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Cycling is a sport which, if you asked me how I feel about it, it would take me a long time to answer it with a lot of separate stories of why I feel this way. I love it as a sport, but experiences have shaped some of my feelings and it is purely down to how I approached it when I was younger.
I love cycling because of the memories I have of cycling as a child and my enjoyment of watching professional cycling as a sport. Within the professional side of the sport, the commitment of riders to what they do is immense and there is a wide range of personalities within the sport to show that anyone, from anywhere, can do it. From the fun and chilled riders to those that are passionate, no nonsense and clever riders, the sport has them all and there are some great people giving access and chatting to these riders to show what really goes into the professional side of cycling, whether from the team perspective or the individuals themselves. From a racing perspective, it is also very enjoyable to see the technical planning that goes into it, the way races unfold and the sheer speed at the end of road races, for both multi-day (stage) races and one day races. As someone who loves France, there is also the small matter of the biggest stage race in the world travelling around the country and showcasing what the country has to offer (the Tour de France is described by some as the perfect billboard for France after all). I have lovely memories of riding my bike as a kid. I used to ride my bike along a route through a park when going to play tennis on local courts with my family during school holidays (one particular part of the park was a long straight path/road where I could go really fast). I also used to ride my bike a lot when on holiday on French camp sites, riding for hours around the site as it was safe to do so and great fun to keep going. I also remember riding with my dad and visiting my grandad. Although it was a route with a mixture of parks and a few busier roads, it was always great once we got to my grandad’s to be able to see him and have a nice drink with him before the return back home. All these memories are perfect examples of why cycling is great and the different places that you can do it, as well as the practical/leisure opportunities it provides. My mixed feelings with cycling come from the time that I was preparing to do the triathlon, which I have discussed in a previous blog post. For the triathlon, I bought a bike for it (with the hope of doing more in the future), did very little training on the bike, rode the bike within the triathlon with a couple of wobbles along the way, then didn’t ride again and haven’t really ridden again since. There are a number of reasons for this, some of which are personally driven reasons and some of which are wider issues for other people too, but they are all important to explore. Even though I have been running now for nearly 20 years, I was probably more natural as a cyclist because I rode more as a kid. I certainly rode more than I ran. I ended up starting to run because of the inspiration I saw on TV but also because it required less equipment, was easier to do straight out the door (put your shoes on and run) and felt like it was more safe (running on paths rather than riding in the road with cars and lorries). I even used to enjoy going on the exercise bike more at the gym but it was another activity that required going somewhere to do something, so wasn’t as easy to do. Running was more straightforward to do out the door so it is what I did. I also think that a big influence was the number of running events there were, which was a chance to get a medal for your efforts, which had a big persuasion on me! The more natural feeling of ability in cycling and an interest in the sport of triathlon meant that I signed up for a triathlon in 2012 and this meant getting a bike. Even though I felt more comfortable cycling in the gym on the exercise bike and felt more natural, when it came to preparing for the triathlon, I was very nervous and reluctant about going out on the bike. There were a number of challenges to wrestle with in my head and, if truthful, I never really got my head around them to deal with them. The silliest of the lot was that I was worried about bike control with the narrow handlebars of a road bike and I thought I would struggle to be able to steer. Although they are narrower than a mountain bike, the moment I got on the road bike and started riding, it was really easy to steer and all the worries of this disappeared. Looking back, it is crazy to think that this was one of the big initial barriers that probably put me off for 6 or more months before realising I just had to do something (i was exploring hybrid bikes and all other types of bikes before plucking up the courage to buy a road bike). The bigger, and more serious, worry I had was around confidence of riding on roads. At the time, I lived in the London suburbs where roads were mixed and busy, so riding a bike on these roads required a lot of concentration and confidence to ride knowing that you were going to be OK on the road. Oh dear! Confidence was not a strong point for me, so it created a massive barrier for motivating me to go out. My confidence was also challenged by the fact that I had worked with a couple of people that had been knocked off of bikes and, with one in particular, it had a big impact on their life. They were confident and experienced riders so, if it happened to them, what chance did I have of being OK. It really affected my belief and confidence and, in the end, made me very reluctant to start training and go out for rides. I was lucky in the end to have family friends who cycled and who supported me by going out for a ride before the triathlon and it helped in completing the triathlon. The biggest problem with the cycling section during the triathlon was that I didn’t really know how to ride the bike in terms of gearing and getting the most out of it, simply through lack of experience of riding the bike. After completing the triathlon, despite my general enjoyment of riding and feeling of being able to ride a bike quite well in terms of speed/endurance, I never rode the bike again. The fear factor connected to the safety element of riding on roads was a massive factor. I also think that the fear of punctures and having to change tyres in this instance was another factor. I am not the most practical person so the fear of something happening was a real worry. A third factor also prevented me from using the bike again, which was the bike I had. When looking for a bike to purchase, I should have gone for a simple, cheaper, more affordable bike that I was just able to ride. Instead, I did a lot of research and, with aspirations of conquering the world, I got a bike that I hoped would last for a long time (not expensive but more than I needed to pay at the time for what I wanted). When I went to the shop to purchase the one I had researched, I was recommended to buy a better quality bike as, in his words, “I will be back in 6 months upgrading the bike because it wouldn’t be as good as I would now need.” While valid in my head at the time, it turned out to be rubbish advice and I got a bike that was more complex than I needed, also creating greater fear when it came to actually riding it. These three factors ended up making me store a bike I didn’t use in a shed for more than 10 years, unridden, until the point where I finally decided to get rid of it because I was frustrated at being reminded of a failed mission to cycle more. As good as it was to finally get rid of it, it also frustrates and niggles me that I didn’t make it work and didn’t use it more. I now don’t have a bike and yet, as a perfect cross training activity for running, it would be great to have it back. My worries about cycling, which prevented me from doing it, are ones that I have addressed within myself and are ones to understand further. Road safety and confidence is one that, while it is never going to disappear, belief, confidence and awareness/understanding will minimise the risk and dangers. While it is important to ride defensively and conscious of everything that is around you so that you can spot dangers and risks posed, you have to ride confidently with the belief that everything will be OK and that everyone will be understanding. I now live near the coast and countryside, which provide different routes and trails for exploring and riding, so I hope to one day be able to use and make the most of these. One of the great things about cycling is that there are different types. Mountain/off road cycling, road cycling and BMX, so finding the right one that gives you the great feeling just requires exploration. There are now many places to go to explore and try different types. It is one of my quests to explore and do, seeing whether I can find one that gives me the enjoyment I had as a kid. As for buying a new bike, I will do eventually. I know that, next time, I won’t be persuaded into buying a fancy bike but simply finding one that fits my needs and allows me to get outside easily, without the worry of being precious about it and having to deal with the overcomplication of it. I am not saying that the better bikes are unnecessary, because they are great bits of kit that definitely have their purpose and benefits (who knows, one day I might have that desire and need) but, at this stage, I just want something that gives me the ability to get out, have a pedal and explore while feeling good and allowing me to do something that, deep down, will take me back to the feelings I had as a kid many years ago. In the same way that I have recently talked about the emerging (now enormous) sport of Padel, this blog post is all about another sport that is much smaller, but which I think should be a lot bigger; the sport in question is Korfball.
The best place to start would be to give a brief description of the sport. Korfball is a court-based team sport that is similar to netball or basketball, with the objective of scoring baskets in a hoop and scoring one point each time the ball goes through the hoop. While there are different things that distinguish it (the shape and size of the basket/hoop, which is a solid tube to score through and at a height that is typically higher than in netball) and the size of the court (a standard Korfball court is bigger than a basketball or netball court), there are similarities to the other hooped sports. You cannot travel with the ball, like in netball, and it is very much a team sport where moving the ball up the court requires the whole team. Given the similarities to basketball or netball, why do I think it should be played more in schools and generally played more? Korfball stands out because of a fundamental rule of the game that makes it unique as a team sport. At all levels, from grassroots to elite, Korfball is a mixed team sport that means that all teams have to be made up of an equal number of men (or boys) and women (or girls). As a result, it is a sport that provides equal opportunities, equal values and equal support in the same game, at the same time, on the same court. While it is possible in school to have boys and girls playing together, it doesn’t continue through the progression of other team sports and there isn’t the same emphasis of boys and girls playing together with equal responsibility. Even netball has a bias as, at the elite level, it is exclusively for women. While it is great for women’s sport and important in empowering more women to get into sport with the same judgement and comparison as other sports, there is still a barrier and challenge with different forms of comparison to men’s sport when it comes to elite sport and trying to get visibility, which is difficult to challenge and break down. I was introduced and made aware of Korfball through a friend who played it, started clubs at his university and was very passionate about it. As soon as I heard about it, I understood why he liked it so much. I also found it very difficult to find a club more locally to me and, as was typical at the time (as shown in many of my posts to date) I was never going to have the courage to create a club near me. I did a Level 1 Coaching course in Korfball (thanks to the friend who invited me) and it highlighted further the values and qualities that make it a great sport, but it was always a challenge to find somewhere to play it, back then 15 years ago and still today in 2026. When I worked in schools, I missed the opportunity to introduce it into PE lessons and I regret it a lot. At the time, it was a challenge to simply get the children enthused about PE and getting active in lessons and, as a result, I found myself following the standard lessons and sports that are typically taught in PE. My own motivation dropped at the time and I definitely look back to the time and think that I missed a real opportunity to introduce kids to it, because it offers so many qualities that children can benefit a lot from and which can transfer into other areas of school and real life. The first of these values is the fact that both boys and girls play in each of the area of the court. There are 8 players on a standard team (4 boys and 4 girls) and 4 players in the attacking half of the court, 4 players in the defensive half of the court for each team. Boys mark boys, girls mark girls, but they have equal opportunities to shoot and defend, so the most important part of playing is to work as a team and focus on working out who has what strengths. Every player is valuable and different sporting qualities can be used in different areas of the court. While there are specific rules for Korfball in terms of dimensions and heights for the equipment in a standard game, Korfball is scalable and movable, so introducing the sport in schools doesn’t have to be limited. From using alternative hoops (including netball hoops if you wish) and making courts smaller, to having smaller teams, the game is adjustable and adaptable to fit the environment of the school or place where it is being played. As long as there are equal numbers of boys and girls on each team and there is an emphasis on every player being part of the game, there is the possibility and opportunity to play a game of Korfball. Another great thing about Korfball is that it can be played anywhere. Outside, inside, in Australia, Canada, USA and anywhere in between. The biggest emphasis and value of the sport can exist and be powerful wherever you are, allowing and having boys and girls, men and women playing together equally on the court and having fun together within a competition and the opportunity to be active with people who have the same interest. While Korfball is a sport that could be introduced and chosen as a sport during PE, it doesn’t have to be just during PE. Class bonding, teaching equality values, respecting each other and valuing each other. Korfball feeds into this in so many ways and is something that, while it can be hard to find ways to keep spreading the message to properly resonate with children, it can be done in a fun, slightly competitive and positive way through the sport of Korfball. By the way, it is not just something that kids should be learning and gaining from. The benefits it could bring to workplaces and bringing together teams is massive. As a team building exercise with an emphasis on everyone being part of it, it can show the strengths and qualities of each individual in different environments and team bonding at the heart of makes is very valuable. The truth about Korfball is that it is a fun, non-contact sport that everyone can play, with a strong message at its heart and the ability to get everyone involved. If you are looking for something to bring people together and show that everyone can take part, it’s well worth exploring and giving a go. There are times in life when things that, on the face of it, look bad, yet they can be the best thing to happen. Initial embarrassment or fear can lead to a reset that, when looking back, it marks the start of positive things happening.
My realisation of this being the case occurred a few years ago through a small event but has helped as a reminder when things have truly been tough. It happened when I was left alone with the responsibility of looking after a puppy for a week and, in typical style with the idea of being responsible for something, I felt incredibly nervous about the pressure of this responsibility. I know that it was only for a puppy and not something more serious like a child, and yet I still felt the importance as it was the family dog and I didn’t want anything bad to happen to it. Responsibility and the pressure I put on myself when responsible for something has done some very strange things to me. An example of this was the lead-up to getting concussion in a job interview, or some of my early marathon experiences. I have been so fixated on the importance of it and not messing up that something much more significant happens and, in the end, it puts the whole thing in context. When looking after the puppy for the first time, the first couple of days were consumed with the typical (for me!) worries of making sure the dog was OK and that he and I were doing everything we should. I was on edge the whole time and worrying about everything, which made me lose sight of where I was and what I was doing. When accepting to look after the puppy, I decided to take the puppy and myself on holiday to a mobile home to make the most of the week having him. This is why, while I was worrying about making sure everything was alright, I completely forgot to savour and take in where I was. The first couple of days were a blur with a mix of doing the necessary things, then on day three of the adventure, a simple mishap occurred that woke me up, relaxed me and made me realise that I just needed to enjoy my week away with the puppy. While taking him for a walk locally to where I was staying, I lost concentration and tripped over on a pavement, falling to the floor and grazing both knees, blood seeping down my leg and pride well and truly gone. I was a grown man, walking his young and excitable puppy, around a lovely little town with two bleeding knees and a smirk that said “what a numpty I am!” (or words to that effect). I got sympathetic looks from passers by and had to say I was OK to a few people, then got back and easily cleaned myself up. Once back, the penny also dropped that it had happened because I was so nervous of something happening and, now that it had, I could relax and enjoy the rest of my week. I did as well! I visited local beaches, had some lovely lunches out and savoured the warm weather, just me and the dog, enjoying the rest of the week and relaxing in the way that I was hoping to do all week. This experience wasn’t an epiphany to relax more at the time and I didn’t learn much in terms of learning to just take things as they come. I don’t think it is truly in my nature, even now, to not put lots of pressure on myself in any new experience. As much as I would like to and have tried to be more like it, there is something inbuilt into me that means that I like to know what I am doing and I feel nervous when responsible. I don’t think it is a bad thing as it shows that I care and want to do right in what I am doing, but it also prevents me from enjoying things, particularly in the first days when finding my feet and balancing the priorities and responsibilities. The positive thing is that I now have (and have had) the ability to say to myself “all good, time to relax now” when something similar happens (which it has, often!) and it gives me the reset that usually settles everything down. When I was thinking about this scenario and how, although it is incredibly difficult to stop myself getting nervous when responsible for something, I do have the ability to bring myself out of it. I was reminded of talking to a work colleague about this. Not only did she go through the same things (worry at responsibility and wanting to do things well), she was also curious about how I allowed myself to hit a point of falling and the subsequent ability to then relax and move on (coming across completely differently). She observed how this happened a couple of times and would chuckle because it was like the invisible weight on my shoulders had completely disappeared. At first, it was a curiosity with the usual chat of why I wasn’t able to just relax in the first place, then it became an acceptance and amusement of the fact that, after a trip or fall, it was the thing that cleared the air and allowed me to move on. She wasn’t planning on following my example but accepted and found it funny that this was my approach. I know that it is a weird approach to take in relieving the pressure of my own expectation, and it doesn’t always involve a trip or fall in order to do this. Sometimes, it is a very small thing that snaps me out of the pressure I am putting on myself in order to simply calm down, breathe and savour what I am doing to appreciate what is happening and what I am doing in that moment. Even the small incidents always make my mind bounce back to the trip while looking after the puppy because, in reality, it was the first time I thought about how unnecessary it is to keep piling this imaginary pressure on myself (and it also reminds me of a great week looking after my puppy for the first time). I spend a lot of time talking, reflecting and trying to develop as a person to learn to embrace new things, explore how things can become better (in whatever way that actually means, most often meaning ways to feel happier while doing things) and see where life will take me. With this comes a lot of pressure that I have put on myself over time, adding expectations along the way for wanting and having different things. Tripping over will always remind me that, when I put pressure on myself and feel nervous, there is another way of feeling and an ability to appreciate where I am without expectation and, whether it takes an accident to make it happen or not, there is a lot to savour around us and a lot to appreciate at any one time. I have had a rare period of a week where I couldn’t follow my normal routines and not do normal activities (combination of walks, running and going on the exercise bike). A non-serious issue with my foot has meant that I have needed to rest and not put pressure on the foot and, because of this, my normal routine of doing a morning activity after breakfast has gone out of the window. While it has felt strange, it has also been valuable time to think about how I get active, train and work towards different fitness goals, also providing a great opportunity to re-set and shift so that the emphasis of my training is slightly different.
Over the last four years, I have had two different approaches going in parallel with each other, complimentary in some ways but not always compatible and not always helping with the wider needs of my overall health and wellbeing. Not detrimental, but not completely beneficial. And yet, looking back, I wouldn’t change the approach I have taken up to now. It is just the moment to change and shift focus on how I now approach things. After a period of not doing much activity, especially with moving house/area, covid and changes of jobs, I went through a period of 2-3 years where I didn’t do much activity at all. Dog walks, an occasional walk and an odd run here and there, but very little compared to before this, when I would walk or run 5-6 days per week and would typically do 4-8 miles each time. I had done this for more than 10 years and simply reached a point where I needed a break from this routine, initially wanting to find a different sport or activity to do but ending up falling into the habit of doing nothing. As a result of doing very little over 2-3 years, I put on weight, didn’t feel great and the impact seemed to trickle into other aspects of life, up to the point where I needed to refind a focus in doing something physical and needed to start getting active again. When making the decision to start getting active again, I chose to start recording what I did and set myself the goal to try to do a certain number of activities each year. I chose an annual target (100 activities, which would include fast walks, runs and other cardio activities) to take into account that I might miss certain weeks (holidays, tiredness, injuries) but if I could average doing 100 activities over the year, this would be a solid base and there was lots of room for progress over the following years, looking to be able to improve year on year and build better, more progressive habits as I go along. This has worked well and, over the last 4 years, I have gradually built up and built confidence by doing more and more sessions each year, getting fitter and more active each year and seeing how it has progressed over that time. It has also been good being able to adapt around work while having a focus on getting active as an additional goal when things may be more challenging, which has been a blessing on many occasions. As well as counting the number of activities I do, with a grand total for the year to work towards, I have also been training with specific targets in mind and training for specific events, for example having a training plan for the marathon that I completed earlier this year. The training is more focused on a short-term goal, with specific training targets and each session counting towards the grand total that I talked about above. Over the course of the last four years, I have worked towards a variety of events at different distances and this has helped me to progress with getting back to running times achieved historically and the plans I have set myself have been valuable in achieving this. There have been a number of downsides to counting the number of activities I do over the course of a year. The activities I have recorded (which I have seen as important to my fitness) were only the cardio sessions that I did, which made me put a greater emphasis on these as the most important to do. I have struggled with doing strength and conditioning sessions/training throughout the whole time I have been running and have always avoided it where possible, so this method of counting sessions only helped to make me avoid it further by placing emphasis on the different cardio sessions I did. When training for longer run distances, while cardio is important, the amount of pressure being put through your body means that strength and conditioning is really important, but I didn’t do much of this when training and felt the effects of it throughout the week when recovering from long runs. Another downside of counting the number of activities was the ability to rest and take time to step away from the regular routine. While the whole point of setting an annual target at the beginning was to have perspective and to realise that there would be more intense/less intense periods, I ended up getting locked into the need to keep pushing up the number of sessions I did and continually trying to do more, even when I most desperately needed a break or rest, and the result of this was to hit burnout. I had it several times, but came back with reset goals that I stuck to until the next time I fell into the trap. I am glad that I took the approach that I did because I got a lot from it and, without it, I think that I would still be inactive and stuck with the consequences of it. By recording activities and setting the goal to get better year on year, it triggered the start of doing first events in 4 years, doing a first half marathon in 8 years and a first marathon in 13 years. It brought back better routines and more positive feelings and gave me the motivation to get fit and explore new places, as well as revisit old places and relive old times. All in all, there were massive benefits that all started from recording and counting the activities that I was doing. So why change and how am I changing things? First of all, constantly chasing a number throughout the course of the year means that, when I am trying to rest or have a period of rest to recuperate, I am feeling anxious because I am thinking that I will have to catch up or do more to reach a certain target by the end of the year. It takes away from the whole purpose of resting, so it feels like something needs to change. The other reason? Because I want to focus training more on the specific goals at certain times, which will vary at different times of year, and I want to ensure that the only thing I care about is doing types of sessions that will work for that goal. Not worrying about annual goals and completing certain numbers of an activity over the course of a year. It might mean doing more of one type one year and another type on another year, which I want to do without worrying about beating what I have done before. It will sound easy for some people but, for me, it has been my way of approaching things and, for some reason, it is not as easy as just going with things. It is also time to do more strength and conditioning work in my training and placing more emphasis on that. Spending time over the last week resting and recuperating from the foot issue that helped a lot with this, giving a reason to do some and start from the very basics. This in itself is a big deal because, as part of my activity counting, I was fussy about having to do a certain amount to make it count so, looking at things in a different way, it is going to be fun starting from basics in all aspects (cardio and strength work) to build up slowly and see how far this new approach takes me in making me feel proud by the achievements I make and the things that I do. Reflection is something I talk about and do a lot. I sometimes think that I exhaust myself with reflection and sometimes question whether the reflection I am doing is actually good, or whether it would be better to just focus on doing other things and stop thinking perpetually about the past. As one saying goes, “you can’t affect the past but you can influence the future.” I float regularly between this thought and focusing on the “what’s next?” while also realising that, with so much that has happened in the past, reflecting and making sense of it may unlock the ability to do things in the future without the same sequences and cycles of events happening again and again.
Writing and reflecting on past experiences has been very valuable, but it has also been very eye-opening. The process of writing down what happened and thinking about it from different perspectives has been both difficult but massively beneficial. As well as helping me to re-frame what happened and change my outlook on different events, it has also given me the ability to set new targets, want new things and create hope that has gone up and down at different stages of the last few years. The biggest challenge is that spending time reflecting doesn’t produce visibly tangible results, such as getting a job or building a relationship with someone, but that can be a by-product from dealing with particular issues that form barriers that I wasn’t really aware of, or was scared of overcoming. The importance of writing and reflecting hit me very recently when I started to sort through some boxes. Writing notes and doing “brain dumps” is nothing new to me and I have found it very useful over the last few years. I have been guilty of letting my brain wander and burst with ideas, not knowing what to do with them and letting it affect the important things in life. It was interesting going through one box because it contained a bunch of my notebooks of “brain dumps” and, when going through what was in each book, I found it very intriguing as well as a bit scary. I have noticed a pattern in my historic reflections and brain dumps that has helped to explain why the process of reflection now is so exhausting but so valuable. Historically, I would allow ideas and thoughts to build up, then have periods of writing them down and releasing them. I would also then make plans to use these thoughts, but not much would come from these plans. How do I know and remember this? Because, in each of the notebooks, the same thoughts and ideas keep coming back time and time again. The storage box was a known box where I just put books I didn’t want to use anymore but didn’t want to get rid of, in case they became useful in the future. The problem is that I never went back to look at them, because I always struggled with looking back at what I thought in the past. As a result, there were 10 years of effectively the same book, showing that I was going in circles and never really moving on from the same general aspirations, desires and routines that I wanted or needed in order to do the things I wanted in life. I also kept saying and replicating the same “new” mantras and affirmations to try to motivate myself, even though I had done them before and knew them, probably very easily by the 10th time of saying them. To eventually look at, read and accept this box of notebooks was a moment and day that hit hard and had a real impact on me. It made me realise that, while I spent a lot of time thinking about the past and wanting to change, I found the process of actually changing very difficult. I also found it curious because there were so many answers to questions I constantly ask myself, yet I have never been brave enough to follow my own advice (influenced by talking to different people who often support me with the same positive advice) and give myself the time and chance to do the things I really want to do. I also realised that, even though you can keep writing mantras of things to follow, the actual process of following them can be much harder than the process of reading and writing them. This box of books got me thinking about more than just how I keep writing the same things and following the same loop. As I said above, I spend a lot of time reflecting, but it made me think about how there are different types of reflection. There is reflection where we think about the past, reflecting on how we miss it and wish we could go back to it, knowing deep down that it will never be possible and feeling sadness for this. There is also reflection where we think about the past, remembering good times and trying to replicate it, even though it is impossible to do this as things are always changing and we change with it, so replicating the past only sets us up for a disappointment where we struggle and battle for things that won’t happen or, if they do happen, they won’t feel the same as before because other things in life are different. I have come to realise that both of these types of reflection have been the types that I have done historically, hence why I have had this box of books that, despite them being done separately at different points over the last 10 years, they all look the same. There is a third type of reflection. It’s not easy, doesn’t have quick solutions for creating quick actions and doesn’t always make you feel happy. However, it helps you to think more openly about the past, realise and remind you of what is possible but also help you to accept where you are now and explore how, wherever you now find yourself, you can use this experience to shape the things you want to do in the future to make the most of what you can and will have, rather than only being defined by what has happened in the past. The best way to do this is to take a deep breathe, accept that it isn’t going to be easy but know that, at the end of the reflection process, the strength you will find within yourself will all be worth it. Just so you know, the box of books is no more! One book of ideas and in a place that reminds me not to bury ideas, not be scared of what I can become and a reminder to keep pushing forwards without being scared of just trying to do what is right for me. Going through a very tricky period a few years ago, when the world felt completely against me and I really wasn’t sure what the future held, I suddenly thought about a natural phenomenon that happens all the time and, as a result, it helped to put many things into context. It was the fact that the sun feels like it disappears at times, sometimes for days or weeks (or even months in some places) due to it being very cloudy and/or raining, and yet it always comes back and you do eventually see it. At this particular time a few years ago, I was locked into the difficult things that were happening and the uncertainty of what I was going through. I was trying to find things to do to change my mindset and read different books or watched videos to make me feel better. While there was clearly something reaching my brain, it also felt like I was still stuck and couldn’t see how things would get better. I was definitely stuck in a rut and kept fixating on what had been happening and just found myself feeling more and more anxious. I know that the different things I was reading and watching must have had some effect, because I did come through it and did start to feel better. Some of this process of feeling better came from reflecting on things that had happened in the past and the fact that I had experienced all sorts of challenges before, being able to come through them and pick myself up, so it eventually clicked that it would happen again. When this did happen, it was a moment that led to me thinking about the idea of the sun coming back and that was the moment that unlocked the feeling that things would be alright. That simple message, “the sun will always come back” was very powerful and has been a source of importance since, helping me to get through later periods where things haven’t gone the way that I had planned in my head. I have written the phrase down in different forms as a reminder of the phrase and to ensure that, when things do get tricky or feel hard, it is there for reassurance. It acts as a reminder of the particular period when I first thought of it and reminds me of each time since when it has been useful to pick me up, helping me to realise that things may seem tough but do get better. The whole point of the phrase is to show that things go up and down, but when things feel tough, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel and that things get better. The more I use the phrase and have to remind myself of it, the more I realise that the sun isn’t always up and it is important to remember that things can’t always be rosy and bright. Dealing with the harder times is never easy and, when in them, you can get completely lost in the moment and have the same old feelings as before. Having that message of “the sun will always come back” hasn’t made tough times disappear but it has made it easier and quicker to come out of them and made it easier to feel better once everything settles down again. At the end of this blog post, there is a short poem I wrote that reflects what “The Sun Will Always Come Back” is all about and why it is important to remember that, while things can feel tricky at times, things won’t always be that way and there are always opportunities to find around the corner.  Acceptance is a funny thing because it sounds very easy if you say you just need to accept something, but it is often so much harder to actually do it. Like many things, some people will find it easier to accept and move on from things that happen, where some people will take a lot longer to reflect and be able to accept things. Acceptance is something we also have to do within all parts of our life (work and personal life) as it is part of the process within the decision making we do, coming as a final stage once a decision is made and dealing with the consequences of it.
Acceptance, particularly within certain aspects of my life, has been something I have struggled with throughout my life. As someone who is reluctant to make decisions at the best of times because of the fear and overthinking of the consequences of a decision, the acceptance of the rare decisions I do make often comes with the struggle of accepting the outcomes. Why did it unfold like that? Why didn’t I follow my initial instinct? What could I have done differently? I often find myself pouring over the whats and whys behind the things I do and the decisions I make, which never really helps in finding positives, building confidence and moving on to the next opportunities I often find at a later date. Because of my apparent fear of making decisions, I often have moments and short periods where, as a result of spending much too much time thinking and trying to do what I think should be the “right thing to do”, I often reach a point where an inner “logical, confident” me kicks in. It stays dormant for long periods of time but, when really needed, it steps up and helps me to make the right decisions, quickly, and follows through the decision to make things happen. While this will sound very strange and, as you read this, you will be rolling your eyes to say “if you know you have this within you, why don’t you follow it more often and change?” I find it hard to maintain this ability to do things for some reason. It is as much hard work to be like this and there will be moments where it doesn’t help to be like this, but it comes in useful to be like it when I really need to sort things out and change the way I am doing things at particular points in time. The root of my inability to confidently make decisions and the different modes that I have within myself comes from a lack of acceptance of who I am, what has happened in the past and where I have found myself at different points in my life. I have already spoken about different experiences I have had during my career to date and running experiences, admitting through these that my Autism has probably played a large part in this but only really being able to see it after being diagnosed in 2025. I think that it has a larger impact on a greater number of aspects of my life, not because of being wired differently but because, having taken a long time to actually realise the root cause of why I am different to people around me and because of the impact of different events through my life, it has resulted in approaching many different scenarios with an alternative way of thinking and the result will be very different outcomes. When I started exploring and getting the official diagnosis of being autistic, the objective was to help me to start accepting why things were how they were, as well as moving on and changing the way I did things. As I now look back over the last 6-9 months since getting the diagnosis, and thinking about some recent scenarios that I have experienced, I have realised that, while I used this time to reflect on past experiences in order to reframe them, I still haven’t accepted myself for what I am and haven’t realised that I will do things a certain way/feel things a certain way for the rest of my life. Over the last 6-9 months, so much has changed positively and there has been a lot to feel good about, From getting qualifications I wished I had done 15 years ago, to running races and feeling good in ways I never reflected before, and having the confidence to talk to people about myself in a more open way that I had never felt comfortable doing historically; these are all massive changes that have helped to open doors, make me feel more comfortable about myself and start to accept myself for being different to others, without seeing this as being a problem. While I can change the way I approach different activities and talk to people, I will always find it hard when things don’t go as planned and it will take a bit longer to process and accept when activities have gone differently to how I imagined them. My inner habit of rehearsing and visualising how I hope scenarios and activities will go can be positive and negative. Positive because it helps to prepare me for what I am about to embark upon and make it possible to even try doing things. Negative because, when things don’t go as planned, it creates a layer of disappointment that leads to taking longer to accept how things have unfolded differently. When I have thought about the idea of acceptance, I have always approached it as something where, once you set your mind to looking at something and finding a different way to view it, making it easier to understand and “accept” why something happened, I always thought that that was it and acceptance became a process of “filing” a decision in an inner storage cupboard to never make the same decision in the same way again. There are lots of phrases and mantras about not making the same bad decisions again and again, so acceptance fed into these ideas in a softer way to analyse and break any cycles of keep making these same mistakes. I have talked to different people historically (family, friends and colleagues) and, when talking about experiences I had and how it is easier to look at something objectively when it is not you, pointing out how it is easy to say what you would have done but not actually knowing what would really happen when you are in the scenario yourself. Recent events and activities have made me realise that the process of acceptance within ourselves has a lot of parallels to this. Once a scenario has unfolded, it is easy to look back and see what could be done differently. It is also possible to put in place a plan so that, if a scenario of any sort was to happen again in the future, it could be done differently by following the plan and doing things in a more logical way. This is all valuable and it can be right to do it. The only thing is, when a new scenario comes along, there could be things that happen, out of your control, that mean that things unfold in a different way and the outcome ends up being the same or similar to before. When this happens, rather than being harder on yourself for falling into the same traps, this is a moment to reflect again, see the differences in each scenario and, above all else, realise that it is OK and that these things happen. That is where acceptance is found and how to allow yourself to get stronger. It is also how you are more likely to do things in a different way without really realising it and have better feelings about how scenarios have unfolded. Learning to accept isn’t always easy. It is something that has taken me a long time to do and, as explained above, I still have a long way to go in many ways. As I grow in confidence and bravery to make more decisions and be true to myself when making decisions, I know that this confidence in decision making will make it easier to accept the consequences of the decisions I take, especially if I do stay true to myself, and the benefits of this will feed into different aspects of my life. While you may not believe it, if I can learn to accept and evolve through this acceptance, I promise you that you can too! In the early days of my running journey, I had many wild and wonderful ambitions of things I wanted to do, inspired by people around me and things that I had seen on TV. Running a marathon, running the London Marathon, running in France, running in the USA. I did some of them very early in my running journey, ticking them off the list nice and quickly. I still haven’t done some of the goals I set myself 20 years ago (running a race in the USA, for example) but I still have many years and many opportunities to do it and know that I will do it when the time is right. One of the early ambitions I had was to complete a triathlon and I did it in 2012, with the usual mix of nerves, apprehensions and moments of madness in the build up, as well as having the pride and affection of having actually completed a triathlon as well.
One of the big challenges of triathlon is that you don’t simply put your trainers on and run. You have to think about the different parts of the event and the equipment that you require to do it. I volunteered at a Triathlon in 2007 (stationed in the transition area, seeing the comings and goings in all directions as people arrived, went off to the start, passed through the transition from swim to bike and bike to run, then left at the end) so knew what was going to be needed to complete a triathlon. I also worked in a running shop that had different equipment and worked with colleagues who had done triathlons, so had the knowledge of what I was letting myself in for. It didn’t make it much easier to get everything together, but it was valuable all the same. One of my biggest fears when deciding to do a triathlon was the worry of swimming in open water. While it is safe to swim in many waters and any triathlon event has to verify that the water is completely safe before the competition can go ahead, I sometimes look at water that some people swim in and think it does not look good to swim in. In order to deal with my nervousness and worry of swimming in open water, I decided to sign up for a Great Swim event in 2011, taking part in the event in Suffolk (Great East Swim). It also gave me the reason to buy the wetsuit, one of the big expenses that occur when preparing for completing a triathlon. Although I was incredibly nervous about the idea of swimming before the event, getting gradually more and more nervous, the event itself in Suffolk went well and made all my fears disappear. The most surreal but amazing moment of the event was when swimming away and quickly glancing up to see a flock of swans flying overhead. I also learnt afterwards that it was raining while I was swimming, but I had no idea as I was in the water. Win, win! Because the swim in Suffolk went well, and I completed a 5K running event the day after that also went well, it gave me the confidence to sign up for a triathlon and I decided to take part in the Blenheim Triathlon in Oxfordshire. I gave myself 9 months to prepare, had a solid running base and had conquered the swimming worry, so felt confident that all would go well. I just had to get a bike and do some cycling training then all would be fine. If I thought there was a mental barrier with swimming in open water, for some reason, there was an even bigger barrier with cycling. For no logical reason, I was worried and nervous about getting a road bike because of the dropped handle bars and the narrower handle bars, thinking it would be harder (and I would be unable) to control the steering of the bike. I was also nervous about clipping into pedals and overall balance on a road bike. As a result of these worries, my preparation for the triathlon was reduced from 9 months to 2 months because I only got the bike in the April before the triathlon, which took place in June. When purchasing the bike, I also got sold a more expensive bike than I should have got (my fault based on lofty ambitions that would never come to pass) making me worried about damaging it. In the end, through encouragement of a family friend, I did one 20 mile training ride that went well, but I wasn’t very good with changing the gears and confidence in riding the bike was not very high going into the event. Adjusting the feet and riding with confidence were the main challenges and stemmed from the mental block and fear I had built up in the preceding months. As well as the mental challenges with the cycling, I also did another open water swim event as part of my preparation for the triathlon, this time in a city centre. As I mentioned earlier, even though I have seen thousands of people swimming in them and there are no ill effects from doing so, I look at the water in different places and I have always worried about what it looks like. So, even though I know it is safe from what I have seen, and given I have my own feelings about what it looked like, I decided to book and do a swim in the water for this city centre swim event. Unsurprisingly for me, I let my brain wander and panic about illogical things and, half way through the event, I panicked and felt like I needed to stop. I found the lifeguard on a canoe in the middle and had to rest on it for a while, feeling sick through nerves but producing nothing, then got back in and finished the event. Although I came through it, it didn’t help with the overall preparation for the triathlon that, at this point, was 3 weeks away. The Triathlon itself went really well. On the day, I turned up nice and early, got everything set up and felt as calm as I possibly could, given the preparation and how I typically felt at an event. The setting of Blenheim Palace is incredible, with its own lake and the transition area in the courtyard of the palace. The movement around the area is seamless and great and the event itself is organised and managed by people who know how to make everything run smoothly. When it came to completing the event, things went as expected. The swim went well (the water was cold but a nice, clean lake so felt similar to the first open water swim I completed). The bike was challenging as I didn’t really know how to find the right gear for the right part of the course (uphills, descents, corners) and I was unfamiliar with the course, so always felt a bit disorientated. I had the base fitness there so the challenge wasn’t maintaining a decent speed. It was just that I didn’t really know how to get the best out of the bike and go even faster. By the time I got to the run (my safe discipline), I was relieved to have got through the swim and bike and exhausted from the worry of how I had got to this point. I got around and was just relieved when I got to the finish line. Unfortunately, I never really got on the bike again. After gathering lots of dust for 10 years, I got rid of it without properly getting on it and doing another challenge. My experiences in the lead up to and at the event of the triathlon didn’t give me the confidence that I needed. I also lived on the outskirts of London at the time, meaning that roads local to me were busy and would require riding very confidently in order to stay safe while cycling. Although this experience was a long time ago and I haven’t done a triathlon since, I still want to do another triathlon again in the future and even have lofty ambitions of completing an Ironman one day (we will see!) I haven’t got a bike at the moment and, if I decide to do a shorter event, I will learn from the past and get a more simple bike to start with. However, the learnings of the past will help to ensure that I approach it much better (more cycling preparation!) so that, not only am I pleased with finishing, I also feel that I get the best out of the event and myself. I have explained in a previous blog about how, at 15 years old, I had set out my plan for what I wanted my career to be, what I wanted in life and how I was going to achieve it. I was looking at universities and deciding what course I wanted to do, I had decided I wanted to be an accountant and I had planned all the different things I wanted in life. At 15 years old, it all seemed that it was going to be easy to achieve these things and I felt excited about how my life was going to be as an adult. In all of this, I hadn’t planned for an experience that would have a major impact on how things would unfold and mean that this life would not unfold as planned.
As I was approaching 16 years old, I did what most people do and started looking for a part-time (Saturday) job as a first job to earn a bit of money. People start younger (paper rounds) and may start later, but that first job is the start of getting some responsibility and financial independence while also gaining other skills that set you up for your working life. In my search, I found (what felt at the time) a dream first job, which I applied for and got an interview for, which felt great. The job I applied for was for a retail assistant on matchdays for a high level sports club in London. It was for a team I had supported as a kid and the opportunity felt good because it would be my first job, in the sports sector, working for an organisation I had followed for my life up to this point. It is a great opportunity for anyone and the chance to interview for the role was something I looked forward to, even if I also felt nervous at the same time. The interview itself went well and the organisation was great, but what happened to me afterwards (nothing to do with the organisation) changed the course of my life in a major way. On matchdays, I used to go to watch the team play and went to every game over a 5 year period. I used to go with my family and, both before and after the match, used to walk around the local area along with the thousands of fans that used to attend the matches. The area was like many areas near a ground and I never really thought too much about it. So, on the day of the interview, I went along without thinking too hard and, as said above, the interview went well. After the interview and the normal pleasantries, I walked back to the train station to go home and this is where things changed. I decided to take a side street, taken many times on matchdays, but this time without many people around. As a result, it was quiet and, after walking 50 metres down the road, I was stopped by four boys and was subsequently mugged. While I know many people experience situations on a regular basis, it doesn’t make it any easier when it happens to you and the effects are enormous. As well as it occurring after my first job interview, it also occurred the day before one of my important school exams and a week before my birthday. It knocked the stuffing completely out of me in many ways in that moment and for the weeks and months afterwards, acting as a moment where you feel like you are at a T-junction and can take one of two very different directions in your life. My confidence naturally fell and self-doubt rose (it was quite high anyway but made me question myself even more). I also became more suspicious of everyone and my trust in people fell further as well. Looking back, I will always have a “what if?” set of questions about the decisions I took around this period. I also know that these decisions can never be changed, but the effects are big for anyone that goes through this kind of experience and there is not a lot that anyone can say that makes some of those feelings disappear. Because of what happened, I was offered the job by the organisation but declined it as I was fearful of going back to the area on my own in case something happened again. It took me a long time to get the courage to apply for a job and my first job was actually given to me by my sister, who was working at a restaurant and helped me by getting it. The longer time went on, I got more and more fearful of interviews in case something happened and would get very nervous, which would then lead to finding the interviews hard to manage. It took a long time to get over this experience and a deeper cycle of worries and challenges set in that took a long time to break in order to develop the career I have gone on to have. Whenever I reflect on the incident that occurred and the impact that it had, I often find lots of thoughts racing around. Unfortunately, it happens from time to time, even 20 years on, and usually when things aren’t going to plan. Whether you like it or not, situations like these never disappear but you learn to manage the emotions and stop them from affecting you most of the time, but there will always be moments that hit when things associated to it occur or in sad moments. While I am grateful for what I have now and have developed the career I have, for which I am happy, I have had plenty of bumpy moments and, along the way, certainly feel that things could have been different if the incident hadn’t occurred after the first interview. How they could have been different, whether they would have been better, or even worse, and where I could have been, I will never know. When something happens, it will always leave those questions that, if it hadn’t happened, wouldn’t be there. My views on the start of my working journey have also changed and been influenced differently by the recent understanding I have gained by learning that I am Autistic. While I don’t think that it changed what would have happened if I had known, in the sense that the incident would still have occurred, I may have made different choices following the incident that would influence the way things worked out afterwards. I found it very difficult to process what had happened, feeling like I was stupid for allowing it to happen to me and feeling like I wasn’t good enough to support and look after myself. The decision to not take the job, even though different things could have been done to support me and ensure the incident didn’t happen again, was also one that I have questioned as to whether I should have done things differently. In a different world and with better personal insight, I would accept the job but make sure I give myself time to say that it wasn’t my fault with what happened, making adjustments to not put myself in that position again. The more I have reflected on many different events in my life, the more I have changed how I view situations that have occurred and, while I think I would have done things differently, I also realise that there were reasons and rationale behind the decisions at the time and, while there is also not one single point that will actually be the point where your life changes, there are always things to learn along the way and, fortunately for me and for anyone, there are moments where you can change the course of your life and seize opportunities, little by little and one step at a time. Yes, my working life did not start as planned. Yes, I would choose to have some things be different. Yes, the things I have learnt from tough experiences have also been valuable and helped to shape me to be me. In the end, the opportunity to reflect and the moment when you reflect is only the point at which you properly realise what has got you where you are and, often, it happens later than you would like. Whenever it happens, appreciate that moment more than anything and know that, whatever has happened, there is always an opportunity to learn from the past in order to shape what happens next. My training in 2026 has been good, building on the improvements that I have made over the last three years and slowly getting back to a level that is closer and closer to levels that I reached 10 years ago. When it comes to distances run in particular and the times taken to complete longer runs, it is definitely the case and I have grown more and more in confidence over the first months of the year.
The focus for much of 2026 has been on longer runs in preparation for completing a marathon. Respecting the challenge and wanting to be as prepared as possible, I slowly built up the number of miles that I completed with one sole aim: to get to the end of the marathon and be able to recover quickly afterwards. To achieve this aim, the focus was always on the amount of miles run and never about improving speed. I found a steady pace to complete sessions in and never really pushed it beyond these speeds, especially as it would be the speed I would be attempting to complete the marathon at. When setting goals for after the marathon and what I wanted to do next, the aim was always to focus on shorter distances and see if I could find some more speed again to improve my 5K, 10K and half marathon times. Over the last three years, they have steadily improved but, as can be expected, have gone up and down along the way (normal for anyone). A natural increase in the amount of miles helped, as well as consistency in the training sessions that I did. When running, it has often felt like I was running with a more consistent pace than I did when I was younger. During the early part of my running journey, I would always start fast and would fade more and more. Looking back and thinking about what went on in runs, I think a large part of this was actually mental as I would always finish strongly. In more recent runs, I don’t have the same kick at the end to finish strong but I have a more steady pace and, at the end, I am doing OK with my times. While times have steadily improved over the last three years, I have been keen to focus more on speed and try to get more out of it. After putting in the extra miles needed for the marathon, I feel, and have felt, like I have better fitness and form as a result of the training, feeling more confident psychologically to push myself a bit harder over shorter runs. I had mixed feelings about doing it over the last few years and had odd attempts to try, but never followed it up. There was a bit of speed there but I never persevered in trying to consistently build the speed back up. I also seemed to get niggles and injuries every time I tried to build up speed, which resulted in knocking my confidence when putting several running sessions together. Since my return to running a few years ago, there has always been a nagging thought of whether I would ever find my historic speed again. The slow progress has shown tiny signs but I have never had a moment that made me truly feel like it is there, making me think that it is time for me to just focus on longer runs and setting a different type of challenge. That was until recently… As part of my quest to complete 100 events and to try and find some speed and confidence from somewhere, I signed up to a 1-mile running event. In order to make it feel valuable and worthwhile, I wanted to push myself and run sub-8 minutes, going faster than I would if I just went for a run on my own and challenged myself to a 1 mile time trial. By going sub-8 minutes for the mile, I also felt that it would show signs of finding the elusive speed again and would give confidence to kick on and try some more shorter runs. The goal was set and I knew what I wanted. I was very pleased on the day because, not only did I run the mile under 8 minutes (7:43), there were lots of things to improve and changes that could happen that would mean that I could go even faster. As well as the things that are out of my control (it was a hot day, delays to the start), there were loads of things I could do differently and, as a result, I felt really good. Many things are simple changes, like not arriving so early at the event that it resulted in lots of standing around and drinking more slowly to leave a bit of drink to just before. I also did a long work shift the day before, with lots of standing around and eating at different times (not getting lunch until late afternoon) so this affected the preparation the day before, even if only in my head. While the time I completed the mile in is not elite standard (it is about average for a runner), the feelings and preparation are something that all runners go through and have to think about, whatever their goals and motivation. As well as achieving the goal for the run and going under 8 minutes, I got that feeling that there was still speed in my legs and that some of my more ambitious running goals are still possible. Given the fact that I had had a long day the day before and that, if I am truthful, I felt tired going into the event, it made me realise that a lot is still possible and perfect preparation will continue to elude me for many events that I will take part in. It is hard to control everything and get all elements of preparation perfect, whatever we try to do, so doing the best we can and controlling the things we can is the best way to approach the event and see what happens. What I do know is that, finally, I have the feeling that I have my speed back and I finally want to push myself to see how close I can get to the times I achieved 10 years ago. It has always been the mission to reach those times again and even set new best times, for both shorter and longer distances, and I finally feel that it is possible. |
