September is my absolute favorite month. Not just because it’s my birthday month (it’s the 13th, presents not necessary!) but fall is my season. I love nearly everything about summer fading into fall (except less daylight) and there is no place better to live than New England in the fall. With the summer addition of a puppy to our lives, we are really looking forward to bringing her to the beach in the off season (day after Labor Day) and we found an awesome dog park that is free (normally it’s $15 to park due to a nearby beach) after Labor Day. Apples, foliage, pumpkin beer + cider, cooler temps and fall mountain biking and trail running are some of my favorite things. And as much as I love iced coffee, I really do enjoy when it’s cold enough outside that hot coffee doesn’t make me sweat while drinking it. (Side note: who are these people that can drink hot coffee while walking around city streets when it’s 90 degrees out? I WOULD DIE.) I’m in the midst of “I need this coffee mug, and this coffee mug…” shopping season (seriously $4.99 mugs at TJ Maxx are my jam.) How cute is this one?

Outside

Nerd Alert (Bottom Inside)

So much to my dismay, I won’t be able to start taking graduate classes until the end of October. With the accelerated 10 week semesters that my school offers, it means the school year is a bit out of sync with the traditional college semester schedule. I guess that just gives me a bit more time to get my ducks in a row and tackle some goals.

September Goals:

1. Learn/study material for AdWords and Google Analytics certification exams. And take said exams to obtain certifications. Fairly self-explanatory as I try to grow my marketing and advertising knowledge base in order to shift my career focus. And no excuses for not doing this as they are both free.
2. Get into the damn pool. I love swimming and being in the water and it relaxes me so much. But swimming in a pool with other people in my lane and being worried about my form and being judged (I know, everyone else isn’t actually looking at me) gives me anxiety. I never got into the pool earlier this year so now is the time. I have a few options for this including a Masters Swim/SwimFit workout at the Y down the street – if that’s not for me there are coached workouts elsewhere and swim lessons to consider.
   
3. Actually update and improve my coaching website: A Time to Run Coaching. I rely a lot on word of mouth with my coaching business (and CoachUp sends runners my way as well) but a non-functional uninformative website isn’t doing me any favors. My website needs to make my pricing, coaching philosophy and policies clear. I’m a good coach and I charge a fair bit less than coaches with similar level experience (my #1 coaching philosophy is that everyone should have access to a good coach. No more injuries or overtraining due to silly mistakes!) so I need to make that clear.
4. Finish 4 books in September. This shouldn’t be too hard. I make time to read at least 30 minutes every day (or at least Monday-Friday) and have found reading to be very beneficial to my mental health. Reading has encouraged me to be creative, think outside the box and go after what I want.
   
5. Be consistent with my own training. I’ve had a lot of good reasons for being wishy washy with my training early this year but I’m self-sabotaging my own fitness as of late. Not making smart decisions with food/food timing and sliding back workouts (especially runs). I have prehab down pretty well right now: legs up the wall, foam rolling/sticking/TP ball, and rolling my arch on a frozen water bottle at least 5 days a week. I do 2×45 minute strength workouts a week plus have recently added 20-30 minutes of agility/speed training with an agility ladder. I’ve been adding 30 minutes of home practice yoga and 10-20 minutes of meditation once a week. Yoga + meditation have been a gamechanger for my well-being. And Brian gifted me a monthly massage package so I’ve been back on the monthly massage train since July. I set myself up as an athlete under my FinalSurge coaching account so I have a legit plan in writing and I can slide workouts a bit, but will not delete any and will have to deal with seeing the workouts as being red (overcompleted/undercompleted/not done) if that’s how the cards fall.

All of these goals are certainly possible to complete this month. Nothing should be too difficult, but things come up and my goal is really to force some changes for the better – if I don’t pass or even attempt one of the certification exams it will be okay. Trying to make forward progress rather than just saying “Oh I’ll do that later…”

What are some of your September goals? Are you excited for fall to come – or sad about summer ending? Any fun fall activities or races planned for you?

Jill