Happy New Years!!!

I hope your 2014 is off to a great start. 🙂 I started my morning with a 8-mile run and some Jazzercise. I wanted to start my year off on the right foot! And I’ve ended my day with some black-eyed peas. Anyone else? I’m sure black-eyed pea sales rocket during the last week in December.

So it’s that lovely time of year where we get to make a bunch of goals and promises to ourselves about different resolutions that we may or may not completely keep during this new year. Do you have any exciting resolutions that you are working towards in 2014?

When I asked myself this, I got pretty nervous even thinking about my resolutions. I don’t know if you would really call them resolutions or simply goals for my year. My main resolutions are to eat healthier and to run more. I feel like I’ve fallen off the ‘healthy eating wagon’ during these holiday months, so I’m ready to get my body back in normal order with lots of fresh and clean eating. And running more is just a given because of the races I’m working towards.

My biggest goals for 2014 (currently!) are to run my first half marathon and full marathon races! That seems like a big feat right?! I’ve been consistently training, so I know I’ll be ok for my half that is coming up at the end of the month. The full marathon in March will be my biggest challenge though. It’s going to take a lot more than a couple months of training to push through those 26.2 miles. I’m trying to mentally prepare myself everyday for my races to come!

I’m sticking to my goals though by keeping up with my training and telling everyone I know about my race plans. My first half will be in St. Louis on Jan. 25, and my first full marathon will be in Little Rock, Arkansas on March 2. Those are my tops goals, and I’m excited/extremely nervous for them!

But maybe you’re not a runner, and you think I’m completely crazy. 🙂 Maybe you have a resolution to workout more in general. Well, I can tell you from experience that you need to make this goal very specific! For example: I commit to spend 1 hour in the gym 3 days a week. Or I commit to attend Jazzercise classes 4 days a week. Set some solid numbers in place and write it down! Plan your workouts in your calendar and it’ll be harder to skip a trip to the gym. Promise.

I came across this article on Sparkpeople’s website today:

It caught my attention because the graphic was so funny! But I definitely have this issue. I get easily intimidated at the gym and it often keeps me from doing several exercises that I really want to do! And I would hate for this ‘gym-timidation’ to keep anyone from sticking with their resolutions this year.

This seems silly, I know. I’ve been working out in gyms since I was in high school, and now I’m a fitness professional (kinda!), and I still panic when there are too many muscle men in the free weight section of my gym. SO silly. So I loved this article where it says to just suck it up! Be brave and don’t worry what those other people think. And if you catch people staring, ignore them, and just tell yourself that they are jealous of how awesome you are. 🙂

Well I’m heading back to the couch for now. I’m still not completely over this flu-like crud that’s going around. No fever today. Just some coughing, a runny nose, and some aches. Fingers crossed that tomorrow I will be back to normal!

Enjoy your first evening of 2014. Nighty night!