Update

Eerie rainbow, quite recent, brings hope

This winter had seriously dragged on for me, plus its been pretty eventful for us as a family.  Life seems to have thrown quite a lot at us lately.  It is at these testing times when my faith has an important part to play makes a real difference.  Faith also provides answers in the most unexpected of ways and, as I discovered a few years back, taking good care of myself, eating well and staying fit has provided me with the ability to weather the various storms which seem to come along from time to time.

Stress
People say there are key sources of stress which seem to have the biggest impact these days.  Moving house, divorce are said to be among those but happily these don't apply here.  Instead the sudden and unexpected loss of my father on New Year's Eve was a terrible shock, as mentioned in the last post here.  And then a few days later I was starting my new job.  Both huge events for me having never lost a parent before and in terms of changing jobs, this was the first change of this scale for 23 years.

It seemed the short days and long dark nights were hampering me in terms of running and cycling.  Now spring has properly arrived I am pleased that I was able to keep ticking over to position me well for now as my mileage picks up.  I am seriously having to resist the temptation of sprinting ahead too fast in terms of increasing my mileage.  This is hard going, especially as I have had some nice runs and there is always the temptation of saying "I want some more of that" and then head out for another run before recovering properly.

Gym, again
So instead I've joined a gym (again!).  This time it's the shiny new leisure centre at Flitwick, Bedfordshire.  It's not exactly local but it's on my way home from work and, because I now work for the Council, I get a discount.  Fifty percent in fact.  That's cool.

I quite like doing 'people watching' while I'm doing a bit of cardio.  Quite a range of people; their ages, body weight, fitness and so on. I feel another blog coming on about that another time.

So now I'm feeling positive, optimistic and hopeful.  The days are getting longer and life is getting easier.  I've had some nice runs of late, including another with my friend Jon as we've both entered the St Albans Half in June.  Seriously looking forward to that but simply no idea if I'll come anywhere near my PB on that race (I think it was around 1:45).