Born in 1973, I grew up like many other kids with hopes, aspirations and dreams. I never quite knew what I wanted to do at school, but regularly went to TaeKwonDo, as well as running every weekend with a local running club.
I was far from being a special or fast runner, but I enjoyed going and felt proud that I had gone the distance. Within the club, I managed to undertake a number of half marathons. I have a picture of me just before doing the Nottingham half marathon, which you can see below.
Since then, over the years I’ve mostly “dabbled” at things. Dabbled with weight training and gym fitness. By 2010 I had gained a lot of weight (almost 5 stone) due to a sedentary lifestyle and unhappy marriage.
When the marriage ended I joined a gym and lost the 5 stone, and with weight lifting, I started to see muscles and definition I had never really seen before. It felt amazing.
However this too turned out to be a phase in my life, and over the next 10 years a lot of the weight very slowly crept back on due to unhealthy eating habits and consuming a little too much alcohol on a regular basis.
Over the last few years, the realization of what I’ve been doing to my body has grown closer and closer by the day. It eventually reached a point where I “had” to do something.
This was me in 2021:
For sure I scrambled a host of ideas in my head – a home gym with weights treadmill, wifi, tv and Alexa – all these things made it a nicer place to be. Then I’ve reconsidered running again. Then I’ve given thought to my diet and lifestyle, and a number of other things.
All of this tends to give me brain overload.
Not to mention I am constantly in a battle in my own head to focus on “money” rather than “other stuff”. I run my own lawn care business and while it does ok, I feel I need to keep tending to it to ensure bills are paid and we can take the kids on holiday. This is also the reason why I’ve dipped in and out of running and fitness. I tend to feel like I really ought to focus on something productive financially. When I work on anything that’s more for fun or leisure I feel guilty and so stop and work on business stuff.
So I re-created this website. I did originally buy this domain name a few years ago for my running documentation. I also built up a Facebook page with several thousand followers (omg!) I enjoyed the buzz of sharing running memes and tips I had learned.
When I stopped running to focus on business (again), the domain expired, and a scammer bought the domain and was selling dodgy shoes to people. Aghh!!! This infuriated me as there was nothing I could do. People were messaging me via Facebook but sadly I didn’t own the domain anymore. Anyway, finally, I got the chance to buy the site again!
This website is really my attempt to get back in love with something I’ve always enjoyed. Nothing beats being out in nature and running.
My issue is that when I get into it, like I do with things in my life I give it my all.. and then I think I’m spending too much time on it and need to step back and work on business again.. sigh..
So here I am, just a normal regular guy from the Uk, who wants to be happy and healthy.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this – would love to hear if any of you have had to balance life in a similar way and how you managed it.
Shaun
