Niall's Blog

This week wasn't quite as intense as previous weeks, I took more of a break between workouts than usual because I was busy hanging out with my girlfriend Frances Wang before she left for China for a few months to work for UNIFEM. So I took a few nights off - but I still got some decent workouts in! Tuesday 2010-01-19 WOD: 4 rounds of 25 bettlebell swings @ 1.5 pood, 15 Pull ups. My time was 10:20. Quite bad. Felt a lot of nasty aching in right shoulder doing the pull-ups. Wednesday 2010-01-20 Rest day. Thursday 2010-01-21 WOD: 100 KB swings @ 1.5 pood. Felt good. KB swings make a great metcon/warmup! - Rest - 5x5 shoulder press. 95-105-115-125-130. Felt strong! Compared to last shoulder press on 15th, where I could barely press 5x120, this one was much better. Friday 2010-01-22 Rest day. Saturday 2010-01-23 WOD: Angie (100 pull-ups, 100 sit-ups, 100 push-ups, 100 squats for time). My time: 12:46. Not too bad but my PR is under 12 minutes. Pull-ups still need work. Push-ups and squats in particular went well. - Rest - 5x5 deadlift. 225-275-315-325-325. Felt pretty strong. I like deadlifts! Sunday 2010-01-24 Rest day. Monday 2010-01-25 WOD: 5x5 over head squat. I did power snatch to 5xOHS. 95-105-115-125-130. Felt pretty good on these, but really want to get up past 135 in power snatch very soon. I need to work on push press or push jerk to get the OHS heavier off the rack, rather than snatching it all the time. I could definitely squat more if I could get it into position. 5x5 back squat. 225-245-255-265-275 (fail after 4 reps). Felt strong on this. Much better than last back squat sessions on 11th and 15th. 5x5 power clean. 135-155-185-195 (fail after 1 rep). Again this was better than last time but I was totally burned out after the 1x195 power clean. Technique felt bad and movement was too slow. I'm thinking I'll spend some time with moderate weight (say 155#) to work on technique and speed. Also hopefully going with a bunch of KMSF folks to get some proper Olympic lifting coaching this weekend. My squat clean and squat snatch suck so this is badly needed!

Niall O'Higgins is an author and software developer. He wrote the O'Reilly book MongoDB and Python. He is the co-founder of BeyondFog, Inc which makes Strider Brilliant Continuous Deployment. Strider is a hosted Continuous Integration & Deployment service for Node.JS and Python.

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This week I bought the Google Nexus One phone. I've been very impressed with the device so far. Here are some of my thoughts. Keep in mind that this is a hacker's perspective and I'm not nearly so interested in eye candy and user experience as many people might be.

On the hardware

What impressed me most about the N1 was the hardware, and its hackbility. The highlights as I see them:

• 1 Ghz Snapdragon CPU - almost twice as fast as iPhone and Motorola Droid
• 512M RAM
• Very,very nice 480x800 OLED display
• 5MP camera + flash
• Easily removable battery (unlike e.g. iPhone)
• Micro SD card slot
• Hardware multi-touch support
• 3g modem - which can be used for tethering
• WiFi

Back in 2005 I presented a paper at EuroBSDCon on Porting OpenBSD to the Sharp Zaurus. I liked the Zaurus device, and I see the Nexus One as a much more evolved equivalent computer, with in-built 3g and wifi.

On the Android OS

I liked the concept of Android when it first came out but after seeing the G1, figured it needed some time to mature. My impression then was that it lacked polish and that the hardware available just didn't have enough power. Now, though, with the advent of the Nexus One, I think its awesome.

Highlights for me of the Android operating system:

• Open Source - You can download the source tree and compile your own ROM if you like
• Free Multi-Platform SDK - The iPhone is a nice piece of hardware, but I don't own a Mac (and don't want one) so could never develop for the platform. The Android SDK, on the other hand, is freely available for Windows, Mac and Linux - so I can actually use it!
• Multitasking - I didn't actually realise that iPhoneOS didn't support multitasking until recently but that seems like a huge disadvantage.
• Activity micro-app model

Android Activity Model

Many people don't seem to like this, but I'm quite impressed so far. Applications on Android are really a collection of micro-applications called "Activities" which are executed in a stack, and are expected to be able to handle being garbage collected by the OS and resumed later. This provides two very interesting things:

• You have the illusion of running as many applications at once as you like. If the application isn't actually in memory when you try to access it, it will be resumed and its state re-initialised to what it was previously.
• It provides a very interesting mechanism for code-reuse and use of third-party functionality.

For example, lets say your application on Android needs to prompt the user to select a point on a map. Instead of having to call some Google maps library or similar in-process, you actually execute the Google maps activity (which is a separate process) and it sends you back information.

While this isn't conceptually so far removed from linking library code into your process memory space and calling functions that way, it removes an awful lot of complexity - no need for shared library linkage for one - and improves security and robustness of your application. Should the thirdparty activity crash, because it is in a separate process, it shouldn't take your app down with it.

My favourite use of this model so far is Snaptic's 3Banana Notes, which provides a note taking activity to other applications. This allows third party applications to save any note-like state to your Snaptic account, and get syncing etc for free. Pretty cool idea.

Conclusion

I am super happy with the Nexus One and Android so far. I was able to hack together a simple stopwatch application for the platform in about 90 minutes - and that includes installing Eclipse and getting it set up. I'll write some blog posts on developing for the phone soon. However, its not without its flaws. Its pricey, at $580 unlocked. Android could do with less frivolous eye candy and more focus on responsiveness in my opinion. The virtual keyboard doesn't seem as good as on the iPhone. Also I'd love to get more battery life out of the device - but it seems like all these smartphones are power hogs.

Niall O'Higgins is an author and software developer. He wrote the O'Reilly book MongoDB and Python. He is the co-founder of BeyondFog, Inc which makes Strider Brilliant Continuous Deployment. Strider is a hosted Continuous Integration & Deployment service for Node.JS and Python.

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Another week, another bunch of training. After last week's CrossFit Sectionals NorCal Training Log 2010 #1, this one was a bit better. Mainly because I got over my cold. However, some stuff was really tough. [caption id="attachment_728" align="aligncenter" width="604" caption="SF Bay Swim 2010-01-16"][/caption] Here's what I did: Monday 2010-01-11 WOD: 30 muscle-ups for time. I could only manage to do eight - which was a disappointment since I could do 30 back in September. I really feel like my upper body strength has taken a hit over the past 2 months. So that sucked. After a rest, we did a 5x5 Back Squat, where I was a bit happier; 165 - 185 - 205 - 225 - 245, good, deep ROM throughout. Being a bit miffed by poor muscle-up performance, I finished off with a bunch of slow, deep ring dips. Hoping that some weighted pull-ups and dips will bring back muscle-ups soon. Tuesday 2010-01-12 WOD: Run a 5k. This was fine, raining a bit and our route through SF's Pacific Heights is very hilly. My time was respectable enough, 26:40. After that I took a rest and worked a 5x3 Power Clean. My max power clean previously was 195lbs, and I was disappointed to only be able to hit 3x175lbs this time. I was having odd sharp pains and spasms in my elbows and shoulders after each rep which I think were from the muscle ups on Monday. So I decided to leave it at that, which was a good idea I figure. Wednesday 2010-01-13 WOD: 3 rounds for time of: 50 double unders, 50 push-ups. My time was 6:46 which wasn't too bad. The push-ups were really what slowed me down. I feel like I used to be a lot faster at push-ups. I guess I just need to do like a 100 every morning when I get up. After a rest, I did a Power Snatch to 5xOver Head Squat progression. I found that my elbows and shoulders were still sore from the muscle-ups and so I had to take some breaks in between each set for the spasms to die down. I made it up to 125lbs Power Snatch followed by 5xOHS, which was respectable enough. Thursday 2010-01-14 Rest day Friday 2010-01-15 WOD: Fairly long lifting session, 5x5 in Back Squat, Shoulder Press and Deadlift. Squat was reasonable I hit 260lbs x 5. Shoulder Press was a bit disappointing, I could only manage 4 reps at 125lbs, where as 2 months ago I was comfortably enough pressing 135lbs for 5 reps. So that sucked. For the Deadlift I started at 275lbs and hit 335lbs for 3 reps, but the bar just wasn't coming up after that, possibly because I ripped a callous at 325lbs which was pretty distracting. Overall not a bad session but definitely not at my strongest at this point. Saturday 2010-01-16 WOD: Swimming in SF bay! Thats where the photo above is from. This was pretty awesome - I actually ended up doing something like a mini-triathlon since I cycled 8 miles (to and from gym) ran 1.5 miles (from gym to bay) and swam for 10 minutes. Felt great, bloody cold though, looking forward to more swimming there in the future. 52F water is great substitute for an ice bath! Sunday 2010-01-17 WOD: 5x5 dead hang pull-ups / weighted pull-ups @ 1 pood. 5x5 Ring dips. Like I said above I think my upper body strength needs some work so I thought this would be a good one. Definitely didn't feel as strong with this resistance as I have in the past, so I think I'll need to do this kind of WOD a fair bit more over the next few weeks. Monday 2010-01-18 Rest day.

Niall O'Higgins is an author and software developer. He wrote the O'Reilly book MongoDB and Python. He is the co-founder of BeyondFog, Inc which makes Strider Brilliant Continuous Deployment. Strider is a hosted Continuous Integration & Deployment service for Node.JS and Python.

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In my last post on my CrossFit Sectionals NorCal Training Log I talked about why I was doing the sectionals, my goals, etc. That was a little over one week ago, and since then I've been working out pretty hard. Here's what I've done: Saturday 2010-01-02 Training at home. Four rounds for time: 30 Kettlebell Swings @ 1.5 Pood, 15 ring dips. My time: 9:35 Sunday 2010-01-03 Rest day Monday 2010-01-04 Back training at KMSF. Started to come down with a cold. As many rounds as possible in 12 minutes: Alley sprint followed by max pull-ups. My results: 6 rounds, pull-up numbers: 20, 15, 10, 10, 10, 10. Hadn't done max pull-ups for a while so didn't go all out to avoid DOMS! Tuesday 2010-01-05 2x800m sprints through Tenderloin. First 800m: 2:20 (all out) Second 800m: 2:58 5x5 Back Squat 185 - 205 - 225 - 245 - 265 Felt pretty good. Wednesday 2010-01-06 This nasty WOD, with a nasty sore throat: 15-12-9 Overhead squats 135# Burpees + Pull-ups Getting hand position right for the squat after clean & jerk was the hardest part! Time was 11 minutes or so. Definitely need to work on power snatch - should just have been able to snatch 135# then go straight into squats. Finished off with: 5 rounds of Power Snatch to 3xOverhead Squat. Got up to 125# comfortably on the power snatch+3xOHS. Thursday 2010-01-07 Rest day. Cold got worse. Friday 2010-01-08 Cold worse, sneezing all over the place, office party in evening so took another day off training. Saturday 2010-01-09 Still had cold, decided to rest one last day. Sunday 2010-01-10 Cold improving, back to training. 5 rounds for time: 20 Kettlebell swings @ 1.5 pood, 30 pushups. My time: 11:10

Niall O'Higgins is an author and software developer. He wrote the O'Reilly book MongoDB and Python. He is the co-founder of BeyondFog, Inc which makes Strider Brilliant Continuous Deployment. Strider is a hosted Continuous Integration & Deployment service for Node.JS and Python.

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[caption id="attachment_690" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="Me participating in FBG IV at CF Oakland, Sep. 2009"][/caption] I've signed up as an athlete in the CrossFit Games 2010 Sectionals NorCal. I'd consider myself an intermediate level CrossFitter at this point - able to complete all the WODs in a reasonable time - but certainly nothing compared to the guys at the top.

Why I'm doing the Sectionals

Great Team Mostly, I'm going to compete because a bunch of my friends at the gym are also competing. I want to support our awesome crew and throwing my name in the ring seems like the best way! Personal Goals Even though I'm not exactly expecting to win, or even do especially well, I think the sectionals are important as a training goal. Having an event in the near future (12 weeks out at this point) is a great motivator. For me, CrossFit is very much a personal development thing. Although I enjoy the friendly competition at my gym and am looking forward to competing at the sectionals, as far as I'm concerned I'm mostly competing against myself. So, the Sectionals are basically a way to push myself and hopefully beat a bunch of my personal records along the way.

Training Log

I thought it might be cool to post my training log to my website. I already keep a private log as part of my diary, but having it public makes things a bit more interesting. I plan to update pretty regularly although I don't know yet if it will be daily or more like a weekly digest. Since this is my first entry, I should start by stating roughly where I am right now. Weight: 165 lbs Height: 5'8" Age: 26 Current Personal Records Lifts

Shoulder Press: 155lbs Back Squat: 300lbs Deadlift: 375lbs Power Clean: 195lbs Overhead Squat: 145lbs

Named WODs

Fran: 4 minutes 33 seconds Elizabeth: 9 minutes Georgia: 5 minutes 20 seconds Charlotte: 4 minutes 33 seconds Randy: 3 minutes 57 seconds Fight Gone Bad: 320 points

Other Stuff

5k time: 21 minutes 13 seconds 10k time: 48 minutes 10 seconds Max pull-ups: 42 Max weighted pull-up: 95lbs

[caption id="attachment_714" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Many of the crew at CF KMSF!"][/caption]

Training Plan

I'll be following the WODs at my gym as much as possible. I hope to be able to make it to the gym four times a week, more if possible. When not at the gym, I will work out at home. I have kettlebells, a pull-up bar, rings and an olympic weights set (300lbs of iron plates - can't go too heavy) so I can do a bunch of good stuff in my apartment. Strength I believe that the single most important thing in the competition is going to be strength. The stronger you are, the easier every possible workout will be, no matter what. Also, strength takes a long time (years) to develop - compared with cardio endurance it can't be trained quickly. So I'm going to work quite a bit on getting stronger with the power lifts and Olympic lifts. Two-a-day I'm also hoping to train in the morning and in the evening. In the morning I'll probably focus on high intensity, many reps kind of stuff. I don't know that I'll be able to keep up two-a-day every day though. Shoulder flexibility Shoulder flexibility is probably the biggest single weakness I have. It makes some of the movements quite difficult and even painful for me - for example heavy push jerks. I've made good progress in the past year, but over the next 12 weeks I want to be particularly dilligent with icing and mobility work. Diet I'll be following a Paleo Zone diet as best I can, although I'm not planning to be terribly strict about it for a while yet. Supplements I'm taking 200 mg chelated magnesium, 5,000 IU vitamin d3 and two tablespoons of fish oil daily and plan to continue.

Today's Log

Gym is closed today so I worked out at home. Still getting back into things after a 2 week layoff while I was on vacation in Ireland. I ran this at home: 4 rounds of: 30 Kettlebell Swings @ 1.5 pood, 10 Dead Hang Pull-Ups.

Niall O'Higgins is an author and software developer. He wrote the O'Reilly book MongoDB and Python. He is the co-founder of BeyondFog, Inc which makes Strider Brilliant Continuous Deployment. Strider is a hosted Continuous Integration & Deployment service for Node.JS and Python.

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