Why is it that the summer flies by so fast, but the winter months drag on and on forever? I can't believe there's only one more month of summer!

I've been doing my best to take advantage of the sunny weather while I can and get outside and do all the things I can't do in the winter.

So needless to say July was a pretty full month.

My cousin and I ran a 5K together

I went hiking with friends on the Billy Goat Trail.

I joined my friend's softball team.

I met up with some lovely blogger ladies for dinner and we decided to start having monthly dinners as a group.

I also spent tons of time by the pool, set a tentative fall race schedule and some July running goals.

I have to admit, I didn't do the best job sticking with the goals I set for myself.

My goals were:

Run 15 miles each week.
Giant fail. I stuck with this the first week and then every week after there I fell short. But I'm not actually upset about it. (More on that further down.)

Increase long runs to anywhere from six to 10 miles.
Also a giant fail. I did one run of 6 miles, but I mostly stuck to three to five milers. It's what worked for me this month and again, I'm OK with it.

Register for some of my fall races.
Success! I signed up for the Philadelphia Half Marathon in November and the Hot Chocolate 15K in December.

Find better balance.
I think I did this pretty well. Even though I set a goal to run more this month, I'm not really upset with the fact that I didn't. I felt like I got enough workouts in through out the month that I was still being pretty healthy. Some of those workouts were traditional runs, others were more social things like hiking or playing softball. Since I'm not training for anything, there's no reason I need to be killing myself to hit certain mileage goals and stressing out about it. I can leave that stress for a few weeks from now when training for Philly starts. For now, I'm happy with doing enough to be healthy and happy. I think July was a pretty decent month for finding balance.

 How was your July? Did you hit the goals you set for yourself?