Oh how quickly I forget! Goals, damn it! I need to have goals!

My workouts and my diet have been suffering since my half marathon on November 27, 2010.  Since the race I've been slacking in my workouts and very bad about my diet.

I've tried to get myself motivated since then.  It's not like I haven't worked out - I have.  However, the workouts haven't been focused and I've struggled on multiple occasions to get myself started.  A similar story can be told about my eating habits.  It's not that I've eaten a steady diet of fat and sugar since 11/27, but sugar and fat seem to show up a lot more frequently while fruits and vegetables have all but disappeared from my meals.

I know the culprit that's behind my fitness woes.  I don't have any immediate short or intermediate goals.  Sure, my long term goal is still to get more healthy.  That alone, however, isn't enough to keep me working out hard and eating really well on a regular basis.

It's funny and neat how powerful the mind can be.  Setting a goal as simple as "I want to run 15 miles in the next 5 days" is enough to get me focused and I feel so much more fired up to do it.  Alternatively, if I were to just say "I'm going to run 3 miles a day" without an end date I'm quite likely to skip a day or two over the next 5 days.  In other words, its all in my head!

So, going forward I'm going to set small goals.  For example, as I head into the weekend I want to do a lot of cardio so I'm setting a goal: I will run 10 miles total between Saturday and Sunday!