Saket Vora

There has been some semblance of routine now in my life. Get to work between 9:30am and 10am, leave work around 9pm. On weekends I run errands, see friends, or head into the City. But this isn’t really doing much for physical activity. At least while on Stanford I was biking/walking several miles a day going around campus, and I don’t have a lot of convenient running paths around me like I did on campus either.

In an attempt to get healthier and fitter — and being inspired by Melih’s public-personal challenges — I’m going to set some goals for myself over these winter months and provide monthly updates here on my progress. While losing some more pounds would be well received (my aggressive target would be 168lbs, down from my current 180lbs), I’m really trying to aim for overall improved fitness. I’m also cognizant of the plateauing of my ultimate frisbee performance, especially after this summer. While I think my ultimate “I.Q.” has improved, I put my team at a disadvantage because I’m not able to execute what I know needs to be done. I need to become faster to jump on potential interceptions or blocked passes, and I need more endurance so I can stick with my man for the whole play.

I’m as far from a fitness expert as you can get, but I’m looking at these four metrics:

1. “40 yard” dash — or rather, the time to complete a sprint down an ultimate field, or to chase a runner going deep.
2. 2km erg session — inspired by my rowing friends (Greg, Donny, and Ben), this is the time it takes to complete 2km on an ergometer, which is used to train for rowing. It’s a drill that requires constant focus because of the sequence of events you must do to execute a proper stroke, and works your arms, traps, and legs.
3. 5km run — pretty standard fare, 3.1 miles. The only related benchmark I can offer: in my senior year of undergrad, we had to do a 3 mile run and the best time I clocked in was 24.5 minutes.
4. # of Pushups in 1 minute — figure I should work in an upper body strength metric somewhere. not entirely sure about this one, but I’ll keep it for now.

The idea is to get a starting datapoint for each of these metrics now then re-do them every 30 days until next summer rolls around. The Apple gym is just across the parking lot from my building, so I’ll start using it and work out three times a week before heading home. This is going to get harder if I really do end up moving up to San Francisco in January, but it’ll just mean I’ll have to be more diligent with my time — squeeze in workouts by taking an earlier shuttle in the morning or during lunch. Let’s see how this goes for now…updates to come.

Thanks to Greg and Ben for the rowing info.