Forget resolutions.

The theme for 2026? Joy in abundance.

Hello everyone. I hope you’ve all had a restful break and are feeling energised for 2026.

A year’s ending is a reflective time for a lot of people. For me, it’s always been an opportunity to turn the lens inward and think about who I am becoming, and how the year has shaped me. I think about the people that impacted my year and what I can learn from those experiences. I think about what I have enjoyed to gauge where to put my energy. I also think about what I am enjoying a bit less than before. For me, this is a more helpful approach than an arbitrary list of resolutions or specific goals that are often achievement based.

A lot of people affix health and fitness to a New Year’s resolution: the January wellness industry was alive and kicking long before wellness was a mainstream word. And it’s true that showing up for ourselves through physical endeavours can help us become better versions of ourselves; the smaller, meaningful acts show us what can happen through intention and commitment. But there is a big difference between getting comfortable with your own reflection and actual self-reflection. Perhaps one enables the other. Maybe?

One of my commitments to myself this holiday season was to give myself a pause to reflect on this monumental year. In January, I felt, for many reasons, like I needed to shrink. In April, I went through a break up and launched Salty with nothing but an Instagram story for promotion. It now has subscribers in 43 countries and in 38 of the 50 US States; my readership is bigger in America than in the UK. I’m grateful to every single one of you.

I remember gossiping with my friend a few days after my first post went live; we were in Cecconi’s after the London Marathon. She told me she felt it was going to be a big year for me; that something huge was going to happen. I felt it too, which seemed odd to me considering my recent circumstances. Since then, my world has expanded a thousand-fold. I’m interpreting it as a sign that you have to sometimes trust the timing of your own life.

I’ve since consulted for agencies and on projects for Nike, YouTube, On, Lululemon, and more. I got invited to Wyoming with Satisfy and lived on the Diamond Cross Ranch for the week with the team and the athletes—it still feels like a dream. On the ranch, I squeezed in a consultancy call with an insights studio that I have worked with ever since; our conversations are so enjoyable and fulfilling, they never feel like work. I’ve written cover stories for Monocle and HTSI. I did the Represent 247 backyard ultra without training. I ran the New York marathon without training. I have a job that I adore and which enables me to travel to America every month—last month I went, quite literally, to Hollywood. I moved house and I’m no longer afraid of my own shadow.

Come December 31, I am (mostly) at peace. That’s not to diminish the difficulty of a relationship ending without even a conversation—it’s called the avoidant discard, and while I empathise that it’s a coping mechanism, it’s awful to experience. But I now wake up every morning feeling happy. My life has transformed and my world has quite literally opened up.

What am I taking from this year? Themes of growth, abundance and joy. Those are what I want to hold onto.

The Salty Digest for 2026

More of: Embracing random workouts

This week, I’ve booked into a class with Sanctum, a somatic workout class with headphones; it sounds terrible but it’s genuinely liberating. It’s an exercise class where exercise isn’t the main MO, which is quite refreshing in this era of high performance and fitness tribalism.

I first experienced Sanctum at SIRO in Montenegro, and it was an unexpected experience: the diverse soundtrack took us from Max Richter (favourite) to Britney Spears (also favourite). You move rhythmically in a darkened room while the instructor speaks to you via your headset. It’s part dance class without any technical steps, part meditation, part therapy. No doubt to some people it sounds cringe and maybe if you were a fly on the wall watching it unfold, it is. But it’s incredibly cathartic to move your body in a way that feels almost primal, and equally, it really fosters getting rid of our adult self-consciousness. More things like this.

More of: Engaging with your childhood self

One fundamental truth of adulthood is that we forget how to play. But last week, I did my first handstand in 25 years having become enamored with calisthenics content on Instagram. I still managed to hold it for a few seconds. Joy.

Doing a handstand reminded me how much I loved to do acrobatics as a kid. I was not a gymnast but I did ballet, I was good at the monkey bars and oddly always had a lot of upper body strength, especially for my size. I don’t remember learning how to do a cartwheel, a headstand or a handstand. I was just always able to do them. I still can.

I did a calisthenics class this week, and I really enjoyed it. It was fun to practice something I had never done before and to learn something truly new. There are so many wrist and forearm warmups—who knew!—and so much of the class is focused on your shoulders, scapula and traps. So much of it is about micro adjustments and grip strength. I want to practice more. I want more playtime. I want to be able to swing around the bars and do handstand gymnastics.

Calisthenics is a practice that’s about to blow up. It combines the strength of the gym with the grace of ballet, gymnastics and Pilates; it’s about power and elegance, expression and control, performance and poetry.

There’s a lot of duality in calisthenics, which feels apt for now, when so much of life or exercise is a binary—you’re either this kind of sportsperson or that kind of sportsperson. Why can’t we be all of the things? Calisthenics feels like the grey area of life, represented in sport form; it’s not either/or. It’s both at once. Plus, I want to live a life where it’s totally normal to do a cartwheel in public.

Less of: Pigeonholing yourself

In 2025, I ran 25% less than in 2024 but I moved my body more. Do I still count as a runner?

Having barely run since summer, I somehow still racked up 2,800km this year. Upon reflection, I realise my mileage for 2024 (3,700km…) was far too high: two marathons, an ultra and a love for a Sunday 30k will do that for you. My stats for Pilates have gone up. My stats for the gym also went up. Now tell me, how exactly do I log calisthenics…?

It’s pretty interesting how we come to define ourselves through our primary sport. Exercise tribalism has never been more polarising than it is today. Anya Culling, the Team GB marathoner, posted recently how she’d had a crisis of confidence after getting so into triathlons and cycling, she asked herself: am I still a runner? It’s pretty startling that a professional athlete and 2:34 marathoner has these thoughts and feelings.

I do think running in particular suffers for its inherent elitism. It’s something we all need to reject. I have spoken to lifelong runners, and I have read posts and listened to people talk who are aggrieved that newcomers are practicing it in a way different to themselves. Runners are annoyed about Hyrox and they are annoyed about hybrid athletes running fast marathons or doing track workouts. Brands experience it, too: trail heads went into meltdown when Tracksmith launched its trail collection. As if the trails were the exclusive domain of the people who discovered it first, or those who wear Salomon vests. As if track runners or marathon runners or preppy runners aren’t allowed on the trails.

There will always be people in a different lane to us.

And honestly, I think the attitude is disappointing and it disrespects the very ethos and nature of running—it’s for everyone. There isn’t one way to enjoy a sport. Not everything is meant for us. It’s okay for other people to show up differently. It’s okay that more people than ever are doing the thing we love. Whatever avenue gets people into running, discovering the benefits and enjoying it is, overall, a good thing. No?

If anyone has the right to complain about the state of running, it is the would-be elites in Kenya whose sport is so underfunded, they don’t even have access to shoes. Also: elites and sub-elites in major cities who get no sponsorship because casual, amateur run clubs and influencers and press (including myself) get given kit for free. A very valid complaint and I agree that every brand‘s marketing budget should be better spent on giving back in ways that truly enhance the sport.

And yet… the sub-elites I know are generally happy that people everywhere are running. They aren’t the ones complaining about Hyrox or Tracksmith‘s trail collection. They aren’t the ones griping about new runners wearing Alphafly for their marathon. Hobby runners complaining is a little ironic in the grand scheme.

Plus, you don’t see or hear the Pilates crowd up in arms because runners are making reformer slots sell out faster than ever. You don’t hear gym bros or bodybuilders telling runners to move out of the way as we’re doing our silly little weighted calf raises. You don’t hear yogis complain that runners with their extra tight hips and flimsy hamstrings are showing up to class as stiff as a board and barely able to sit cross legged. Why, then, do runners feel the need to get so hypocritically territorial? Why can runners go to the gym but be annoyed that gym bros are running?

There is space for everyone in every sport. There’s enough diversity of personhood, personal taste and interest level for everyone to enjoy any sport and experience it as they see fit. Be like Anya. Embrace the abundance mindset! And also, respectfully and lovingly, get a grip.

:)

More of: sleep—and guilt-free shopping

I commissioned Ramla Ali, the Olympic boxer and genuine legend, to write a story about sleep—a subject she, as a professional athlete, is a specialist in. “Lots of people today would spend $500 on cryotherapy packages but won’t invest $200 in blackout curtains and a quality pillow,” she wrote. One of the key takeaways was how investing in quality bedding was critical to having a solid night’s shut eye.

I’ve had quality Egyptian cotton bedding for around a decade, to the point that I was fanatic about it. I’m a taurus: white sheets are crisp and clean and harmoniously hotel-like on the eye. But I recently experienced a sudden urge to get rid of it. It’s been interesting to me how this transformative year has played out in my interior choices. I’ve developed an aversion to so many things I once loved. Like a snake sheds its skin, I needed to shed my Ercol Quaker dining chairs. (They are now for sale if anyone is in the market.) White sheets are the latest victim.

With Ramla’s wise counsel in my mind, I took myself to Tekla. And honestly? I’ve slept incredibly well every night since. Last night, I got 9.5 hours, which is unheard of for me. My sleep debt on Oura is zero for the first time ever. Lesson learned: you’ll never regret bringing more colour into your life.

More of: Men doing the work

Honestly, if all men (coupled or not) focused as deeply on self discovery as they do locking into a sub-3 marathon attempt, perhaps we wouldn’t be in this situation.

Chanté Joseph’s stellar Vogue story about single women choosing themselves both captured and defined the zeitgeist of 2025. Not all men behave badly, but every woman I know has had multiple bad experiences. And women are tired. Women generally are doing the work to reflect, learn and grow—not just in sporting achievements, but as people. Compassionately, men need to do the same.

We raised men to believe emotion was a weakness and since forever, it’s resulted in men not showing up in the ways they could, should or maybe even want to. Modern dating, bare minimum effort, internet culture and the ability to ghost has made it worse than ever. Men are disconnected from connection.

From the age of 4, girls develop academic and emotional intelligence faster than boys. In modern adulthood, the gap is wider than ever. The fix is not for women to shrink to cater to the male ego. The fix is that men rise to meet us. It’s time to be accountable.

We are in an age when exercise is touted as therapy. But it is not therapy, it’s an accompaniment to therapy. Therapy is not just for trauma, just like exercise is not only for weight loss. Both are tools to live your best life.

More of: women rising

There’s nothing else to add here. It’s simply joy and abundance. ❤️

Wishing you all a joyful start to 2026. Thank you for being here. As ever, drop a heart if you enjoyed this, comment if anything resonated with you, or share it with someone else who might enjoy it.

You can also email me: saltysubstack@gmail.com