Adventures in Feeling Alive

It has been a while since I last posted so I thought It was time to do a catch up and let you know what's been going on with me.   The autumn has been busy and I have been trying to hard to continue my activities. Swimming 3 or 4 times a week has helped a lot and so have the (almost) weekly parkruns. I was delighted on Christmas eve to have reached my 50th parkrun and my 39th of 2023 which was also my 39th shirtless parkrun of the year too.  My 50th Parkrun on Christmas eve This year started off a bit hit and miss, I am not sure what was going on with me but it was a bit of a stressful January and then I was away for some of February on a work trip, the planning of which occupied a lot of my time, the regular swimming helped me get through all of the stress which is great.  One thing I have noticed is my ability to tolerate the cold a lot more, in previous winters I have often been swimming and then driven home shivering for a fair time while I warm up, This year I have not had tha

It has been a while since my last post. The main problem is that I've not really done anything out of the ordinary recently, I have continued with my regular swims and those have been wonderful, I have also continued with the shirtless Parkruns and those have been excellent. But as its summer it is nothing really unusual and not much of a challenge to be out with no shirt on. Summer is always good for being shirt free however there really is no challenge in it and it is always hard to get that cold fix or cooler shirtless adventure. It was time to try and arrange something a bit more of a challenge.   Being out for a length of time with no shirt on can be dangerous on sunny days, plus it had been very warm recently so it has been no challenge, so the solution was to be an adventure at night. I am lucky that I have friends who can help at times and so I asked one friend if he was able to set me up a walking challenge one night, he agreed and made the plans.  In the run up to my adve

 Hello all, well its been a bit of a long gap since my last post, lots going on here and I have neglected you all so I am sorry about that.  Just to update you all with things, I am still swimming in the sea regularly, trying to do about 4 swims per week but tomorrow will be day 6 of a swim every day which I am happy about. I am still Parkrunning, So far this year I have done 17 of them and all of them have been shirt free which I am super happy with.  last Month I took part in a Spartan Beast event, 14 miles of hardcore running and obstacles, I achieved it but it did mess up my legs a little and its taken me some time to recover from that, I think I am just about back to normal thankfully, whatever normal is.  Finally I have started riding my bike a lot more too, I got a new bike and this makes life a lot easier, I have done a few of those bike rides shirtless as well and hope to do a lot more without needing a top, its mainly a case of plucking up the courage to just leave home witho

          It has been a few weeks since my last blog post, I have had my fair share of swims and runs but I have also been away a LOT which means I had lost the regularity of the outings.  Most recently I spent 6 days working in Blackpool and it WAS my plan to take some time out to go for a run, go for a swim and maybe have a walk but as we ventured up north storm Dudley was just about to hit the UK and scuppered all my plans, for the next 5 days Blackpool was battered by 3 storms which made swimming FAR too dangerous and it really put me off wanting to run or walk anywhere along the promenade.            The work I did in Blackpool was exhausting and on my return I took a much needed day to recover and then on Wednesday I headed down to the beach for a small dip, I went alone as I was only expecting a small dip but it was lovely to be back in the sea.       Friday morning I was back in the sea with Ann off Hayling beach, I had not seen Ann for a couple of weeks so it was nice to see h

This last 10 days has been a pretty awesome one for me, full of little adventures which have helped me feel great. Parkrun I will start off at last Saturday with Parkrun, It was my 3rd Parkrun of the year, I had been out of the country for a couple of weeks plus a little ill so I decided to treat this parkrun carefully, I still ran shirt free but I really concentrated on taking it slow for the whole run, I think I over did it a bit as I came in at a full minute slower than my personal best, this was not a problem and although I did feel a tiny bit down about it I came to realise it was VERY windy and I was still recovering from a small illness. I followed this parkrun with a quick dip in the sea which was cold but energising, what I really love about the Saturday swims is the people I swim with and the cakes they supply. Bliss The next morning I was up nice and early for a run with Matt, it was at Farlington marshes nature reserve which is a regular 5km run for me however it was a new

You may have noticed I have not posted in a few weeks, this is because of multiple reasons, firstly I was working away in the USA and although I could have posted I do find it more difficult to post things using my phone, Also since my return home I have not exactly been feeling 100%, Don't get me wrong I am fine but I have had various things going on which have kept me away from my blogging. So the USA was great anyway, I was staying in Florida and I managed a few local shirtless runs which was not difficult in any way as it was generally in the mid to high teens temperature wise, the only thing that made it difficult was all the locals dressed up in all their layers thinking it is really cold where I am sweating like mad. I swam in the hotel pool daily which was heated so was far too warm but generally it was a great trip. Since my return home I have managed 2 swims in the sea, this happened to coincide with a time when everyone I know has said how extra cold it has been feeling

     Those of you who follow my blog will know I have been a bit stressed this week, In my last post ( click here  to read) I mentioned that I am travelling to Florida for work on Monday, other people have been passing their worries and stresses about the trip onto me. Well worry not as I have those stresses under control and I am in a much better place mentally. This is partly due to the fact that I managed to get my issues written down in this blog, so thanks for letting me vent.       Another reason I have managed to deal with this stress is the kind words of friends around me, I have had some lovely support from my other half Nat, a wonderful supportive message from Tim and a good chat with Ann too, all these little things make me realise that I am doing the right thing and that no one really means to pass their stresses onto me, its actually nice that people are concerned.      The final reason I have dealt with the stress is because of some awesome cold adventures. It started off

New Years day parkrun      Something I have not mentioned on this blog before is my job, and there is no need to mention it because it is completely unrelated to the subject of this blog, I do however consider myself extremely lucky in that I occasionally get to travel to some amazing destinations for work. Last summer I was asked if I would attend an event in Florida, after some thought I said yes and the tickets were purchased and the arrangements were made.  Moving forward to the last week and as you can imagine I am now super stressed about the situation, Florida seems to be the Covid capital of the world and travel at the moment is a costly and stressful nightmare. Those reasons however are NOT the reason why I am stressed, let me explain something to you first.       I love travelling, I do get a little stressed at times but generally I go with the flow and I am happy. When the current Covid situation heightened I figured the best thing to do was to go with the flow, deal with an

As this year comes to an end it is time to look back on the last year and look ahead to the next. Many people around me have been telling me how much they will be glad to see the back of 2021 and how horrible the last year has been and yet I really don't think it's been that bad has it?  I think I have a very different way of looking at things, I always have done, for as long as I can remember I've always been a 'glass half full' kinda guy.  When I look back at the last year I am very aware of the bad things that have happened, the ongoing problems the world is going through, but I find that I really don't focus on any of the bad things, I focus on the good things. The holiday's that I've been on, the shows I have seen, the new friends I have made and the adventures I have had.  When I do look back with that positive attitude then wow it has been an incredible year.  I needed to finish off the year right so I started early this mo

I have had such a good few days, it started on Christmas eve with a double swim, first with my wonderful friend Ann in Hayling and then with the lovely swimmers at Eastney, I really love swimming with both Ann and the Eastney swimmers, they are all such wonderful people and they make me so happy.  On Christmas day I completed the Southsea Parkrun with no shirt on, I finished that run on such a high, I drove home elated with what I had achieved and I have been on a high ever since. since then I have heard some wonderful feedback, no one seems to mind, there were no bad comments, a few fellow swimmers said they were proud of me, all these comments really boost my confidence. On Boxing day I got to introduce two friends to the delights of the cold sea, my running mate Matt and his 13 year old daughter Ava were incredible, they didn't complain about the cold, they were strong throughout  and I am so impressed with how long they managed to stay in the water. I am so proud of both of the

Today it was a Saturday which means it's a parkrun day, it also happens to be Christmas day so the parkrun happens to be rather special.  I've spent the last few weeks building myself up to running the event shirtless and now the day had arrived.   There were a few things I was keen to find out, firstly whether my times would improve at all as I have a theory I run better without a shirt on. Secondly I wanted to know how people would react, this was going to be a bit easier being a Christmas fancy dress optional run so I had made myself a few tinsel accessories and worn a Santa hat so I figured people would see it as a bit of fun.   The first thing that happened literally seconds after leaving my car I passed a fellow runner who looked at me, smiled and said "class", this was an instant confidence booster for me. I soon met a running friend minutes before the start and then we were off.  There were lots of smiles on the run which was great, not one single negative com

Today is the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice, I use an app on my phone called Strava, I use it to log all my runs and walks (and kayak trips too) and I was recently invited to join in a challenge on Strava to walk for 1 hour on the shortest day of the year. I decided that my hour walk was going to be to the top of a local hill called Butser hill to see the sunrise, here is my video of my little trip out.

I used to hate early mornings, I was never an early morning person, in fact I always tell people I am a night owl, then lockdown happened and for some unknown reason I started to grow to like mornings, various things happened along the way and I slowly grew to enjoy the mornings. The reason I am telling you this is because whenever someone says to me "Rob, can you do a sunrise swim" or "Rob, how about an early morning hike" I think nothing of it and I get up with no problems at all.  Ann said to me just the other day "Rob can we make Mondays swim an early one please" and I thought nothing of it and just said yes, It actually wasn't that early, I've been up at 4am for swims before now so an 8am swim is nothing really but here is a short video of my trip to the beach for a morning swim with Ann and Rachael.

I have been really busy these last few days, Christmas is always a chaotic time for me and squeezing in the runs and swims is always going to be a challenge however I have managed a few during this last week, On Tuesday and Wednesday I managed swims and then again on Friday I squeezed a dip in between 2 jobs which was great.  The Saturday before Christmas is always my busiest work day of the year but after a bit of thinking and planning I worked out that I could fit in a Parkrun, my last one was 2 weeks ago then I achieved a personal best for the Southsea course and that was the first time I had run a Parkrun without a walking break in the middle, I wanted to see if I could repeat the feat (I was 7 seconds slower than my PB but didn't need to have a walking break again). If you have followed my blog then you will know that is is my plan to eventually run the Parkrun without a shirt on, As I explained in my blog post Motivated to Run I feel I run better when shirtless and so I want

It is currently the silly season for me, it always is this time of year with my work and today I had a bit of a quieter day for a change, I managed a swim this morning with my swimming ladies Ann and Rachael, and then this afternoon I was sat there thinking about doing something. I've recently been keen on the idea of going for a shirtless hike somewhere and I thought I would use this afternoon as an opportunity to have a little experiment, just an hour or so to see how I get on. I am lucky to have some beautiful countryside and forests within a short drive away so I headed off to a small car park at the back of Queen Elizabeth country park. I then decided to make a spur of the moment video to show how I got on.  Enjoy 

I have been running weekly for a while now, sometimes I do a Parkrun, sometimes I do a run with Chris and Matt, sometimes it is a combination of both of those and I even go on my own for the odd run. I have lots of opportunities to run which makes me very lucky plus I am very keen to go running so I don't really need any motivation to actually go running, that is not what this post is about despite the title. If you have kept up with my blog you will be aware that I have enjoyed running shirtless for many years, its not something I have always plucked up the courage to do but I am getting more confident in recent times. There is something I have often said about running shirtless - I always feel I run better without a shirt on, I find I run further, I feel better and generally I think I get a better workout.  I have had this idea in my head as to why I think I run better and it wasn't until today during a small discussion with Matt that I had my idea confirmed. I run in all sor