2012 A Year in Review

With it being the last day of the year and all I thought it would be a good idea to have a 2012 year in review.

2012 has been one very interesting year.

It has been a year of self-discovery, hard work, sweat and tears.

One thing is for sure.

I have definitely gone outside my comfort zone.

There have been things that I have done that I never thought would be possible. Setting goals has helped, but regularly re: evaluating those goals has also greatly helped.

At the start of the year some of my goals looked like this:

1. Get to 65kg
2. Run 5km race in 27 minutes
3. Swim a 1km ocean swim in 25 minutes
4. Read 24 books in 2012 with my eyes
5. Have weekly family fun time

So how did I go?

Well I totally SMASHED them.

So let me break them down for you.

1. Get to 65kg

When I started goal setting back in October 2011.

I put down a goal of getting to 65kg.  Why 65kg?  It seemed like a nice solid round number that happened to be in the healthy BMI.

I did however think that goal would be a lot of hard work, and to be honest I wasn’t sure I would get there.  I thought that if I could just get to 68kg then I would be happy.

You see I was 78kg at the time and 10kg seemed like a lot to lose.  But as the weight slowly came off, I believed in myself more and realised that 65kg was totally possible.

On the 24th of July 2012, I weighed in at 64kg.  I not only reached 65kg, but I also went one further and got to 64kg.

Not only that.  I ended up changing that goal to 62kg in May.  And I achieved that goal of reaching 62kg on 20th November 2012.

2. Run 5km race in 27 minutes

When I put down this goal, it was initially run 5km.  However, a goal is not a goal if it is not SPECIFIC.   When you really are specific about goals, you really push yourself, and you will be amazed at what you can achieve.

The race that I had in mind to achieve this goal was Run For The Kids .

I knew I could run 5km in 30 minutes.  Wiping off 3 minutes is a lot when it comes down to running (I did not know this at the time, but I do now).

Run For the Kids wasn’t 5km.  It was 5.2km.  I ran that race in 28mins14secs.  Not bad considering I had only started running in October 2011 (and not even regularly running at that).

After running that race, I pushed myself even further.  I put myself down for an 11km race, and then I went on to run a half marathon!

I should also note that on the 24th of August 2012 I ran my fastest 5km, at 23m42s. You can read about that here.

3. Swim a 1km ocean swim in 25 minutes

I put this on my list of goals because at the time I was thinking that I could do a triathlon sometime in the future.  I mean I could swim, I could run, I could ride a bike.  Even doing a mini-triathlon could totally be possible.  So I broke down that goal.  I knew that if doing a triathlon would be something I wanted to do then I needed to get into open swimming.

So I started training in the swimming pool to build up my swimming endurance.  I based this goal on swimming laps in a pool.  Let me tell you now, swimming in a pool is COMPLETELY different to swimming in the ocean. You have a lot more variables swimming in the ocean than you do in a pool.

So this particular goal I still achieved, because when you take into consideration I based my time in a pool, and not in open water, and also taking into consideration I swam breaststroke 80% of the time, and also currents to deal with, and a mass of people and so on, I’m crossing it off the list.

I swam the 1km race in 28mins. If you wanna read about it, you can see it here.

4. Read 24 books in 2012 with my eyes

Now you might think this is a weird goal.  Read 24 books with my eyes?  I mean what?

Why eyes?  Why eyes specifically, well you see I also listen to audiobooks while I do housework, but it doesn’t seem fair to add them to the list.  So that’s why I was specific about this goal.

I ended up reading read 26 books in 2012 (I’m currently on my 27th book for the year).  You can see my list of books on Good Reads.

5. Have a weekly family fun time

Family time has always been important to me.  I have so many fantastic memories growing up, and all those memories are ones that I created with my family. I want my kids to have those types of memories too. So I have been making more family fun events and it has been great bonding with my kids.

We have gone bushwalking in the Grampians.  There are so many different tracks, and being in nature is fantastic.  The kids love seeing the wild animals and love to explore.

I’ve also taken them to different playgrounds.  I tend to do this more so when we go to visit my parents in Melbourne. to different playgrounds, to the zoo, to the movies, and play board games.  Some take up a lot of time, some a little, some a lot of money, some free.  Either way, we have all had fun.

So what are my goals now?

Here are a list of some of my current goals

1. Read or listen to 30 books
2. Run 3 half marathons
3. Be a pace runner for a half marathon
4. Run 7 fun runs
5. Create a veggie patch
6. Complete 5 chin-ups in a row
7. Have a chicken coop.

It shall be fun crossing them off and then replacing them with new ones.

I’ve already booked myself in for 3 events, one of those being a half marathon.

Let’s discover what I can do while enjoying quality time with my family.