New Blog

The blogazine which I was a part of recently had to go on an official hiatus.

But I felt like there was so much to say.

So here I am, VentiSkimNinja, with a brand new blog.

In the year since I started blogging, much of my daily life has remained unchanged.

I am still working full time in an office - my job is pretty flexible - as long as I put in my 80 hours every two weeks, and get all of my production and quality review work done, they leave me alone.

That flexibility, eight months of every year, is made nearly moot by my class schedule - four nights a week, trying to get my law degree.

I live in DC (and love it!), and my regular life takes place in the DMV (that's area slang for "DC, Maryland, Virginia").

My beloved googleCalendar is my lifeline - not because I am important, but there are just a lot of people I want to see, and things I want/need to do, and not a lot of time to do it all.

I am still a hard core Capitals fan.

I am still trying to get myself to save money (I hear that is what you are supposed to do with some of it).

Some things are a bit different:

In less than a year, I have dropped anywhere from 30-60 seconds off my mile pace for distance runs (for me that means 6+ miles).

Along with my desire to see everyone I want to see, I am working my way out of what my older cousin has called "The Twenty-Something Itch."  (The Itch is the desire to please and also to do everything, which leads to saying yes to everything, but inevitably having to disappoint someone somewhere because you cannot possibly do everything all the time.)

Since August 2010, I have dropped 22 pounds off my frame.  This is awesome.  Although I am contained in my excitement, because that really means at some point I put those 22 pounds on.. since currently I'm still sitting just above a weight at which I spent my years between college and grad school.

Within all of this, I am also still trying to learn how to balance fitness and nutrition.

And that balance will be at the core of this blog.

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I want to start this off by announcing some goals here in writing for all to see.  They are kind of my grounding point to start this blog, and it helps me to feel some accountability regarding my goals by putting them out there.

• I am running a half marathon with a friend (who is running the entire marathon) on St. Patty's Day.
• My reach goal is to break 2 hours (chip time).
• My "happy with it" goal is to PR (my lifetime PR was over a decade ago and part of a full marathon, but it was a 2:13).
• My "better than nothing; would be really disappointed if failed" goal is to finish faster and feeling better than the I did after the Nike Women's Half Marathon in October 2011 (2:22 and I felt pretty terrible both during and afterwards).
• Goal Deadline: March 17th.
• I am running the Cherry Blossom Ten Miler this year.  This has been my ten miler track record:
• 2010: Did not train at all, was in the middle of putting on all this weight, and was generally out of shape; also forgot own running shoes and had to wear those of a male friend that gave me the largest blisters I have ever experienced.  I finished in 2:06... abysmal by my own standards.
• 2011: Started to train; Achilles injury caused major problems: Did not run.
• 2012 Goal: I'd like this to feel fantastic, as an extension of my half marathon training.  It's also on my birthday (April Fools' Day, because my life's a joke, har har), and it just needs to not be a constant decline each year. Finish time goal somewhere between 1:30 and 1:35.
• Goal Deadline: April 1st.
• I would like to continue to drop some excess weight.
• My reach goal is to lose 14.89% of my current weight.
• My "happy with it"/"would happily settle there" goal is to lose 8.8-11.9% of my current weight.
• Timeline: I was at about my current weight the first time I originally started Weight Watchers in college, and it took about 2-3 months to only barely reach my "happy with it" weight.  That said, I'd like to hit my "happy with it" goal by the end of the semester.  My reach goal is... well in its very nature will be harder to hit, but it would be great if it happened by the time I started class for Fall 2012.
• From a fitness perspective, I want to be in a place where I am regularly working out, and lose the feeling of "do I have to?"
• This has already gotten a lot better.  I had a terrible work and life week last week and missed out on my workouts and training, which is terrible.  But the plus was that, aside from any guilt I felt, I also just felt kind of physically sad and lethargic, so it was clear that I feel better when I work out than when I don't.
• However, obviously brushing off fitness when I get busy is still something that happens.  Similarly, it sometimes still feels like a chore.
• Goal with deadline: Work out every week, during the week, and be positive, by the end of this semester.
• From a fitness perspective, I also want to be in a physical position to be able to take on fitness challenges without starting from zero.  It'd be lovely if, if a friend said, "hey do you want to run this half marathon in two months," the list of things to consider only included logistics (timing and cash) and desire, and did not include "but I'm so far from half marathon shape" or injury concerns.
• Goal deadline: Along with other fitness perspective goal and weight loss goal: By the end of the semester.
• Figure out how to accomplish the above three (weight and fitness) as a person who loves food and loves to eat.
• Goal deadline: Ongoing.

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And here we go!