Did you know nearly 50% of people make New Year's Resolutions? And nearly 25% of those who do, break the resolution within a week. By the end of the first month, more than one-third have dropped off the success list. After six months, 54% of the resolutions are history.
And age makes a difference. Some 39% of those in their twenties will keep their resolutions. Only 14% of those over 50 will live up to their personal commitment.
Take a look at some of these historical resolutions. Woody Guthrie had the funniest list.
In 2014, as one would expect, losing weight was the top resolution. Staying fit and healthy falls into fifth place. Quitting smoking is number seven.
But most interesting in the Statistic Brain study I read was that those who explicitly make resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain their goals.
Sounds like a good reason to write a blog and make my resolutions public. Total accountability is a good thing!
I gave a lot of thought as to what I wanted to achieve personally in 2015.
Having started a new, exciting life with my beautiful wife Charlene in Toronto, what better way to start the year than to, outside professing all my love to her <insert brownie points here>, than to set a stretch goal on the running front.
Did you know, up until 1999 the Guinness Book of Records recognized Toronto's iconic Yonge Street as the "longest street in the world" at 1,896 km?
So my plan through 2015 is to run that distance - a total of 1,896 km in the next 364 days.
That means running an average of:
- 158 km per month;
- 36.46 km per week;
- 5.2 km per day.
That's 86% of the distance of a full marathon every week!
Now that I type it out it seems a little crazy, but what's a goal if there's no challenge!!
In my initial training for the 10K in the Scotiabank Blue Nose Marathon in May 2014 I was averaging 70K per month. During my training for the Valley Harvest Marathon, in August 2014 I ran 107.11K, so it's not outside the realm of possibility to do another 50K per month!
Here's my 2014 running stats:
- 48 - number of hours running
- 487 - number of km travelled
- 152 - average heart rate (bpm) through all activities
- 5:58 - average pace (minutes per km) through all activities
- 172 - average cadence (steps per minute) through all activities
- 10.04 - average speed in km/h through all activities
- 22:58 - current fastest time to complete 5K
- 50:15 - current fastest time to complete 10K
- 2:10:23 - current fastest time to complete Half Marathon
- 21.25 - distance in km of longest run
- 38,946 - calories burnt through all activities
I will start training for the Goodlife FITNESS Toronto Marathon in the next few week's once my shoulder heals a little more. That will see a combination of short and long runs every week as I get ready for the half marathon on May 3, 2015.
Will start researching which races to do through the Summer and Fall to keep the momentum going.
Through it all there will be injuries and setbacks, but this Yonge Street distance is now set in stone as the 2015 goal. Let's see how close I can come to completing it. Now go set your own goals and stick with it. Keep checking back for periodic updates. Thanks again for reading.
