#5 Keep consistent pace on a run

I hate running.

I don’t know why I made this goal.

Running has never been my strong suit and I know it’s good cardio and great for your health (well except for you knees…). I’ve made an effort, but my goodness; I hate running.

Now with that whine session over let me tell you what I’ve learned about myself:

I am not a fast runner
I don’t need to be fast to run
A light run is manageable as long as I have an audiobook
Audiobooks are a great running companion
I like being able to feel healthy and gain knowledge at the same time
As long as I have headphones I can run

What I’ve really learned is I can’t run without having something to distract my mind. Without a distraction I won’t run for very long and I will easily give up. Having something to focus on besides just the run is the key to my success. Well “success”.

Hitting that first point just for good measure. I am not fast. I initially wanted a fast pace for this challenge, after the first few runs I immediately settled for slow. I figured as long as I’m running in some capacity it’s got to be better than nothing.

I consider this a win even if I’m not the best runner in the world.

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#29 Bungee Jump

Okay well I didn’t actually bungee jump, but I’ve done something similar to the point I want to cross of this goal because it was close enough.

See bungee jumps have the big drop and all the bouncing around. What I did was just the big drop and no bouncing around.

I went camping near the Royal Gorge a while back (and I mean a while back, as in end of 2020, that’s how long I’ve been debating whether to count this as a completed goal) and I convinced my father to join me on a zipline tour around the Royal Gorge. He had never been on a zipline and it was right after the first time I went. I enjoyed ziplining so much that I knew my dad would love it. He did.

I know, what does all this have to do with a bungee jump? Well it turned out the final course of the zipline was a race to a platform that was about 50ft off the ground and the only way to get off this platform was to jump. Instead of having a bungee jump cable they had something called a FlightLine. Which is similar a type of cable that lets you safely freefall to the ground, it’s absolutely wild and I highly recommend it.

Now it’s not a bungee jump, but I also jumped from really high up and put my trust in a rope once before already. Granted I may do a bungee jump eventually in the future, as for now I am okay with just my freefall experience with the FlightLine.

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#76 Make New Friends

Friends are interesting. For the most part I consider myself friendly and easy to get along with as long as whomever I am interacting isn’t a bad human. I have no problem starting conversations with people and though I consider myself an introvert when I’m around strangers, more often then not I am the one initiating conversation because I just like talking.

It’s the step of taking friendly interactions to actually committing to doing something and actually creating a friendship which is what makes it hard. I find I have no issues talking which puts me half way there, but it’s finding people who want to make the same effort to hang out and go do things the hard part.

Obviously, since I am writing this posts I feel in some way that I have accomplished this goal and it’s not necessarily cause I just went out and started hanging out with a bunch of people and decided we were friends. It has been months and years of me developing and restoring connections with people.

I made an effort to get in contact with people that I had met back in 2015 and just never saw each other again. We started talking monthly and updating each other on life, going out for lunch, brain storming future business ideas.

I befriended customers at my families restaurant, which normally I stray away from. But I met some wonderful people and I got a sassy hair stylist friend out of it.

I went out of my way to talk to people at the dance studio I go to workout at and it wasn’t even that hard. The people I know there are some of the happiest and inspiring people and they are so fun to be around. I don’t get to see them as often, but I try my hardest to reach out to people that make me smile and love myself that much.

And lastly I have the friends that have been with me through everything, my constants. It’s friendships that I have had for years that I continually nurture. Because it’s those friendship that I want to still surround myself with and though I had started a goal to make new friends it has made me think back on my current friendships and how important they are to me.

When I wrote this goal I think I thought that I needed to get a more solid group of friends, but I was looking at it too seriously. I just needed to focus on surrounding myself with good and happy people. Friends don’t have to be a serious thing and you also don’t have to constantly making plans. That’s something I have to remind myself. Life isn’t that serious, just gotta slow down and enjoy the days.

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#79 Dating

All right y’all back when I started the master list I put dating on there and lemme tell you I had no idea where that would lead me! I really thought I would go out casually and have some fun dates and come back with entertaining stories.

But you see I am way too particular for that to actually work. I mean I went on a dates and was really hoping to get some enjoyment, but I just never really clicked with anyone.

I went to dinner with a stand up comedian and I was like heck yes this is gonna be a great, but nope. Guy turned out to be one of the dullest people I have ever met and we just operated on different wave lengths. Plus don’t get me started on the guy who was apparently married and going through a divorce which he stated while we were eating dinner (don’t worry, I called for the check immediately). Hell at one point a guy told me he was planning to go vegan soon and I needed to bail from that (no offense vegans, just not the lifestyle I want).

Honestly, I didn’t get much out of these dates (except that one guy that showed me the existence of fried mac and cheese) and I went on most of these dates a couple months after I had made the list really hoping to just figure out what all this relationship nonsense was about. But after many failed/weird/boring/uncomfortable dates I decided to just focus on my life and just have Future Lauren deal with dating.

Which brings me to September 2020 in the midst of a pandemic.

I was obviously not looking for anything, so when a boy from my past (that sounds dark, he just went to the same high school as me and we had recently reconnected back in August) comes along and asks me out I am shooketh.

But ya know what!?

WE CLICK!

The interaction was easy and not uncomfortable and I wasn’t sure about him, but I knew that we got along and had wonderful conversation. Fast forward another month of seeing him and I realize I like him and he’s what all this relationship stuff is supposed to be. Now here I am dating him. It’s still new, but it makes me feel confident in being able to check this off because dates with him are fun and just make sense.

I could never be a casual dater, because I think I was always just holding out for a relationship.

Don’t get me wrong I have no idea what I’m doing and I know it’s still new, but this introverted dork is dating and y’all I am so proud of me. I’ve come far. I could probably go on about my new found dating life, but that seems a smidge weird, especially if he stumbles upon this. So best just end this and cross this off the list!

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#10 Yoga

I’ve decided I will never properly get into yoga, but I will admit as a fitness I do see the benefits of stretching.

I never really cared for yoga and it’s peaceful, meditative lifestyle. I am an anxious person so yoga never resonated with my sense of always wanting to do something. Even sitting in silence is a difficult task for me and that just comes from my mind always thinking. In this challenge I was just going to focus on learning yoga poses and just see if I could actually vibe with yoga. Spoiler alert: I didn’t.

Honestly, it wasn’t until I picked up a different fitness hobby that I really learned the importance and value of yoga and how much of necessity it is to stretch out my body. As a fitness I definitely acknowledge yoga, where as before I didn’t care for it much entirely.

I will say that I will never properly get into yoga and I don’t see myself ever doing just yoga for a solid workout, but I will definitely keep in in my routine as it is important to stretch out muscles and make sure the body is okay, especially after a workout.

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#26 Zip Line

Hello Blog! Hello Goals!

With the world being utter chaos and a lot of my goals involving social aspects I didn’t know what to do about my goals. I wasn’t motivated to do much during this time (except get into dancing, which has been great for me mentally) and everything was just making me too stressed.

Right now I am a little bit behind on my initial plan of getting a goal accomplished every 4 weeks, but I’m starting to get my motivation back and I’m hoping to be knocking out a few more goals in the coming weeks.

Speaking of these goals! Let’s talk about Zip Lining and how have I never done this before!? I feel like I’ve missed out on so many zip lines and needless to say, next time I’m on a road trip and there is a zip lining attraction I’m going. Don’t care if I need to be somewhere, I gotta go zip around.

I’m normally such a baby with these sorts of things, but I only had a little bit of jitters for a moment and then no problem. Heck by the end of it I was running and jumping off the platforms. Plus I was the first person in our group to zip line today. I was with my friend who was the first in line to go down the zip lines and she full on stopped and had me pass her, I paused to look at her and all she said was “You’re going first.” Later she told me she was actually super nervous and I was apparently blind to it cause I was too excited and to focused on getting on the platform.

Without further ado, here are some dorky photos to prove that it happened:

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#6 Dance Everyday for a Month

Originally this was run everyday for a month and then I remembered how much I hate running every day. I could go a solid 15-20 days, but I would just get more and more annoyed with running. I never became one of those people who loved running and got the runner’s high. I just got pissed and would drop running everyday and do it every couple of days a week instead. I’ve tried so many times, but no matter how many times I have tried I just can’t make it a full month.

Which led me to changing it to a different form of cardio that I actually like: Dance! Listen, I don’t need to dance well to dance everyday. I can line dance, salsa, hip hop, flail about like an idiot, etc. Dance as a form of consistent cardio was way better for me because though dance was consistent the type of dance was ever changing and I never got stuck in the state of mind I did when I was running.

It was so freeing to spend an hour everyday to dance. I wasn’t trying to impress anyone, I was just doing something to better myself and it allowed me to have fun. Dancing is fun and you don’t have to be good at it to have fun and get a good workout in.

1 Million Dance Studios always inspire me to learn their hip hop choreos and dances. I can always bust out a line dance the moment country music touches my ears. Somewhere deep, deep, deep inside me is a Latina and I swear when I hear salsa or reggaeton I try to call upon my inner Puerto Rican and get those hips going (note: it doesn’t go well, but it is hilarious).

Doing this challenge gave me a hate for running, but a love and passion for dance. I think it worked out much better that way.

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#52 Savings

I’ve always been good at saving money and not spending it on items I don’t necessarily need. I do buy things for fun and I make sure to spend my money on experiences that will be worth it, but I also always try to find the right deal for me.

With that said. I’ve never actually had a savings account. So last year I opened one up and I did a quick google search of how much I should have in savings by the time I’m 30. I found a few random numbers that people thought you should have by 30 and I saw some percentages for savings based off income.

In the end of that little research I decided to focus on my savings using the 50 / 30 / 20 rule, which is also what I am currently setting up my budget to be. 50% in necessities, 30% in wants, and 20% in savings. Since I didn’t really start my savings til this year I’ve been a bit more aggressive than 20% of my income every month. I’ve been making sure to divert any extra cash that way to build it and I’ve made sure to have my paycheck split into two bank accounts. That way I don’t even see that 20% ever in my bank account. Makes it way easier to save when it just happening. Bless direct deposits.

My plan right now is to use a portion of my savings to invest once I get to a more comfortable amount in my savings and have it grow that way. As for now I’ve made it a solid year of straight habit to put money in my savings and I feel like that’s a goal worthy accomplishment!

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#7 Do Another Obstacle Course Race

Ann, Sammi, and I after completing race

Acting like we cool

This one was important to me as far as health and fitness because back in 2016 I signed myself, my brother, and my dad up for a Tough Mudder and I remember it being brutal, but every time I recall the experience I remember having an absolute blast.

So I convinced 2 friends of mine to do an obstacle course race with me. I told them we shouldn’t go for a Tough Mudder as that is a commitment, but I wanted to do a smaller one and just something we could do for fun. Which led us to find a 5k Terrain Race with around 15-20 obstacles. Which was perfect for us and price wise much more affordable than other races.

These kinds of races are the best because there is no pressure and it’s just the perfect excuse to play in mud and be a kid. It’s like adult field day or just playing on a bigger version of a playground and it just makes me so genuinely happy.

Today we did the Terrain Race and we got muddy, climbed, jumped, crawled, and fell off quite a few obstacles and every bit of it was perfect. I encourage everyone to at least do an obstacle course race once in their life because it’s not a competitive atmosphere and even if you aren’t in great shape it’s still worth it to go and try your best. Plus it gives you a perfect excuse/opportunity to go play in some mud!

Which speaking of mud… After our 5k we were an absolute disaster and instead of waiting in line for the 1 hose to clean off we went on an adventure to a car wash and used the power sprayer. That in itself should be considered an obstacle cause that spray stings! Yet surprisingly does not get the mud off as easily as you would think. Also yes there was a line for the car wash and yes as we were spraying ourselves down with the power sprayer we were getting judgement from this guy behind us. No we don’t regret our decision, the car wash was the right move to get a proper body wash.

Also look at our poor shoes!

20190907_120311(0) — Muddy and Destroyed, but still trustworthy shoes

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