Nice Guys Win Too

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

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.

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.

Not to be confused with the Nike slogan, the title of this entry refers instead to a conversation I had over the weekend. I was chatting with a friend about a conversation that he'd been part of where people were discussing who they would and wouldn't 'do' given the chance. Apparently my name came up and one of the participants said that they would.

I tend to steer clear of conversations like this because the danger is, and this is proof, that the object finds out about it. More often than not they don't see the funny side of it and offence occurs. However I can state, for the record and in case this person is reading, that I was actually flattered. (Anyone worked out who it was yet?)

I never think of people having conversations like this and including my name and I believe it's less to do with any lack of self confidence (which has been the case in the past) and more to do with not understanding/assuming/spending-time-thinking-about qualities that would make me admired from afar. I know there's a few ex-girlfriends who are very aware of this and there's definitely a few who've been very surprised by my lack of belief in some of their compliments.... but that's another story for another day.

What was very interesting though was actually one of the names that cropped up whom all stated they wouldn't do. I'd always assumed the opposite to be the case. Just goes to show you.

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.

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.

I will blog about the other thing, I promise, but for now I've other things on my mind.

In January Darrren and Barry from Kingdom decided that they should get some use out of the last months of their gym memberships and created the Wednesday Weigh In. Each week on Wednesday they get weighed live on air to see if they're making progress. I decided that I wanted to get involved but as I'm not in Fife during the week I created the Wednesday Weigh In at the Weekend (WW@W).

So far it's been distinctly average and I'm hovering around 15st but that's without taking any major exercise. In fact it's without taking any exercise at all. The problem has been the lack of a goal other than losing a bit of weight. Good news is, I've found a goal and I've named it 40K in 4 weeks (in reality it's just under 40K but let's not tell anyone).

The 40(ish)K starts with the Black Rock 5 on the 22nd May, is followed by my first half marathon in Stranraer at the start of June and culminates in the Glenrothes 10K a fortnight later. At time of writing there are 88 days until the first race and today I started the first part of the training with a 60 min walk. Probably doesn't sound much but it was enough to get the blood pumping and the legs feeling like they did a bit of work.

I'll try to remember to post my progress on here but you'll be able to follow on twitter.

I seemed to spend a lot of 2008 using that line anytime I was unable or unwilling to explain why I was acting in an unusual or out of character manner. As much as I hoped that I would it has only been the past week that I've realised that I should and that it might be vaguely interesting.

There's one week left until I finally 'win', finally get past a really difficult period in my life. I suspect that as I blog what happened and why last years events occurred it will generate a number of comments such as "Why didn't you say?", "You could've talked to me, I could've helped", etc. Hopefully though most people will understand what it was all about.

It's my intention to start (and possibly finish) blogging about it from next month (Feb).

In other news, did you know that you can follow me on twitter? It's my latest fad and I'm enjoying both adding what I'm up to as well as following selected others. To follow me go to http://twitter.com/niceguyali

Couldn't resist a small Smashie and Nicie reference as the title of this post. Actually I don't do a lot of work for charity other than a couple of things in the past for Kingdom Kids and compering a few fashion shows for Breast Cancer Research. Recently when I've spoken of the 10Ks I've been asked if I'm looking for sponsors and I never am. I do these things for myself to prove that I can and to keep healthy.

The more astute will have guessed where this is going. I'm doing a Reindeer Run on 30th Nov '08 which is a 10K run around the campus at Stirling Uni where I studied. It's one of a bunch of races being organised by the RNLI to raise funds and while they've got money from me already as part of the entrance fee, I feel like I want to raise money this time.

I've spent a bit of time with the guys from Anstruther RNLI through being part of the annual lifeboat gala and I've come to understand the amazing job these volunteers undertake. I feel that we are most often being asked to donate to other charities and that the RNLI gets left out. I may be wrong in that but I've yet to be stopped by one of these agressive collectors in the street and asked for my bank details to support the lifeboats. I also can't remember, Blue Peter in the 80s not withstanding, when I last saw a TV appeal for them.

For these reasons I'm collecting for them and want to raise £500 by doing the run. There are lots of demands on cash but please help by donating through my Just Giving page. This allows donations by card and if you are a UK citizen remember to tick the Gift Aid box so that we get a donation from the government as well. With gift aid a donation of £10 becomes closer to £12. You can either click this link or the link on the right hand side of this page (Vox only) which shows my fundraising progress.

Thanks.

I've planned a lot of blog posts this year which have never made it online this year for one reason or another. For instance I haven't blogged about knackering my knee back in the spring which stopped my training. I haven't blogged about the plan to run 100K before Christmas (in anger/as a series of races) which was stopped by the knee.

Regardless, the knee seems to be better so I've started the training again. There are 2 races that I want to do; Strathcarron Hospice 10K and Stranraer 10K both of which I've run before. This'll be the 3rd year of running the Strathcarron race and I know the course well so it should be possible to be ready for that one. The Stranraer 10K is the race that I though was going to kill me last year thanks to a steep hill at the 3K mark. I'm determined the hill won't beat me!

It's funny how these things happen but I had worried about how I'd fit in these races around my Love Doctoring. I guess it's not a problem anymore.

Incidently it was a trip to Boots that focused my mind on getting fit enough to race again. They have a machine that measures stuff there and as a result I know that (when clothed) the following are my scary stats:

Height 5' 9" - 1.75m, Weight 15st 2lb - 96.3kg

BMI: 31.4 (Overweight), Body Fat (%) - 28.1 (somewhere between Average and Poor)