…in with the new

So, remember when I said 2010 was a hard year?  Well, my wonderful mother had the amazing idea to have a Calendar Burning Party.  What better way to celebrate the new year than by burning away some of the bad memories from 2010.

       

OK, so it still doesn’t change the fact that I still miss both my grandpa’s + dog terribly, but it definitely made me feel a little better and ready to tackle a new year!

MY 2011 GOALS

Push myself in the weight room.  I am a very highly self-motivated person.  It doesn’t take much for me to keep to goals or challenge myself.  But, when it comes to weight training, I typically keep the weights lighter than I should.  I have dappled in A TON of different strength training routines since I tend to get bored easily – traditional strength training, body building workouts, CrossFit, Jillian Michaels’ Making the Cut, etc. etc.  But very few have given me the results I have been looking for.  And I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that I stick to the same poundage of weights every time I go to lift.  So, my main goal with my strength training this year is to really start lifting more in terms of how heavy my weights are.  Actually increasing the weight enough to the point I burn out at the end of the last rep on the last set.  (A little tip from my CSCS background to you.)

Get back to running 7:30 miles consistently.  I’m not going to lie.  Marathoning makes me much, much slower than I prefer to be.  So, like I said before, I’m going to start training for speed again.  I just signed up for the GO! St. Louis Half Marathon in April so I have a specific goal to shoot for with that, but I am also setting time goals for the other races I hope to run this year.  (Note: my PRs are when I was probably in the best shape of my life… my goal is to get back there!)

5K - sub 21:00 (PR = 19:58)
5 Mile - sub 36:00 (PR = 35:48)
10K- sub 45:00 (PR = 44:53)
Half Marathon – sub 1:36 (PR = 1:37:43)

I don’t plan on running another marathon this year (I am more of an every-two-years marathoner), so I’m not even going to focus on that goal.  And these can easily change as things change throughout the year.  Who knows if an injury or other non-fitness related thing may come up to make these goals a little hard to reach.  I’m flexible… ;o)

Dabble in barefoot running.  After reading Born to Run before the Chicago marathon, I have been really wanting to try running barefoot.  One of the best things I read in the book was about why God (probably not his phrasing, but this is what I believe) make humans in perfect form except for their feet, the foundation of the entire structure?  Why are feet so imperfect that we need to put shoes and orthotics on them in order for them to be perfect?  That just totally clicked to me.  Are shoes the reason why so many runners get injured?  Maybe… maybe not.  But, I want to use my new Vibram FiveFingers as a tool to strengthen my feet.  I will never be a “full-time” barefoot runner, but I will definitely be doing a lot more barefoot running in order to make me a stronger runner.

The plan is to run 0.25 miles 1-2 times per week, building up by .25 miles every 2 weeks.  I eventually would like to be able to do 1 training run per week in my Vibrams – probably a short, easy 3 miler.  Hopefully by the end of the year I will be doing this consistently.

So, there are my fitness goals for 2011. 

Don’t worry, the blog will be benefitting from several other goals this year too!