Sunday, May 1, 2011

May Goals and Measurements

Oops, so I wound up stepping on the scale, but it wasn't as bad as I thought. In fact, all things considered, it was quite good! Despite the bloating and my pigging out at my friend's party last night (another oops), I still wound up with pretty awesome measurements:

Weight: 123.4 lbs
Body Fat: 26.5%
Body Water: 53.6%
Muscle: 36.1%
Waist Circumference: -No Measurement-

It's basically no change, which is pretty impressive, considering last week and last night. Now I let my breakfast digest a bit while I prepare for the below freezing temperatures and the inevitable snowfall. A part of me is wanting to wait a little bit for it to warm up, but I don't know if I want to beat the precipitation or run in it. It's only the first couple of miles of my run that I'll be on city streets; the vast majority of it will be on a trail. Hmmm.

In the meantime, though, since it's the first of the month, it's time to set up some monthly goals for myself! I like doing this because it helps me keep on track with my New Year's resolutions and lets me accomplish things in my real life that I would never do if I didn't.

To start, here are my 2011 New Year's Resolutions:
- Run a marathon (coming up on October 9)
- Run a half marathon (check, and check again on May 15)
- Run two 10K's
- Start learning Italian (check, though I need to start it up again)
- Get more in touch with Japanese culture
- Read 20 books (1 down, 19 to go)
- Start up piano lessons
- Watch 6 Academy Award Best Picture movies
- Volunteer (check)
- Learn how to swim--for real

Let me explain some of these. The race goals are about the race, not the distance, which means while I've run a few 10K's during training this year already, they don't count. Right now, I'm thinking about running the Bolder Boulder at the end of this month, depending on A) if my friends are doing it and B) how I feel after the half. The second 10K will probably happen closer to the holiday season, just to keep me running after the marathon in October.

One of my big goals in life is to go to Italy and just immerse myself in the culture for about a month, like in Eat, Pray, Love. (Someday soon, I'll share my 30 Goals to 30, which is a list of a whole bunch of things I want to accomplish before I turn 30 years old, which is what my New Year's resolutions are based off of.) I started spending an hour a week teaching myself Italian, but I've stopped doing that, and maybe this month is the month to restart that.

Now, for the getting more in touch with my Japanese heritage bit. Like with Italy, I want to spend some time in Japan during my lifetime, but this one is more that I want to live there for at least a year if possible. Obviously, between the tsunami, earthquakes, and nuclear situation, it's not likely to happen for a while, but I do have family out there (don't worry, they're all safe), and I am, despite the language barrier, much closer to them than to my American family. I'm already taking weekly lessons to improve my language, and my spiritual beliefs are already pretty much in line with Shinto/Buddhism, but there are other cultural things I want to get into: I want their holidays to be a big a deal for me as it is for them, I want to be able to cook their food from scratch, etc. This is for more than just wanting to live there someday. It is also so if I ever have children, I can pass this heritage along easily to them as well.

The rest are straightforward enough, and standard goals, really. The last one I think merits some explanation. I do know how to swim--badly. I can get from one end of the pool to another, and I can float, but I can't do the kind of swimming that would allow me to be comfortable with the idea of someday doing a triathlon.  So, most likely during the summer, I'm going to look for places where they teach adults how to swim, so I'm not too embarrassed by the whole thing.

Without further ado, here are my May Goals:

1. Get to 120 lbs (or less!)
2. Restart weekly Italian lessons
3. Restart daily Hanon
4. Watch 2 Academy Award movies
5. Read 2 books (one in Japanese)
6. Finish writing project
7. Attempt 5 new recipes (one Japanese)

Also, Colorado Springs is having a Children's Day celebration on Saturday (the holiday is actually on the 5th), and I'm thinking about going even if it's going to be more for and about the children than I'll be able to fully enjoy. But it'd be worth it to go, if only for this reason: a good portion of the proceeds from the sales they make will be going to the Japan Relief Fund.

I think these are all doable but challenging enough. With a race coming up on the 15th and potentially another on the 30th, I don't necessarily need to write down my running goals. It's already paid for!

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