Well, that’s 2017 done! How am I doing?

New Year’s eve is traditionally a time of reflection and planning forward – hopeful about the year ahead whilst acknowledging the journey of the past year for good or ill. You will know that I have set myself 50 challenges to complete by the end of 2018 – one challenge for each year that Break charity has existed. My hope is that this will raise some cash for the services that make such a difference to some of the most vulnerable young people in our community – but also I hope it will raise the profile of the charity and maybe encourage others who have a similar history of not feeling able to participate in sport or similar to give it a go – on the basis that if I can do it, anybody can!

In reality the challenges have given me so much too – I have found out more about myself, about my self defeating messages that can limit my own expectations of myself, about how much fun I can have, about having some capacity and determination for physical exercise, about being able to meet new people – I’ve had a ball!!

I have completed 16 of the 50 challenges and am on the way to completing a further 16, leaving me with 18 to complete in 2018 from scratch!

So, from 2017

Most scary challenge                                                                 Skiing downhill

Challenge I am most surprised to have achieved            Skiing downhill

Most proud of achieving                                                           Skiing downhill and completing 3 triathlons

Warm, fuzzy feeling challenge                                               The quilt

Best birthday challenge                                                            50 mile walk with my lovely colleagues

Best fundraising challenges (so far)                                      50 mile walk and cake sale

Best new experience                                                                   Open water swimming or maybe my lovely new bike

Some of the challenges are long term and need commitment to complete – 50 hours circuit training, 50 park runs, 50 cycles to work – these are well on the way to completion and I have set some more challenging ones for next year – 500k running and 500 miles cycling, 50k run in a month. In some ways these are the more difficult as there is no climax – its just steady slog – but they make a real difference to how I feel and what I can do. The benefits of feeling fitter are considerable for me and I will keep going when all the challenges are over.

Next year the big ones are a 5k swim in a day, an open water triathlon and 50 mile bike ride and losing those extra pounds to take me to losing a total of 50 pounds.

I have 4 more challenges to set – I’m wondering about swimming the equivalent of the channel over the year ( 22 miles) but would also like some non-active ones as I have lots of active ones to do – any ideas?

So for 2018 – I hope its a happy and healthy one for you all. For me – well I’d better get going…..