Daves Random Ramblings

As I sit here with words flying round my head trying to put some organisation or structure to them.  I mentioned in my previous post which, full disclosure I forgotten that I had started to write so I hurridly wrapped that one up just so I could put this one down to hopefully be some form of catharsis. I mentioned meeting someone in 2022. I'll just refer to her as "J".  Have you ever had that feeling where you really genuinely thought you had found your person? Billions of people on this planet and you find that person you seriously connect with. So you start bringing down your emotional walls we all have to protect us.  Life wasn't perfect, I mean who's life is? But I loved her. This post isn't going to go on about the in's and out's of a ducks arse in terms of mine and J's relationship.  We had moments, we talked, we connected. We integrated with one anothers families.  She met my dad while he was still with us. She came with me to the hospital t...

Its been one hell of a break between blog entries hasn't it? I'm writing this to vent.  To be honest 99.9% of my blog entries are me "venting" where my brain gets the urge to let off some steam and articulating my feelings helps to a certain degree. So lets recap and condense my life since the last entry just over 2 years ago. Career recap In August 2022 I left TMA and joined Codurance as a senior software craftsperson In December 2023 I left Codurance and joined ENSEK as a Lead Software Engineer at the start of 2024. Meeting someone About the same time of joining Codurance, I met a lady.  Genuinely thought it was one of those "defining" relationships, long terms plans being made and what looked like an amazing future together.  Unfortunately, after about 20 months, that ended in the first half of 2024. But it would seem that despite it now being well over a year, I'm still processing things. Running Well now thats a story in its own right.  In my last e...

 I've been feeling quite overwhelmed lately due to a several changes in my life which have happened in rather quick succession or as "quick" a succession as it could be for someone that is 48 years old. I've found myself with a dream come true encounter in that I've managed to secure a place for the 2022 TCS London Marathon.  After missing out on a good for age time in Brighton by a little over 2 minutes, I resigned myself to try even harder in the 2023 Brighton Marathon and knock that time off to be in with a chance of getting into the GFA ballot.  For me, a 48 year old male, the GFA cut off is 3 hours and 10 minutes. I do recognise that doing a marathon in 3 hours and 12 minutes is no small thing, which is and was a massive boon.  But I still want to try. Then, weeks ago I was approached by my friend Chris who asked if I was in the London Marathon. I told him I'd not managed to get into the GFA ballot and the regular ballot is so massively oversubscribed tha...

Months of training and following a marathon training plan I got from the McMillan running training plan led me to this past weekend in Brighton.   My training had really slipped in the last couple of weeks before the event so with a target time of 3 hours and 10 minutes, which is the "Good For Age" qualifying time for the London Marathon (being a 47 year old male). Alarm went off at 6am, straight downstairs for a bowl of porridge and some proper "leaded" coffee which I'd not had for the previous week (I switch to decaf everything the week before an event). Showered, contacts in, the bag was packed and we were on our way to Brighton. I'm glad my mum is as chatty as she is in the back of the car as it distracted me from the build up of nerves I was already experiencing.  Its like you've been studying for months for an exam and now you're on your way there.  In the intermittent lulls in conversation I was just zoning out and offering myself encouragemen...

 Its been an interesting start to 2022.  But let me roll the clock back a little bit to the latter end of 2021 after the Brighton Marathon (which I'm sure you've read about in my previous blog entry).  Two weeks after that I did the London revolution Ultra.  2 days after that I finally moved into my new home. So much more space than I was used to which just means there are now more places to lose things, but given I'd been working from home since 2020, it was nice to be able to leave my bedroom and have an office.  The garage in the background is now a home gym set up for my zwifting which now also includes running as well as cycling. Xmas day I cooked for more people than usual in a smaller than usual kitchen.  Ironic that in a place which is a few hundred square feet bigger, I have a smaller kitchen.   But work progressed on the house.  Had some walls painted, new electric points installed. Brand new (not Argos) furniture is now in place, t...

Cant believe the event has now been done. The number of miles I've ran in preparation, the ridiculous 3:45am alarms so I could get my long base run done before starting work at 7:30am.  The number of times I've been caught short on a training run which was equally embarassing as well as frustrating at how my body just would not behave itself and decide it needed to get to a toilet ASAP.  The build up to the event day itself, September 12th 2021 in Brighton started the week before. I had completely adjusted my diet in terms of what times I would eat at, my main meal being at lunch time and dinner being something light at 5pm. No snacking after that. Making sure my water consumption was definitely up to scratch. The shift to mostly carbs in the last few days. The tapering week of my TrainerRoad program that I'd been working through for about 23 weeks.  The next thing I knew it was September 11th. Aside from the obvious poignant reasons about that date, 20 years late...

 To those that know me, they're probably thinking "Noooo! Remember what happened to your knee!?".  To those people I say, "I'll never forget that day".  But I find that my regular route around Sheerwater has gotten stale and boring.  So I'm now branching out to other parts of Woking.  My new favourite route takes in the lake at the Goldsworth Park recreational ground. I've been running with a friend.  Well I think she's still a friend, I've been sworn at a few times as I'm being a bit of a task master.  But we're taking in the lake and its absolutely gorgeous to run around.  From my place this pond is just over 5km away so its a nice halfway point on a semi-lengthy run for me.   This entry has been edited a couple of times already as I you'll notice in one paragraph I call it a lake, then I called it a pond.  Then I renamed them both to lake, then both to pond, then I googled "difference between a pond and a lake" and am...

Its been absolutely ages since I've felt the urge to write on here and the world has changed so much since the last time. In 2020 I had an amazing two week snowboarding holiday with friends to Whistler, Canada.  Then the world fell foul to COVID-19.   In a matter of weeks, life for me became unrecognisable.  I was fortunate enough to be able to work from home.  Until now the longest I'd ever spent doing that was 5 days, now its approaching 1 year! The sedentary lifestyle started to take its toll and the weight was heading northwards again.  So I started to increase my cycling (indoor) and running (outdoor).  I remember how weird it felt going outside and giving a wide berth to people.  Settling into a very strange but what had to become the "new normal". Found I was losing my mind within a few weeks and so in a humourous (well I thought it was) I vented through Sasha.  Even posting it onto youtube: and then a short while later on, a second vi...

As my friends well know, whenever I have a challenge that I need to prepare for, then the blinkers go on and its all about that.  Not to the detriment of work mind you. Obviously I'm STILL talking about my Guildford triathlon challenge.  Out of the three disciplines, in order of my strengths from worst to best its Swimming, Running, Cycling.  So the rationale I'm applying then is to concentrate on the weakest event. Step 1 was joining the Racestrong triathlon club which I wrote about in my previous blog primarily for some swimming coaching as it makes good sense to be taught by someone that knows what they're talking about instead of thrashing about in a pool, consuming boat loads of energy and potentially not even managing the challenge.  OK I know I can manage a 500 metre swim, I just want to do it as efficiently as possible which in my head means as fast as possible, or as I now like to say "Same results for half the effort" (thank you Rob Needham for that ...