Happy Halloween: October in Review

Somehow today is Halloween. I hope you're having a happy one and that you are warm, dry, safe, and able to celebrate if you so choose! My Halloween this year has been pretty low-key so far. Since I was attending a conference last weekend, I didn't attend any costume parties. I wore an orange skirt and a black shirt, black tights, and black boots as I wanted to be festive but wasn't sure what the institutional culture of Halloween would be like here. I expect that come dusk we will get some intrepid neighborhood kids braving the cold temps and the snow in search of chocolate.

My goals for this past month were:

1. Work toward getting completely unpacked and organized. While I'm getting there, this month was a bit strange in that category. I had to repack my campus office a couple of weeks ago so that the old surplus furniture could be taken out and the new furniture installed. I still have a few boxes of books that need to be unpacked and then the sorting on the shelves can take place, but my campus office is coming together pretty nicely. In terms of finishing unpacking at home, we had our lovely desk repaired, and it was just returned from the woodcrafters' shop on Monday afternoon, so this weekend we'll probably spend some time moving filing cabinets around and hanging up a few odds and ends in the office and study.

2. Devote a minimum of 15 hours a week to research. I did pretty well here. I didn't hit 15 hours last week while I was attending a conference and there was another week when grading midterms prevented me from reaching my time goal. However, I wrote and presented a conference paper, and I made progress on the edited volume and an article manuscript. I'm calling this one a win.

3. Make being active a priority in October. I didn't log the number of miles that I wanted to in October, coming in only around 53 miles for the month. Between travel and a longer than usual recovery after a hilly half-marathon, I'm okay with that. I did run my fastest half of 2012 and made it to a few yoga classes this month, too.

4. Maintain my food journal for the entire month. Epic fail. I feel pretty ready to throw in the towel and admit that this goal has just defeated me this year. I'm not sure I journaled more than 3 days this month and none of them were consecutive. Clearly, I need to incentivize this in order to get back into the habit.

Although it wasn't a perfect month, I'm coming away from the past few weeks with a lot of positives and some good writing and running momentum. How was your October? Did you accomplish any goals? Run any races? Establish any new positive habits?

October Goals

I'm happy to report that as October arrived so did a delivery of surplus furniture for my campus office. I now have a desk, a set of bookshelves, and a filing cabinet, so I can at least unpack some of my books and the research materials that I want to keep on campus. I'm going to buy a cheap bookcase for home so that I can unpack the rest in the meantime and decide after I get my new furniture installed in January whether or not I want to bring everything else into my university office or not. I'm also glad that the first snow has melted off and we might get atleast a few more days here  that resemble autumn more than winter.

My goals for the month are:

1. Work toward getting completely unpacked and organized. There will be some odds and ends that need to wait until the furniture install in January, but in the meantime I can finish hanging up other things and hopefully hire someone to fix my desk at home now that our insurance claim has been processed.

2. Devote a minimum of 15 hours a week to research. I have to finish the conference paper I'll be presenting at the end of the month. I also want to make progress on a couple of publication projects, in particular the co-edited volume that continues to haunt me and an article manuscript.

3. Make being active a priority in October. I'm aiming to run 80 miles this month, and I wouldn't mind running my fastest half-marathon of the year. I'd also like to go to at least 4 yoga classes before Halloween.

4. Maintain my food journal for the entire month. I really want to finish the year stronger with this goal that I set for 2012. If I journal every day for the rest of October, I'm going to reward myself at the end of the month with a new pair of jeans or pants.

That's it. October will be a busy month, but I'm hoping that it will be a bit kinder to me than September was. I'm also hoping for a fun Halloween and considering wearing a costume that day to campus.... Do you have any goals for October? Are you a Halloween fan?

Halloween Half Marathon Training Week 3

I'm happy to report that another week of training is in the books, and, in spite of weather insanity, it was actually a pretty good week. It involved my first run in the double digits since May and plenty of good cross-training.

Monday - scheduled 3 miles hills. Actual 80 minute hike with M. and Bailey. We wanted to spend some time together out of the house and even though it was a little drizzly we decided to go explore a trail that's not too far from our neighborhood.

Tuesday - scheduled yoga. Actual yoga. I went to a 90 minute Vinyasa class at my local studio. With the wind starting to whip and howl, we spent a lot of time doing grounding poses that really activated our legs.

Wednesday - scheduled 4 miles easy. Actual 3.8 miles easy. After our power came back on, I took advantage of it by hopping on the treadmill.

Thursday - scheduled yoga. Actual rest -- unless you count spending about 30 minutes picking up twigs and small branches and mowing the front lawn. The fact that it wasn't raining meant that I really needed to take advantage of the opportunity to mow what was starting to become a savannah.

Friday - scheduled rest. Actual 10 miles LSD. I had a weird day of working while waiting so at the end of it I decided to just try to get my long run out of the way. It wasn't a great run but it wasn't a bad run either.

Saturday - scheduled 10 miles LSD. Actual yoga. Since I had done my long run the day before, I had free time Saturday morning to go to my studio for a 90 minute Hatha class.

Sunday - scheduled 3 miles recovery. Actual 2.5 miles with some hills at an easy pace with my new bear bell courtesy of the amazing Kyria. This was a fabulous run on a stunningly gorgeous day. The sky was blue and the air was crisp. I felt like I could have gone forever, but I needed to get back to do some cleaning around the house and food prep as we had a couple of friends over to watch football in the afternoon.

Total scheduled miles: 20
Actual miles: 16.3
Cross training workouts: 3

Up next for Week 4:

Monday - scheduled 4 miles tempo.

Tuesday - scheduled rest. (Originally my plan called for yoga here, but I'm taking the opportunity to meet with a new potential friend for a drink instead.)

Wednesday - scheduled 4 miles easy.

Thursday - scheduled yoga. (Originally my plan called for rest here, but I'm hoping to swap here.)

Friday - 3 miles easy.

Saturday - scheduled 8 miles LSD.

Sunday - scheduled yoga.

So I also need to start thinking about how I'm going to Zombify myself for the trail half that I'm running for training in just a few short weeks. I'm kind of thinking Sean of the Dead-ing it with black pants, a white shirt with some red splatters and a red tie since a Pride and Prejudice and Zombies get-up might not be ideal for running. Any thoughts?

October in Review

I arrived back from a truly wonderful conference experience late yesterday afternoon, and I spent the evening grading a set of papers and unpacking. Today I have lots to do - classes to prep for the week and more stacks of exams and papers to start marking. The conference was definitely worth it, but I will need a couple of days to catch my breath and probably at least a week to get (mostly) caught up on everything else. I can't believe it's already the end of October and that today is Halloween! I'm really not ready to review this one, but it will go in the books whether I want it to or not.

Halloween 2005 as Cleopatra

My fitness and health goals for October were:
-Maintain my food journal every day. I did pretty well with this. I missed one weekend earlier in the month, but I managed to jot things down and log them later while I was at the conference, so I consider this one a win.
-Be active for at least 30 minutes at least 5 days each week. Other than the week that I was sick, I at least did yoga, walking, and biking that added up to 30 minutes at least five times a week. I'm hoping to build on this to get back into regular running next month, but more on that later.
-Try at least one new healthy recipe and do a food post. I did this. I also made a number of favorite, healthy recipes, including a hearty chili and a potato leek soup that I didn't blog.

Halloween 2008 as Inigo Montoya

My writing/professional goals for the month were:
-Finish writing and present a conference paper. Yep. I was pleased with how this paper turned out and got some good feedback and questions when I presented it. The next stage will be some continued research and expanding this into an article.
-Make progress on revising an article for publication. This one has to go into the books as a fail. I was doing a good job of logging a couple of hours of week of work on this during the first half of the month, but then I dropped the ball when I got ill, so I haven't looked at the article manuscript for over two weeks.
- Look into funding opportunities for a summer trip to the archives. Done. I applied for one grant and made a list of a couple of others that I'll be applying for in the near future.

Halloween 2010 as one of about 200 black cats running a 5K

This week was probably even more hectic than September was for me. I graded mountains of papers and exams, wrote lots of lectures, workshopped some research at a working group at my university, started running a bit again and ran a 10K, took a group of students on a field trip, and spent 4 days conferencing half-way across the country. October was incredibly busy, but it was somehow easier to get through than last month was. If I had to guess why, I would argue that healing from my injury and being able to log some pain-free miles again did wonders for my mental and emotional state and my ability to cope with things.

How was your October? Will you be partaking in candy today? Happy Halloween!