Success? (2012 goals)

Back in January I set a few key goals for the year. Unfortunately, at the end of the 3rd quarter, my goal score was not looking so good...

Goals: 3, Injury: 2

That left me with a long list of competing goals for the final months of 2012. In a delicate balancing act in the final month of the year, I made some substantial progress... but was it enough to accomplish every goal?


Goal - Run Faster:
5k in less than 24 minutes

Progress: While I consistently placed in the top 10 percent of the field, high temperatures and humidity meant that my summer 5k didn't even crack the 25 minute barrier. (Boo!)

My Turkey Trot was closer, at 24:48.

I had one last attempt at breaking the 24 minute barrier during the Ho Ho Hustle 5k on December 15th, but my legs were still tired from the prior weekend's half marathon. Despite earning an AG award (2nd of 35 women 30-34), I wasn't fast enough to PR.

This goal lives on in 2013...


Goal - Run Longer:
Complete 5 half marathons

Progress: (1) Gulf Shores, (2) New Orleans, (3) Pensacola Beach, (4) Holiday Half in Point Clear, (5) _____ Umm... 80% is a passing grade, even if I was aiming for an A+. Just don't tell my students I said that...


Goal - Learn New Things:
Read 15 non-fiction books

Progress: Here's my non-fiction reading list for the year...

1. Two Old Fools, Ole
2. Delinquent Daughters
3. Complaints and Disorders
4. Wild: From Lost to Found on the PCT
5. Ratio
6. Delusions of Gender
7. AWOL on the Appalachian Trail
8. Memoirs of a Gas Station
9. Behind the Beautiful Forevers
10. Longitude
11. Bossypants
12. Galileo's Daughter
13. Predictably Irrational
14. The Art of War
15. it's complicated

As for #15, I'm not sure where to begin...

I've been reading the The Complete Memoirs of Casanova for several months, but Casanova lived to be more than 70 years old at a time when most people lived to a ripe old age of 30, and he chronicled nearly every day of his adult life. That's works out to more than 20,000 days of biography!

Casanova led a remarkably adventurous life of travel, gambling, career-hopping, and yes bed-hopping. (This is no 50 Shades, though. Despite Casanova's sexual adventures, he wrote his diary in the 1700s. Most of the smutty stuff is written in a fade-to-black style because back then even a rake didn't tell all of his secrets.)

Even without lurid details, the "book" contains 30 volumes and more than 2,200 pages (yes, that's a four-digit number). So I'm happy to have gotten through the first few volumes (about 400 pages). We'll count that as "book 15."

On the fiction side of the fence...
I read Things Fall Apart, Cold Comfort Farm, My Antonia, Study in Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes), Sense of an Ending, Slaughterhouse Five, Still Life With Woodpecker, War Brides, NW, and some fluffy beach-reads not worth mentioning.

I just started Bonfire of the Vanities. This classic weighs in at 700+ pages. While unintended, 2012 is, apparently, the year in which I read really long books...


(If you want to know more about what I'm reading, follow me on Goodreads.)


Goal - Travel/Explore:
Visit one new-to-me place every month

Progress: Still exploring like a tourist!

• January: Gulf Shores, AL
• February: Indian Temple Mound museum in Fort Walton Beach, FL
• March: A jazz club, Maison, in New Orleans
• April: This month was a new-to-us trail double header.
• The Blackwater Trail 10k took Hubby and me to a part of the Florida backwoods we'd never seen before. (So new, in fact, that I nearly skipped the race out of fear that I'd get lost...)
• We followed that up with a hike in the Naval Live Oaks National Park
• May: Audubon Park in New Orleans.



Colonial Williamsburg

• June: Another two-fer!
• I ventured into new neighborhoods and new-to-me museums while in Washington, DC.
• Hubby and I went back to Gulf Shores, AL for an "adventure day" of exploring new beaches, shops, and restaurants.
• July: A whirlwind weekend trip to Jacksonville and St. Augustine
• August: Spelunking in Florida Caverns State Park and hiking through Falling Waters State Park
• September: A visit to the battleship museum in Mobile, AL



Eden Gardens State Park near Rosemary Beach, FL

• October: the travel month to beat all travel months included trips to:
• Atlanta
• Williamsburg
• Rhode Island (hiking a new trail with my family)
• and Destin (running the Halloween 5k)
• November:
• Tarkiln Bayou State Park
• Torreya State Park
• Eden Gardens State Park
• December: Point Clear and Fairhope, Alabama for the Holiday Half Marathon

Goal - New 2 U Cross Training Challenge:
Just ask Kim...

Progress: Is there a medal for this multi-sport event?

Tennis!

• January: I discovered that I loathe burpees,
• February: ... but I enjoy cardio kickboxing.
• March: I nearly broke my nose trying stability ball strength training.
• April: 100 ups became a regular part of my workout routine.
• May: I skipped it! (skipping drills to improve running form)
• June: I shredded Jillian Michaels.
• July: Cross training paid off when I found $10 buried in the sand while snorkeling.
• August: I got back in the pool for some long-overdue lap swimming, and I suppose spelunking counts, too!
• September: I tried pool running, aqua jogging, pooling... whatever you call running underwater.
• October: I rocked a workout on BodyRock.TV
• November: I conquered my worries about lack of hand-eye coordination and tried my hand (and eyes) at tennis.
• December: _____ (I still have 36 hours to go. I'll think of something!)

Goal - Go streaking!
Run at least 1 mile per day from Halloween through the New Year

Progress: I've been streaking for more than 60 days, and covered more than 170 miles!

Did you set any goals for the year?
If so, how did you do and what are your goals for 2013?