Resolution runs hot for 2018

With the new year comes a new dedication to fitness

Congrats, you’ve successfully made it through another Christmas with your relatives. Maybe your drunk cousin reopened a few family wounds. Maybe some in-law revealed some interesting political views. Maybe you were even given socks for another year. But you’ve made it.

Therefore, 2018 is nearly upon us. Another year done, can’t believe how quickly it went, goes faster every year, and all those other cliches. Time to pick out your New Year resolution.

I’ve never felt any strong emotion towards New Year, or resolutions for that matter. As I’ve noted in the past, I have never had a New Year’s Eve that wasn’t an anticlimax, bar one. At the time of writing, this year’s hasn’t happened yet, so I will have to report back to you on that one.

The lowlight of the beginnings/ends of years I’ve lived through has to be 2013, when I chose to stay at my nana’s house, lacking the foresight to account for the fact that she would be in bed by 10pm. I did an audible countdown by myself in the lounge at midnight, unable to decide whether it would be more tragic to do the countdown by myself, or not do it at all. In retrospect I feel I made the wrong decision.

I don’t recall my New Year resolution that year. Nor do I recall any New Year resolution I have made before, because they’re about as paper thin as the socks Uncle Len gave you, and hold an equal amount of value. I’ve never made good on any of them before, and I suspect you haven’t either.

But this year is different. This year I’m feeling like a productive member of society, capable of self-motivation and cardio.

So in a move that has dismayed everyone around me, and that will cause great disbelief in anyone reading this who knows me, I’ve decided to run a half marathon in 2018.

To come clean, I’ve had this resolution since November. I say this for the sake of some of the running elitists, who seem to look down on the new crowd that emerges at the start of every year with lofty goals and shiny new gear, to be found on Trade Me or the back of the wardrobe a month later. I say good on them for trying.

However, they say the best way to keep a commitment to yourself is to share it with others. So I’m writing it here for posterity. If I had Facebook, I suppose I would write it there to keep myself honest while simultaneously trying to impress huge numbers of people who don’t actually care, but I don’t, so this will do nicely.

Just to emphasise the significance of this commitment, let me talk you through my past running achievements. In the Year 8 school cross-country, I slothed across the line dead last in the whole year group. Last place from 60-odd kids, beaten by even the most rotund children. I was not what you would call an athletically blessed child.

Since then, despite playing a bit of sport, I have rarely run farther than the distance of two doorways with rain inbetween them. My PE teachers have heard increasingly creative stories to excuse me from practices and classes — ingrown toenails, shin splints, other various ailments, some not seen in the First World in decades.

So why on earth would I do this, you ask? The answer is so that I can say I’ve done it.

There are few statements people make that leave me in such awe as saying they can run a long way. The idea that the person sitting in front of me could just get up from the table and run off into the horizon leaves me in no doubt of their superiority. I hope to be able to casually slide it into conversation myself this time next year.

So I’m set. I’ve got running shorts that make me look like Nick Willis, paired with a running style that looks like Nick Willis in the mid 2060s. If I can’t look the part while running, I’ll at least look the part standing still. Convenient, given that’s how I’m currently spending the majority of training runs.

If anyone has any advice, then let me know. If you spot me in public, feel free to come and ask me how my training is going, and if my answer is at all hesitant or sheepish, feel free to berate me for being both lazy and a liar.

Otherwise, see you at the Queenstown Marathon in 2018.

Happy New Year, and my very best wishes to you and your kin.