Why set goals?

This week my brain has been "spinning" with all the ideas that I have learned from colleagues at a recent Pro-D day. I was really inspired about blogging and how I could integrate that into my kindergarten class...but that will be a whole different post and a whole different blog!!This blog is all about me and the goals that I am currently working on achieving! 

Today I was out for my weekly run (I have just begun training for a 5km) and what better time to think than during a run? I have always been a BIG believer in setting goals and then working to achieve them by setting smaller goals along the way.

Back in January, a group of girls who I train with at Peak Fitness decided to compete in Femsport Kamloops. As I had already successfully competed in this event once, I decided that this year I would set personal goals for each event. I sat down and looked at my previous times and then set realistic goals for each event. At the end of the event I was so proud to not only met my goals, but beat them by what I considered a wide margin.I didn't care where in the standing I placed, because I did what I set out to do.

My kindergarten class knew that I was competing that weekend and when I came back on Monday they asked me how I did. I replied "I beat all the goals that I had set for myself". I was met with confused looks and was asked again, "but how did you do?" I tried to explain to this group of feisty 5 year olds that  doing your best was as important as getting an award, but they just wanted to know if I got a trophy or not! The fact of the matter is I did place 10th and my team came in second, but those were not as gratifying to me as taking 15 seconds off my box jump time was.

This picture was taken after doing 50 box jumps (onto an 18' box) in 54.5 seconds - 15 seconds faster than my Aug 2011 time. I am very proud of this picture!!!

                             Chris (our amazing trainer!), Kaeli, Kristen and I with our 2nd place trophies! :)

Femsport is done, goals were met and beat...so now what???

 I have never considered myself a runner. I will say I am built for speed and power and my asthma has always held me back when it comes to any kind of distance run. So my "now what" is to run a 5km race. For many, this may not seem like a huge goal but for me it is monumental! As I said, I have asthma and running is a MAJOR trigger for me, but I also believe that with some training (and lots of support form the people I care about) I CAN do it! 

5 weeks ago I started training for a 5km. People asked me what race I was entering and my reply has always been that I am not training for a race, I am training to complete it! This doesn't mean that I wont enter a race (those who know me, know I am super competitive) but for now I am training for the satisfaction of completing a personal goal at the end of June/early July. 

Today I met a new personal goal, which was this inspiration for this post! Up until now, my 5km training had me running sets of 800m (or 2 laps of the track) and today was the first day of 1200m (3 laps) and I will admit I was worried. To make matters worse, I left my inhaler at home and that freaked me out a bit! I am very proud to say that not only did I do my 3 sets 1200m, I did them and didn't NEED to use my inhaler. While I was running I kept thinking about how far I have come and how I had just reached another personal goal and that feels amazing! 


I leave you this....if you don't have a goal (personal, professional, fitness) what are you working towards and how do you know when you have made it?


My fitness goals - a 5km run on June 24th....whats yours???