Hey it's all been going on since I last wrote a Concept2 Blog -

The Great North Run was without doubt my toughest challenge to date. The world's biggest half marathon is a pretty hilly course from Newcastle to the end of my parents street in South Shields. I completed the course with my niece Amy, which I was really pleased about, it was 1 year and 1 day since we began our Biggest Loser journeys together with a 5km cross country run. I will be honest and say I stupidly didn't do any running training for weeks leading to the race, apart from a little 5km jog. I just find running training super boring, apart from me not being built for running, not now and not ever, I will never see a time in my life when I am built for long distance running. The weather was against us in some respects, it rained a lot, but I sure am glad it wasn't sunny that day. The crowd along the route gave us fantastic support and we finished the race in just over 3 hours, which isn't too bad. The run was over a month ago now, and I am still saying never again!

The day before the Great North Run, I took part in a speaking competition run by the North East branch of the Professional Speaking Association (PSA). I haven't been an associate long, having just started speaking since winning The Biggest Loser, but thought it would be a good thing for my speaking career to take part. I was right; I won, despite some very stiff competition. I then went on to the national final which I didn't win, but was still immensely proud of myself, the national final was in front of around 150 professional speakers, a tough gig if ever there was one. I received some fantastic feedback and came away with the feeling that this is what I want to be now that I'm nearly grown up.

I've still not managed to beat my personnel best on my 2000m sprint on the rower. When I was at Leisure Industry Week with Concept2 I did pick up some tips from the experts so hopefully that will improve soon, however if you have any you care to share please do send me an email [email protected] I want a good respectable time for doing the English IRC, I would love to get sub 7 minutes, and have even had offers of a charitable donation from a reader of this blog if I do it! Thanks Alan!

I have agreed to climb Kilimanjaro for Make A Wish, next June just before I turn 40. This is on! I would love you join me, if you are up to that send me an email. This will be an awesome life changing event for the people taking part.

Thursday 18th October, was the best and biggest day of my life. I got married to Joanne in a small simple ceremony in our favourite city of York. There were just 4 guests, my parents and Joanne's Mam and her partner Gary. We all went off for a fantastic champagne afternoon tea at The Cedar Court Hotel in York. We hadn't got ourselves too worked up about what the day would bring, we just wanted to get married and get on with the next chapter of our lives, and the day turned out to be perfect. We had a big party on Saturday night with lots of friends and family there, I even danced! It was wonderful, and we are both really happy, even happier than I thought we would be. The last year and a bit has certainly been life changing for us both, lots of great times and lots more great times ahead.