How is it the end of 2019 already

(Image borrowed from google)

Ok so I think its safe to say I am a pretty crap blogger, I had all good intentions of writing more when I last posted in March 2018 but… nothing, zero, zilch, nada.

So whats actually happened in those 21 months, well we have mostly finished decorating our new home, we have had a few lovely holidays, made an extremely extravagant purchase of a hot tub which we love and definitely helps you wind down at the end of a busy day so in my opinion, was worth every penny

I was diagnosed with a high cholesterol & blood sugars, a hormone imbalance, fibroids and possible perimenopause/menopause, I’ve had breast lumps that fortunately have been benign and likely caused by the hormone imbalance, I have had two small surgeries the most recent being last week (I will try and do a post between Christmas and New Year better explaining the surgeries and what’s going on there)

I ran the hardest half marathon of my life, I shouldn’t have even attempted it but I’d promised a friend but the stress of finding the lumps in my breast, then my first surgery followed immediately by a chest infection totally derailed my training, I had to walk the final 6 miles despite managing 9 miles in training on the day I had nothing left in the tank, the day after the race I was back at the hospital having a gyney scan, the day after that I was meant to visit a friend for a coffee, the walk from her house to mine is less than 10 minutes, I walk it daily, but two days after the race I hadn’t even walked a 1/4 of the way there when I had to turn back, I knew my legs just wouldn’t make it, my legs have walked 6 marathons, they run 1 marathon, my legs never fail me but in March 2019 they firmly told me they’d had enough and they wanted a week off

Punta Cana Beach

I caught salmonella poisoning on the last day of a fabulous holiday (that was a fun flight home from the Dominican Republic) I started to fall into depression again, nothing was going right, I was fed up with constantly being ill, Drs and hospital appointments each week

Then suddenly in August things started to change, my mindset started to switch, a friend Mollie decided that following injury she wanted to do a run streak to help her re-find her running mojo, I decided to join her, it was only a mile a day, I could do that, I knew I had a few days holiday booked at the end of August so I made the commitment to myself that I would complete 31 miles by the end of August the equivalent of a mile a day although I may not actually run every day, in fact, I had no intention of taking my trainers to Gran Canaria with me, this holiday was booked to let my hair down, lazy days by the pool, drinking until sunrise, I would have been kidding myself if I said I would run on this holiday

I completed my run streak, I had a fabulous holiday & bizarrely my weight had started moving in the right direction again, a couple of amazing opportunities came my way but self-doubt stopped me taking them up and depression started creeping in again that I wasn’t good enough that I was an imposter, thankfully others believed in me and each opportunity is waiting for me to accept & get started within the new year if only I can start believing in myself

So here we are almost at the end of December 2019, I’d really hoped last weeks surgery would have been drawing a line under all my gyney problems, unfortunately, it hasn’t my surgery wasn’t successful & it looks like I’ll be having some form of hysterectomy in 2020, definitely not the news I wanted, I genuinely thought I’d be entering the decade with a clean slate

So how did I get on with those 2018 goals

• finish my Nutrition Course
• sell my flat – SOLD
• start drinking 2 litres of water a day
• restart c25k – running a slow but steady 5k
• finish renovating our home
• eat at least 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day
• lose 50lbs – I think I gained more weight since setting this challenge, meaning I needed to lose 57lbs to get to my happy weight, I am 30.3lbs down & confident I will lose the rest in 2020, in fact as most of my plans for 2020 are now on hold until I know when & which surgery I will be having, my weight is the one thing I have control of so will be my priority

So that’s the last 21 months rounded up into a few short paragraphs, 2020 is not gonna be the year I expected it to be but I am hoping I can still make it a positive year with lots of exciting things happening, I had planned some fitness challenges, they will have to be scaled down most likely but I am looking forward to activity being part of my life again, I have got a few holidays and weekends away booked which we are hoping can still take place, so fingers crossed 2020 will still be fab & I promise to post a lot more regularly.

Please let me know how your 2019 has been and what your plans are for 2020.