2016 Goal Update: February
Check out my original 2016 goal post here
-Run at least one race every month: Done! Austin Half Marathon, February 14th. March’s race – Shamrock Marathon, Virginia Beach, VA.
-Save money, pay off debts, own less: As of this weekend, goodbye to two student loans! I’ve continued to be critical of where I spent money and be mindful of allowing junk into my house. As far as my list if areas to clean out in my house, this month I tackled my walk-in closet, which yielded a large trash bag to be pitched and several items to be given away and a few things for my yard sale pile. I also cleaned out a cube shelf I have in my dining area. For the most part, the cube shelf clutter got thrown away since that it's usually a dumping ground for mail and other paperwork that I don’t have time to read but want to look at before I throw it away. Yesterday, I signed up for a library card since my information was purged from their system. I’ve recently heard of a few books I want to read and I was going to order on Amazon or go to the bookstore but I decided to get what I could from the library, for free. Unfortunately, none were available at my local branch yesterday but I requested the first one via inter-library loan.
-Run a sub 2 hour half marathon: Not this month but I was really happy with my time in Austin. This is a big goal that I wouldn’t see achieving until the fall so I’m focusing on small sub goals and changes to slowly get to the sub 2 hour half. Last month, I upped my strength training. I’ve been working hard on my overall fitness and refining my eating a little more.
-Start my days earlier and be more mindful of how I spend my time: I’ve been starting my days a little bit earlier, but I want add morning workouts back into my routine. As far as being mindful of my time, I’ve been good about thinking about what I want to accomplish each day and checking things off my list.
-Get back to more regular food logging: I have been logging everything in Myfitnesspal fairly consistently.
-Buy more local produce: None this month. As the weather gets better local produce should be more accessible.
-Write more/Post more: I have seemingly unlimited ideas but then there is time and the rest of my life. As ideas cross my mind, I look ahead and decide which week to post and write it down in my calendar so I don’t forget all of the bits of ideas that I have. I only had one Friday Night Write Night this month.
Writing a monthly update post has been awesome. As small steps to achieve goals cross my mind, it’s easy to put it on the “someday list” but knowing that I am going to pull together monthly progress, every month, it makes me want to do things right away rather than putting things off. This happened with the library card. At first I thought, ‘I should get a library card someday’ but then I realized it was a good move toward saving money and it would fit well into my monthly update so I checked the library’s hours and stopped by the next time I could make it while they were open.