere about it, others will pick up on it and try and help you reach your goals. Take for example my goal of running the 4 minute mile. I have become acustomed over the last year to starting to run for about 3 days within a weeks span. Only to not run for the next 3 to 4 weeks. Rinse. Repeat. The reasons for this are vast and probably to numerous to mention. But keeping with the theme of the example, sometimes it is because rather than going running I will stay out too late with friends, or consume too much fun juice and be too wiped out to do anything the next day. However, if I were to tell these friends over and over my goals, they would want me to get up the next morning to run, or not stay out as late so I can run. They will become part of the goal themselves and feel success when you accomplish it.

Why do you think there are sports fans?

How to get people to visit your website? Seems like a neat thing to learn?

I have been told of blogs that drive more than half a million visitors to read them every month. Half a million!!! This seems like a fun goal, and I would get to learn a lot in the process. So it is officially added to the list.

With this category of posts I hope to discover how to drive that many people to visit my website every month. This will be a huge learning experience since I have never really jumped into designing web pages to get visitors. It should be fun because as with most new things, I find that you tend to learn as you go and learn a lot.

My postings in this category will mainly be about the how I am doing it. How I am getting more and more people to visit every month. I am lucky enough to have a friend who has researched this topic extensively and knows a lot of resources on the web. I have posted his website before but here it is again, www.byintention.com.

How to do it

Task 1 - Setting up the Site
I have started the process by first signing up for a hosting service and registering a domain name or two. I was originally using GoDaddy but found that their hosting software was lacking to say the least. It was very confusing and if they had a content manager I couldn’t find it. So at my friends suggestion I switched to Netfirms and couldn’t be happier. They have a really easy startup thing/content manager (WordPress). It makes the site for you and you can hack up the code and design it from a base just as easy. Also they give you two free domain names, and 20 GB space with 750 GB transfer all for $9.95 a month.

Task 2 - Finding something you like to write about
Next thing is finding something you would like to write about and something people might like to read. I think the first part is much more important. Choose something you would like to write about on a weekly basis. This can be anything and can evolve and change with time. Something I like…? Setting goals, then starting them but not finishing. I love to get really hyped on one thing, jump in with both feet, only to be sidetracked by something else and repeat the process. There we go, I will write about how to become good at everything you try. From starting to finishing. The web log will be my way of holding myself accountable.

Task 3 - Set a goal
Set your goal as to how many people you want to visit each month. I have set my goal to get 500,000 people a month to visit my site within the next year. It may be a lofty goal but ya gotta aim high to succeed.

Task 3 - Getting people to visit
Getting people to visit. Well, this is what this category of blog entries will be mainly about. First way of getting people to visit, which I am currently employing, is to tell your friends about the site. I have now started to include my website address within all outgoing email. You can insert it easily within the signiture section of your options, most email systems have them.

Also tell everyone you talk to. Most people have cell phones and I know you are always on them so just add it in the conversation. I tend to be random at times so I’ll just add it in whenever. You could be strategic but I suggest the mass media approach. Tell them everytime you talk to them. If they like it they’ll go back. I have a friend, we’ll call him Chris, Christian for short. I told him about my website, and he is helping to critique it. These can be invaluable tips and also inspire you to get another topic to write about. (Thanks CG)

There you have it. The goal is set. I will offer many tips within this category of posts but also encourage you to do the same. Leave comments about how you got people to visit, helpful hints, etc. Don’t be bashful and don’t worry about not reaching your goal. Just shout it from the roof tops and try like heck to make it happen. Learn to make it happen.

Most sports fans have heard about it, runners definitely know about it, and all middle distance runners obsess about it. The four minute mile! That’s a shade over four laps around a standard track in four minutes. The current world record as I write this is 3:43:13 held by Hicham El Guerrouj. The first person to break the barrier, Sir Roger Bannister in 1954.

During the early half of last century it was commonly thought that the 4 minute mile was impossible. People went as far as saying that one would spontaneously combust if he got too close to the time. But as people began getting closer and closer more started to believe it would be conquered in their lifetime. Once Bannister broke the barrier more followed. Since then however only a few thousand have managed to surpass the 4 minute mark (numbers from an interview with Sebastian Coe, unsure as to their validity.)

One reason I am so obsessed with the mile is because as a sophomore in highschool with only a short season of training I was able to run a 4:22 1600 meter. Sure I trained and raced and played multiple sports, but I never focused on the goal of running a 4 minute mile. Although there have been personal and health reasons for this which I allude to later I still often wonder… Some questions I have had since I stopped is could I have ever broken the 4 minute mile barrier had I trained like an elite miler?, do I have the correct genetic make-up?, or can I will myself to run faster and faster? (Also, will the fact that I had heavy metals (chemotherapy) pumped through my blood have any negative effect? (I think Lance Armstrong has answered this) plug for being a cancer survivor)

Well, keeping with the theme of my web log, I figure, now is as good a time as ever to find out the answers to those questions. With my new found ambition to tackle this goal I hope to discover a method for traning for the mile while still keeping a normal balanced life. This means not only running the mile but also learning how to run a faster and faster time. In order to keep others updated as to my progress as well as keeping myself accountable I plan on posting my training log on a weekly basis to this category of my web log. I will give my weekly miles along with pace, route, and feel. I will also give some good running, mile training and various workout tips as I learn and remember them.

Now for some background on my short lived running career.

Highschool
Running the mile in under 4 minutes is something I have dreamed of since sophomore year in high school. I first really ran the mile in 8th grade breaking 6 minutes, which was decent at that age but no great shakes. I then took a year hiatus from running my freshmen year to begin working. I had just finished a season of football and basketball and decided I needed to put a little cash in my pocket.

Sophomore year was a different story, I finished out another season of both football and basketball and then began seeing a senior girl who ran track. I also had a few friends who ran that convinced me practice was a regular meat market. Plus the girls all wore next to nothing which meant at least I’d get some good scenary. So I decided to join and try to work at the same time.

My first couple of indoor meets were on the JV team and I did ok. My times were down in the mid to low 5 minute range and after a few meets I began winning races. During my last indoor meet I ran in a varsity race and I broke 5 minutes. Once outdoor came my coaches decided I was ready to move up to Varsity for good. I began running in more and more meets and doing better and better. My times came down and by mid season I was in the mid 4 minute time-range. Finally at regionals (like the playoffs in other sports) my coaches decided to enter me in the 1600.

I made it through regionals and on to sectionals where I had to face two guys who had posted 2 of the top 5 times in the state that year. Not expecting to make top 2 in the sectional thus making it on to state (finals), my coaches and I decided I would just hang on with these two guys and see how far I could make it. I really don’t care much for completely failing as long as I gave it my all.

Well, it turns out I made it all the way to the last 200 hanging on their tails and when we turned into the final straight I out-kicked one of these guys and finished second with a time of 4:22, second best time in the state. You would have thought I won state, it was an exciting race but I think I was on cloud nine.

At state the idea was the same. Just hang on and see how far I could go. Well I ran almost the same exact time as sectionals and finished 8th. That however was the first time I really thought I could be one of those few people to run the 4 minute mile.

College
Well fast forward through highschool where I only was able to improve my time to 4:21. During my first year of college I finally ran a full season of cross country (60-80 miles a week) and only improved my 1600 time that spring to 4:19 (converted from 1500) and got my 800 time down to 1:54. Then during my second year after the fall X-Country season I transfered schools to the University of Michigan. I had talked with the coach and was planning to walk-on the following year. However during my first week of summer break I was diagnosed with testicular cancer, had 2 surgeries, a couple rounds of Chemo-Therapy and a few bad incision infections. This put a damper on any plans to run that fall.

My incisions finally healed in December of my Junior year and I really didn’t have much zest to get back into running. I began to focus on college and a future in science.

Current
My current running career is basically non-existant, I run here and there but never really consistently follow through with a training schedule. I keep active by road biking, surfing, tennis, hiking, and anything else to keep me in motion but never really focus on running. However, I recently became inspired to possibly pursue this dream again by two things:

1. I recently watched a friend of mine win a $100 bet that he could run a mile in under 6 minutes. (Rock on Kevin)

2. I recently read the book The Perfect Mile (listened actually to the audio book) about the quest for the four minute mile and how Roger Bannister, John Landy, and Wes Santee were all running to beat the other guy to the finish line. The Perfect Mile is quite a remarkable book. My current review of the book is to say that for middle distance runners The Perfect Mile is more inspiring than Running With The Buffaloes, also a great running inspiration. For those running the 800 or 1600 The Perfect Mile may just wins out. It tells so much history about a subject that has captivated almost all middle distance runners for the past century and a half. It also gives detailed accounts of training, and race day preparation. Although I would suggest either of these books The Perfect Mile has my vote as most inpiring if your planning to run the mile or just want a real account of what led to 3 men wanting to break one of sports most mysterious barriers.

So please join in following me as I learn how to become a 4 minute miler. I plan on starting out just running a route that takes me between 20 and 30 minutes to run. My initial thought is until Christmas I will run this route 3 to 5 times a week, regularly posting my weekly training log, and then run a time trial if you will before I go home for the holidays to see where I stand before the new year starts. My goal for accomplishing this task is prior to the age of 28. That would give me four years of base building, interval training, and repeats galore to become a 4 minute miler.

As I have mentioned before I live in Hawaii and I am able to train outdoors in great weather all year long. Although I have run 60+ mile weeks in sub-zero weather (I’m from Wisconsin), I think the constant 85 degree temperature will help immensely. Please feel free to leave your comments on training and/or post your quest to reach a running goal. It can be big, small, or in-between, just let us know what you’re up to and how your doing.