Don't look back ... in anger

Keeping the focus going forwards

Good afternoon folks, how are you all getting on with 'not normal November'?  I hope it's treating you and your uniqueness very well.
Things have not been normal in the Woodward-Newall household for quite a few months now.  I don't want to speak on his behalf but let's just say that Mr Bob's work situation changed back in July, you know, the 'R' word.  Ever since then we've been adapting, finding new ways to do things, figuring out what we want from the future and generally having a good old think about things.  The prime motive at the top of our list has been to 'think outside the box' and to 'not be normal'.  First of all, I'm so proud of how Mr Bob has dealt with everything whilst maintaining an air of professionalism and dignity and I'm also proud of how we've dealt with things as a couple.  We've discussed new ideas and remained positive at every step of the way.  For anyone else going through something similar I'd say keep an open mind and don't close off possibilities that you thought might not work out.  By doing this, it's also become quite an exciting time and we've got so much we want to achieve in 2020.

 You really can't afford to be 'normal' when you're trying to achieve something.  For example, my running club has a series of races throughout winter where everyone is given a handicap time, so the slowest runners set off first and the faster runners last.  This is a great boost for your morale when you're having a good run and manage to avoid the faster runners catching you up.  The route is the same each time, ridiculously tough and hilly, except that we alternate between running it clockwise and anti-clockwise.  For some reason, the anti-clockwise direction is my achilles heel, I find it soul destroying when we run it in that direction.  For this reason, I've decided I'm going to conquer it once and for all this winter, so over the last few weekends I've been incorporating the route into my long runs.  Mr Bob has called me 'tenacious' on numerous occasions and I'm kind of seeing why now!  I mean who in their right mind would do something that caused them pain and grief over and over again to try and grow to love it!  I'm just not normal.  But having said that, this morning I felt better about the route than the week before and the week before that, so it's working.  You just have to keep pushing the boundaries when you want to achieve something.  Plus there was some great scenery en route.



So keep going folks, put up a fight, refuse to be normal and you can achieve anything you put your mind to.

 Next weekend, me and Mr Bob are mixing with some stars of the athletics world at our annual weekend away with the British Athletics Supporters Club so I'll let you know how that goes.  I'm also planning to do Coventry park run next Saturday morning and I'm really looking forward to that as I haven't done a park run in ages.

 Have a wonderful week.

 #not-normal-november

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