A decent year for the site as we clocked over 11K visitors again. There was a clear drop this year from last but that was largely due to a decrease in searches for open water swimming after a boom last year in people looking for information about local lochs. 

Hello to our visitors from nearly 2000 visitors from around the world.

And an extra special hello to those single visitors from Uruguay to Jordan:

And many thanks to all who visited the site, read a blog, left a comment, clicked a link, watched a video or bought the book.

If you ‘assume’ then you make an ass of of you and me.

Which is one of those phrases that doesn’t seem fair, when you think about it. Why should two people be blamed for one persons assumption? If I assume that you will give a chocolate cake if I visit your house, then it’s not your fault if I turn up on your doorstep at midnight demanding a Black Forest gateaux. You would be quite right to slam the door in my face and call my every name under the sun. No has made an ass out of you. You’re in the right. I’m in the wrong and when I assume I have only made an ass out of me.

Which is what happened at the Jimmy Irvine 10K. I had assumed the route was the same as the last time I’d entered. See Jimmy Irvine Race Report 2019. However, the organisers had moved the start line. Instead of starting at the top of a hill in Bellahouston Park, they started at the bottom. And the first few hundred metres required us to run to the top.

I didn’t know this so hadn’t warmed up and I spent the first few hundred metres huffing and puffing and cursing myself for not think to check the route.

Other than that, the route was the same as previous years and involves 2 and half laps of Bellahouston Park. Unlike previous years – see 2019 again – it was a warm autumn day. There was no rain and it was a nice run through the park with around 500 other runners.

I was pleased with my time after having been ill a couple of days before. However, I don’t know my exact time. According the organisers I ran in 46 mins 30 seconds. According to my watch, I ran 10k in 45 minus 40 seconds. I could only wonder if the extra metres at the start may have made the course longer.

(Or my watch failed to track me right).

I would make an assumption but we all know the dangers in doing that now.

When do you change your running shoes? According to the shoe manufacturer, Asics, you should change them every 400 – 500 miles or earlier if:

•              Sections of the rubber outsole are so worn that you can see the softer foam underneath

•              The midsole feels too soft and collapses easily under pressure. 

•              You see longitudinal creases in the midsole

•              The heel counter becomes mobile and less supportive

•              Your toes wear through the toe-box and the shoe upper tears

•              One shoe sole becomes asymmetrically worn when compared to the other

•              One or both shoes no longer stand up straight when placed on a flat surface

•              You feel increased muscle soreness after running

I’ve got a simpler system to know when to replace your shoes: once a year, when the sales are on – or earlier, if a hole appears. 

The important thing though is to change them whether they need changed or not  – because no shoe lasts two years. If you get one year out of them, then you’re doing well. If you get longer, even better. Because you can buy the new pair and then keep wearing the old pair until the hole appears. 

It’s a simple system and it’s never failed me.Modern shoes should last a year, unless you are Kipchoge and running marathons every second week. But, in his case, he gets shoes for free from Nike so doesn’t have to think about it. Mo Farah on the other hand, now that his career is slowing down faster than he is, will need to start thinking about buying his own. So, Mo, if you’re reading, perhaps best you pop down to the January sales and buy a pair for this year!

So, there you go, you don’t need to know much about shoes to keep injury free with proper trainers. Just buy one pair a year in the January sales and you’ll never need to think about it again.

Many thanks for Triathlon Scotland who promoted our book ‘TwinBikeRun’ this Christmas. If you didn’t get a copy for Christmas then you can still get a copy here.

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Every year I download an info-graphic of my Strava training stats from https://veloviewer.com/infographic

You can see last years here

This year my aim was to do more than 2021….

I was pleased to get over 4000 miles. I reached the Alaskan town of Juneau. Which is one of the only cities on Earth which can not be reached by road due to being surrounded by sea and mountain. It is sort of apt that the place I reached by swimming, biking and running is one of the few places were those three skills are required to get there!

The aim for the year was Celtman. You can read about it here https://twinbikerun.com/?s=celtman or watch the video

My strangest (sporting) experience of the year was attempting to use St Andrews Swimming pool.

“Hello St. Andrew’s swimming pool, what time do you close?”

– 1430 but not if you want to swim. The tills close at 1330. You can’t swim after that.

“I don’t want to swim. I want a shower. Is that ok?”

– The tills close at 1330. You cant have a shower either.

“But the pool is open until 1430?”

– Yes that’s correct.

I arrive at 1300. The receptionist sees me and says:

– your not expecting to swim are you?

“No, just a shower. “

– That’s fine. We close the tills at 1330

“Yes – I know !”

I head through to the showers. The life guard comes over to speak to me

– I hope your not swimming!

“Is this to do with the tills?”

– Yes they close at 1330

Why does the pool not want me to swim ??! What happens when the tills close that mean I can’t go near their water ? Why is it open until 1430 if I can’t do anything ?

I don’t think I’ll ever know the answer.

This year also saw what would be my final match of squash. After 15 years of playing once a week against the same man, he emigrated to Stranraer! Which might as well be Australia, as it’s so far away.

In this time we have played nearly 500 matches and I won the grand total of 20. So to anyone who says it’s not the winning, it’s the taking part that counts… what a load of twaddle. It’s brutal losing every week. good riddance to him!

Just kidding. squash was one of the highlights of my week. I’ve started playing badminton instead but its not the same.

Overall, I got through the year happy and I can’t ask more than that.

Happy New Year Everyone.

My eyesight isn’t very good. It’s not as bad as Al Pacino’s vision in Scent Of a Woman but it is getting towards a Mr Magoo level of poorness. Thankfully, I’ve not crashed my car… yet!

I suspect anyone reading this who understands either of these references is also old enough to be experiencing similar vision related problems.

My vision has deteriorated to the point where I am unable to read a book at night. The low light level means my eyes struggle to focus on the letters on a page.

I tried every fix I could think of – turning on all the lights, using a Kindle, reading whilst wearing a head-torch. None of them helped. After a few minutes the words would go out of focus and I’d have to stop reading.

So I threw money at the problem. I decided to spend more money on one lamp than I have spent on all the lamps I have ever bought in my life. A serious problem needed a serious solution so I bought a serious reader lamp – https://www.seriousreaders.com/

And all I can say is that is worth every penny I paid for it because for the first time in years I can now read in the evening. I can read for hours without any eye strain or issues. It is life changing. I can now read properly again in the evening.

Books I enjoyed – Blood, Sweat, and Pixels is the story behind a number of hit computer games. If you’ve ever thought it would be great to write games for a living then read this. It will put you off for ever. Writing games is very difficult and often not much fun.

The Runner: Four Years Living and Running in the Wilderness annoyed me as he didn’t live and run in the wilderness. He would pop into his local town if he needed anything. It should have been called “The Runner: Four years of hard living but thankfully lots of friends visited and I was close enough to civilization that I didn’t feel I was missing out on anything.” but that would have been harder to market.

The Final Empire is written by Bryan Sanderson. I’ve only just started it but its great so far. I bought it after reading that Bryan had created the most successful Kickstarter campaign of all time. He raised nearly $15million dollars in the first 24 hours of launch. If that many people like his books then it must be worth a try….

Breath is the type of book that would be much better if it was a long magazine article. Its worth a read but like a lot of science books it goes on well past the point it needs to.

and lastly the worst book of the year was Writing Movies for Fun and Profit: How We Made a Billion Dollars at the Box Office and You Can, Too!

Don’t read anything written by anyone who uses an exclamation mark! They must be a moron!

Last year I wrote “The best thing that can be said about movies in 2021 is that it was a better year than 2020. “

Unfortunately this year wasn’t much better. Due to covid restrictions less films were made in 2021 and the ones that did should have stayed restricted.

The biggest disappointment was The Northman. A film that had great actors, a great director and a viking setting that you rarely see on film but the end result was a very boring film. One man at my screening turned to his friend at the end and said “A good review in The Guardian is not a recommendation, its a warning!” I think, even Guardian readers would have struggled to enjoy it.

The best documentary of the year came out in 2021 but I only saw it this year. The Rescue is the story of the Thai cave rescue. The plot is so unbelievable that if it was a film you’d say it was too unrealistic. But its all true. Later in the year it came out as a film starring Colin Farrell. Don’t bother with it, the documentary is much better.

The worst film of the year was Elvis. Tom Hanks starred as Widow Twanky from the pantomime…wait a sec. I’ve just read he’s supposed to be Elvis’s manager Colonel Tom. His performance was atrocious. His accent visited more countries than a Coldplay world tour. One minute he was dutch, then french, then woody from Toy Story. A truly terrible film. If the King wasn’t alive then he’d turn in his grave. Elvis is alive. Right?

Best joint film of the year is Everything, Everywhere All at Once. A film that reminds you that love is why we are all here. If you don’t cry at the bit with the inanimate rocks then you are a emotionless robot! Which I have been accused of. All I have to say to that is – “Syntax error – does not compute.”

And equally as good is The Banshees Of Inshireen,which asks the question what do you give up to do something you love and is it worth it? A question apt to anyone who spends there days training for races.

Years’ ago, I paid a small fortune for two tickets to see Adele in concert. I gave them to my wife for her birthday, assuming I’d get invited. That the unwritten rule… right? If I buy two tickets as a present then I get to go too. Everyone knows that… except my wife.

She took one look at my exceedingly expensive purchase and said “My friend will love this!” She immediately phoned her friend and told her the good news that they were going to sit on very expensive seats whilst listening to Adele perform.

Did I mention just how expensive these tickets were?

But I’m not bitter… maybe just a little bitter.

I share my Spotify account with my wife. Which is my excuse for why Adele features on my most played in 2022 list.

In this list, only James are someone I actually listened to.

2022 was not a great year for music. Lots of albums came out but most suffered from the modern problem of good single, crap album.

The art of making a coherent interesting album seems to have been lost.

Here’s three examples of songs I enjoyed in Albums that disappointed.