Goals for 2007

A lot of folks, including myself, announced their 2007 goals back at the beginning of the year. I posted some of my 2007 running goals just after Christmas last year. I've been procrastinating, though, responding to Catherine's e-mail which simply asked, "What's next?" And folks, she ain't talking about my next 5K. Catherine's wantin' me to state my next weight loss goal.

I finally responded to Catherine's e-mail yesterday. My mantra, mission statement, overarching theme, whatever you want to call it is to live "a healthy lifestyle with running as a key component for the purpose of being a better husband, a better father, a better friend, and a better servant of God." (mission statements always sound awkward.) So, with a healthy lifestyle with running as a key component as my mantra, it's impossible to separate weight loss from running. For me, right now, they just go together.

But if 2006 was the year of the marathon, 2007 is going to be the year of the weight loss. As I said, no way those two things don't go together. The difference is that in 2006, I concentrated on getting to the finish line of my first marathon and the weight just sort of came off by itself. This year, I'm going to focus on the weight loss, and hopefully a sub-6 at Houston in 2008 will just happen by itself. Of course, I'll train so don't even think I'm just gonna go on a diet and think I can take 48 minutes off this year's marathon time. I just think that the best way for me to get faster and to enjoy running even more than I do now (if that's even possible) is to get the rest of this extra weight off.

So, the goal. Since the Spring of 2004, including a brief lapse back into a sedentary lifestyle (it's called ankle reconstruction), I've lost 75 lbs and ended the year at my goal of sub-300. I believe this year, I can double that. So, I will lose 75 lbs this year, most of it hopefully before August when marathon training starts back up. I think it would be good to have a lot of that weight off by the time marathon training begins. It will just give me more options and increase my chances of staying injury-free. This is my BIG goal for 2007.

My next smaller goal is to have 30 of those 75 lbs off by the time I enter the corral for the Pig in May, May 6 to be exact. I'm not looking at a particular time goal for the Pig so scratch that from my December running goals list. The Pig has a 7 hour time limit and if I'm 30 lbs lighter and train well, I'll PR. If I lose 30 lbs before the Pig and DON'T PR, I'll be surprised but it won't bother me. The weight is the main goal right now.