Keeping and Losing New Years Resolutions.

At the turn of the year, I'll be the first to admit that things hadn't gone the way i would have liked in 2011, so the mission was on to change things in 2012. There was no great goal for me, just a series of broad ideas and things i could try and do, to shake off the effects of an unhappy 2011, and make 2012, my year, and a happy year.

I worked a late shift on New Year's Eve, and got home at half past 1, where i drained 2 full bottles of red wine, ate a 14" inch Asda Pizza with god knows how many calories and minimal nutritional value, and smoked at least a dozen fags, whilst sat there, drunk, slightly overweight, tired and miserable. I also knew that somethings had to change, and knew that maybe it was time not to keep on making excuses and get a grip of my own life again.

I got up at dinnertime on New Year's Day, feeling a bit ropey, feeling a bit hungover and ready for a few hours of sloth, sitting on my arse doing nowt, before going to work and being in the same cycle all over again. But what i did was something completely different. I poured myself a large glass of dilute orange juice, put on an old pair of tracksuit bottoms, a waterproof jacket and my pair of running shoes, that was the legacy of my latest futile attempt at running, and then turned my iPhone on, put the headphones on, and went running.

It wasn't the most successful run, i think i did a left, ran 100 yards to the bottom of the road at gentle pace, coughing and spluttering all the way, and hacking some up some dirty greenies, as i struggled and gasped for air. I did the grand total of 1.8k (i know because during my new hobby, my iPhone is now my best friend as it gives me the music that keeps me running, and records how far i have run, and how quickly (or slowly in my case) i have run. Most of it was spent walking trying to catch my breath, whilst the running parts was absolute torture. I arrived back home 15 minutes later, out of breath, sweating and feeling worse as my legs ached, my chest hurt, and i felt shattered, but it may go down as one of the best things i have done in my life, as if i hadn't made the attempt to do that run, then i might never have done it, and that single decision could influence the rest of my life.

I went again a couple of days later, in driving rain and gale force wind and left marginally better, and was marginally quicker, and my legs ached a little less than the first time i went, and i felt a bit better than i did that first time, but what came over me the rest of the day was a small but noticeable sensation of feeling a little bit happier, a little bit healthier, and a little bit more alive. I didn't enjoy being out in the cold and the wet, i didn't enjoy struggling with the run, but the pain was worth the gain.

A few days later, instead of my third run i had been and had a game of football, where i was still showing the classic signs of the unfit, overweight heavy smoker, who thought they could still play, but in all reality was slow, off the pace and to be quite honest a bit of an embarrassment, but i did feel a little bit fitter, made a couple of more runs that i had done before and noticed that i didn't hurt as much afterwards than i would normally do.

When i did my third run, it was teatime, and the Blades were at home that night, i could quite easily had my tea, watched telly, facebooked or tweeted until it was time to go to the match, but i had to go for a run, i had done two already and felt better for them, and i didn't see why i should let them first, painless efforts be in vain, so i decided at 5pm, i would be out on the street, trying to get and stay a bit fitter. I went out and did it, i was still slow, still coughing and spluttering but i got in a rhythm, and instead of doing 1.8k, i decided to keep straight on, instead of turning left and heading home, and try and do a longer run. I thought i might as well do it, as what did i have to lose, and as i went straight on, i felt mentally stronger, a little less physically weaker and more importantly i wanted to do it. I ended up doing a mixture of running and walking for the rest of the run, but i had challenged myself to do that bit more, I'd met that challenge and i felt absolutely superb for doing it.

It's not all been easy, and i have had to keep up some motivation to do it, tell myself that i need to do it, and force myself to get out there at times, whilst at other times i have felt an urge to throw on my running gear and just run because it is what i want to do. The thing is after nearly 4 weeks of this new fitness regime, I'm enjoying it, I'm feeling a lot better in myself both mentally and physically and in a way I'm doing something that is positive with my life. The greatest thing is the benefit that i feel from my new found running hobby. They are multiple, i feel stronger, i feel healthier, my breathing is better, i feel mentally stronger, i feel happier, I'm eating better, I'm sleeping better and i wonder why i didn't take up this before.

As i am 34 years old, and have not been in fit since i was a teenager, it is quite a bit step for me to take up a challenge like this, but I'm enjoying it that i feel that at time i have to reign myself in a bit, not push myself too much at this early stage, and be careful to avoid picking up injuries that will stop me from making the progress that i have recently made. The challenge now for me is to continue with my running and set myself a real goal. I'm toying with doing the Sheffield Half-Marathon in May. It is too soon to say if i will keep this up for long enough to be able to do the Half-Marathon, or that i will be able to do this in 4 months time, but it is a challenge, and it is a goal, and if i manage to do it, it will bring me a lot of benefit, but to be able to cross the finish line, having achieved it and done something worthwhile with my life will be one hell of a great feeling.

Now, i feel that I'm beginning to get a bit of control back over my own life and my own destiny, and that is one thing that is incredibly empowering

Depression in Sport

On a bright November Sunday morning i got up after a restless nights sleep, with a few personal issues going through my head regarding my divorce and my son, and my head was a bit of a mess. I felt tired, lacking a bit of energy and focus, but showered and got my head right for work. I took the train down to Nottingham, had some banter with one of the blokes in the office about the previous days football, and then went down to the messroom to grab a coffee before i did anything at work.

I got in to the messroom, dumped my work bag, and made myself a coffee, and saw a driver who i talk to about football quite a lot called Tony, well talk about football a lot, he is another football nut, and i think we was started to talk about a dodgy penalty at Old Trafford the previous day, when i half heard something on the news, about some tragic news from the world of football. BANG, the news ticker said 'FAW ANNOUNCE WALES MANAGER GARY SPEED HAS DIED AGED 42', i can still remember what it said word for word, because the chill that went through me will live with for a long time. BANG, my mind was in racing, how, what, who, what the fuck. BANG Gary Speed has died BANG ex-Blades manager has died. It was one of those moments i was absolutely speechless, and i made my excuses that i needed the toilet, walked out the messroom and stood in silence on the top end of a deserted Platform 5 at Nottingham fighting back the tears and wondering how the fucking hell has Gary Speed. I went back in to the messroom where everyone was talking about it, and sat down and started looking at the news on my iPhone to try and compute some sense in to it, and find out what had happened. BANG Gary Speed hangs himself BANG Gary Speed, Suicide BANG Why, why why?. Slowly through the day i managed to keep it all together and work, but with Gary Speed never far from my thoughts. I remember going home that night and sitting on the train thinking about it, not far from tears, and when i got back to Sheffield that night, i turned Radio 5 live on, listened to the news and drove home sobbing, not just for Gary Speed, but the cruelness of the disease of the human mind that is depression, and still in complete and utter disbelief of the death of someone who was the classic case of the last person you would have ever thought would have committed suicide.

I thought a lot about Gary Speed during the following days, remembering the wily old pro who joined us from Bolton, remembering the bright young coach on the staff at Bramall Lane, and finally Gary Speed the manager who to be quite honest and frank wasn't a great success at the Lane, but on reflection the club was a fucking shambles and very few managers would have enjoyed success. It was whilst reflecting on his time as manager that a few things started coming together. One was a radio interview i had heard where it seemed that he didn't know how to sort out the problems at Bramall Lane, and it gave me a real insight that he was either out of his depth, or he didn't have confidence in his abilities. Something else that i picked up without prehap's realising it at the time, was how downbeat and uninspiring he could sound at the time. Possibly it was something that you could be critical of at the time, but to me reflecting with the hindsight of Gary Speed taking his own life, maybe he was suffering from depression at the time he was Sheffield United manager, maybe he was masking it and hiding the truth, although the truth will never be known to anyone apart from one person, and sadly that one person never disclosed the truth and took it to the grave with him.

During the past week, there was a fascinating and insightful programme on BBC about Depression in Sport, that was hosted by Andrew Flintoff, where he, and other spoke open and candidly about the depression that blighted their lives, and it came out with cold hard truth's. The most fascinating person to appear was Steve Harmison the former England fast bowler, who i remember being called 'a puzzle in a riddle wrapped in an enigma' such was the fluctuations in his form. I remember Grevious Bodily Harmsion on his day being the best fast bowler i have seen in my time watching Cricket. Seriously fast, and unplayable on his day, but his day was not often enough, and more often than not you would see him bowling poorly, erratically and ineffective, with all the negative bodily language that you can throw a cricket ball at. I'm no anthropologist but looking back the fact that he spent time during his career suffering with depression is no great shock, and he must have spent years like that.

Sportsmen are the last people you would expect to suffer with depression. Young, fit adults doing something that the majority of people would want to do for a living, but top level sport is the people at the very top of the game, and this brings unique pressure to perform at the very top of the game, and put every single last ounce of effort in to achieving sporting greatness, and when they pull up short, it can be a depressing thing. In normal life if you are suffering from depression, you can hide away, but once you cross the white line, and playing sport at the highest level there is nowhere to hide, and maybe when you want to hide, the attention on you is magnified.

Within the world of Football, there is now money and pressure involved to such an extent that it is literally a pressure cooker, and results mean everything, and a mistake could end up costing million upon millions of pound. Instead of your legacy being somebody who put everything in to being the best they could and known for the amount of effort or professionalism you gave, you could be the man who would be known for eternity for a mistake you made, or for costing your team a victory. Throw in to this the blanket coverage that Football receives in the media, the way that during the internet age, whatever you do, is examined instantly on forums, facebook, twitter and various other digital media and social networking sites.

With the huge number of football message boards about, the one player that plays for my club that springs to mind is a loyal, hard-working if somewhat limited midfielder called Nick Montgomery, or Monty as he is known. Monty joined Sheffield United straight from school, made his debut for the club at the age of 17, and 11 years on is something of a stalwart having clocked up somewhere in the region of 400 appearances for Sheffield United. I can't recall a single appearance where Monty had not put a proper shift in, i remember Monty dislocated his shoulder and then turning out again the week after as the side needed him, i can sadly remember seeing Monty subjected to abuse week in, week out, and i have seen him absolutely slaughtered on the Football Forum's time and time again. Imagine Monty reading some of the stuff written about him, it could absolutely destroy his confidence, send him spiralling in to depression, and for what. Earning a decent wage and putting a shift in. It's a sobering thought.

After watching the Depression in Sport documentary, i thought that it would be a good topic to blog about, and today's news about Dean Windass making 2 suicide attempts and suffering from depression gives me a good example to use as i finish this entry. Here was a bloke who earned good money, and got a decent living out of the game, but has been unable to cope with the end of his career. His 18 year marriage has ended, he has not got much money left out of what he made out of the game, suffering with a alcohol problem and the vast majority of people will say it is his own fault, but the reality is that Dean Windass is still a human being, who makes mistakes, and has to bear the consequences, and as a human being is not infallable from Churchill's black dog of depression following him about. The simple reality of it all is everybody is a human being, with thoughts, and emotions all of their own, and the saddest thing is we are just as susceptible to this sad disease as the next person

7 years. Compare and Contrast

I'd forgotten about this blog, but have intended to continue blogging if you get my drift, so sat round on a Friday Night with nothing much to do, i thought i would revisit it, and then try and start doing some blogging again. I'd always enjoyed enjoy entertaining the idea of doing it, enjoy the writing, and somehow i managed to become side tracked along the way.

What was interesting is how much my life has changed immeasurably during the 7 years, but sometimes i feel like i'm another crossroads in my life 7 years on, and the more things change, it become quite apparent that the more things stay the time. To mark my comeback in to the world of Blogging, i'll try and do a recap over the last 7 years of my life although there is quite a lot to go at.

Looking at my blog, the one thing is that strikes me is that i was a single lad at the time, and enjoyed going out on the pull, and the thrill of the chase. Well seven years has changed a lot of things, and my perception of relationships. Roughly a year on from my last blog update on here, i went out on a Sunday Night for a few beers with one of my mates, and i met Joanna who quickly became many different things to me, my soul-mate, my best friend, my girlfriend, my lover and i loved her lots, maybe too much, but as time passed things changed. We got engaged after a few months, it was a drunken engagement in the back of a black cab. We was talking about if we would ever get married to each other, and one thing led to another and we got engaged there and then. We bought a house, ended up getting married and having our son, Harrison, but somewhere along the line it started going wrong, we both fell out of love, took each other for granted, and ended up drifting apart to the extent where the end was inevitable and it came after less than two years of marriage. Not long after i split with Joanna, i started seeing a girl called Laura, and it was great, i'd moved out of the family home, got a new flat and a new girlfriend but at the time i couldn't see that it was too soon to enter a relationship after the breakdown of a long term relationship and i called it all off before Christmas 2010. It was one of the hardest things i have ever had to do, but it was the right thing to do, and relationship wise i have been single and happy for most of the last year. I'm not actively seeking a relationship, but it would be nice if one happened along the way. One big difference is my attitude towards relationships, and one thing that showed me the change is the fact i had a couple of one night stands last year, and the sense of pride, not being able to wait to tell the lads about another notch on the bedpost was replaced by a sense of self-loathing and disappointment with playing with someone else's emotions as well as my own. Maybe it is maturity, or seeing things with a bit more clarity. Back to my marriage break-up. It was a difficult situation, but the one thing that did surmise it perfectly was the fact that i had planned a monster session with the lads to 'celebrate' my divorce, but in the end when the decree absolute came through i changed my mind as i didn't get married to get divorced and felt a sense of failure, although i hold on to the hope that we can begin to start an amicable relationship for the sake of our son Harrison as it is what he deserves, and the bitterness and acrimony does nobody any good in the end.

Something else i noticed was my lack of enthusiasm for work, and reading between the line, back at the time, i was at some point going to leave the company i was working for, and more through their choosing than my own. I was working as a Customer Host on board a train, and earning good money for what i was doing, but taking too much time off work, i had too much of a casual attitude towards work, and was maybe taking the piss a little bit. Well 7 years on, i'm still there. I wanted to leave for quite a while but nothing came up as i was too lazy to look for something else, and i also was a dead cert for the sack at various time. I can't pinpoint when it changed, but i began to knuckle down, work hard and ended up having three promotions and now i'm a depot driver working at Nottingham Station. I've gone from being a potential sacking to being well regarded by my management. Instead of being off sick all the time, i'm very very rarely off work. I enjoy my job, enjoy working with the people i do, i see that i have got a steady settled job and going to work is a pleasure for me now, and i hope it stays like that.

Over the last 7 years, i had the best day of my life. The 9th of June 2009, when i had that overwheming moment where nothing else mattered, and i felt pure and unadultered love that only a new parent can experience. We had a boy called Harrison and i love him more than anything in this world. Becoming a parent for me was an experience that was full of hope, someone to take over from me in this world, somebody who i could hand down my dreams and aspirations to and take them over, and share the enjoyment of Harrison achieving the stuff i had always wished i had achieved.

One thing i wish i had done, and this goes back to another regret, but a lot longer back, is to keep a diary to record what i was doing at the time, and how i felt about things, because there has been a lot of stuff gone off over not just the last 7 years, but the last 34 years that seemed important at the time, but over the passage of time has been forgotten about and replaced with new memories. Looking back at my old blogs of 7 years ago, i find fascinating to compare and contrast with how things are today. In a way if i had continued then a blog with 7 years of entry's could be the same as 7 years worth of stuff scrawled away in a beaten up old diary.

If this turns out to be my last blog for the next 7 years and i come back to it at the age of 41 (sobering thought as at 27 when i last blogged i didn't realise how quickly being 34 would come around) it will be interesting to see how life was in Jan 2012, although all i have done with post is to try and recount a few things from the last 7 years, without going in to much detail so far in this post. I will try and paint a more accurate picture of how things are at the present time in future posts if i get around to keeping it going for longer this time.

I'm not sure what i will be putting on here in the next few weeks, but what i will endeavour to do is try and write about whatever takes my fancy, be it about football, life, politics, current affairs, music, what i've been up, or what i've had for my tea (salad if your wondering, i'm on a health kick).

Thankyou for reading, and until next time, take care.