With my 2017 New Year’s Resolution completed, it was only logical to think about 2018. What’s next?

Rather than making you anxiously wait with bated breath for over two weeks (as if the holidays aren’t stressful enough), I’m going to go ahead and reveal my 2018 New Year’s Resolution now.

You’re welcome!

(Ok, fine, the early reveal is for me. Delayed gratification isn’t my forte.)

First, the goal vetting process:

Questions to Ask Yourself When Forming Your New Year’s Resolution:

• What do I want from this goal?
• How will this goal help me live a better life and is this a good way to achieve that end result?
• Who will I become by completing this goal? Does that excite me?
• Is this goal a good balance of challenging yet doable?
• How much time would it take per week to achieve this goal?
• Do I have enough wiggle room for setbacks and distractions, or will one bout of bronchitis or minor injury completely derail me?
• What’s the opportunity cost of this goal?
• Will I have to give up other things I enjoy in order to focus on completing it, and if so, is it worth it?

My 2018 New Year’s Resolution:

To run 500 miles in the coming year.

Let’s walk it through my vetting process.

What do I want from this goal? To get back into running, and to have greater consistency in my workouts.

How will this goal help me live a better life and is this a good way to achieve that end result? Running will get me outside more, boost my mood, and is a time-efficient way to work out without always taking time to drive over to the Equinox.

Who will I become by completing this goal? Does that excite me? I will become a stronger and more consistent runner, and get faster by running more consistently. That does excite me! I miss being a runner. I ran fewer than 50 miles this year, and while surviving Tabata was awesome, I miss feeling like I could walk out the door and run five miles.

Is this goal the “right” balance of challenging yet doable? Yes… it’s going to be a push to average 10 miles a week for an entire year, but I’ve averaged 20-30 miles a week during half marathon training seasons in my past, so it feels doable. It’s averaging those miles, so I can play around with working up to it, earning weeks off, etc. This idea initially came from Greg, who runs 1000 miles a year and wondered if I wanted to do it also. That wasn’t the right balance – it would have been too challenging for me to go from running barely at all in 2017 to averaging 20 miles per week for an entire year. There was no way. But being half the runner Greg is? Yeah, maybe I could swing that!

How much time would it take per week to achieve this goal? Probably I’ll end up running between 10 and 11-minute miles, so if I average 10:30s this goal will take about 1 hour and 45 minutes of running a week. So let’s guess about 2 hours a week. That seems doable, but not effortless. I feel good about this level of commitment.

Do I have enough wiggle room for setbacks and distractions, or will one bout of bronchitis or minor injury completely derail me? I got this. I should get up to 25 miles per week for at least 8 weeks during half marathon training for May, so that’ll buy me about 10 weeks off if I absolutely needed it. And after going through plantar fasciitis last Spring and taking several months off from my Equinox class goal, I know how valuable that wiggle room can be.

What’s the opportunity cost of this goal? Will I have to give up other things I enjoy in order to focus on completing it, and if so, is it worth it? Well, there will be some busy weeks when all I do is run for exercise if I prioritize this goal. It will undoubtedly mean fewer yoga classes and less time cycling or swimming some weeks because I’ve prioritized getting back into running consistently. But averaging 10 miles a week will still leave room for other activities, especially if I run heavily going into the spring for the Maine Coast Half Marathon. I could run 3 days a week and still have time for a yoga class, bike ride, or both. I could go to the gym and run 3 miles and then swim for 20 minutes. It’ll heavily influence my workout schedule, but doesn’t prevent me from incorporating other things I love into my week.

This New Year’s Resolution seems like a good fit for me.

As you think about your next goal, you might also want to ask yourself how it’ll impact your personal life. I already work out more than 2 hours a week, I’m just shifting the nature of my workouts. Will you need to create additional time in your schedule to accomplish your goal? How will it impact your family and work life? What can you do to create the additional time you need to meet your goal? (Leftovers are your friend.)

Also consider your fitness history. Will you enjoy the process? Are you giving yourself the motivation to make time for something you love, or trying to force yourself to do something you don’t enjoy? There are a lot of ways to be healthy and live an active life. Your New Year’s Resolution should ideally be something that makes you excited to get started.

What do you have planned for 2018? 

Any questions I missed that you find helpful when vetting your goals?

Happy planning!

 

Whenever you choose a fitness goal, an important part of success is having a realistic plan for when you’re going to accomplish your training goals.

Are you going to run in the morning? On your lunch break? After work?

Have you cleared that time from other obligations you’d normally accomplish then?

Do you need to arrange childcare or to prepare dinner ahead of time so it can go in the oven while you shower?

When are your meetings or conference calls scheduled? Will you need to pack a lunch if you’re going to work out on your lunch break?

What if it were tomorrow?

I like to put my plans through the “what if it were tomorrow” test. It’s all well and good to say “I’ll get up at 5 a.m. and do it!”, but does it pass the test when you walk yourself through what your day would look like if it were tomorrow?

When we make general plans we don’t always anticipate the unexpected obstacles presented by daily life that can trip up our workouts. I’ve had to skip a run because we didn’t have food in the fridge and I needed to return library books.

Making time to work out usually pays off for me with greater productivity for the rest of the day, so it’s worth it to me when I can sit down and get my ducks in a row so that working out can happen easily.

I like to sit down Monday morning and plan my workouts for the week and think about what needs to happen in order to make them feasible. I look at my calendar and plan ahead. I try to avoid two hard workouts in a row, do something a little easier the night after I have an event and might be out late having a glass of wine, think about which morning I will most likely need to grocery shop, and maybe try to coordinate a rest day for when I have a volunteer meeting or appointment so I’m not overscheduled.

It helps to be realistic; I thought I was going to go for a run on Will’s 7th birthday. Instead, I frosted cupcakes in my running gear and then changed. It was a cute thought, but really?

Example

Right now I’m working on scheduling the rest of my New Year’s goal to take every class at the Equinox… something I’m actually getting a bit burned out on (maybe you are, too… I’ll be back to normal blogging soon!) I’ve loved the journey, but the classes are getting harder to schedule, the blogging is feeling super repetitive, and I look forward to having more freedom in my workouts.

I have 10 classes left that are currently offered, and just over 10 weeks to complete them all. To give myself some margin of error, my goal is to aim for 2 classes per week so I am not stressing about this during the holiday season or blindsided by new class offerings.

What I’ve done is made a list of all the classes I haven’t taken yet and plugged them into an excel sheet showing when they’re offered. Classes in bold are only offered at that day and time, so I know I have to find a way to take them then. This will help me plan each week individually by choosing two that complement each other well based on schedule and type of exercise.

Looking at this helps me plan ahead. I know that some Thursday I’ll need to get up around 5:15 am to make it over for 6 am Boot Camp. Better plan that for a week with no late nights on the calendar.

I can see that there’s a Wednesday class around lunchtime that interferes with school pick-up – I’ll want to arrange playdates or schedule a babysitter to pick them up and feed them lunch, that’ll require advance planning.

One class is only offered at 6:30 p.m. on a weeknight: I’ll need to decide if I want to keep the kids out a little late in the playspace or arrange for a babysitter.

I think I’ve got this. I can almost taste it. 33 classes down, 10 to go, maybe a couple surprise new offerings in November or December that I’ll be ready for… it’ll happen.

But it won’t happen if I don’t plan ahead.

Today at the gym I was getting out of the pool and someone asked me if I was a triathlete, too.

What I said:

“Yeah!”

What I was thinking:

Sort of, I mean I did a couple sprint triathlons in 2016 including that great time when I was last out of the water, but I dropped out of my tri this summer, and I can barely run 3 miles right now and I’m actually only swimming because my calves hurt from jogging the day after I took Metcon3, but I wouldn’t BE swimming if I didn’t plan to sign up for the Sebago Lake Tri in June 2018, and hey, I’ve DONE  triathlons and I’m swimming and biking and running occasionally right now and I have plans to do ANOTHER triathlon so YES I AM A TRIATHLETE ALSO!!!”

Let’s all take a moment of grateful silence that I just said smiled and said “Yeah!” to my kindred pool spirit and conversed without subjecting them to that monologue.

It reminded me of the popular graphic circulating the internet about the path to success and what it really looks like, which is not a straight line.

This is what the path to success really looks like.

You are making progress and then you aren’t and then you detour and then maybe you’re busy and you’re injured but then you find that running partner and you’re back to making great progress…

I think if you examine your own fitness past you’ll find a lot of detours, twists, and regressions on your path forward.

When you hit one of those tough spots it can help to remember all the successes you’ve had after similar hiccups, and how normal that is.

My initial reaction was correct. I am a triathlete. I’m just in a tangled part of my path to success where I’m focused on another goal and building a base after an injury.

Oh, and I’m also a kickboxer.

And a cyclist.

And a bodybuilder.

(Just kidding.)

 

1. Get in there and focus on your effort and not your results. Work hard, feel great, don’t over-analyze.

2. Keep your germs home if you’re sick and clean up after yourself in the locker room.

I think these work really well together to provide yourself the best overall gym experience, but if you have to pick one, the only correct answer is to rock number 2.

And it’s easy to rock. You can still do burpees in your living room while getting over that cold. And it’s pretty easy (and feels better) to practice a “carry in – carry out” policy when using the gym showers and steam room.

You got this!

(Ok, you really do probably got this… but feel free to share ;))

I absolutely love my gym, and I really appreciate the maintenance team and all the members who are conscientious and do their part to keep it a clean and healthy place to be.

So get out there and rock it. Be a positive presence in class, a resource for newbies, a smile for people you walk by, a patient presence during peak times. Be someone who always picks up your towel and maybe even (using your towel as a buffer) someone else’s.

When we’re kind to ourselves, it’s easier to be kind to others, and when we’re kind to others, it’s easier to like and be kind to ourselves. (I read this somewhere, and it rings true for me.)

You’re an asset to your club… rock it!

On a recent morning in Maine I had about 45 minutes before we needed to head off somewhere as a family.

It wasn’t really long enough for my typical bike routes, and I felt like I should go for a run because I haven’t really been running.

I analyzed my feelings of guilt that I’d rather bike than run and waffled about going until there was no longer time to go.

Don’t do that.

If you have just enough time, be decisive and get out the door!

And if a particular activity is calling you so strongly you can’t bear to do a different one, do what your heart tells you rather than nothing.

And hey, I got to bike a mile to dinner on the beach.

So it’s a fable, but it has a happy ending!