Archives For #FinishYear

One year ago I started Finish Year along with Jon Acuff and a few thousand other people. It’s now time to share the final results of how that went and then get started on a new set of goals for 2013.

1. Complete 500+ miles on foot

Due to being on the edge of another running injury back in October, my miles really dropped in the last few months. My total for running came out to 402.4 miles. Walking was 21.4 miles. Elliptical was 9.2 miles. That brings the grand total of logged miles to 433 miles. If you add all the unlogged miles walking for daily tasks then I reached my goal, but those miles were not included. I came up short this year for my goal, but 2013 will be much more specific with run training, so this goal shouldn’t be a problem this year.

Continue Reading…

1344521806513 1891193

My first half marathon has officially started. Post-race analysis later today.

Star City Half Marathon course map

I’m one week away from my first half marathon! I’ll be running the Star City Half Marathon in Roanoke, VA. A week later I’ll be running the Drumstick Dash 5k on Thanksgiving, which was the first race I competed in last year.

I did my final long training run last week (13.1 miles) and it was one of the worst running experiences of my 18 months of running. Hopefully things will go much better next weekend when I’m on a better course rather than running on the shoulder of a busy road. I’ve been tapering all week and will do a couple more short runs before next weekend to stay loosened up.

I had a lot of pain during my run last Sunday and I’m still feeling some pain in the sides of my knees, so I’m hoping that they don’t give me any trouble. The arches in both of my feet had some sharp pain during the first couple miles of the run, but I attribute that to running on a slant since I don’t usually have any pain like that. So far I haven’t had any major shin pain this year as I’ve ramped up my mileage. They get tight while I’m running on the treadmill, but they’re fine outside for the most part. My biggest injury concern is definitely my knees since they both got really swollen and stiff in the second half of my run last week. That really slowed me down last weekend.

My goal time is  for 2:10:00 to 2:15:00. Sunday took me 2:45:00, but I made a bathroom and drink break at a gas station for a few minutes and walked a lot more than I plan to walk next weekend.

This is part of a larger series called #FinishYear.

SundaySummary

I’m proud to report that I officially crossed off another one of my goals this week. I’ve also decided to drop one of my goals from my list. Last week Jon Acuff (the guy who started all this Finish Year stuff) blogged about adjusting our goal list for the last 92 days of the year. For me, that means dropping one of my goals that isn’t realistic for me to meet in less than 90 days.

I’m dropping goal #2: Get below 20% body fat. I’ll be putting it back on my list for 2013 along with a couple other specific goals that should make achieving that goal possible.

Continue Reading…

SundaySummary

It’s been quite a while since my last update on my finish year. Here’s where I am in my progress and what I need to do to finish things by the end of December 31, 2012.

Continue Reading…

SundaySummary

The last time I did a Sunday Summary post was on week 19. So after eight weeks, it’s time for an update. Not much has changed other than being further along on a couple of these since the last time I posted an update.

Complete 500 miles on foot

YTD:  199.1 miles running. 15 miles walking. 214 miles down, 286 more to go! If you’re on RunKeeper, add me to your street team.

Get below 20% body fat

Time to check in on this one at the gym in the next week or so.

Complete 2 more 5Ks, my first 10K and first half marathon

I completed my first 10K in just over an hour in week 19. Time to find a couple of 5Ks to run for a good cause. I’ve identified a couple of half marathons in the fall that I’m interested in running. I’ll decide on one of them by the end of the month probably.

Read 15 books

I just finished reading “Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us” by Seth Godin. In fact, I started this post, then put it on hold so that I could finish the last 40 pages of the book. This was book number 10, so only five more to go to finish this goal. I slowed way down on this from the start of the year, but non-fiction books take me longer to read than non-fiction.

Hand write all of Proverbs

I completed Proverbs 24 today. Seven more chapters to go.

Tithe regularly

Yep.

Become debt free

Done!

SundaySummary

This was a good week for my #finishyear goals. I’ve already finished one goal and knocked off part of another one this week. At this point, it looks like I’ll be finishing all my goals this year with no trouble at all.

Continue Reading…

SundaySummary

Complete 500 miles on foot.

Added another 10.87 miles to my total this week bringing me to a total of just under 90 miles for the month. That puts me at 27% of my total distance for the year. Quarter of the year done, quarter of the goal done.

Hand write all of Proverbs

I got back to this one this week and wrote out a few full chapters this week.

Become debt free

Done.

LastPayment

As promised the other day on Twitter, I have two big announcements today.

The first one is….

I’M DEBT FREE!!!

The image at the top is my final loan payment. I graduated on May 16, 2009 and in less than 3 years I’ve paid off around $19,400 in student loan debt.

 

And the second is…

I’ll be on the Dave Ramsey show on Monday around 2pm CST (3pm EST) to do my debt free call from the lobby and sign the debt free wall while I’m in Nashville this weekend.

SundaySummary

Yes, I’m late on this. So instead of just being a regular update, consider this an extended edition bonus content blog post. I’m already pretty far along on several of these goals and can’t wait to mark them off the list, and then see how much further I can get with them!

Complete 500 miles on foot

Total YTD: 120 miles. I’ve had a few tough runs in the last couple of weeks. They weren’t long runs at all, but they were physically tough for me to complete for some reason. I took a few days off to relax last week and this weekend while my parents were in town and came back strong today with a 7.58 mile run. My pace isn’t really getting any faster, but I’m almost done with my 10k training app on “first 10k mode”, which means I’ll start the “next 10k mode” which includes more speed work.

Get below 20% body fat

I’m still not below 20% but I have dropped a little over 1% according to my scale. I’ll get this professional measured at the 6 month mark to see how I’m really doing.

Complete 2 more 5ks, my first 10k and first half marathon

I’m officially not doing the Nashville half marathon next weekend; I’m just not physically or mentally ready for it. However, I will likely be running the Boulder Dash 5k here that same weekend. It’s a 5k run through a rock quarry that benefits the Forsyth County Parks Department. I love running on the greenway and recently discovered an incredible athletic park 5 minutes from where I live with a running path and a track, not to mention a ton of spots fields and playgrounds for kids. A worthy cause to support.

Read 15 books

I’m on book 10 of 15. I’m currently reading “Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us” by Seth Godin (Amazon affiliate link). I’ve had this book recommended to me before and my roommate owns a copy so I’m borrowing it. This is a drastically different book than the one I just finished reading. My last book was “Battle Royale: The Novel” by Koushun Takami (Amazon affiliate link).

I came across “Battle Royale” after reading some reviews about “The Hunger Games” movie. People were saying “It’s just a rip off of ‘Battle Royale’”. So I looked it up. It’s a similar premise but not even a remotely close comparison beyond the “kids killing kids because the government says so” plot. “Battle Royale” is a much darker novel and much more brutal. I didn’t want to put this book down from the very first chapter. It’s about as long as the “Hunger Games” series, and I read it equally as fast. I highly recommend this if you’re not overly sensitive to violence.

Hand write all of Proverbs

Still slacking off on this one. I wrote one complete chapter in the last three weeks. I’m at chapter 18 now. I don’t want to complete all of my goals in the first half of the year, right?

Tithe regularly

I’m glad to say I’m still being faithful in my giving with every paycheck and with the bonus I recently got at work.

Become debt free

This one is literally so close I can taste it. I’m less than two weeks away from making my final student loan payment. I don’t have a car payment. I don’t have a credit card. I don’t own a house. I don’t have any purchases financed. Nothing. All that stands between me and financial peace and freedom is a $555 (plus change and two weeks of interest) payment.