It’s been to long since I’ve done a blog so here goes.

It’s been a crazy and strange last few months due to the pandemic as you all will be fully aware.
When the initial lockdown started I decided to put running on the back burner as there was so many families out in the paths in the countryside getting their daily permitted exercise and I felt it was getting bad press someone coming up behind them all sweaty, heavy breathing and snotty so I started marching in the countryside. I was doing an average of 12km’s a day at a average of 6-5km’s a hour which was still giving me a decent workout. A few times I would take one of our children and they really enjoyed it as where I would go is out beside the farm Balnafroig which is where I was brought up and the views are stunning and are different every day depending on the weather.
This stopped when I went back to work on the 1st of June so what I did was substitute my marching in the countryside to marching to work and back which was still giving me 12km’s a day and at weekends I’d go back to going back out in the countryside.
At the start of November I didn’t feel great, upset stomach so got lazy and started taking the car to work, weather and dark nights didn’t help with my motivation. I continued to go marching at the weekends and more recently I’ve not being seeing the same volume of people out getting their daily exercise so made the decision to start running again which I’m really enjoying and it brings back memories of my childhood being brought up on the farm.

What pluses can I take out of the pandemic?
Well for the first few months we as a family would do a quiz every night which is something that never happened before.
My oldest boy Alasdair (16) turned round to me on the 4th April and asked if he could borrow my road bike, he didn’t miss a day and did 5000km’s until he went back to school after the summer holidays getting into the top ten overall for segment’s on Strava so when he went back to Inverness Caledonian Thistle under 18’s football training he went back very fit. One strange thing was he developed travel sickness for a few weeks due him not been in a car for months and not having the air and control he had while out cycling.

I was asked by Ypsomed who make my insulin pump during last year if I could do a Zoom PowerPoint presentation about my life which I did but it was really weird because it was the first time I’d done a PowerPoint presentation and I was the only person in the room.

With the rollout of the COVID 19 vacation started hopefully it won’t be to long before we can get back to some form of normality.

Stay safe through these strange times everyone, there is now some light at the end of the tunnel.