I think I’ve mentioned in other spaces that January is not my favorite month. While I love the clean slate of the new year and diving into new annual goals, I often feel that January drags on forever. It’s dark, it’s cold, and it can feel like a slog.
This year, I decided to try and give myself a reset for January by creating some motivational things for me to focus on. For example, I added reading the Throne of Glass series to my winter bucket list and January TBRso that I had some good books to look forward to (spoiler alert: I’m loving this series!).
Since the cold and dark of January also tends to work again any motivation I have to exercise, I also decided to give myself a personal Peloton challenge. My annual goals list already includes collecting 20k minutes in the Peloton app throughout the year, but I decided to get more specific for January.
For context, if you are unfamiliar with the app, Peloton offers a number of monthly challenges in different categories where you can earn bronze, silver, and gold badges depending on your level of engagement with each one.
In January, I decided to go for gold in all of them. That includes:
- Working out at least 20 days through the app
- Biking 150 miles
- Rowing 80k meters (did I mention that I recently got the Peloton rowing machine?)
- Running (walking for me) 40 miles
- Completing 15 strength workouts
- Completing 10 workouts in the themed “Move for You” challenge (a limited time collaboration between Peloton and lululemon with special workouts for January)
- I also decided to try and get to at least 2k minutes total for overall engagement (which can also include things like meditation and yoga)
Having this personal movement challenge has been such a wonderful addition to my January! It turns out that this was just what I needed. I have never tried to complete all the Peloton monthly challenges at once, so it’s taken a bit of planning to figure out how to fit it all in, but that also offered me a nice distraction and ensured I could get back to a regular movement practice in my morning routine.
Here’s where I’m at so far (I’m drafting this with about a week left in January):
- Worked out 23/20 days through the app (Gold achieved!)
- Biked 122.5/150 miles (Silver achieved and on track for gold)
- Rowed 45,638/80k meters (Bronze achieved and silver in view)
- Walked 47.2/40 miles (Gold achieved!)
- Completed 8/15 strength workouts (Bronze achieved and silver in view)
- Completed 10 “Move for You” workouts (Gold achieved!)
So far, I’ve also logged 2.2k/2k minutes and I’m on track to get to 3k by the end of the month.
I love a good challenge and this one has been such a bright spot for me this month. Whether I achieve gold in all the categories or not, I’ve still gotten back into a consistent movement routine with some great variety.
I think I might have found a new annual tradition!
