December 1, 2021

Planning Out New Goals


Considering it's Wednesday, I would normally post a Wednesday Weigh-In; I'm actually going to do that tomorrow, however. I had a really restless night--I was in a lot of pain--and when I got up this morning, I wasn't thinking straight. I was sure it was Tuesday! By the time I realized it, I'd already had breakfast and a lot of water. So I'll just do my weigh-in tomorrow instead.

Tomorrow morning, I have an MRI (just another test in this long quest to find out what's causing the chronic pain). I'll write more about it on another post, hopefully after getting some answers.

For now, I'm focusing on goals for December. I haven't been running for the last couple of weeks and I was getting kind of worried that I would quit again for the long-term. I don't want to get back to the point of not being able to run three miles, so I decided that I'm really going to make running a focus this month.

Instead of just saying that I'll run 3-4 days a week, I need to have a set schedule--a printed out piece of paper telling me exactly when to run and what that running workout is. Otherwise, I just don't end up doing it the way I "intend" to.

Usually in December, I start thinking about the new year and what goals I'd like to make. I also love to get a new journal/planner to write out goals and keep track of them throughout the year. I don't always finish them--actually, I don't think I ever have, hahaha--but they do help me get in the mindset for whatever I want to accomplish.

This year, I bought the same journal I'd gotten a couple of years ago. It's called the Clever Fox Weekly Planner (Amazon affiliate link). This is the second edition, which actually addressed my only complaint from the previous edition. The monthly calendar pages were all at the beginning of the book and the weekly ones were after those. I would have liked to have the weeks follow each month (which makes much more sense). Well, I guess other people had the same thought, because the new version of the planner is in order! (Monthly page, then five weekly pages, then another month, then five more weekly, etc.)

The planner is undated, so I didn't have to wait until January to start. I spent some time over the last few days writing out long-term goals as well as my goals/plans for December. I'd asked recently on Facebook for people to share their favorite things (prior to my own post) and someone said "Paper Mate Flair Pens". I was curious, so I checked them out and ended up buying some to go with my planner/journal.

Wow--I love them already! They remind me a lot of Sharpie fine-tip markers, but they don't bleed or show through the paper. The tips are thin enough that you can use them exclusively to write out everything (no need for a pen) and it will look colorful and fun. I love that the ink doesn't spread at all when you touch the tip to the paper--it's actually like writing with a pen--and that there is no ghosting (where you can see the writing through the pages).

I don't really want to share the pages of my journal/planner here (at least not yet), simply because it's more personal, but I'll write about some of the goals here on my blog. I have goals in lots of different areas of my life, but in this post, I'm just going to stick with December's goal of running/exercise.

I'm going to do the MAF80 plan that I shared, which is four runs per week. I find that when I have days off between runs, it's hard to get started again. I know I don't want to run seven days a week, so I decided to schedule in walks with Joey on the days off of running. That way, I already have it planned out and there is no question of whether I am getting in miles that day.

I've always liked having Wednesday and Saturday as my rest days (when I was running five days a week), so I'm going to schedule my walks with Joey on Wednesday and Saturday. Since I'm only running four days a week, I'll also schedule a walk on Monday. That means I'll be running on Thursday, Friday, Sunday, and Tuesday. 

I'd like to plan on doing it in the mornings, but I'm usually in the worst pain of the day in the morning, making it hard to exercise. So, I'm just going to have to decide on a day-to-day basis of what time I'll run/walk. Today, I walked Joey at around 5:30 PM--it was dark the whole time, so I had to wear a headlamp! It felt so much later than it was. Lately, I've actually really liked going in the dark--when the ground gets icy or snowy, though, I'll have to either go in the daylight or on the treadmill.

If this post seems rushed or chaotic, it's because it is--I'm hungry and incredibly tired, so I just want to finish this now and get something to eat. Then, read my book (I'm still reading my November read-athon book!) and hopefully get some sleep tonight.

Can you believe it's December of 2021 already? The pandemic has been going on for nearly two years now. Thinking of goals for the new year is fun--I just hope that "normalcy" will return in full in 2022!

1 comment:

  1. I agree with everything you're saying... the pandemic, the workouts, the constant worrying. What I've noticed from all these years of doing it, is you can go two weeks without working out without losing your fitness, and you feel unmotivated, then as soon as you do one workout, you're back and sore, but you really don't lose all you worked for. You shock your muscles. I've read that after two weeks, you start to lose all that strength, and then you're building it back up, and it's way harder. We have to take time off without guilt. Lay on the couch on the heating pad while we scratch the dog with Golden Girls in the DVD.

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