Let's begin by knocking perfectionism on the head once and for all. This blog is going to be about the year in which I turn fifty, some of the travels and challenges I have set myself, and my honest reports on quite what happens, quite how it all turns out. I'm still not sure what has propelled me into this. It's not punishment but it won't always feel rewarding. Some days, I will feel tired, hormonal, overstretched. But I think the discipline and drive involved in pushing myself out of my comfort zone should be rewarding in the end.
My plan is to walk, jog and run a total of five hundred miles over the course of the year. And I've got off to a slow and patchy start if I'm honest. If the geographical terrain I cross this year has anything like the highs and lows of menopause, I will be a seasoned mountaineer by the end of it. In fact, when it comes to walking, I love a hill but I also love a long flat trundle. I love the slog, the one foot in front of the other, the path clearly stretching out ahead of me. Perhaps I should tell you now that I am a terrible navigator. I always joke that because I'm a terrible navigator, I made sure I married one. I think, in all seriousness, this is probably profoundly true.
If you're here, thanks for reading. Much of my journeying this year will be solo but it will be nice to have readers along for the ride. What can you expect? I like to walk and tentatively I would say that I think I like to run - slowly, effortfully, surprisingly, asymmetrically. I'm no nature expert but I love my ramblings in nature, particularly birds. And I love my writers and to follow in writers' footsteps, or sometimes simply to stumble upon an unexpected literary landmark. Yes, there will I think be a fair few birds and more than a few writers cropping up here.
So, along with my tax return and the start of all my other new year's resolutions, I am here at the start line later than intended. I have just a few runs under my belt for the month and as I write I'm under the weather and feeling a little lacklustre, quite the opposite of how I felt when I returned from my first running challenge of the year with an unbelievable spring in my step. In my next post, I will write up this wonderful experience in hope that the act of remembering and recounting helps me feel strong and determined again. I will then write a post on the last day of the month - and repeat this every month this year - with a tally of how many miles towards my five hundred mile target I have covered. I will also be including some sponsorship links to the several charity events I have signed up to throughout the year. I'd be so grateful if you'd consider sponsoring me for these events. I give you my word that I won't give up, I'll walk if I have to, and I'll get there in the end.
I can be a woman of highs and lows. I often talk about wanting to be on an even keel but I'm not sure what I mean by this. I think it will be good to search for the joy and wonder in the present moment, an acceptance of myself as I am today, feeling a little washed out and low on energy on the twenty-eighth day of January even as I dream of the excitement of feeling proud and fulfilled on the other side of one of my forthcoming challenges, or even on the other side of all of them - on the thirty-first of December - reviewing my year. Right now, it's all still to come, still mysterious. For my year of adventures to come, I am grateful and for the challenges I will encounter along the way I am ready enough.
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