Changes

Lately I've been feeling that my life is lacking a lot of structure. I know some people like this kind of lifestyle, but whenever I find myself with unstructured time and no goals my productivity plummets. I wake up late, get to work late, leave early, run erratically, eat inconsistently, etc. This cycle quickly develops a remarkable inertia and breaking out of it can require drastic measures.

As a teenager I discovered a system of establishing goals for myself as a means to enact big lifestyle changes. In early high school I set a goal of hiking to the top of Aspen Highlands mountain and skiing down the bowl (the steepest in bounds terrain in North America) as motivation for riding my bike for an hour every morning and starting to lift weights. Two years later I used the goal of hiking Half Dome in Yosemite as a motivator. In college I decided I wanted to become a good swimmer and used this as a motivator to wake up at 5:45 am every weekday morning for a year so I could be the first one in the swimming pool. Four years ago I discovered running as a goal itself, two years ago I decided to learn how to climb to spite my fear of heights and bad shoulder, and this past year I discovered what it really meant to set racing goals and to train for them.

Now with the racing season essentially over I find myself listless. In order to establish some structure it's time for some long term goals and a relatively big lifestyle change. My goal right now is to go low to sub 15 in the 5k in a year. This will require some serious discipline. I will need to get my mileage up to 70-80 mpw, not drop out of grad school, maintain some sort of social life, and keep up some other hobbies like juggling and music. I decided to spend the evening planning out a reasonable schedule that will allow some flexibility for unforeseen events. I'm including a couple other resolutions that are in line with the new schedule and posting it out in the public so everybody can keep me honest.

1) Starting this week I will work on getting my schedule into the following form on weekdays:
Wake up at 6 am
Depending on the day of the week I will either do core work, a pool run, or play music(~30 minutes)
Eat a moderate breakfast, pack two medium sized snacks for the day
Get to work by 8-8:30 am
Eat lunch in the 12-1 pm range
Main run/workout at 5:30 pm
Home by 8-8:30 pm
Cook dinner
Stretch or Juggle
Shower
Bed by 10 pm

2) I am going to try and limit my eating out meals to lunch. The aforementioned snacks will be for before lunch (~10 am) and pre-run (~3 pm) to hold me over until lunch and dinner, respectively. This will require me to stay on top of my grocery shopping.

3) I will learn how to juggle five balls by the end of summer (>100 catches).

4) (related to 3) I will attend at least one meeting of the juggling club this summer and meet a cute girl.

There is nothing specific in these items to running a fast 5k. The changes are as much about cultivating the mental discipline required to run and train for the 5k as they are about actually training for it. I'll keep everyone posted on my progress and any modifications I need to make to my schedule.