2011, an one-word resolution.
RUN.
That's my sole plan for 2011. Literally. Figuratively. Let's break it all down in many words.
Running as running: When I told my "you can't handle P90X" coworker that I was going to run this year, she laughed and said, "Wasn't that your resolution for last year?" I sighed and told her that this year, I really mean it! I don't think that she really believes me still and that's okay.
One of my bffs and I are talking about doing the Disney Princess Half Marathon in 2012. So that's my goal. This year, it's in February, so I'm hoping they are doing the same thing next year.
So what's the difference between this year, last year and now next year? Well, this year, I am starting the year knowing I can run 2" intervals, which isn't something I could do at this time last year.
A few weeks ago, I came up with a short list of goals to achieve with running so here's that:
End of February: 1 mile
End of April: 2 miles, start running outside.
End of May: 3 miles
Birthday: 4 miles
End of October: 6 miles
End of December: 8 miles
Sometime in February 2012: 13.1 miles
I know that miles are usually added at a quicker pace but I want to make this a little easier to achieve. Also, I want to work on speed as well as endurance. Hitting the miles is one part, getting them faster is another.
Since we are next to February, last night, I used my ex's treadmill to see just far I was from that goal. My intervals are usually at 5mph/12" pace, so I slowed that to 4.3 and was able to push myself to 0.86mi before I thought that no, seriously, I really was going to hurl. Thankfully, I didn't but it was close! I did a couple short intervals at 5 to get a running mile in.
If I had regular treadmill access, I think getting to a mile and potentially to a 12" mile in four weeks would be pretty easy. Since my ex isn't always so generous and still (so far) refuses to give me a key so I can run while he's at work, I've got to start running outside. The above referenced coworker doesn't think I should run outside in the winter, that I should wait until spring when it's warm. It's too complicated, she thinks.
What it actually is, is too expensive. I've run into $120 pants and shirts range from $40-80. The sole positive here is that the markup between regular and plus sizes is fairly minor to nonexistent. I guess it's just the wicking fabric that makes it all so freakin' expensive.
I am working on getting up the nerve to order a pair of running tights and some dri-wick shirts from Athleta. I just dumped over a thousand into my car (damn annual inspection!) so spending money is a little painful right now.
Anyway, that's the literal. Oh yeah, there's more. It's been awhile since my last public post so I want to be sure you get your money's worth. ;)
Running away from fears and towards my dreams: Basically, I am looking at the invisible scripts in my life and doing my best to eradicate them. Running towards dreams. Running from my fears which are always wrong and only serve to let me get into my own way. We all have invisible scripts that we follow. My goal is to discover and shed mine. Like, oh, hey, since I failed to start running, really, last year, that I will fail again this year. No, that is not so.
The crazy dreams I am aiming for including making too much money to use a Roth IRA, being completely financially independent and being able to bring my condo to its studs and building it back out with incredible pro-sound-proofing and anti-cockroach insulation (leaning towards hemp atm, yes, I think about this A Lot.). These huge and vague for a reason. I have a few things I'm working on that aren't to a Big Reveal stage yet.
Running like a well-oiled machine: This list will look very familiar to many of you -
+ sleep like a normal person
+ eat more live food (green things, salad daily)
+ meet with a nutritionist,
++ if my ADHD has not improved in 2-3 months through nutrition alone, see a psychiatrist for medication
+ keep on with P90X for endurance and speed
+ keep on with yoga for flexibility, grace, strength and September's Yoga Journal conference, which I aim to attend with Sarah.
Right now, I don't eat as much live food as I should, partly because everything goes bad before I can eat it. When I want a snack or meal, I'm pretty immediate about these things as I don't normally think about them or let my hunger pull me from whatever I'm into until I am STARVING. So stopping then to get something healthy assembled is a challenge. But I've said these things all here before.
I am hoping that a nutritionist will be able to give me ideas about how to cope with having an unpredictable lunch hour and no dinner time scheduled on my work days. I know the body does best when it is on a consistent schedule. I just don't have that. And I won't so long as I work where I do, and where I have for the past almost-three-years.
I do still plan on continuing my other training as well. It's an easy, smart decision. There's also some messing around with Wii Fit in there. I am not doing any thing terribly consistently,* so I am hoping to find some sort of coach to whom I can hold myself accountable. It's just wicked hard to do this for just myself.
Here's the crazy thing, I think so much about running these days that I was working on a client the other day and thought that I should join a soccer league in the fall. By then, I'll have a decent mileage going on so I won't embarrass myself by being constantly out of breath. Iirc, when I played as a kid, I was a wing or half-back (left side, always as I am left-legged as well as left-handed) and one of my coaches once told me that half-backs generally cover 3-5 miles per game. And it's all in small (*ahem* potentially length of field = small) sprints, which will only aid my speed/endurance training.
The thing is that I stopped playing soccer as a kid because it stopped being fun. Once I was in high school, the youth league became full of girls who didn't make the cut of their school's team. And here's me, who didn't bother trying out for my school's team, I just wanted to have fun and kick the ball around. My teammates would talk before the games about how many people they were going to knock over and maybe they would try to punch someone in the face. They were intense and brutal and that's not what I'm looking for. I just want a league where I can play for the fun of it. I do like to win and all but I don't intend to kick anyone's ass over it. So I guess we will see what's out there for adults.
To help myself with my plan to RUN this year, I've got to let my spending reflect my goals. So I do have to suck it up and buy the winter running gear. Less books. I'm going to need more Brooks soon. I did start a subscription to Yoga Journal (since I pretty much buy it every month anyway) and Runner's World.
I could just say here outloud that I am not dating right now. So that's a surprisingly large expensive I no longer have. The surprising part is because I don't normally pay for dates. I mean, I try, I really try to not have an expectant/princess attitude on dates but the guys I date generally refuse to let me pay for anything, to the point of acting insulted that I would ask. But the super cute clothes, hot shoes, cute purses, my Sephora addiction... these things that are so easy to buy** these days, these need to stop. The only things I need are to periodically replace work clothes. Though if I just find some black dye, that'd seriously refresh my work wardrobe.
As to why I am not dating, you can just look back at my public posts. All the same reasons, minus the desire to meet new people. Not that I don't want new people in my life but I am very tired of bullshit, and the universe clearly agrees with me as no one piques my interest these days.
We'll see how long it lasts. Hopefully long enough for my bank account to recover from my car expenses this month!
So... we've got my resoution, my finances, my (lack of a) love life, what's left to tell you about?
My spiritual life? I've committed to doing a monthly healing ritual for my circle. I have a new level to work. I have people to call to learn a new type of ritual from (dear gods, how I hate making phone calls).
Last day of the month is about over so we'll call this post done. Anything else you want to know, you'll have to ask. :)
* Apparently the same curse that effects who I date, also effects personal trainers. ;) He's had some issues going on, our training stopped in early December. We still text periodically and talk about restarting training but that's yet to begin so I can't count on it (yet?).
** I did buy a couple purses at the outlets the other week. They were 50 or 70% off retail so two purses and a wallet were cheaper than the last wallet I bought at the Coach store. I'm calling it my last indulgence of this nature.
That's my sole plan for 2011. Literally. Figuratively. Let's break it all down in many words.
Running as running: When I told my "you can't handle P90X" coworker that I was going to run this year, she laughed and said, "Wasn't that your resolution for last year?" I sighed and told her that this year, I really mean it! I don't think that she really believes me still and that's okay.
One of my bffs and I are talking about doing the Disney Princess Half Marathon in 2012. So that's my goal. This year, it's in February, so I'm hoping they are doing the same thing next year.
So what's the difference between this year, last year and now next year? Well, this year, I am starting the year knowing I can run 2" intervals, which isn't something I could do at this time last year.
A few weeks ago, I came up with a short list of goals to achieve with running so here's that:
End of February: 1 mile
End of April: 2 miles, start running outside.
End of May: 3 miles
Birthday: 4 miles
End of October: 6 miles
End of December: 8 miles
Sometime in February 2012: 13.1 miles
I know that miles are usually added at a quicker pace but I want to make this a little easier to achieve. Also, I want to work on speed as well as endurance. Hitting the miles is one part, getting them faster is another.
Since we are next to February, last night, I used my ex's treadmill to see just far I was from that goal. My intervals are usually at 5mph/12" pace, so I slowed that to 4.3 and was able to push myself to 0.86mi before I thought that no, seriously, I really was going to hurl. Thankfully, I didn't but it was close! I did a couple short intervals at 5 to get a running mile in.
If I had regular treadmill access, I think getting to a mile and potentially to a 12" mile in four weeks would be pretty easy. Since my ex isn't always so generous and still (so far) refuses to give me a key so I can run while he's at work, I've got to start running outside. The above referenced coworker doesn't think I should run outside in the winter, that I should wait until spring when it's warm. It's too complicated, she thinks.
What it actually is, is too expensive. I've run into $120 pants and shirts range from $40-80. The sole positive here is that the markup between regular and plus sizes is fairly minor to nonexistent. I guess it's just the wicking fabric that makes it all so freakin' expensive.
I am working on getting up the nerve to order a pair of running tights and some dri-wick shirts from Athleta. I just dumped over a thousand into my car (damn annual inspection!) so spending money is a little painful right now.
Anyway, that's the literal. Oh yeah, there's more. It's been awhile since my last public post so I want to be sure you get your money's worth. ;)
Running away from fears and towards my dreams: Basically, I am looking at the invisible scripts in my life and doing my best to eradicate them. Running towards dreams. Running from my fears which are always wrong and only serve to let me get into my own way. We all have invisible scripts that we follow. My goal is to discover and shed mine. Like, oh, hey, since I failed to start running, really, last year, that I will fail again this year. No, that is not so.
The crazy dreams I am aiming for including making too much money to use a Roth IRA, being completely financially independent and being able to bring my condo to its studs and building it back out with incredible pro-sound-proofing and anti-cockroach insulation (leaning towards hemp atm, yes, I think about this A Lot.). These huge and vague for a reason. I have a few things I'm working on that aren't to a Big Reveal stage yet.
Running like a well-oiled machine: This list will look very familiar to many of you -
+ sleep like a normal person
+ eat more live food (green things, salad daily)
+ meet with a nutritionist,
++ if my ADHD has not improved in 2-3 months through nutrition alone, see a psychiatrist for medication
+ keep on with P90X for endurance and speed
+ keep on with yoga for flexibility, grace, strength and September's Yoga Journal conference, which I aim to attend with Sarah.
Right now, I don't eat as much live food as I should, partly because everything goes bad before I can eat it. When I want a snack or meal, I'm pretty immediate about these things as I don't normally think about them or let my hunger pull me from whatever I'm into until I am STARVING. So stopping then to get something healthy assembled is a challenge. But I've said these things all here before.
I am hoping that a nutritionist will be able to give me ideas about how to cope with having an unpredictable lunch hour and no dinner time scheduled on my work days. I know the body does best when it is on a consistent schedule. I just don't have that. And I won't so long as I work where I do, and where I have for the past almost-three-years.
I do still plan on continuing my other training as well. It's an easy, smart decision. There's also some messing around with Wii Fit in there. I am not doing any thing terribly consistently,* so I am hoping to find some sort of coach to whom I can hold myself accountable. It's just wicked hard to do this for just myself.
Here's the crazy thing, I think so much about running these days that I was working on a client the other day and thought that I should join a soccer league in the fall. By then, I'll have a decent mileage going on so I won't embarrass myself by being constantly out of breath. Iirc, when I played as a kid, I was a wing or half-back (left side, always as I am left-legged as well as left-handed) and one of my coaches once told me that half-backs generally cover 3-5 miles per game. And it's all in small (*ahem* potentially length of field = small) sprints, which will only aid my speed/endurance training.
The thing is that I stopped playing soccer as a kid because it stopped being fun. Once I was in high school, the youth league became full of girls who didn't make the cut of their school's team. And here's me, who didn't bother trying out for my school's team, I just wanted to have fun and kick the ball around. My teammates would talk before the games about how many people they were going to knock over and maybe they would try to punch someone in the face. They were intense and brutal and that's not what I'm looking for. I just want a league where I can play for the fun of it. I do like to win and all but I don't intend to kick anyone's ass over it. So I guess we will see what's out there for adults.
To help myself with my plan to RUN this year, I've got to let my spending reflect my goals. So I do have to suck it up and buy the winter running gear. Less books. I'm going to need more Brooks soon. I did start a subscription to Yoga Journal (since I pretty much buy it every month anyway) and Runner's World.
I could just say here outloud that I am not dating right now. So that's a surprisingly large expensive I no longer have. The surprising part is because I don't normally pay for dates. I mean, I try, I really try to not have an expectant/princess attitude on dates but the guys I date generally refuse to let me pay for anything, to the point of acting insulted that I would ask. But the super cute clothes, hot shoes, cute purses, my Sephora addiction... these things that are so easy to buy** these days, these need to stop. The only things I need are to periodically replace work clothes. Though if I just find some black dye, that'd seriously refresh my work wardrobe.
As to why I am not dating, you can just look back at my public posts. All the same reasons, minus the desire to meet new people. Not that I don't want new people in my life but I am very tired of bullshit, and the universe clearly agrees with me as no one piques my interest these days.
We'll see how long it lasts. Hopefully long enough for my bank account to recover from my car expenses this month!
So... we've got my resoution, my finances, my (lack of a) love life, what's left to tell you about?
My spiritual life? I've committed to doing a monthly healing ritual for my circle. I have a new level to work. I have people to call to learn a new type of ritual from (dear gods, how I hate making phone calls).
Last day of the month is about over so we'll call this post done. Anything else you want to know, you'll have to ask. :)
* Apparently the same curse that effects who I date, also effects personal trainers. ;) He's had some issues going on, our training stopped in early December. We still text periodically and talk about restarting training but that's yet to begin so I can't count on it (yet?).
** I did buy a couple purses at the outlets the other week. They were 50 or 70% off retail so two purses and a wallet were cheaper than the last wallet I bought at the Coach store. I'm calling it my last indulgence of this nature.