I'm back

Hello! How are you? It's been a while!

As I am sure you can tell from my post title, after a year-long, intentional break, I have decided to get back into blogging.

This is largely because I really want to also get back into running. I still run, and I still love running. But recently, I have really loved... sitting around. And going for long walks. And developing my not unconsiderable Pinterest boards.

There are few things different about me now. I wish my success with the 21.1km was one of them, but unfortunately, last year I did not manage to run a whole Half Marathon. I did one, but it was a bit of deja vu. In fact, sometimes, I feel like I did worse last year than I did with my first. But that is for another day! The point is, I still have the big 21.1km to tick off my bucket list.

Since 2012, I have moved, twice, and I have been promoted at work for just over a year and a half. Although it has been is great, the new job, along with the added stress of living with people who were not amazing, did wear me down. Like, I am getting grey hairs from it. Some days it makes my heart feel heavy and old, and while I love the people I work with, I have huge respect for my boss (the owner), and there's almost never, ever a day when I dread going to work, it is hard. I stress. I worry. I let it get to me, which then makes me not want to attempt any work. Which, obviously, stresses me out further.

Thing is, despite knowing it helps my mental state, I have barely managed to keep up a once-weekly schedule, let alone got in enough runs to be any kind of training for a half mara. I've done a few 4kms, a bit of walking, a bit of Netball and Tennis here and there, I even do a bit of strength training, but I know I could do more running. For my health, I need to.

Which brings me to another reason for starting up blogging again.  Running calms me, makes me feel happy with myself (mainly when I do well... not so much after a crappy run), and keeps me physically and mentally fit. That's clear. I need to run to counteract the stresses of my job, and to take time for myself. I need to run.

But more than that, it  makes me feel like I am doing something, and this is hard for me to admit, to help me stop getting fat.

Don't get me wrong, I know I am healthy. I'm not a thin girl freaking out about unnecessarily. I was always a wee chubby thing, and have always been a not-thin adult. But recently, now that I am 25, I can feel it creeping up on me. I have more muffin. I have to eat way way healthy in order to not have a wee food baby. Some days it feels like it just spills over my jeans like it's a melting ice-cream. Sorry for the visual. It's no fun.

So. On that cheerful note, I would like to set some goals for 2014, just like I did when I first started blogging. Time to get back on the running bus (oxymoron?), the blogging band-wagon, and, for the first time, actually stay on the eating-right-for-more-than-two-weeks-being-fit-and-beating-middle-age-spread, umm, I've run out of synoymns for 'trend'... track. How's that for a running-related metaphor?!