Question, what do Leo Tolstoy, William Faulkner, Stephen King, and Amy Tan all have in common?

They're all authors who have books on the Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge! Every year I set a reading goal for number of books read, typically 100. This year I decided to be different and go for a specific set of books.

A few years ago I had attempted to start the Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge but got distracted by life and quit. While thinking about what to set for this years challenge I decided to give the RGRC another go. I have located this list from Betty Vintage that I like the format of and plan to follow along and mark up the list as I go.

My goal for this year is to get through at least a third of the books on it. Ideally, I would like to take the books in order as found on the list. But, depending on availability at my library and other resources I may need to skip books and get back to them.

What's your reading goal for 2019?

My 2019 riding goals are fairly basic and not very detailed. As always, I just want to focus on where life takes us and what the mares tell me they want to do.

1) Get them successfully settled into their new home!
The mares will be moving out to my parents place after the shed is extended to accommodate them. I hope to help them through this transition so they can settle down comfortably and enjoy their new home. I expect there will be large learning curve going from boarding to self care so I look forward to conquering this with them!

2) Take both mares out on the trails.
The new home will have trails and a shared riding arena. I can't wait to take the girls out on the trails and go exploring with them! We already have a few friends to go riding with so I anticipate this being fairly easy to achieve once they settle in.

3) Work on the Intro and Training Dressage movements
I would love to continue my dressage education, but because of the pending move I am not sure if  we will have the resources available to work with a trainer but I do plan on working on bending and transitions with my girls.

Overall, these are not overly ambitious goals but I wanted to set the bar low since I will be asking the girls to completely adjust to their new home and living schedule.

It's that time of year again! Time to set goals that I probably will forget about and time to try and achieve the "New Year, New Me" mentality that everyone seems to focus on for the first few days. I've separated these into a four different posts, each post focusing on a different aspect of this blog. The first post is my running goals for 2019!

1) Actually maintain a consistent running schedule, ideally 2 times a week.
Every year I try to focus on adding more mileage, bu this year I've decided I need to step back and focus on maintaining the consistency and quality of my running. In a perfect world I would manage 3-4 running sessions a week, but in my world I've decided to focus on twice a week with one run on the weekend.

2) Incorporate more hill work.
I hate hill work. I hate walking hills, I hate running hills, I just hate hills. So for 2019 I've decided to try and master the hill work which will hopefully help me achieve a better pace during races.

3) Take advantage of the dog stroller.
Yes, I am one of those people. My dogs have a stroller and with 70 lbs of dog in that stroller it is extremely difficult to push. The stroller is designed to be run with so I really should take advantage of that and run with the dogs. Hopefully their extra weight will work to improve my pace and muscle growth to make pushing myself during races easier.

What are your running goals for 2019?