July 2016 Goals

The New England humidity of mid-summer has reared its ugly head here in MA recently and while I'm a huge fan of hot weather, it's making me want to do nothing else but lay in front of a fan!  I am super excited it is July, though. Brett and I have already had a fun weekend filled with a Weezer/Panic! At the Disco concert and a visit to New Hampshire for Fourth of July Weekend. I'm currently importing all of the footage from last week to post a vlog up tomorrow of all the festivities and there's a solid hour and 20 minutes to sift through - that's how you know it was a good weekend! This week has also been packed with visits with both new and old friends which is always so fun! We have so much more planned for July and I'm SO looking forward to it! :)

A lot of my goals for July are similar to the ones I had for June. I really like most of what I had set for June and thought I could stick with a similar mindset for a busy but fun month ahead! It doesn't make for a very interesting blog post, I guess, but at least I'm working toward something, right? :P

Read at least 3 books - Summer is the best time of year to read and I've really loved taking advantage of my slower schedule to pick up a book and explore new titles. I would love to read and finish at least three books again this month!                  

Get up to half marathon distance in my marathon training - I'm doing pretty well and continuing to be pretty consistent in my marathon training so far this summer. What's even better - I now have a training buddy! It's made a world of difference to have someone that will keep you accountable and that you don't want to skip out on. She is also running an October marathon so we are aiming to do our long runs together each weekend. I'm sure we'll reach 13.1 by the end of the month!

Continue meatless weekdays - I really enjoyed doing this (more about this in my June update below) and hope to stick to this as closely as possible through July!

I will be giving you an update on how these went next month!

Click "read more" to get an update on how my June goals went!

Keep a vegan/vegetarian diet Monday-Friday (DONE) - I actually did really well with this! I didn't go vegan but I did stay vegetarian throughout the week fairly easily. I can think of only one time that I didn't adhere to this in June and it was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be. I've also come to find that I'm preferring meatless options to eating meat which is a really interesting revelation for me!

Read at least 3 books (DONE) - Another goal that I met this month. I read "Greyhound" by Steffan Piper, "Lumberjanes Vol. 1" by Noelle Stevenson (and others), and finished listening to "Wonder" by R.J. Palacio. Check out my Reading Challenge Update to see my thoughts on these titles!

At least 5,000 steps a day (Not Done) - This definitely didn't get done, especially with the bit of a break I took from mostly everything in the middle of the month. This is actually much more challenging than you would imagine! I'm making more of a conscious effort to get off my butt and move around during work, though!

Join a local running group (Half Done?) - This did not get accomplished, either, but as I mentioned above I did start training with a friend from work! This is even better than joining a group, in my opinion! I'm feeling more motivated to run AND I'm making an awesome new friend in the process. What's not to love?