Yet More Goals: Get Active (again)

Lots of introspection this month!

Up until mid summer I feel I was doing pretty well with workouts.  I was improving running, feeling stronger, etc.

Then I started coughing.  And coughing.  I’d have bouts where I’d nearly throw up.  Bouts that stopped me running.

I was also tired all the time.  I was waking up at 3 am and not being able to fall back to sleep.  I was so frustrated.

I’m feeling better now — the asthma seems under control, and I think my tiredness was in large part due to the stress of getting CRK to the publisher in what, in hindsight, was a terribly short (self-imposed) deadline.

So here are the goals:

Hiking:  Go on a hike once or twice a month.

I have several books for hiking in Southern & Central California.  Obviously, if I’m planning a hike once or twice a month, it needs to be a day trip, so that’s going to limit just how far south or north we venture.  However, despite urban sprawl, there’s a lot of open space here, too:  the San Gabriel mountains, the Santa Monica mountains, all sorts of beaches.

This last weekend we went to Eaton Canyon, a very popular (honestly, too crowded for our tastes) hike in foothills of the San Gabriels.  I’d never been there before, so it was fun to see something new.  Rosemary & Curtis came with us.  Curtis made it to the falls, Rosemary stopped before all the stream crossings (quite wisely;  on our way back we saw a poor woman with a hideous compound fracture — luckily, the park is so close to civilization there was cell phone service, so her friend called 911).  It’s an easy hike, but the stream crossings can be a bit treacherous if you’re not good at bouncing about on rocks.

How to make this goal work?  Research & plan at the end of each month what we’ll do for the next month.  I don’t have any set goals regarding distance or duration.  I just want to be outside.

Walk/running:  I’ve started run/walking again, and am planning on starting up Couch to 5k officially next week (since I’m leaving for TNNA at 5 am tomorrow morning).

I am planning on going for a run/walk this morning with Rigel.

I’ll come up with subsequent goals at the completion of the 9 weeks.  Overarching goal?  I’d like to do a half marathon next winter.  We’ll see.  I’ve not done one of those in quite a while.  If nothing else, I’d like to do one of the XTerra trail runs, probably the 11k Pt Magu run.

Bicycling:  go on a weekly ride with Dave (probably on the weekend).  We have some nice places to bike around here.  The PV peninsula is great on a quiet Sunday morning.  I actually like riding on the Strand, by the beach,  in areas where there aren’t many pedestrians ignoring the rules that it’s a bike path, bikes only, no peds.

I should include some gym/core/stretching goals, but I need to dwell on that a bit.