Adjusted Reality

“Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.” – Mark Twain

Out With the 2012, In With the 2013 – New Years Resolutions

It’s my favorite time of the year!  Ok, not quite better than my birthday.  Or triathlon season.  Or patio weather.  Ok, fine, it’s a time in the winter that I hate less than others, let’s all get excited!  IT’S RESOLUTION RECAP TIME!

Last Years Resolutions:

1. Take care of the weight problem.

–Totally unspecific and total FAIL.  I’m the same weight as I was last year.  July and August were nice on the scale but September, November, and December put it all back on.  Boo.

2. Play more games, read more, make a pitch doc

–Games – check-ish, at least later in the year when I decided to start working my way through Telltale Games library of adventure games on the PS3 and especially now that we have the office set up this last week or so.  Read more, big check.  I’ve read more this year than I have since I was in college.  At least ~20 books.  Pitch doc – total FAIL.  My brain is just not there yet.  However, I have big plans with the office being set up!

3. Race goals:

Finish a marathon, a century ride, and a half ironman.
—Check, check, and check!  (I may have INTENDED a imperial century but I did 2 metrics so I’m totally counting it…)

Note that with this goal, I’m NOT making the next goal to PR everything.
—CHECK. Glad I said this.  My running this year was DISMAL compared to when I just focused on it, but I pulled some other PRs out this year.

Really concentrate on my bike times.
—CHECK. My short game improved a little, but I got MUCH faster at longer distances.  My first 50+ ride was under 12 mph, my half ironman pace 6 months later was about 16 mph.

Complete all TX Tri Series races (6 tris in 5 months).  PR at least 1.
—CHECK!… and PR’d the two I did last year, 40 min Olympic PR, and since I did my first 70.3, that counts as a PR too!

Take at least 3 months of the year not in training (off season) to mentally and physically rest.
—Well, 7 weeks between my marathon and the start of prep is not quite 3 months, but it’s definitely ENOUGH.  Calling it CHECK.

Stretch after every workout.
—Ha!  Ha!  Hahahahahah!!!! Ha- oh wait, I was serious.  Dang it, I REALLY need to be better about this.

Strength train 2x week (catch another crunchtime class at lunch?)
—Up until September, total check.  Usually 3x.  Fell off after vacation though… glad to start back up next week once my back is fixed.

Let’s try this again.  Run a race somewhere outside Texas.  I’ll have some opportunities next year, very likely San Diego.
—CHECK!  America’s Finest Half Marathon, check.

Volunteer at more races.  I was able to volunteer once this year and while I think it’s what got me sick for vacation, it was a great experience.
—Ooops.  Racing 24 times really made it hard to volunteer (excuses excuses).  Next year, I already have at least 2 races that since I’m not racing, I want to volunteer at.

4. Start one major house renovation this year.

—Windows (new through the whole house), check!  Started AND finished.  Chigidy check!

5.  One liners (these seem strangely familiar)

Get the office set up as an office/craft room
—Check-ish.  Office is finally set up, there’s more work to be done, but it’s finally in a usable state.  Hooray!

Decide what to do with the savings now that we have some
—Errrr.  We’ve done a little but we could do more.

Do more batch cooking so having healthy lunches and dinners available is easier.
—Big fat fail except one experiment in December which rocked my socks off.  This is a huge goal next year though.

Learn to sew.
—Kinda hard to do without a sewing machine, but now that I have one… yeah.  2013 on this one, bitches!  

-Learn the party rock anthem dance.
—Yeah…no.  But I’ve definitely gotten drunk and PRETENDED that I knew it a lot in 2012 so I’m calling it CHECK! 🙂

So, I hit some pretty big goals last year, but some things definitely fell to the wayside pursuing all those races (note that it actually wasn’t in my resolutions for 2012, because Zliten decided on that one…).  Next year I’d like to be a bit more centered, focused, and balanced.

Without further ado… 2013 Resolutions!!!

1.  Be a serious, focused, well and specifically trained triathlete following the Triathlete’s Training Bible plan.  Make a plan and stick to it. I want a shiny new PR for each tri distance at least, which shouldn’t be difficult.  The goal is to just to do better in each repeated race than I did the year before.  This will be discussed in detail on this blog because this is what I do – so for now we can leave it at that.

2. Probably the single most thing I can do to improve my times is improve body composition.  I’ve had a few false starts at this, but 2013 is my year, I think, partly because I’m finally really getting it in my head that it’s not about looking good in jeans, it’s about PRs – which actually matter a lot to me.  Instead of vague goals, here is what I would like to do:

  • Back to 2012 race weight by Feb 1 (175)
  • Lose 5 more by March 1 (170)
  • Maintain through March (birthday month) and April (cruise)
  • Lose 5 more in May and June (160)
  • Maintain 160 through end of season
  • Don’t go above 165 in offseason

And, I realize that my strength is making goals and plans.  Here are the things I am going to do to get there:

  • Fruit and veggie cleanse first week in January before training starts to get this party started, then no sweet treats in January
  • Batch cooking – having my food mapped out and ready for me ahead of time so the week is just all about execute
  • Allowing just one meal off plan, and one day of drinks that slightly elevate calories per week (not on the same days, and try not to have them be off workout days)
  • Realizing that what goes in Zliten’s mouth does not need to always go in mine and to lose weight I need to eat what makes Zliten lose weight minus 500 calories
  • Careful planning and tracking of calories to make sure I’m getting the right amount, monitoring the food quality to make sure I’m at least 80/20 organic, whole, and healthy food.
  • And, if I inevitably fuck up, get right back on track the next meal

3. Keep taking steps towards making my house not look like a slobby college student is renting it.  Our goals this year are:

  • Get a new stove, couch, front door, and coffee table
  • Get granite counters instead of this white formica crap
  • Spend the year focusing on getting more organized.  Each month, we will pick one room or “zone” (because some rooms need to be divided and some need to be groups) and pull everything out, see what we can get rid of, and buying or utilizing a better way to store and organize it.  The zones are: 1. garage 2. kitchen 3. breakfast nook/bar area 4. living room 5. guest room 6. workout room 7. living room 8. office 9. bedroom 10. bedroom closet 11.patio and mud room 12. all other common areas/bathrooms

4 Social Habits:

a) Get better at being social without drinking like a fish.  With work and training, I can get into a rut where I either want to just get drunk, or just sit on my couch with Zliten and not talk to anyone else because I’m both physically and mentally fatigued.  It got real bad this year to the point where we didn’t see friends for months during peak training unless they came over during our few hours of approved party time.  This year, I would like to get better at two things:

  • Doing at least one non-alcohol related activity with friends per month.  Movie, bowling, pool, dinner, game night, etc etc.
  • Being able to go out, have a few drinks, and then not come home and get sloshed on my patio.  Figure out where I go from happy buzz to catching a second wind and stop just short of that most nights.

That being said – I love my drinking habit!  2013 will definitely involve some patio + vodka time because it makes the soul happy.

b) Completely cut out cigs by April 1.  I know, shocker – I’m an athlete and I still indulge in a few smokes when hitting the bottle.  My goal in 2009 was to run a marathon and still smoke (I know, stupid now), and inadvertently I did it, not really meaning to since I haven’t quite managed to completely cut the cord.  While it really isn’t enough to truly do much damage, and I’ve been smoke-when-I-drink-ing for 3 years so there’s little risk in it coming back as a full blown habit, I’d just like to be done with it (plus, I bet I see some improved times).  Last week, we got e-cigs (a low dose of nicotine, but no other tar/chemicals), and while they are not quite the same and an adjustment, I’ve smoked about 1/4 or less of what I would on comparable nights (and after NYE, I’m going to be a bit more stringent – no “analogs” unless I’m really and truly going to go fucking nuts and hurt someone).  We have one cartridge of the lowest nicotine level, and one of 0 and plan on seeing if it’s the nic we really miss or just the habit and taste.  I love to smoke, but I also like living, so time to deal with this.

5. Do something with the blog.  This space was just really a place for me to learn web design and host my resume and art and crap back in my other life where I was going to be a web designer/artist.  In 2008 after being idle for years I just slapped a blog on it so I could have a little soapbox to the world and be done with LiveJournal.  Zliten and I are working on collaboration between his new GoPro and video making skills and my writing, and I expect to see some changes to my little space here instead of being a dilapidated little shack of a blog that barely still stands and allows me to journal what I’m doing once a week.  Still trying to think up a name though.  All the cool ones are taken.

6. One liners:

Learn to sew.  I got a sweet sewing machine and table for Christmas.  I’d like, by next year, to have produced one article of clothing from scratch that I can wear out of the house.

Take a nice, week long vacation somewhere in November or December once season is over (i.e. not crap both vacations this year into 3 weeks during peak training).  Hawaii? Costa Rica?

Learn to scuba dive before our cruise in April.

Take mental health days when I need them, and make sure that I monitor my crispiness during training to make sure I’m not too fried

Play more games.  Since the office is set up, I can actually play things on my computer and I will continue to work through telltales’ library on the PS3.  Get caught up to level cap in my own game.  Continue to derive inspiration from my industry.

Host a game night once a month.

Continue to read more.  At least 20 books this year.

Volunteer more.  At races, at the park, etc.

…and that’s all!  Time to get the house ready for our awesome apocalypse-end-of-times New Years party!  Question of the day:  what is your biggest 2013 New Years Resolution?

Previous

Hobbled (Rant)

Next

January Goals

2 Comments

  1. Miz

    IM RESOLVING to NOT spend the whole year wishing I were still in the ATX.

    • Awww, I swear you’re going to love it there! Just hang on until spring and it will be gorgeous!

Comments are closed.

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén