It would seem a horrible cliche to most, to start something new and start doing things differently from January 1st. BUT BUT BUT, I hold my hands up here and would like to say that I have made no New Years resolutions. Instead I made a rather short list of things I want to do this year with the list looking something like this…

2017 To Do List
1. Get out of my overdraft
2. Do a triathlon.

The triathlon thing was a thought that formed at the tail end of 2016 after many talks with a friend of mine Fi, who I watched smash the Liverpool one last year. And the overdraft thing, well lets just say I was a poor student with lots of shiny kit. By Christmas I was convinced, and on January 9th we registered, paid and saw our names on the starting list for Cardiff Triathlon in June.And that was that, right? WRONG. That was probably the scariest and easiest thing that I will do this year and I realised on the 1st January that (prep for a cliche here) something was going to have to change if I wanted to compete with my friends and not embarrass the hell out of myself. 

There are really two sets of people in my life, those that I met at or during University who know me as someone for whom running is laughable and I can be largely all mouth and no trousers when it comes to wanting to get fitter. And then there are those that have known me since my school days, and endured my thrice-weekly hockey obsession for 10 years, my love of PE and my intense competitive streak that had me trying to beat everyone in anything (I was the sort of person who liked ‘winning’ the bleep test). Essentially, I just got really unfit and lazy at university, and until this moment nothing has motivated me to change that.

But for some reason on January 1st I was miraculously sans hangover and I had a day before I had to go back to work and I simply put on my trainers and snazzy new leggings and decided to run. I just, did it. No ‘training plan’ making, no faffing with water or phone arm bands, no umming and ahhing, I just stepped out the door. 1 mile later I was back victorious and slightly light headed (not so sans hangover as I had thought). I was SO happy. And since then I have been on three runs, two swims, one looong bike ride and my usual cycling commutes to work and back. The strangest thing is that it doesn’t feel strange! It doesn’t feel like I’ve overhauled my life, it feels like I’m picking up a old but familiar book that I used to love and god damn it is feeling good.

Training Buddy Fi is probably already bored with my incessant messages of “I JUST DID MY LONGEST RUN EVER” or “ignroelhgjefksd I’m so excited, wait can I actually do this?!” but if she is she has yet to tell me to shut up. Instead, to keep stoke and inspiration high, she lent me a book by Lucy Fry ‘Run, Ride, Sink or Swim’ about a rookie’s year in the Tri life. The evening it came in the post, I went out late in the evening with J as my biking companion (it was a very dark park) and ran 4.5km AKA the furthest I have ever run!!!!!! I just kept saying ‘just another lap, just a little bit further’ and it just felt GOOD. It was genuinely amazing and THAT my friends, is why I can’t wait to keep going.

Last night I lay in bed, light off having read the book for at least an hour, with my eyes wide open and my heart thumping. I was so excited. Bring it on Triathlon. Bring. It. On.

Now, who wants to sponsor us? 😛