Friday, 2 January 2009

New Year's Resolutions for 2009

Will this finally be my Year of the Abs?
(with better hair, I hope)

The New York Times had a recent piece on the failure of most people to meet their New Year's Resolutions, with most abandoning their efforts by mid-February. Changing a lifestyle is not easy: talk-show host Oprah Winfrey was cited as an example as her very public efforts to get fit and lose weight have boomeranged. She dropped from 237 pounds to 160, ran marathons and so forth and is now back at 200. Considering she can afford to have a personal trainer and a personal chef on call 24 hours a day, what hope is there for the rest of us?

I have been able to hold my weight down since the Fat Cyclist's B7 Weight Loss Competition two years ago but I can improve. This is the cyclist's mantra since the endless training and obsessive food concerns actually do lead to results. They say that the best way to reach a goal is to let everybody know that you are trying to achieve it. I have been considering cycling goals for the coming year and now in Front of the Whole World I present them:

Goals:

1. time trial every week with the club (at least once the roads are clear!)

2. achieve 40 km/h in a 15 km time trial by June 1

3. do the Almonte 40 km time trial in 1:03 (current time is 1:06)

4. ride the Ontario Provincial championships for experience in September

5. weight at 76 kg by June 1 (currently 81.6; I have already started using FitDay.com to track my weight and diet)

6. learn to ski fearlessly around corners and down hills (I have already signed up for courses at the end of January for this)

7. Be able to do 101 pushups in a row, beating Groover.

Rides Planned:

Virginia/North Carolina Training Camp in late April 2009
Cirque du Cyclisme, followed by Great Appalaichan Trail ride in mid-June
Cycling in Germany and Northern Italy, July/August
Cycling Ironman Course at Lake Placid, NY
Cycling in the Finger Lakes region of NY

Of course, I proclaim that "This year is Abs Year!" every year and I swear I will learn Italian properly as well but of course having posted this I will have to revisit it on December 31, 2009. And good luck to everyone with their own resolutions!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Where were you planning to ride in Germany/Italy this summer? There are some fantastic mountains available :)

Groover said...

I read recently that men stick to and achieve the result of their New Year's resolutions more often by setting intermediate goals like loosing .5 kg every week (instead of "loosing weight") and women achieve their goals more often when they told others about their goals.

Exciting goals you have and the racing calendar sounds ... ah ... painful? :-) I wish you all the best and I'm looking forward to reading all about how you will go with achieving yours in 2009! We may even meet this year in Europe ... you never know!? :-)

Happy New Year!

Will said...

I thought every year was ab year?

Good luck with your 2009 goals.

You and I know that blogging goals/resolutions is a huge help due to the "shame" of failing ;)

just kidding and happy new year

Sprocketboy said...

Arlyn, we are looking at riding some easy warm-up hills in the Chiemgau, not far from Munich, before heading to Bolzen and the very serious climbs featured in the Giro d'Italia.

Groover, I have read that setting very specific goals works far better than "I will get fit" or "I will eat better." I have given a lot of thought to cycling goals over the last few years and tried to be as definitive as possible. And come to Europe with us!

Will, you set the bar pretty high each year with your cycling challenge. At this rate, you will have to move to somewhere near the Himalayas to get the vertical meters now!

Donald said...

Yeah... I promised myself I would focus on core work. We have to keep checking up on each other to make sure we're sticking to our plans. You have a lot of great goals. I sure wish I could join you on some but I may have to wait wait on Europe until 2010. We need to talk more about a possible training camp. I'm not sure what rides I'm shooting for this year. I have a lot of changes going on at work including my schedule. We'll catch up on it all soon. Best,
Donald

Ron George said...

Good luck for 2009! We'd like to see a video of you doing the 101 pushups :) I thought that stuff could only be done by wrestlers.