I write a diary, I have written a diary since I was a kid, some of it is not very interesting and sometimes I don’t write in it for a couple of weeks and then I come back to it. Much to my little girl’s amusement my Mum gives me a diary for Christmas each year - a very normal WHSmith day to a page A5 diary - this year was no different of course!
At the beginning of each year I write some notes reflecting on the year that is ending and some notes and goals for the year ahead. They are really not resolutions, I have never been one for New Year’s resolutions - no new year, new you stuff, it is usually a trip I want to take or a goal race I want to run or something I want to achieve. This year though I am struggling. I am struggling because reading through the notes I wrote at the beginning of 2020 I go through a whole range of emotions - anger, sadness, frustration, disappointment. This time last year we had absolutely no idea what lay ahead of us - and the notes I wrote talked of an anticipated trip to visit friends in Australia and in terms of running plans to run my 9th and 10th marathons as well as my first attempt at an ultra and a multi-stage race.
Of course none of these goals came to fruition and instead I think like most people I have spent the year teetering somewhere between being scared shitless, overwhelmed and not totally losing my shit! I have been lucky enough to keep working throughout but overnight I found myself working from home full-time, managing home schooling for three kids and doing all shopping and errands for my 89 year old Mum whilst she was required to shield. Sorry I digress but the point is that the person that sat and wrote out her goals for 2020 had absolutely no idea what was about to happen, how life as we knew it would be turned upside down and how out of control everything would feel.
I wonder what I would have written differently if I had known what 2020 had in store for us. Well in a way I know what I would have written - because it is what I will try to write this year - goals that have nothing to do with travelling to far flung places and running big city marathons - 2020 has undeniably been an extremely tough year and we are not out of the woods yet and I am under no-illusion that certainly the first part of 2021 is going to be any easier, I think we are almost certain to go back into a national lockdown in the very near future and a return to life as we knew it this time last year feels like a long way off yet. Whilst it has been an extremely difficult year there has been some good news and some good stuff has happened and I think I have learnt a fair bit about myself, my ability to cope, what is really important to me and just how long my tether really is!
So my goals this year will all be smaller process based goals aimed at supporting the person I want to be as a mum, a friend, an athlete, coach and employee. Goals that support me being able to show up as the best version of me, goals such as sleeping and eating right, taking better care of me, so that I can show up for my friends and family and support them as they support me. Smaller goals that will mean I am ready to go back after those big goals when the time is right.
So come on 2021 let’s be having you.
Much love as always xxx
Oh and one final goal - stay injury free!!!!