86.1 Kg

I weighed myself this morning for the first time in many months. It was a bit of a shock. I haven’t been as heavy as that for a very long time. It is time for a few minor changes.

Both me and my lovely wife, Helen, are taking part in dry January again. We successfully managed it last year, and I have to say that we both felt better for it. I’ve been using the Stay Dry App, and I will admit that in December I drank 126.8 units of alcohol. Far too much. 30 years ago I worked in a pub. At the time, a small glass of wine was 125 ml and a large was 175 ml. Today, a small glass will be 175 ml and a large 250 ml, which is a third of a bottle. On top of this, the strength has increased. Most wines used to be 9 or 10%, but over Christmas we drank a very good Italian red wine which was 14.5%.

I also need to cut down on unhealthy snacks. I need to eat less chocolate and biscuits, and increase my intake of fresh fruit and nuts.

I’m not going to weigh myself every day, just once a week, and hopefully over the course of the next few months I can slowly lose some of this excess weight. I did really well towards the end of 2022, running my fastest 5 km for many years as well as dropping down to 78 Kg.

I’m going to aim to walk or run at least 10,000 steps every day during January, which isn’t always easy on a work day. I’m also going to try to run more. I fell ill in early December and it took a few weeks to recover, but I am now feeling ready to run four or five times a week. On a Saturday I will continue with parkrun, but either a Friday or a Sunday, me and Helen are going to try and head into the Lake District again. Our new puppy, Gordon, has never seen a Wainwright, which we hope to rectify very soon. It is very easy to open a bottle of wine and sit on the sofa. Once the weather improves we’ll cycle more often, especially when there’s more daylight.

That’s about it, nothing too drastic, just a few small changes.

Mentally, we’re also going to reduce how much we look at our phones, and to make TV more of an event, rather than something to do on an evening. We’re looking at being more creative, especially during the evenings. Helen gifted me a BBC Maestro writing course with Alan Moore, which I have watched the first four “lessons”. He is an amazing man and I know that he will inspire me.

Helen has also stated that she will review one book every month. I’m looking forward to reading these as she is a much better writer than me.

Both me and Helen have always been incredibly active, but this last year has been difficult. I don’t want this blog to appear to be some kind of a New Year’s resolution list, although it has turned out that way.

Parkrun 2023

It is the end of 2023 and many bloggers will be writing a recap of the year. For me and my wife it has been a funny year where we haven’t done as much as we would have liked, for a variety of reasons. However, one thing I have done almost every week is parkrun.

I ran a total of 47 parkruns in 2023. Just shy of the magical 50 mark. I missed two in January due to Covid, one in February due to ice cancelling the local runs, one in July when we picked up our new puppy, another in July due to injury, one in August as I was racing, and another in December due to ice.

I ran 14 different parkruns, with 11 new ones. As expected, my most popular run was Lancaster with 28, followed by Morecambe on 7. The 11 new events were Stretford, Crosby, Fulham, Philips, Myrtle, Heaton, Agnew, Letchworth, Croxteth, Monsal and Woodhouse Moor.

Over he course of the year, my overall position in number of parkruns completed has gone from 61791th up to 46553rd. As expected, the number of positions I move up with each run slows.

I have downloaded the 5km App, which gives me another set of stats to look at along with the Chrome extension – Running Challenges.

The Record Breakers challenge changed from 32 out of a possible 88 parkruns, to 39 out of 91. I increased my Wilson Index from 2 to 6, and my floating Wilson Index from 6 to 13.

In the UK the number of parkruns increased from 751 up to 789, while in the World it went from 1879 up to 2017. There were almost 100 parkruns in Russia, which were removed/halted back in April 2022.

With the number of participants increasing every year, parkrun obviously hasn’t reached its peak yet, which is great news.

2020 was a funny old year

Now that we’re almost two weeks into 2021 I thought it would be a good idea to have a look back at 2020, definitely a very different year. Race wise I managed two, one in early March before the lockdown and the other a very small ultra run in October. Both of them were highly enjoyable. However, there were numerous cancelled races that me and my lovely wife had entered; the Oldham Way Ultra, Castle to Coast Triathlon and two open water swims later in the year. Another large struggle for the year was not being able to travel as we would have liked. Our annual bicycle touring week was cancelled and we’ve hardly been out of the county, so most of our mini-adventures have been closer to home.

Distance wise 2020 was the second lowest for me since I joined Strava, although I ran more than any other year. However, I only managed 30 swims over the whole year. Less than 10 parkruns as well.

It’s not all been doom and gloom. Me and my lovely wife had had some really great days out, but at the moment we’re both feeling a bit locked in. We definitely need a week away somewhere. Hopefully 2021 will be better. Anyway, at least I’ve not been banned from Twitter 🙂

Year in Review – 2017

It’s that time of the year when everyone posts about what they did in the previous year. 2018 for me was a quiet year with no major races. I did manage 19 races/events, which was made up of a couple of swims (here and here), a couple of sportives (here and here), one triathlon (here) and the rest were parkruns, reaching the milestone of 25 (here).

In last year’s review (here) I stated that I wanted to increase my Veloviewer explorer score, and my max explorer square. Job done on both of them as you can see in the images below. The top one is from the end of 2016, and the bottom one from the end of 2017.

I also stated that I intended to do Ironman UK. For various reasons that didn’t happen (here), although I wasn’t too disappointed. I also wanted to reach 300 Strava challenges, which I managed (here and here), and by the end of 2018 I was up to 368, so it won’t be too long before I hit 400. I also intended to blog at least once a week, and last year I blogged over 80 times, so another box ticked.

Distance wise, apart from swimming 100 miles, I wasn’t too worried about how far, although the excellent infographic from Veloviewer shows that I still did a few miles, and notched up something everyday.

Other highlights of the year included a weekend away touring with my wife at Easter (here, here and here) and eight days cycling around the highlands of Scotland. I’ve not blogged about that because I’m aiming to release it as a free ebook, once I’ve finished writing it up. The touring with Helen is probably one of the reasons why the roster from Strava labs (here) indicates that in 2017 I completed 59 activities over a total of 6 days. Second was my old friend Professor Badass at 1.5 days and 10 activities.

I don’t really have specific targets for 2018, except more touring with my wife, and increasing my Veloviewer cluster. I might even enter the Salford Triathlon.

Here’s wishing you all a great 2018, and keep on keeping on.

2016 – End of year review

December

Before I give you run down on 2016, a quick re-cap on December. I completed another 9 Strava challenges, taking my total to 272. I also added 67 more explorer tiles, 140 new segments and completed the Lancaster parkrun once.

2016

So what did I do in 2016. I managed 17 races/events, which surprised me, and it did include a continuous triple ironman (blog entry coming soon), 4 sportives and 11 parkruns.

Distance wise, VeloViewer once again comes up trumps.

It wasn’t the highest total for cycling, but it was for running, even with hardly running in the last couple of months. Over the year I also rode 8 different bikes:

• Brompton (borrowed) 126km
• Fuji 164km
• Trek Cobia (sold) 227km
• Colnago (given away) 501km
• Trek 920 645km
• Principia 763km
• Forme 2618km
• Scott 11149km

Most of my miles have been done on my Scott, which is in for a much needed service next week at The Edge Cycleworks in Lancaster. Next year I vow to ride my Fuji and Principia more. I have new tri bars for the fuji and will attempt to set it up more comfortably.

One measure that I love is the explorer score, which shows new places that I’ve been, and has gradually increased over the year.

Some more interesting cumulative stats from my years on Strava:

• Kudos; 2012 – 61, 2013 – 1591, 2014 – 5234, 2015 – 15150, 2016 – 40273.
• Explorer; 2012 – 1402, 2013 – 2624, 2014 – 3938, 2015 – 5096, 2016 – 5932.
• Maximum explorer square; 2012 – 6×6, 2013 – 9×9, 2014 – 9×9, 2015 – 12×12, 2016 – 14×14.

Plans for 2017:

• Increase my explorer score, and take my max square to 15×15 or more.
• Ironman UK. Not sure how that happened.
• More photos, stopping more often to look at the views.
• Make the most of every day.
• Support my beautiful wife as she attempts to swim 50 miles and run 500 miles in 2017.
• Achieve 300 Strava challenges.
• Blog once a week, and maybe even blog about last years triple 🙂

Here’s wishing you all a great 2017. Keep on keeping on.