2015 Goals

These are some of my 2015 goals, not a great sign that it's almost the end of February already. See also 2013 and 2014.

On with the show:

• Car
• Undecided at the moment due to the amount of driving I have been doing
• Fitness
• Bike
• Planning to buy a good bike, but hopefully not too expensive
• Not sure how much i would ride it on top of a heavy running load
• Just a bit too far to consider riding to work regularly (plus dealing with cars)
• Half Marathon
• See the running section at the end
• Swimming
• Try to swim once or twice a month perhaps
• Just getting a good technique and proper breathing would be good
• Triathlon
• A bit ambitious given the above points, maybe 2016 instead
• Food
• Baking
• Aiming for about 25 recipes, but trying to be conscious of eating healthy too
• Starting to run out of a new things
• Health
• Eat a bit better
• Have a go at the no sugar (or low sugar) diet
• I want to get my weight back down around 70kg instead of near 75kg
• Investment
• Make a decision on property or shares, probably can't do both
• Put a bit extra into super, probably only 2-4%
• Minimal
• Not really sure what this category means
• At a minimum, continue to get rid of junk in the house I don't need
• Find other ways to simplify or reduce wasted time
• Passport
• Make another attempt at the UK passport, after last year's dismal failure
• Study
• Aiming to find and do one certification, even if it's only half related to my current work
• Video Games
• Sometimes I go months without playing, then play in a batch
• Find a bit of time to work through my back collection
• I'll buy a PlayStation 4 or Xbox One if they come down in price a bit
• Work
• Keep my Linked In and resume updated

I'll try to take a short break over Easter (was Asia, then was New Zealand, now maybe just Brisbane and Sydney...) and then a long holiday to escape a bit of winter - either Asia or Europe.

I also want to try and make improvements with my running and:

• Attend some new events
• Gold Coast
• Great Ocean Road
• International
• Europe perhaps
• Hawaii would be great but the two options are:
• Kona half marathon in June
• Honolulu marathon (no half distance) in December
• Find some new routes, to reduce boredom!
• Hopefully I can set a personal best for 10km, and maybe half marathon as well

So that's it, now there's only ten months to get it all done.

2014 Running Review

This is my running year in review, which I also compiled in 2013.

I was overall a little unhappy that my speed has basically hit a wall, I'm sort of stuck around about the 3:50/km mark and not getting any faster. I think my running action might be partly to blame - I often seem to clipping my ankles (as shown by the way my shoes wear out around the ankle) which means I'm definitely not running straight, or optimally. Injuries are also an issue, but have been a little bit less present than in the past - except for the constant left gluteal pain that just won't go away.

A quick summary to begin with:

• 2286.88km
• 169 hours 58 minutes

These were the major races:

• February 5
• Sunset Series 1 - Melbourne Zoo
• 3.7km @ 14:27 (15.36 km/h)
• February 19
• Sunset Series 2 - The Tan
• 4km @ 14:35 (16.45 km/h)
• February 23
• Wangaratta
• 10km @ 38:16 (15.67 km/h)
• March 2
• Take On The Lake
• 5km @ 18:42 (16.04 km/h)
• March 5
• Sunset Series 3 - Princes Park
• 4km @ 14:35 (16.45 km/h)
• March 9
• Auckland Round The Bays
• 8.4km @ 31:11 (16.16 km/h)
• April 13
• Run For The Kids
• 15km @ 58:40 (15.34 km/h)
• May 4
• Puffing Billy
• 13.5km @ 52:51 (15.32 km/h)
• May 25
• Albert Park - Angela Taylor (Victoria Road Runners)
• 10km @ 38:30 (15.58 km/h)
• July 27
• The Age Run Melbourne
• 10km @ 38:35 (15.55 km/h)
• October 12
• Melbourne Marathon
• 21.1km @ 1:24:47 (14.93 km/h)
• November 2
• Bendigo Fun Run
• 10km @ 38:56 (15.41 km/h)
• November 16
• City 2 Sea
• 15km @ 57:58 (15.52 km/h)

2014 Review

About time I got going on the 2014 review - it's already half way through February !

I might as well start by looking at the 2014 goals - that I think I half achieved.

• Baking
• I'm not sure if this was a goal, but I attempted 37 new recipes - most were successful
• Some of the best were:
• Anzac crumble cake
• Chocolate mousse cake
• Chocolate truffle macaroon slice
• Coconut bars
• Custard Yoghurt cake
• Finger buns
• Spiced honey jumbles
• And some of the failures were:
• Cinnamon knots
• Marshmallow muffins
• Blogging
• I increased from 46 posts to 99 posts for the year - although many were holiday reports
• I went through all of my old ISP emails to try and piece together what happened in the last 10 years, but I just haven't got around to writing it up coherently yet
• Car
• I made a short list of about eight cars I might like to buy
• Since I seem to be driving even less at the moment, I've put the purchase on hold for now
• Health & Fitness
• Half Marathon
• I completed one for the year - Melbourne Marathon
• I just missed my goal of averaging 4:00/km, dropping off to 4:02/km by the end
• Triathlon
• I definitely need to improve my swimming (and arm strength) first
• Buying a bike and doing some riding would probably be a good idea too...
• This will be a goal for either 2015 or more realistically 2016
• Weight
• A continual frustration, I feel like I eat sensibly but have been basically stuck at 74 kilograms for the whole year - I'd like to be around 70 kilograms
• Holiday
• I ended the year the three days of holiday leave remaining, so I'd say this was a success
• Investment
• Property
• I haven't done the research yet that I would like to
• The never ending price increase is quite demotivating
• I'm thinking of a small apartment or similar close to the city, if anything
• Shares
• I made a short list of prospective companies
• The shares had a dip in January 2015, I missed out on the 10% recovery since then
• Superannuation
• My account went from 153,000 to 181,000 for the year
• That's an 18% increase, but it includes both returns and new contributions
• I have not made any super contributions yet but I will soon
• Passport
• I got my new Australia passport, good for another 10 years...
• I made no progress on the UK passport, some of the conditions and rules are a little complicated
• Reading
• My e-book reader seems to lose history when I reload it from my computer
• I think I completed about 12 books, just by reading on the way to work when not listening to podcasts - or too tired to do anything at all
• My favourites were:
• Blake J. Harris - Console Wars
• Stephen King - Insomnia
• Stephen King - The Stand
• Study
• I did not find a good opportunity to get a certification related to my work for the year
• I may be doing some new work in the .NET area, which may provide an opportunity
• Work
• I worked on several projects, but mostly dealing with the same software stack as 2013
• The travel to work and back is a bit of a pain still, particularly having to stand all the way in the morning - in particular it makes dealing with calf injuries very difficult 

Here's a few other list items to summarise the year, that were not specific goals:

• Holidays
• This is just a quick list of the holidays and short trips I took for the year, not a bad list
• Wangaratta Day 1
• Wangaratta Day 2
• New Zealand 
• Sydney 
• China, South Korea and Taiwan 
• Bendigo 
• Perth
• Music
• I didn't listen to a lot of music (excluding podcasts obviously) and I also found few very opportunities to see a good tour band
• The only bands I saw for the year were:
• Arcade Fire - January 22 at Music Bowl
• CSS and Grouplove - January 23 at Hi-Fi Bar
• The only other one I missed out on was Tune-Yards again
• TV
• There was not a lot of great new series, but I made a few good discoveries
• These were some of my favourites:
• Black Mirror
• Broad City
• Hard Knocks
• Homeland
• Modern Family
• Murder In The First
• Person Of Interest
• South Park (a surprise comeback)
• Survivor
• The Big Bang Theory
• The Challenge
• The Real World
• The Simpsons
• The Walking Dead
• Video Games
• I did not find much free time to play video games, just a concentrated few months
• At a guess I bought more new games than finished existing ones
• The games I played most were:
• Call Of Duty - Modern Warfare 3
• Forza Horizon
• Grand Theft Auto 5
• Gran Turismo 6
• Saints Row 4

So that's a quick snapshot of the year, time to make a success of 2015 then...

Baking Brad Episode 64

This is episode sixty four - nutella fudge crumble bars.

Recipe

• Link

Good

• Good combination of chocolate and oats

Bad

• Almost required a whole tub of nutella
• Took a long time to make and cool

Ratings

• The Cook - 5/10
• The Taste - 9/10

Bottom and top layer ingredients.

Middle layer ingredients.

Nutella fudge crumble bars.