Pre-Birthday Day post

I've been debating all day - do I write a birthday post and admit I'm getting older.  I'm tempted to re-cap all the things that have gone on in my 33rd year, but then I realized that some of those things are really part of my New Years goals.
So in honour of my 34th birthday tomorrow, I've decided to post a condensed (I have a lot of goals) New Year's goals update.  Hopefully I've made some progress!

Financial - Without getting in to too much detail the goal is to pay off debts.  I'm doing okay at this goal.  The most exciting part is that I've already arranged things for my mortgage renewal date of August 1st.  I'm switching to a Manulife One account, which is going to save me a ton of interest (over $20,000), and if I stick to my current budget, can have my debt totally paid off by the time I'm 40!  (As long as I don't go on too many trips, or find a guy who wants to stick around!)

Family Relationships - This one is basically a bunch of goals that include connecting with family members each week.  And I'm doing a good job of this.  I've even managed to visit my Grandmother a couple times, which has been really good as she hasn't been feeling 100% (doctor is playing with her blood pressure medication).  The biggest goal in this category was to attend my sister's wedding in England and then travel to Marrakech with my parents, brother, and (his now ex) girlfriend).  This one was a lot of fun and has been completed since February.  This goal also included riding a camel (did it in the Sahara) and visiting the markets (did this several times).


Mom and her girls

Friend Relationships - This one is very similar to the family goal, to connect with my friends on a regular basis.  I'm doing well on the e-mails and texts, and not too badly on the in-person.  Want to do the in-person a bit more, but that's subject to their schedules with husbands/kids.

Boyfriend Relationships - Do I post this?  Bleh, sure why not:)  I've been doing the on-line dating thing, and my goal was to send messages/winks which I've been doing.  Plus I wanted to average 2 dates per month.  This was definitely a stretch goal for me, and I'm surprising myself with how well I'm actually doing.  While I'm not actually at the 2 per month average, I'm not far off, and if things go well in the next few months I could actually reach this goal.  I have never dated a lot, so with the dates I've been on I'm a lot closer than I was a year ago.
Part of this goal was to try one new activity/event each month to get myself out of the house.  This has been good, and I've combined it a bit with seeing friends, as well as volunteer work.  So I feel really good about the progress on this one.
Oh yeah - I'm still single!  But the point of this goal was to date, and have fun, not to put pressure on myself to be in a serious relationship (that would just be a bonus).

Professional/Personal Development - I've fallen a bit flat on this one.  I'm suppose to figuring out what I want to do next professionally, but haven't done any of the things on my list.  Personally I've started a blog, and am almost averaging my one post a week goal.  And I'm definitely well on my way to having read 40 books by the end of the year (helps that I don't have cable!)

Physical - I've run my first 5K (yeah!), but other than that I haven't reached my other goals.  I am still making progress though.  I'm much stronger than I was at the beginning of the year, and I'm working out consistently.

There we go - my almost mid-year, sort of birthday update on my New Year's goals for 2012.  I have definitely made some progress on a few of them, and looking forward to the rest of the year to see what happens.  Happy 34th Birthday to me!

Up and running again!

My internet has been down (fried modum) since last Wednesday!  Very hard to blog from a Blackberry and definitely not something I want to start doing while at work.  Since I don't have a personal laptop going to a cafe wasn't an option.

So I missed out on last week's Running and Reading Long post, but am going to take part this week!

We have been reading Second Wind by Cami Ostman.  I'm going to admit right away that this isn't my favourite book of the ones we've been asked to read.  In fact, it might just be the one I liked the least.  It's definitely an interesting book, but I found I couldn't relate to it as much as the other books.  It felt very self reflective, and since I haven't experienced the break up of a marriage and that kind of struggle I found it hard to get through.  With that said, I would like to move on to what we are suppose to talk about this week for this book and think about all the great places Cami travelled!

For each marathon she participates in we're to talk about the big take-away for her (or us).  So here's my list:

Europe - Sometimes mistakes are made, but the achievement still counts!

Australia - This was her first official marathon and turned in to a challenge as she faced herself, her own thoughts, past, and current situation.  We need to take time for ourselves, to grow and develop, even when we are in the midst of a relationship or anything else life throws our way.

North America - I felt this chapter for me was about facing fears and dealing with them, rather than letting the fear dictate your actions (in this case running the same "safe" route all the time).

Asia - This was the chapter I liked the best, but I think that's because I've been to Japan and visited Mount Fuji.  It made me want to visit again, although I have lots of new places to visit before I revisit places I've been.  I felt this chapter was about remembering good times, recognizing growth in yourself (the Warrior Woman).

Africa - Besides running a marathon when she was sick, I think this chapter was more about recognizing our human history.  Including our biases, and our racism (past and current).

South America - Be comfortable with yourself and specifically your body.  We are often too critical of what our bodies do (or don't) and how they look (or don't).

Antartica - No matter what the obstacles in your way you can achieve your goals, even if the goal is slightly modified from your original plan.

Training Update:
Things are going slowly.  I'm having more fun with my weight training than I am with my running.  I took a few days off from runnning due to a sore leg, but feeling better now.  The good news is my heart is getting more and more efficient all the time.  I train with a heart rate monitor and it's getting tougher and tougher during weight training and spin classes to get my heart rate up to the 80-90% max.  This also caused some concern at my physical when my resting heart rate was 44 bpm (sound really good, but part of it is hereditary.  Even when I was 260 lbs, my resting heart rate was 52 bpm).
So this coming week, my goal is to increase my speed to see if I can run 5K in less than 30 minutes by July 15th.  If I can do that, then I should be able to do that at my race on the August long weekend.