2012 Goals

Aaahhhhh.... The start of a new year.  The time when we start to look ahead and plan what we want to accomplish.  I've always been a goal-setter and planner by nature, always looking ahead and striving to achieve that next milestone, whether in my career, personal life, or riding.  But January is the time when we get to publicly declare to all what we're intending to accomplish, for better or worse.  ;)

1. Complete a 100-mile ride with Diego.  Kind of a big one, considering we just did his first 50 last season, but I have a sincere love and passion for the distance and I feel that we should be able to accomplish this just fine with some determination and steady training.  Dig is already shaping up to be a wonderful endurance horse, this next season will be about fine-tuning the smaller things and teaching him to shine.
2. Track training/ride mileage for Diego.  I started an Excel spreadsheet last year and that has been working well for me.  As a very unexpected but totally awesome Christmas surprise, my parent's bought me a Garmin Forerunner 405!!!  I just need to get the heart rate belt adapted for Diego, and now I can REALLY and accurately track our training miles.  Need to figure out the best way to charge and store it so that I'll always have it handy and ready to be used.
3. Work on my own personal fitness.  I found a workout buddy at my office, and we had been going out at lunch and getting some activity in, although we slacked off this past month.  I also bought myself a couple of DVD's for Christmas to hopefully get motivated.  I'm SSSOOOO not a morning person, so doing something at lunch time seems to work best for me.  Now to just DO it and not find excuses to continue sitting at my desk.
4. Continue eating better, strive for less unhealthy carbs.  Dinners are still hard for me to cut carbs too much, since I'm cooking for my husband and son as well, but perhaps to offer a second vegetable choice, and to use more meat and veggies and less pasta/rice as fillers for the meal.  Looking for recommendations for easy, quick, grab-and-go breakfast ideas that are low/no-carb and high in protein, but lower in dairy.
5. Blog more.  I love reading them, but don't always take the time to WRITE them.  =)  Got to continue to work on that.  Maybe I'll try to start some sort of weekly feature(s) that I can find and schedule in advance to help drive my postings up a bit.

Hope you all have a wonderful and successful New Year as well!