A whole New Year!!!

Yikes - it's 2010 already!! I appear to have been caught on the hop - I meant to post a round-up of 2009 before the year ticked over but somehow missed the boat.

This morning my head hurts a bit, courtesy of champagne straight from the bottle last night. Good start to the new year!!

So. 2009. The year started with a silly challenge from Jo for us both to get fit and healthy - which meant losing about 5 stone for me. What a ride. Here were my highlights from 2009:

• Joined Weight Watchers, learned to eat healthily again and lost 4 stone.
• Started exercising with more purpose and re-learned the place of it in my life.
• Taught myself to run - was running just over 5 or 6k by the end of the year.
• Went on a mighty 5 holidays to cool and exciting places - snowboarding in France, exploring in Oslo and Croatia, adventuring in Scotland and windsurfing in Egypt.
•Gained some confidence in myself as the weight dropped away and I found that I could succeed at things if I put my mind to it.
• Had a go at singletrack on my mountain-bike and discovered I liked it ... despite occasional falls in the mud.
• Wore a bikini - success!!
• Started the year wearing a size 18-20 - I'm sitting here this morning in a 14.
• Learned to beachstart on my windsurfer and use the harness.
• Decided to stop whinging about being single and started Internet dating.
• Learned to feel a lot better about my life and started making plans to do all the things I haven't done yet but want to.

Which brings us neatly to 2010. I have lots of hopes and dreams for this year. Some new resolutions to make and goals to achieve.

For a starter I want to finish my 2009 resolution. I'll break this down into managable chunks to achieve. I want to get to my Weight Watchers goal which is currently 11st 6lbs. I have a mini-goal to get sub-12st first. Then I want to find a weight I can be happy at for the long-run. More of a challenge as this means finding a compromise between getting to my "perfect" weight, e.g. skinny, and something realistically sustainable. I aim to try and find a point where I'm content with my body. Airy-fairy goals indeed.

More tangible - I want to run a 5k and maybe a 10k race of some sort. The January 5k is in some doubt at the moment as I haven't run for one reason or another in the last couple of weeks, but if not that one, then a later one. It WILL happen.

Now I've started exercising regularly again, I'm going to stick to it and aim to enjoy a variety of activity throughout this year. I am going to keep going to a yoga / Balance type class at least once a week though to strengthen and protect my back and other miscellaneous fucked-up joints.

And there's the big stuff. A little while ago, I mentioned big life changes that I wanted to make. I've been planning and thinking quietly and ideas are slowly forming. I'm taking a career break in 2010. In September this year I'm quitting my job and jumping on a plane for Australia. I've decided I need a challenge and something to achieve. I wanted to do something physical as I was never the sportiest person. So I'm going to spend 6 weeks training to be a windsurfing instructor. That should be a challenge!!! I'm also going to spend a bit of time travelling down the East Coast and then either New Zealand or Tazmania. Not sure which yet.

I've also got lots more holidays coming up in 2010 before that.

So that's me. An exciting year ahead. So much to look forward to and achieve. I can't wait to begin!!!

But first, I'm just going to finish with this hangover ....

-- Posted from my iPhone