Ok, Time for a New Goal

It's been three whole weeks, and the excitement of my last marathon is finally coming to an end. The medal sits proudly on my bookshelf, the back of the race number has been enscribed with the race date and my time and carefully placed in a scrapbook, and my BG meter /insulin pump histories have been downloaded to my computer to analyze later. Whew! It was really quite a rush! But what's left now? What do you do after the excitement dies down?

Well for starters, I relaxed a little (ok, I actually relaxed a lot). After all, all work and no play makes Brian a dull diabetic. So what did I do? Boy oh boy, where do I start? I caught up on old episodes of 'Everybody Loves Raymond'. I read 'It's Not About the Bike' by Lance Armstrong(some parts twice). And finally I put together a puzzle of runners at the New York City marathon I had gotten last year for Christmas.

But as the last week came to a close, I began to worry that reaching my goals might have enccouraged me to be a bit lazy (if a marathoner can consider himself lazy). Reaching both my marathon goal and my blood glucose goals at the same time was an enormous accomplishment for me - and one that I now have to be careful of. Because sometimes, if we don't keep moving forward we end up digressing - if we're not careful, reaching the top of the mountain can cause us to about get caught in a landslide downward.

That's a big worry in the sports world. If you're a true fan of any sports team, you not only worry about the big emotional game with the team's biggest rival, but with the game your team has to play the following week. Because as any sports fan knows, it's usually after the emotional win that the team can suffer it's worst loss.

There are plenty of examples of this outside of sports too. How about in the business world? My dad was a businessman, and always seemed to worry more about the second quarter of the year then the first, and the fourth quarter more then the third. Why? He always said after a great quarter of sales is when you could end up losing the gains you made from the qaurter before. And what about school? My worst test scores were after my best. (No wait a minute - bad example. There were'nt any best scores to begin with, but I'm sure there's someone out there that could agree with the idea.)

My reason for highlighting all of this? Well, this is also true of our exercise programs. Whether it's after reaching your goal of losing five pounds or completing your first marathon, the time after reaching your goal is a crucial one. It's very easy to slip into a mode of over eating and under exercising (very easy). And the only way to try and combat this? You've guessed it -another goal.

In order for us to keep improving ourselves, we have to keep setting goals. It doesn't mean you have to keep losing weight if you're at a healthy weight, but you do have to find something interesting to keep you at your desired weight. How about training to complete a 5k run? If you've run a marathon but you're not interested in a faster marathon, how about training for a triathlon? It doesn't matter what the next goal is, as long as you enjoy it and it keeps you moving towards a healthier you.

My new goal? Well that's going to be a secret, at least for a little while. But it won't be for long - I'll let you know soon enough.