Margaux Rhymes with Fargo

Back in January I wrote a post about my goals for the year, so I thought it might be fun to take a look and see how things stand now that the year is halfway over. Well, slightly over halfway because we never do things on time around here.

1. My first goal was to write 2 blog posts per month, which I very quickly clarified to be an average to give myself some leeway. I am delighted to say that I have actually written at least two posts per month so far this year, although many have come in juuuust under the deadline. In fact, in four out of the six months from January through June, my second post of the month was on the very last day. But I made it! There’s nothing like a ticking clock to amp up the motivation.

2. I wanted to do more adventuring this year, which was by far the lowest-hanging fruit on the list. I think my Patagonian and Valdivian adventures along with my monthlong sabbatical in the US more than count so we’ll call this a win for now.

3. 10 strict pullups. I’m currently at a solid 8.5, and considering the fact that I was at 8 four months ago and at 9 four years ago, the trajectory here is not looking great. And that’s coming from a math major.

4. This year I also wanted to maintain a gratitude journal, jotting down three things I’m thankful for each day. The result here is a sort-of, in that the gratitude journal exists (and has some fun cartoon cacti on it and a teal pen because they make me happy) but doesn’t get written in every day. Something to work on.

5. Stretch more. One of my Chilean friends is a yoga teacher and finally restarted classes so that’s been amazing. I’ve also been pretty consistent with foam rolling at the gym before or after workouts, so we’ll give this one a pass.

6. Bonus goal that I didn’t write about in January: after starting crossfit, I discovered that there are a lot of complex movements involved, and there are three in particular that I want to be able to do consistently by the end of the year. The first one is a classic bar muscle-up, mostly because it makes you feel like a freakin superhero. I actually got my first one on Saturday and was SO excited as seen in my expresion in the video below. The second crossfit-related goal is being able to walk on my hands consistently for 5 meters, which I can do maybe every third attempt. And finally, double-unders with a jumprope have been a huge weakness of mine from the start so I have been working on those as well, and I’d love to be able to do 50 in a row without stopping or whipping myself with the rope. I’m currently at 20 ish, but technique could use some work.

So that’s the current status. Perhaps most of these are softballs but we all need some easy wins in life. To be fair they are things I do actually care about, hence why I’ve been working on them. I’ll get back to you at the end of the year on those pullups.