Planning

So I'm officially training for a 50K this week. It's going to be the Rocks and Roots 50K trail run at Alum Creek February 9th.  I was starting to miss structured training and meal planning.  I haven't done trail running in forever, so I'm looking forward to running around in the mud, dirt, and jumping in water :)  I'm going to start taking my Zo pup with me on some of the shorter runs because she loved running the trails when we would go to Red River Gorge.  To help me organize my life I've tweaked my meal planning spread sheet a little bit to include a workout column.  This has helped keep grocery bills down, my week a little less hectic, and stop any arguing about what's for dinner.  What do you want for dinner?  Check the fridge, what does the sheet say?  Problem solved.  This has also helped when we are going to be using the Crock Pot because I make sure everything is set up/out to just toss in the Crock Pot, plug it in, and head out the door.

I know a lot of people have hectic schedules and need some help figuring out their lives.  Everyone has the same problem of figuring out what to have for dinner, where does anyone need to be, what time does x, y, and z need to happen, and what all needs to get done today.  I've started keeping a small notebook in my bags to use as my brains annex.  I have so much going on between family, training, work, trying to start a new program, and life in general that I simply don't have space for it all in my brain.  I just write the date at the top of the page and write everything that I need to accomplish between dusting, laundry, to emails that I need to send to my manager, or anyone I need to reach out to.  It helps me see what my day could look like and prioritize things as I go.  If I see my list takes up an entire page then I start weeding it out on things that are only absolutely necessary.  I know a lot of people have trouble figuring out what they should do and end up sitting around doing nothing because they don't think they'll get through the list anyway, so why begin?  Nothing will happen if you don't start it, so you may as well start and get through the best you can.

This is roughly what my life looks like sometimes, it's not all in these boxes, but it's a start.  I also haven't put in my mileage for the week because I'm still working that part out with my coach.  But it will let me see what days will suck for training and what days I should be able to be the most productive and accomplish the most.  This will also be useful for when I start making my Christmas presents.  I love making my presents, but they just take a while to get through.  I just need to plan better so I don't end up doing a sewing marathon like I do every year and I basically don't move from my sewing machine for hours at a time.                                                                                  

I'll add the agenda to a tab up top so people can access it better and make it their own.  I encourage my clients to use a style similar to this because it helps them see their weeks a little bit better than just hoping to remember things from day to day.  Planning out your week makes life easier when it comes to food because really all you have to do is plan a little bit and you can cook the food you want, and eat healthier simply by planning.  It usually takes pizza about 30-45 minutes to be delivered to your door.  If you planned accordingly you can thaw frozen chicken, chop up potatoes, and have everything cooked in the time it would take you to order a pizza and wait for it to be delivered.  Just a thought.  When I point that out to some of my people they have an "ah ha" moment and realize that they let life happen to them instead of trying to control what goes on.  Planning accordingly and trying to control what you can makes life a lot easier.  Food is fairly easy to control, you don't have to let it control you, it's not going to jump into your mouth on its own.

Back to planning and training!  Still loving my new computer!