I usually don’t set new goals for the New Year. Don’t get me wrong, I am all about goals but usually I set them throughout the year instead of when I am drinking champagne with friends. This year, however, my husband was sicker than I had ever seen him and the wind chill outside was below 10F, so we did not celebrate New Year’s Eve, we did not even go out on New Year’s Eve. Instead, I stayed at home and wrote down my goals for 2010.
I thought about goals such as meditating more, trying to make the house more eco-friendly, being a better friend and family member, but those still need to take some more shape up in my head before they make it to paper. So, in the end, the goals I wrote down all revolved around hiking. Several of my hiking goals have been up in my head for quite a while, but there is something about writing it down and posting it where I can see it that encourages me and holds me accountable at the same time. And putting it on my blog? Well, that’s like double the accountability and it gives me something to write about when it is too cold to go outside and play.
So in order, here they are…
March: The Foothills Trail, SC (76 miles). The Bartram Trail, NC (100 miles).
April: The Benton MacKaye Trail, GA/TN/NC (273 miles).
May: The Grand Enchantment Trail, AZ/NM (730 miles).
June & July: The Pembrokeshire Coast Path, Great Britain (186 miles). The Haute Route, Switzerland (115 miles). GR 20, Corsica (115 miles).
August: The Allegheny Trail, VA/WV (330 miles).
Sept: The Pinhoti Trail, AL (240 miles).
Now some of you might be thinking, “Wow, that’s a lot of miles, so how are you going to spend time with your husband and work amid all those trails?” Well, the plan is to set a women’s supported or unsupported record on each one of those trails, that will get me back to my hubby faster and since my work consists of writing and speaking about outdoor experiences it kinda ties in. Clever, eh?
The truth is I LOVE the trails and I want to be out there, plus I think I can do some pretty amazing things as far as records are concerned. 
Not to say that fast is better than slow, because it’s not, but it is pretty fun in it’s own right. Plus, God-willing, I eventually want babies and it is hard to hike fast and light with babies on the hip or back, so if I want to do these trails, which I do… I really, really do, now seems like the logical time.
So even though I stayed at home on New Year’s Eve, and even though I went to bed at 10:30, I woke up on New Year’s morning more excited about the upcoming year than ever before!
