First Snow

We woke up to the first snow of the season this morning. Perfect, since I just finished my last Pile on the Miles run at 6pm last night. My goal was to run 45 miles in the month of November. Since I'm bad at math, I ended up running 46 miles by mistake! As the month went on and my goal got closer, I started bargaining with the universe to just please hold off on snowing until December. I don't prefer to run in snow. Thank you universe!

Behold my goal list for November:

1. blog at least once about something that isn't running or eating Paleo DONE!
2. run 45 miles for Pile on the Miles 2012 DONE, YAY!
3. look into a gym membership so I can keep running even if it's freezing/snowy DONE! We picked a gym we like
4. run the annual 3-mile Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving day DONE!
5. go on the Putney Craft Tour DONE!
6. make Sangkaya--winter squash with coconut custard baked inside FAIL.
7. figure out holiday cards EARLY DONE! All ordered from Shutterfly
8. do a bootcamp/kettlebell workout at home at least once a week, probably Monday evenings I did this on two Mondays. That counts, right?
9. Devote Thanksgiving long weekend totally to family (and the Putney Craft Tour) DONE
10. figure out about gymnastics classes for our 1st grader DONE
11. convert our toddler to a "big boy bed," and also persuade his to stay there all night (he can now vault out of his crib at will, and has done so at least once a night since Halloween) DONE

For this month, here's what I like to accomplish:

1. Organize Christmas gifts with a minimum of stress. I need to make a list first
2. Actually join the gym that we scoped out and go there 3 times a week
3. Figure out my January trip to Santa Fe--what to take where, where to be when, etc
4. Figure out how to work my new Garmin GPS watch (!!!)
5. Make more of an effort with Sunday food prep, since I rely on it all week
6. Sign our 1st grader up for winter sports program at school
7. file a Freedom of Information Act request I've been meaning to do
8. send out the holiday cards!

About that Garmin watch. Apparently Amazon knows this is my dream acquisition, because for their Cyber Monday sale they put it RIGHT on my homepage. And it was HALF OFF. I was unable to resist and purchased the thing almost immediately. (First I had to check with my spouse, because we have a deal that nobody buys something over a certain amount without letting the other person know.) It can be my birthday present to myself... just a little early.

It came yesterday and it's gorgeous. For a chunky Swiss appliance.

What is the point of this thing? Part of it is wanting to be like the running bloggers I admire. Seems like everyone has one of these GPS-enabled watches! The watch uses satellite info to figure out where you are at any given moment, and thus calculate how far you've gone and how fast you're going. So I'll be able to tell if I'm running an 8-minute mile (which is my race pace at the moment), or faster or slower or whatever. You can also upload all this and have Garmin track your stats over time, even your heart rate for each workout. I think it will be a fun and useful training tool. But, it comes with a lot of stuff and is kind of high-tech (for me) so I need to sit down and figure it out.

Garmin and entourage. What ARE all these things?

So how was your November? Any concrete December plans? Thanks for reading my goals--writing them down really helps!