2011: Fitness Year in Review

Reviewing...

2010 in Review / 2011 Goals (12/30/2010)
2009 in Review / 2010 Goals (12/26/2009)
2008 in Review / 2009 Goals (12/29/2008)

2007 in Review / 2008 Goals (12/27/2007)
2006 in Review / 2007 Goals (12/27/2006)
2005 in Review / 2006 Goals (12/26/2005)
2005 Goals (12/26/2004)

The Old Rules Revisited (7/22/2010)
Rewriting the Rules (7/20/2010)

So much has changed since I started blogging fitness goals back in 2004. This year was a huge change for me because back in April I made a decision to stop dieting forever. I mean, probably forever. Who knows. I don't think that I even blogged about it. I just suddenly one day decided that I'd been writing my food down since 1998 and I was tired of it and I wasn't going to do it anymore. I thought I would try a bit of intuitive eating like Charlotte does, and it worked. I lost 6 pounds, and then managed to stay within a 4 pound range of weight ever since.  That's right, for 8 months I've been just eating what my body wants and needs and I haven't written a thing down and I haven't turned into a fat, disgusting pig. Do I weigh what I would ideally like to weigh? No. But then again, I never have. Even when I was at my Weight Watchers goal weight (circa 2000), I was not happy with my body. So, why would I expect that I would be happy 11 years later, 20 pounds heavier?

I'm working on it.

So, with all of that in mind, let's look at my goals from last year and what I expect to see from myself in 2012.

Goals for 2011:

Diet and Weight Loss - Ugh.  I hate to say it, but I am going to have to lose weight again, and actually put effort into it.  Back to journaling and what not.  I'd like to be down 15-20 pounds before I run my full marathon in the fall.  I still don't want to sacrifice happiness, but I have my best chance of meeting my time goal for my marathon if I get some of my weight off.  Maybe I'll read Racing Weight.

I think it was all of this that started me on this no dieting thing. I found that I stay within this four-pound range no matter what (if you want to know, it's 168-171 pounds). If I find myself above it (maybe after a vacation, or I'm guessing after the holidays), I can easily watch what I eat for a few days and find myself back in the range again. I can also easily go from 171 down to 168, no worries or trouble at all. However, I can diet and exercise my ass off and the scale will finally say 167, maybe even 166, and then if I mess up even just a little, BAM it's back at 168 or 169 again. Enough. I'd had enough. It was too much work, it was making me too unhappy. I like cooking too much.

There's still always that whole time goal/speed thing, but I don't even care about that at this point. So, I didn't meet this goal, but I think I'm better off without it.

Running - Complete a full marathon in the fall, either Chicago or New York.  I'm not certain what to set as my goal, but I think for now my shoot for goal will be 5:30.  I'm going to settle for 5:45, though.  Either time is still a PR.  If I don't do it because of weather or other circumstances, that is fine and certainly not a failure.

Yay! I mostly did this. I was unable to register for Chicago because registration opened and closed way too early, but it didn't matter because shocker of shockers - I made it into the New York City Marathon on my first entry into the lottery! My final time: 5:46. So, I pretty much made my goal that I set at the beginning of the year. Oh New York, I love you.

Workouts - Biking!  I want to get more into the bike, and hopefully do a short bike race for fun in the spring.  Keep on weight training, and do the hardest part of cross training - find time to fit it in.

Yeah, I didn't do that bike race. I was not ready. I didn't do enough indoors during the winter, because I've found that riding your bike on the indoor trainer is about 10,000 times more boring than running on a treadmill. I also stopped cross training in the spring, although I did keep up with it pretty well before that. I got out on the bike in 2011 about the same amount of time as I did in 2010, so at least I'm not falling behind. And, I started swimming in November, which I didn't see coming when I wrote out my goals a year ago.

Diving - I see no reason why I will not be able to do 45-50 dives in 2011.  This year, I would like to see my lifetime dive total surpass 300.  Potentially get a Cavern Diving certification.

I didn't get the cavern certification, and I have my doubts that I will do it in 2012, but you never know. I did 66 total dives in 2011, an incredible amount. Most of those were in January/February in Indonesia, but I also did quite a few here in the states. Total lifetime dives - 317.

Lessons from 2011

• When your doctor says you should walk as much as you want, she doesn't expect you to come in and tell her that you walked 12 miles on a treadmill.
• Running in Bali? Yeah, not going to happen.
• If your marathon starts at almost 11 am, you should just go ahead and bring your lunch with you for the run.
• If you feel sick, check to see if it's hunger first.

Successes for 2011

• Continued running for another straight year!
• Lots of weight training, March-May.
• Jeff Galloway Training Program, including my fourth year as a group leader, and my first year training a real full marathon group.
• Three 5k Races - Shamrock 5k in March, Pikesville 5k in July, St. George's Dragon 5K in October.
• One 8K Race - Hadassah 8K in July. 
• One 15K Race - Hot Chocolate 15K in December.
• One Half Marathon - Indianapolis 500 Festival Mini-Marathon in May.
• One Full Marathon - ING New York City Marathon in November.
• Dive Con for one Open Water Diver Class in July.
• Completed 66 scuba dives, for a total of 317 since becoming certified in 2006.
• New Personal  Records set in 2011:  8K (58:03 at Hadassah 8K, 7/31/2011);  Marathon (5:46:40 at New York, 11/6/2011).

Goals for 2012

• Diet and Weight Loss - Maintain my weight as best as I can. Be happy with my body and the way I look. Eat what makes me feel good, even if eating what feels good means eating something not-so-good for me. Don't track calories or points. Eat lots of veggies and whole foods, avoid processed. Bake Todd at least one apple pie. Drink wine. As Michael Pollan says: Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants. There you have it - BEST DIET AND WEIGHT LOSS GOALS EVER!
• Running - Oh gosh, I'm so conflicted about what I want to do next fall. There's just a lot up in the air. I know I am running a marathon relay in January, and a half marathon in April, possibly one in March. I know I'm probably not doing a full marathon in the fall. But, I might try and captain a Ragnar team. I might do something else, so I guess my goal is to do something awesome in the fall of 2012.  
• Workouts - Get back on the bike and continue to be more comfortable with it. Possibly do a sprint triathlon or a aquathon in June. Keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Get better and faster at swimming. Become more comfortable with the breast stroke. Do a pull up.
• Diving - I would like to do 35-40 dives in 2012. We do already have a couple of dive trips planned, but we are not planning to do as much diving during these trips as we have been doing. I'm sure that I will get out to the quarry some, though.

I don't feel like I've really hammered down what I expect 2012 to be, but hopefully you get the idea.

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