I Can Do It, So Can You--Staying Healthy Over The Summer (Or Anytime, Really)

I find that the best way to stay healthy and work out regularly over the summer is to have a specific goal ( or what I like to call a Fitness Challenge) and someone to share that goal with. Or if you're someone who likes a bit of an edge, find someone to compete with to see who gets to his/her goal the quickest. To make this work, the goal has to be:
1. attainable
2. specific
3. fun or rewarding, or both

Last summer, I came up with the idea of a fitness challenge partly to motivate myself to work out frequently, and partly so my boyfriend and I (we were doing long distance last summer) could have a common goal to work towards and share the process together despite the distance between us. Over Skype one day, I challenged him that by the end of the summer, he has to be able to effortlessly lift me up (me, horizontal) and carry me from the living room couch to my bedroom, about 10 feet. If you're scoffing already, don't. First, I'm not a tiny Asian girl. Some serious muscle needs to be had to complete this task. Second, what's wrong that a girl likes to be swept off her feet by her man? In return, my boyfriend challenged me to run a 5k. Just to give you a background about my running abilities, well, at that time, I had none. I hated running, and most of all, I feared running--800 meters on the tracks was my longest run in high school; the thought of running more than that turned my legs to putty. However, my goal was attainable-- 5k is not that far-fetched for a 20 year-old in good health; it was specific-- I just needed to run 12 and a half laps on the tracks; and it was fun--If the other person couldn't complete the task by the end of the summer, the winner gets to ask the loser to do anything for him/her. Fun, right? I started my challenge by running two laps on the tracks, vowing that I will run just one more lap the next day. Every time before I run, I set a mini-goal to run a specific number of laps before I can call it quits. I was also forgiving of myself when I just couldn't get to my mini-goal that day, as long as I tried harder next time. Before I knew it, I was running 12 laps on the tracks and my speed had increased too!

So this summer, for the same reasons (even though my boyfriend is here with me this summer) and to continue what I believe is now a tradition, we gave each other another fitness challenge to complete. My boyfriend mentioned how he wasn't that good at swimming, so I challenged him to swim 15 laps (roundtrips) in the pool. My challenge was to run to the Waterfront from the Carnegie Mellon University Campus, which was about 3.8 miles (more than 5k, with intense Pittsburgh hills). In just two short weeks, with some instructions and coaching on my part, my boyfriend started from madly front-crawling to get to the other side of the pool, which in effect, drained him from all energy to complete more than a lap, to swimming 15 laps with broad confident strokes. I am immensely proud. With some foundation from last summer's training, and some slope-training going up Squirrel Hill, I also managed to complete my challenge by the end of June.

With still a month left, we decided to try another fitness challenge; only this time, we are sharing the same challenge--Sharing the same fitness goal with a special someone also keeps you motivated, because not only do you get to spend time together, and  remind each other not to slack off, but you also get that guilty feeling if the other person gets ahead of you and makes more progress because you've been slacking off, which also encourages you not to slack off. Our common fitness challenge this time is to complete a mini-triathlon (also known as a sprint triathlon), which consists of 750m swimming, 20km biking, and 5k running. I am capable of completing each of these items on its own, but all in a row? Never in my wildest dreams. However, I am always up for a challenge that is fun, intrinsically rewarding, beneficial to my health and fitness, and one that involves spending time with that special someone. And I believe anyone can have a more healthy and fit summer, or really, life even, by having attainable, specific, and rewarding goals to achieve.

Completing this latest challenge is still a work in progress , so I would also like to use this blog to document my progress.

Mini-triathlon Progress Log:
August 2, 2010--swam 800 m and ran 5k. I felt energetic after the swim, but the run really did me in!

Hopefully with more updates to come!