COLLEGE:  William and Mary (Go Tribe!) FAVORITE FOOD:  If we’re talking healthy, probably Thai Green Papaya Salad.  FAVORITE PLACE VISITED:  Too hard to pick one. My favorite cities are probably Paris and Istanbul. The Taj Mahal is the most spectacular thing I’ve ever seen (but I could say that about the Grand Canyon too). I loved traveling in South Africa and Thailand. PLACE YOU WANT TO VISIT:  Too many to count, but Oaxaca, Patagonia, and Machu Picchu are on the short list. BACKGROUND:  For most of my life, I’ve been out-of-shape and struggled with my weight. I didn’t watch what I was eating. Usually, I would get exercise by playing pick-up sports with friends, but I would always be the slowest guy out there sucking for air and never getting the ball! About three years ago, I made a major lifestyle change:  my wife and I decided to backpack around the world. As a result, we were eating less and much more active. The pounds started flying off. But when we returned home in 2010 and settled down again (and back to work), the scale started moving in the wrong direction and I was headed right back for the bad state I had been in before traveling.

I knew I needed to find something to stop the bleeding. So I signed up for my first 5-week session with Sonki Fitness in October 2010. I was able to stop my weight gain and started working on getting in good shape. I started running for the first time in my life, and I entered my first 5K race after doing Sonki Fitness for about 6 months. Since then, it’s been no looking back. What is your current exercise routine?  Sonki Fitness three days a week. I also try to take a spin class or go running on off days. What is your motivation to stay in shape?  I have an 18-month old daughter and a son literally born yesterday, so I want to be around a long time for my family. And I want to look and feel good in my clothes. What is your greatest challenge to staying in shape?  I have a pretty sedentary lifestyle outside of my fitness routine, and you know what happens with bodies at rest. It’s very easy for me to fall out of the routine and lose momentum, so I need to constantly be mindful of that and fight against the urge to be lazy.

Number two is commitment. When you have a demanding job, a family, and a dramatically limited amount of time, it’s important to make decisions about what needs to be a priority. Fortunately, I have made being at palisades park to train with Sonki at 6:30am a priority, but keeping up that commitment against other demands requires a constant struggle. What is your key to success?  I’m not sure I’d call it success yet because I still have goals I’m trying to achieve out here, but what keeps me on the path to success? Not giving up, even when I feel like keeling over. Listening to my body, so I avoid injuries (or aggravating old ones). What do you like about Sonki Fitness Boot Camp and how has it affected your life?  Well, the camaraderie with my fellow Sonki Fitness warriors has been amazing. Over the past two plus years, I’ve gotten to know some great people and make good friends. Being able to share a joke with friends sometimes eases the pain of the workout! I like Sonki’s leadership because I am not very effective at self-directed workouts.

When I was going to the gym and working out alone, I was always cutting short the routine or working out too slowly. Obviously, that doesn’t happen anymore. What advice would you give to others about fitness?  Get out there and take the first step toward building a routine. Listen to your body and stay within your limits, but also challenge your limitations (if that makes any sense).speedo teamster backpack best price A few random thoughts from my attempts: 1" stainless corners off of ebay (stainless marine hand railing elbows) work OK for 7/8" and 1" tubing. alienware backpack for sale philippinesThey are a bit heavy, and vary greatly in the amount of overlap with the ends of the tubing. 65l backpack carry on a plane

My current double ledge is made out of 4130 tubing and these stainless elbows and works pretty nicely (but heavy...). There are 2 pictures (not good ones) of my double ledge in this trip report from Mideast Crisis. Custom milled corners is new territory for me, I ordered a batch and I am hoping they turn out well. Mine are for 1 1/8" tubing, hoping I can get double duty out of them to accomodate both Al and CF tubing. ogio - renegade rss laptop backpack - blackI am paying about $550 for a batch of 28. castaway cay backpackNot sure what I'll do with that many, but it was $250 for a single ledge worth, so I double downed on insanity. miga backpackIf not for wanting to use CF tubing for my project I considered making one of the corner ends male to slip inside the double butting to allow use of 4130 as the double butt to avoid binding.

I think Theron's ledge uses 1 male on each corner, but I don't know if it was for this same reason. Bartackers are not needed for the ledge body, just use linear tacks (back and forth). Early A5 and Fish stuff was done without tackers and was bomber. Tackers are HUGE time savers once you get to things like the ledge suspension, easily 5-10x faster. Consider begging Fish, or finding a local person who can tack for you for those bits (i.e. send it to them taped or pinned together). #69 thread works OK in home machines and is about their limit. You can still make a bomber ledge this way, but plan on triple stitching in spots where you see double stitching on commercial ledges. Watch craigslist, you can probably pick up a decent single stitch non-walking foot machine for $300-400 if you are patient. Good walking foot machines are worth it if you can swing it, but expect those to start in to the $700-800 range for anything in good shape. Invest in a reduce pulley or servo motor (or both) to get enough control for sewing of this nature (especially if you only sew occasionally and don't have mad skills).

Occasional steals go by, so be ready to pounce on them, I got a computer controlled walking foot for $800 that sells for $4.5k new, and usually $2.5k+ used by shear dumb luck (and lots of patience). Carbon fiber and Titanium is insane as a material unless you get a deal. Big walling is insane too, so it makes perfect sense. My tubing for my next project is coming from Rock West Composites. $460 for a ledge worth of 1 1/8" carbon fiber tubing. Sadly the 72" standard lengths work out very poorly to break the sides into thirds, so I am just going to break them in half instead. Overall the CF tubing saves about 2 lbs compared to aluminum (22' of 0.23 lb/ft 6160 vs 0.13lb/ft carbon fiber). My current ledge has unequal pole lengths. Side poles are 39.5" and 42.5", end poles are 22.5" and 25.5". With a 6" joiner overlapping by 3" this makes the broken down length equal which makes it pack up pretty darn tidy (well as tidy as you get for a broken down monster ledge). I really like how this came out.

I should not have put tensioners at both ends of my ledge. Because my ledge has end poles that break down I can use a simple continuous piece of bungy cord to hold it all together, and don't need the end poles to be free floating like BD's (and I assume Metolius?). The extra set of tensioners just mean more hassle, more sewing, more weight, and precludes using thick webbing as a rash guard on that end. Angle the fin more than you think you should. I only angles mine by 3" on each end, and should have done more like 6-8". Your feet need only about half the space your torso does. I am also considering doing a 2:1 for the fin tension straps. Fat guys like me make it hard to get the fin as snug as would be nice. Tubing can be gotten many places. , for 4130 and 6160. If you chat with them they can cut tubing to your dimensions for a fair price. I only paid $5 cut charge at Aircraft Spruce to get 4 6160 joiners and 8 4130 tubes cut to size last time. Figure on $100 or so in tubing as a ballpark for a double ledge.

1"x0.035 4130 worked just fine on my double, but is heavy. A5 ledges use 1 1/18"x0.058" 6160-T6 with 0.083" thickness double butting and joiners. Consider using 1 1/8"x0.058" Al tube with 1"x0.047" 4130 joiners to reduce binding (or find a source for anodized tubing). If you hate binding as much as I do consider just taping the inside curves. For the long straight runs just fold the raw edge under. Pre-ironing the binding tape into a taco is a must if hand binding without an attachment (and is not bad for small projects). Expect the bed to stetch, my 1000d cordura bed one gained about an inch on the width after getting stretched out the first couple times. Aim to barely be able to assembly the ledge, and make the side poles just a little long. Once the stretch is in there decide if you want to shorten the poles a bit or not. Rough quantities (for cabana sized): 22' tubing ($70) 2' joiner tubing ($20) 2' double butting tubing if using 6160 ($20) 4 corners ($60+) 3.5 yards bed material and bin material ($30-60) 80' 1" thin flat webbing ($30) 6 metal cinch buckles ($12) 6-10 1" ladder lock plastic buckles ($5) 15-20' thick flat 2" webbing for the rash guards ($12) 1/4-1/2 yard ballistics for the end rash guards ($10) 6' 1.5" thin flat for backside fin reinforcement (unless sewing