Archive for December, 2020

Four years ago I launched Worfolk Anxiety and since then I’ve trained tens of thousands of students via my online mental health courses. Worfolk Anxiety Management is still a key brand but of course, there is much more to mental health and wellbeing than anxiety and my current range of courses reflects that.

To reflect this wider focus on mental wellbeing, I’ve launched a new brand, Online Mindfulness School. The doors are now open with our mindfulness teacher, mental health ambassador and mindfulness for productivity courses and lots more on the way.

Yesterday I finished the Alps to Ocean virtual ultra running challenge. It’s set in New Zealand and, not surprisingly, takes you from the mountains down to the coast. Not all of it is on Google Street View so the views are not as good as they otherwise might be. There are a couple of postcards along the way. Total distance 289.7 km which I completed in a leisurely 87 days.

This is the fourth Conqueror “ultra” I’ve done, plus GVRAT and three “real-world” ultras. I had only done two until 2020 started but it’s been that kind of year.

Over on Facebook, I founded a Running For Beginners group to help new runners gain confidence and ask questions. At the start of the year, we had just 100 members.

What a difference 2020 has made. The group has exploded in popularity and now boasts over 3,000 runners supporting each other, asking and answering questions and sharing their stories.

If you are into running and want to share your wisdom with new runners, or maybe ask a question or two yourself, feel free to join us in the group.

A few weeks ago, I was chatting to my friend Lucy who mentioned she was closing in on running 1,000 miles in 2020. Just out of interest I checked my stats and I found I was around 90 kilometres short of the 1,609 kilometres that represents the 1,000-mile mark!

Thanks to an early morning run on Chrismas Day, I crossed the virtual finish line. 50% of the work was done during May and June while I was completing in the Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee, but it was nice to finish the year strong too.

Last year, I joined local cycling club Alba Rosa. I didn’t ride with them during the winter as I can’t put mudguards on my aero bike and I don’t have a winter bike. And I mainly joined for the TT races. But by the time summer arrived, we were belly deep in COVID and everything we cancelled.

So, I haven’t actually done anything with the club. But I did want a Pactimo jersey, so when the club shop opened, I decided I should at least enjoy the membership benefit of being able to buy club gear.

It’s winter so I haven’t had a chance to try it yet (it’s Gabba temperatures at the moment). But when summer comes, it will be rice to swap out my poorly-designed HPH jersey with my this one.

Move over all other TV shows, The Good Place is better. I think I’m on my 6th run-through at the moment. I took a quick break after the 4th run-through to re-watch some BoJack. But then it was back to The Good Place. Why settle for anything less?

Not only is it a good way to learn about ethics in a fun way, it’s also fun and heart-warming, and provides a level of closure that possibly no other sitcom ever has. It’s 104% nerfect.

I have published a lot of courses on web development and programming but I don’t think I have ever done a back-to-basics beginners’ course before. That changes today the launch of my Front-End Web Development course that teaches you how to write HTML and CSS from scratch.

Yesterday, the UK became the first country in the world to approve the Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine. There are still a lot of challenges ahead: how much of it can we get? How do you vaccinate 58 million people? Will it be faster if we sacrifice anti-vaxxers to a range of deities? And how long will the vaccine (or the sacrifices) provide protection? But there certainly is hope!