Adrian: Day 30, How and Why

I had originally planned a very short post for today about something very specific, but I can't remember at all what it was. But I did realize that we're already a third of the way through, and I never really talked about how I found out about the PCP in the first place, and why I decided to do it, and why there's a picture of Manny Pacquiao and Michelle Rodriguez at the top of this blog. So I'll take this opportunity to tell you all about how we discovered this thing. I think this story starts near the end of July...

I was home alone one day in July - probably a very hot day, and I was listening to a podcast on itunes from the San Francisco Zen Center. I must have been very bored, because after listening to a couple of these lectures, I decided to search itunes for other podcasts about Zen Buddhism. That's when I first discovered Patrick & Gwen's podcast Zen is Stupid.

I think my first impression was shock. Shock that other young people were into Zen. I had been practicing at home with Emiko for a few months up until then, and the times we had been to Zen centers, there were only old people there. Also, I didn't know how to use my time very well back then, and it seemed to me that most of the hobbies I had been interested in up to that point were things only old people liked (jazz, blues, gardening, chess, walks around the lake, etc.). Anyway, their talks about Zen seemed very different from other talks I had heard in the past, in that, they were just two friends talking about their lives. So, I was pretty happy to see that other people my age were into this sort of thing.

Around this time, I was also drawing a lot, and I was taking lots of pictures of various things to draw, like Emiko, and our cat Peppermint stuck inside a pair of pants.

I also decided to start drawing self portraits at this time, and I took a picture of myself from the waist up (no shirt). After looking at the picture, I realized how I had really let myself go physically. I was pretty ashamed, and I didn't end up drawing myself in that light. But I vowed on the spot to get my body in shape, and I started jogging and doing crunches, push ups, and planks every day, and I started paying closer attention to my diet. At the same time, Emiko became inspired by what I was trying to do, and started going jogging with me. But I wasn't seeing much progress in either one of us. I figured I needed a solid fitness plan designed by someone who actually knew what they were doing.

So what happened next is a bit blurry to me, but a couple days after first hearing Zen is Stupid, I stumbled onto Patrick's PCP blog, right after he had completed his 125 days of training (please check out the above links. I get a free indulgence if you do). I had a "Eureka!" moment. It was exactly what I was looking for. I was so excited that I showed Emiko and we've both been hooked on the PCP ever since. We both emailed Patrick shortly afterward and we combined our wish-power to send our pleaseletusparticipate vibes into the outer space.

I remember when the email came back saying we were in. Emiko was in the living room, and I was in the kitchen. Suddenly Emiko let out a primal yelp and called out my name. My first instinct was extreme panic, because it sounded like someone had died. But then she jumped at me and yelled "We got in!" And then we did the dance of joy.



Soon after, we started getting regular emails from Patrick with explanations of how things would work, and we were introduced to the rest of the group (check out their blogs if you haven't yet!). Emiko and I were accepted as a couple, instead of individually, as an experiment.

One aspect of our participation in the project is that we were supposed to choose heroes for ourselves. Basically, people with really awesome bods that we wanted to model ourselves after. When Patrick first asked us to send him our hero choices, I started to get sort of anxious. I started thinking, "Well, I don't really have any heroes. And there's no one in particular I want to look like... I just want to be as physically fit as I can possibly be." But I decided that it was sort of a cop out to think that way. So I chose the boxer Manny Pacquiao.

Honestly though, I don't know much about Manny Pacquiao. I haven't seen any of his fights (though I've seen a couple short clips on youtube), and I haven't watched boxing since high school. I only know about him because there seems to be a lot of hype surrounding him at the moment, and he's always on the cover of the Filipino newspapers at my parent's house. And the dude is made of rock! I wouldn't mind having a stomach like that.

I'll keep my face though.

Anyway, that's all I can think of saying for now, so if you've got any questions about this thing, ask!