Hey, should've posted this before but I've moved. After Vox closed its doors I moved this and my Vox blog to a new home. I'll not be posting here again so if you want to keep up with my random postings then you should head to the NiceGuy Blog.

A few months back I wrote about my challenges for 2010. Here's a quote from it:

"This year I have 3 challenges and a suspicion that I'll regret setting at least one of these:

1. Get under 50 mins for the 10K
2. Complete a half marathon
3. Compete in the Stirling Triathalon"

As it's turned out I'm probably regretting all of them but then that's why it's fun. Here's how the season's going so far.

Plus Points:

• Starting racing earlier in the season than normal.
• First 10K of the year in under 1 hour.
• Finishing my first half marathon in 2hr 12 mins - consistent pace through the race
• Finally doing the Edinburgh 10K

Minus Points:

• Injuring my knee doing the half marathon (own fault - lack of training)
• Re-injuring my knee in the Edinburgh 10K (it hadn't healed, I was trying to do a 4min final Km)

The two biggest lessons from the first 5 months are that I need to be more focussed on training and that I have the mental strength to focus on doing longer runs without getting bored.

Current training is all about being ready for the Stirling Tri which is preceded by the Dunblane 7.5 mile and then followed by the Black Rock 5, Mens Health 10K and Glenrothes 10K. June's going to be a busy month!

Originally posted on niceguyali.vox.com

In case I haven't mentioned it before, I don't do New Years resolutions mainly because they tend to be easily and quickly broken and are usually a bit vague. Instead I started (back in 2006) setting a challenge for the year - something that would take a bit of effort and time to complete. The first was to run a 10K race and I had approximately 6 months to prepare for it. As I blogged before, I not only completed it but got a bit hooked on the running in the process.

My goals for last year were to lose some weight and complete a 10K in under an hour. Managed both!

This year I have 3 challenges and a suspicion that I'll regret setting at least one of these:

1. Get under 50 mins for the 10K
2. Complete a half marathon
3. Compete in the Stirling Triathalon

The first challenge is a natural extension of last years goal of getting under the hour. I suspect this will be the easiest of the challenges but it'll still take both time and dedication to get there. The second challenge is still about running but doubling the distance. I think the main obstacle will be beating the boredom of running for so long (it's going to take about 2 hours unless I shed a lot of weight and gain a lot of leg muscle).

The big challenge then is the triathalon and I have my sister and brother in law to thank for this one. It was mentioned in passing on Christmas Day that they were doing it and naturally I couldn't let them have all the fun without joining in. I'm planning on the Sprint Triathlon - 750m pool swim, 20k bike, 5k run and I have to admit that at the moment it seems like the most unlikely challenge yet. Okay, so I can run 5K quite easily but as far as swimming is concerned - is breast stroke permitted? - and I've been on a bike once in the past few years.

I suspect and hope that training for challenge 3 will help with the first two. The triathalon itself is on 6th June 2010 so I think I'll be completing that one first then the others after that.

As ever I'm open to suggestions of other challenges. You can suggestion them through the comments on this blog or via twitter, etc.

Originally posted on niceguyali.vox.com

Happy New Year, Happy New Decade.

Somewhere along the way I've stopped having a great desire to go out at Hogmanay prefering instead to stay in and let others do the over indulgence. My justification is that I can (and do) go out any other night, get bevvied and stay up far too late. Hogmanay is, however, a good time to take stock of life as it stands and on the events of another year. This year we have the added bonus of having a good excuse to look over the past decade as well. I think this is important as it lets us see how far we've come and can sometimes act as a reminder that we are progressing/developing as humans.

2009

If 2008 was as crap as I had expected it would be, 2009 was as good, if not more so, as I hoped it would be. 2008 was one of the year where I had some seriously hard lessons to learn and some tough choices to make. This past year though started with a lot of hope that I was finally moving forward again.

Highlights

• All the races with my new running companions. I rediscoverd my love of the running and saw my times fall.
• Holiday to Majorca with Melanie
• Finally drawing a line under a destructive relationship
• Losing just over a stone in weight.

The Noughties

At the dawn of the new millenium I was serving beer behind the bar of the Old Bell Inn. I had returned for one last shift to celebrate the end of an era as Bill, Stewart and June were all moving onwards. As I recall I was in the 2nd year of Uni, had a part-time job at Debenhams and was back living with Mum & Dad. I was looking forward to heading out to Maine for a 3rd summer and I had one email address - the hotmail one that I still have. There was no personal website, there was no social networking profiles. I hoped I would graduate, get a job and I probably expected that I'd settle down somewhere along the way.

Well, I did graduate in 2003 with a BSc (Hons) Software Engineering but before that I got an opportunity to work for Kingdom FM. I've been there ever since apart from a 10 month stint on Tay FM and I can honestly say it's one of my biggest achievements of the decade and I still get the same buzz out of doing shows that I did at the start.

After graduating I took a developer job with Pivotal Integration and now am Product Manager with Resolution Case Management. Again another job that I love and am very passionate about doing. This has undoubtedly provided the biggest roller coaster ride and, directly and indirectly, been responsible for some of the biggest lows in the decade. In more recent times though this has been responsible for the majority of my personal development.

At the start of the decade I had no clue about women. At the end of the decade I still have no clue about women.

At the start of the decade I was single. At the end of the decade I'm still single.

At the start of the decade I didn't know the majority of the people who I now call friends.

At the start of the decade I didn't know Joy or Melanie. At the end of the decade neither of them can get rid of me.

Joy, incidently, is an exceptionally talented musician who I met on summer camp in 2000 and whom I've been friends with since. As a Christmas present one year she sent me a cd with 7 songs she'd written which I have treasured ever since. Melanie I met in 2005 while working at Kingdom FM. We've had good times and not so great times but I'm pleased we've emerged at the end of the decade as really close friends.

Future

So here we are at the dawn of a new year and a new decade. I can guarantee that I can't even begin to imagine what's going to happen along the way. As long as it's fun, challenging and exciting,

Originally posted on niceguyali.vox.com

Okay, so when I mentioned in Fresh Starts about how I was aiming to break the hour barrier in the 10Ks in the next couple of months I didn't expect to do it straight away. That was exactly the thought that ran through my head as I tramped round the Glasgow 10K course last weekend. The closer I got to the end, the more I started thinking it might actually happen until I ran through the arch of Glasgow Green and realised that not only was the finish was much closer than I expected but I was going to break the hour in style. The official chipped time was 58 mins 49 seconds.

So now I find myself needing a new challenge and I have 2: get under 50 mins (next season) and do Stranraer 10K in an hour. The latter sounds like it'd be easy except that there's a steep hill that starts at 3K and runs to just before 4K. I've not only got to beat the hour but I've also got to beat that hill. There's no other way to put this than it's personal and it's between me and the hill!

Incidently I believe the reason I've got faster this year is down to the stone I've lost in weight. It's easy to run fast when there's less of you to carry around the course. If I drop some more weight before Stranraer then that should help!

The running started as a result of a challenge at Kingdom FM back in January 2006. We decided that we (the KFM team) should run the Glenrothes 10K that summer and so the addiction began. I took the challenge and so began the addiction which has seen the following races:

2006

Jun - Glenrothes 10K

Sep - Glasgow 10K

Oct - Strathcarron Hospice 10K

2007

Jun - Glenrothes 10K

Jun - Black Rock 5 (5 miles)

Sep - Stirling 10K

Oct - Strathcarron Hospice 10K

Nov - Stranraer 10K

2008

Injured my knee early on ruling out early season races

Nov - Stranraer 10K

2009

April (?) - Kippen 5K

May - Black Rock 5 (5 miles)

Jun - Jog Scotland Edinburgh 5K

Aug - Graham Clark Memorial (Knockhill, 3.9 miles)

 

Sep - Glasgow 10K

Still to come this year (I've entered them so I'd better do them)

Sep - Stirling 10K

Oct - Denny 10K

Oct - BMF 10K (with obstacles)

Nov - Stranraer 10K

Originally posted on niceguyali.vox.com

Change doesn't happen overnight, at least it doesn't when you're trying to change habits that have been cultivated over years. If you've ever tried to help someone change their bad habits you'll be aware that if you try to change too much at once then they'll quite often fail, get disillousioned and give up. For me, I find I need to understand why the change is necessary and then make small steps. Over the past couple of years I've been making small steps to change for the better: I've all but cut out alcohol from my life, I've got my debt under control, I took up occasional 10Ks and have been trying to get the weight sorted.

Of the changes I've been making the weight has been a difficult one because it's required action on two fronts: exercise and better diet. I think I might have made the final change to help this. Over the past 6 months I've finally got my head around sensible eating and while there's a bit more work to do there it's pretty positive. The exercise has been a bit more of a challenge though. As much as I enjoy doing the 10Ks I've been hampered by low motivation for training in the gym or going running of an evening. It's far too easy to work a bit later and then come up with excuses for not working out.

It took a conversation on holiday to convince me that there was hope and that hope is in the form of BMF. I'll no doubt blog more about that soon but suffice to say it's a pretty intensive class that takes an hour and is out doors whatever the weather. The part of the conversation that convinced me was the reminder that I had made progress a few years back and had dropped a lot of weight. Plus it was pointed out the results that current BMF-ers had achieved in the past few months.

The final part of the fresh start (and this is going to take a bit more work) is to sort out the issues at work that are stressing me and to cut out the dead wood from my life. The latter should've been done years ago. As a result I've got rid of a load of phone numbers and people from MSN & facebook that should've been deleted a long time ago. You can't move on while you're still living in the past!   

I'm quite excited about the next couple of months. I'm going to get fitter, I'm going to do a 10K in under 1 hour, I'm going to be lighter, I'm going to meet new people and I'm going to stop letting work get on top of me. In addition I'm going to spend more time being a better friend to those whose friendship I appreciate.

Originally posted on niceguyali.vox.com

Testing the edit date thingy to see if I can write now, post later.

Originally posted on niceguyali.vox.com

I have a few friends who believe they are psychic. One in particular, a very wise woman, is also adept at palmistry and interested in tarot. Personally I'm not convinced by the whole thing. I'd like to believe that those who have passed on are watching over us especially since I believe they'd be proud of what I've become. However I suspect that it's more of a "want to believe because it makes it all worthwhile" rather than any rational understanding.

If it is all true then I will get married, have 2 kids (1 of each), live a long healthy life and become rich due to work rather than winning money. Of course if this is true they I'm going to have to get the proverbial finger out because I'm 'getting on a bit' apparently. That sentence is guaranteed to frighten off 99% of the women I'm likely to meet over the next year. The flip side of that argument is that if it's meant to happen then there's no sense in worrying about.

All joking aside there have been a few more 'getting closer to 40' comments over the past year and as much as I laugh them off they've obviously been niggling away at me. I've been contemplating this and my continuing single status while out on long walks or runs recently and starting to (over) analyse the situation. I can't contemplate where Ms Right is going to appear from or where/how I'm going to meet them. That said I'm pretty sure this has been true before the last few relationships. Would you expect to end up dating the person who made you drive a pink car? Would you assume that the long lost friend that you find again online on a night you're ill and watching the Eurovision will become the person you'll enjoy the next 11 months with?

One of the thoughts that runs through my head is what if I already met the person I was meant to be with and either never took my opportunity or worse, let them go? You can't get hung up on 'what if' but it's always worth contemplating because I think you learn nuggets about yourself in the process.

The only conclusions I've come to are that I'll not find the person I'm meant to be with sitting at home and I'll not find them by looking. The one consistent theme running through all my previous relationships is that they've happened at times that I've felt comfortable with who I am. And given that, I must be due to meet someone pretty soon.

Originally posted on niceguyali.vox.com

Following on from my last post about it being a good day, these occurences seem to be joining up into weeks which is rather nice. I suspect that this is being aided by my current decision to charge headlong into life and make the most of my current situation. It appears to be working!

Anyway back to todays post and it's brought to you via the Cloud or something similar from Stansted Airport. I'm currently trying to keep myself awake while waiting for my flight back up the road. This has been day two of this weeks roadtrip which started in Newcastle and ends tomorrow in Fife. I'm back down here on Tuesday for the day and, rather worryingly, I've already read this months Easyjet magazine from cover to cover. Must remember a magazine on Tuesday although I'll be flying with Chris from work and he can talk so perhaps there's not a problem.

I write using a laptop powered by Vista and I must confess that this is the first time using that particular operating system. I'm rather ashamed to admit that I quite like it even though I've been reluctant to use it thus far. I suspect that there are still enough reasons, such as this amount of 'Are you sure?' boxes, to deter me from upgrading my home PC from XP. It's more likely that I'll await Windows 7 before making radical changes.

Update: It's taken a few days to get this blog online and as I type this the screen suddenly went blank and the laptop froze for 30 secs. Apparently Vista doesn't like being slagged.

Originally posted on niceguyali.vox.com

I watched Notting Hill tonight and it features the line "Today's been a good day". Strangely enough it's a phrase I've been saying more recently and, tonight, I realised there was a pattern to its occurence. I've been using it at the end of days where I've been social.

That probably sounds a bit weird. Surely a social animal like myself is always out or spending time with his mates but the truth is that last year I hid from the world. In retrospect it was completely unnecessary but that didn't seem to matter. There were plenty of excuses: working lates on Tay at the weekend, heavy workload, no money, the summer time job shenanigans, etc, etc. I was just sad really. I was wallowing in self-pity and instead of dealing with it I stayed wrapped up in my cocoon hoping that the end of the year would come quickly.

Changed days though and I've been spending more time just going out for the odd beer or, as tonight, to the cinema or spending time with other humans (and less time in the office). It's great! I'd recommend it to anyone.

Originally posted on niceguyali.vox.com