Another year and so many events and challenges to come - it is exciting choosing what I would like to do.

I was so thrilled with completing 14 events last year and my first triathlon series but I think this year I will concentrate on some new skills and complete fewer events.

One of my new goals for this year is to try to jog the 12 km City2Surf event in march. Now then, when I say jogging I mean stumbling in time to music more than the image you have of someone gliding along as swift as the wind without looking puffed at all. I have began training for it and with a bit of hard work and balance it will be an achievable goal.
I am also 99% decided to join in the 20 Week Challenge again and to maybe choose a strength category this time. I have very little upper body strength so this would be a great area to maybe work on.
And then depending on how the 12km jog/stumble goes I might attempt the 1/2 marathon in June - but the jog/stumble part is up to my knees !!

I don't have any other specific goals as of yet but I enjoy having some goals which require training for and will just keep the balance and see where we get.

In July I entered the 20 Week Challenge which I thought would be a great way to stay focused and motivated and it was - I was very motivated. I was thrilled in my final weigh in to have lost 25.2kg and 92cm in the 20 weeks. For the final "after photos" I even got a spraytan which was a very uncomfortable feeling indeed. I don't think I will ever forget having to lean and lift bits!!

A few days later we all got to go to Auckland for my sister in laws wedding. I bought myself a dress for the event - the first time ( apart from my wedding dress ) I have ever worn a dress out in public, so I was very excited. I was also over the moon when I was able to fit into the airplane seat and NOT require the extra seatbelt extender. Hopefully now the horrible and degrading stories I have about flying will start to fade!
Anyway the wedding weekend went very well - new clothes aplenty. I had not seen many of our relatives for years and was not recognized by some initially - what a great compliment.

So a few days later again we had the 20 Week Challenge awards night. I had an evening dress on and was feeling great. I never knew how much work there was to looking good though - the waxing, makeup, hair, accessories, nails, toes, things that pull you in, boobs that have to point north ... it took days to work it all out !!!
At the event I saw and met some amazing and beautiful people and was blown away with their stories. I am thrilled to say that I won the major category of Best Female Overall Entrant. I was crying before I even got to the stage and then managed to cry though my speech - a speech which I have no idea what I said at all. I won a beautiful hand made pendant necklace which I admire often as I have never had anything so beautiful. It was so great to be recognized for all the work I have done in 2009 as I really have tried to make good choices and decisions.

During the last 4 weeks of the challenge I became a bit obsesses and was doing 3 - 4 hours a day of hard out exercise and to cut a long story short I had many symptoms of severe over training. My kidneys were not working very well, I had terrible insomnia, headaches all the time and was extremely dizzy due to very low blood pressure. So as I do - I ignored it and only saw a doctor after the event was finished. I was tutted at quite a lot and told to take it slower for a while and let things settle back down. So I finally did what I was told and took things easy. I also admit that my food choices were not that good, not so much what I was eating but my serve sizes were getting quite big again.
My body is now better and I am making balanced decisions again but my weight went up in december - something I knew was going to happen. I have learned that balance is not just in the food I eat but in all areas of my life. I also think it is important to own what happened, to learn from it, to say why it happened and to then move forwards from it. Today my balance is back and I am feeling good again - I think I will keep it this way now.

So 2009 was a wonderful year, I talked to, met and became friends with some amazing people and have thoroughly enjoyed my journey. It has not been easy and I have worked hard but I have never been as happy or as fit and healthy as I am today. I have great hopes for 2011 to be even better and say bring on the challenges !!!

I cannot believe it is September already, but spring has sprung and it is great to get out for some beautiful walks and to be able to get my washing dry in one day !

I have had a busy month but definitely a good month. I have now reached a 66 kg loss which is roughly 2/3's of the weight I have to lose so I am very happy about that. Hard to imagine that I am so far along in my journey as I am enjoying it so much now. My fitness continues to improve and I completed the Rapaki Track in 61 minutes which is an all time best and a very nice improvement of my original 2 hours 20 minutes I did in January !

Last week I was on the radio to help promote the PhysioMed Triathlon Series and myself. I was on air for 2 minutes and could barely get a word in as the presenters asked and almost answered their own questions. But when I did get a word in I did well and have been told I sounded intelligent - yay !

I have also taken a Community Coaching Course. It was a two day course where I learnt the basics of teaching an aerobics class. I now have to make two routines for my exam which should be before christmas.

On sunday I have a 21.1km half marathon walk in hagley park which should keep me quiet for a while and then in another three weeks the triathlons begin and then it is full on for the summer season of activities.

Other than that I have two sick children which adds another busy element to each day but hopefully we are over the worst of the vomit ... I hope !

I will try to update here again much sooner than last time.

:-)

Hi everyone

Well this website has officially been launched and not only have you all logged in but I am getting some lovely emails, comments and messages ... so thank you all very much.

I must admit that it is a bit scary at first, showing all the bad bits and moments but I am certain that I can help many other people in their journeys so it is very much worth it.

As always I have had a very busy few weeks but I have been able to do some good exercise each day so I am happy with that.

I have had my little babies 1st birthday which was great and I did very well not eating all of the very nice and very un-needed amounts of food. I made myself up a plate of some nice party treats ( sausage rolls are still just adorable ) and told myself that if I could have it at the end of the party and so there was no need to snack and then of course go crazy. This went well and I was very happy with my plate of food. As well I made sure I did a nice big walk in the morning - so there was no guilt at all.

I have also gone through the 60 kg loss mark which is brilliant. In all honesty I never even thought about what it would feel like to be 60 kg lighter - and I can tell you it is great ! So much more energy and I am so much happier.

Anyway, enough for now and I will blog again next week with hopefully some interesting news.

:-)

Welcome to my first blog. I hope you have had a look around my journey and I hope that I can inspire you not to give up.

I decided to create a website in January but it has only been in the last month that I have had a spare moment to get to work on it, and in the end I had to make time.

Well I would love to hear from you all, so please leave me a message or an email on the next page.