Ever feel like you're on a hamster-wheel?

So, jogging makes me feel like a hamster.  Seriously.  I've listened to runners go on about how much they enjoy the run and all of the great benefits it's given them, and everytime I'd try, the hamster image would take over and kill any potential joy I could have wrung out of the experience.  Yeah, I'm a stick-in-the-mud like that sometimes.

Any of you that have spent more than a little time with me have surely noticed that I'm pretty competitive.  And, the eye-rolling you're doing right now indicated that I'm not being entirely truthful about that.  In fact, I'm competitive as hell.  You know the type...I'll play Monopoly to the bitter end even though I can't remember ever enjoying that game past the 45-minute mark.

Now, for fitness purposes, and more specifically my martial-arts training, this competitive drive has pushed me across thresholds that would have taken much longer (if at all) without that competitive sense.  The major difference is this:  I've learned to compete with myself.  That way, I'm less of a "steamroll over you to win" jackass (Note:  I said *less*...come game night, IT'S ON).

So, the obvious question became "how do I compete with myself in my cardio training?"  Enter the Striiv.  It's a "smart pedometer" about the size of a circa-1998 beeper, and it measures all sorts of great aspects of the walk/jog/run to make a game out of activity.  I first saw this in action with my roommate Erik who, to the best of my knowledge, always has his on him measuring his steps, stairs, calories burned, etc.  So, when he got me one of my own for Christmas (a purchase this fool would never have thought to make for himself), I started to get into the game.

Now, it's a little more than a game.  My training so far has obliterated my ideas about my physical capabilities, and now that I'm marking a major milestone (shodan testing...more on this later), it's time to make the game a habit.