Cost of a Backyard Garden

About a month ago, I wrote about our plans for a backyard garden.  H and I have gotten a few garden installations going for this summer, and I wanted to lay out how much we’ve spent so far.

The first garden area we’ve got is approximately 6′ by 8′, and is east facing in the backyard.  This area was previously lightly covered in river rock, and was something that we were not really impressed with.  It is bordered on one side by a 8″ square post, and the other by a fence.  H and I moved all of the rock out of the garden area, then dug some trenches that the sides of the garden box would go in.  Then we went to go get some 10″x8′ boards, which cost about 8 bucks a piece and we put them in as our side and back walls.  We used a few brackets to hold everything together, and the total cost for this was approximately 27 dollars.

Our next installation is more for year round gardening, and it is a cold frame.  For those unfamiliar, a cold frame is simply a box with a piece of glass or plastic on top that will let light through and keep heat in.  When we were gutting the bathroom, I had one of these on my mind, so I saved both pieces of the double hung window to use.  One is covered in paint (yes, even the glass) and I’m not sure it is worth the trouble, but the other will suit me just fine.  I’ve already picked a south facing area and dug the hole, now I just need to build the box, fill the hole with compost, and attach the windows.  Even though I’m building this now, I dont think I’m going to really plant anything until early august, when it starts to get cold.  I’m not quite sure what I’ll put in there either, but im thinking about planting spinach. H and I eat it quite a bit, and I guess it’s pretty difficult to kill, so it would make a good first trial.

Now that the garden is all built, it was time to get some plants.  Luckily a co-worker of mine has a greenhouse, and runs a pretty big (~6k/season) plant sale every year.  She gave me some recommendations on the types of plants to plant that would grow well where we live and are rather hearty.  I selected 2 varieties of heirloom tomates that she grows (carbon & brandywine), 1 eggplant (lavender blush) 3 varieties of hot peppers (serrano, taki’s ace, and el jefe).  In addition to these, I’ll probably try my hand at some herbs that are popular in our house, like mint and basil.  If there’s room, I’ll do a little bit of spinach as well.  The plants I purchased from my co-worker cost $41, and I got a package of spinach seeds for a dollar on sale at the store.

Right now, I’m around $60 dollars into the project, and I’ll see what sort of yields that I get out of the garden.  I’m not planning on keeping track of time spent on the garden this year, as I view it as more of a hobby and something to do than a way to generate income.  To me, it’s something that I can do that will reduce expenses in the future, more than as an income generator.

Readers: Do you have a garden planted this year?  If so, what did you plant?  

Spartan Blues

Earlier this year, I mentioned that I’ll be running the spartan death race.  Despite the fact that it’s taken up a rather large share of my time since then, I’ve been fairly “mum” about it on the site.  I’m not exactly sure why I havent written much about it, other than the fact that as of right now, my training is simply working out every day.  Mostly, I didnt want this to turn into a death race blog, because there are tons of those out there already (I read them on friday nights – for real).  However, I’ve lately been feeling like the workouts that I do are not going to be enough, and it’s starting to bother me.

This race is meant to be a physical, mental challenge and mindfuck.  They publicly tout the fact that only about 15% of the entrants finish the race each year.  When I signed up for the race, I pretty much knew where I’d stand – in the 85% that would get their race packet stamped with DNF (Did Not Finish).  I’m dont think I’m some sort of workout god or anything like that, nor do I think that I’m some sort of superhuman, so I simply trained for 5 months, resigned to the fact that even though I was training, I wasnt going to finish.  The worst part about that is that there was most likely nothing that I would be able to do about it either.

Unfortunately, this developed a poisonous attitude within me during my training.  All of the sudden I began to make excuses about skipping certain exercises while at the gym, in the interest of “time”.  I told myself that I’d do the sit ups and push ups at home, so that I could get out of the gym on time and get to work.  I mean, what difference did it make anyway?  It’s a virtual certainty that I wasnt going to finish the race, so skipping out on a few sit ups wasnt really going to matter in the long run, right?  That logic has been very pervasive, as well as very damaging to my training.  With the results pre-ordained, it gets difficult on a down day to even bother trying.  As I’ve been noticing, this is very common with large, seemingly insurmountable tasks.

This race isnt about finishing or about getting to the top and checking something off of a bucket list.  This is about life.  How you handle adversity, what you do when you’re unsure of things, and breaking limits that you never thought existed or have never bothered to test.  Knowing that I’ll come out of this with something that I cant get anywhere else is assuring, but isnt going to change my attitude now.  Lately, I’ve been pushing myself even more as the race is getting closer, and I’m still having trouble breaking out of the attitude.  Somedays it goes well, and others not so, but still I keep going.  After a while, it hit me – this is just like getting out of debt.

At the beginning, I was very gung ho, and was able to pay off all of my credit card debts and one of my student loans.  From there though, the initial excitement and “can-do” attitude waned, and I fell into a few year long slup with my debt repayment.  I never added new consumer debt  (not counting mortgage) but I didnt make significant progress on the debt that I had already.  After a long spell of not doing much, I slowly started to focus on student loan number two, and was able to get a few wins and feel successful after that.  Once that happened, I decided to make one last push and get it paid off once and for all.

That taste of victory continued, and after a quick slowdown because of cash flowing our wedding expenses, H and I got back on the wagon and started hammering down the truck, which I paid off at the beginning of the month.  This win has ignited both H and I, and we will begin to attack the student loan with the vigor that we attacked the truck, and that I attacked the credit cards with back in 2009 and 2010.

With the race, I’ve been conditioned to fail.  I dont know what’s going to happen during or after – all I know is what’s happening before the race, and I dont mind it so much at all.  It’s easier to stick with what I know than push myself outside my boundaries, which could be fraught with risk, uncertainty and potential failure.  Who wants to experience that, right? No one likes to fail.

The same thing happened with my debt repayment.  Everyone told me at the beginning that debt was just something you lived with and tried to manage.  You couldnt be totally free of debt, you just had to watch the amount that you had and try and keep a lid on it.  You needed debt to buy a house (not totally true, but it helps), you need debt to buy a car (not true) to live your day-to-day life (not true).  I’d been conditioned to accept debt, but to try and keep it at a manageable level.  My dad even told me this when I told him that I was trying to pay off all my debt.  On the side of well managed debt, I was conditioned to find it acceptable, because changing that would take a lot of hard work, and uncertainty and sacrifice during the debt payoff period, and fear about what was going to come after.  Then again, I’d made my wishes of being debt free so public, I’d have to come back and explain to everyone that I failed, and they were right and living debt free was not possible.

While I dont know the outcome of the death race just yet (but I can guess) – it’s nothing more than that at this moment – a guess.  I can absolutely go there and tear it up, or I can break my ankle getting off the plane in vermont and not even start.  But there’s one thing that I do know: No one can stop me from trying but myself.

The same goes for you and your debt.  You may be facing a mountain of debt yourself, living paycheck to paycheck and feeling comfortable about your situation.  If you are, and you feel like debt is something that you can never completely eradicate, then go ahead and keep doing what you’re doing – that’s more than fine.  However, if you’re willing to sacrifice and work hard the common logic of debt needing to be managed does not apply to you.  You can be one of the many that is afraid to try, content with the way things are going for you or you can be one of the few that is curious about what’s on the other side of debt, and do anything in your power to get there.  No one but you can stop you from trying to pay off your debt.  You also dont need anyone’s permission to pay off your debt, you just need  a plan and some spare cash to start.

You most likely cant pay off all of your debt in 1 day, 1 month or even 1 year – it took you a lot longer to build it up than that.  Get ready for a long, hard slog and a lot of sacrifice.  But I promise you, it will be worth it in the end.  I am not even finished with my debt repayment yet, but I’m close enough now that I can taste it.  I didnt make much progress for the better part of 2 years, but I didnt stop trying and my balances kept going down.  When I started, I had 55,000+ in consumer debt, and I made about 32,000 per year.  Things have changed since then, and now I’ve got just $8,800 in non mortgage debt left to pay off.  Despite what everyone says about debt, I’m closer to being debt free (without the mortgage) than I have been since I was probably 19 years old, and it feels swell.

Remember, the things that always make you feel the best (and the best about yourself) require an effort that you’ve never put forth before that point.  I had never made more than $6,600 in 1 year when I started trying to pay off my debt.  I didnt let it stop me and right now, I’m almost out of the woods.  Use the hardest thing that you’ve ever done in your life for motivation, but know this will be more challenging – just not in the same way.  Grab on to the chair you’re sitting in and it’ll be a rough ride, but you’ll get through it, and you’ll be so happy with yourself on the other side.  You’ll also be ready to take on a task that you never would have dreamed of starting before you paid off your debt.  What will it be?

The death race may get the best of me, but it wont be for lack of me trying.

Readers: Have you been talking yourself out of debt repayment for one reason or another?  If not – congrats, if so, how can you get yourself back on track?  How do you treat the naysayers in your life, and how do you deal with yourself when you join them?  

February 2013 Monthly Review

I had a pretty productive and busy february, as H and I worked a lot on the bathroom.  We are now basically able to use everything up there.  The shower, the loo and the sink are all functional, the room just does not have a door quite yet.  We still need to do some work with the door frame (that we dont really know how to do) before guests would feel comfortable using it.  Hopefully we can get the door put on soon.

Debt:

These are all of my debts. Right now, that includes a vehicle loan, a mortgage and 1 student loan. When I started, I had 3 credit cards, 3 student loans and no vehicle loans. Everything that I’m still paying off now (with the exception of the student loan) has been incurred since I’ve tried to become debt free. Funny how that works out, eh?

House

Mortgage $118,001 ($537) – Same monthly payment here.  Approximately half of our payment goes to interest, which I’m oddly ok with.  In normal times of higher interest rates, it’d be closer to 75-80% and we’d hardly be making any headway.  Low interest rates and a low amount borrowed really helped us here.

Student Loans

Great Lakes Loan $9,077  ($134) I bumped this up to 175 a while back, but this is going down slowly.  I think it’s about time I start to treat my debt like the emergency that it is, instead of the waffling I’ve been doing since 2010.

Truck Loan

Ford Credit: $3,109 ($646): H and I have a goal to pay this off at the end of Q2, and it looks like we are doing just fine.  We are trucking along on this, I sent them a double payment again this month.  As of right now if we keep going the way we are going, it will take 4.7 months to pay it off, so we are going to have to bump that up a touch at some point to knock it down by the end of june.

Total Debt: 131, 504 ($766) – This is a lower per amount reduction than normal, but it’s because of the timing of the mortgage payment.  High, but I’m still OK with it.

Health Goals

This year, I’m working 1 month at a time on my health goals.  In january, my focus was on going to the gym and working out consistently.  That went pretty well, though lately I’ve hit a bit of a plateau that I’m working my way though.  In february, I focused on changing my diet so that I’m eating 6 meals per day.  I’m still adjusting to that, and it’s required some focus.   I need to pack meals & snacks for when I go to work, and I need to watch myself when I’m having dinner out with friends (with middling success, I may add).  In march, I havent decided what to focus on quite yet, but i’ll let you know as soon as I find it – most likely it will be running (though that could prove difficult.

I’m still carrying my pack to work to train for the death race, and I add weight to it at the beginning of every month.  I’d guess it’s about 30 lbs right now, but I’m not sure – our scale at home doesnt work very well.

Goal Workouts: 20

Total Workouts: 35

Still didnt figure out a new metric for this, but basically I’m working out in the morning at the gym, and I’m running tuesday, wednesday, thursday, saturday and sunday.  I thought I was going to do a 50k race in late may, but i’m having second thoughts.  I’m not sure I want to beat my body up that much that close to the race, and I’m also having a difficult time training.  Winter here is much worse than it was last year – we’ve gotten lots more snow, and it’s been a lot colder and windier.

CSA For 2013? Unknown

Two years ago, H and I decided to sign up for a CSA.  We had some friends that had gotten one from the same farm and enjoyed it, so we signed up for 26 weekly deliveries of fruit.  Initially I was disappointed by what we got because of some late spring/early summer hail ruined the fruit crop I was expecting, but as the summer wore on I was happy with our purchase.  There was even a time where we got 15+ lbs of pears in one week.

Last year, we decided that we’d up our purchases from the farm share, and got vegetable shares in addition to fruit shares. The veggie shares were OK.  We got lots of great stuff that we used frequently, and we got some stuff that really became a challenge to use.  H cooked a lot of squash breads, and I made a lot of grilled beets.  All in all, I was happy with it for the most part, but I wished there was a better way to get what I actually wanted for my veggies.  The fruit this year was less productive than I remember it the year before, but we were also gone for about 4 deliveries because of our wedding and the honeymoon.  I wasnt totally sold on the veggies again, but could have been convinced and was willing to do the fruit again.

Unfortunately, I wont even get the option.  About a month ago, we got an email from our farm saying that they were going into chapter 7.  Right now, the whole thing is a huge mess, with no one really knowing exactly whats going on (or so it seems).  It’s unfortunate for the community, because the csa portion of the farm was enjoyed by a lot of H and I’s friends and neighbors.

What this does mean though, is that we are in for another decision.  Should we sign up for a CSA again, and if so, to what extent.  One of the first questions about this is where are we going to find another csa?  H said that some people she worked with belonged to another in the area, so we may head that direction.

2013 Health Goals

Last year, my health goals were the ones that fared the best out of all my other goals.  I was able to keep a consistent training routine from January to mid april, often going to the gym in the morning and running in the afternoon and one day on the weekends, usually amounting to around 10 workouts per week.  Once we moved into our new house though, my plan really fell by the wayside – there was just too much to do at the house, and I didnt carve out time to go to the gym.  Lots of this is obviously my fault, so enough with the excuses.  I was able to get back into the routine in fits and starts once we got back from our honeymoon, but nothing really ever stuck the way that it did early in the year.

After reflecting on the year, I realized that this was probably because I had no goal to aspire to.  I’m well aware that being healthy now and later in life will save me all this money, allow me to spend more time with loved ones in the future and get around better.  Unfortunately, those things (like retirement) are a very long way out, and it’s difficult to set aside time to work on them or deal with them.  I’ve realized that with all my goals, it’s best to have a timeframe to stick to, and for exercise for me it means some sort of race or challenge.  This year, I’ve got a few races planned (though not many at the end of the year) to make sure that I stick to my training plans.

I’ll be running the Wyoming Ultramarathon in late may (it’s a 50k), and in mid june, I’ll be traveling to vermont to race in the spartan death race.  After I heard about the death race 4 years ago, I really wanted to give it a try, and this year I’ve decided to stop screwing around and waiting and just go for it.  There’s about a 15-20% completition rate for the race every year, so odds are I’m not going to finish, but I hope to be in shape enough by the time the race rolls around to be happy with my performance.

Like my financial goals, I’ve broken the main goal (the death race) down into smaller things that I need to do every day, every week and every month to get ready for it.   Here’s the list:

  1. Carry my pack to work every day.  Early last week, I filled a backpack with a bunch of heavy objects and have been carrying it around when I walk to and from work.  Right now, the pack weighs about 25 lbs, and I’m hoping to increase the weight to 40-50 pounds gradually.  There’s nothing really in the pack but heavy stuff, so this should be relatively easy.
  2. Take the stairs at work every day.  Once again, another daily goal.  I work on the 4th floor, and the walk with the pack gets a tad tiring when I’m all the way up at the top, but it’s getting easier every day to walk up the stairs.  Hopefully soon I can be running up the stairs with my pack!
  3. Follow my gym routine.  I’ve developed a specific plan for each day of the week with what exercises that I will do.  I think this will work better than last year because last year I did what I wanted and ended up really neglecting my deltoids/hamstrings workout because I thought it was an annoyance.  This year, I’ve got a workout for each day, and all I have to do is roll out of bed and head to the gym.
  4. Run 3x per week.  At the moment, my 50k training program has not kicked in (it will at the end of the month) but right now I’m trying to run about 10 miles per week (with my pack) to prep for both races.  I have a schedule for my 50k training, and I havent decided if I’m going to run all those runs with the pack or not yet though.
  5. Change Diet.  After about a week of this program, I have noticed one thing: I’m starving all the time.  I’m eating more for breakfast than normal, eating a snack before dinner and more food at lunch and dinner, and I’m still hungry.  I dont know what the deal is, but I’m pretty sure that something’s got to give with my diet.  I have never really tried to change my food intake in my life, so there is going to be a lot of learning going on here before I figure out what exactly I’ll be doing.  I’ve looked into a few programs, but I think I need to eat 5 meals per day instead of the normal 3, with reduced portions.  I’ll let you know what I figure out though.

This may seem like a lot of goals, but unfortunately it will only get me through mid year.  I’ll probably take the end of june and some of july off from running (but still go to the gym) and re-assess at the beginning of Q3 how I’d like to finish out the year.  There is a winter death race, but I’m not sure if I’ll want to do that or not.  There are always other races that I can do that are much shorter and require less training, but I’d have to look into more of those as time goes on.  Right now though, I’m set until mid june and will re-assess later.

Readers: What are your health goals for this year?  How specific are they, and do you have a plan to complete them?  

Health Goals 2012 Recap

In 2012, I broke up my goals into categories, because I figured it would be easier to complete each category instead of having a long list.  That seemed to work OK, but I think that perhaps a year-long focus was too much.  I may just set quarterly goals for 2013, to ensure that I’ll be able to focus on them completely instead of punting on a lot of goals without a hard deadline (which is what I did a bit of this year).

Running a marathon was probably my most successful goal throughout the year, and I think that is because I had a hard deadline (early june) and a concrete training plan for getting to where I needed to be (that mostly held up).  In 2013, I’ll try and make sure that all  of my goals have this component, instead of just a few of them.

  1. The first health goal for the year will be to run a marathon.  This was the goal that I performed best on out of all the goals that I set for the past year, and as mentioned above, it was because I had a deadline and a plan.  A great learning experience for me while running, but also for looking back at the end of the year and trying to figure out why this one went through with flying colors and the others, well, didnt.
  2. Be in Good shape for my honeymoon.  - This went ok, but not as good as I had hoped.  I was getting into pretty good shape training for the marathon, but before the honeymoon I basically took about 3 months off of my training.  That didnt work out so great.  Even then, I was still in pretty good shape.  I’m going to give myself a half pass for this.
  3. I’d also like to eat more veggies.  Next summer, H and I are going to be getting veggies in our CSA along with our friut, and I’d like to make sure that none of that ends up in the compost heap.  In order to do this, I’ll need to eat more veggies next year, both as snacks and sides, as well as main dishes.  So, one of my goals for next year will be to eat vegetarian at dinner 3 times per week.
    Though I havent kept that great of track with this, I think this was a pass.  I have eaten veggie meals with H all year, and only eat meat when we go out to dinner or on some other rare occasion.  I cant honestly say that I feel lots different when I eat vegetarian vs when I dont, but it could be that the change in my body happened so long ago that I dont notice it anymore.  Either way, I do like eating less meat (mainly because it’s difficult to tell with meat what happens to it before you eat it) so I’ll probably keep this going for next year.  I’m going to call this a pass.

I did OK on my health goals, but not that great in terms of sticking to them for the whole year.  I was really great in Q1 and most of Q2, but didnt really keep it going for the long term.  There was one point where I had gone to the gym every day for more than 3 months, and there was another time where I didnt go to the gym at all in about 2 months.

Not exactly happy with the consistency, but I still did some great things this year.  My 5k time went down to a PR on thanksgiving, I finished a marathon, I did OK with my diet and didnt gain any weight (but unfortunately, didnt lose any either).  This list isnt all bad, but it does leave plenty of room to work for 2013.

Readers: What health goals do you have for 2013?  Are you trying to lose weight, workout more, or something else?  Do you have a running or other exercise goal (with a time) to beat, or are you just interested in picking up a new habit?

The Case for Big Goals

At the beginning of the year, I decided to run a marathon.  Up until that point, the longest race I had run ever in my life was a 5k, which is slightly over 3 miles.  Even counting the 5k races I’ve done, I think the marathon was my 3rd or 4th race ever.  While I dont consider myself to be out of shape, I never thought of myself as a runner.  I didnt like running all that much, and because of that, I never ran to stay in shape – I did other things like swam or went to the gym and lifted weights.  Needless to say, running a marathon was a huge goal.  I had never run anything close to that amount, in a race or not.   This goal was a huge  step up from anything that I’d ever done, and honestly I wasn’t sure how it was going to come out in the end.  I finished, but not in the time I would have liked.  Overall though, I’d still call this goal a success.

After the marathon, H and I focused most of our energy on the house and remodels, and have been moving along swimmingly.  Now that we are mostly through the woods (we dont sleep on a heroin mattress in the basement anymore, we have electricity and heat) and it’s almost thanksgiving, it’s time for our thanksgiving day run.  Every year we visit my aunt, uncles and cousins in Montana for turkey day.  Last year, we started a tradition to run a thanksgiving day race, called the turkey trot.  Everyone in my family did it, as well as H and most of the extended family.  I knew we were doing the race a few months in advance, and while I watched what I ate in the days leading up to the race, I didnt train one single lick for the race.  I attribute this to the length of the race – it’s just a 5k, basically 30 minutes of jogging – something that I could do without training, so why use my time training for that, if I can finish in a respectable time no matter what I do.  I think the marathon worked for a few reasons, and here they are:

  1. Running a marathon was a huge  goal for me.  I’d never run anything that long in a race format (or other) in my life.  In fact, I’d never run half that distance, or even one quarter of that distance.  Knowing this, I developed a healthy fear of what would happen if I missed a training run.  I’d tell myself that if I missed one training run, I’d probably not be able to finish the whole race.
  2. Small Steps were key – At the beginning of the training program, the runs that I had to do I knew that I could do already.  Most of the early training runs were distances that I had run.  I was easily able to put the marathon out of my mind everyday, and focus on my training run for that day.  Even though the goals were big, the chunks were manageable.
  3. Big goals will set you up for even bigger goals.  Now that I know that I can run a marathon, I’m looking at other totally crazy goals that I can train for.  I could do the death race, an ultra marathon (something longer than 26 miles), the leadville 100  or there’s standard length triathlons, Half Iron mans and even full iron man triathlon.
  4. You will develop positive habits – there’s nothing more fun than working towards something for months on end and finally being able to complete it.  Working hard for a long time at something with a distant goal will help you continue to set goals further out in the future, and keep you working harder for longer without the reward.  This would have helped me a lot – Training for 4 months was nice, but I wish I was still training for something right now.
  5. Big Goals will help you get started – the beginning of my training was easy – it was fun training to run for a marathon, even if I was only doing 4 miles that day.  As I mentioned earlier, it’s hard to get excited for training for a 5k.  Where I live, there are 5k runs in the area basically every weekend, so it’s not like they are that special.  Marathons dont happen every weekend, and require a lot more planning.  Working backwards from race date, you can easily find a start date.
  6. People around you will be super impressed.  In all seriousness, I didnt think the race was that big of a deal.  People that asked me what I was up to lately (answer being marathon training) they were all pretty shocked.  They know I’m not a runner or anything like that, so I got a lot of questions.  It was a great conversation starter.  Some simply said “I’d never put myself through that”.  I was happy to forget about those people, because they werent going to know what it felt like crossing the finish line anyhow.
  7. Big goals are relative.  Running a marathon was a big goal for me, but perhaps it’s a small goal for you.  Maybe it’s way to big of a goal for you, perhaps a half marathon will better suit you.  Point is that no matter what your goal is and how others see it, as long as it’s a big goal for you, that will allow you the time to focus on the goal and eventually succeed.  Put the fear of what will happen if you dont train/practice/whatever into your head!
This revelation could be a catalyst for a restructuring of my new years goals at the beginning of the year.  The more I think about it, the more it seems to make sense to have fewer goals, with longer training periods and require more training.  Instead of spreading myself too thin every year trying to do 16 things, why not just focus on two?
A smaller amount of goals will lead to a more intense focus, and a greater probability of success  because you’re less distracted.  Of course, this will be a self reinforcing cycle, because once you taste success, you’ll be dying to replicate it in other areas of your life.
Readers: do you think big goals are easier to meet, or smaller, more incremental goals?  Why do you think that way?  Which types of goals do you set for yourself?

 

Missing Motivation

At the beginning of the year, I set a few goals related to workouts, the main one being that I’d run a marathon sometime during the year.  I track other goals like the number of times that I work out per month, but that doesnt really get much into the quality of the workout, or how much good I think it actually did.  The marathon was 4 months ago now, and I essentially stopped training for it about 5 months ago because we bought a house.  Stopping training was not really part of the marathon training plan, but it did happen.  After that was the wedding, the honeymoon and still more housework.  To make a long story short, I havent worked out with a regularity or intensity that I’ve been personally satisfied with since April, when I was marathon training.  I’ve had a tough time getting motivated to go to the gym in the morning, and am making tons of excuses about why I should do something else instead of run in the afternoon.

The odd thing is though, that for the better part of the last 6 weeks, I’ve been working out a fairly regular amount (In addition to walking/biking to work and for most of my errands).  Typically, I’ve been going to the gym 2-3 times per week, doing yoga 2x per week, and I’ve been running in the afternoons.  Even with all of that, I cant help but think that I’m not doing enough working out enough.  I’m not unhealthy or over weight.  I pass all of the routine tests and check ups that I have to go to for my health insurance to keep premiums low, but still, I’m not satisfied.

I’ve been trying to figure out why for the last few weeks, but the best that I can settle on is that I dont have a goal to focus on (H has suggested that she feels the same way).  Since there’s no goal, I’ve got nothing to work toward.  I’ve got nothing that is going to pry me out of bed in the morning like my “be in shape for the wedding” goal that I had.  I got married, so now it’s time to totally let myself go (kidding).  I finished my marathon (barely) so now I cant use that as motivation to get me off of the couch before (or after) dinner.  Of course, there’s the goal that served as the driver for the aforementioned goals, which is to stay healthy throughout life.  Unfortunately, that goal seems so, so far off.  I wont really start reaping the benefits of that for at least 10 years, if not more.  Though the marathon was 6 months away when I decided that I’d enter and train for it, I could at least see the day on a 12 month calendar!  Things that are very far into the future seem to be very difficult for me to take action on, as evidenced by me leaving more than 1k on the table over the last 18 months.

To this end, it looks like I’m going to need to find a new goal to make sure that I can drag my carcass out of bed in the morning and hit the gym.  The thing is, I’m not exactly sure what I’d like to do in this arena.  I did the warrior dash last year with a friend and had a great time, so something like that may come into play.  I did a triathlon last year as well.  Even though I had was I considered to be a relatively crappy race that I was not satisfied with it was still fun.  The race was one of the “sprint” tris, so perhaps a longer version could be fun, but that would almost require a bike more equipped for the race (and that has not been involved in a few crashes).  I think that would be something that would make sure that I did better (and probably enjoy the race more), but I’m not sure I’m ready to spend the money.

As I sit here and write this, I’m continuing to fight the urge to put this off.  The temperatures are dropping outside, which will make running more difficult for me (I hate running inside).  There arent that many events in wyoming in the winter, which would require travel, and obviously raise the cost.  The holidays are coming up, and I am not good at working out while I’m on the road.  As of now, I’m still looking and hopefully I can impulsively pull the trigger on a race of some sort sometime soon.  Here are a few I’m considering at this point:

  • Spartan Race:  I’m seriously considering this, and it will most likely be the one I end up signing up for.  It is an expensive race, but I think it would be a lot of fun.  I’ve even duped a college buddy into signing up as well!

Unfortunately, that’s all for right now.  Many of the races are in 2013 (what a great reason to put off working out!) and dont have dates finalized quite yet.  Unfortunate for sure, but its what I’ve got to deal with.

Readers: do you ever have issues with motivation like this?  What have you used to overcome them?  

Why You Should Fit, Rather than Force, Exercise into Your Life

This is a guest post from Julian who blogs over at frugaal.com. He writes about a range of topics and is particularly interested in the ways in which sustainability intersects with personal finance.

I sit here to write this article as someone who’s always looked for ways to live a healthier and cheaper life and has turned to running and cycling as two tactics to try and put these strategies into action. I’m not someone who’s always been incredibly athletic, or always keen to get up at 6am to
go for a run in the rain, or someone who’s resolutely avoided cars or public transport in favor of cycling at every possible occasion to save money at the gas pump. So in many senses, I’m not at all well positioned to be telling others how to do more running and cycling – or, more generally, and more importantly, how to live a healthier, greener, and cheaper life altogether.

But I feel my experiences of running and cycling over the past five or so years of my life are typical of many people in that I’ve found it hard to keep up the good habits for any prolonged period of time, even if part of me wanted to. And for that reason – given that, now, after a long period of trying and giving up I do finally feel that cycling and running are much more embedded into the day-to-day routines of my life – I feel I am in a position to share some of my experiences and offer some advice with the hope of at least letting others know they’re not alone.

Setbacks, Comebacks, and Motivation

About five years ago I bought my first pair of proper running shoes with the intention of making it a new hobby of mine. But I always found it hard to find that ‘get up and go’ feeling for more than a few weeks at a time and, ultimately, that was why I would always give up and stop going for runs
after a few weeks of kick starting a new routine. So what was stopping me? Primarily I found I never really enjoyed running. I would find it boring; I found the process of going out, coming back and getting a shower and settling back down into whatever task I was doing was just too much fuss
and bother. So time and time again I would have a burst of enthusiasm that was then followed by a crushing sense of apathy about the whole process of ‘getting fit’. Also, I found the routine-element hard. Sometimes I would just forget to go for a week or two and that alone would be enough for me to stop and break the routine rather than kick start it again.

A year ago, however, I decided to take a different approach. I was fed up with all the stop/starting so decided to find a different way to get into an at least fairly consistent exercise routine. Firstly I focussed on making the whole process more enjoyable: I find running for anything more than about 50 minutes mind-numbingly boring, so now I only go on sub-40 minute runs. I also always take my iPod with me which was something – for some reason – I didn’t do before hand, and I now also keep track of my times. Not only does keeping a log of my times (I generally run the same or similar routes each time) provide a measurable way of increasing the intensity of the exercise over time without increasing the amount of time it takes me, it also adds some fun as it means I am able to see how I am getting on. Another big problem I had was getting into a consistent routine of going running and sticking to it. So I have addressed this by saying I will go for three runs a week. I know other people do a lot more, and I’m sure people would say I could do more. But the point of setting it at three is that I know it’s a realistic target, which means I actually feel guilty when I don’t achieve it. And that sense of guilt means I am eager to redeem myself and meet the target the following week.

As far as cycling goes, I’ve always owned a bicycle during the different stages of my life, but after passing my driving test and buying a car all the short journeys that I use to cycle were replaced with a car journey. I’ve never really used bicycling as a form of exercise either, and I still don’t now really, simply because for the time being at least I find running to be a quicker and easier form of exercise for me to fit around my life. However, since selling my car to get rid of the costs of having it whilst I was at college, I found I got by just fine without a car. For longer journeys, I’ll get a lift or use public transport, but having no car again has made me realise two things. Firstly, that cycling short journeys (say less than 5 miles) isn’t significantly quicker in a car, and can even take the same amount of time or even longer if you’re driving in a lot of congestion. And secondly, that cycling somewhere is much more satisfying than driving it. Yes, I know that’s an easy thing to say, and I won’t bang on about the
money-saving and environment-saving benefits of cycling, but returning home from work knowing you’ve cycled it makes the feeling of returning home from work that little bit more rewarding, for example, and cycling is also a great way to kill two birds with one stone if you are finding it hard to fit exercise into your life.

So…

The overarching lesson and advice from my personal anecdotes is, therefore, not to force cycling, running or any other form of exercise into your life, but rather to find a way to fit it into your life.  Because if you’re like most of us who don’t have a huge urge to replace every car journey with the
bicycle, or don’t have the time or the energy to go for a run at 6am every morning, then a sudden and intense change of exercise routine will soon become anything but a routine. In other words, you’ll become demoralised, apathetic, and give up very quickly. Sure, by adapting things to your
lifestyle in a moderate and sensible way you might not be pushing your body to the limit, and you might not be saving every last penny you can on gas, but you’ll achieve a compromise that you can stick with, and that’s surely better than nothing.

Readers: do you get around mostly by cycling?  Do you treat it as exercise when you keep track or do you just treat it as a normal, everyday activity?  

9 Month Goal Review

I cant believe that it’s already time for month nine – im really rounding the home stretch here and if I havent gotten it done by this point, it’s going to be dicey to get it done at all this year.  There has been a lot of things on this list that got put on the back burner because we bought a house, got married, went on our honeymoon and did a whole bunch of crazy things.  I cant believe that the year is almost over, and it’s almost time to get some goals going for 2013!  So crazy, it seemed like just 9 months ago I was writing these goals.

Financial Goals

  1. No New Debt From Jan 1, 2012 until the wedding in Mid July.
  • I think that I’m going to call this one a pass for the year.  Aside from the house (which was planned) we didnt take on any new debt until the wedding.  It was tough, mostly because of the cost of all the repairs we’ve made so far, but has been going fine.
  1. Pay off 1/2 of the truck loan.
  • This isnt quite done yet (I started at 9,200) and now i’m at about 5100, but I’m on track for this and should be able to knock this one out by December
  1. Finally, I’d like to create joint financial goals with H
  • This is one that we have talked about, but are still working on.  We’ve first been focusing lately on getting all of the not fun stuff set up and taken care of, like insurance, account merging and the like.  Thankfully this stuff only has to be done one time, because it’s tedious and boring.  Lately, we’ve been focusing on getting a financial system together that requires little maintenance (which I’ll explain later) and will allow freedom for each of us, while still meeting our goals.

Health Goals

  1. Run a Marathon.
  • Done, though I’d admit it didnt go nearly as well as I would have liked.  I may try for one again next year, but i’m not sure.  If you want to check out what I learned, 6 lessons I learned training for a marathon.
  1. Eat Vegetarian Dinners Three times per week.  This should be easy since H is a vegetarian and I do most of the meal planning.  I find it a pain to have us eat something different, and also a pain to cook meat for myself on the side and add it later.
  • This is I’m guessing is going well (I’ve done a terrible job monitoring/reporting on this) but I think H and I have stuck to veggies 3x per week for most of the week.  It was difficult at the beginning with no stove, but now with the abundance of spinach and lettuce, salads make this easy.
  1. Be in Good shape for my honeymoon.  fail.  I wasnt happy with where I was at that point, because I’d taken 3 months (or more) off from the gym.

Sustainability Goals

  1. Plant a Garden.  
  • I’ve got a tomato plant and a pepper plant, both of which are barely hanging on after not getting enough water when we were gone.
  1. Make some papercrete.  
  • Not done yet
  1. Continue using human power for most traveling.  
  • On track
All in all, there’s only one real, honest outright fail – which means that I’m doing pretty good so far.  It also means that I may have been a little under ambitious with the number of goals, so I’ll need to think about that as well.  All in all, I think that everything on the list is still doable, which is good in a way (because I can complete it) but also bad, because if at this point something wasnt going to happen, I wouldnt have to continue devoting resources to it and could focus on one of the other remaining goals.
Readers: How are your goals going for 2012?  

 

Loading...
Join and get free sustainability tips in your inbox