Journal

The lost year

Since I started “blogging” (it wasn’t called that yet when I first kept an online journal in the late 90’s), the frequency of my writing has ebbed and flowed. Some years I’ve written dozens of things and for some I’ve barely managed one each month. However, as 2013 rolled on I found I’d “lost my voice”. It wasn’t that I had nothing to share, it was that I just couldn’t seem to put the events into words and, as time went on, I thought I’d “challenge” myself to not write anything for a calender year to give myself time to find the motivation again.

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Journal

Making the grade

Back in August this year, Elisha joined the local Taekwon-do class. I was all for it – I’ve wanted her to do something like this for a while, because having done a couple of years of karate when I was in my late teens I wished I’d taken it up when I was much younger. Learning a marshal art just has so many positive benefits in terms of fitness, self discipline, confidence – all the good stuff that helps you become a well rounded individual.

After her introductory week where Fliss and I took her down together, I’d get her ready on a Saturday morning, take her down to the school where the lessons are held and sit and watch her for the duration. I had a passing interest myself, but was reluctant to get involved because of the bad memories of how things had gone when I studied karate.

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Journal

Dashing to the finish line

I rounded off my fund raising challenges for the year by taking part in the Glasgow Santa Dash – a 5k route starting and finishing at George Square in the city centre. My mate Paul said he would do it with me toward the end of October just for the fun of it. Over the weeks that followed he’d put in a bit more training than I had, but I’d kept up a reasonable level of fitness since my last physical challenge and felt I’d comfortably manage the distance.

The Santa Dash wasn’t supposed to be a gruelling challenge like some of the others; just a way to finish off the year in a fun way with a somewhat physical event. In comparison to Tough Mudder or the Graeme Obree Sportive, the effort required was nothing, but I thought it was a great way of book-ending the series of fund raising events I’d done.

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