Happy New Year & Reflections on My Athletic Life

First of all, I am wishing all you bloggers the best in 2011! Happy New Year!

I thought I'd take some time today to review my athletic life. The End.  
All kidding aside, I have never been an athletic person. Never liked team sports, except volleyball, does that even count? Hated track & field day, and high school gym class, don't even get me started.
That is not to say that I was a couch potato or a real girly girl. No I guess I fell somewhere in the middle of all that. I love the outdoors, and I like activities you can do alone, or with others, but your still doing your own thing.
When I was little I enjoyed hanging out with these guys:

It was lots of fun riding our bikes around the neigborhood with my three older brothers.
I also liked:

even when I got older:

I might have even been leaning towards being this kind of girl:

When I was little I also liked:

hockey. Now my three older brothers played on teams and I really, really, wanted to play too, but back then girls weren't allowed. I thought pushing a bladeless stick through a ring was for sissies so instead, I settled for some figure skating lessons on an outdoor rink.
I also took dancing lessons for 7 yrs. I liked it, but I didn't love it. I would have loved piano lessons as demonstrated by me dragging a little toy grand piano around for as long as I can remember. But my mother wanted to be a dancer so dancing lessons it was. I did get to be a majorette, that was fun!

It was fun to go to the beach, a mile from our home with the family, growing up and later as a teen. Funny, we all went to the beach but no one got swimming lessons in those days, you were on your own.

So, I continued to grow up, through the teen and young adult years, enjoying cycling, my first boyfriend was a cycling enthusiast. He would cash his paycheck on Friday (hopefully, the bank hadn't closed and you'd have to borrow from your friends over the weekend, no instant tellers back then). Saturday, we would go to the bike store to buy lighter bike parts. So it was biking, and walking. I do love the outdoors!
Then came the baby making years (25-35)

that's me in 1990 with my first born, still hanging on to the big hair from the 80's and rockin' the wallpaper borders.
A little over seven years later, and with 3 kids in tow, I remarried and 3 more boys were added to the mix:

Okay, what was I getting myself into?? Does raising these guys count as a workout??? The three on the left are my bio kids, and the one standing, and two on the right are my bonus kids. Yes mine are the rowdy ones!
They kept me busy,

and even busier when #7 came along:

and R liked to do this kind of stuff with them when I was out getting groceries or buying laundry detergent:

Yes, during those years, I succumbed to domestic bliss and enjoyed a little too much of the baking I did for those guys, not that it stayed around for long.
I did however find a little time to enjoy a little of this:

and hiking in places like this:

Sulphur Mountain, Banff, Alberta
and this:

Jasper, Alberta - a little piece of heaven on earth.
I also managed to squeeze in a little time for some of this:

one of my favorite things to do, did I mention I like the outdoors? We are paddling here:

Columbia River, British Columbia
Meanwhile, we did a lot of family swims, with lessons this time, and hikes with the kids. I even worked out at a gym 6 days a week, running on the treadmill and doing weights for a year.
We eventually moved back to Ontario when I was 40. I spent a lot of that winter walking here:

I even got to do this with R in the Mayan Riviera:

And a little of this:

skating on the Rideau Canal,
but, it wasn't until I was 45 and woke up one day and realized I actually had a little spare time. That's why I say at the top of my blog '25 with 22 yrs. experience'. Really I was twenty-five when my first baby came along and then it seems like one day I woke up and was 45. So I had some time, finally on my hands and joined this:

a dragon boat team, (I'm second on the left side of the boat, part of the front 4 as it's known)  but not just any dragon boat team. I joined this dragon boat team:

here's another look:

finishing one of the practices. That's me in the forefront looking back toward the water.
Oh, what fun! You must try it. Great workouts, great team fun, did I say I didn't like team sports? But you see, I'm doing my own thing in the boat, it's not like I have to pass a ball to someone. I had so much fun that season (May- September) and so enjoyed the regular activity and training, that when the season ended, I wanted to keep doing something. That's when I signed up for my first ever, running clinic, with the goal to run 5K in the New Year's Eve Resolution Run last year. I had no goals beyond this. I just wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. And I wanted once and for all to be able to run outside without sputtering out. I was okay on the treadmill but whenever I tried to run outside, I just couldn't sustain it. Turns out I was trying to go too fast.
So here I sit, a year later, still running, slowly yes, but still at it and setting goals. Who knows what this year will hold.
I wish you all a happy and healthy 2011. May you all achieve your goals, whatever they might be.