Thursday, December 27, 2012

Running Resolutions, Part 1

Wow! I sure have been terrible about keeping up with my blog, haven't I?  I suppose it's because I haven't been racing much since Steamtown except for a Turkey Trot which was unremarkable.  Doug & I mostly do those every year for the sake of tradition; there were 1700 other runners and it started out on a narrow one-way road, so we knew right off the bat there wouldn't be any PR that day.  And I was right--25:02!  That still shows what a long way I've come, but considering that Doug and I were chatting as we ran until the very last push, it didn't seem worth reporting.  Now, onto the real stuff.

I'll be the first to admit that I've failed with New Years' resolutions multiple times.  They always start out sounding great only to fall by the wayside.  Heck, I think I even set one resolution for 2012: to make it my best year yet.  Unfortunately, after 2011 involved graduating law school, taking and passing the bar, getting married, and taking a honeymoon trip to Antigua, it was going to be impossible to top.  Don't get me wrong, it's been a great year, but not nearly as huge as 2011.  So even that resolution didn't quite work.

Why don't resolutions work?  Is it too easy for them to become an afterthought?  Do we set our sights too high?  Maybe a mixture of both?  Your guess is as good as mine.  This year, I think I'm going to take the same approach to resolutions that I did to my weight loss goals two years ago: I'll incentivize them.

So, to start, here are my resolutions:
  Running Resolutions:
     Run a race every month
     PR in the 5K, half, and full (BQ, please!)
     (Kind of running) Get more overall "fit"--i.e., lift more

  For fun, here are my non-running resolutions:
     Organize, and stay on top of, all aspects of my life: professional, personal, and home
     Kick processed food all together

So there they are.  My next post will come once I figure out, in the next day or so, how to incentivize those resolutions.  Any ideas are, of course, very welcome!  And please feel free to share your resolutions, as well!