New Years Resolution

My sister and I have been talking about writing a fitness blog for a few months. We have both begun challenging ourselves by encouraging each other to do organized runs, triathlons and other events.

I really want to stay committed to getting fit and training consistently. I am struggling with how to fit in a daily dog walk and a workout in the few hours of daylight available in the unpredictable mid-Atlantic winter. This is especially difficult, because the idea of snuggling under a blanket reading a book or watching a movie totally beats going to the gym. Today, I was at the gym swimming a few laps in the pool. I remembered a challenge that the gym had – 100 miles in 2010 – and started thinking… What I love about swimming is that my mind begins to wander. I didn’t come very close to my goal of finishing those 100 miles (maybe about 60 in 6 months), but I did find the challenge motivating.

Then it hit me.

2011 kilometers in the year 2011

This seemed ambitious doable. Albeit, I was doing the math in my head, which totally made me lose count of my laps in the pool. 2011 kilometers in a year works out to be a little less than 40 km a week. So now, you are thinking, as am I, how am I going to accomplish this goal. That brings me to this post, which will give me a sense of accountability.

My sister and I will track the number of kilometers we run, bike, swim or walk, each with a goal of 2011km in 2011. There is no way for this to be an exact science, but essentially – we are going to count activities that are aerobic. So, a YES to hiking, commuter biking, or walking the dog, but a big fat NO to shopping or walking down the block to Starbucks.

Recording the distance will be fairly easy for many activities. We are going to trust the distance displayed at the pool, on the treadmill, and other machines at the gym and we have odometers on our bikes. It will get a little trickier when running or walking outside, but it will work out with the help of sites like Map My Run and Google Maps (although I am thinking about getting a GPS watch, which would hold all the answers). For times when we can’t actually track the distance – we will just use our average paces. Right now, an hour of spin class will be 20 km because on average I bike about 20 km/h.

My sister is going to have a little bit of a heads up on me because she is currently hiking in Patagonia.