resolution – LongLegsBigCity

Long Legs and other Personal Problems, Miscellaneous

2020 Recap and Accomplishments

January 21, 2021 4 Comments

It’s January, which means RESOLUTION TIME!! Now, I understand it’s January 21^st so I’m a bit behind, but if you’ve been following along for a while, you’d know I actually hate resolutions. What I do love, is goal-setting. In the past few years, I’ve been keeping a list of goals in my bullet journal. Flipping to them periodically has helped keep me focused.

Unfortunately approximately 80% of my 2020 goals were unachievable because, well… ya know. Did I work out at 10 new fitness studios? No. Did I attend 100 bootcamp classes? No. Did I visit 4 new countries? Nope, not even one. Did I spend less than $400 on buying lunch for work? Sorta… because I didn’t actually GO to work for 5/6 of the year.

Anyway, I prefer not to talk about all of the goals I didn’t achieve. Yesterday was the beginning of a fresh start for our nation and for me. We are now focused on positivity. Therefore, I’d like to recap some of the amazing moments and achievements from 2020. Not all were planned, but I’m still proud of them! I invite you all to celebrate your 2020 accomplishments, big and small.

I Got Promoted

This is huge! Technically, I got the promotion in 2019, but my boss retired at the beginning of 2020 and I took on the reigns of the entire department alone. If you didn’t know, I work in career services so to say that my job was tough during 2020 when EVERYONE was seeking work and facing furloughs and pay cuts? Well, that would be the understatement of the century. It was hard. There were days when I felt 100 hours behind. But I did it! I was even rewarded with a raise.

I Got Engaged

Again, HUGE. Did we pick a date yet? No. Are we planning a wedding at all? Also no. Does it make living in a 500 square foot apartment with my fiancé any easier? No again. But I do have a gorgeous rock on my hand, and it looks FABULOUS in photos. Sometimes I look at it sparkling in the fluorescent lights and it makes me smile.

I Learned How to Do My Own Manicures

This may not be on par with the engagement and promotion, but it’s pretty darn cool. No one ever sees them IRL, but I do get comments about them sometimes on Zoom. Also, I started a 4^th Instagram for my nail photos, ManisInManhattan. I was looking for some home hobbies, and I found one plus I learned a new skill. It’ll probably save me money someday… after the initial investment of buying all the supplies.

I Achieved Net Zero

Speaking of saving money, somehow I achieved Net Zero. This is a massive feat if you know anything about my student loans. Not only did I achieve Net Zero, I surpassed it by many many miles. How? By barely spending any money. Getting a promotion. Not eating out. Not traveling. Not paying student loans thanks to Covid forbearance. Compound interest in my 401K (and maxing it out for the very first time!). Sure, I wish I had been traveling and eating at restaurants instead of saving money. But since I couldn’t, I am excited to have a much bigger pot for compound interest for the coming years.

I Kept Up with My Bullet Journal

In 2018 I gave up and swore off my Bujo. Then I tried it again in 2019 and liked it a bit more but also slacked. In 2020, I thought it was important to keep up with journaling for my sanity, to mark the difference in days, the passage of time, the seemingly endless weeks and months. Now, I appreciate my own tenacity because someday I’ll be able to look back on this crazy year and understand my headspace. I wasn’t perfect 100% of the time. Sometimes a week went by when I didn’t write at all. But in general, I kept up and made it 148 pages to December 31^st. Not only did I use it as a journal, but it let me track lots of stuff like these last four achievements.

I Published 26 Blogs

My goal was historically 2/month, so I achieved that. Also, it was not easy to write blogs when you DID NOTHING AND STAYED INSIDE EVERY DAY. Hopefully I didn’t bore you guys too much. Mommy, are you still there? Are you my only follower?

Some weeks I kinda fell behind, but that’s ok!

I Watched Movies I Had Wanted to See

Last year, I started the year with a massive list of movies to watch in my Bullet Journal. When I heard we were going to quarantine, I ordered a DVD player from Amazon, and I took 4 DVDs out from the library. I even brought them with me to Texas. I slowly made it through 84 new movies. That’s right, 84. I got through many on my list, like the Godfather, Casablanca, One Child Nation, Steel Magnolias, Frozen, and My Best Friend’s Wedding. And also watched some movies I didn’t plan to watch but loved nonetheless, like Ugly Dolls, The Princess and the Frog, The Social Dilemma, and 21 Jump Street.

My to-watch list. Look at all those check marks.

I Read 61 Books

That’s right guys, SIXTY ONE. 20,665 pages according to Goodreads. Back in 2018, I set myself a goal to read 4 non-fiction books a year. In 2020 I read 14! I also discovered audiobooks. I mean, I knew what they were before 2020, but I was never able to focus on them. In 2020, I took so many long walks that audiobooks were the perfect way to escape my endless thoughts and Twitter doomscrolling. I absolutely love them now and changed my reading tracker for this year in my bullet journal to track these.

Note, one book is missing from here from March, woops! (It was I Like to Watch and it was terrible)

I Discovered New Ways to Move My Body

It’s no secret I like to work out. Unfortunately, my two workouts of choice were teaching Spin classes and attending group bootcamp classes. Both of these were not options in quarantine. So, I had to adjust. First, my mindset. Maybe one day I couldn’t motivate myself to do a burpee. Ok, NO days I could motivate myself to do a burpee. But at least I could go for an hour-long walk. I got to know the Texas subdivision very well. I listened to podcasts. I listened to music. I zoned out. According to my Fitbit, I only didn’t make it to 10,000 steps/day 14 days all year! And 6 of those days were pre-Covid! That means I walked 10K+ steps 352/366 days. 96% of the year. If you don’t count the days pre-Covid, it’s 285/293… 97%! I walked a LOT. 5,019,509 steps according to my Fitbit. Five million, nineteen thousand, five hundred and nine.

I also danced. I discovered the freedom of moving my body to music. Dancing like no one was watching because… no one was. Well, Chris’s nephews sometimes but they already thought I was crazy. I did so much dance cardio; it became my escape. I’m moving next week, and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to continue my dancing because I’ll officially have downstairs neighbors, but I’ll keep you posted. I did buy a Peloton so I’ll have to tell you all about that, too!

So many things to blog about. The Peloton, the move, the new apartment, maybe I’ll beat my 26-blog-post record.

What did you all achieve in 2020? Anything unexpected? New skills? Tell me in the comments!

Long Legs and other Personal Problems

Bullet Journaling in 2019

January 23, 2020 No Comments

Oops, I did it again. I wasted my time, got lost in the hype. Oh baby, baby.

That’s right guys, my failed 2018 resolution and I had another go-around. I am happy to say that with some major adjustments, I had slightly more success, which was largely because I changed my mindset and stopped caring about succeeding. Of course, I’m talking about bullet journaling.

You may remember my blog from a year ago about my 2018 failure.

For those of you who are new around here, a bullet journal is “a way to track the past, organize the present, and plan for the future.” Sounds awesome. Unfortunately, it is VERY time consuming, especially if you want it to be cute! Which, of course I do.

If you are too lazy to read my blog from last year, the TLDR is that in 2018, I went down the BuJo Youtube rabbit hole, got obsessed with many different “habit trackers,” I got behind, I was tired of writing down everything I did, and I basically gave up on both the journaling aspect, the “tracking the past” aspect, and decided I would just use my google calendar to “plan for the future.” I decided to ditch the BuJo since it became a time-wasting method instead of a time-saving method.

But then I got a 40% off coupon for Michaels (seriously, I get one every 2 weeks, how does that store make money??) so I decided to buy a new notebook and start again with some adjustments.

The main parts of the bullet journal concept remained: the index to keep track of where everything was, the future log to put things for later in the year, the monthly log, weekly logs and collections. My main addition was a lot more scrapbooking. I kept little mementos from things I attended and attached them to the pages with Washi tape. For example, many many playbill covers, “Beat” stickers from football games, my ticket from the Belmont Stakes, tickets to Knicks/Heat games, and bus tickets and mementos from my travels.

The main changes in 2019 were to my collections and to the way I tracked my weeks. Between those changes to my actual bullet journal, and the change in my attitude about keeping up with it, aka my “IDGAF mentality,” I was able to successfully keep up with my journal all year long.

Collections:

Last year, I got reallllllyyy behind in tracking my moods. Also, it felt repetitive (yay for being happy most of the time), useless (why does it matter in December that I was sad for 2 days in January?), and also it was difficult to track if I fell behind. There’s actually a psychological phenomenon about this called rosy retrospection, and when I was a week behind, I just assumed I had been happy the whole week. Which is dumb and pointless. The first thing to go in my 2019 BuJo was the mood tracker. I decided to keep my 10,000 steps a day tracker, because it was easy to fill in if I got behind thanks to my FitBit app, and I kept my daily workout tracker, because I wanted to see the distribution of my workouts as I tried to add in more strength training to my routine.

I chose to get rid of pages I either didn’t use, or pages that were repetitive because I was tracking the data in some other way or in some other app. For example, I got rid of my “To-Read” page because it was easier to add them in the Good Reads app, and I always had my phone with me to add books as people recommended them to me. I also got rid of the ratings on my Movies Watched page, because I could remember how I felt about a movie without writing it down. I got rid of my “braids to learn” page, because they were bookmarked in my Instragram. I also got rid of my “Key” because after a year of bullet journaling, I didn’t have to remind myself what the symbols meant anymore.

The last thing I wanted to do was make my life MORE difficult, but I did add on a few new collections of pages for my 2018 layout. First, marathon training! I added my training schedule based on the Hal Higdon method, and I added pages to track my training and miles. I liked seeing it all together, instead of scrolling through my Nike+ app. Also, I liked writing down how certain runs felt to me, so I could remember that I sometimes had bad days, but they were often followed by much better ones. I also added a Braiding calendar at the beginning of each month. The “braiding community” often puts together “twins” for people’s birthdays, where you do a similar style or type of style for someone’s special day, or you just have a certain hashtag to add. This was hard for me to keep up with because they are often planned in advance so I reserved a page each month for this. I may not do this next year, because I often forgot to check my BuJo before posting for the day, anyway, and they are often planned early for the next month, so I couldn’t write them down anyway. TBD if this collection makes an appearance in 2020. I also added a collection of “hair hashtags” but I never ended up looking at it, so I think it will also get the boot in 2020.

I LOVED my Savings Goals page. Not only did I get a chance to draw my adorable piggy bank again, but it gave me a lot of pride and a sense of accomplishment to see that I was making my goals for the year. Speaking of goals, I also loved my goals page and will continue that for 2020. Also staying in 2020? My social stats tracking page, my blogs posted page (really trying for 24 this year), my spin themes page, and my reading stats page. I read 35 books last year, and definitely met my goal of non-fiction v. fiction, with 9/35 non-fiction! Only 6/35 were written by men, though. I need to work on that.

It was super fun to see my travel summarized on one page, so I will keep that for 2020, as well I was away 90 days, traveled 23,965 miles x 2 (there and back! 47,930!!), and I took 18 trains and 18 planes.

Weekly Log:

I think I was better able to keep up with my BuJo in 2019 because I changed the way I journaled my weeks. I often got behind by a day or two in 2018, so in 2019, I decided not to split up my weekly logs by day. I just gave a single page for a week, and jotted down a few memorable things about the week. The main reason I use my bullet journal is to remember goals and tasks I want to complete for the week that may not be incredibly important enough to set phone reminders, but make me feel good to check off and save me money. For example, for my tasks, I wrote down when I needed to cancel my Clear membership before the free trial was over. Or I wrote down that I needed to make a dentist appointment. Book a hotel for a wedding I was going to, buy more paper towels, frame my diplomas, RSVP to a wedding, Venmo request my bf for the electricity bill, buy a wedding gift (lots of wedding-related tasks). I also grouped my goals in this category, for example, publish a blog about my BuJo, apply for 3 jobs, finish my continuing education class final project. Writing down these small goals and tasks reminded me to do them, and also incentivized me to complete them. There’s really nothing like ticking a box or crossing something off of a list.

Monthly and weekly layouts, including braiding calendars. Featuring my terrible doodles.

IDGAF:

The main reason I was more successful in 2019 than in 2018 was because I did not give a f*ck. Here’s an example. In September, I went on a vacation to Paris with my bf. I brought my bullet journal. I did not write in it one single time despite already having laid out the pages. In 2018 I would have been upset with myself. In 2019, I just kept on going. In October, I went on a vacation to Greece. I was determined to keep up with my Bujo. Again, I brought it with me and I collected little mementos throughout the trip, and I didn’t write in it once. I just taped my bus tickets and winery pamphlets onto the pages and continued on. My lack of self-loathing for being behind in my bullet journal helped me continue.

The clarity for WHY I was journaling was helpful. For me, it’s to keep track of things I need to do, and to have a little reminder of my year at the end. And if I forget to write something? It’s not the end of the world. Has anyone out there tried their hand yet at bullet journaling? I bought some new Mildliner “creative markers” and I can’t wait to see how things change in 2020!

P.S. I still cannot doodle to save my life, but my piggy bank drawing is still adorable!

What a year in Broadway and shows attended!!

Long Legs and other Personal Problems, Miscellaneous

2019 Resolutions & Goals – A Recap

January 2, 2020 1 Comment

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you had a night filled with champagne and a next day filled with naps and recovery. At least, that’s what I did.

As you may know from years past, I don’t totally believe in resolutions, but yet I make them every year. This past year, instead of calling them “resolutions,” I instead called them goals, and I tried my best to work toward them all year. As I said in my previous post about resolutions, they don’t have to be negative or painful, like, “starve self to lose 10 pounds in a month.” Mine tend to be more positive, like “use all of my vacation days.”

One of my failed resolutions 2018, as you may recall, was starting a bullet journal. Well SURPRISE, I decided to actually try my hand at BuJo-ing again in 2019, and I switched up a few things about it to try and set myself up for success. I will dedicate an entire post to my semi-successful BuJo next week, but for now, I mention it because it’s where I wrote down my goals! That’s TIP #1: write your goals down!

I decided to split my goals into categories both for organization purposes and also because it helped me focus my thoughts and think meaningfully about them. Also, I tried to follow the ultimate goal formula, to make them SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Based). My categories for the year were: Personal (a little vague), Social Media, Relationship, Work, and Financial.

Ironically, although I feel like I spend a majority of my time on social media every day, that is the sole category where I did not reach any of my goals. Lesson learned is TIP #2: Make sure you are being realistic in your goals. And TIP #3: Don’t be demoralized by failure, just reevaluate if that goal is still something you would like to achieve, decide if it should be adjusted, and then roll that goal over to the next year.

So what were my 2019 goals and did I achieve them? I’ll break it down for you.

Personal

Travel to 2 new countries – Check! I planned to go to Italy for my friend’s wedding, and Greece as a girls’ trip in the Fall. Sort of on a whim, my emoji-bf and I decided to add a 5-day jaunt to Paris for Labor Day, so I actually checked 3 new countries off the list! I LOVED this goal (who wouldn’t!?) and I think I’ll roll it over to 2020 to do again.
Learn to do a Dutch infinity braid on myself – Success!! I am not PERFECT at them, but they are presentable. I will continue to work on this one.
Film a tutorial video/learn how to edit video for Braid in Manhattan – FAIL! Or rather, I should say, I decided in around March that this was no longer a goal of mine. I reevaluated my business and decided it was more important to focus on getting clients and less important to give people tutorials on how to do it themselves and essentially undercut my client base.

Social Media

100 Tweets/Month – Fail!! Every year I make some sort of goal about getting better at Twitter. This was by far my best year yet, but I only tweeted about 650 times total. This is another roll-over goal. I think I will attempt the same thing again.
10,000 Followers on Braid in Manhattan – For my first year of BID, I gained over 1,000 followers from 500, and I thought that the growth would be exponential. I was wrong. I think Instagram also changed the algorithm so I was getting less likes as the year went on. However, I still did gain 2,080 followers over the year so that’s a nice bump! I’ll need to reevaluate my goal on this one. Maybe 6,000 is a more achievable goal.
Post at least 2 blogs/Month – Fail again! As much as I try to be consistent on here, things keep popping up (like surprise trips to Paris) and I lose my momentum. I started the year strong with 3-4 posts/month last year, but tapered off and only totaled at 17 for 2019. This seems like a feasible goal though, and I think I will try for 2/month again.

Relationship

Date Night once a week – Success! I am so happy this worked out, and we really tried to maintain it. I even put a calendar reminder at 7:30 pm every Tuesday night so we would remember. It didn’t need to be a date out, but we tried to switch between Netflix and home-cooked meals in, and fun nights out. Since our weekend activities often don’t line up with work travel and other responsibilities, we agreed to Tuesdays and have stuck to it.

Over the summer at one point, we let it slip and realized we weren’t spending any time with each other so we reinstated it and were much happier. I recently found out that one of my bf’s friends instated their own weekly date night and also love it, and that made me so happy!

Work

Successful Interview Week – Check! This is a week-long event I run every year, and for the second time, it was in LA last year. It was a huge success with a record number of participants.
Title Change – Career Center Director – Success! My actual title is Director of Career Services, which I like even more, but it’s important to really visualize what you want, so I wrote that title down on January 1 and kept looking at it every day!
Raise! $$ – Done! I went through a LONG job search process this year that was originally unplanned (perhaps I need to write a recap of that whole thing in a blog post), but ultimately I decided to stay at my current employer with a new title (as seen above) and new salary!
Run Session at Continuing Education Event – Success! I ran a session this past summer on the Johari Window and Covey Window/Time Management Matrix. It was great practice being in front of a group, and I think my group teaching skills are improving.
Begin Career Coaching Course – Not only did I begin this, I finished it! I submitted my final project last week and I am waiting for the grade so I can begin the credentialing process (a 2020 goal).

Finance

$38K in Retirement Account – Surpassed! Due to a good year in the markets, and a raise in the autumn, I surpassed this goal and I’m almost at $40K. I also maxed out my Roth IRA the last 2 years. That makes my overall net worth about -$50K! LOL
Pay off Private Student Loans – DONE. As I talked about in a previous blog, I transferred these to a credit card to give myself 20 interest-free months to pay them off. And I did! WOO! Of course I still have about $100K in Federal Loans but I’m trying to still run the clock off on those. 4.5 years to go!
Monetize Braid in Manhattan, Make $1000 – Surpassed! This was a great one to track and I had fun with it, filling in segments of a bow on my savings page in my BuJo. I can’t wait to see what 2020 has in store for my fav hobby/side hustle.
Bring Lunch 3x/week – Surpassed. I brought lunch 4-5 times a week! This was a TOUGH one. It was very time consuming, but I saved a LOT of money, and I felt like I was eating healthier meals. It was semi annoying to always be carrying containers with me, but I think it was worth it. I’ll be trying to continue this one. It helps if your coworkers also bring their lunch. I love to go for a walk so I would often go with my coworkers and then get jealous and want to buy something. If we instead just go for a walk without a lunch destination, I save more money and have less FOMO.

Overall, it was a great year for me and I achieved a majority of my goals/resolutions. I am still forming my goals for the coming year. Who says they need to begin on January 1? Mine will probably begin around January 12. Brainstorm a few for yourself and let me know what you’re aiming for in the comments!

Fitness

New Year’s Eve Midnight Run

January 1, 2018 4 Comments

Last night I froze to death. Ok, maybe not to death, but pretty darn close. Oh, and Happy New Year everyone!! Last night I made one of the dumbest decisions of my life (and trust me, I’ve made some dumb ones), and I ran the Midnight Run with New York Road Runners in Central Park. Only problem: it was 10⁰ Fahrenheit, FEELS LIKE -7!! Wind gusts of up to 21 mph. For those of you non-Americans out there, that is -22⁰ Celsius. What. The. F*ck. I guess a lot of (less crazy) people chickened out, because the race was sold out at 5,000-person capacity, but according to the website there were only 3,988 finishers. Hopefully those 1,012 people decided not to come, and did not die of frostbite somewhere before the finish.

Here’s why I ran the race: I’ve always wanted to but I never had someone to do it with, my friend asked me to, I didn’t really have any other plans, and I didn’t want to drink two nights in a row. You see, we always go out the night before New Year’s Eve because it is so much cheaper and less crowded in NYC. It’s called Practice New Year’s Eve. More on that next year.

All of the reasons I ran the race did not take into account the weather. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me to worry about that, I mean, it is midnight in December/January in New York… maybe I have a few screws loose. I definitely lost a few screws last night in the cold so I’m missing even more now. I have a new appreciation for those people in A Mountain Between Us who got stranded on a mountain after a plane crash.

The race was to begin at 12:00 am, but there was a complimentary pre-race party at 10 pm. However, since that party was OUTSIDE, my friend and I decided only to go the last 30 minutes. She came to my house at 9:30 to reflect on Practice New Year and talk through our various outfits. I say outfitS plural, but in reality, we wore all of them. On top of each other. Here’s what I ended up wearing, from the bottom up:

Sneakers with a light on them.
Ski sock to my knees.
Black capri leggings (but there was no skin showing).
A padded sports bra (gotta keep the jewels warm).
A tank top.
A long sleeve thermal.
A half zip pullover.
A full zip hooded jacket with full neck collar.
A down running vest.
A ski buff to cover my face.
An ear-warmer headband.
Running gloves.
An additional pair of gloves.

My friend wore two pairs of socks and two pairs of leggings. I didn’t. I regretted that decision.

Still warm and cozy inside… wearing everything we own.

My attempt at a mirror selfie. We look like Michelin Men.

I took 5 of these photos. This was the least blurry due to shaking hands.

We left my apartment and headed to the park, where five thousand other crazy people joined us at Rumsey Playfield for the pre-race party. I have never seen so many people dancing to a live DJ. I mean, literally EVERYONE was dancing. We had to. It was the only way to attempt to stay warm. According to my Fitbit, I logged a 17 -minute outdoor bike ride. But no, it was just furious dancing to Despacito to try and keep circulation in my toes.

We all headed to the race corrals around 11:50, where were given our final race instructions “stay warm and don’t die.” Ok, maybe he didn’t say exactly that, but I was too cold to listen. At midnight, our own private fireworks show started in Central Park, which was pretty darn awesome. The fireworks went on for FOREVER. And after 4 minutes, I was ready to start running, i.e. I was losing feeling in my extremities. We finally crossed the start line at about 8:40 and then we were off! The fireworks were still going off overhead, so I was trying dodge people who kept stopping to turn around and look to the sky.

At the start line, waiting impatiently for fireworks!

Look how red my nose is. This is before the race even started.

The race course was the middle 4 miles of Central Park, and I know that park like the back of my hand. I know every hill and turn, thanks to many many Wednesdays with lululemon Run Club, and training for, and finishing the Shape Half Marathon back in April. I was well-prepared, but also, I had never run in temps like this before. It was NOT easy. Around mile 3, it started to feel like the entire course was uphill. This was my first race ever without music or headphones, because I wanted to take it all in. Luckily, that also made it possible for me to listen to people around me. When I was struggling up the mile 3 hills, I heard a few people around me also lamenting the hills, and I was glad I wasn’t alone. The combination of cold cold air to breathe, and cold muscles made it much more difficult than any other day.

My two favorite parts of the race:

At mile 2, there was a dance party. A random DJ set up and people stopped right on the race course to dance around. There was also a champagne (apple juice) toast. However, I think it had been sitting out there for a few minutes because it was COMPLETELY frozen. I had decided before the race not to have water during, because I was scared of how cold it would be, but I couldn’t resist a slushie/icey of apple juice. I shaved off a bit with my teeth, decided it was not a good idea, then continued running.
Running without headphones meant I was able to tell all of the police and volunteers Happy New Year. I gave countless high fives and I was able to laugh along with all of the conversations. One group of girls was asking people around them to tell their New Year Resolutions, which I thought was a cute idea. I almost yelled out mine but realized I was running very much ahead of their pace, and I couldn’t afford to slow down in the temperature.

No headphones = selfie opportunities in motion with Wonder Woman and Superman (or Spiderman? Can’t tell, we are too fast).

Dance Party Break on the 102nd Street Transverse!

When the race was over, I met up with my friend and we decided to take the subway home instead of waiting outside for a (few and far between) cab. Unfortunately, our clothes were WET at that point, and while it was warmer underground, it was still freezing. Literally. My friend had icicles on her eyelashes and she said she saw ice in my hair. After 20 minutes of waiting for a train, they made an announcement that due to a stalled train at another station, there would not be any trains. THANKS MTA. We called an Uber. Can you say SURGE??

When I got home, I peeled off my 6 layers, and stood in a steaming hot shower for 20 minutes. I also didn’t wash my hair because I was afraid to have wet hair. I put on long johns and continued to shiver in bed for about one hour, blowing my nose and coughing the whole time. I finally made it to sleep around 3 am, and I was SURE I would wake up sick this morning. But 2018, the surprise is on me, because I feel awesome! And I woke up with 12,400 steps already on my Fitbit so I don’t feel bad at all about sitting in bed writing this, as my Fitbit yells at me every hour to move. NOPE. NOT TODAY.

I will be teaching Spin tonight at the YMCA though. Top songs of 2017. Who’s coming??

Happy New Year to all of my subscribers, and readers who are not subscribers. To you latter category of people, stop procrastinating and hit subscribe; it can be your New Year’s Resolution!

Fitness

Runstreet Art Runs – My 2017 New Year Resolution Success

December 30, 2017 8 Comments

The countdown is on! Literally! The new year is a few hours away, and I promised you one last blog post for 2017 about successfully achieving a 2017 Resolution of mine: Finding something fun and new and different to work out. SUCCESS! Enter: Art Runs with Runstreet.

People tend to make resolutions about working out more, or eating better, and I won’t go into why these are bad resolutions, since I already talked about that once this week. But to quote one of my fav instructors at Peloton, Robin, as she said on Wednesday, let’s make a resolution to “stop doing sh*t you hate,” and that’s exactly what I set out to do this year.

I love to work out. I work out more than 90% of people I know. Ok, 95%. Here’s what I like about it: I have fun. I feel much more energized when I finish. I get a sense of accomplishment. I achieve goals. I get stronger. Oh, and I get to eat more.

But going into 2017, I was beginning to lose my very first reason I work out: I wasn’t having fun anymore and I was BORED. I still felt accomplished and stronger, but since I wasn’t having as much fun anymore, it was starting to feel like a chore. So my 2017 resolution was: find something new that makes me excited again for physical activity.

Here’s what I knew: I loved teaching classes, because I liked the people and atmosphere of community. I had taught too many classes on the bike and wanted to move around a little. I liked being in fresh air. I wanted something different. I loved selfies and posting on Instagram.

I really didn’t know how I would combine all of those things and then miraculously, I got a follow on Instagram from Runstreet aka Marnie Kunz. (Check out that Instagram link and see if you can spot me a lot of times!)

Climbing on things, sprained ankle and all!

Finding random faces on walls, and kissing them.

Marnie is the writer and creator of Runstreet Art Runs, which she says is “a way to encourage runners of all levels to explore beauty around them and learn about local art and artists.” I was totally sold. She linked to an upcoming event in her Instagram bio, and I signed up immediately. I was not disappointed.

Basically, a group of runners meet up at a designated spot with Marnie, a certified running coach, and Marques Jackson of Filles Garcons Photography. We drop off our bags, socialize and meet each other, and then hit the pavement. We explore neighborhoods from Queens to Brooklyn to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, keeping an easy jogging 10-minute mile pace, and we stop every once in a while to gaze at amazing street art, and learn a bit about the murals and the artists from Marnie. The whole time we run, we talk, smile, laugh, and take photos – both amateur ones on our own cell phones, and real amazing quality ones snapped by Marques, who runs along with us (all photos below by him).

I have many favorite parts about Art Runs, but one of the big ones is exploring neighborhoods I have never seen before. Marnie herself found that the best way to learn the city and explore neighborhoods was by running through the streets. In fact, that’s how her Instagram started, by documenting the art she saw as she explored. Two weeks ago, I did a Holiday Art Run with Runstreet and I made sure to turn my Nike+ app on to document our route. It definitely was not my fastest run documented on the Nike app (probably due to the many photo breaks and readjusting of my Santa sweater… it was a HOLIDAY run, after all), but I wanted to be able to look back afterward and see where I had run. That holiday run was in Williamsburg, a part of Brooklyn I hadn’t spent much time in before. I have also done runs with Marnie on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, SoHo and Crown Heights!

She often partners with vendors and stores, so we finish with a place to warm up (or cool off, depending on the season), and with snacks to munch and juice to sip. Also, we hang out afterward and talk, which is my most favorite exercise. Also, her runs tend to have themes! I did one that was Hip Hop themed, where we were able to submit songs before the run and she added them to a playlist that bumped along with our feet the whole time. She also had an Ice Cream Art Run, which happened to be during #30Years30IceCreams. So obvi I had to go. It did not disappoint.

And last, but definitely not least, everyone is SO NICE. Every single person I have met through Art Runs has been incredibly sweet. I gained at least 15 new Instagram followers, and we often comment on each other’s posts and hug when we first see each other at the next run. In fact, I went on an Art Run after an ankle sprain, when I thought it was better but ultimately ended up stepping on it wrong and re-injuring it. Everyone was fast to stop, and incredibly concerned. A few runners offered to stay back with me, although I managed to tough it out the last mile (do not recommend this).

I may be the black sheep but we still all run together!

I love nothing more than a goodie bag or a keepsake. And after each run, we get a Dropbox link with all of Marques’ amazing photos, which become souvenirs, Instagram posts, AND viral advertising for Art Runs. V smart business model. All of the photos in this blog post are by the talented Marques aka Filles Garcons. Sometimes, a photo of me even gets on Marnie’s Instagram. Here’s me on top of an ATM, ankle brace and all. It got 419 likes!

Moral of this story: 2017 Resolution was a SUCCESS. And if you are like me and you’re looking for a FUN and ACCESSIBLE and ACHIEVABLE 2018 Resolution: look no further than Art Runs. They have a run on Monday, January 1!! It’s a Resolution 5K + Yoga. I can’t make it to this one, but I’ll probably be at the next one! Use your LONG LEGS and explore this BIG CITY. Try it out and tell me what you think!! Happy New Year everyone!