Tag Archives: resolutions

Steeled for 2012

2012 AustraliaCrikey, four months and a whole new year before Division6 got an update; I can only apologize; it’s genuinely been so busy, between work, visiting family, the arrival of a new nephew and a dozen, dozen other exciting, important things, that I’ve struggled to find the time – and on those occasions when I had the time, I struggled with the motivation. I do have a list of posts planned that’ll see a lot of new stuff on here in the weeks ahead…!

All continues well in our worlds; after a slightly virus-laden Christmas, we all recovered and have had some wonderful times with friends and family, including our second (possibly third) night away from Em on NYE (thanks parents!) and much more. Amanda made our house a Christmas paradise this season and – whilst its approaching time that it all comes down – it is with the child-like sadness that I note the passing of a delightful holiday season.

A few resolutions for 2012, doubtless which will have an impact on my posting here.

  1. Regain healthy eating and exercise routine. It’s been six months since I last went on a run and I’ve ignored my diet for about 15 months. It’s had an adverse effect on my weight, fitness, and how I feel in general. I’ve reinstated my draconian calorie counting (although and working my way into the draconian control over my food intake) and started the 100 push-ups programme again. When I get back down to a 32″ waist, I’m getting rid of the ‘fat jeans’ as Amanda calls them, and planning on buying a new suit in the summer. Expect more soup reviews…
  2. No procrastination! Over Christmas I sorted out filing dating back 9 months, responded to emails from the same period, finished tasks around the house that dated back an age and more. This’ll be a tough one to keep, but hopefully ‘action now’ is a motto that will serve me well.
  3. See our friends more. We’ve been a bit rubbish about this in the last year as we adapted to parenthood and country living, but we will make this change!

That’s it – a short but substantial list of resolutions. I know most NY resolutions falter but hopefully the fact that I’ll be sharing my progress on some of these fronts at least on Facebook and here will add to my motivation! Certainly I’ve had enough of feeling slightly tubby, so will be determinedly fighting that one!!

Photo via Tim Phillips on Flickr.

Running statfest

YTD mileage total  as of the start of March – 62.9 miles

Minimum target for the year, at approx 6.3 miles per week  69 miles.

So 6 miles down. But now arrived in Malaysia, on sabbatical, and have a working treadmill upstairs so plan to get running later today – although jetlag has slapped me about, as anticipated, and am running on about 3.5 hours sleep so may collapse later today and start tomorrow…

Wish me luck – think this will be what Sensei Paul calls a series of ‘sweat’ runs as  the temperature outside will climb to 34 degrees C today. Crikey.

Guest post: Claire’s British 10k experience

Fellow B2L Blogger Claire made a running-oriented new year’s resolution and kept to it! Here’s her race report. If you want to read more from Claire, and are into film, check her and colleague/co-writer Katie out over on idontwatchcoolmovies.

My New Years resolution was to get fit and start doing some exercise and the only way I could imagine motivating myself to do this was by signing up for a race. The British 10K presented the perfect opportunity – it was in July so there was plenty of time to train and it was 10k, which I thought was an achievable target but one that would take a bit more work than a 5k.

So July 11th soon rolled round and it was race day! With my dad by my side, amongst 24,998 other runners, we set of on our 10k journey. 1k came around much sooner than I expected and an attitude of ‘I can do this’ washed over me. Regrettably I lost my dad somewhere between 3-4k and I hit a real barrier around 6k, having to slow down to a fast paced walk. However, I soon picked it up again after a few minutes and got myself back on track. After another burst of walking around the 8k mark it was nearly over and I managed to push through to finish – and it was great. In my training I had only probably run up to about 8k, figuring if I could make it 80% of the way I may as well carry on until the end, and it completely worked. I wasn’t aiming for a ‘time’ as such, just to get through it, but I ended up feeling really pleased with myself as I did it in just over an hour (and ended up just one minute behind my dad after all). It was also a very hot morning and I will be eternally grateful for all the water points along the way, although you do have to be careful of the bottles littering the floor around them – a few accidents almost happened.

I have to say I wasn’t expecting the crowds and constant cheering to really have much of an impact, but it does and I have to admit I almost enjoyed it ;-) I have been for one (short) run since and plan to keep it up, so perhaps the next guest blog post from me will be for a much longer race……