Behaviors and goals

Yesterday I wrote a lot about my goals for the year, and a little about how I hoped to reach those goals. I thought about those goals this morning as I ran (without a dog!) slowly. I thought about that mantra of dog training: you can reward behaviors but you can’t reward a dog for something it didn’t do. That got me thinking about my own behaviors. I have a group of goals that will require me to change my behaviors if I am going to reach those goals. So this post is about behaviors.

  1. Goal: weight loss.
    Measurable Behavior: record everything I eat (corollary: measure and weigh what I eat).
    MB: eat fruits and vegetables when I’m hungry. (Alternative nebulous behavior description: make better food choices.)
    MB: follow Weight Watchers program.
    MB: attend 3 of 4 Weight Watchers meetings every month. (I’ve been doing WW for a while now. It seems to be working, even if I hate the whole “support group” vibe of the meetings. It’s not easy being an introvert.)
  2. Goal: run faster, more easily, for longer distances. Improve sprint speed.
    MB: build to twenty-five miles/week (which will help with goal 1, too) by adding 5% per week to current 15 mi/week. (Reduce mileage when trialing for a weekend.)
    MB: run 5x/week on non-trialing weeks. Run 3x/week when trialing on Saturday/Sunday.
    MB: do one hill/sprint workout/week.
    MB: add “tempo runs” to one run/week. (Tempo runs are short/fast/light twenty-second intervals in a regular run.)
    MB: build toward a weekly long run of around 6 miles.
  3. Goal: try ISC dog agility events.
    MB: enter ISC events. Evaluate results.
  4. Goal: work toward Rush’s C-ATE title.
    MB: enter CPE trials.
  5. Goal: improve our (Rush/me as team) performance in Jumpers dog agility courses.
    MB: train “go on” and “switch” cues. Learn to use them effectively.
    MB: train more effective use of blind crosses.
    MB: train toward handling at greater distances.
  6. Goal: build toward bicycling a Century (100 miles) in late 2015 or in 2016.
    MB: starting in April, ride at least twice a week, once on hills, once for distance. (NOTE: it may be necessary to modify running behaviors to accommodate the cycling behaviors.)
  7. Goal: write more articles.
    MB: write two articles/month (outside of this blog).