Almost a year ago I wrote “New For 2025”:
There are bunch of things I’d like to do this coming year. Not really resolutions, and I won’t beat myself up if I don’t do them but I thought it best to put them down somewhere. I might add to the list as the year progresses, and I might refer back to this in thoughts later on.
I think I referred back to it a couple of times, and I thought it would be a good idea to do a quick review of progress (or lack thereof) before I write New For 2026.
Firstly - to the non starters! I didn’t do anything on the sideproject. I am not sure why but I never really picked it back up in the new year and the idea kind of got forgotten about. No worries, there were a few other little learning projects and a feew coding challengers along the way that I did instead. I might come back to it. Probably not.
More of a shame was the Oxford Half Marathon. It wasn’t run. At least, not by me. I knew early on in the year that I wasn’t going to manage it under 100 minutes, and rather than tell myself to be satisfied to just get round, I withdrew my place. I kind of lost interest after that. I am considering giving it another go this year, but I’ll leave my decision until I’m ready to work towards it. More of that next time though.
Now the slightly more successfull parts. I did lose weight. I didn’t knock of 15kg but something is better than nothing! The reality is I lost a decent amount early in the year, slumped a bit and put some back on and then kind of flip flopped. Which gives me something to improve on in 2026, and still a sensible target for what to get to. I never did get enough money in the SBATOL Fund though.
The cricket went okay. Nothing more. On the stats of it I met the target, so I should celebrate that. I played 7 games, with a batting average of 22 (see play-cricket.com), and a very pleasing high score of 42. Again - the reality is not quite as good as I hoped. I batted very near the end of the order whenever I played for Oughtibridge, which meant I managed 4 “Not Outs”, and I scored very few runs in those matches. This kind of skews the average! I also didn’t really settle in to the team (because of my social awkwardness / lack of confidence) so, while I did achieve my target, I didn’t come out of the season with a sense of satisfaction and I have avoided winter nets so far. Another challenge for 2026!
Oooh - I did hit a six though!
Finally walking more! I did this. I enjoyed being outside a fair bit, though I probably didn’t do as many ‘proper’ walks as I would have liked. The sub plot of not driving to work did mean I managed to walk to work a fair few times and that was really good, I’m going to keep doing this once or twice a week.
All in all, it’s a kind of middle of the road review. I didn’t rediscover myself, or become The Best Version Of Myself. I didn’t smash any of my goals. But I did some of the stuff. And a lot of this (and other stuff) has given me ideas for 2026 too… More on that next time!