Adventures in Feeling Alive

 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 ju...

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 d...

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 o...

     I really love big waves, they are so much fun, don't get me wrong I do love a perfectly calm glass like sea to swim in but there is something about big waves, I love to watch the waves roll in, each one as strong as the last, surging up the beach with such energy and then falling away again ready for the next one. I find it so wonderful to see how much power there is out there in the big open ocean.       When the big waves arrive I find myself itching to get into the water. There have been a few times I have driven down to the beach and watched the huge waves and thought to myself "nope, too big and too dangerous". I generally like to think of myself as a very safe swimmer and in those instances when its too rough I drive home slightly grumpy but also happy that I've not risked my own safety. There was one occasion I miss judged the big waves and I got caught in one that slammed me to the beach. I still have a scar on my knee to prove it (albeit ...