On Christmas Day, I took Haro to William B Umstead State Park in Raleigh and as we walked 5 miles on Loblolly Trail, I started making a mental list of all the things I want to accomplish in 2017. I am not one to walk with my phone very often because I like trail walking as a way of getting away from the noise from the outside world. I don’t want my phone buzzing in my pocket or people calling me to take me away from my inner peace. The way I see it, your message will be on my phone when I get back to the car! For those saying, “But what if it’s an emergency??” Well, my answer to that is that even if it is, I’m in the middle of the woods and still can’t help you! I think many people are tied to their phone and have rarely experienced the beauty of simply unplugging. Anyway…. I’m getting away from my point here. GOALS! That’s what this is about!
I divided my goals into a few different categories so that I could make sure that I was tending to every angle of my life, minus relationships. As for that, there is nothing you can do to push things along faster and nothing you can do to really create or destroy relationships (unless you're a jerk) and friendships. They will be what they will be and there is little you can do to impact that part of life. Be a good person and put good into the world and you will be rewarded with meaningful relationships with others. Besides, I am incredibly happy with my friendships and relationship with Demetrius, so there isn’t anything I am to change here. This is one part of my life I am very proud of :-)
Community Service
Health

In 2017 I will work towards eliminating most, if not all dairy from my diet. In mid-March I will be two years meat free! Consuming dairy products can still wreak havoc on your body, so that is why I plan to take even more of it out of my diet. I no longer drink dairy milk (and enjoy confusing baristas when I ask for motherless milk) but kicking the habit of whipped cream on a soy latte is still hard to kick. Baby steps… I got this!
Exercise
There are so many options for exercise goals that I need to focus on just a few. Duathlon National Championships are in Cary, NC again in 2017 and will likely move to the west coast in 2018 and 2019. I was not happy with my overall time/place this year so this might be another opportunity to try again. I also have my eye on a Half Ironman distance triathlon in April. Being a part of the Base Performance Race Team, I have committed to doing at least one half iron distance race in 2017. I would like to do a few more sprint distance races too. The goal here would be to place in my age group in at least one triathlon this year. I move up to the 35-39 age group category, so we shall see how that treats me!