Today I did my first 20 sit-ups towards my goal of 500,000 by the time I turn 50. Over the next little bit, I’m going to try to figure out other 500,000 goals too.

It started last week. I was working at a client doing a bit of executive coaching (oh, by the way, my sabbatical is over!). One of the people I was working with is a guy who clearly takes care of his body. I asked him about it, and he said that he had actually originally wanted to be a physical trainer. He then gave me a very simple piece of advice (which I’m only partially taking): start by doing just a little bit of exercise every day. Don’t make it complicated: sit-ups or push-ups is fine. He also told me that he doesn’t use a gym. He just does stuff at home.

So then today I was thinking about my upcoming birthday where I’ll be turning 47. That’s pretty darn close to 50. Somehow that got me thinking about my goals for turning 50. Usually, my goals are health-related since that is the part of my life I take the least care of. I thought of a few different ideas, but the one that stuck? The goal of 500,000 by 50.

So, I did some mental math (I love math). 50 is three years away for me… roughly 1000 days. 500,000 divided by 1000 is 500. When I was a kid, I was able to do 70 sit-ups in a minute. I can get there again. That means that if I slowly by linearly get better at this, somewhere around the middle of my 3 years, I will need to do 500 sit-ups per day, and if I can only do 35/minute at that point, that’s a reasonable 15 minute-ish workout. Seems do-able. If I can continue to speed up, then 500,000 is do-able,… but still a tough goal to reach.

So that’s my first 500,000 goal.

I’m thinking of others, but I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself.

PS. I got an 81 as my final mark in my Math 3020 Introduction to Abstract Algebra class, and an 88 in my Math 2155 Introduction to Mathematical Structures class. Not bad for an old guy!