Last year, my goals for 2011 were:
- Lose the weight. When I weighed in at the gym in January of 2011, the scale showed 182 pounds. I got that down to 166 pounds in early July and I'm now hovering in the 168-170 range. It is definitely progress - not back to the 160 pounds that I was 5 years ago...I'd love to get back to that number, but that would take some serious commitment!
- Stay healthy. In 2010 I suffered from three bouts of respiratory infections/inflammation which ceased my running for 3-4 weeks at a time. In 2011, I started working with a pulmonologist and later in the year an allergist to get to the bottom of the issues. I still had the incidents, but I have decreased the amount of time I'm on the shelf when it happens. For 2012, I will be trying allergy shots to see if I can desensitize my system to the triggers of these events so they don't happen in the first place!
- Run More. This is one goal that I fell short. My total mileage for the year is 552 miles - 21 miles LESS than 2010. Again, the main culprits were travel and health. Although I did have a few stretches of a few 20 mile weeks in a row. It's not marathon mileage, but it is definitely what I need to feel like a runner again.
- Schedule more races. Another goal where I fell short. I ran in two races this year - both low-key races from MCRRC. A 4 mile run on Memorial Day and a 8K run earlier this month. Both were PRs (since I had not raced those distances before!!). However, the pace of these were below my PRs for longer distances, so they're really only PRs by default.
- Schedule more time off from work. This is one where I excelled this year. I ended up teaching Israeli Dancing at a BBYO Leadership Camp for Teens for two weeks this summer, which got me away from my work responsibilities (and many other responsibilities) for about 17 days. I brought Sherry and the kids up for the first 8 days I was there - and it was great having some quality time with them.
Other highlights from 2011:
- My big birthday - I turned 40. I still can't believe it. At times I still feel like I'm 20 and just happen to have a 9 year old and 6 year old in the house (yes...I know the math doesn't make sense there!)
- My Israeli Dance group continues to grow! I am now getting between 40-50 dancers each week at the group and word of the group continues to spread. I actually just started a new blog for the Israeli Dance group at http://markidmike.wordpress.com and a Twitter account @MarkidMike
- My day job at Ericsson also continues to go well. I was extremely busy this year with a huge project in 1H2011 in East TX and a bunch of smaller projects in 2H2011 in Georgia, Mississippi and the Carolinas.
My goals for 2012 are pretty much the same as 2011. I would love to put the commitment in place to get back down to my ideal weight of 160 pounds (my doctor says 150-155 would be ideal for me, but I haven't seen numbers like that since I was 17 years old). I want to find a way to stay healthy - I'm hoping the allergy shots will help with this. If I can keep healthy, then I should be able to run more...I'm going to shoot for 750 miles for the year (14-15 miles per week if I can run every week...see not getting sick!). I would like to run a Half Marathon in the Spring and the Fall (see run more which depends on stay healthy!). Finally, I should be able to take more time from work - I will hit my 19th anniversary of working at Nortel (Ericsson bridged my service from Nortel when they purchased my division), so I will get an extra week of vacation.
One other goal - I want to try running with others more often this year. Running has been a solo venture for me most of the time, but I always enjoy when I run with other people. I'm going to try to run a race or two with my 9 year old son. I would love to run more with Sherry. I may also try to arrange some type of pub crawl / beer run with friends of mine. I don't think I'll ever be one to only run with a group, but I'm hoping more of my runs in 2012 will not be solo.
Happy New Year everyone!!!
