Resolutions, Smesolutions... I Have GOALS!

WORD FOR THE YEAR: FOCUS

I will not call these resolutions.  Resolutions tend to be less than permanent.  It's easy to give them up.  It's almost as if they are there to be broken.  

Goals, on the other hand, are something to strive toward.  If I have goals they are always there.  I might meet them this year - that's the hope, after all - but if I don't it's not the end of the world.  I won't feel too let down (I hope!).  Since I met the "Run a marathon when I'm 30" goal in 2010 I've had to come up with a few good ones for this year.    

My Goals for 2011, in no particular order:

• PR in the marathon!  If I work as hard as I think I will it shouldn't be too hard.  I will be happy with one second faster than last time, but the most important thing to me is that my finish time reads 4:xx:xx.  Not sure what the "x"s stand for yet - I'll have a more concrete time goal in mind once training's in full swing.
• Run another half marathon.  I'd love to run the Historic Half again in February, but money would have to come through for that to happen.  If I don't do that one it'll most likely be after the full.
• Volunteer at races.  I'm already signed up to help out at the First Half Half Marathon in February.  Ideally I'd like to help out at a couple more during the year.  I've had nothing but good experiences with the volunteers in the races I've run and would love to make someone else's race great too!
• Maybe run a fall marathon.  I have mixed feelings about training through the summer - how many times was it too hot to run?  Definitely a decision to be made in a few months.
• Eat better.  Self explanatory.  Work harder at planning meals and having healthy choices (for all of us) in the house on a consistent basis.
• Drink water.  Not my first choice of beverage, but it really needs to be.  This should be the easiest goal to achieve... hopefully.  I need to stop having "alternatives" (cough*pop*cough) in the house.  
• Work on Core/Strength/Stretch 2-3x/week.  My hip flexors will love me, I'll be stronger, I'll look better (goodbye muffin-top), I'll feel better about myself, etc.  Again, shouldn't be hard to do - I'll just need to get my act together and keep it up.

And here is the biggest goal of the year:

• Run 1250 miles.  Now that might seem like a kind of random number.  However, I'm Canadian and I run in kilometres (see blog name).  So 1250 miles x 1.609344 = 2011.68km. Given that the year is 2011 I think that it's a pretty darn good goal.  It also means that I'll have to run 38.some-odd kilometres/24 miles per week.  Obviously some will be shorter and some will be longer, but I really do think that it will be attainable.  Especially if I keep going back to that big, bold word at the top of this post... FOCUS!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!