September push-up challenge: rocky start but making progress

The title says it all.

Saturday was September 1st and thus the beginning of my 1000-pushups-in-a-month challenge. Unfortunately I was too distracted by playing video games to notice. So I actually started doing push-ups on the 2nd — a measley single set of 20 — and I've been ramping up since then.

Before I show my numbers let me go knock out another set of however many push-ups I feel like doing. (In case you can't tell, I love goals that I can complete at my own pace before some long-in-the-future deadline).

Okay that was another fifteen. Let's see all the numbers:

Day	Sets	Total
9/1 Saturday	None	0
9/2 Sunday	20	20
9/3 Monday	15 10 15	40
9/4 Tuesday	15 20	35
9/5 Wednesday	15 15 15	45

140 down, 860 to go. At the beginning of the month I needed to average 33.3 push-ups per day to hit my 1000 target. That's without any rest days. As of today that number is 34.4 per day.

After my disappointing Saturday, I overcompensated on Sunday. I realized as my shoulders started tightening up that I shouldn't push myself too hard at first. This challenge is eminently achievable as long as I'm consistent about completing sets. The strategy I've settled upon is completing more sets of fewer push-ups, both to give my body time to adapt and so I can get a feel for the right posture (i.e., one that won't kill my shoulders). That should warm me up over the first week or two, and then I can push myself for larger sets later in the month.

Remember that this challenge is mostly an excuse to get me to my 40-pushups-at-once goal, which I set to be completed by the end of 2012. As such, I do want to try for more push-ups per set, just not at the expense of doing too much too fast and burning out.

Other stuff

I'm in the middle of cooking as I'm writing this post. It's a dish that I can't believe I haven't blogged about yet: Pasta Lentils! I'm capitalizing it because it's its own thing, a recipe I invented all by myself, and one of my three favorite foods. I'm totally going to write another post devoted entirely to Pasta Lentils, but to give you a sneak peek: you basically cook a pound of lentils and use it as pasta sauce for a pound of pasta. Voila! All the protein and carbs a growing grad school student needs in convenient Mustachian form. It's easy to cook, easy to store, easy to reheat, and delicious. It's great with red pepper flakes or parmesan cheese. Dinner is going to be awesome tonight (and so will lunch for the rest of the week).

From skimming my old posts it looks like my last student loan update was over a month ago. I've been throwing money at my loans as it's been coming in — I have less than $400 in my primary checking account — and my balance is at $12,442.34. At around $2000 per month that puts my payoff date some time in the February to March 2013 time frame, well in advance of my end-of-2013 goal. And who knows, maybe I'll get a bonus at work and bring that date in even further.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention how excited I am to see Dividend Mantra blogging again. I missed his clockwork updates while he was taking his summer vacation from blogging. I continue to find his slow-and-steady march toward financial independence inspiring. Every time I read one of his Dividend Income Updates or Freedom Fund Updates, it re-kindles my excitement for dividend growth investing. The day when I start building my own Freedom Fund will come soon enough, and until then I'll just be working on my student loans.