This is Accountability Sunday where I look at the past week and how much work I did towards my goals and then set some goals for the coming week. Interested in joining me? You, too, can have some public accountability: just go to the accountability spreadsheet and put in your goals for the coming week. The goals can be fitness-related, health-related, work-related or anything else that you care to track. It’s not about competition, it’s just about putting your goals out there and then assessing how you did.
It’s been a longer than planned week. I had been looking forward to a long weekend, having Friday and Monday on the schedule as vacation days, but due to a work event beyond my control, I volunteered to reschedule, since the only pressing thing on my agenda was reading library books so I could stop the $0.10/day late fines from accruing to a point where the library mob squad attempts to repossess my car.
So it was a full week of work — and it was BUSY. And it left me tired, that’s for sure. It wasn’t until Wednesday came around that I even had the energy to get my butt on the treadmill for a run. Not a good thing when I had 17 miles and an 8 mile long run that needed to be fit in before Sunday at midnight came around.
And while work wasn’t stressful in a bad way (meaning, I still was able to come home and not obsess about what I had left behind at the office), it made me very resistant to opening up the computer once I got home. I just didn’t want to stare at a screen any longer, even if it had nothing to do with work. And that’s how I’ve had several intriguiging blog post ideas buzzing around in my head that I haven’t written about yet. I’ve got the seeds of the posts documented, but the only writing I’ve done has been mental. And seeing as how I sometimes have issues with remembering whether I fed the dog dinner (though, granted, she tries to trick me by going back in her crate and looking at me with hungry eyes as if I had forgotten), it’s probably important that I sit down SOON and write out some rough drafts at least. As with many, many other things, it’s on my list of things to do.
Goals from last week
- 17 total miles — done (18.20 miles, actually, I over-achieved), though it wasn’t pretty. Ended up with one run that really tossed me up and spit me out. Just an easy 4 miles, but with about 1.25 miles to go, nausea and a spinning room finally caused me to take a quick break. I eventually got back on the treadmill and finished the workout off with a slow walk, but I didn’t feel better for another 3 hours. Not cool, running, not cool.
- 8 mile long run — OOF. This came the day after I blew up on that 4 miler, so after careful consideration, I decided to approach this as pragmatically as possible. I did the run in 3 segments, took 5-10 minutes in between segments to slurp Gatorade, ratcheted my intervals down to 3 minutes running/2 minutes walking and kept the pace really slow. The result? I got 8 miles in and didn’t completely trash myself doing it. Though my poor legs are sore — hey, I’m still undertrained for this.
- Two strength training sessions — done, though I was pretty tired from work and didn’t give it as much oomph as I should have.
- Walk/run at least a mile every day — you know, this should have been easy. In theory it was easy. In my head it was easy. Okay, yea, I missed two days. Sue me.
- Write 2 blog posts —I’ve got SO many blog post ideas in my head! Just need to, you know, write them down and such. At least there’s today. Batting .500 in the majors would get me big money, you know.
- Include vegetables in at least two meals a day — hit and miss. Doing better, though.
- Track weight — down 0.1 pounds! I’m trying not to lose weight too fast you know.
Goals for this week
- 18 total miles and a 9 mile long run — really no idea how this is going to work. I really do need to re-evaluate whether a late-April half marathon is a good, healthy, sane idea.
- Two strength training sessions
- Track weight
- Post 3 blog posts
- Read all of my overdue library books before I no longer have a home.
What’s making me happy this week
The start of the NCAA basketball tournament — March Madness is officially here! I really love this time of the year, seeing those kids out there playing their hearts out not for money, but for their teammates and their coaches and their schools and their pride. Not that some of them won’t see a big payday from their performance, but it’s all so much purer at this level. And there’s something about how one loss means the end of your season that creates a tension and excitement that can’t be beat. And if I don’t hit my goals for next week, you’ll know why.