Goals & Resolutions: It's all about BALANCE

Last year I broke my goals into three different categories: personal, health, and fitness. I also mentioned 4 races that I wanted to partcipate in, and completed only 2 of the 4. But, I did end up doing 6 events in 2010, so it was good in that aspect!

At work we were asked to think of ONE WORD that we think of when thinking about 2011. The word I chose was BALANCE.

So, here are a list of my goals, resolutions, etc. for 2011, broken into the following categories:

Fitness/Health/Training:

• Train smart = stay injury free
• More Yoga, Pilates, and Strength Training/Core Work (BODYPUMP)
• Run outside more and ride my bike more = stay away from the gym when weather permits
• Swim more yards than 2010 (64,400)
• More clean eating
• Vitamins and Suppliments
• Fargo GoFar Challenge = 5K Friday Night/Half Marathon Saturday Morning (REGISTERED!) - May 20/21
• Tour De Cure - Ride for Diabetes - Minneapolis, June 4th
• Possibly another triathlon or two, mixed in with a 10K or something

Career/Work:

• Complete my ASD Credential (3 classes to go!)
• Enjoy my job
• Spread positivity at work/don't feed into negativity and complaining

Personal:

• Volunteer for the Fargo Youth Run Committee, and work the event
• Travel and visit friends
• Do more reading for fun
• Do more painting for fun
• Enjoy the busy-ness of life
• Attempt to learn more about gardening and photography, and apply it
• Find BALANCE in life, work, and training - enjoying every minute of it all
  

What's your overall goal or ONE WORD for 2011?!

2010: A Year to Look Forward To!

If you missed it, yesterday I posted my 2009 Year in Review...

Today, I would love to post a list of numerous races and events that I hope to participate in and accomplish in 2010, but I am thinking I need to try something different this year. After struggling with knee issues a couple times in 2009, I have a new perspective on running, racing, and everything else.

So, with that in mind here's a few ideas I have for 2010:

Personal Goals:

• Travel more. I have a good friend that lives in MT and need to make it a priority of mine to get out there and visit her this year. It was a goal of mine to do so in 2009, and that didn't happen. This year, will be the year. Asside from that, I would love to do some camping and hiking this coming summer, as well as a trip to a place I haven't been before, either in the states or abroad.
• Spend time with family and friends. I do this pretty well already, but want to note how important this is to me. I am very close with my immediate family as well as some extended family and look forward to the time spent together - everything from a short weekend to trips together.
• Do more painting. This is something I truly enjoy and find to be quite relaxing. I have a couple projects in mind and hope to share it with you in the next month or so!
• Read more! I absolutely LOVE to read, but have not done enough this year. It's rediculous! I probably have a dozen books on my bookshelf that haven't been read and am itching to do so.

Health Goals:

• Find a healthy balance between work, training, rest, and nutrition. This was a goal of mine last year, and I think I have come a long way with my nutrition, especially. However, I still have more to learn and additional changes need to be made. Balancing these things is probably the hardest thing for me and I need to realize that a missed workout here and there due to long days at work or not enough sleep is better than piling on the junk miles.
• Try new recipes. I want to get better about exploring better and healthier recipes. 'nuff said.
• Keep up with the vitamins/supplements. I have done pretty well with taking my daily vitamins and supplements and hope to be a bit more consistent with this in 2010! I am currently taking a women's multi-vitamin, glucosamine, fish oil, and have recently added Vitamin D.
  

Fitness:

• Enjoy running. This past year has been hard in regards to running, with the least amount of miles in 4 years. But, I have come to realize that it is important for me to be grateful for every painful-free mile ran, whether it was a 10 minute mile or 12 minute mile.
• Include more Core/Strength/Stretch. This includes getting back into doing my TriPower routine on a regular basis as well as participating in yoga, pilates, and bodypump classes often.
• Participate in races/events. This is pretty broad, I know. However, instead of listing off thousands races that I would like to do, I need to wait and see how the knee is going to hold up. I have a pretty good base built since my injury, so if I play things smart, I should be able to continue training and build some long runs. If that's the case, I have some longer distances in mind, in addition to different races/events from years past!
• Get out on the bike more. Unfortunately, this past spring/summer/fall I didn't get on my bike as much as I would have liked. Between the months of May and October, it was very wet and colder than usual.
• Join swim team, again. In June, I joined the Adult Gators swim team and met twice a week for 1 hour swim practice. It was the best thing I did and I look forward to doing it again.

BUT, if I were to list a handful of races, this is kind of what it would look like:

• Lifetime Fitness Indoor Triathlon - I have done one of these already, but my sister has started training for a triathlon and would like to do one of these this winter!
• Fargo Marathon - No, I am not talking about doing the full marathon, but the GoFar Challenge - which will consist of running the 5K Friday night and then the Half Marathon Saturday morning. It would not only be fun, but I would get a medal for each race, plus an additional medal for doing the challenge! If I struggle with getting my half marathon training done due to my knee, I will lay low and try to do the 10K since that has been recently added to the list of races that weekend! I am still part of the Youth run committee for this and it should be pretty fun!
• Detroit Lakes Younglife Olympic Triathlon - I did the Sprint distance of this race this past August and loved it. I am hoping I will be able to do the Olympic distance this time around!
• Ride the Wind 2010 - This is a two day ride for MS that I have wanted to participate in since I heard about it 2 years ago, but haven't been able to train for it. I think it's a 100 mile ride across two days, but it could be 150 miles. I haven't figured that much out yet. However, I will need to raise at least $200 to participate.

What does your 2010 look like? Do you have any specific goals/races in mind?

Making the Most of April

Today is the beginning of a new month, a better month. The past two months have been trying with injuries and life in general. So, the last few days I have been trying to decide on what I can do to make the most of April.

Here's what I came up with:

Get back to a regular sleep schedule. As much as I would like to think that sleeping from 9-430 one night, 1030-6 the next night and then back to 9-430 the next night is okay, it really isn't. It doesn't help my workouts, leaving me with the bare minimal some days and rock star workouts other days. I need my sleep routine back.

Cut back on unnecessary fluids and increasing water consumption. I look at this as some form of detox from drinks that do nothing for me. As of the past few weeks, I have probably been consuming 3-4 lattes a week, well more than I need. In reference to alcohol, I may go weeks without any of the likes, while the next week I will have more than needed on a given Friday. It's not necessary and it tampers with the effectiveness of my weekend workouts. I am pretty decent with water consumption, but know I would feel better if I increased it.

Eat better. This is pretty simple. I like to think that I eat pretty well as it is, but there are some things that need to be cut out and just making a conscious effort will make a world of a difference. More fruits and vegetables need to be thrown into the mix and eating out needs to be minimized. Watch all of my tastes and licks, they all add up! Plain and simple.

Do Jillian's 30-Day Shred, over. I haven't done this for the past week and have only made it half way through the 30 days this month. So I thought I would give it a try again. Come May 1st and I will be ready to start my Tri Power book!

Continue to work on strengthening my legs and core. With the knee issues, I feel as if I am slowly learning to run again. One minute I am extremely frustrated with my lack of ability to run further or faster, but the next minute I am extremely grateful that I can still do at least a 5K distance with little to no problems. I will continue to work to strengthen my muscles and become a better runner, working to increase my mileage again down the road!


This may seem like a lot of things to do and be watchful of during a one month span, but in reality it isn't. I felt that if I put it down in writing I would be more conscious of them all and do better with these mini goals.



What are your plans to make the most of this month? Do you have any goals or challenges for yourself, big or small?

Thinking about 2009 already?

I have returned from a wonderful weekend at a lake cabin in Minnesota. It was great to spend some quality time with my aunts, cousins, and grandma ... just us girls. Friday night I truly felt like crap from my cold, Saturday I felt a little bit better but had more of a cough, and this morning I felt 150% better with just a nasty cough.

I have unpacked my bag, thrown in a load of laundry, and began packing again. Tomorrow morning I board a charter bus with a good number of teachers, administrators, and coordinators ... heading back to MN for a 3 day conference. It's going to be a busy 3 days, but I hope to learn a lot.
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On the "training" front....

For the past 4 months I felt like I have been doing farely well with my workouts. The month of June was 30 days of workouts with no rest days. July was okay, but busy with a lot of weekends out of town. August was similar, and here we are in September and the month is almost half over.

I looked at my "Race Schedule" on my sidebar and was very disappointed with the number of races I did this year, or lack there of. I did 2. My first triathlon, an indoor one, and then my first Half Marathon. That's it. There were a handful of races that I had on my schedule with all intentions of doing and enough time to train for every one of them, but they just weren't in the cards this year. Next year will be better.

2009 is going to be different.

I know it is probably too soon to be thinking of 2009, but I am. You know why? Because registration for the Fargo Marathon has opened this week and I am already looking forward to signing up. After the Half Marathon this year, I knew that I would sign up again, but thought I would probably do the Marathon Relay (4 person) or the 5K. But, the more I think about it, I am thinking I might do the half again. I enjoyed it that much! I can't wait.

So, I am starting to think of other races that I would like to do next year. Living in ND, there are really only a handful of good months to race, and that is probably why I haven't been able to do as many races as I would like. The Fargo Half Marathon is going to be a priority. That and a Danskin Triathlon, I believe. Plus, there is going to be a triathlon that I really want to do... near my sister's place.

Have any of you started to think about 2009? Am I the only one thinking about a 2009 race schedule already? Do you have a off-season? Which months are the heaviest with races?

2008 Goals

Here are some things I would like to accomplish in 2008; broken into three categories, Life, Health, and Fitness.

Life: I love to read, and I told myself that I would pick that back up once I was done with graduate school. I have about 10 books to read on my bookshelf! I have also thought of starting some sort of book club; whether here in ND, or a virtual one in blogland. I also love to paint. I haven't really done much since highschool and I would like to get back into that. I prefer to do landscapes, farms, etc. As long as I have a pic to refer to, I am willing to attempt it. I would also love to do some more traveling... and I hope a race or two might require me to do so!

Health: I want to do the following 3 things - Eat better. Sleep better. Take my vitamins... everyday. Plain and simple.

Fitness: I have many races I am looking at for 2008 and will probably not decide on until later. I want to try a few different races and distances, as I have only done 5K's in the past. Here's a few of the races I am looking at in 2008:

• Fargo Half Marathon - 5.17.08
• Bismarck Sprint Triathlon - 6.08.08
• Prairie Rose State Games 10K - 7.15.08
• Twin Cities 10-miler - 10.05.08

And then there are the races I have done in the past ... and then some that I am possible looking at doing.... if they work into my schedule...

• Danskin Triathlon
  
• UND Homecoming Race - Grand Forks, ND (end of Sept./early Oct)
  
• Homerun 10K - Fargo, ND
• 5K (or 10K) Turkey Trot - Bismarck, ND (Thanksgiving Day)
  
• 5K Jingle Bell Run - Fargo, ND (First weekend in Dec.)
  
• Zoo Year's Eve 5K - Bismarck, ND (Last Sunday in December)
  

If my first half marathon goes well, I would like to attempt one in August/September out of state. I have a few ideas, but I am always open for more ...

In training for my first real triathlon, I would like to take the time to really improve my endurance in swimming. With my running, I am not looking to improve speed. Instead, I want to be able to build my mileage, slowly, and without injuring myself. I have been looking over the Jeff Galloway plan and have heard such good things about it.

Happy New Year's, y'all! :)

Sulking...

My goals for 2008 are still a work of art in progress. I keep pondering ideas, and then have to bring myself back to reality. I want to have something to reach for, but not so far that the goals are unattainable.

I will get back to you all. Currently I am sulking in my beer... crying over our loss of our amazing football coach... right before we go to DI. He'll be hard to replace. Southern Illinois - take care of our ND native... Mr. Dale Lennon.

A little of this... a little of that...

Christmas in ND was wonderful. We were blessed with healthy family and good traveling conditions, for the most part. We were all spoiled with gifts... mine consisting of winter running clothes, many books, the video of the Crossroads Guitar Festival we attended this summer, jewelry, crock pot, and a few other things. If you have a love for music, especially blues/jazz, I highly recommend this one!

After a lot of running around on the 24th and 25th, it was nice to sleep in yesterday and just lay around most of the day. It wasn't until mid afternoon that sis and I went out for a run, but I was thankful that the temps were in the mid 20's. It was bareable, and quite enjoyable... despite sis complaining about being so cold. She's quite the wimp.

We spent the evening celebrating my god-daughter's ninth birthday, and then over to my cousin's house for his housewarming party. It was fun, but another late night. I just can't go without 8-9 hours of sleep a night.

Today will be another day of relaxing and then to my cousin's high school basketball game this evening. Supposedly they are pretty decent. It should be fun. If the temp goes up from 8 degrees, I might venture out for another short run. We'll see.

I have been doing a lot of thinking about what kind of races I want to do in 2008. I have quite a few in my sidebar, but most of them are there to remind me of my options... I just haven't decided what I am doing for sure yet. My goals for 2008 will be in a post, coming soon...

But first... here are a few pics from the past few days...