In the same vein as the One Thing book that the Athletic Bookworms read in December, my one-word resolution has been one that I’ve been thinking about since we were in Costa Rica a few weeks ago. Specifically, I thought about it as we were about to hop on an ATV for a day of exploring. Here’s a funny confession: Stuff like that tends to freak me out. Despite a pretty adventurous life (on paper), I’m a bit of a ‘fraidy cat. That was when I decided that my 2019 one-word resolution was going to be BRAVE.
(Not into BRAVE? Read last year’s one-word, COMMUNITY. It went almost too well, to be honest!)
It works across the board: BRAVE hopping on the ATV behind Peter and rallying around the peninsula, BRAVE as I prep for the launch of the first book in the Shred Girls series, my first fictional book and the first book I’ll have out with a huge publisher, BRAVE as I try to do more talks and camps and clinics, BRAVE as I prep to race even more ultras, a lot more seriously, this year.
(And check out the one word resolution that started this series, COLLECTED!)
The main ways I’m thinking about this word for 2019, though I’ll also be sticking it on the top of my notebooks, computer screen, bulletin boards, etc. as an ever-present reminder:
Shred Girls
I wrote about why I started the Shred Girls series a couple of weeks ago and I was psyched that people seemed to ‘get it.’ This series is super important to me because the statistics on why and how girls are dropping out of sport at a critical age terrify me. I also wish I had been more athletic in my youth—I turned out OK as far as athletics go, but if I had started on the MTB earlier, my skills would be better. And it’s largely luck and good genes that kept me from ending up diabetic and with a weight problem, given my eating habits back then combined with complete lack of physical activity. But where BRAVE comes in is going to be not just promoting the books and the website, but being able to NOT be terrified when I’m doing talks and book launch stuff, and not being scared to ask for help spreading the word about the series. I’m so proud of it, and I’m really psyched to start focusing more on the book launch and on getting the Shred-Girls.com website even more populated with fun articles, interviews and Shred Girls swag, plus behind-the-scenes book stuff.
This Website
As the world of magazines and news sites changes, I’m finding that writing on here is what brings me a ton of joy. So, in 2019, a big thing I want to focus on is this site, making it more of a career and less of a passion project. I’ll keep writing for other places, of course, but there will be a ton more content on here, and not just articles (though even those will be increasing to around 5 articles per week). There are also coaching consults available, I just did a soft-launch of what will be a wicked cool new clothing store, and I’m doing a lot more talks and clinics this season.
Ultra-Running
At the moment, I’m being brave by NOT running, despite the fact that I’m planning to race a 50K in May. That’s because I’m in the middle of rehabbing my knee from an annoying bout of tendonitis that doesn’t want to go away. Hmph. But in general, BRAVE in terms of sport this year does mean focusing on a few key races, instead of jumping into random styles of racing (Ironman, road racing, et cetera). It’s way scarier to have an actual athletic goal, to be honest!
In Adventuring
Seriously, I am a total chicken about a lot of adventure stuff. I get freaked out when sleeping in a tent (though I will happily do so, I *will* be the one waking up assuming there are bears/wolves/ghosts stalking around me. When we went surfing and ATV-ing in Costa Rica, I had to tamp down a lot of nerves to go — with the surfing, it was nerves that I wouldn’t be able to perform, not actual fear of falling off the board (the surf is very, very gentle there). ATVing was a) terror of flying off the back, I’ve never been on one before! but also b) getting lost/having the ATV break down/any number of unlikely scenarios. This year, I’d really like to lean into more adventures, and actually approach them feeling excited, not terrified. The emotions are super similar anyway, so hopefully thinking about ‘BRAVE’ will push me into excitement.
OK, let me know in the comments: What’s your one-word resolution?
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