The email read……year-end-report. I’d dreaded receiving it. Fortunately for me it’s not from an employer–it’s a strictly self-imposed set of goals.
Early in the year I committed to both bike and run mileage goals. It seemed I was being fairly realistic; slightly conservative even. No attempts were made to game the results–I didn’t slip in a century ride late in the fall or triple up on runs a few weeks to make up lost ground. I spent the year simply clicking through the weeks as they came and in the end a variety of things popped up leaving me considerably short. In fact, I came in at only 65% of my annual goal. I had to get out a calculator and run it twice to believe it.
Losing my guaranteed-350-days-of-sunshine was the single biggest adversity. A few time periods of almost weeks off at a time wins runner-up. An almost complete lack of thoughtful calculation when setting the goals surely played a part. I’ve made a plan for 2014. It’s got a mere two parts to it:
1) Prudence (see Aristotle’s writings on practical wisdom)
2) Scheduling
Too many peaks and valleys in 2013 were the side-effects of pushing rehab, playing catch-up, lack of focus and lack of adventure/risk. I’ll base my goals, in part, on the first couple weeks of this year and the two identified parts. It’s ridiculous how far I fell short; that’ll not happen again if I can even a small amount of control over it. Now I feel as if the year-end report came from an employer. Blech! Time to move on before I actually start thinking about employers!