But how are you doing?
One of my targets for this year was to run 1500 miles over the year. Another was a sub four hour marathon. If you read this blog regularly you will know that the marathon objective went horribly wrong back in April. But all the training at least put me well ahead of where I needed to be to get to 1500 miles by December 31st.
1500 miles equates to just over 4.1 miles a day, or 28.8 miles a week.
Unfortunately, for one reason or another - coupled with a 'can I really be bothered?' attitude, my running over the last couple of months has slipped. So I was a bit shocked when I looked at my training page on Fetcheveryone earlier this week to find this.
Up 3.3. Earlier in the year this number had been over a hundred.
I was only 3.3 miles ahead of where I needed to be at this point in the year. This number decreases by 4.1 miles everyday - the daily average. So one more day of missing a run and that would slip to being behind schedule for the first time this year. Action was required. I've only run more than 28.8 miles in a week twice in the last two months - now I'm going to have to do it every week for the rest of the year!
What goals and targets did you set yourself at the beginning of the year, at Easter, at the beginning of your new job, as you started university, last week ...? How are you doing?
Whether those goals were health related or fitness related or to do with relationships or attitudes or your walk as a disciple of Jesus ... how are you doing?
Sometimes we're not where we hoped we'd be because our goals were unrealistic. Sometimes life just gets in the way - things we never expected happen - and we do need to be sensible and flexible. But sometimes we're not where we hoped we'd be because we've taken our eye off the ball; we've lost focus; we've allowed other things to get in the way; we've slipped into a 'can't be bothered' frame of mind.
If that sounds familiar then let's not beat ourselves up about how rubbish we are - because that tends to make things worse - but let's refocus, maybe set some new short term goals, and then get on with it.
