Year End

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

The end of the year draws nigh and with it, the slightly worrying realisation that when Big Ben strikes twelve on New Year’s Eve, it will be 18 weeks since the games in Athens finished. According to my original plan, I should have completed 18 Olympic events by then – which gives me exactly ten days to do 12 events.

The truth is that I’ve fallen behind schedule somewhat. When I sit down and take stock of my athletic year, I will have the grand total of six Olympic events to remember fondly – and five of those, if we’re being honest, didn’t exactly take too much out of me. I’ve always preferred to spend this time of the year looking ahead at what is to come next year than looking back, misty-eyed at what was (or what might have been) in the last 12 months. That won’t be a habit I’ll be breaking just yet.

I’m looking forward to Christmas. It has been a busy year at work and at play, so it will be nice to cap it all off by sitting back, eating too much, drinking too much and bickering with my relatives.

I’m hoping also that the holiday period will afford me the opportunity to lay some concrete plans for 2005 – no doubt they may “gang agley” all over the place, but, as Robert Burns famously never said, it’s better to have a plan gang agley than to not have a plan in the first instance.

Thus, 2005 will see a new me. Having sated my appetites on turkey and selection boxes (though seldom at the same time), I will reform my eating habits to bring them more into line with what I’m trying to achieve. Having satisfied my need to lie on the sofa and watch old movies I’ve seen before and didn’t like much the first time, I will begin my fitness training in earnest and join a gym. And, having spent most of this year since Athens blithely passing off how hard this “Olympic thing” is going to be, I will get real and get scared.