Month In Review: November + December Goals

A couple days late, but I wanted to review my exercise during the month of November plus the goals I set for myself at the beginning of the month.

If I am going to keep track of fitness, I need to remember to jot down when I do all the On Demand videos or a random couple sets of crunches here and there.  I know I did these a few more times than I wrote down.  The running and spinning are easy since my Garmin keeps track for me.

Here we go:

Nov2: 2.04 mi run
Nov4: 5.08 mi run
Nov 5: OnDemand Standing Abs (10 min)
Nov6: 6.18 mi run + OnDemand Arms with Attitude (10 min) + Abs & Back (10 min)

Nov8: 2.13 mi group run
Nov11: 5.31 mi run + OnDemand Arms with Attitude
Nov13: Helped my husband wax the car...uses the arm muscles, right??
Nov14: 5.56 mi run (first 2 mi w/hubby, rest on my own)

Nov16: 2.43 mi run
Nov18: 2.19 mi run w/hubby
Nov21: 6.06 mi run

Nov22: 3.33 mi group run (early turkey trot)
Nov24: 4.34 mi run
Nov26: I think walking around the Gettysburg battlefield for a couple hours and climbing up multiple tall observation towers counts for something.  I felt all the steps we did in my legs the next day.
Nov28: 2.21 mi run

Nov29: 1 hour spinning class + OnDemand 21-day Yoga (10 min) + Yoga for Beg. & Beyond (16 min)
Nov30: 2.05 mi run w/hubby

November Total: 48.91 miles of running.

So, at the beginning of November, I said my goals were to:
1. run 55 miles for the month
2. shoot for 48 ounces of water a day
3. get at least 7.5 hours of sleep on 3/5 weeknights.

Goal 1: While I didn't reach 55 miles, running 48.91 miles was a significant improvement from running only 35.7 miles during October.

Goal 2: This was hard to remember to jot down amounts. I should have just jotted down "yes" or "no."  There were some days I forgot to write anything down.  Beginning on the 5th, I kept track of water for 21 out of the 26 remaining days of the month.  And I only drank 48+ ounces on 7 of those 21 days.  Big time fail!  I drank 40+ ounces on 16 of 21 days.  I got better about this toward the end of the month, and will continue to try to drink more water throughout the winter.

Goal 3: Also hard to remember to write down your sleep!  I did this from November 4th through the Friday after Thanksgiving, for a total of 23 days, weekends included.  There were only 6 days that I got less than 7.5 hours of sleep, mostly toward the beginning of the month.  I had one week (Nov 14-18) where I got more than 7.5 hours of sleep every week night!

(click to enlarge)

The thin yellow line is the 7:30 mark. 
So anything above that line met my goal!
(Real MS Excel would have let me adjust the scale of my Y-axis, instead of these bizarro increments)

I have decided I'm not so interested in writing down all of my water consumption and the exact hours I fell asleep and woke up each day.  But I will continue to make drinking more water and going to bed earlier a priority so I can stay healthy this winter (especially since I work with students, and kids = germs!)

As I mentioned earlier this week, I want more of my running to stay within a lower heart rate range.  According to the chart in that post, 80-90% of your training mileage should be in the "long slow run" range, which for me is a HR 151-165.  No more than 10-15% should be in the lactate/anaerobic threshold pace.  I'm calling myself experienced since I've been running regularly for almost 2 years... so for me that range would be: 172-181.

• I'll try for 80% of my running mileage in the 151-165 range. 
• This may mean I need to stop running and walk for a couple seconds if my HR gets too high.  Which will be annoying, but good for me in the long run.
• I'll try for 15% of my running mileage in the 172-181 range.

Since I signed up for the gym for the month of December, I plan to take some group classes to mix up my routine a bit, and give me something to do besides just running, since riding my bike outside is no longer an option (until maybe March, anyway).

• I will aim to exercise for at least 30 minutes, 5 days a week (even through Christmas!) 
• My routine daily 10-minute dog walk does not count.  
• Running, spinning, group classes, OnDemand workouts, & long walks can all count.
• Wii bowling or tennis probably doesn't count? :)