Ring in the New!

So another memorable year is rapidly drawing to a close! Happy New Year! Out with 2009, and in with 2010!

I think that it helps sometimes to write goals and resolutions down. That way, it is more difficult to just forget about them. So here goes with a few of mine for 2010:

1. Do my fifth Team in Training event. Whether I take the plunge and do a biking or triathlon event for the first time, or do my fifth marathon / half-marathon, the important thing is to do it! Just do it! So I will!

2. Get a bike. Even if I don’t do a TNT event that requires a bike, I want to save up my money and get a bike sometime in 2010, and practice riding it to get proficient enough to do an event next year that requires a bike. If I don’t, it just becomes a convenient excuse next year to not do a century or tri.

3. Eclipse $50,000 in fund raising (cumulative for all my events) for Team in Training. I will need to raise about $9,000 - $10,000 to achieve this goal. It is not easy in this continued stinky economy, but who said goals have to be easy? It is attainable, with some work, planning, and effort.

4. Lose my extra weight. It is only eight or nine pounds right now, but that is more than enough. I resolve to get back to 172 pounds, and keep it off, not topping 175 (with clothes on) by the end of 2010. Gotta give myself a few pound margin for holiday gluttony, right?

5. Practice swimming. I’ve done almost nothing to improve my horrible swimming technique, and there are no excuses. Whether I do a triathlon or not in 2010, I am at least going to be able to swim at least ½ mile by the end of the year. Going forward, not backwards, that is!

6. Write something, get it published, and get paid for it. I have never tried to earn money for my writing. I resolve to learn how to do this and then do it in 2010. I have some good stories to write. For starters, there is the time my ex-brother in law made a fool of himself (with a little help from my brother and me) by thinking he was a wine expert. Then there is the tale of me buying my first car, what a classic (the story, not the car)! Or my first backpacking trip, a real snafu, where said car broke down 500 miles from home. I could go on, but won’t. I really see writing in my future, but it won’t happen on its own.

7. Run the Ukrops Monument Avenue 10K this March. Go for a PR! ‘Nuff said!

8. Hike more, and try to backpack again. This is difficult, because training for an endurance event and having the time and energy to hike a lot seem to be mutually exclusive. And backpacking again means using vacation time I don’t have, or using flex time to slip out of work early on a Friday to hit the trail. I don’t have that either. Which leads to…

9. Do something about my work situation. Yes, I am lucky to have a job and a paycheck. But it has changed radically there, and the biggest minus for me is that we can no longer have any flexibility with working hours. So whereas before, I could work an extra eight hours now and then and skip Friday, I can’t even do an extra hour anymore. It is simply not allowed there. So instead of complaining about it, I need to take some action where I have more flexibility in my life, while still having an income.

10. Continue this blog, as well as my blog “Oh, to be Hiking,” through 2010. I don’t get a ton of comments on either one, so I am not sure if people are enjoying them or not. But I enjoy writing them, so why not continue for a third year and see where that goes?

Ten things - I think that is a pretty good list for 2010! Happy New Year!