Getting Back on Track with Goals, Resolutions and Patrick Stewart

Greetings, greetings, one and all. Welcome to your New Year and to my first post of 2014. I hope you all had a fabulous holiday period, whether you celebrate or not, and that you were able to share NYE with people you care about. Pleasantries out of the way, let's crack on!

You don't really need to know what I got up to over Christmas and NYE… suffice to say there was a lot of food, some awesome presents including book tokens, new gym kit, a whole stack of chocolates (I'm getting mixed messages mum) and a gliding lesson. I spent about 9 days constantly in the company of people I adore but I must confess it's quite nice to have a little time to myself again, not least to start reading the books I bought.

This is how I roll in the kitchen on Christmas Day

A veggie Christmas dinner. And very tasty it was too.

Anyone would think I like James Cracknell

From reading other people's blogs and twitter I see that a large number of you are taking part in Janathon, Jantastic, starting marathon training and going out for parkruns in the rain and wind. I commend you all. I haven't been. Oh I had the *intention* of going to parkrun on New Year's Day, but I didn't make it. The only exercise I did over Christmas was a brisk 4.5 mile walk on Christmas Day and an afternoon of climbing which I absolutely loved.

I was actually signed up to do Janathon and I forgot, until I saw everyone posting, by which point it was too late to do anything except for some sun salutations (which I did). I'm not going to play catch up as such, and you won't see me blogging everyday about it but I am aiming to workout everyday from now on and I even went down to the gym yesterday to make a proper start on what turned out to be a thoroughly enjoyable and ache-inducing workout. As was to be expected, it was absolutely swamped with determined people on a fresh wave of New Year's resolution enthusiasm. And good for them, I hope it lasts and that everyone they encounter encourages them. I'm going to make an extra special effort to be positive in the gym and not huff and puff at the crowds. Lord knows it's hard enough to stick to a resolution without feeling victimised for it.

Clearing off the medal rack for the coming year's races...

I stopped making resolutions a few years ago and instead took up the practice of making goals and coming up with a word for the year. I use Susannah Conway's workbooks for this and I find the whole process really therapeutic. My word for 2014 is "Possibility". I have a few goals that I'm willing to share… amongst the new PB's I'm got in mind and the continuation of my studies are a few daily goals; stretch, find something amazing about each day and document it, come up with one "will do" for each day instead of having a whopping "to do" list. That way I won't be thinking about all the things I didn't manage to do from a never-ending list.

Annual ritual. Looking back, and forwards

In January I'm focusing particularly on being kind, decluttering and getting more protein into my diet. I've got a stack of protein powders to be getting on with so it'll probably involve a shake every day. So that's me. I'm feeling quietly positive and excited about the year ahead and looking forward to trying an NTC workout tonight before settling down with one of my new books.

But what about you? Any goals or resolutions you'd like to share? Did you stick to your fitness goals over Christmas or are you trying to get back into the habit, like me? I'd love to hear from you on that.

I'll be back to posting here regularly now with the usual mix of updates, recipes, race reports and reviews but for today I'm going to leave you with a picture of Patrick Stewart being awesome. Have a great week all!