New Year's Reflections, Resolutions, and Goals

We're three days into the New Year, and I've been meaning to take a moment to write down some thoughts. I've never been good about keeping a journal, so it's probably unrealistic to expect that to happen in any conventional sense. I do, however, think it's beneficial to reflect on whatever's going on in your life from time to time. Running blogs are a great forum for this sort of thing.

So here goes. I'm going to try to do this "free-form" with minimal editing, so please bear with me. I'll throw in my goals at the end of each topic.

Meat. Last night, I ate filet mignon. Most of you know I've been vegetarian since March. I've tried not to make it a high-horse issue, but it always seems to come up in conversation, especially when I'm eating with a group of people. Natalie and I have, for the past month, been eating meat on Mondays--only super high quality meat, though--none of the crap they sell in the grocery store. The day after Thanksgiving, we went to Scheffler Farms near my mom's house and stocked up on free-range, grass-fed beef of different varieties. I highly recommend it. It was delicious.

The nice thing about eating meat on an occasional basis is that when you do eat it, you really enjoy it more and can justify buying the primo stuff. I pan-seared last night's filet for five minutes a side in minced garlic, sage, black pepper, and salt, then cooked it in the oven for another ten or so minutes. It was damn good. Shout out to the local CSA for making the transition to vegetarianism so easy. That is definitely something we'll continue this coming year with Dave and Erica taking Andrew and Elizabeth's place as "co-shareholders" or whatever it's called.

Food goals: Status quo meat-wise, reinstate the one beer -or- one dessert per night rule for six out of seven nights of the week.

Running. This theme has obviously been a big one for the last year and promises to continue to hold an important role in my life in 2012. I really enjoyed the first go-round of Marathon a Trois. (No, I'm not going to insert the accent over the 'a'; This is free-form, remember?) It was nice to have some substrate for motivation, and Ross and Gordon provided that. I didn't initially expect Pittsburgh to be a lead-in for Boston, but I'd be lying if I expected the "project" to end with one race. It's unfortunate that Gordon blew up so badly, but, being the fleetest of foot of the three of us (Ross and I could never run a sub-50 quarter), I think his sub-1:50 800 goal makes a lot more sense than racing another marathon.

The main problem with Pittsburgh was that it's in May, which meant that I had my highest mileage weeks in February and March (not super-high mileage, though, as I've recently eclipsed my highest pre-Pittsburgh week two or three times) and down-time in May and June. Pittsburgh took more out of me than I expected. I thought 2:49 would have left me more OK than I was, but I guess running it at 6 minute pace for the first half and 7 minute pace for the second, is far from ideal.

Late in the year, Steve had the idea of trying to break 15 minutes in the 5k in 2012. As someone who has run a few pathetic 5k's on the track in his time, I thought that was a great goal. Certainly, it makes a lot more sense than my nebulous 2:30-something marathon goal, considering that I'm 175 pounds and my 4:08 mile PR. On the other hand, sub-15 requires some serious effort track-wise. Holding 4:48 pace for 12.5 laps is no easy task, and I've never had a great gas tank in the aerobic sense.

Reflecting on the sub-15 project today, I'd say that I'm about as optimistic as I was when we started out: I think there's about a 50-50 chance that we do it. The video blogging has been fun when there's time to do it, but we've really started to hate taking footage. We'll see how much more annoying it gets as we get through the winter (which apparently decided to start today). It's also going to be tricky making Boston work with the 5k goal. The fact that the marathon is in April helps, though. Hopefully I'll come back around by late May to make my first attempt.

Running goals: 2:30-something at Boston, sub-15 5k, daily core work.

Work. As a grad student, I use the term loosely, though these days, it pretty much is a 9-5 (6) thing for me. 2011 was a great year for me career-wise, as I published paper early in the year and got an NIH fellowship in July. On the down-side grant funding for my project and a few others expired at the end of the year, and a few great people had to look elsewhere for jobs.

Still, I think 2012 will be at least as good as 2011 on the work front. I'm hoping to get another paper out by the end of February and then crank out a review by the summer. I'm also exploring two potential collaborations that look to be interesting. Put it all together, and I should be in good shape for an April defense in 2013.

I suppose AMA stuff falls under the work heading as well. This past year, I went to two national conferences in Chicago and New Orleans. While I've had problems with specific elements of the organization at times, I think the overall concept of organized medicine is good. Generally speaking, physicians need to take responsibility for what happens with health care policy and not simply complain when the system presents inequities. In New Orleans, I termed out as a delegate to the HOD, but I'm looking for ways to stay involved.

Finally, a reflection on the project that never was but some day may still be. I've been very interested in the healthcare cost & quality dilemma for the past few years. This past year, I started drafting a grant to be submitted to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that allowed me to flesh out my thoughts in project form. MaT contributor Ross helped, as a recent grad of the CMU applied statistics program. Without going too far into it, suffice it to say that I'll be exploring more avenues to see this entrepreneurial spark come to fruition.

Work goals: Publish two papers, devote one day a week to clinical work or reading.

Family/House. This was a great year for the family. Natalie and I are still very much in love a year and a half in to being married. Stuffy Pierre is somewhat less curmudgeonly than when we got him, and Charley has really developed into an awesome dog.

We got a lot done on the house this year, too, including doors connecting the deck and dining room (all the way back in January '11), a new laundry room, ongoing kitchen remodeling, and a toasty gas fireplace insert. It's been fun doing projects with my dad when he makes trips up to Syracuse.

Family/House goals: Visit Becky in Salem, be more of a tight-wad when it comes to home improvement.

That pretty much satisfies my writing itch. I guess I should state that I do have a few other resolutions for the year, including reading more (thanks for the Christmas Kindle, Natalie), and watching less TV (this is usually more a function of getting Natalie to not turn it on as background entertainment, though I am guilty of the occasional Hulu binge).

I also hope that contributors new and old re-up on the blog posting. No one really reads it except us, anyway, so more than anything else, it's just a good way to stay in touch.

Onward,

Sam