I personally don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions. I believe that every day is a good day to better yourself and if you rely on one day per year to make resolutions, the chances are much higher that you will fail. To me, resolutions should happen year-round and should be made one at a time instead of trying to conquer 5 at one time.
I do, however, believe in setting goals. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my fitness goals for the year 2012. There is nothing incredibly exciting or new, but I thought I would share:
1. Train smart and remain injury free. Is it possible to have an entire year of being injury-free? I will certainly try. Of course I never TRY to get injured, but this time I will train smarter to avoid it. This includes more cross-training, backing off at first sign of pain, and increasing mileage painfully slowly.
2. Attempt (again) to qualify for Boston. I am thinking of trying a late spring/early summer marathon and if I don’t BQ there, I will aim for another marathon towards the end of the year.
3. Participate in more shorter races (5Ks and 10ks). This will be great speed-work and would add a little variety to my race schedule.
4. Participate in more “fun runs” to remember why I run in the first place – because I enjoy it and I shouldn’t always take it so seriously. I’m doing the Color Run in January and the Skirt Chaser or Spartan Race in February for starters. Then in July I am doing Ragnar Colorado with a fun team of women.
5. Enjoy myself!
What are your fitness goals for 2012? I would love to hear!
I like your goal of running shorter races. I should probably not run another marathon until I’m about 15 pounds less. I can’t believe that I attempted to run one when I was 30 pounds heavier than I am now. I have no idea what I was thinking. Just because you can do it, doesn’t mean that you should. I’m not trying to discourage anyone from trying to reach those kind of goals; I just know for me that it will be some time before I try another one myself. Maybe I should set the boundary at 1/2 marathons and be happy with that for a year.