Not sure whether the correct term is “yogaversary” or “yogiversary”. But, in any case, I’ve now been doing yoga every week for a full year.
Do I feel more flexible? No. But I don’t feel any less flexible, even after the year I have done. Plus, I’ve gained two kilograms of muscle in my core. Not sure if that is all down to yoga, or from other training, but my guess is it plays a large part.
If you’re using the Slim framework in PHP, there is a breaking change between 3.12.2 and 3.12.3. You’ll need to change where you are inheriting your class from.
- use Interop\Container\ContainerInterface; + use Psr\Container\ContainerInterface;
The paperwork has finally come through for my triathlon coaching qualification. Happy days ahead.
One of the reasons I have been so busy is that earlier this month, I launched my new course Sport Psychology for Triathletes course.
This is unlike anything I have done before: it goes into more depth and it is taught “live”, so they are not live lessons, but we onboard everyone with a questionnaire and adapt the content around the cohort of students, and then the lessons as produced each week. It has been a lot of of work but I’m very pleased with the quality so far.
Our first-class of students will graduate in February and I am already looking forward to welcoming the second class in, as well as the many other exciting courses we will be announcing over at Resilient.
I’m a psychologist rather than a counsellor. However, I thought my work with Anxiety Leeds and Leeds Anxiety Clinic, and my life, in general, would benefit from a deeper exploration of the theories around talking therapy and person-centred. So, I enrolled on a course with Leeds City College.
Studying has been fun. In terms of academic theory, the textbooks I have been reading have gone deeper than the course does. However, getting to do the interactive practise sessions to allow us to apply the theory have been invaluable. It already feels like it has been translating into better delivery at our group sessions.
And, I’m now formally qualified as a Level 2 Counsellor, which is nice.
Copenhagen Food is a cookbook by Trine Hahnemann. This book looks beautiful and demonstrates a lot of plain but tasty Nordic cuisine. But that said, I have only made a couple of recipes from it, even though I went through and indexed all of the ones I wanted to try.
Prawns will and homemade mayo is the only recipe I regularly use, which is like twice a year. The only modification to the mayo I have made is to add a little bit of lemon.
Since then, it has languished on my sideboard waiting for a review, which I have not written because I did not really know what to say. So, this is me saying very little.
In fairness, it is titled Copenhagen Food: Stories, traditions and recipes, so the sparsity of recipes is clear from the title.
Goole Triathlon is a sprint race that takes place at the start of October. It starts with a 400 metre pool swim in Goole’s leisure centre (which has a massive slide in it!) before taking in the pan flight sights on a 20km bike and 5km run course.
My dad was there, along with his friend Tim, to do their first sprint distance. I clearly need to stay on my toes as their times were not too far behind mine! Venla came along to cheer them home.
The Deep is the world’s largest submarium. It is also the world’s only submarium because they made it up. Simply put, it is an aquarium that is partially submerged into the sea around it. Does that mean you can look into the ocean and see a bunch of fish? No. Nor could you see anything in The Humber even if they put a window in.
As something to do, it was okay. Aggressively mediocre. It was a sea life centre that they have padded out with a lot of information boards. A lot of the windows are looking into the same fish tank. That said, it was cheaper than the Sea Life Centre in Weymouth, so for value for money, it is reasonable. But it is not better than a Sea Life Centre, so do not make the mistake of getting your expectations sky-high.
The food in the cafe was a low point for me. I once bought a fish and chips ready meal that you had to oven cook. But I microwaved it anyway because it was a ready meal. That is the closest I can come to describing their fish and chips. And the toilets being closed meant we had to change Venla in a corridor.
The jellyfish were nice, though. It is probably worth a visit as long as you are not expecting something amazing.
It seems only last year that Venla was a toddler. Now she is a three-year-old. We worked hard to prevent her from having any screen time for the first few years of her life. But now she’s discovered Peppa Pig and wants Peppa Pig everything. Which, thankfully, can be obtained for reasonable prices.
Chicago is one of the six marathon majors in the world, along with London, Berlin, Tokyo, New York and Boston. Why this is, is unclear. Nobody turns up to Chicago. The London route is lined with supporters the entire route. In Chicago, you can hear the footsteps of the athletes on the TV camera because there is no other sound.
That did not stop Brigid Kosgei, however. The London marathon winner shot out of the gate and refused to slow down, coming home in a new world record time of 2:14:04. This smashed the previous record of 2:15:25 that has been held by Paula Radcliffe since 2003 by 1:21.
On the finish line, Radcliffe congratulated Kosgei and said she always knew this day would come. I think collectively, as white people, we all knew this day would come, too. Radcliffe’s previous record was itself phenomenal, being over 3 minutes ahead of Catherine Ndereba’s 2001 world record time. It had stood for 16 years. The nearest anyone has got to it until now was Mary Keitany with 2:17:01.
Notably, of the 10 fastest marathon times ever for both men and women. Radcliffe’s time was the only one not set by a Kenyan or Ethiopian. Whatever genetic or cultural factors allow Africa to produce the world’s best distance runners, Radcliffe has been the only person in the world who was able to keep up with them. On the men’s side, you have to go back to before I was born to find a non-African world record holder.
But all records fall eventually (except Jerry Rice, obvs), and Brigid Kosgei’s incredible performance puts her nearly three minutes ahead of any time other the Radcliffe. That’s a huge gap. Will it too stand for decades, or give other runners the self-belief that they can run faster, too? I’m excited to find out.