...And Here We Go!

It took all of 55 minutes in 2012 for me to get to work on trying to achieve my 35 aspirations.  Sue and I hosted a New Year’s Eve Party to ring in 2012 and we had a great time but my mind kept wandering to those damn 35 goals.  In spite of being distracted by thoughts of my list, the ball dropped at midnight and I quickly gathered my focus enough to put my DJ skills in full effect…everyone knows people tend to leave right at midnight after the ball drops so I needed to get the music going immediately.  It didn't take long to make an impression...the music was magical...the crowd was going wild...I was in a zone.  It was as if I was reading the minds of the crowd as each tune I played got the people more pumped than the one before.   Sure, there were only about 15-20 people in my house (including my parents) but it may as well have been the club Tryst in Las Vegas.  I may charge a cover to my neighbors for my next bash...it was that good and I was that great of a time.

At 12:55am, I couldn’t ignore my list any longer.  I was drinking and I needed to compete so out comes a can of Coors Light from the refrigerator.  “Who has the stop watch?” I screamed in my most meat head voice.  “Sue, get the video going.”  My plan was to post the video here in the blog but I’ve been told chugging beer on camera while making crude comments to people in the crowd is frowned upon in the corporate world.  I will choose a few of you to show the video and then it will forever remain in the Schmeis35for35 archives never to be seen again. 

For those that won’t be lucky enough to see the video, here is the quick version:  I open the beer on camera to show that I’m pouring the full 12 ounces in a glass.  I do some quick stretches, make some crude comments, ensure that 2 people have stop watches going (you can’t take enough precaution with this kind of thing), get the main song from “You Got Served” amazingly to come on in the background right before my attempt, announce to the crowd that “there is no way I’m not doing this with this song in the background,” and then proceed to destroy the Coors Light in an instant.  The official time?  3.5 seconds says the stop watch.  I needed 3.0 or less.  FAILURE…I was crushed.  There had to be a conspiracy against me I thought.  I then declare to the camera that everyone knows human reaction time is .6 seconds which would bring my time to 2.9 seconds.  The crowd doesn’t buy it but there is a lot of debate on this one.  For now, I’m not counting #35 “Chugging a beer in 3 seconds” as complete.  I gave it my all though…I left it all out there…but it wasn’t good enough this day.

After sleeping most of the day away on January 1^st, I managed to get the TV turned on to watch some NFL games...then my mind started to work…NFL games à NFL combine à benching 225 lbs is a skill challenge at the NFL combine and it’s on my list à I need to go for the benching aspiration the next morning.  The truth is, I need to knock off all the goals that require upper body strength as soon as possible so I can move on to the swimming, running, triathlon stuff where being lighter will help.

I woke up at 6:30am this morning and Sue came with me to the gym to get the video.  After a brief warmup, the following took place.  I warn you that the audio quality absolutely sucks but it’s not like we could do another take.  There is a lot of background noise and Sue has the loudest laugh in the world which covered up some of my comments.  In any event, you can see clearly there is 225 on the bench (2 standard 45 pound plates on each side plus the standard 45 pound bar).  The goal?  Bench press 225 lbs 10 times.  It is item #6 on the list.  Here it is:

13!!!!!  Check one item off the list.  I nailed it.  For some perspective, I decided to look up the 2011 NFL combine results to see how I stacked up.  About 300 college guys participated but several don’t actually do the bench.  Quarterbacks, kickers, injured people, etc. all don’t usually participate but there is still a lot of data to sort through from those that did give it a go.  Let’s start with the running backs:  46 participated.  Max # of 225 reps was 32 by Anthony Sherman of Connecticut.  The least?  11!!! Ha!!  I literally beat Roy Helu of Nebraska by 2 reps at 225 lbs.  That’s so great.  I have no idea how that is even possible.  I’m embarrassed for the state of Nebraska.  I even feel badly for Warren Buffet since he’s from Omaha.  Anyway, I’m not going to even bother with the lineman since they are twice my weight but let’s check out the position where the guys are closer to my size, cornerback (by the way, I’m 6’1” 180 pounds).  38 cornerbacks participated in the bench at the combine this year.  11 out of 38 did 13 or less!  Not too bad.  Another 7 had either 14 or 15 so I was well within striking distance with my performance of 13.  Considering I haven’t even tried to bench 225 for over a year, I’m going to declare this one as pretty freaking awesome.

You can check out the results here if you want to check my math:

http://www.nfl.com/combine/participants

So, now that I know I basically should be in the NFL, I think that’s enough for today.  Until we meet again…

Schmeis