So often-commenter South Beach Steve is running a contest that encourages you to set some goals for the last 100 days of 2009. While I have talked before about making habits rather than goals, I’d like to jump on this particular bandwagon, due in no small part for the potential for fantastic eats. Steve is always raving about his smoking abilities, and I confess I am aroused (my curiosity, that is).
In addition to my eating and workout habits (No-S Diet and Shovelglove), I’ve also taken on running, chin-ups, dips, and bench presses as sort of “extra” things I’m working on. To this point, I’ve mainly just sort of said that these are movements that I’m doing without any real structure or end game. These seem like the perfect issues to focus on for the contest.
So, my goals for the end of the year are as follows:
- 95% or better compliance with No-S and Shovelglove (i.e. 5 or less failures for these systems)
- Do 8 unassisted chin-ups
- Do 8 unassisted dips
- Do 8 bench presses of my body weight
- Run a 5K on the treadmill at an average speed of 8.2 mph
The first goal is the most important, but it’s the one I’m least worried about. There’s two reasons for this: first, both No-S and Shovelglove are full-on habits now and I can’t really see myself failing to reach this goal; second, it’s the only goal that focuses on behaviour, not results. By framing my other goals in terms of results, I am taking my behaviour out of the equation, and relying on my body’s ability to get stronger and faster.
That being said, I do have a plan for meeting all of these goals. This week, I was able to do 8 chin-ups and 8 dips with 50 lbs of assistance. I was also able to do 8 bench presses of 120 lbs. In all three cases, if I add/subtract 5 lbs of resistance/assistance each week, I’ll meet my goal with a little bit of time to spare. The last goal is a bit more nebulous. I’m going to run at a speed of 7.0 mph on Friday and see if I can go the whole 5K. This is only slightly faster than my time on the cross-country run, so I think it is attainable on a treadmill. If I’m able to sustain that pace, I’ll simply add .1 mph to my pace every week. At the end of the year, I’ll hit my goal (again with about a week to spare). This would shave about 4 minutes of my 5K time over the course of 12 weeks. You can see why I’m nervous 
Part of the contest is posting results every 10 days, which is another nice incentive to keep on top of these goals. Perhaps I’ll add a widget in the sidebar to track these goals as well.
If you’re interested in participating, head over to Steve’s blog and post a comment!
1 Comment
September 23, 2009 at 5:38 am
Glad to see you are in on this! I think your goals look great. BTW, thanks for the link back.
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