FOMO? Oh No!

So we are in the month of February (just) and all my running buddies are clocking up the miles, the long mile runs are getting longer and I'm in a reflective mood thinking about last year when that was me and I can't help wonder if I'm suffering a little bit of Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO)? 

But as my "long" run of 10 miles loomed yesterday and the snow, sleet, rain and wind battered my window I decided that NO, there was definitely no FOMO. There was even some bargaining with myself that, as next a half marathon was not until May my run could even be shorter, as there was no 'real' reason to run 10 miles!! 

The miles ticked by, the weather was still deciding between snow, rain, sleet or all three and then the turning point loomed on my run, I could either turn for home (with 7 miles in the bank) or carry on and get the 10 ticked off... Being type A,  already being wet and cold, I thought how bad could it be!! 

10miles later, with the help of a great audiobook the 8th instalment of the Peter Grant series and quite smug of my multitasking by ticking another book of my 20 books in 2020 challenge,  I was back shivering at my front door dripping all over the mat and looking forward to a hot, steamy shower and a nice cup of tea! 

Finally, I thought it would be a good opportunity to update on how my Dad is doing for anyone who has either followed by rambling for the last year or had the pleasure (cough) of running with me in the last couple of yeats will have known that my dad was diagnosed by with Bowel Cancer in late 2018. He went through very tortuous treatment with enduring both radiation and chemotherapy, which was why I decided to run Edinburgh marathon last year to help fundraise for Bowel Cancer UK. 

His initial scans after the treatment were encouraging and he was put on a watchful waiting list; this means scans every 3 months to ensure that cancer remained in remission. 18 months on Dad is star patient, he remains cancer free and back to his usual fit, healthy and of course annoying self and we would not want him any other way!! 

Both him and mum are looking forward to the weather picking up a little so they can get back in the van and touring around the UK and Europe chasing the better weather. 

Thanks for turning in to my ramblings

2020 Books

This year, one of my challenges is to read more.  Growing up I always had my nose in a book, my love of reading was discovered was when I brought a secondhand Jackie Collins novel; Hollywood Wives I think it was. We were on a camping holiday, I was around 13/14, I can't quite remember where but we happen across a flea market and looking through a books stall the glossy front cover attracted my eye and on reading the opening page the book was for me! 

Elaine Conti awoke in her luxurious bed in her luxurious Beverly Hills mansion, pressed a button to open the electrically controlled drapes, and was confronted by the sight of a young man clad in a white T-shirt and dirty jeans pissing a perfect arc into her mosaic-tiled swimming pool.

Apparently, I spent the rest of the holiday with my nose in that book from walking down the street, at the dinner table, in the car car and by the pool!

From that moment on I've always been a fan of trashy novels, romcom, crime fiction and the odd autobiography, most of all I mainly like read novels with a strong female lead. In the past, I would devour books at a rapid rate, then my days got filled with other stuff like work, study, TV and running, which meant  the reading took a backseat.

Whilst physically reading books stopped when I took up running, I became a fan of audiobooks and found a new way to get my fiction fix; as the miles flew by so did the books. Many blissful miles have been run,  thanks to Stephen Fry I read (listened) to all the Harry Potter books, then there was The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy, a number of Daniele Steeles, The Long Run, and the Peter Grant series by Ben Aaronovitch....a full list of my audiobooks can be found here....but I soon found that I needed to mix up my listening material and started to mix up the audiobooks with music and many podcasts, slowly the books fell away and it as mainly music and podcasts. 

Then the number of books listened to reduced, the number of podcasts increased and the only time for books was on holiday and boy did I get through them!! With the advent of the Kindle, it made not only transporting books but getting books instantly much easier, but the beauty of going to a physical book shop is that you see interesting covers of other books, as you pass by. In the early days of Kindle you only really got information on the authors you had read previously, hence there could be long gaps before a new title was released and my holidays coming around again! 

In late 2019 I was spending too long on my phone, scrolling through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, once bored with those I would start playing candy crush or spider solitaire and loose hours of my day and my kindle app was gathering techy dust!!

I made a decision to read more, after blowing the dust from my kindle app (trying desperately to remember my password!), I  realised that there were a couple of books that were purchased back in March that had not read yet, their purchase most have coincided with our return from holiday! 

So like most good training plans, it's about creating a good habit, late last year I committed to reading a chapter of each book before going to bed each night and asked Twitter to recommend some books for me to have qued up for 2020.  

My 2020 challenge is live, I have deleted both Candy Crush and Spider solitaire and aim to read at least 20 books in 2020.  If you have a book you think I would like, then drop me a tweet or comment on this post and I'll add it to the list, another aim along with reading the books is to broaden my tastest into other area and genre. To keep everyone updated on my progress there will be the odd blog post and a dedicated page Book Club 2020 page, with a little bit about each book and a link to amazon.