As noted in many of my posts, I’m going through a period of change in life. In doing so, I’m rediscovering some of the things I used to do but either lost focus on, or didn’t have the time to engage in.

The biggest example of this is music, specifically playing in bands. I’m in the middle of forming one band, and it may not be the only one.

Something else that I lost focus on was climbing. I used to go multiple times a week with a few friends of mine, and loved every minute of it. Life changed, I moved away, my friends now live in a different country, and time became scarce. When I visited them last year, we went climbing and it made me want to start trying it again when I got back.

I’m now back climbing (specifically indoor bouldering), and rediscovering some of that love. I’m also approaching it differently than I used to.

Why I love climbing

There is something really satisfying about being able to climb up a difficult set of holds, and getting to the top. Also, there is a large amount of problem solving, as you are trying to work out ways of moving your body to make a climb easier/possible. It also forces you to not rely on brute force, as some climbs are much easier with better technique.

There are different grades of routes, which appeals to me in terms of measuring progress.

Also, shoes are a big part of climbing. Given half the reason I got into running was because of my love of shoes (via the YouTube algorithm and recommendations), another hobby which requires thinking about shoes is an easy win for me!

The community around climbing is also really nice. Back when I used to climb in my 20s, and a little bit recently too, I’ve had people I’ve never met who are encouraging me to climb, or suggesting routes to try, and generally just being really friendly.

A different approach

The approach I’m taking with climbing now, compared to when I did it in my 20s is different. Back then, outside of music and IT, I didn’t tend to put as much time into the how of doing something. With climbing, I stubbornly kept climbing a route until I could do it, never really thinking about better techniques, more efficient ways of doing it. I assumed technique would naturally improve with time.

While this approach does kind of work eventually, I’m going in a lot more prepared this time. I’ve gone headlong into the YouTube climbing rabbit-hole, looking into different techniques, different mental approaches, and spending more time watching how other people climb.

Also my general level of fitness is far higher than in my 20s. Now that I run, cycle and do some weight training, I can climb for a lot longer than I did before. I still get muscle aches towards the end of a session, but I can make more attempts before getting to that point, and recover a lot faster. I also anticipate that once I start focussing more on weight training, it is going to have a big impact on climbing too.

Finally, I now place importance on warming up and stretching, which I never did before. Running has taught me the problems with not stretching. I injured myself quite often when I first started running through inadequate/lack of stretching and warming up. Now that I prepare properly for a run, I haven’t had any real injuries since. Applying this mindset to climbing is helping me avoid injuries too.

A shared activity

Not only is climbing a very social activity, it is also something I can do with my children too. I’ve taken them a few times already, and they love it (as well as the pizzas the local climbing place make). As my life transitions into that of a single dad, finding activities that we can all share and love is going to be key, as well as giving us some structure.

I’m hoping this is something me and the kids will do for years to come. Even if it isn’t, I’m always going to have the memories of taking them, the joy and accomplishment they get going up the walls, the pride I get when they do it, and the glorious pizzas afterwards.

Rethinking

One thing this has made me think about is some of my fitness goals for the future. I’m going to maintain running, and strength training is something I’m really looking forward to focussing on.

What it does mean though is that I am probably unlikely (at least initially) to get a Zwift setup. I had thought that Zwift would be useful as a way of keeping fit on days when the weather isn’t great, as well as providing a social outlet (through online races).

With climbing, I’ll be able to go when the weather isn’t great, go during work hours (climb on my lunch, work in the cafe), and it provides an in-person social outlet too.

I’ll still cycle, but more for leisurely rides/getting around my city/going to and from the climbing gym.

Now this is by no means me saying I’ll never get a Zwift setup. However I tried to calculate how to fit in enough running, strength training and climbing while also having rest days across a 2 week period. There wasn’t a spare moment to add anything else, so something had to give.

Let’s get chalky

It’s been nice to reconnect with something I loved. While life is uncertain, finding parts of my “old” life that I can get back into helps with feeling like myself.

I’m bringing together the parts that I liked about my life before kids, the parts of life I like with kids, while also working on the parts of me that I didn’t like (thank you therapy!), all of which is helping me become (hopefully!) the best version of me.

To say 2025 has been a year of change for me is a huge understatement. I came into 2025 about to change roles at work, a holiday planned, in a band, and trying to get back to running regularly after a couple of lingering bouts of colds/flu. By the end, my life feels like it couldn’t be more different.

This post is going to serve almost like a time capsule. I’ll use this post to look back on in a year, five years, and probably more, as a snapshot of where I was at the end of the first quarter century of the 2000s.

It has taken me a lot longer to write this post. For a while I wanted to include everything that happened this year, then I wanted to just do a few short bullet points. Hopefully I’ve struck a good balance!

Life

As mentioned, life is not what I expected it to be at the beginning of 2025.

In the middle of the year, my wife and I ended our relationship. We are still very amicable, and have become good friends. This bodes well for our future as co-parents. We still live in the same house, but this is going to change in 2026. What this means is that some of the biggest changes are still in the future.

During this, I started therapy. This has been one of the most transformative things I’ve ever done. I have spent a number of years with low-to-no self-confidence, very little value in myself. Any validation of myself came from others (through relationships, friendships, work). This is no longer the case. While I’m still working on myself, I am for the first time in my life starting to feel comfortable with myself as a person, and advocating for myself.

I’ve also established the beginnings of a social life where I live, as well as reconnecting with friends I haven’t seen in years. I’ve also joined a number of fitness-based groups too (mainly running, but others are happening too). In the process of doing so, I’ve realised that I’m not the introvert I thought I was, and actually get recharged by being around people. I may not be a full on extrovert, but I’ve identified myself as an introvert for most of my life. This is another shift which I never expected.

Career

At the start of 2025, I was in the process of changing roles. I had been in the DevOps/Site Reliability Engineering space for close to 7 years (after more than a decade in the Networking industry), and decided to move into Software Engineering.

I’ve never considered myself as a developer, do not have a Computer Science background, and all my coding experience is from solving Networking/Systems/Cloud problems, rather than developing applications. Doing this as my primary role was a big shift.

So, as 2026 starts, how is that working out? I’m going back to my previous role as an SRE. A large part of this is the changes in my life have left me with little capacity to grow as a software engineer. If I had a clear mind, I doubt I would have made this decision. However the responsibility of my position, along with what I would need to work on to get to where I feel I need to be, it just isn’t what I want to do any longer.

It is worth mentioning that in reflection of my career (triggered by a large period of reflection this year), I’ve been in a state of career burnout for close to (if not more than) a decade. I’ve pushed myself too hard, and while I am in a very privileged position to be able to choose where I want to go in my career, it has taken a massive toll on my mental health.

By taking a step “back” (sideways in terms of responsibility, but backwards in terms of progression) to a comfortable place, I can recover from the burn out, and focus on life. I’ll still be productive, I’ll still contribute, but it won’t be as mentally taxing because it’s a field I know really well.

Health and fitness

This year has been a huge change in terms of my health and fitness. I was already making a lot of progress in 2024, but a number of illnesses and injuries delayed a lot of the progress I wanted to make.

This year, I’ve established myself as a runner. I no longer feel like someone who is trying to start running. I’ve started to hit respectable 5k and 10k times, I’m considering joining races, and I’m part of running clubs. Also, I’ve ran in 4 countries outside of the UK this year (Fuerteventura, France, Netherlands, Sweden), as well as 3 other cities in the UK that aren’t where I live (Sheffield, Birmingham and London). The thing I’m most excited for when visiting a new place or country is where I get to run.

In terms of weight and diet, I’ve started to get control on my eating more. It isn’t perfect, and I go through periods of time where it gets worse. However my “worst” days now are equal to what I used to refer to as a “good” day. My weight has gone from around 95-96kg at the end of 2024, to 86-87kg at the end of 2025. Bear in mind I was already running in 2024, so this is definitely not due to that! To be brutally honest with myself, a big chunk of this was lost because of stress (see the Life section), but I’ve managed to maintain this level since.

At the very end of 2025, I started to go bouldering again (for the first time consistently since 2014), and I’m also intending on cycling more, more weight training and Zwift in 2026, so I expect this section will be different again by the end of 2026.

Music

At the beginning of 2025, I was in a band, but playing music someone else had written. It was fun, but the music never entirely clicked for me. I left this band in March.

By the end of 2025, I’ve started to form a new band. I have another guitarist involved, and we’re talking to other people to get involved too. So far, this is with music I’ve written (although it isn’t the intention for me to be the only writer, I just have a lot of material ready to go), so from a personal perspective it is very fulfilling.

By the end of 2026, I’m hoping that we will have found all the other members, regularly rehearse and are starting to consider playing live.

Personal Care

I mentioned in the Life section how I had never placed any value on myself, and required external validation to feel good about myself. This has changed, and in the process I’ve started to take more care of myself physically as well as mentally.

I won’t go into huge detail, so to summarise I now have a skincare routine, I take care of my (stupidly long) hair properly, I’ve started purchasing fragrances, and I’m putting a lot of time and effort into what I wear and how good I feel in it. For the first time in my life, these aren’t a reaction to a current/potential partner, they are for me. It feels good to feel good!

I’m also journaling, I’m being more forthright about what I want in life and my career, and I’m taking more of an interest in what I want my next house to look like, how it’s decorated and everything else.

Me from a year ago would be a bit confused by what they are seeing, me from 10 years ago wouldn’t recognise any of this.

Travel

I’ve covered this a little already, but this year I’ve been to four different countries, including going by myself to two of them (something I’d never done before). I’ve visited a lot of places in the UK too.

Given a lot of what will happen in 2026, I doubt I will visit as many different countries this year, but I intend to travel a lot more on my own in the future.

Conclusion

So, 2025, the year I could not have predicted. I’m at the point of not recognising the person I was a year ago. What will 2026 bring? Who knows, all I know is I shouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t go the way I expect!

Something the Running Channel Podcast often mentions is that every run should have a purpose. That can be keeping fit, a specific distance/time goal, mental health benefits, getting time to oneself, anything that gives the run a “reason”.

This rings true for me. When I’m following a running plan (Couch to 5k, Nike Running Club 10k, Nike Running Club Half Marathon), there is a clear motivation as to why I am doing each run. Similarly, when I run in a new place (e.g. on holiday) the goal is to explore a new place and discover a little bit of the culture. Another reason I run is to be in a group with other people, spending time talking and meeting people.

In contrast, when I’m not following a plan (due to finishing one and not starting another yet), and I’m running in the same place and without a clear goal, the run seems to take longer than usual (even though it is the same, and sometimes quicker than at other times!).

I know that I run better with purpose. Now, I am adding another purpose for going for a run. Catharsis.

Is catharsis not the same as running for mental health?

For many, these would be the same. In some ways, running for catharsis is a subset of running for mental health. I would class the following as mental health runs: -

• Processing - Focussed time to process events/emotions/feelings while running
• Raising my mood - Running usually raises my mood, but particularly when I’m dealing with something challenging
• Catharsis - See below…

The runs that I am currently finding cathartic (i.e. those that help to deal with/release/reframe strong emotions/feelings) are those that focus on a certain event, location, or memories of a time period in my life.

Why are you running for catharsis?

As mentioned in previous posts, I am going through separation/divorce. During this process, I am challenging a lot of core beliefs I’ve held about myself. This includes how I interact with people, and my approach to life. Up until the separation, I have rarely given myself the chance to reflect on my life and what led me to where I am now.

The best way for me to deal with some of these emotions and thoughts is to combine them with running. By revisiting certain places and time periods in my life, I’m turning them into an achievement. I am reframing the location and events as an act of self care, an act of improving my physical health, and an act of improving my mental health

Okay, where?

Currently, I have three runs I am treating as catharsis runs. I have ran one of them (although I will likely do a longer and less illness-influenced attempt in future), and I have two more I will be doing by the end of the year.

Sheffield (UK)

Most of my twenties were spent in Sheffield. I worked in Sheffield, my bands gigged in Sheffield, and most of the times I went on a night out, they were in Sheffield.

For this run, I started at a former workplace, and then ran around all of the venues in Sheffield that my bands gigged at. This covered around 6km. I had intended to run to some other places within Sheffield, but this was the first run after a short illness and I wasn’t 100% recovered yet.

What was nice is that I did this run the day after meeting up with my old band (some who I haven’t seen in person in nearly a decade), so as catharsis goes, it was pretty powerful!

Birmingham (UK)

I went to university in Birmingham. This was the first time I lived away from my parents, and I also formed my first band there. While I only lived there for 3 years, it had a huge effect on my life.

For this run, I am going to start at where I lived in my first year of University, going to each house I lived in over the next two years, the university campus, and then around the venues my band played the most (Scruffy Murphys, and Edwards No 8).

Again, I am going to be doing this after meeting up with a friend I haven’t seen in years, so it is going to help a lot with some of the feelings I still have about the place.

My home town

Most of my childhood, and a significant part of my 20s were spent in my home town. I have a lot of emotions and feelings from these times that I need to work through. Some are formative from my early years, others are from when I moved back from university, others are tied to the first house I owned.

For this run, I am going to start with the streets I grew up on, visiting homes I lived in, as well as going via my old school, and other significant places too.

What outcome are you hoping for?

By doing these runs, I’m hoping to get the following out of the process: -

• Change my most recent memories about each place
• Turn each place into somewhere I achieved a goal on my path to being healthier (physically and mentally)
• Help other people do something similar
• Add some more activities to Strava 🤣

I tend to remember and focus on the “last” event at a place (as I’m sure many others do). Going through this resets that.

Anywhere else?

I don’t have any plans or any other locations I intend to do these runs at yet. There are some I may do in the future, but they are in places that are tied heavily to my current situation. I don’t feel ready to deal with these just yet. One day though, especially if the catharsis runs help me in processing other events, I hope to be in a place where I can.

These goals are there so that I can look back on what I’ve achieved, and also a reminder of what I’m aiming for.

Why?

As referenced in multiple posts already, my life is changing in ways I never expected at the beginning of 2025. This has led to reevaluating my life, what I want to achieve, and my approach to get there.

While the goals don’t cover every last detail of what I want to do in future, they provide a starting point for what the next chapter of my life looks like.

Also, having these goals give me focus in a time where there is a huge amount of uncertainty.

When?

I don’t have a fixed timeline on these goals, because everything is subject to change right now. I’m already working towards the running goals, and some of the strength training goals will hopefully be starting in the very near future.

Most of the other goals depend on others, or depend on my future living situation. These are harder to predict, so I expect some of them may take a lot longer to achieve.

Where

You can find my goals here, or you can find the Goals section at the top of this page.

One of the things I really like about running is that it doesn’t take a huge amount of equipment to do it. Running shoes, appropriate clothes, and optionally some form of fitness tracking watch, and you are good to go.

The gear required for running can easily fit into a small bag, a corner of a suitcase, or a backpack. I really enjoy cycling, but the size of a bike and helmet isn’t exactly something you can fit under your seat in a plane!

Since starting running, I haven’t travelled without taking my running gear with me.

Isn’t it supposed to be a holiday?

This post is slightly topical. The Running Channel Podcast did an episode on whether you should run on holiday or not. To answer whether I think it is a good idea, I listened to this episode while running on holiday 😂.

Running helps with my mental health. The time to think and process whatever I’m feeling that day has been a huge benefit (especially recently). Also, my physical health impacts on my mental health. Doing something that improves my physical health has the added benefit of improving my mental health.

Holidays for me are all about taking a break from day-to-day life, to feel refreshed. This is all in an effort to improve mental health. This goes hand in hand with why I run, so I couldn’t imagine not running while on holiday.

Discovery

One side benefit of running in a new place is because of naturally covering more distance, and wanting to plan routes (usually to make sure I end up back at the hotel or close to it by the end of the run!), I discover more about the area I’m staying, as well as seeing the similarities and differences in life in another county or country.

I’ve been able to find the local shops, landmarks, parks for the kids to go on, and all sorts of other things along the way.

I also love seeing the differences in how people live, the style of houses, the difference in plant life/vegetation, all of it just helps me feel a little more connected with the place I am visiting.

Places I’ve ran in

Other than where I live, I have run in the following places: -

• Cornwall, UK
  • All around the St Ives area
• Fuerteventura (Canary Islands)
• Le Mans, France
• Efteling, Netherlands

I am also going to be running in Helsinborg in Sweden in a weeks time too.

This year is the first year I have ran in a different country. By the end of 2025, I will have ran in 5 different countries (if you include the one I live in). Running in this many countries may not be possible every year, but I intend to try and run in at least one other country than the UK every year for as long as I’m able to.

Photos

I don’t take many photos while running, but I try to take a few if I’m in another country.

Cornwall

Carbis Bay (near St Ives) looks almost nothing like any other UK seaside town. It also was my first experience of running up a real hill, and….it hurt!

Fuerteventura

Running while the sun rose over the Atlantic Ocean was an amazing experience. The vegetation in Fuerteventura is really interesting, being close to the equator but with a constant sea breeze.

Le Mans, France

Running through the quaint village of Arnage, through the French countryside, while hearing the sounds of Le Mans Hypercars/LMDhs/GT3s was a great experience. Taking a break from the racing, but still being able to hear it was just what I needed.

Efteling, Netherlands

If you have kids and can go, Efteling is a great experience. Running round the grounds, seeing all the bicycle infrastructure, going past Dutch farms in one direction, and past Dutch suburbs in the other, fantastic.

There’s also nothing quite like running along and hearing fairy tale music coming from behind you!

Should you do it?

I love running while travelling, and it is becoming an essential part of a trip away for me now.

It entirely depends on what a holiday means to you though. If it is about resting physically and mentally, then adding running to that may not be for you. However if, like me, you view a holiday as a chance to recharge mentally and physically, then I think it is definitely worth trying.

As mentioned my previous post (My Fitness Journey), I have recently started running with other people.

For many runners, this isn’t that big of a deal. Most that I have met or talked to set a Parkrun as their goal, or a race, or some other form of event. However for me, that was never the case. Running with other people has been a massive change.

Introversion, maybe

I’ve long seen myself as an introvert. I’ve struggled with meeting new people, I found large crowds of people a bit difficult to cope with, and my friend circle has historically been pretty small.

When I decided to start running in May of 2024, I saw it as a way of improving fitness, losing weight, and an opportunity to put some headphones on and listen to podcasts/music/shut out the world. The idea of signing up for a race in competition with other people, or doing Parkrun was the furthest thing from my mind. I had a goal (and still do) of running a lap around the Circuit De La Sarthe, but this was entirely solo.

A lot of people don’t know that I run. There are a few work colleagues who are into running that still don’t know I run as well (although I do work remotely so it isn’t an everyday subject!).

The only real conversations I’ve had about running were with REALLY close friends, and the employees of shops that I bought running shoes from (and almost always met with “So are you signed up to any races?”).

I felt a little weird sometimes, in that I didn’t see many people talk about running without also mentioning an event they were signed up for. Yet for my first year of running I only ran on my own (with the occasional wave/nod of the head at other runners who also decided that running at 6am is somehow a good idea).

Even in the online world, I still struggle with new people. Last year, I joined up to Ryan Condon’s Discord server, gave a brief introduction about myself, and then promptly never said another word. This isn’t really conducive to talking to people with shared interests!

Change in perspective

My current life situation (if you haven’t read my previous post, it is mentioned there) means I am now re-evaluating a lot of what I thought about myself.

Firstly, it has made me realise that I’m not okay with having a very small friend circle. Most of my close friends do not live near enough for me to see on a regular basis. By the time I next see my closest ones in person, it will have been between 2 and 3 months since my life completely changed. I love my friends, and them being so far away has been difficult during this time in my life. The feeling of isolation has been strong, and I need to ensure that I don’t end up in a similar situation with regards to friends and social lives.

Secondly, I want my children to have a better life. I want to give them the opportunity to meet and interact with more people and make more friends. The last thing I want to do is teach them that interacting with other people is a bad thing, hard or something that should be avoided.

Thirdly, I am starting to challenge myself on whether I’m an introvert, or whether I have certain mental health challenges that are preventing me from being comfortable around people. In summary, the latter is looking more and more to be the case.

Finally, I found myself wanting to mix the good feeling I get from running with meeting new people. If I can combine the two, this may even lead to a social life!

I’ve recently started going to therapy, which means that I’m challenging myself more and more on how I think, feel and interact with the world. While I don’t expect that my personality is going to change completely, I am expecting that over time that my approach to the world is going to be significantly different to how it has been so far.

“Conversational pace”

I now know what conversational pace means. For the longest time I never thought it would apply to me, and yet here we are.

In the past few weeks I have: -

• Ran with one of the local running groups
• Ran two weekly runs with another local running group
• Attended my first Parkrun
• Met some of the running group people at the very same Parkrun

I am likely to keep running most weeks with the second group, and am really glad I found them. It is still early days, but I can see some changes in my view on running happening already. I’m already considering signing up for the local city’s 10k run next year. Tell that to me of a year ago and they wouldn’t believe you.

I’ve also found that the runs go much quicker when running with others. Despite listening to some really interesting podcasts during my running, no solo run has ever gone by as quick.

I’m a Parkrunner now

I found out more about myself at Parkrun.

First, despite how daunting the idea was, I really enjoyed running alongside a large crowd of people. While the one I attended isn’t the biggest Parkrun, there were at least a few hundred people there. They are really welcoming, I had people I’d never met congratulate me on doing my first ever Parkrun, and had random people giving me encouragement throughout.

Secondly, if I see people in front, I start trying to go past them. Maybe it is my years of watching motorsport, maybe it is the fact that since a teenager I’ve always walked “with a purpose” and tried to go past everyone on my way to somewhere. Turns out, I’m weirdly competitive in ways I didn’t realise.

A friend of mine mentioned that when he did Parkrun, he couldn’t help but try and go faster. I didn’t think this was going to be a thing. And then I did a 5k time nearly 3 minutes quicker than I’ve ever ran on my own. There was a little “I told you so” from him….

This won’t be the last Parkrun I do. I already have 2 more in the city I live in to tick off, as well as a few nearby that I would like to take part in (partly for how scenic they will be).

Don’t be alone

For anyone reading this, and with a similar mindset to what I had, I encourage you to try and run with others. Even if you only try it once, it will be enough to work out whether it will make a difference for you.

It has changed my perspective on running already. It has only been 3-4 weeks since I started, and yet I now am finding it really difficult to imagine not doing at least one run a week with other people.

While I don’t know what life is going to be like in a few months, a year, or 5 years time, I feel like I might not be the introvert I always thought I was. Running with others is helping me change my view on myself, and I am looking forward to seeing what the future holds.

I’m currently in the middle of a bit of a mid-life renaissance when it comes to fitness. Having spent most of my adult life (and a significant portion of my teenage years) either sedentary or with fleeting dips into something resembling exercise, I had always assumed that it just wasn’t for me.

However, it turns out that isn’t the case. This post is the story of how I got to where I am now, and why it took me so long to do so! I turned 40 at the end of 2024, and yet my fitness journey feels like it has only really just begun.

Starting at…the start

I grew up in a household that wasn’t big on exercise or fitness. The only sports we watched were motorsport (still a passion to this day) and snooker when it was on at the Crucible. Unlike many families growing up in the UK, we didn’t have a football team that we identified with, rarely (if ever) watched the Olympics, never watched the London Marathon or the boat races.

It wasn’t until I went to primary school that I started to discover football. However as I hadn’t grown up supporting a team, I just picked the one who seemed best. I believe the term at the time was “glory supporter” (it was the 1990s and I supported Manchester United so….probably true!).

Around the mid 90s, basketball was growing in popularity in the UK (during Chicago Bulls second 3-peat) and I got heavily into it for a year. I asked my parents for a basketball hoop on the side of the house, and actually got good at 3-point throws (I could have been Steph Curry! Okay maybe not…). However without anyone to talk to about basketball, or people to play it with, the interest withered.

Then, probably the worst thing ever happened for my future fitness. I got a Sega Megadrive. I loved that thing, spent more and more time on it, and saw less need to leave the house. Most of my time with friends was spent playing on Megadrives, swapping games, and playing Sonic 2. This was the beginning of a lifelong love of games, and a love of staying inside and playing them.

Being a teenager

My teenage years followed a similar theme to my younger childhood. Some passing interest in sport and fitness, but nothing I consistently played or got involved in.

My Granddad and Uncle were into Rugby League, and used to take me to matches, specifically those of the Dewsbury Rams. This also meant that when we started to play Rugby (albeit Union rules) at my Secondary School, I immediately signed up for the school team.

However, it turns out knowing what Rugby is doesn’t automatically make you good at it. After about 3 matches, I dropped from the team. I still played Rugby during P.E. lessons, but nothing more.

The rest of my teenage years were spent on my Playstation or PC, playing Final Fantasy 7 far too many times or Quake 3 Arena. I briefly used the school gym towards the end of my secondary school years but still no consistent sport or exercise.

University

I went to university and….did absolutely nothing fitness wise. I managed to get a lot of walking in, due to how far my university halls/shared accommodation were from the university campus, and not driving yet.

Other than the first few months of university though, the walking did keep me from putting on excess weight, despite my best efforts with food!

After university

In the interests of brevity I won’t go through every year individually. Since I graduated from university in 2006, I can summarise fitness and exercise to: -

• 2008-2009 - Infrequently going to the gym
• 2011 - Same as the above
• 2013-2014 - Rock climbing and bouldering
• 2017 - Bought a bicycle, tried to commute to work a few times, felt like I was going to pass out every time I did, stopped soon after
• 2019 - Another period of infrequently going to the gym

Going into the pandemic, I had never established a consistent regime of exercise or fitness. This had the predictable outcome of me putting on weight and feeling unfit.

Before talking about the changes over the last few years, it makes sense to delve into my relationship with food and dieting.

Food, diet and health

My relationship with food has always been a bit problematic. When I was a child and a teenager, I could eat whatever I wanted (or at least that it was it felt like) and not put on any weight. I never binged on food as a kid, but I was never careful either.

Food was always a form of comfort. I love cooking, I love tasting new foods, and at one point I became convinced that I was going to run my own restaurant (Narrator: he never ran a restaurant).

However, portion control has never been something I’ve gotten to grips with.

First struggles with weight

I first started to notice the effects of this love of food when I went to university. When I could cook my own food, I would make too much, too often, and in the space of 6 months I put on around 5-10kg. Walking everywhere helped, but I always carried more weight than I was happy with.

I started to control my eating a little more, and settled into a weight that I didn’t like, but also didn’t hate either.

The same happened when I moved into my own house in 2009. It was really easy to make too much food and eat all of it because…well who else was going to eat it?

Diets

I dieted off and on for years. I would reach a “peak” where the love of food was outweighed by how much I disliked what I saw in the mirror. I would lose some weight, get back to what I’d consider “normal” and then slowly eat myself back to the “peak”.

In 2014, influenced by some work colleagues, I decided to try the Keto diet. Most other diets I’d tried were about eating less of the same foods, or changing small things. They never worked for me because it was easy to eat some leftovers that would have been thrown away.

Because Keto was strict in terms of what food you could eat, it was easier to get into a calorie deficit. No biscuits, no cake, no crisps, no bread, this removed a lot of my food vices.

I went from around a 37" waist to around 32-33", and from wearing XL t-shirts to wearing some medium sized t-shirts. Unfortunately I didn’t own weighing scales at the time. I measured everything by what size clothes I could wear. I wish I had weighed myself, because to this day I have no idea what my lowest weight ever was!

Life happens

Later in the same year, my son was born. My son also believed sleep was optional 😂. Keto was abandoned, just getting through, eating quick and easy food, trying to keep any semblance of a strict diet at this time went out the window.

Over the next few years (that included a LOT of big life events) I went back to my pattern of eating too much again, starting Keto again (as it was the only diet I had gotten results from), and then going back to eating too much, then back to Keto…I think you can see the cycle here.

It is worth mentioning is that Keto is a lot easier to follow when you are only catering to yourself. When you are also cooking for the family, or out with the family and trying to find Keto-friendly food, sticking to Keto feels much harder.

Peaks in weight

In 2017, I reached my peak in terms of weight. Again, I hadn’t been measuring my weight in 2017 properly so I can’t put actual numbers on it. All I know is that clothes that used to fit, I would pop buttons on them, break zips and keep needing to buy bigger belts.

In 2021, due to a combination of poor diet, and working from home during the pandemic (with easy access to the fridge) I reached 17st 7lbs (111kg). I’m 6ft 2 inches tall (187-188cm), so this was not a healthy amount of weight to carry. Going by Body Mass Index calculators, this put me at the lower end of obese.

Shifting my mindset

In 2022, I had expressed my unhappiness with my weight, fitness, and just general health. I often had back pain (starting in my early 20s), easily out of breath, and struggled with overeating still.

My wife saw this unhappiness, and talked to a place called the Body Transformation Centre about going on a 6-8 week course to try and help. This is something I would never have done myself (years of social anxiety would put me off even thinking about it), but because she had done this for me, I couldn’t not go.

I went. I did training (cardio, strength, some high impact) a few times a week, and the results were noticeable. I started to lose weight, I started to gain muscle, and I started to feel a little happier in myself.

Even when the course ended, I carried on doing the exercises at home. I got myself some weights, resistance bands, and found enjoyment in the exercise. I also picked the Keto diet back up again, and by the middle of 2023 I had reached 14st 5lbs (91 kg). That’s roughly 20kg down from my peak two years before.

Another big life event happened in 2023. We relocated to a different part of the UK. Fitting in exercise wasn’t easy initially, and weight started to creep back on. I never got back to my peak, but had more weight than I would have liked.

However the difference this time is that I missed the exercise and doing weight training. For the first time in my life, I actually wanted to do exercise, rather than feeling like I needed to.

I tried Keto one last time at the beginning of 2024. This time, it wasn’t working. Life was busy, going to lots of new places meant we rarely found Keto-friendly food, and the weight did not shift as quickly or as easily as my previous attempts. The lowest weight I reached was just under 15st (95kg).

Keto (my safety net of diets) hadn’t achieved what I hoped. I knew that something had to change, I just didn’t know what.

“I will never run, I don’t even like cardio”

Up until this point, I never enjoyed any form of cardio. I liked being on a bicycle, but only light journeys, nothing too long or taxing. I never once enjoyed being on a treadmill. Rowing machines were okay, but nothing I could get excited about.

Before we relocated, my wife tried running. She didn’t take to it, but she told me she was almost certain that I would. I protested, there was no way I could get into it. I liked lifting weights, I liked rock climbing in my late 20s, but not once had I enjoyed any cardio.

During what you might call it a midlife crisis, I had taken a huge interest in shoes and trainers. I always liked getting a nice pair of Converse, but not much beyond that. For whatever reason, I went headlong into the “sneakerheads” rabbit hole, and came out with lots of pairs of shoes.

One thing you start to see more often on Youtube/the internet in general is that if you start show more of an interest in shoes, running websites and YouTube channels start appearing in your feeds.

Seeing running mentioned all the time, along with what my wife had said a year or two before, I decided to give running a go. I got a pair of running shoes, downloaded the Couch to 5k app, and started. This was May 2024. I had expected that by the end of the year I would have given up and tried something else.

However, I didn’t give up. I kept running. It turns out that when an activity includes shoes, technology (watches, fitness tracking, bone conducting headphones), no requirement to be in a certain building/place to start exercising, and numbers I can keep trying to beat (i.e. 5k/10k times), it really appeals to me!

And now I’m getting fit!

Barring some injuries and illnesses that have provided brief interruptions, I have been running 3-4 times a week ever since I started.

By the end of 2025, I will have ran in at least 5 different countries (currently the UK, Fuerteventura and France, adding Netherlands and Sweden by the end of August). I attempted to run round the Le Mans (Circuit De La Sarthe) track earlier this year (didn’t manage it this time, going to try again next year), and I genuinely can’t wait for my runs now.

What’s more, I’ve just started running with other people! I’ve ran with a couple of run clubs, and I’m going to attempt my first Park Run in a couple of weeks. For someone who has struggled with social anxiety for most of my life, it is nice to not only do something good for myself, but to find other people to do it with and forge new friendships, it has been a bit of a revelation for me.

I’m also back to doing strength training, bicycling (and doing much longer distances than I ever could before), and I’m going to be investing in a Zwift setup in the near future.

I won’t be going to back to Keto at any point. I am finally embracing portion control, and just being more careful with what I eat. I finally feel like I can eat without the fear of losing control. Keto worked at times when I needed it to, but it isn’t something I’d recommend to keep doing all the time.

I am currently at my lowest recorded weight ever as an adult (13st 12lb, 88kg), and it is making running far easier! I still have more weight to lose, but it is heading in the right direction. I’m 4lbs away from being classed as “average” (as far as BMI goes anyway).

All change

Something that is worth mentioning is that my life is going through huge changes currently. I am currently going through separation/divorce. Why is this relevant? Because my fitness journey and health are now something that I can rely on.

All previous big life events made me turn to food as comfort. For the first time in my life, despite how huge a change this is, my eating is still under control.

In many ways, running and fitness are now becoming my outlet, my time to process, my time to work through challenging thoughts. It is also helping me expand my social circle and find new friends. It gives me an opportunity to show my children that exercise and fitness is a good thing, something to embrace, and to enjoy.

Whatever the future brings, I am just glad that I found a way to be healthy, to enjoy exercise and to enjoy the outdoors.

For those who don’t know me (which is presumably most people who will read this), it is worth an introduction to myself.

I am a dad, I work in the technology industry (SRE/Software Engineer/Platform if you wanted to know), I play guitar, I listen to a variety of music (with a slight preference towards metal and EDM), and I am a little obsessed with Motorsport too.

For a few years I wrote blogs as YetiOps, mainly focussed on DevOps, Automation, Networking (TCP-style, rather than meeting people), but lost a little steam (partly life, partly time, partly jobs) and haven’t written anything in 3 years.

Ultimately, while I enjoy technology, I found the “persona” I put forward for the Yetiops blog (and related accounts) a little limiting. Yes, this is mostly my own doing for making it so technology-focussed, but it never felt right posting more personal, or music-related, guitar or anything else. The blog had been made for, and focussed only on technology since the beginning.

New approach

The last year of my life has been one of change. I won’t go too deep on this for now (at least, not in an introduction post) but suffice to say I feel like I need an outlet again, and blogging has always been a good place for me.

I really enjoy blogs from the likes of Neil Brown and Simon Wolf who post more about what interests them, whether it is technology, exercise, reusing old hardware or anything else.

What to expect

It’s hard to know exactly what I’ll be posting about, how often and how interesting it is going to be, but some general themes will likely include: -

Running

I started the Couch to 5k program in the middle of 2024, and I’ve been hooked ever since. I attempted to run the Circuit De La Sarthe in June 2025 (during the 24 Hours of Le Mans weekend), but due to the intense heat and illness-interrupted training I didn’t get anywhere close to the full distance. However I’m hoping to try again in 2026, and (barring illness/injury/being teleported to another planet) I think I can do it this time.

Having gone from thinking I’d never like running, to this year where I will have ran in 5 different countries by the end of it, I’ve definitely caught the bug!

Getting fit

I turned 40 at the end of 2024, and (along with other factors) it gave me a massive realisation that I wanted to take better care of myself. I also really enjoy cycling, strength training and just moving around more. After spending a lot of my career and life being mostly sedentary, this has been a massive shift for me. I am embracing it, partly to improve how I feel, but also to provide a better example to my kids.

Music and guitar

I’ve been music-obsessed since I was a child, and playing guitar for nearly a quarter of a century. I’ve been in bands, done a lot of gigs, and I’m hoping to get back to playing live again in the future.

Expect the odd album review, or just general recommendations every so often. And also the likelihood of adding to my already stupid amount of guitars!

Technology and homelabbing

I run a homelab (one that needs some work, but likely to be improved soon), I work in technology, and while I am no longer viewing technology as the biggest part of my life, it still forms quite a large part of it.

Also, I like to tinker with things. Whether that is reviving a long outdated laptop with Linux to make it useful again, monitoring my home network to a level that would put some previous jobs to shame, turn unused phones into decent webcams, or just making sure that I don’t break the internet for the family, I can’t help but throw myself into it from time to time.

Signing off

Expect more soon. Just don’t hold me to when!