At the beginning of each year, I set goals for myself. Not resolutions. But goals. This year I identified 5 goals, 4 of which related to food or fitness. (Maybe one day, I'll blog about the year's goals but that's not what I want to ramble on about today.) Losing weight wasn't one of my goals - partly because after my many-year plateau, I didn't want a goal that seemed so difficult to "control" and I guess partly because I knew that I was almost done chasing a lower number. But even though it wasn't a 2013 goal, I was still trying to lose weight. And it was one of the markers of the progress I was making with all my food & fitness changes and the value of the investment in a personal trainer. When I decided to stop trying to lose weight, I knew I would need to identify some goals, that were not scale related, but that were related to diet and exercise and were achievable in the short-medium term, something that I could monitor and get feedback on regularly -- not with the immediacy/frequency of the scale but not a one-day or end-of-year milestone. I came up with 7:
1) Get my swim time for 2000m down to 50 minutes or less.
2) Get my body fat below 20%.
3) Improve my 5K time at each successive tri-club time trial (there are 3).
4) Reduce my waist @ the belly button measurement to 31".
5) Reduce my bicep measurement to 10".
6) Keep up with the back of the pack on tri-club group runs.
7) Find a race to aim for an age group top 3 finish.
So I'm happy to report that for #6, I've been on a group run with the tri-club and been able to keep up with the folks at the back... actually some folks not quite at the back. And at the last time trial, I was the second one across the line, albeit we had a low turn-out. So I'm feeling like #6 has been achieved although I recognize that one is really dependent on who shows up for the group run, I don't feel quite so much like an imposter, which is how I felt after the first one. So we're down to 6 goals.
I just wrapped up another 10 weeks with my trainer and we did the weight/measurement check-in to gauge progress. My waist and bicep measurements are completely unchanged in 10 weeks. Booo hissss. You know what was not unchanged? My chest & hip measurements. Those continued to shrink. Yes, my trainer is turning me into a 12-year old boy. And the erosion of my chest & hips only serves to make my waist look that much thicker! Body fat percentage: 20.3%. So close. Not close enough. So if you're keeping track - we're still at 6 goals.
This morning I hit the pool for a swim. Was a little late arriving and had just 50 minutes on the clock before Lengths Swimming was officially over. I thought it seemed like a good time to check on goal #1. Result: 2000m in 51 minutes. But here's the thing: I didn't start believing I could make it until the last 500m and I don't know but I'm pretty sure that if I'd believed I had it from the beginning, I'd be marking this goal as completed. So yes, still at 6 goals but there's an important lesson for me in today's swim result, which in the random walk through of goal progress brings me to goal #3.
Today is the the third and final 5K run time trial with my tri-club. When I ran the first one, I ran my first ever sub-30 5K. Something I thought in my life I'd never do. Ever. And then I ran that baby in 28:59. I headed out to the last one wondering if I could beat the first time, but thinking how the first one was a pretty big deal for me. And you know what? I ran that one in 26:50. SHOCKING! I nearly threw up at the end I was pushing so hard. I was amazed I ran it that fast. So I have been thinking about today's run and wondering if I could beat (or even repeat) the time from the last one. Questioning. And based on advice from some accomplished athlete friends, and my experience in the pool this morning, I can't help but think that I need to be believing I can beat that time. Not wondering. Not questioning. Believing. I guess we'll find out in a few hours.
As for the last goal on the list, based on the last time trial, I've had a look through some race results for smaller 5K races and am contemplating a couple at the end of the year to try and achieve that lofty goal.
I've also set some goals for April - trying to focus on behaviours as well as results. Because behaviours you can control. April's goals:
1. Weigh myself only every other day. For why this is important, refer back to this post
2. Be green 100% of the time. This is a food goal. Essentially, to be green means I achieved my minimum targets for macro-nutrients & calories. There's more to it than that but I won't go into details today.
3. 5K time trial improvement... yup, dovetailing with #3 from the list above.
We're t minus 3 hours from the TT. Cue dramatic music: Dum dum dum....
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