Feature Friday: Checking In On Your Monthly Goals

Happy Friday! Still not feeling too great today, but good thing I already put together this post last week for you guys! 

Can you believe that it's already SEPTEMBER TOMORROW?!?!? What? Where did August go?? What was your favorite part of the month? Least favorite? Anyone hit any new PRs or have a less-than-stellar race? Let's look back on my August goals and see how they went:

AUGUST 2018 Goals:

• Read 1 book - CHECK
• Yoga 1x/week - CHECK
• Try 2 new-to-me trails- CHECK
• Swim 1x/week- CHECK
• Take 1 step towards next career - CHECK
• Camp/backpack 1x- CHECK

I guess I kinda killed it for August eh? They funny part is that I wasn't even really super aware of what my goals were and just went with the flow of things. Pretty great feeling to have crushed all of my goals and here's to September!

SOURCE

SEPTEMBER 2018 Goals:

• Read 1 book
• Yoga 1x/week
• Take 1 step towards next career
• Backpack/camp 1x- 
• Journal 3x/week
• Purchase only needs, not wants

What are you goals for September? How'd your goals for August go?

Anyone have any plans for the long weekend?!? I cannot believe it's already Labor Day!

Checking In On Your Monthly Goals!

I cannot believe that it's August TOMORROW! 

July honestly FLEW BY. I think I just blinked and it was gone. It feels like just yesterday that it was July 4th and now it's the last month of Summer!?!? Yesterday morning I had my first glimpse at Fall morning runs again- it was 40* OUT! I sure was happy when I got home and was able to get into a nice, hot steamy shower. Ugh. I cannot believe that we're almost there already. Anyways, how'd you do for your July goals?!? I honestly didn't come close to getting most of mine, but that's OK. I have new goals for August and am pretty pumped for them :)

July Goals:

• Read 1 book. CHECK.
• Yoga 1x / week. CHECK. FINALLY! 
• Meditate everyday. meh. not quite. I did great until my 50k and then it became a few-times-a-week-thing. 
• Finish 50k. CHECK!
• Take 1 step towards next career. meh not quite.
• Hike 14,000' mountain. nope. this month was just crazy-busy!
• Camp/backpack 2 times. nope. didn't even get to do this once! The weather was honestly just so crazy hot or stormy. Oh well. NEXT MONTH!!

August Goals:

• Read 1 book.
• Yoga 1x/week
• Try 2 new-to-me hiking/running trails
• Take 1 step towards next career
• Swim 1x/week
• Camp/backpack 1 time.

What are some of your goals for August?

Anyone else love to swim as cross-training/ recovery from hard run days?

Checking In On Your Monthly Goals

June flew by for me! I cannot believe that July 1st is on Sunday! Normally I do these posts on the last day of the month, but I want to make sure to get you a sneak preview of my training plan tomorrow, so I'm switching it up! We are officially halfway through 2018! How are your 2018 goals going? I crushed some of my monthly goals and others, well, not so much. But I'm OK with that! You have to start somewhere right?!? And if we're hitting all of our goals, then are we really setting the bar high enough?

Recap of June 2018 goals:

• Read 1 book - CHECK.
• Put $300 towards Student Loans - meh. not quite. 
• Take 1 step towards next career options - CHECK.
• Create 1 new recipe from scratch - not exactly. This is really HARD!
• Outline steps I need to take to get a BQ -CHECK. Feeling pretty confident here for the future!
• NO pizza - CHECK. We're celebrating with many pizzas July 1st ; ) 

So, I got 3 out of 5 of my goals for the month. I think I'm making good progress to get most of my goals for the year! How are you doing?

I LOVE this quote. Dream REALLY big!

July 2018 goals:

• Read 1 book
• Yoga 1x/ week
• Meditate every day this month
• Run/Complete My First Ultra
• Take 1 step towards next career option
• Hike a 14,000' mountain
• Hike 2 new trails
• Camp/ Backpack at least twice

What are your goals for July?

How do you keep yourself motivated during the summer to still work towards your future goals? --> this blog helps me A LOT. I also keep a monthly "check list" in my planner (I'm a pen and paper kinda gal), as well as google docs of both my BQ steps-to-take list & Vision Board so I can look at it/ edit it anytime

Dreaming BIG & Checking In On Your Monthly Goals

I'm BACK! I survived my 175 mile journey to Denver and surprisingly, I feel really great. I expected to have pains worse than racing a goal marathon and the only thing that really hurt were my feet (..to be expected...)! I'm almost ready to share all of my experiences and recaps with you and hope to have them ready by next week. It was surely a whirlwind experience and absolutely a once-in-a-lifetime achievement. The 2019 applications to the relay team are available now and I encourage you to apply! It may seem crazy to cover such distance and train and fundraise for it, but it's SO worth it. I never expected my body to able to run 175 miles in 7 days and fundraise $10,000, but I accomplished both goals and really feel as though the sky is the limit! 

Speaking of the sky is limit, it's the last day of May! I can't believe June is HERE! May went by so quickly and it's already starting to get pretty hot here (...ahem it was NINETY DEGREES during my relay segment in DENVER!). Hello summer running and beautiful morning sunrises! I'm already starting to dream up my next goals for running/ life/ travel and am ready to add on some more goals to my 2018 vision board (I guess running 175 miles really makes you feel pretty invincible.. ; ) ....).

BUT before we look forward, let's recap where we are with May goals:

• CHECK. Read 1 book. almost finished with book#2! 8 pages left ; )
• Yoga 1x / week - gosh. this is REALLY hard for me to stay consistent with!
• CHECK. Camp 1x. it may have been "glamping" in the RV during my relay, but I definitely still consider it camping!
• CHECK. Sign up for Fall half marathon race. Can't wait to do the Lake Powell Half in October (and check off Arizona as a state)!
• Do one thing towards new career steps...working on that today!
• Fundraising goals:
  • CHECK. <$10,000. current fundraising total: $10, 756!

UNE GOALS:

• Read 1 book
• Put $300 towards student loans
• Take 1 step towards next career
• Create 1 new recipe from scratch
• Outline steps I need to take to get a BQ

I also wanted to share with you some of my big, longterm scary goals that I have because I think it's important to put them out there. Maybe I'll achieve them, maybe I won't, but regardless- they're out there and maybe you'll share some of your scary goals with me! 

WHAT ARE SOME OF MY BIG SCARE-THE-CRAP-OUT-OF-ME GOALS:

• Qualify for Boston
• Obtain an Olympic Trails Qualifier in the marathon
• Run all of the World Marathon Majors
• Win a race
• Obtain a Doctorate degree (pretty sure I know what I want this to be in, but want to be a bit more certain before sharing ; ) ....)
• Travel to England/ Paris/ New Zealand/ Ireland/ Germany/ Iceland/ Hawaii (ha the list could go on!!)
• Become a master rated figure skating coach in one discipline
• Become a certified running coach
• Own my own business
• Have a few kids someday

PS I LOVE THIS. Always have struggled with eliminate mistakes. Much too hard on myself! ; )

What are some of your June goals and how do you like to check in on your goals? Do you make a vision board, journal, outlines, or something else? --> I love to keep them in my agenda because I use it practically everyday. Definitely am a writing-down type of person

What are some of your scare-the-crap-out-of-you goals?

What are your plans for the weekend?!? --> We're going to go camping one night! Still deciding where to go, but will probably keep it close by.

Favorite splurge after a goal race? --> this is REALLY hard to choose just one, but my favorites have currently been donuts (we went to VooDoo Donuts for the first time in Denver) and wine (normally I don't drink very often while training)

Goals for MS Run The US Relay!

Happy Monday friends! Don't worry, I've scheduled my posts for the week so I'm not stressing about getting my posts up on time during my relay. I hope you had a great weekend! I actually had a super long list of items to get done with Alex gone  (he got back last night from visiting family/meeting his 3 month old nephew in Mass.) and no running on my schedule, so I stayed pretty busy. A lot of cleaning/ packing/ gardening/ nails are done/ organized was done! I honestly cannot believe that my relay begins this morning! I got the baton passed to me yesterday at noon when Michelle came in and now at 8am EST today it's my turn! You can follow along on my journey on Instagram and I'll be journaling my thoughts so I can share them all with you on each day that I run come next week : )

I wanted to share with you some of my goals for my relay and daily goals as well because I think it's really important to be realistic about the journey I'm about to embark on (as well as have some lofty goals too)! I've had a lot of anxiety about my relay (mainly just wanting it to be here already and excitement/nerves), but on Wednesday or Thursday last week, it just turned to excitement (a bit of nerves but mostly just overly excited)! I can't wait to experience the rockies on foot and see so many beautiful things that driving in a car you miss. I've got an iPod nano to save my phone battery so I can take a lot of pictures! The weather looks like it should be good for the most part (maybe some thunderstorms in the afternoon, but I'm planning to be finished running each day by 1pm at the latest and starting each day between 6-7am).

GOALS FOR MS RUN THE US RELAY:

• ENJOY every moment. Take it all in. The beauty, the experience, the good, the bad ~everything
• SMILE at all times. Smile through the positives and negatives. 
• RUN FROM THE HEART ~ 
• 28 miles each day. Pushing it to 30 if I'm feeling great, but no more than that. 
• Recover like a champ. Legs up the wall multiple times. Foam roll like crazy. Lots of coconut water. 

What are your plans for the week?

DId anyone race this weekend?! How'd it go??