How can it be the start of another month already? And the last real month of summer 
This summer has made me eager for fall though… it’s been so darn hot it seems like it’s been harder than normal to do stuff outside past the hour of 10am…. Soon I will be wishing it was warmer though so I guess I should just suck it up!
I have a few other fitness related mini-goals that I am planning to incorporate this month and those are:
1) Continue the FitStreak!
2) Do one plank/day
3) Aim for 10,000 steps/day (exercise included in this)
4) Stretch!!
I like setting monthly goals lately too because it helps me focus a bit more on certain things I want to change and actually have a plan to change them with little things like doing a plank, etc.!
Here is how I am doing on my yearly goals thus far…
Run a Marathon. – CHECK!!!!!!!- Complete 4 half marathons. Checked off ONE in January! And now ONE in April in Tennessee! I have one scheduled for September and one in October. I may be walking these last two but time will tell!
- Complete a half marathon in less than 2 hours. Nope. This is no longer a goal for this year. I am focusing more on correcting my form rather than running fast. I have the rest of my life to run faster
- Travel somewhere new. No, sadly no travels planned for anytime too soon. But I am tagging along with Sister to Indianapolis and I have never really been there besides driving through it so that will be fun!
- Redo the outside of my house. The paint is sitting in my garage and I’m going to have some landscaping soon so progress, progress!
- Re-organize the basement to make the space more usable. Getting a new shelf this week to help with that! (Once I actually clean up stuff and put it ON the shelf…)
- Keep up with
InsanityWeight lifting/Physique 57. Insanity is getting moved to the back burner for now but I plan on focusing more on weight lifting and trying out the new Physique 57 DVDs Sister got! Try something completely new to me. Check! Acupuncture.- Be more patient. This should really be added to my life goals list… clearly not something that changes overnight.
Read at least 12 books. Done!- Finish a race in my Vibrams. Nope. And don’t plan on it…until I am healed and can slowly transition to wearing these again sometime.
Spend at least one day on a beach. I’m going to say check to this one because I ran on a beach… ha!- Take down the dead tree in my backyard. Labor Day weekend is now the plan!
- Try to find a new job. Back to a month where I don’t think this is a focus right now… In time!
- Get my scrapbooks caught up to date. Maybe I will be inspired and do some this weekend while watching the Olympics! It’s time my Hawaii pictures get put somewhere special! (Although I will be wanting to go back so bad when I look through the pictures again…)
- Foam roll at least 3 days a week. 100% yes! I have been pretty good about foam rolling and stretching some every single day.
- Do an ab DVD or workout at least 3 days a week. Good so far! Plank a day will help too!
- Get yoga back into my routine. I’ve been doing either Yoga or Pilates onec a week! Pilates is getting to be more and more of a favorite but I now need to find some new DVDs on Pilates!
- Continue to work on reducing stress in my life. Better?! I think anyways!
- Don’t buy things unless I NEED them or will at least use them a lot. I have had a very spendy month/three months… the credit card is being put away for the month of August to help with this. Another mini-goal not related to fitness
Reduce use of paper towels and buy only 100% recycled for when I do need them. Yes, this one I am crossing off!- Edit: Learn how to be a better speller! This will likely happen about as soon as the sub-2 hour half marathon
Every month I feel like I am not making that much progress but some of it seems to be more change in habit type things so I guess I can’t really ever cross those off a list. I think next year’s goals are going to be more definite so I can cross them off when they are complete. I might also try to have one listed per month so I can try to work on one thing at a time instead of having all these things swirling around in my head all year long. At least I have successfully crossed “Run a Marathon” off my list. That’s the one I was really excited for anyways! All the other stuff is just filler Only 5 more months to make a better dent in this list!!!
I like your goals for the month, they are very specific. I might have to steal your idea to do one plank a day. I did that in June, but I think I need something daily to get me back on the fitness wagon.*
I totally forgot to do my plank this morning but remembered when I got to my office! #plankaday at work
Good thing I have a door that closes though or that could have been awkward!
Great goals, once again! I really should get a pedometer so I can count steps and stay accountable after Fit Streak is over.
A lot of your year-long goals are goals I’m hoping to tackle this fall/winter after race season is officially finished–I’d like to finally get through the whole P90X program, I’d love to train for a sub-2:00 half marathon, I’m contemplating signing up for a full marathon next year (GULP! I said that would NEVER happen!), and after reading your blog I’ve realized I use waaaay too many paper towels!
I actually just use my iPod nano that has the pedometer feature in it so it’s really nice! I am sure I will loose it someday and regret it but all the cheap ones I tried to buy stopped working within the week!?!
And you can totally train for a marathon if you want to
It’s rough but if you already have the base of a half, it’s so much easier (at least it seemed that way to me!). One thing I would say would be good to consider would be training for your fast half first and then transitioning to the full training if you bite that bullet 
I tried it the other way around and got so much… sl…ow…er… training for a marathon and ended up burnt out that the thought of running fast was really comical! (Fox cities was supposed to be my “big” speed half! ha!) But the other way around would likely work much better I would think?! Then again, what do I know – lol!
And yes, I took a class in college about environmental law and it totally changed the way I view resources. It’s like sure, I could use disposable this or that but for no extra effort, I can use reusable! So really I am still very lazy about it but my two things are reusable shopping bags and using cleaning clothes instead of paper towels! Maybe someday I will get crazy and add a third small thing but for now, I’m going with just two
Breaking from paper towels was actually really easy – I just stopped buying them and therefore had to get creative – and realized how darn expensive they are too! Using an old cut up rag is SO much cheaper!!