tax time

It is tax time again here at OSB world headquarters.  The quarterly taxes are easy, the fun stuff is working through the various paperwork for annual corporate filing.  North Carolina requires a balance sheet to be submitted while the federal return does not.  If you are not always on top of processing transactions via Quickbooks or another accounting program, or heavens forbid you have your tax-lines mapped incorrectly, or if Quickbooks made some updates that have funked up your previous lines for some reason, what should/could be a mostly seamless process between Quickbooks and Turbotax instead takes a full day or two to work out.  Good times.

This also is the time of year I sit down and realize how many costs are associated with operating a corporation vs a sole proprietorship.  If business stuff bores you, stop reading now.  A corporation provides some level of protection between the individuals that operate the business and the business itself, while a sole proprietorship does not. A corporation can also have multiple investors, while a sole proprietorship by definition, can not. A corp can grow into different operations; SP is somewhat limited to what the individual can do. 

However, for a small business there are a number of basic costs that you have to factor in right off the top:  articles of incorporation (1-time), annual filing fee (yearly), city/county filing (yearly), some sort of advanced accounting service (ongoing), payroll service (ongoing), and employer tax contributions to FUTA & State unemployment insurance (ongoing). There is also the labor cost of all the paperwork. 

This is all essentially unrelated to the operation of the business - the coaching, training, clinics, and so on.  I keep telling myself, accounting is fun.

But then I get to post stuff like this.  ;)

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updates

Had a good weekend of group training workouts with One Step Beyond athletes.  It was frigid here in the Triangle but we persevered and got it done.

On Saturday we did a 10.5 mile out and back run on the American Tobacco Trail.  This is a hard packed dirt trail that runs from Apex in the south up through Durham in the north on the outskirts of civilization.  It is great for running or easy bike rides on a mountain bike. 

On Sunday, we met near Cafe Caturra (a nice wine bar/restaurant) for a 40+ bike ride with several tough hill repeats in the middle.  There is a road named Lystra in this part of the world that has a 280 foot climb in the space of about 1/2 mile, for an average grade somewhere over 12%. 

After that we tempo'd for another 8 miles then spun in easy the rest of the way home.

We were able to meet up with friends both nights of the weekend, since my Mom is in town for baby-watching duties, and had a lot of fun.  Mom leaves tomorrow so it is back to the new, new normal.

Make 2012 your best year yet

In case you don't receive the Next Level Newsletter:

There are plenty of choices you can make every day of the year that will help you be a better athlete. None of us are perfect and some days will be better than others. However, if you consistently make more good choices than poor choices, you will consistently perform better than worse. This advice holds true no matter what walk of life we're talking about. From an endurance athlete standpoint, here are ten points (no particular order) to consider as you start the new year. May 2012 be your best yet!

Go to sleep early and sleep eight hours or close to it each night. Turn off the TV, the random internet surfing, the mindless dithering - just pack it in and hit the sack. You need sleep to perform well, stay sharp, and feel good.

Train with partners and friends. Nothing motivates us like avoiding the disapproving phone call we might receive after missing a session with a buddy. Friends are also more fun to talk to than the voices in your head.

Choose better meals. Some of you have a great breadth of knowledge when it comes to nutrition; others don't have a clue about micronutrients and good vs bad fats. A little education goes a long way here, but in general if you are eating out, choose lean meat (chicken, fish) over fatty meats (burgers), healthier sides (steamed veggies or sweet potato fries) over less healthy sides (french fries, buttery mashed potatoes).

Train on a set schedule. A ten day periodized plan is fine for a professional athlete, but most of us need to adhere to a realistic seven day program. The easiest way to stay on track is to create a mostly set plan that repeats each week (the intensity and duration can change). Re: Monday swim, Tuesday run, Wednesday ride, and so on.

Choose your races to suit your strengths. If you hate hills, don't make a hilly race your big event for the season. That is setting yourself up for failure. Conversely, you could train in hills until you are so good at them you like them.

Pick at least one key workout each week where you will really put some hard work in. For you younger than ~35 YO pick two or three. (If you are starting from zero, do at least a month or two of easy-moderate training before starting higher intensity.)

Keep up with your strength training and core conditioning. This will help you avoid injury, and in your later years will help maintain power (pedal stroke, swim pull, and run pushoff).

Keep up with your physical therapy exercises and stretching in general. If you have been diagnosed by a PT or Ortho-doc with some imbalances or other localized weakness, it means you need to do these exercises forever to eliminate the weakness.

Hire a good coach for a consult or ongoing coaching. A good coach is both a taskmaster and an educator.

Prioritize your races within your life. If racing is just a way for you to stay fit and have fun, don't spend too much time worrying about race results. If you want to be competitive, you need to move the training and racing up a notch in your order of importance.

Marty Gaal, CSCS, and his wife Brianne, are the co-founders and lead coaches of One Step Beyond (OSB), based in Cary, North Carolina. OSB provides personal coaching & training, group workouts, training camps, and swim clinics throughout the year. They are also the co-founders / co-race directors of both the Triangle Open Water Mile Swim Series and the Old School Aquathon Series. You can visit them on the web at www.osbmultisport.com.

The beginning of the end of liberty?

2011 in review - top ten list

10 Owning & working for my own business
9 Beach 2 Battleship weekend
8 Winning the Battle at Buckhorn Triathlon
7 Summer vacation in New England
6 Florida Winter Training camp on the beach!
5 Boone camp!
4 Visiting various family and our nieces
3 Being there when Bri discovered she was pregnant
2 Being there when Bri conceived :)
1 The birth of our son, with both Mom and Baby being healthy!

How is it going and Happy New Year

Hope you had a good holiday, whatever you celebrate. 

You might be wondering how we are adjusting to life with the little guy.  We are doing well.  His sleep habits are all over the place, which means ours are as well.  Bri is doing most of the heavy lifting at the moment since we are breastfeeding and you need to give that a few weeks before offering the bottle or there is something called nipple confusion.  I have had that for many years but didn't realize there was a name for it.  So in another week or two my sleep habits, which have not been great for several years, will get slightly worse, at least in the short term, as I take over some of the midnight feedings.

Little Man is not a very happy guy from about 7PM until 2AM unless he is suckling at Momma's bosom.  This would be fine except that she needs some sleep, so from about 9PM to about 12 I babysit.  Which means I try to keep him from screaming bloody murder by bouncing, walking, driving, soothing, sushing, singing (very poorly and out of tune mind you, also I butcher all song lyrics or just insert my own), and other quiet-the-baby things.   In between when he nods off I can do a bit of reading or zone out to the television.  But there is a limit to how much TV I want to watch.  Anyway, many of you have already been there and some of you are one day to follow.  It is great but don't expect your baby to be the bestest baby ever gosh golly gurgle giggle.  They are all little poopy crying whiny monsters a lot of the time.

I am managing to keep up with a reasonable amount of fitness training (I hesitate to call it triathlon training right now) so should not be too much slower at the occasional race I make it to this season.  Local road races (within jogging distance) are my top pick.  Amazingly there are about eight that fit that bill.  Recently We did the Jingle Bell Run at Wake Med Soccer Park, and the following weekend the Jolly Elf Run at Bond Park.  What a great place to live.  We love it here.

2012 looks to be another busy year between coaching personal clients, swim clinics, and everything else.  I wouldn't have it any other way.  Hope you have a great one and see you around sometime!