January 31st – New Year’s Resolution Check-in

• 0 • Motivation

One reason New Year’s Resolutions can be tricky is that we often start out with the best intentions but then gradually forget about it. This year I’m hoping to use the end of each month as a “check-in” point to evaluate how I’m doing on my resolutions and troubleshoot if necessary.

One month is just over 8% of the year, so to be on target I would need to be between 8 and 9 % done.

Running and Biking:

I’m slightly behind on running but way ahead on biking!

I loved doing Tour de Zwift and biking 9 events in January, but I think it skewed the balance away from running.

Troubleshooting the Running and Biking Goals: I love using Zwift and the indoor bike trainer, so I’m going to keep that a large part of my winter fitness routine. However, maybe I’ll try to go easier or shorter on the bike trainer so that I can still run 2-3 times a week. I’m also going to pull back on doing long runs. I’d been hoping to start doing some quality workouts to begin training for the Maine Coast Half Marathon in May, but I dread getting on the treadmill for anything over 5 miles. I skipped some workouts due to motivation and I think pulling back and doing the treadmill interval workouts I love and capping it at 5 miles per workout will (counterintuitively) yield higher mileage weeks.

Yoga: I am 10% completed with my yoga frequency goal, with 4 studio classes in January and 1 solo yoga practice of 27 minutes. My intention was to get myself practicing more regularly including at home practices, so I think this is skewed toward the studio side and I’d like to see myself doing a bit more home practice to supplement the studio workouts. Since my goal for the yoga is to keep my plantar fascia pain at bay, doing some more short yoga practices would be great. I’m ahead, but I wonder if my goal should have been even more practices because I can tell when it’s been too long based on how my foot feels. I’m not going to change my goal right now, but I am going to try to have a solo practice at home once a week in February in addition to about a studio class per week.

Other intentions:

Along with my specific goals to run 500 miles, bike 1,000 miles and practice yoga 50 times, I also have intentions for 2019 – things I’m not defining with set parameters but that are priorities or wishful thinking items.

Things like, spend time with friends, make progress on my novel I’m working on, procrastinate less with social media, reduce clutter, bake more homemade snacks, buy in bulk / zero waste projects…. and so forth.

Without getting really formal about it, I can think about each of the things on my wish-list and which ones went well in January and which ones I’d like to focus on more in February. I had a pretty kickin’ January actually – I had champagne with friends, worked out with friends, went out to dinner with friends, rode the bike trainer with Greg, had my sister visit twice, hosted new friends for dinner, made some awesome apricot cardamom cookies, tried new recipes in the Instant Pot, brought the kids to the movies, brought the kids to a show, I mean geez… we actually kind of rocked January!

I’ve even been working hard to spend less time on social media scrolling just to put off unlikeable tasks like washing the dishes, folding the laundry, or meal planning.

NO Facebook, just no.

What’s not going as well?

Well, I signed up for this awesome 30 Day Clutter Blitz challenge recommended to me by a friend and had a great time doing the first three days and then lost focus. I’d like to get back on that bandwagon in February. I also need to actually remove the things I decluttered from our home – right now they’re taking up space in the garage.

I’m hit or miss on eating breakfast – I did a great job in the beginning of the month but have fallen out of habit again. Time to use February as a “reset” button and start again.

Superbowl food planning – this is one of my favorite things ever, and I have not yet figured out exactly what I will pour the buffalo sauce onto this year and what will be served alongside it.

But… I have the Frank’s Red Hot so we’ll be ok, I’ll figure it out!

Hope you had a good January, and that the end of the month can be a “reset” button for you to look at your goals, intentions, and things YOU want out of life and refocus on prioritizing the experiences and people that matter to you.

Zwift is so much fun that I’ve increased my biking mileage goal for the year

• 0 • Motivation

I’ve been tracking my goals on the Garmin website, and I was over 20% done with my biking goal two weeks into January because I’ve been doing so much indoor cycling on my trainer with the Zwift app in order to complete the Tour de Zwift challenge.

I’ve loved it, it’s fun, it’s motivating, it’s incredibly convenient, Greg and I often do it together, and I’ve been able to recover in time to do my running. Last week’s discovery that I could in fact do yoga and also a bike ride on the trainer on the same day and enjoy both sealed the deal; I doubled my mileage goal for the year up to 1,000 miles to bike. That’s an average of 20 per week instead of 10, and I think it’ll make it easier for me to stay motivated to bike throughout the year.

I’ve been really active the first few weeks of January, but I won’t need to keep up this level of activity to achieve my goals. Two weeks in and I’m ahead on all of them.

I want to make sure there’s plenty of wiggle room for busy times in life, but that it’s also not so easy that it doesn’t encourage consistency. After all, consistency in my workouts was the whole point of this goal – to achieve the benefit of running and cycling and yoga more regularly (not like an insane person three months out of the year and then nothing for the rest).

I think I’m in a good place.

 

It’s ok to start January with unsustainable motivation

• 0 • Motivation

I love January. With the holidays behind me, my schedule frees up in a way that’s as refreshing as the blast of cold air that hits my face when I open the door. I realize that it’s been months since I wasn’t making Halloween costumes, planning holiday menus, sewing holiday gift wrap. I feel as though I’ve quit a part-time job.

While I love all the Christmas decorations, having them cleared away makes the whole house feel cleaner and less cluttered – bright and expansive. It’s as though the coziness and warmth they provided in December have given way to clarity and energy in January.

And, like I do every year, I get over-excited about how wonderful this year will be, how different, how I’ll finally do all those things I have always wanted to! I will be the perfect parent! Eat breakfast every day! Put snacks out on the table before my kids get home! Do laundry and meal planning before the weekends so we can FROLIC! Yes, FROLIC! together as a family all weekend long! I will eat flax seeds and drink green smoothies and make sure my kids are offered three servings of vegetables a day and I will run three days a week and bike once a week and do yoga once a week and go to bed AT TEN PM EVERY NIGHT!!!

My life will be as close to perfect as I have the power to make it. And oh, do I feel powerful in January.

While I only articulate one major New Year’s Resolution, I start to tack on intentions in the first week of January. Little hopes, not clearly defined as goals, that make me start acting completely different in likely unsustainable ways.

It used to frustrate me when all these little goals gradually dwindled, and getting up at 7 a.m. EVERY DAY!!!! became 7:10, then 7:30, and finally OH SHOOT I HAVE TO PACK THEM LUNCH!

But I’ve started to see January and all these little changes as a helpful “reset” button and embrace the inner drive that has me trying to go to bed before 11, eat more leftovers, and occasionally replace my second glass of wine with a mug of herbal tea. It’s adorable, and I don’t mean that in a condescending way.

My own joy at trying anew to live my ideal life is not something I should stamp down just because it’s not realistic that I’ll consistently achieve these mini-goals all year. It’s beautiful and wonderful and fun.

Rolling my eyes at myself doesn’t get me any closer to an empty laundry room and finished novel. I’m learning to embrace my energy and excitement whenever it comes and when I lose inertia, look for another opportunity to “reset” or reassess and reprioritize which ideas are worth working harder to keep alive.

And hey, so far so good. It’s January 7th and I’ve already run 11.59 miles, biked 55.41 miles, and served myself breakfast and my kids chocolate kale smoothies. They even came home to a snack today. I’ve hung out with friends twice while the kids were at school, plus we’ve gone to the movies and for a family bike ride. Totally sustainable, right?

Who loves January?

ME.

 

500 miles of running in 2018 complete – and my 2019 New Year’s Resolution!

• 0 • Motivation, My Running

A beautiful 5 mile run up in Maine this morning completed my 500-mile goal for this year!

I love New Year’s Resolutions and often find them game-changing in terms of habit formation and getting myself to stick with something enough to fall in love with it. This year was no exception. I loved the number of times this goal got me out for a run when I otherwise wouldn’t have.

I’ve never run so much in December in my entire life. Usually without a race looming it’s tempting to let the holidays and the cold weather get the best of me and not get out the door or onto the treadmill, but I ran 46 miles in December so I could finish my goal.

Last December I ran 3.4. In 2016 I ran 3.6. In 2015 I ran a whopping 16.15. Now, those are runs that are logged into Garmin, so it’s possible I hit the treadmill for some additional miles… but I’m sure it didn’t get anywhere close to 46.

That’s a lot of runs boosting my spirit and giving me more energy at a time when I need it most, the busy holiday season when I want to be genuinely jolly and not a giant stress ball. The extra running made a noticeable difference in helping me embrace travel and entertaining and planning and all the joy that should come with it but sometimes becomes overshadowed by stress.

I like that the goal had me tracking mileage, too, it’s fun to see the numbers and reflect on the year and to have them to look back on later. (I often look back at the year of my half marathon PR to see how many miles of running it took to get those results!)

My New Year’s Resolution for 2019:

More of the same BUT – I’ve decided I love the way this goal works for me to get me to do what I love consistently… so I’m going to add onto it.

500 miles of running

AND

500 miles of biking

AND

50 yoga practices

BONUS GOAL: try 50 different baked goods recipes in my quest for delicious, fast, healthy breakfast and snack options. I’m fine letting this one go if the stress and the mess outweighs the fun.

Note that I said yoga practices – that doesn’t have to be yoga classes. 15 minutes on the mat at home solo doing sun salutations and hanging out in downward facing dog counts. (5 minutes doesn’t. There, it’s in writing.) My reasoning for this is that I’d like to practice more at home since yoga has been so helpful at keeping my plantar fascia issues at bay and it’s such a great complement to my running.

500 miles of biking sounds like a lot, but biking is so much faster than running that a 50 minute studio class is often 10-12 miles, so that’s averaging about one ride a week for the year. Doesn’t that sound awesome?

To meet these goals, on average it’s about 10 miles of running a week, 50 minutes of biking a week, and one 20 minute yoga session at home or a studio class per week. During half marathon training, I’ll hit 25 miles a week and build a buffer. During the summer when I’m up in Maine I sometimes do 15-20 mile rides and get ahead there.

There’s flexibility, there’s wiggle room, but there’s no losing focus or I’ll get so behind I won’t be able to make it up.

It’s a big goal, but all three components complement each other and will make me stronger, happier, and more balanced.

Whatever you have in store for 2019, I hope it makes your heart sing and is a tool that helps you make time to do the things you love!

2018 New Year’s Resolution progress – Running 500 miles

• 0 • Motivation

I’m on track to make my New Year’s Resolution for 2018 by running 500 miles! Even with two weeks off from running in the beginning of November due to a chest cold, I only need to run about 10 miles a week in order to meet my goal. I’m trying to front-load that a little to give myself some wiggle room, aiming for more like 15 miles per week, but the math is promising! As I write this, I ran 7 miles on Monday and 3.9 miles today and feel great, so I’m optimistic that I’ll meet my goal without having to run a half marathon on New Year’s Eve (though that would make the champagne taste pretty good, wouldn’t it.)

I’m already thinking about my New Year’s Resolution for 2019. The past two years I’ve chosen goals that have been really rewarding, they’ve pushed me to embrace novelty and try new things (2017 trying 52 different fitness classes at the Equinox) and to work on consistency (running 500 miles in 2018).

Without a race on the horizon, I doubt I would have run 7 miles on Monday or hit the treadmill for an interval workout today. Finishing the 500 miles got me back into running after the cold derailed my running in November, whereas in previous years something like that combined with the onset of frigid temperatures would often lead to a hiatus in my running until spring. But running makes me happier, healthier and more resilient. I swear I’m more productive all day on the days that I run. So I’m glad this goal has me back in focusing on consistent mileage throughout December.

I have some ideas about what my resolution for next year will be… what are your goals for you? Will you strive for consistency, or novelty? What type of long-term goal will feel just challenging enough to be exciting but still achievable?

For some ideas on forming goals that you’ll love and then making a plan to meet them, check out my free e-workbook Form a Fitness Game Plan. I wrote it specifically for a fitness workshop I gave at a wellness retreat, and it’s the best of my thoughts on goals and finding one that lifts you up rather than bogs you down.