Tag Archives: review

19 January 2012

By the Numbers

By Nicki

I realize that my year in review talked about my running last year. Then, I finally got some stats from last year via email from Dailymile.com (thanks, guys!). I now can look at this second full year of running and racing from a numbers point of view. Having always been very good at math, I like numbers.

I had 334 workouts last year. This included race days. Now, I did have several days where I would have two or three workouts. I know that sounds crazy but prior to my February marathon, I was swimming three mornings a week and going to kickboxing three mornings a week. Those workouts did not deter me from running on two of those days each week, at least. That basically means if I had one workout a day, I only took off one month the entire year. Since I had my first running injury this past year, I know that I did take off more than one month of rest but those double and triple workout days helped.

Strangely enough, January and August were my biggest mileage months. Both were in the 160’s. Neither were as high as August of 2010 when I hit 194 miles. I am unsure why this year seemed to be less miles in those big months. January of 2011 was cold and snowing but was the last big month prior to my first marathon so I got those miles in. I did some of it inside but the majority of it was outside. August of 2011 included a 5K race and two half marathons ten days apart. All three races were personal records.

The other odd thing for me to look at is that I had three months that were under 100 miles. I do not know why I trailed off at the end of the year. Maybe I was finally tired. Maybe I was just realizing I needed to let the muscles recover. I don’t know but I am hoping to not see that again.

I ended 2011 with 1331 miles on my legs. I had started the year with the goal of running a race a month. While I did not run a race each month, I did run 13 race throughout the year with August being the biggest racing month with three races covering 29.3 miles. My secondary goal was to reach 1500 miles. It took three years of having 1000 miles as a goal to reach it so to come within 169 miles of the 1500 mile goal on the first try is good for me. Had those last three months hit 100 miles, it is possible I would have hit that goal.

Off to make my 2012 goals!

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Fitness, Just my Thoughts

31 December 2010

Good Bye, 2010!

By Nicki

I started out the morning writing a year in review post that did not involve my running at all.  I realized by the time I was 3/4 of the way done, that was pretty boring and there were just a few highlights from my year.  Some did involve running – mine or someone else’s – and some did not.

 

I have managed to keep in somewhat touch with friends from high school that I reconnected with in 2009.  While a solid group of us started getting together every month, that dissipated in 2010 but we did see each other now and then.  I am truly hoping we can get back that once a month groove in 2011.

 

I am an elected official in the state of New York.  I went through the process, ran for and was elected to the Maine-Endwell Central School District’s board of education.  While this is not a big office, it is one that deals with two things I know a bit about – children and education.  I am enjoying my time on the board so far and will serve my three year term with pride.

 

I did my civic duty in 2010.  I spent a month, from the end of April until the end of May, as a member of a seated grand jury.  This duty did not involve every day at a courthouse but did involve being on call for two days a week for the three weeks after the initial week.  I was floored by the number of people I knew in the initial pool of jurors since the constant mantra was how diverse the jury pool now is.

 

I realized, as I was compiling and writing the post you will most likely never see, that regardless of how much I am looking forward to an empty nest in the near future (a couple years still), I am as much a mother now as I have ever been.  My months evolved around activities for my kids, whether high school plays, Confirmation, band concerts, college athletic competitions or school open houses.

 

2010 was a good year overall.  Here is to an even better, more balanced 2011.

1 comment   |  tags: , , | posted in Family, Fitness, Just my Thoughts

31 December 2010

2010 in Review

By Nicki

I did my last review of my big goal for 2010 in July.  This review took place at about the half way point of the year and had already seen one revision in my goal for the year.  My big annual goal had started out being that I was going run a race in every month but January and February.  I immediately ran a February 5K and altered the goal to be run 12 races in 2010.

 

People may say, so what?  Well, to be totally honest, I never ran a race until December of 2009.  To run 12 of them in the 12 months following that first race was a daunting task.  On top of that, I did not choose just 5Ks.  I will have run 15 races since my first race in December of 2009 when tomorrow’s Resolution Run is over.  Of those races, three were half marathons.  Two were ten milers.  Five were 5Ks.  There were also two 10Ks, a 20K, a 15K , and an 8K.  So, for those of you like me – who like numbers, that is a total of just under 95 miles in race routes for the year.

 

On top of those races, I put in almost 1500 miles in running this year.  It is looking like I am going end the year just shy of 1450 miles.  This is an amazing feat to me.  For the two previous years, I had set a goal of 1000 miles for the year and had failed to meet my commitment.  I had given up at some point and not continued on.  This year I didn’t set the goal for x number of miles but for so many races and the training around those races helped put me over the 1000 mile mark the beginning of October.  Since then I have added over 330 plus miles to that total.

 

As I said back in July:

The benefits of this training are that my body is looking pretty good.  I am not a skin and bones person by any means but I have dropped four pants sizes since I started running in September of 2007.  I have dropped bra sizes from a 42D to a 38C.  I have more muscle in my body composition than I have had in the past.  Singing – actually anything that involves breathing – comes easier, even with allergies and asthma.  My abdomen is actually developing some definition – nope, no 6-pack abs but some definition.

So, I am officially declaring 2010 a success!!

 

Did you set goals in January of 2010?  Did you review them throughout the year?  Did you meet the goals you set?  Are you setting goals for 2011?  What are these goals and how do you plan to hold yourself accountable?

3 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Fitness, Just my Thoughts

1 January 2010

2009 in Personal Review

By Nicki

The last year of this decade was a huge one for me personally.  I did not sit down at the end of December 2008, as I normally would, and review the past year and set expectations for the year to come.  I let 2009 roll in and through on its own.  Parts of that were very good.  Parts of that were not so very good.

I lost my art drive.  I have seen a lot of art but have not created much in 2009.  I took what I thought would be a brief hiatus as I was leaving town to go to my daughter’s college graduation.  When I came back, my life was in full swing here with other things going on.  I kept saying I would get back to my art but never did.

I lost my father this year.  He had health issues.  They had come to light more in the last few months of 2008 and then again in the beginning of 2009.  He did not like or want to face these issues.  I know, through my faith, that he is in a better place now and that his life, had he lived, would not have been what he wanted.  This provides some solace.

I made many new friends this year.  These people may be people around the corner or in town or across the Atlantic Ocean.  Some of these people are ones that I turn to in distress and in happiness.  Some of these people are artists.  Some of these people are like family to me.  If you are someone I did not know in 2008 but do now, please know that I am happy we met.

I rediscovered my life in 2009.  As is often the case with single parents, my life had been my kids’ for many years.  I went out, had friends and did some things that were mine but most things were just for my children.  I found, and how I didn’t realize this sooner, that my children are happier if I am happier.  I found my life in 2009.  I did things for me.

I rediscovered how much I love to write in 2009.  I have written a huge portion of a novel that I will finish up by the end of February.  I have also taken to writing here more frequently.  I have additional poetry that I have written in 2009.  The last poetry I had written before this year was at least six or seven years ago.  The best of my poetry before 2009 had been written in 1999.  Is it a decade cycle?  Let’s hope not.

Had I been asked near the end of December 2009 how I would rank the year, I would have definitely said the good outweighed the bad.  As a matter of fact, I did say so in comments on Little Big Wolf’s “Scoring the Decade:  Your 10 Years in Review…” Then, I turned my year topsy turvy without thinking.

Was 2009 a good year?  I still have to say yes.  The good times, the good friends, the good things that happened by far outweigh the bad.  Unfortunately, the stupidity of me and the bad that happened was close to the end of the year and that is weighing heavy now.

6 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Art, Family, Just my Thoughts, Poetry

1 January 2010

Best of the Decade?

By Nicki

Just a heads up for those of you following my blog, I have joined NaBloPoMo and will be writing an entry a day for the month of January.  This may be a stretch for me as I have had some turmoil in my life the last two days and all I want to do each day is crawl back into bed.  I know that is not the solution so I will throw myself into work and writing and running.

With the first decade of the new millennium having come to a close last night, all the cable sports and news channels are not only doing a best of the year but of the decade.  I am looking back over this past decade as having been rather turbulent.  Very few of the major news stories were positive ones from the USS Cole bombing in Yemen in 2000 to the World Trade Centers, the Pentagon and the field in Pennsylvania in 2001 to the Tsunami in 2004 to Katrina in 2005.  The first half of the decade was tossing and turning up a storm.  The decade brought war, financial ruin, housing booms and busts.

The decade also brought firsts.  The first black president was elected.  The first Latina was confirmed to the Supreme Court of the United States.  I have, in the more recent years of the decade, written about the economy, politics, books and much more but today, I am going to write about something more personal.

As the decade came to a close, the financial future is starting to look up.  Economists predict that maybe the worst is behind the world.  There is a new strategy for places like Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.  The changes that will come in the new decade will be amazing and hopefully good.

Do I think there was one year that stood out as the best in the decade?  No.  I emphatically say that the decade was a mixed bag with good and not so good in each year.  No one year was the best but if you are looking for a good year, look to the upcoming one.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , | posted in Just my Thoughts, Politics

30 December 2009

Sex in Review?

By Nicki

Sex!  What is it that makes everyone and their brother blogger want to write about it?  And why, the last week of the year, the last week of the decade is writing about sex coming to the forefront?

First, there are many reasons bloggers want to write about sex.  In the case of Big Little Wolf’s “Sex vs. Lovemaking – why are we so confused?” my guess is she wrote it to provoke discussion among her readers.  She has started something as there are not only comments in response to her writing but entire separate blog entries, such as this one, that were spawned from her thoughts.  Some of the blogs that have provided responses to Big Little Wolf’s are The Wild Mind’s “Sex or Making Love?  Who Is Confused?” and Jassnight’s “Sex – the Master’s Division.”

In some cases, bloggers write about sex because it brings in readers.  For those of you who have recently written about sex, take a look at your numbers.  People are drawn to sex.  It is a taboo in American culture, as far as rational discussion goes, but it is also a subject that people are drawn into as they feel they shouldn’t be.  I am casting no judgment on whether this is healthy or not.

In other cases, bloggers write about sex because they have to as a job requirement.  Have you ever read any of the blogs at Nerve.com or even some of the ones at YourTango.com?  These blogs are the ones whose jobs are to discussion sex, sex toys, sexual positions, relationships and such.

So why is it that these questions about sex seem to be coming up (pun fully intended) here during the last week of the year, the last week of the decade?  The reasons for this are as varied as the reasons for blogging about sex to begin with but I am going to concentrate on one reason.

We all want relationships with other people.  We all need connectedness.  We are sitting on the cusp of a time when we all look back and attempt to reflect on the goals that we made for the past year, or in this particular case, possibly the past decade.  In most cases, at least one, if not more of those goals, will have to do with friendships, relationships, or sex.

As we are evaluating what we did this past 365 days or 3650 days, we are also looking forward to what we will be doing in the upcoming days.  Please realize that goals, resolutions, aspirations – I don’t really care what we call them as they all are the same thing – are not realistic if they are not measured.  We need to review what we have done and continue to do as we strive to change or complete our resolutions.

I looked back over my aspirations from 2005 and on.  Each year I put down something along the lines of “Be proactive in finding new friends and possibly a more than friend interest.” That is my evolved format.  It started out as I will find new friends, additional friends.  There were steps about joining online dating sites and steps about attending more events locally.  After all, what good is a “more than friend interest” who lives in British Columbia when you are a woman over 40 with six kids?  Actually, in looking back, I didn’t even put this as an aspiration in 2005 or 2006.  I knew that there was not time to invest in new friendships and relationships then if I had to search them out.  The new people I met those years were people that were thrown into my life somehow.

The reason sex is in everyone’s mind this time of year is that these resolutions from the past year are up for “review.”  As in your occupation, reviews are ways to find out how to improve performance.  So if you had a “relationship” as a resolution last January and are still not in one, how do you improve that performance?  If you are in one now, what is the thing most likely to be thought about in the improvement category?  Well, in some cases, you may think it is communication or time spent together but more likely than not, when you think about improvement in the newer relationships, sex is going to come to mind.

So, whether we want to get some or whether we want to think about if the sex we are having is sex or lovemaking, it is normal to have our minds wonder to this topic at this time of year.

8 comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Just my Thoughts

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