Adjusted Reality

Meant to post this yesterday, but I was too busy creating 1995 in our house for a 90s throwback party, so I’ll start the new year looking back for a bit.  Here’s my 2013, in a nutshell, in terms of goals…

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.

Mostly, yes.  I rocked the shit out of every swim and bike split.  Running was a challenge this year because of injuries, but I even pulled out some PRs there when things went well (10/20, marathon, Kerrville, Playtri, etc).  My plan got a little muddled later in the year, but I really think I learned a lot about what works for ME and will put that into practice in 2014.

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…

And, I realize that my strength is making goals and plans.  Here are the things I am going to do to get there (cut for brevity)…

What I am most proud of here is that through a full race season and two long vacations, I didn’t gain my loss of 10 lbs this year back.  So something is working.  I just need to kick start it again to make more progress.  I’m not at my “goal weight”, but I’m ending 2013 weighing less than I did to ring it in.  So that is a HUGE win!

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.

Got all the new things but the front door, and that’s on the list absolutely next.  This was the year of everything breaking, so we spent more money than expected so the counters will have to wait a year or two.

I spent the first quarter of the year trying to keep up with this and found that it was WAY too ambitious and stressing me out.  Guess what you don’t want to do during peak training season?  Spend a weekend cleaning out and organizing a room.  I’ve got to narrow my scope here if I want to not throw up my hands and give up like I did this year.

4 Social Habits:

a) Get better at being social without drinking like a fish.  Don’t go into a training hole where our friends don’t see us for months unless they drop by.

I think we were a little better.  We kept a recurring game night at least once a month or so with friends, and we attempted not to be flakes too much (except if we were racing on that specific weekend).  I can’t think of a two week period where we didn’t see friends, even during peak training. I will call this a win.

b) Completely cut out cigs by April 1.

0 cigs since Jan 1st.  The smell grosses me out now and I can’t imagine ever smoking again.  The best things have happened this year – I have no catch in my breath anymore when doing sprints, my fingers don’t smell gross and look yellow for a day after the weekend, and I don’t have to go outside when it’s hot or cold. 

Best of all, hangovers are typically a thing of the past.  I had NO idea most of what was wrecking me was the smokes, not the alcohol.  I can make myself sick with booze if I try real hard, but usually it’s only when I’m around smokers and get the secondhand.

I am still using the e-cigs, but I’m going through the equivalent of about 3-5 ultra light cigs worth of nicotine when drinking (on an all day bender, maaaaaaybe 10).  I can easily drink a few beers without one, and not even think about it, it’s just when I get to #3 or #4 I start looking for the puffer.

So, major progress this year.  Still a little nicotine but no other chemicals and I can do without sometimes.  I’m very satisfied with that.

5. Do something with the blog. Zliten and I are working on collaboration between his new GoPro and video making skills and my writing.

Yeah… not really.  We tried starting a new blog, but as Zliten found out, video editing is hard work and he got burnt out on it real quick, and I got a little stressed out posting two different places.  I’ve been lazily cross posting my race recaps there, and Zliten stopped that over the summer.

I would really like to do something with this little space here, but, like priorities.  There’s running and biking and swimming to do.  And work. And games.  And books.  And beer.

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.

No, but I did make a sweet remote holder for the bedroom, and the last time I sat down to sew I felt much more comfortable.  Next year, perhaps!

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

Yep!  Cocoa Beach + Key Largo fit the bill nicely.

Learn to scuba dive before our cruise in April.

Open water and Advanced Open water certified, and 15 dives later, I think I can say this is a check!

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

I probably did better at this only because my vacation time was a little more spaced out this yer.  I also did better about warning my boss when I was really mentally thin, if it wasn’t a good day to bail, and he covered my ass a little on those days and was more understanding.  I was a much better employee this year because of it.

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.

Sigh… the office was set up for about a month and then I realized I hated sitting at a desk all day after work.  Then, we went back to the couch and while I have played SOME games this year, I can’t say I played MORE than last year, at least in terms of video games.

Host a game night once a month.

Yeah!!!  While I didn’t play a lot more video games, I played a TON of board games and table top with friends.  I loved this and hope to continue.

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

I don’t know that I made 20, but I did make an effort to read more often than previous years, and I made it through a whole series and I’m onto a new one.

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

I volunteered at 3 races.  I feel pretty good about that and plan to do it again next year.

As for 2014 goals, I’m still working on them, I need more time to think.  Since it’s a silly short weird week anyway, I’m going to take some more time and consider the possibilities!  A whole new year of calendar pages to mark up and explore!  How exciting!

Question: what was your biggest 2013 resolution, and how did you do?