This talk just appeared on TED (a fantastic website if you have never been).

The gist of the talk (which only goes for a few minutes) is that the best way to achieve a goal is to keep it to yourself. Take a look and see if you agree.

Personally, I don’t tend to agree. Having this blog and speaking to many people about the project has been very beneficial in keeping me motivated to keep achieving. Each to his own I guess.

Month completed: August 2010

Firstly, apologies for the extreme lack of posts recently. My only excuse is that I have been working on two particularly big goals recently.

The first I can’t tell you about just yet, but it will be worth the wait and I am very excited about it.

The second I can tell you about, as I completed it on Sunday, after four months of training.

I just completed the London triathlon!

The race was an Olympic distance event, which means:

• 1,500 metre swim, then
• 40km bike ride, then
• 10km run

The run I thought I would be OK with, but it was the swim that frightened me the most, having struggled to swim 50m without wearing myself out.

So, back in April I started training. 4 or 5 mornings a week I was up at 5.30 to swim, bike or ride, or a combination of all three. Sleep-ins have been a rare treat recently, and much savoured whenever I have had the chance of one.

Me, a few nervous hours before the race

Me, straight after the race (not a pretty sight!)

I needed a bike too, as my folding bike was really suitable for the job. So I bought a mountain bike for £55 from Gumtree. When I arrived on the day to see everyone else in my class had fancy £1,000 road bikes, I admit I felt a little intimidated, but it is fun to be the underdog. My bike’s tyres are proper chunky tyres, so at least I was confident I wouldn’t get a puncture (which I didn’t, thank goodness).

The week leading up to the event was nerve-wracking, and particularly the night before. I woke up at 5.30 on Sunday and despite best efforts, could not fall back asleep. So I watched lots of TV, just to distract myself. Annoyingly, I was in the last group of the day, at 3.40pm, so I had all day for the nervous energy to build up. It felt worse than the feeling I got going up in the plane just before my first skydive.

After the swim leg, getting out of a wetsuit is tricky business

Just before the race started, when we were in the water waiting for the gun, two competitors near me were talking. One, who had obviously done triathlons before, and one who hadn’t. The more experienced competitor was saying ‘You are actually quite lucky that this is your first one, because you don’t yet know how painful it is.’ Not what I want to hear just before we kick off!

Once the race was underway, it was actually not too bad. Naturally, it was difficult, especially the run at the end, but I think the training paid off. I even had enough energy left to ride my bike the 15km home again afterwards (not that I had much choice – bikes weren’t allowed on the train), and play football on Monday night. I am starting to feel some aches now though, so that will be it for me.

Nearly there! A few laps to go

I raced for Macmillan Cancer Support, and have so far raised £430 £665 for them, which is great. If you feel like making a donation, click here.

Oh, and my time. I did the race in 3 hours flat (3 hours, 13 seconds to be exact). I actually shocked myself, as I thought I would be between four and five hours if I did really well.

Would I do another one? Probably, but not for a very, very long time!

My one tip for the triathlon, for anyone game enough to try (or should that be, tri) one – focus on the swim. If you can do the swim without using much energy your race is set up for you.

If you have been following this year’s Wimbledon, you would have heard about the epic, world-record, longest ever match between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut, which lasted over 11 hours. Read about it here.

The final score, in Isner’s favour, was 6-4 3-6 6-7 7-6 70-68.

How many games is that?

That’s right – 183!

Month completed: June 2010

After a busy day at work, it is very easy to just pop something into the microwave for dinner, or even just order takeaway in (Indian and Thai are personal favourites).

While these are the quick, easy options, and are OK in moderation, it is important to have proper meals at least a few times a week.

So this year, Nat and I have been trying hard to do more home cooking. To help, my Grandma mailed me five pages of recipes to try out, which covered starters, mains and desserts.

And here are a few of the things I have made so far:

- Banana cake

- Porcupine meatballs (image below)

- Sweetcorn and pepper frittata

- Spinach and potato gratin

- Ratatouille

- Bobotie

- Zucchini Slice

Despite the extra effort involved (I guess around 45 minutes, rather than 10 minutes, preparation and cooking time), the result and the satisfaction is much better. In particular, the porcupine meatballs recipe is fantastic, and I genuinely look forward to coming home and cooking this because it is so tasty.

As well as eating better, and having more satisfaction with the meal, by cooking a proper meal there is also the chance to cook enough for leftovers the next day, so I can eat a great lunch instead of a dry, boring sandwich.

I will definitely continue to home cook as much as possible. I doubt whether or not it gets me out of dishes duty though!

For anyone inspired to give home cooking a try, give this a try. And if you want the recipe for any of the other dishes I mentioned above, leave me a comment and I am happy to email it to you.

================

Grandma Tully’s recipe for porcupine meatballs (which I have amended slightly)

Ingredients

For the meatballs

• 500g of mince meat
• 1/2 cup uncooked rice (I use basmati)
• 1 finely chopped onion
• Salt and pepper
• Pinch of thyme (optional)

For the sauce

• 2 tins of tomato soup (about 800g)
• 1 teaspoon of sugar
• 1.5 cups of water

1. Put the sauce ingredients in a big pot and bring to boil.

2. Mix the meatball ingredients together, press firmly into golf ball sized pieces with wet hands.

3. Put meatballs into boiling sauce, cover and simmer for about 1 hour.

4. Take out and enjoy (and add tomato sauce on top – I don’t do this, but Nat seems to like it)

This coming Wednesday night (June 2, between 6-9pm) I am presenting at a goal setting workshop in London. As you can tell from this blog, I like to work towards achieving goals, no matter the scale, and I also like to meet and talk to other people who are starting, or have completed, big goals of their own.

It’s free to take part, so if you are keen to get involved, you can find out more here.

My next door neighbour at work, Amalia, has just embarked on a brand new endeavour – as a cast member of an amateur radio theatre production.

I am excited because it is always great to see people try new things, and she seems to be having a great time so far.

And it means I get to experience 1940’s radio theatre in a month’s time when the production starts (Nat and I will be there, cheering her on).

If you are in London at the start of June, why not head along too. Buy tickets here.

You know how when you buy a new car, you suddenly start to see lots of other people driving that car too.

Well, that is kind of like me and the number 183.

Here’s one I noticed late last week.

I felt like I was struggling to make a start on the triathlon I am doing in August, so I have done two things recently.

1. I did a full-day triathlon training course last Sunday, getting tips and whatnot from some elite British athletes (including the head swim coach of the British Olympic team, no less!) – I realised during the day that I have a lot of work to do on my swimming if I think I am going to cover 1,500 metres (with minimal use of doggy paddle)

2. I have joined a gym near work, which has both a swimming pool and bikes, so I can get in lots of training in the next four months.

If you have any tips on how to prepare for a triathlon, I would love to hear them.

I have a good friend called Ronald, who I have grown up with since I was young.

Ronald is someone who, although I enjoy the company of, is definitely a bad influence on me.

Whenever I visit Ronald, I always regret it a little bit later, even though while I am hanging out with him, I have a great time.

Ronald is well known – in fact, you probably know him as well. And he is probably a bad influence on you too.

Given I am now starting to train for the London triathalon in August, I have told Ronald that I can not see him for six months (which started on March 1).

Doing this will also help me to complete goal 8.

Despite being separated for half a year, I am sure our reunion will be great fun. Because even though he is a bad influence, there is nothing wrong with bad things every now and then.

Month completed: March 2010

I seem to be in card playing mode at the moment, so in this current frame of mind, I was taught how to build canasta by Andrew and Phillip, two of the guys I met at the bridge course I did recently.

I know what you are thinking. Canasta – that’s for old people, right?

Well, if that is right, then the old people have a good thing going. Canasta was great fun, and quite easy to pick up. We ended up playing for over six hours, and although I came dead last, I did get a few dirty canastas (not as dodgy as it sounds).

The game is sort of a combination of gin rummy, go fish and a game called Up to Ten, which no one outside of my family seems to have heard of. You play with two decks, including the jokers, with the aim to get canastas (eight of the same number) and then get rid of your cards. If you haven’t played it before, I would definitely recommend it.