Real David H.

At the end of October I got motivated to do something as I created my second Make a Pledge to Myself week. In November I acted on my pledges I made to myself, but throughout the month I felt like I should be doing more. 

Throughout the month I felt like I was really back into things mentally even when things weren’t always clicking physically. For my 3 goals for the month, I felt moderately successful as I: 

1. Stayed on track with my Make a Pledge to Myself Week goals
I’ve run on several trails, done at least a 1-minute plank every day, stayed away from soda, done some kind of speed work every week, and I’ve blogged at least once every week. Of all those, blogging may be the biggest challenge because it’s easy to simply not do it. I need more quality speed work, but that will come with time.

2. Signed up for a race … sort of
I’m signing up for a 5K tonight that’s this weekend. I mentally committed to it a few days ago, but didn’t sign up by the end of the day Nov. 30. It’s OK to be a day off. 

3. Didn’t lose 2 pounds
But I did maintain, and that felt like a victory yesterday after eating a lot over the Thanksgiving weekend. 

After such a strange previous 11 months, I want to make sure I stay as realistic as possible so that I end the year on a positive note. My goals for December are: 

1. Run the Christmas Classic in not my slowest time
This Saturday, I’m running in my hometown race for the 6th time (one of those was a 10K) and I want to make sure it’s not my slowest (26:51 from 10 years ago). There’s pretty much no way it’ll be my fastest (22:53 in 2011), so I’ll be happy with something in between. 

2. Run 85 miles
Somewhere along the way this year, I completely lost sight of running 1,000 miles for the year. At the beginning of October, I thought I would put some plans together to still hit that mark, but I opted to not force the mileage.

When the year ends, I’m going to be close enough that I know I’ll kick myself a little bit for not getting there, but everything that led to not hitting that mark is a big lesson learned that I’ll apply to my mind frame and goals next year. Hitting 85 miles in December is the start to setting up those 2016 goals. 

3. Develop a Shamrock Half training plan
Now that I have my mind in the game, I need a plan to get to a Shamrock Half PR. So much of what I’ve done in the past two months is all about Shamrock, but I know I have to much more if a sub 1:40 half is going to happen in a little more than 3 month.