Looking Back and Looking Ahead

You know what I love about exercise goals?

They keep me from making excuses and getting lazy. If I have a choice between lounging comfortably on the sofa and logging some minutes on the exercise bike so I can meet a goal, I will usually pry myself off the sofa and hop on the bike. Hey, I’m a competitive person. Setting goals for myself and then trying to meet or exceed them is me competing against myself. And I love it.

At the beginning of 2013, I had written out some exercise goals for myself for the year in the categories of running, crunches, exercise bike, planks, and walking/hiking. Halfway through the year, I checked in to let you all know how I was doing; I was great in some areas, OK in other categories, and dismal in a few.

I’m sure you’ve been sitting on the edge of your seat since the summer to find out how I ended up doing. Well, fear not: The time has come for me to unveil my 2013 Grand Exercise Totals!

My official (slightly weathered) sheet of 2013 exercise goals

Goal #1: Run 500 miles.
-Halfway Point (June 30): 290.38 miles, well over my target of 250 miles
-How I Proceeded: I was pleased with that, but I knew I was over my halfway target because of training for the Pittsburgh Half Marathon in May. So then I signed up for the Hershey Half Marathon in October, and I was 99.9% sure I would reach my goal.
-Date Met: October 8, during a 4-mile run.
-2013 Total: 563.1 miles. Woohoo! My previous PR for miles in a year was 420. After the Hershey Half, I slacked off a bit with my running, mainly to let myself rest up.

Yep, 12 of my 563.1 miles in 2013 came on this training run for the Pittsburgh Half Marathon (with Mom and Candace).

Adding 13.1 more miles to my 2013 total during the Pittsburgh Half Marathon and loving every minute!

Goal #2: Walk/hike 250 miles.
-Confession: As I mentioned at the halfway point, my original goal for this was 150 miles, but I’d already exceeded that goal by the end of June, so I increased the number.
-Halfway Point: 158 miles. That number was aided by a winter mountaineering trip to New Hampshire and a few training hikes leading up to it.
-How I Proceeded: I actually love walking; it was one of my main cardio components when I first started getting in shape. So for the last half of 2013, I aimed to walk a mile at work each day, and Mom and I also found excuses to walk into town to shop or grab lunch.
–Date Met: October 26, during a 3-mile walk to get homemade sticky buns, ironically.
–2013 Total: 284.1 miles. This number combined with my running total equals nearly 850 miles my legs traveled in 2013! I’m pretty pumped about that.

Tackling a 12-mile training hike with my pals Katlyn and Matt K.

Yeah, that’s THE Mount Washington…in the middle of winter!

Goal #3: Do 50,000 crunches.
-Confession: At the beginning of 2013, I assumed I’d have no trouble with this one because it averages out to 1,000 crunches per week (with a few weeks off), which is very manageable to me. However, when I reached the halfway point…
-Halfway Point: 18,800. I hadn’t reached the end-of-June target of 25,000, which was really surprising to me! Still, I knew all I had to do was step things up a notch to regain the ground.
-How I Proceeded: I set aside two days each week to do 1,000 crunches each day until I caught up. It honestly felt great to have goals to chase (that’s the competitor in me talking).
-Date Met: December 7, thanks to that day’s session of L.A.W.!
-2013 Total: 51,000. Yeah, I slacked off a bit after I reached my goal, but after logging 32,200 crunches since the end of June, I wanted to give my abs a break from crunches and allow them to focus on something else, like Goal #4.

Here’s my exercise log for August 24, when I somehow added 2,000 crunches (in one day) to my 2013 total.

Goal #4: Do 180 minutes of planks.
-Confession: Yes, I know the goal I listed in my post at the halfway point was 120 minutes. My very first goal had been (and I quote) “180 minutes (120 minutes),” meaning that Plan A was to make it to 180 minutes, but if that looked out of reach, I’d aim for Plan B, which was 120 minutes. My numbers by June 30 were nowhere near 180 minutes, so I kind of ignored Plan A and targeted Plan B.
-Halfway Point: 48 minutes. Yowch! I wasn’t even on pace for my Plan B goal, so I knew I had to step it up a bit (OK, a lot).
-How I Proceeded: I figured out that if I did just three minutes of planks each week, I could at least reach my Plan B goal. But then I caught the plank bug (a good thing) and just went crazy with planking. Before I knew it, I had reached 120 minutes, and my previously-forgotten-about Plan A goal (180 minutes) was in sight. The rest is history.
-Date Met: December 9. And I was so pumped up that I KEPT GOING!
-2013 Total: 200 minutes. That’s right: I did 152 minutes of planks during the last half of the year. Not bad, self!

Ain’t nothin’ like some planks…

…especially when there’s a cat pretending to do planks next to you!

Goal #5: Log 25 hours on the exercise bike.
-Confession/Side Note: OK, 25 hours in a year works out to an average of less than a half-hour per week. Still, I was apparently so focused on climbing mountains and running that I didn’t spend much time (understatement) on the bike during the first half of the year. So I found myself aiming for my Plan B goal of 15 hours.
-Halfway Point: 6 hours and 5 minutes. Whaaaaat? Not good! I remember thinking that I should just aim for Plan B, which I was sure I could achieve, but also hope to reach 20 hours, which seemed like more of a stretch.
-How I Proceeded: When I started training for the Hershey Half Marathon, I logged some minutes on the exercise bike each week as part of my cross-training. Then, as I gave my legs a break from running after the half-marathon, I kept my cardio endurance up by getting much better acquainted with the bike. Also, I found ways to make it fun: reading, listening to music, brainstorming, even doing intervals. I hit the 15-hour mark on October 26, and I kept plugging away. As the end of November approached, I passed the 20-hour mark; the once-seemingly-impossible 25-hour notch was within reach as December began to wane. Did I make it? Read on!
-Date Met: December 30 (25 hours). Yes, that’s cutting it a little close to the end of the year, but I did it!
-2013 Total: 25 hours and 5 minutes. OK, so I barely made it. But I made it! And I didn’t quit! That, my friends, is what these goals are about.

Speeding right along (well, sort of).

No excuses!

I’m definitely pumped about how 2013 went as far as exercise is concerned. Now I’m setting my sights on 2014!
-run 600 miles
-do 60,000 crunches
-log 30 hours on the exercise bike
-do 240 minutes of planks
-walk/hike 300 miles

Let’s do this.

It’s the L.A.W.!

Did you ever have an idea that was both brilliant and horrendous at the same time?

My latest such idea popped into my head a week or so ago. For some reason, I’d been thinking about crunches: One day each week, I try to do 1,000 crunches, knocking them out in sets of 100 throughout the day. “Doing crunches throughout the day is challenging, but I wonder how many I could do in an hour,” I mused. Of course, I wasn’t referring to doing crunches nonstop for 60 minutes; I was thinking of doing them in sets of 100 with a short break in between sets.

So I decided to give it a try. But then I had an idea that would push things up a notch: What if I rode the exercise bike when I was taking a break from doing crunches? It sounded like fun. Well, kind of.

It was set: For one whole hour, I’d alternate five minutes on the exercise bike and 100 crunches. I had no idea if I could actually do it, but hey, how was I to know until I tried?

After a few busy days of not being able to try my new routine, I finally had the time today. I popped in a DVD of Michael Jordan highlights (quite motivational, I might add) and got started. I told myself that, because this was my first time trying it, I could stop after 30 minutes if it was too tough. I was mainly concerned about the ab work, since I’d never done sets of crunches in succession quite like this. I decided to alternate sets of double crunches and bicycle crunches, mainly to mix things up a bit.

Surprisingly, it was actually fun! Don’t get me wrong: By the time I reached the 30-minute mark (nearly 20 minutes on the bike with 400 crunches complete), I was feeling a little bit tired. However, I wasn’t tired enough to quit, so I decided to push on for another half-hour.

Happy! And washed out, thanks to a bright overhead light and a camera from a mobile device!

It was during one of my bike sessions that I really started brainstorming what super cool name this exercise routine should have. I couldn’t come up with anything spectacular! Somehow, I temporarily decided on L.A.W. (Leg-Ab Workout). Creative, I know. So until something wonderful pops into my head, that’ll have to do. Undaunted by my lack of creativity, I pushed on toward the one-hour mark.

Let’s do this!

Side note: Exercise selfies for the purpose of this blog are the only type of selfies I take. Honest.

My final numbers from the world’s first-ever L.A.W. session: 40 minutes on the exercise bike, along with 800 crunches. Not bad! (I’ve since done 200 more crunches to get to 1,000 on the day.)

The official tally sheet, which will surely be in a museum someday

What I like about this routine is that it can be adapted to any level of fitness and any available time frame. For example, my formula was five min. cardio/100 crunches/five min. cardio/100 crunches/and so on for an hour. But it could easily be two min. cardio/10 crunches/two min. cardio/10 crunches/etc. for 15 minutes. Plus, cardio doesn’t have to be the exercise bike. It could be jumping jacks, jogging in place, chasing a psycho cat, walking up and down a flight of stairs, or anything else.

Here’s the general formula:
1. x number of minutes of cardio
2. x number of crunches
3. Alternate numbers 1 and 2 for x number of minutes

Try it out, and let me know what you think! Also, (please) tell me if you have a brilliant name for this workout.

Have a happy Thanksgiving, everyone!