78. Ride my bike to work ten times

It has begun. The weather is finally nice enough to get out and ride. I rode my bike to school on Friday last week. I had some motivation in that I had to drop the van off at the mechanic in the morning. I figured that rather than inconvenience people to pick me up, I would just throw my bike in the back and use that to get me to school. It worked perfectly. (Well, the plan did, my bike needs a few adjustments in the gears. Hopefully I will get that figured out soon.) It felt good to have a nice morning and afternoon workout on the bike. This is a goal that is definitely achievable by the end of this school year. I am going to have to pick my days wisely, but I think it will be done by the first week of June.

61. Visit Every Park in Aurora

Yesterday was beautiful! It was the first weekend day that we couldn't miss being outside for. Melissa and I took the girls to Phillip's Park. It is a great place for any family to go on a nice weekend. It has a great playground and a zoo that is free to visit. We finished it off with a nice lunch under the pavilion. It was a good afternoon. Here are a few photos from our trip.

Madeline didn't like the swings. She was very quick to say, "All Dumb" (All Done) when she started swinging.

The peacocks had their feathers up. It was really cool.
This is in the reptile house at Phillip's Park. I had never been in there. It was really neat in there. I want to check it out next time we go there.

One park down. There's probably only one more that I would go to with the family. After that (or maybe before), Matt and I are planning a bike tour of Aurora to visit the rest of them.

12. Run a 5K in under 20:30 minutes

This is an ambitious goal I took on. Last weekend my brother and I headed down to Champaign, IL to run a couple of races. Matt ran a marathon (7th in 7 months) and I took it easy with a 5K. Matt and I had run a marathon just two weeks earlier so I thought it might not be the best idea to run another marathon in such a short time. Matt has been on a mission so he went forward and ran 26.2 miles again. I took on the goal of 20:30 for the 5K because I knew it would be quite the accomplishment. That is the point of this undertaking, when I wrote my goals, it was comprised of things that I knew I would want to accomplish and wanted to be proud of after completing. This is one of the goals that I knew would be tough and knew would require dedication to complete. This weekend showed that I would truly need to keep training to get the time I need to successfully fulfill this goal.
The race started out good. I was in the front of the pack and didn't have anyone ahead of me to get in my way. This proved to be a good strategy because there were not many people that passed me and the whole time I didn't have to worry about maneuvering around other people. During the race, there were many times that I wanted to stop running and stop pushing, but I knew I needed to do my best. My best for that race was 22:22. Yep, I have a long way to go in order to get the goal of 20:30. I have been running marathon speed (slow) for quite awhile, so I now have to work to be able to get my speed up. I've got 7 weeks until the next 5K. I don't know if I will be able to get in shape by then, but I'm going to do my best to get it done.
By the way, the picture was taken hours after I had finished my race. I didn't run the race in jeans, Matt helped me sneak down on the field with him when he was done to get the picture.

Modifications

Matt and I have been talking about my goals. They need some adjustment. I am working really hard to check them off, but making very slow progress. This post is to officially make some changes to my goals. It is not unprecedented. Matt did it a while ago, and it was a good thing to do. I am following his lead to make some changes. In doing this, I will have some goals that will be attainable sooner, rather than completing 15 goals in the last month of my time. It is just nice to be able to check off some goals sooner. I have tried to make sure if I eliminate a goal, it will be replaced by a new goal in the same category. Here we go:

#17 Stay under 170 pounds. This one is a good goal, but it can't be checked off until the last of my 1001 days. While the thing I am changing it to isn't totally in the "physical category," it's close enough. Lately, I have been working really hard to learn how to solve a rubik's cube. I've done it a few times, but only with the help of looking at a cheat sheet to show me the moves needed to solve the cube. I want to be able to do it on my own, without any outside help. This is kind of a lame goal, but it is something I think would be pretty cool to be able to do. New goal: Solve a Rubik's cube in less than 5 minutes.

#18 Make a nice dinner one time each month. I have started to like cooking a lot more than I used to. I've discovered grilling and have learned that after some practice, it is pretty easy to just "throw" a meal together. To make this goal be completed sooner, I'm going to give myself 25 more meals to make. I will start at zero meals and go from there. New goal: Make 25 meals for the family.

#22 Eat fruits and vegetables every day. Silly goal. It's important to do, but not something that is fun or easy to check off. There are a few veggies and fruits that I have wanted to try, but never ventured out and tasted. I did this a couple of years ago with my class at school and liked trying new things. Some of them (clementines) have become favorites of mine. We'll see if I discover some new tastes for the future. New goal: Eat 5 new fruits or vegetables and learn how to prepare them.

41. Tell each member of my family that I love them everyday. This should be happening without having to write it down. Melissa came up with the new goal. I think it is a good one. New goal: Take Melissa on two surprise dates

#69 Take vitamins every day. Silly goal. I should already be doing this. I am going to follow Matt's lead again and find a book to read about proper nutrition. I would hope to find a book that shares things about different "super foods" and things that are good or important to eat to help with a balanced diet. Somewhere in there the book might also tell me what some of the vitamins that I take are for. I think knowing the importance of them would help to make taking them be that much more important in my mind. New goal: Read a book about nutrition that would help me understand food and vitamins better

Those are the alterations. I think they keep with the integrity of the goals. Hopefully they help get some things done sooner. We'll see.

Covenant Health Marathon

3 marathons in 4 months. Who would have thought? I had thought after completing the Sunburst Marathon in May of last year, I would be done for awhile. Matt had other ideas for me. My brother seemed to need someone to come along to his races, and I seemed to be the most willing. After you do one, anything after is pretty easy. That seemed to be the basis for each of his sales pitches to get me to come along. That was fairly accurate. My first one I trained all 18 weeks. I probably only missed 3 or 4 training runs. With 4 runs a week in that schedule, I thought I was doing pretty good. For this last marathon, I ran probably 4 times in the month leading up to the race. I went in with pretty low expectations. I would say, with my lack of training, I was pretty proud of the result of the race, although the course and weather had plans to bring me and everyone else down.
We ran this marathon in Knoxville, Tennessee. The finish was at the 50 yard line inside Neyland Stadium. It was pretty nice. It was cold, windy, and hilly. All things that make running 26.2 miles not be so fun. The hills were brutal. I went in there knowing that Eastern Tennessee was pretty hilly, but it seemed to me that there were very few flat parts of the entire course. The temperature was cold. The three days leading up to the race had the temperature up in the 70s. Race day was 46º. It only got colder as the race went on. Lastly, the wind was the worst! I think that I went 8 straight miles having the wind in my face. No matter which way I turned, it seemed to hit me straight on.
I was happy with the result and can say that I am done with marathons for awhile. I told Matt that if there were any races in the future, I would either do the half (13.1 miles) or a 5K (3.1 miles). I'm waiting awhile until I hit marathon distance again. I need a break.
As I have now done a marathon beyond my two races, I am using my wild card to knock out a goal I no longer want to do. That goal is 94. Join a district committee at work. At the time when I wrote my goals, I thought it would be a good career move. I no longer want to do it at all. I'm just not up for any more meetings than I already have. Another goal down!

Wild Card

I am going to take on a page out of my brother's book and take on a Wild Card for my goals. The main idea is to cancel out goals that I originally put on, but no longer want to do, I don't think it is attainable, or feel that it can't be attained within the time frame. To get I wild card, I will need to do one of two things. Run a marathon, or run a half - marathon. The one catch is that it will need to be in addition to goal #10. I will need to have two races completed before being able to use the wild card. If the first two races I run are marathons, they don't count for a wild card, but all others after that count. Easy enough. I'm not planning on doing like Matt is and having one wild card a month, but it is a nice way to productively eliminate goals without feeling guilty about not completing them. It should be interesting to see how this is going to work.

23. Go to 4 new restaurants

I did it! Four restaurants done. Mom, I did it, I went to White Castle!

Matt took me to White Castle yesterday. I had no idea what to expect when I went there. I told Matt, I was nervous going in there because I have heard so many things about the food being so bad. I've never been there. I have been around them for my whole life, but my mom said it was disgusting, so I have stayed away. $.61 for a burger. Not too bad at all. You do need to eat a few of them to have a sense of being full, but it did the job. I was not blown away by the food. I can see how people like the food, but overall, it wasn't that great. I can now feel confident eating the food if expected, but I will not be seeking it out in the future.
Four restaurants visited, another goal down!