Why is it that a new year marks that much of a new thing for so many people? I truly am not sure, for it’s just another day, my bags I have been neglecting to unpack for a week still weren’t unpacked this morning, my room was still a mess, elves did not come overnight and clean after me leaving this morning a new start. No I still need to clean, I still need to unpack. Although each new year does bring one thing, a chance to look backwards and into the future all at the same time.

We all take New Years Eve to look back on what we have done, the things we have accomplished or not accomplished and where we are another 365 days later from the last New Years Eve. I did my recounting and I have looked forward but really today is just another day and I still have the same chores to get down. I am not big on resolutions as many newspaper articles will recount that over 90% are broken. So this year (2012) I made a different kind of resolution of sorts and a pretty easy one to follow: If you say you are going to do it, then do it and leave the excuses behind.

I tested this today, my NYE, involved a late dinner with a few friends during which I was asked what I planned on doing to start my year, namely if I was planning to ski today. Instead I said no, as yesterday I had the urge again to run, I told them I was going to go for a run. My first exercise other than coaching since WTM. I told them the route I planned to run and how long I thought it would be. I went home last night, talked to a friend two time zones away, then was in bed and sound asleep as the new year rung in. I tried to make it to midnight found myself dosing off while reading. Probably the quietest New Year’s of my life, and at the same time one of the best.

I awoke this morning rested and relaxed, it was just another day. However, the intense need to go for a run yesterday, well was not so intense today. Michael Buble’s song – “Feeling Good” was running through my head and the lyrics, “it’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new, life for me, and I’m feeling good.” With this line running over and over in my head it, almost too much, but I decided it’s time to just go ahead a do it.

I packed my backpack, if I am running with a backpack on it normally means I am headed out for more than a half marathon or will be counting my run in hours. I got dressed laced up my shoes for the first time since the race and set off. The first person I saw, well they saw me and stopped on the access road was none other than one of the people I had dinner with. He had taken his son skiing and they were headed home. It’s always good when Joe Desena sees you actually following through with your words. As he and his son drove away, I knew I made the right decision. As I ran another friend pulled to the side of the road to wish me a happy new year, I got a few waves from friends as well. It’s nice to live in a small community even now when it’s overrun with tourists, we still look out for one another.

The run itself was not my fastest or my greatest, but I was out there and making it happen. Along the way I found out for as much as I thought I had recovered from the race, I am still feeling the after effects. The last part of my run was the toughest over three miles directly uphill on a road called East Mountain Rd. If you have been around Killington and driven it you will understand. It’s starts on the flats of Route 4 and goes up to the base area of the ski resort in about 3 miles, over a 1,500ft elevation gain.

My body ached as I propelled myself up but I kept going, my hip flexors sore from the week of coaching skiing. Many times as the resort shuttle zoomed by I thought how easy it would be to just hop in and be whisked only a few feet from my home. But instead I soldiered on and kept moving forward. When I got home soaking in a tub never felt better, I had been out running/trudging up and down mountains for the past three and a half hours and turned out going for 17 miles. As I said before nothing very fast about it, but I got it done and in the end that’s the point. I made the commitment and saw it through and that’s the real goal of life not just 2012, not backing down and taking the easy way out, instead keep moving forward until you get back home.