personaldevelopment.fm

Following the Jeff Galloway marathon training schedule has worked great for me, at least for this first week. On Sunday I ran 3.5 miles and walked .5 miles, on this Lucky Peak Sandy Point Route. The temperature on Sunday was 40 degrees F and wind was blowing at around 15MPH to the north. This made initial running pretty tough, but on the way back the wind was against my back so it made for easier running. Here’s some things that I noticed:

1. This program is designed for beginners, as several times I ran longer than the 30 minutes, and two days I went and lifted weights after running/walking.
2. Get a pair of shoes that fit and are comfortable. The first two days I ran/walked in shoes that I’ve had for about six month and they were pretty beat up and I started to notice that they were not very comfortable. I switched to a different pair of running shoes that I had sitting in my clothes. Problem solved.
3. When running in cold temperatures dress accordingly. For my outside Sunday run I wore a hat, a wind breaker, sweatpants, gloves and yellow safety glasses (they help block the wind from the eyes and thus prevent my eyes from tearing up).
4. I’ve only experienced pain at the back of my lower leg and after reviewing the anatomy of the lower leg, it looks like it’s the Soleus muscle. Which according to Cool Running, my remedy is: “Stretching is the main prescription here. Do wall pushups religiously — several times a day and especially before and after running.“.

Next week
I want to go to a sports shoe store and get some really good fitting shoes. And I’m actually looking forward to running more.

This is interesting podcast by Steve Pavlina on how to speed up goal achievement or instituting change in your life faster.

This internal identity shift is a critical but often overlooked part of achieving goals and manifesting intentions. If you frequently set goals or put out intentions and then watch them die on the vine, it’s probably because you aren’t embracing the identity shift required to get there. You may know what needs to be done intellectually, but you haven’t reached the point of inspired action because you’re sticking to your comfort zone instead of walking away from it.

Link

One of my goals for 2007 is to run a marathon. That’s 26.2 miles of running. The most I’ve ever run at one time is 3 miles in high school.

Why?
There’s many reasons why I picked to run a marathon.

1. Focusing on training for a marathon, I’ll keep my body in shape. As I believe that your physical body is a reflection of your mental state, I’ll have to stay focused on completing this.
2. Running a marathon gives you a concrete goal to works towards. And the training for it is also predefined and laid out ahead of time. It’ll be good mental training to set a goal, set markers for training and rewards for accomplishing the goals and markers.
3. To see if I can do it. During this training and eventual running of the marathon I’ll have a lot of feedback from my body and mind that I might not receive in any other way, this will allow me to learn more about myself.

Lessons From Previous Work-outs
I have been cycling for most of last year as well as working out with weights. There’s some lessons that I’ve learned from these activities that I’ll adapt towards training for the marathon run.

1. I have to establish running as a habit. This will come in in my planning. Once a habit has been established it’ll be much easier to go running on a regular basis, as the self-image will have a much harder pull to being consistent with the habits.
2. Stretching before and after. I have found that if I stretch enough before and after any kind of exercise I hurt a lot less and recover faster. I will have to stretch before and especially after my running to make it more enjoyable.

Planning
After performing several hours (spaced out over weeks) of research on the web and reading “Ultramarathon Man” by Dean Karnazes, I feel that I’m prepared enough to make an initial training plan. I’ll make changes as I progress and will report my progress alone the way.

1. Get a good pair of running shoes. There’s a several running shops in town, including a New Balance store, so I’ll need to pick up a new pair of running shoes. I’m going to be looking for something that can handle indoor running as well as running trails outside as there’s many of them around here.
2. My initial schedule will be based on Jeff Galloway’s marathon training plan. His plan has been used by over 150,000 people to train, so I figure it’s good enough for me, at least to start with. I’ll follow the idea of running for several minutes and taking a minute to walk. I’ll be increasing the time on days when I have more time or more energy.
3. My plan for the longer runs on the weekend will be to run the schedule mileage, but to also take one minute walks if I feel like I might be close to injury or exhaustion.
4. I bought a cheap, one subject notebook to record my running activities and everything related to it.
5. Eat more bananas, or other potassium rich foods, on the days of longer running. This will help me recover faster and have less injuries and cramps.
6. Bring music or audio books on longer runs to keep the mind off of running and each step and onto something else.

With the coming of a New Year, it is instinctual to look back on the passing year and see what happened or at least think about what happened. With this in mind, I have been looking for a way to systemize this process to save me time in future yearly reviews by having an order I can follow and make sure that nothing is skipped.

The goal of this exercise is to review the passing year, learn something new about yourself and your behavior and be ready to use what you’ve learned in the oncoming New Year.

This should take minimum of an hour to maximum of 5 hours or more, and it should be pleasurable as you look back and relive the best memories and learn lessons from the not so good memories.

Questions to consider during this review process:
What things did I do right?
What could I have done differently?
What lessons can I learn from my actions?
What does my behavior say about me and my choices?
How do my thoughts and my behavior differ?

Step 1 – Review without judgment
Different ways to actively review the year
As you review, keep a pack of 3×5 cards around, or maybe (moleskine) notebook, this way you can write a lesson you learned or some decision, choice or behavior that changed the course of any part of your life. Mark up each card as it relates to the different parts of your life
1. Read or remember your last years new year resolutions, goals – this would be your map and your plan for the entire year, this is what was in your imagination, what you thought you were capable of achieving,
2. Scan over your daily/weekly calendar,
3. Scan over your to-do items
4. Scan over your archived emails
5. Scan over your personal relationship management system
6. Scan over your personal finances

Step 2 – Narrow down
Pick at least five things that you wanted to do in the passing year but did not accomplish, or tried to accomplish but failed, and then look deeper for the sources that caused you not to complete the goal.

Step 3 – Accept responsibility
This is a critical step – accepting responsibility, even when you feel like you were not the cause of the mistake
Brings closure and frees up your energies

Step 5 – Count your “wins”
There are many “wins” or positive outcomes that tend to be forgotten pretty quickly after they pass. Having a place where you can review your wins, and relive through the emotional experience.

With the new 2007, and the Boise State Broncos winning a classic game against the Sooners, now is a great time to start this personal development blog. I’ve learned a lot by following the Broncos during the entire season. And during this New Year I will write about what I’ve learned not just from the Broncos but from other areas of my life, from my own experimentations and from others.