It’s important to do this every month. Oh, hi, happy August, by the way.

As I was saying, I think about this post a few times a month. And every time I take a step towards achieving one of these goals I set for myself at the beginning of the year (end of last year, actually), I know I’ll have something to report back here.

Or, to put it another way, knowing I have to do this the first of every new month helps keep me accountable and ensures that I’m trying to take steps towards achieving these goals each month.

So it’s important to do this every month:

Running/Exercise Goals

Take a Peloton Class in Studio: I’m taking more steps to figure out how to get this one done. I am checking the schedule for the brief moment in August I could possibly make it work. Otherwise if I’m going to New York this fall for Jets games maybe I can figure out a Sunday morning to do it, or a Monday when I have Mondays off again. I’m leaning more optimistic that this will happen.
100 Day Streak Challenge: Check. Completed. I always forget this was a goal but I’m glad I gave myself some early goals to achieve while we waited for these later ones.
Complete at least 1 Marathon and 1 Half Marathon: Obviously we’re in the midst of Chicago training and the BAA Half is after that. I added another cool race in September, but that doesn’t qualify as either of these.
Complete the B.A.A. Distance Medley: No update here - final leg is in November. I gave a little update on how I was feeling about it, which also has links to the individual races if you’re interested.
Run a sub-5 hour Marathon: I’m working on it. A lot of work.
2026 Boston Marathon: I’ll put my name in the lottery and we’ll see what happens. That won’t unfold for some time yet.

Writing

Finish Book Draft: I made more progress on this in July than I did in the previous couple of months combined. I’ve settled a bit back into a writing routine. Hopefully I’ll keep that up. I would really like to have this first draft finished sooner rather than, like, late December.
Document 2025 on this blog every day: I’ve been in a pretty good groove this last month or so. And what with some busy days ahead, I’ve managed to give myself some pad so that I’m not scrambling last minute to get posts up. We’ll see how this next week goes. It’ll be tough.
Publish a Written Piece: I’ve just about given up on this goal. I don’t see putting anything together that I think is even worth submitting.

Other

Read More: This has been going well - I’ve tried to keep myself with books lined up. I actually just bought a new book to read that I am looking forward to digging into but that might not be for a bit.
Learn New Things and Experience New Things: I like how I put this last month: “This is happening in different ways and I just haven’t been finding much writing fodder here. I’ll see if I can put some of them into words.” This is still true.