Ready, Set, Goal!

I've been doing some thinking the past week and I think I have come up with some personal goals for myself. Some will be easier to do than others, but rule number one when setting goals, some have to be easy and some should be near impossible. It's a simple concept, accomplish the easy goals and that will provide motivation to get to the more difficult ones - now implementing that theory might be another story, but I'll give it a shot.

●Goal number one is to lose weight. Duh, there's a New Years resolution huh...? Well, I think last time I blogged I mentioned I was around 210 pounds - as of this morning I was at 201. In one week I have dropped 9 pounds just from changing my eating and getting out for some longer runs. I don't believe I can accomplish any of the follow running goals until I am somewhere around 185 pounds, so another 15-20 pounds is a must.

●That brings me to my second goal - start running farther/longer. The quick 3-4 mile runs are nice when I don't have much time, but to really get a little running base I need to hit 6-10 miles occasionally.

●Once I am running farther, I plan to try my hand at a half marathon or two. Hopefully I will be able to get one in this year, which one I don't know, but I have a few places in mind. That really isn't a difficult goal for me, I actually believe I could run a half marathon right now - it just wouldn't be at a pace I would accept for myself.

●Another running goal - and maybe this is actually two goals, but I will lump them together. Head to the track and run a true mile under 6:00. Once I can do that, the next goal will be to go sub 5:00 - that will be the true test and a very difficult task for me - at least the way I see it right now.

●Once I get the 6:00 mile - I believe I can run that relatively easily by the end of April if I train consistently - my next goal will be to break 19:00 in a 5K race. That is 6:06 mile pace. I should mention, I did come close last year with very little training, so I expect that to come easy as well - if I can, I would like to run under 18:00 for a 5K - that is closer to 5:45 pace.

Enough with the running goals, basically they are a progression of goals. One thing will lead to another and as long as I can maintain a training routine, I should be able to get through most of them this year.

●I would like to do some traveling this year as well. Maybe get to a few new counties in Nebraska that Laura and I haven't been to. we have a few pockets we need to get on the road and go see, maybe we can do that.

●How about getting out and doing some camping a least once or twice this year? We made it out once last year - maybe we can double that.

●Another travel goal is to get to a new part of the country I haven't been to - at least with Laura that is. I have been to the contiguous states so that isn't anything - but Laura has yet to see a lot of the Eastern United States. We don't have any plans to travel far from home this year, although I would like to. Maybe a trip to Texas/New Mexico needs to happen so we can cover all of the Western states before going east. Oklahoma is the closest state to us that we haven't been to together, so maybe a long weekend trip is in order...

●With all this traveling, we are going to need a better vehicle. We've got some cash saved up, so maybe a nice minivan is the ticket. How about trying to get a nice 'new' traveling vehicle?

As sad as it is, running and traveling are really the only things I have thought about for goals. Maybe I should add some more in other categories, but I haven't really thought about any others - maybe that will be an addition later down the road.

Here's my updated travel map. I have two now, I can't decide which one I prefer - any thoughts?
Until again

-=Nolan=-