Showing posts with label photography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label photography. Show all posts
Wednesday, 2 January 2013
Tuesday, 1 January 2013
2013 - Resolutions and more
Happy New Year! I hope you're all recovering from whatever you got up to last night.
The first few days in January are usually a time for people to think about what wholesale changes they'd like to make, and then persevere with them as much as possible. I wrote last year about how I'd been in a similar boat myself a number of times and all my good intentions had fallen by the wayside by late January.
There's traditionally talk of making major lifestyle changes which is usually difficult to achieve. Not through lack of desire per se, but through the difficulty in overhauling your day to day life and sustaining those changes. I'm as skeptical as the next man when people say that's what they're going to do, but this year, that's exactly what I'll be attempting.
At the end of this month, I'll be starting a two year clinical study to see if insulin pumps help people manage diabetes better than multiple daily injections (MDI). This will effectively mean a brand new type of medication, a brand new way of looking after myself and a lot of other changes that affect my day-to-day life.
I wrote in the the very first post on this blog how I do my best not to let being diabetic define my entire life, it's merely a part of who I am as a person. Whilst that remains the case, a complete change in a medical regime I've been used to for over 10 years will take some getting used to I suspect.
With that at the back of my mind, I've only made 7 resolutions this year but I'm hoping to keep them all (as opposed to the 8/10 from 2012)
1. Run the Sheffield Half Marathon and the Great Yorkshire Run
As regular readers will know, the Sheffield Half is my nemesis and I'm determined to conquer it this year. The Great Yorkshire Run eluded me last year as I'd pushed myself a little too much and wasn't able to compete when the day came.
2. Raise £500 for charity
After raising £1,500 last year, I'm taking an admittedly more modest approach this year (but then again I'm not running the London Marathon this year either). I'd like to be able to do more for charities that are important to me, but at the moment, I'm not sure how to do that other than run around and ask people to sponsor me for it. Hopefully I'll meet my target this year
3. See 12 gigs
This is the same as last year - I just like to be able to have a night out once a month so I'm hoping there'll be some great live shows to see this year
4. Read 11 books
Slightly more ambitious than last year's 10 - I ought to read more and having got some excellent books for Christmas, I'm confident I'll make this one.
5. Do a photo-a-day project
This is something I've wanted to do for a long time and I've never motivated myself to do it. I enjoy taking pictures and I'm probably quite reasonable at it. I'd like to become a lot more accomplished over the next 12 months and I think this will be a good way to do that. I'll be posting the results on a separate blog if you want to keep track of them
6. Keep my weight below 190lbs all year
There's a technicality that means I've got to get my weight back under 190 first (having lost 32lbs last year, a few have crept back on over Christmas). This one in itself is fairly ambitious as I've never maintained a weigh I'm happy with for more than about 6 months. I think the fact that I'll be in the clinical trial will help motivate me here.
7. Run 450 miles
That doesn't sound like too much - less than 10 miles a week shouldn't be that hard when you think about it. But I'm conscious I could end up injured again and I want a target that is attainable without having to put my body on the line in order to meet it. I'll be trying for 2/3 runs a week and supplementing that with sessions on the exercise bike at home.
So there you have it. That's my goals for the year in a few short paragraphs. It may not sound like too much (and I feel a little like I've copped out), but I think I have to be mindful of what else will be happening this year.
Once again, I hope you all have a wonderful 2013 and that you manage to keep any resolutions you've made.
Andy
The first few days in January are usually a time for people to think about what wholesale changes they'd like to make, and then persevere with them as much as possible. I wrote last year about how I'd been in a similar boat myself a number of times and all my good intentions had fallen by the wayside by late January.
There's traditionally talk of making major lifestyle changes which is usually difficult to achieve. Not through lack of desire per se, but through the difficulty in overhauling your day to day life and sustaining those changes. I'm as skeptical as the next man when people say that's what they're going to do, but this year, that's exactly what I'll be attempting.
At the end of this month, I'll be starting a two year clinical study to see if insulin pumps help people manage diabetes better than multiple daily injections (MDI). This will effectively mean a brand new type of medication, a brand new way of looking after myself and a lot of other changes that affect my day-to-day life.
I wrote in the the very first post on this blog how I do my best not to let being diabetic define my entire life, it's merely a part of who I am as a person. Whilst that remains the case, a complete change in a medical regime I've been used to for over 10 years will take some getting used to I suspect.
With that at the back of my mind, I've only made 7 resolutions this year but I'm hoping to keep them all (as opposed to the 8/10 from 2012)
1. Run the Sheffield Half Marathon and the Great Yorkshire Run
As regular readers will know, the Sheffield Half is my nemesis and I'm determined to conquer it this year. The Great Yorkshire Run eluded me last year as I'd pushed myself a little too much and wasn't able to compete when the day came.
2. Raise £500 for charity
After raising £1,500 last year, I'm taking an admittedly more modest approach this year (but then again I'm not running the London Marathon this year either). I'd like to be able to do more for charities that are important to me, but at the moment, I'm not sure how to do that other than run around and ask people to sponsor me for it. Hopefully I'll meet my target this year
3. See 12 gigs
This is the same as last year - I just like to be able to have a night out once a month so I'm hoping there'll be some great live shows to see this year
4. Read 11 books
Slightly more ambitious than last year's 10 - I ought to read more and having got some excellent books for Christmas, I'm confident I'll make this one.
5. Do a photo-a-day project
This is something I've wanted to do for a long time and I've never motivated myself to do it. I enjoy taking pictures and I'm probably quite reasonable at it. I'd like to become a lot more accomplished over the next 12 months and I think this will be a good way to do that. I'll be posting the results on a separate blog if you want to keep track of them
6. Keep my weight below 190lbs all year
There's a technicality that means I've got to get my weight back under 190 first (having lost 32lbs last year, a few have crept back on over Christmas). This one in itself is fairly ambitious as I've never maintained a weigh I'm happy with for more than about 6 months. I think the fact that I'll be in the clinical trial will help motivate me here.
7. Run 450 miles
That doesn't sound like too much - less than 10 miles a week shouldn't be that hard when you think about it. But I'm conscious I could end up injured again and I want a target that is attainable without having to put my body on the line in order to meet it. I'll be trying for 2/3 runs a week and supplementing that with sessions on the exercise bike at home.
So there you have it. That's my goals for the year in a few short paragraphs. It may not sound like too much (and I feel a little like I've copped out), but I think I have to be mindful of what else will be happening this year.
Once again, I hope you all have a wonderful 2013 and that you manage to keep any resolutions you've made.
Andy
Thursday, 17 May 2012
Where to next
Hello again
I'm cautiously dipping my toe back into the vast pool of blogging after a brief absence.
I've been wary of coming back without having something to say. I mentioned in a previous few posts that I didn't want to blog for the sake of it - it's fine having somewhere to voice your opinions, but doing so when you have nothing to offer is an exercise in futility.
That said, whilst this post should do something to set the tone for the future, I'm still a little unclear about what that is. I'll continue to talk about running and diabetes as I did previously. I've yet to put my trainers back on in anger yet, though this is mostly due to allowing myself a bit more time for bruises and blisters to subside. I'm going to keep running for regular exercise, but I've also got more races lined up too - the BUPA Great Yorkshire Run in Sheffield being the next one in September.
I suppose it makes sense to blog about something you know and/or something you love. Whilst I would never claim to be any sort of authority on writing or blogging and the like, I know that the things that engage me personally are are those with a clear sense of passion. Again, I hope I have conveyed that to a certain degree in the past and hopefully I'll continue to do so every now and then.
Of course the list of things I could write about is quite lengthy. For any of you that have engaged with me in one way or another know that one of my greatest passions is football (and of course my beloved Sheffield Wednesday). I've never written about football for a few reasons - mostly that I think it's quite a divisive subject to write about and I'm not sure I'd do it well enough. This coming season will be my first with a season ticket for Hillsborough, so the odd football post may appear. Reading it is not compulsory of course.
As for my other interests (read: things I could potentially bore you with), I expect you'll get the odd post about cooking, photography and music with the occasional "opinion" post thrown in for good measure.
For me, the immediate future holds a trip to Krakow for the wedding of some friends. It also coincides with my 31st birthday so there'll be a big party and a great atmosphere though I suspect most of the attention will rightly fall on the happy couple. I'm attempting to learn a bit of Polish for the trip which is progressing about as well as you'd expect. I'm confident I'll know enough to be polite which is all I ever really try for. Manners go a long way right? I'm planning a trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau while I'm out there as well. I can't imagine it being anything other than incredibly sobering and emotional, but I feel like it's something I have to see. More on that in the coming weeks I expect.
I had an incredible following on this blog throughout my marathon training and it'd be unrealistic to think that all of you will continue to read this as the weeks go on. Hopefully for those of you that do occasionally pop in, there'll be something worth looking at.
I'll sign this off now. I'm not sure if I've really articulated what the future WWPH posts will look like, but hopefully a few of you will stick around to find out.
I do owe everyone one final thank you for the support I got for the London Marathon. I've now raised an incredible £1500 + Gift Aid for my two charities and I'm really touched that so many people kindly donated their money. Thank you ever so much.
Talk to you soon
Andy
I'm cautiously dipping my toe back into the vast pool of blogging after a brief absence.
I've been wary of coming back without having something to say. I mentioned in a previous few posts that I didn't want to blog for the sake of it - it's fine having somewhere to voice your opinions, but doing so when you have nothing to offer is an exercise in futility.
That said, whilst this post should do something to set the tone for the future, I'm still a little unclear about what that is. I'll continue to talk about running and diabetes as I did previously. I've yet to put my trainers back on in anger yet, though this is mostly due to allowing myself a bit more time for bruises and blisters to subside. I'm going to keep running for regular exercise, but I've also got more races lined up too - the BUPA Great Yorkshire Run in Sheffield being the next one in September.
I suppose it makes sense to blog about something you know and/or something you love. Whilst I would never claim to be any sort of authority on writing or blogging and the like, I know that the things that engage me personally are are those with a clear sense of passion. Again, I hope I have conveyed that to a certain degree in the past and hopefully I'll continue to do so every now and then.
Of course the list of things I could write about is quite lengthy. For any of you that have engaged with me in one way or another know that one of my greatest passions is football (and of course my beloved Sheffield Wednesday). I've never written about football for a few reasons - mostly that I think it's quite a divisive subject to write about and I'm not sure I'd do it well enough. This coming season will be my first with a season ticket for Hillsborough, so the odd football post may appear. Reading it is not compulsory of course.
As for my other interests (read: things I could potentially bore you with), I expect you'll get the odd post about cooking, photography and music with the occasional "opinion" post thrown in for good measure.
For me, the immediate future holds a trip to Krakow for the wedding of some friends. It also coincides with my 31st birthday so there'll be a big party and a great atmosphere though I suspect most of the attention will rightly fall on the happy couple. I'm attempting to learn a bit of Polish for the trip which is progressing about as well as you'd expect. I'm confident I'll know enough to be polite which is all I ever really try for. Manners go a long way right? I'm planning a trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau while I'm out there as well. I can't imagine it being anything other than incredibly sobering and emotional, but I feel like it's something I have to see. More on that in the coming weeks I expect.
I had an incredible following on this blog throughout my marathon training and it'd be unrealistic to think that all of you will continue to read this as the weeks go on. Hopefully for those of you that do occasionally pop in, there'll be something worth looking at.
I'll sign this off now. I'm not sure if I've really articulated what the future WWPH posts will look like, but hopefully a few of you will stick around to find out.
I do owe everyone one final thank you for the support I got for the London Marathon. I've now raised an incredible £1500 + Gift Aid for my two charities and I'm really touched that so many people kindly donated their money. Thank you ever so much.
Talk to you soon
Andy
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