Personal Bests

Some very cool, yet exhausting, things happened last week!

In the personal realm: 
I got back on my bike after a very long hiatus. Excuses such as waiting for my bruises to heal, waiting for the weather to get better and flat tires all kept me from getting back into a hobby I used to love. Weeks turned into months. With the warmer weather rolling in, I knew I had one less excuse so I bought a tire pump, got my tires back in working order, and magic eraser'ed off all of the leftover scrape marks. Amazing how committing money (bike pump) and cleaning away an old memory (scrape marks) was enough to motivate me out of a rut. Biking around town is still scary and I'm slowly building my confidence again. But, it sure is great to get some fresh air before spending 8 hours in an office building!

In the fitness realm:
Through an innocent & friendly push-up competition, I discovered that I can do 232 push-ups all at once without putting my knees down. I'm not sure if it counts as a "personal best" if it's the first time I've ever tried to max out on push-ups, but I think my poor lat muscles would tell you (four days later) that it is a record that will not be beat anytime soon! Unfortunately, our trainer now thinks 100 push-ups is appropriate for a warm-up (when it used to be 30). What have I done?!

I also made it through my first ever double-workout. Scheduling changes put us in a spot where we could fit a session and a class in one night and Jackie challenged me to keep up. She was my ride home so I didn't really have an option :) but guess what? I live to tell you about it.

In the career realm:
A long string of events had me seriously considering my goals and aspirations. It's one thing to think that you have goals, but another to spend some time dedicated to determining quantifiable goals with deadlines. For me, the difference would look something like "Travel more" vs. "Save an extra $100 each paycheck so that I can go to Morocco by May 2013". This week, I focused on outlining a few long term and short term goals and this challenging process helped me work through some personal frustrations that had been creeping up on me at work. I found that thinking about the Future Me 10 years down the road made me consider the things in life that truly make me happy. Have you done this recently? It's tough but seriously give it a try!

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image credit: goals // bike print