Where am I now? And goals for 2013

I realized that my first three posts have been mostly “reminiscing”…and that you might be curious to find out where I am at now and what my goals are for the year.

Each year, a group of friends and I get together and name the New Year. We’ve been doing this for seven years now…Change, Opportunity, Transformation, Possibility, Discovery, Reinvention, Endeavour – each of these words propelled me to a unique journey over a 12 month period. In some cases, I used the Year to propel me to take one significant action (like changing my job), while in others, I did many small things.

During 2011, the Year of Reinvention, I knew I needed to do something more with the year than what I’d done so far. That and the unused fitness allowance prompted me to hire Trainer Chris.

During 2012, the Year of Endeavour, I strived to reach a noble goal: to become healthy and fit. I didn’t realize at the time that fit would be a moving target, but I certainly used the year to rocket myself to new and amazing accomplishments, all in the name of fitness. I also quit my job to start my own business so I could spend more of my life doing what I wanted – work, writing, and training.

2013 was a hard year to name. I expected (and still expect) the year to mostly be about building on the past to encourage an even brighter future. At the end of the day, it was my dad who gave me the perfect word. He has done some work at a business accelerator, which is geared to propel start-ups to new heights, and suggested I use the word acceleration.

Acceleration: Increasing the rate of change of velocity.

That was it. When I commit to a goal, I throw myself at it. I do whatever I need to do to get it done – and get it done to the best of my ability. There’s no half-assed anything when I decide to do something.

So, Acceleration really does fit, don’t you think? It’s a perfect word for a year that will be about building across all aspects of my life.

So, what do I want to accomplish in 2013?

At work, I want to build my business into something that is sustainable. Specifically, I want to be able to pay for all of my other activities (and my rent!), and hopefully get some savings too. I’d also like to find freelance writing opportunities – like writing for magazines and the like. Who knows, maybe this blog will help with that over time. Selling my book would be nice too…while also writing the next one.

In training, I want to become a much better (and yes, faster would be nice) runner, biker and swimmer. Not to mention I want to continue to get stronger/more agile/more flexible/balanced, and all that wonderful stuff  with the help of Trainer Chris.

For racing, I want to continue test my limits and see what I am capable of. I am kind of excited that this will be my second year racing (at least when it comes to running), so health/fitness permitting, I have benchmarks that I can use to see how well I have improved.

At the end of the year I want to look back and see everything I’ve accomplished and know I did my best.

Note the above are more desired outcomes than goals…they don’t come with measures of success and, in some cases, rely on other people’s decisions/actions. Not that that’s a bad thing – but to me goals have to be about what *I* can do.

So, what are my goals for 2013? Well, right now – they include:

1.       Run a marathon. Already signed up for the Amherstburg Run for Heroes Marathon on September 22, 2013. Seeing as it is my first marathon (yes, I realize that using the word first makes an assumption of future ones), my goal is really just to finish. I know running a marathon is unlike pretty much anything else, so don’t want to make assumptions about what time I might finish in. Although it would be nice to beat my brother’s first marathon time, since that might be the only chance I ever have of “beating” him.

2.     Do the Toronto Triathlon. I honestly think I could do a sprint-distance triathlon right now (assuming I didn’t fall off my bike going 0 mph) so picked the Olympic distance instead (1500m swim, 40k bike, 10k run). I figure none of the distances is particularly hard on its own, and in six months I should be able to work up to doing the three events together. I’ve been cautious about stating this goal – mostly because I wanted some external validation as to whether I could do it, or if I was deluding myself. That is apparently what brothers are there for though – because when I told one of mine that, he told me to just sign up for it. So, there you go. Guess I’ll be doing it. Needless to say, I plan to do a few sprint distance races before this one, which is on July 21, 2013.

3.     Break 22 min for a 5k. This is my one "official" time goal for the year. On December 1, 2012, I did my first 5k  (yes, it came after a few 10ks and 2 half marathons). It wasn’t timed though, so didn’t feel like a real race - more like a very hard training run with other people along for the ride. My watch time was 23:16, but I think in a real race I would've gone faster. So I decided I should make breaking 22 minutes a goal for 2013. I really do think I can do this, but we'll see. I also like this particular goal because it is so different. The triathlon will be around 3 hours and the marathon will be close to 4. Either way, they will both be long races - so more about "Can I finish?" than anything. This one. This one is all about speed. And running fast is really, really fun.

That’s it for now – although I expect I’ll set a few more goals as the year goes by. And of course I’ll be doing a bunch of other races, but most of them will be leading into one or more of these, which I’m calling my “priority” ones. And by priority…I mean the hardest goals on my radar right now.

The how – well, that’ll be the fun part. I am sure you’ll find out as the year goes along!