After starting off with a 5K Parkrun in 2017, and progressing to my first 10K run earlier this year to climbing Snowdon over the summer I have decided to really ramp things up in 2019.

It's been some time since I put an update on here.  It's not that I've not had any news to share with people, but more that I've been so busy I've not found teh time to sit down and get a blog post written.  I guess that the continued COVID lockdowns haven't helped either as days and weeks do have a habit of merging into one.

It's taken a while to know what I wanted to write about in this post and those that will follow.  It's not that I've been at a loss for what I have to say, but more that I haven't known what I want to put out in the public sphere.  Of course, I'm talking about Coronavirus and the impact it is having on both myself and everyone else whether they be family, friends, people that are out there trying to make sure we all get through this or everyone else.  Like many of you, I have so many conflicting feelings that it's hard to filter them and organise them into any semblance of reality, so if this ends up going into a disjointed ramble please excuse me.

Well, it's happened, and I've entered my 50th year!  Not quite sure where the last half-century has gone, and let's face it, there have been times where I seriously doubted whether I'd ever actually get to this birthday.  I certainly never thought that I'd be marking the occasion by planning my running, hiking and cycling for the year and concentrating on the training needed to make sure I'm fit enough for the events I'm booked in for.

It's hard to believe that we are entering a new decade, especially as I'll be 50 at the end of the month.  It doesn't feel more than a few years since we moved to Rome back in 1999, but when I look back over the past 20 years, so much has happened.  We've moved countries three times, including the move back to the UK.  I've completely changed career, and of course, my life has been fundamentally changed by my heart failure diagnosis in 2016.  Even in the three and a half years since my diagnosis things have changed massively.  I refuse to look at the experiences I've had as anything other than positive.  Yes, being as ill as I was, was a huge shock, but it has led to being the fittest I've ever been, becoming involved with Pumping Marvellous and being made a trustee of the charity and all that does with that.  Speaking at conferences, helping in the decision-making process to get our message out and make a difference.  I've also had the opportunity to be involved in research projects, both as a participant and also as a member of the steering group that helps to guide the project while it's being run.  This year I'm also part of the main project team for a new study that is being considered for funding.  All in all, these things can only be described as exciting, and not something I would have had the opportunity to be involved in had I not become ill.

It’s almost time for me to head off on my biggest challenge so far, just one week until I set off from St Bees Head in Cumbria on my 192 mile trek across country to Robin Hoods Bay over on the east Coast of Yorkshire. Where the time has gone since Ruth suggested this is anyone's guess, but it’s involved a lot of hard work making sure I’m fit enough and trying to condition my legs for what I’m sure will be an exhausting but totally exhilarating experience!

It’s been a few months since my last post so it’s time to bring everyone up to date with how things are going, both in general and more specifically for my 1000 miles in 2019 challenge and training for my Coast to Coast walk.

Why do I get myself into these messes?  It's now only four months until I set off from St Bees in the Lake District towards Robin Hood's Bay in North Yorkshire, following Alfred Wainwright's 192 mile Coast to Coast Walk.  This is part of my 1000 mile in 2019 challenge which, as it says in the title, is me waling and running 1000 miles this year.  The reasons I'm doing this are threefold; firstly to raise funds for Pumping Marvellous who have been an amazing source of support since my diagnosis with heart failure in 2016, secondly to help raise awareness of heart failure of which there will be more later, and thirdly to prove to myself that I can do this.  The 1000 miles itself isn't too bad, after all it's less than 3 miles a day and I hope to at least do double the target, but the Coast to Coast is 15days without a rest day walking between 8 and 25 miles a day and a total ascent of 10km which is higher than Mount Everest.

I’m starting my 2019 fundraising early, but it’s planned to be a big one. I’ve worked myself up from 5K to 10K (two this year) to climbing mountains and rediscovering my love of hiking so when I was thinking what I would do in 2019 I decided it needed to be something big. The idea of doing the Coast to Coast walk seemed ideal, but what about the rest of the year?