New Year, New Me

The last 24 hours have been quite weird. Just yesterday morning I was moaning how shit I am at generally all form of exercise whether it be cardio or strength based training, however, I then took myself off to the gym as it was strength training day and all of this completely changed. I knew it would be tough over the Christmas period, so many temptations and excuses to find not to train, but that wasn't the issue, and I couldn't work out what it was. It's not unusual for me to start having these odd moments, usually when it gets towards the end of the month I know I need a PT session because I start doubting myself and the training that I am doing, thinking I'm not running fast enough, not lifting heavy enough and a particular hate of mine, training in the gym on my own, and not knowing enough about training to know what is good for me and what isn't.

When I got to the gym it was quite busy, which I wasn't expecting. I had remembered my iPod (brain like a sieve!) so I wanted to take up the opportunity to get on the treadmill and get further than the 2km at 10kph that I ran Saturday. I did, 3km in 17:58, so I was pleased with that. The strength session went well, the "weight nickers" were in force again but I managed to get the weights that I needed and a good space to do what I needed to do, the aches in my glutes and shoulders today are proof that I must have worked hard! There was a near miss where I thought I was going to throw up after my 5th set of squats but this soon wore off, either that or I just sucked it up and got on with it. I finished it off with a bit of core work then intervals on the rower. I really felt that I had worked when I came out of the gym, and worked out what the issue was, for the first time in ages I felt like I was getting THOSE looks in the gym, the ones that makes you feel that you don't belong. When I feel like this, the first thing I think is that it's because I'm fat. I need to remember that I'm being totally paranoid, I doubt anyone even noticed I was in there, let alone found the time to wonder why I was there! Plus I would like to think that what they are actually thinking is "fair play, she is working hard and doing something about it."

I got home from the gym and felt good, I had a bath, got into my pyjamas and made tea, planning an early night and a run in the morning. During the evening twitter seemed to be going completely mental and I was getting loads of messages of support and new followers from my post from Sunday, this certainly helped my New Years Eve in alone with no alcohol, instead I was high on pride from some of the messages that I was getting from people that I didn't even know telling little (well big) old me that I was inspiring them to either start their own journey or continue with theirs. An amazing feeling.

I got up this morning and took myself out for a short run, 2 miles in 20:38, this was really tough as the cold weather really took my breath away, and not being a fast runner I was really wheezing when I got back home, but the run was done so I had the rest of the day to myself. Before I went I took a quick photo of myself to compare to a photo of myself from London Marathon which I posted in my last post, when I got back I compared the two and it stumped me. I had to sit down and look again, was this really me? Had I really done this? All year when I was moaning that I couldn't see a difference it was creeping up on me, don't get me wrong I knew that I was losing but not to the extent of what I saw today:

I have to admit to having a few tears (OK a lot) seeing this and an immense amount of pride at what I had achieved. This is the first time in a long time that I have felt properly proud of myself and again the response on Twitter and Facebook has been overwhelming. New Years Day is traditionally pyjama day for me so after my run I have spent the day sorting out my diary, planning my meals and training for the rest of the week and creating an Inspiration Board:

So I guess now I will be taking a new found confidence into 2013, and with this new attitude I feel ready!