Running My First Organised 5K

Getting ready to start my 5k down Blackpool sea front.

A couple of weeks back I did my first organised run, which was a 5K on Blackpool sea front. I was somewhat dreading it, but I’m really pleased with how I did.

I’ve only been running for a few months and it’s the first time I’ve been pounding the pavements since my 20’s. Even back then, it was the odd run on the canal while I was bored due to unemployment. It was sporadic at best and I never stuck to it once I finally found employment. I wish I had, but that’s the folly of youth and the dreaded hindsight.

I remember being quite good at sprinting when I was at school, and for a short while I also thought I’d take up long distance running. I did one organised run (aside from the runs I did at school), came near last, and stopped bothering about carrying on with it.

Fast forward to today, where I’m on the cusp of 40 and I’m worn out from the daily grind and the constant tiredness that comes with parenting two kids. I decided I needed to do something to make me feel better about myself, give me more energy, and generally just be healthier. That something was running.

I’d be lying if I said it was just me who decided to get out there and run, as it’s thanks to my wife. She hit upon the same realisation as me over a year ago, and she was someone who absolutely detested the idea of running. Since she started, she’s regularly running longer than a 5K, has joined an all-female running club, and has done many organised races. This includes the London Landmark’s Half Marathon that she did earlier this year.

Aside from wanting to do it for the challenge, she also did this to raise money for Guide Dogs UK (our daughter has a severe visual impairment, amongst other complications) and ended up raising over an incredible £8,000. To say I’m incredibly proud of her is an understatement.

Anyway, while I don’t think I’ll be running a half marathon anytime soon, I do want to regularly do at least a 5K every week, and I’ve been spending weeks building myself up to that.

I started doing the Couch to 5K Challenge using the handy NHS app. It does a fantastic job of getting you up off the sofa and easing you into it. However, about halfway through, I decided to ditch it and just go at my own pace. The reason for this is that I felt it was holding me back. By the halfway point I always wanted to carry on running for a couple of extra minutes when it was telling me in my ear to stop and walk. I felt like I’d just got past the point of needing to be directed and would just slow my pace or walk when my body was telling me to.

I also switched up my regular running route to one that would take me through fewer windy streets where I had to cross roads every few hundred metres. It’s now a long stretch by a main road where I don’t have to contend with as many crossings. Plus, it just feels better on my legs and feet, with the added bonus of it being downhill for half of it. Though the route back is obviously the opposite!

I had a few problems with my right foot for one week, so I had to take some time off to recover. When I got back on it, I decided to just try for a full 5k as I knew I had the Blackpool race coming up. I finished it in 35 minutes 13 seconds, which I was really pleased with. Although I was sweating like a pig when I finished and my legs felt like jelly.

I find the hardest part of running is not being out of breath, but dealing with aching legs and trying to push through it. By the time I was running down Blackpool sea front with my wife, it was the opposite as I had to slow down once I got to the halfway point and my lungs needed a rest. But it was 25 degrees (77 degrees to any Americans who stumble across my blog) with very little breeze, and very humid. At the halfway point I took a bottle of water from a steward handing them out and walked for a bit, guzzling the whole bottle in about 30 seconds. For the rest of the race, I alternated between a few minutes running and a minute walking.

Here we are with our medals. As you can see from the medals, there was also a choice to do 10k, but I’m definitely not ready for that. My wife could smash it though.

My final time? 34 minutes 31 seconds, shaving a good chunk off my original 5k time. I crossed that finish line feeling awesome. Then I looked at my watch and realised it had only tracked 4.87km. But it’s all semantics, as the course was measured to be 5k and I know I did that distance. To hell with my Strava.

The race was on Sunday 12 July. I took some time off to recover and…. I just never went back to it. I’ve been using the excuse of the heatwave we’ve been having here in England, but I need to stop being lazy and get back on it. So, after work tomorrow, I’m heading out to do another 5k. I’ll keep doing the 5k’s for a bit now until I feel comfortable enough to increase that distance.

I guess I can now call myself a runner.

Snack Time: More World Cup 2026 Crisps

Tonight we’ll find out if England can beat Norway to reach the World Cup 2026 semi-finals. I’m quietly confident given how well they played against Mexico, but this is England we’re talking about and we’ve grown accustomed to misery on the football field.

Anyway, my last post on this sporadically updated blog of mine was about Walkers Bangers & Mash flavoured crisps that have been released as part of a World Cup promotion and this flavour obviously represents England. I also mentioned that there were other flavours out there that I was yet to try and would hopefully come back here and report on them when I finally did.

Well, reader, I tried them.

I can’t take credit for hunting them down, that was thanks to my wife. She likes to peruse the aisles of Home Bargains and B&M Bargains and will often come back with some random new snacks for us to try. It’s mostly unhealthy stuff, but it’s not like we eat them all the time. Anyway, she knows how much I love crisps so grabbed some when she was out and about.

A hand holding a packet of red and white Walkers Wavy Spanish Queso flavoured crisps promoting the World Cup 2026.

First up is Wavy Spanish Queso crisps that, obviously, represent Spain. The first thing that struck me when I opened these is how much they smelt like feet, so that didn’t fill me with excitement to put one in my mouth. Luckily though, these were excellent. Very cheesy, but I’m all about strong flavours when it comes to crisps so that suits me just fine.

Queso is the Spanish word for cheese, so I’m not sure if these are supposed to taste like any cheese in particular. The most popular cheese in Spain is Manchego, which is made from sheep’s milk. I’ve never tried it so can’t say if it tastes like that, but it definitely wasn’t the type of cheese you’d find in a standard cheese and onion flavoured crisp or a Wotsit. What I do know is that the reviews for this on the Tesco listing are split between those who loved them and those who say they taste like vomit. If you’re not a big cheese lover, you’ll likely one to give these one a miss. But I personally loved them.

A hand holding World Cup 2026 Walkers Max Portuguese Chorizo & Onion flavoured crisps.
A hand holding a single World Cup 2026 Walkers Max Portuguese Chorizo & Onion flavoured crisp. The crisp has ridges running horizontally across it. The seasoning looks quite strong.

Next up was the Portuguese Chorizo & Onion crisps. These were the worst crisps of the lot for me, simply because I could barely taste anything. If you’re trying to emulate the flavour of chorizo then you’d expect something quite strong with a spicy kick, but these were so subtle that I may as well have been eating a packet of ready salted flavoured crisps. It’s odd because on the photo of the single crisp above, it looks like it has a lot of strong seasoning covering it. Maybe I got a dud packet, but disappointing overall.

A hand holding World Cup 2026 Mexican beef taco flavoured Doritos corn chips.

Finally, while not Walkers these next crisps are part of the same massive corporation that is PepsiCo, so you’d assume they’re part of the same sponsorship deal. These were Doritos Mexican beef taco flavour.

I didn’t like these much at first, but they’d been sat in the cupboard for a day or so after opening and I decided to give them another try. I ended up finishing the packet (eventually) as the flavour grew on me, with just enough spice of them to not venture into too spicy territory. Way better than the chorizo crisps, but the third best on the list overall.

So, for me, the king of the Walkers World Cup 2026 crisps are the Spanish queso flavoured crisps, even if they do smell like my feet after I return from a 5k run.

By the way, next time I’ll try and remember to take photos of the actual crisps rather than just the packets. I did remember for the chorizo & onion flavour crisps at least. Sorry about that!

Snack Time: Walkers Bangers & Mash Crisps

These English Bangers & Mash crisps from Walkers are pretty much all sausage. They’re very moreish, and I realised I’d eaten half the bag in no time at all. For anyone outside the UK who is wondering what ‘bangers & mash’, it’s what we call sausage and mashed potato.

They brought back memories of munching through a purple packet of sausage flavoured crisps on the school yard in junior school, purchased from the school tuck shop for probably about 20p. The taste instantly brought that memory flooding back, sort of like that moment in Ratatouille where Anton Ego is reminded of a meal from his childhood when he eats a simple bowl of ratatouille cooked by a rat. Not that I’m comparing fine dining to a few mass produced Walkers crisps (although, outside these particular crisps, posh crisp flavours are practically fine dining to me).

But the whole point of that scene is that presenting something simple resonated with Anton, just like a simple, sausage flavoured crisp reminded me of eating while staring up at the grassy bank that ran alongside the school yard, ready to break into a run and join my friends on the grass. But, finish the crisps first. Obviously. One does not leave good crisps unfinished.

Those crisps I remembered may have been Golden Wonder, but I looked it up and they did (and still do) a sausage & tomato crisp. But the bag isn’t purple, it’s brown. There’s no tomato taste in these Walkers crisps, so maybe it’s another brand I’m thinking about or my memory is failing me. But either way, these crisps still triggered that fond memory.

These English Bangers & Mash crisps are part of Walkers promotion of the FIFA World Cup 2026, with this flavour representing England. There are also Walkers Max Portuguese Chorizo & Onion (I definitely want to smash those) and Wavy Spanish Queso. I’ll try and pick them up at some point and give them a try too.

By the way. If you haven’t realised it by now, I really love crisps. I’m even in a Facebook group for crisps. What a life I lead.

Helping With The Washing

That bunch of clothes on the dryer above is Ivy’s way of helping. She saw me getting the washing out of the washing machine and approached saying “I help.”

She then proceeds to just shove them on the dryer, one after the other, in one big bunch. She wouldn’t let me help her either, saying “no, I do it”, which is not surprising as she’s fiercely independent (anyone with a three year-old will have a similar experience).

In her little head she thinks she’s helping, and she’s at that age where everything is an enjoyable learning experience and boring-ass chores feel fun. Yeah, it means the job takes twice as long for me, as I have to take everything off that she’s put on there. But I would never not want this experience. It’s cute as hell and it’s little moments like this that I’ll fondly remember, especially once she’s a grumpy teenager moaning about helping with chores.

They’ll get to an age one day where you’ll miss these little moments from when they were tiny. My 7 year-old already likes to moan when we ask him to do chores, yet there was a time when he would be like Ivy too. That said, Noah also has unprompted moments when he wants to help, such as with helping me clear weeds in the garden. I’ll always let him help and cherish that time with him, because those moments don’t last forever.

They won’t be perfect when they do help. But those imperfections are what helps them learn. Focus on the process, not the outcome.

I’ve just realised I’ve never mentioned Ivy on my blog before, apart from announcing our pregnancy in this post. There is something I want to share about her soon as it’s a cause I need to bring more awareness too, but I’ll leave that for another day.

Is Labour Really That Bad?

I don’t really talk about politics on here, but I’ve been quite frustrated recently with the dark path we seem to be going down in this country. Especially the vitriol directed at Labour and Kier Starmer.

I think Starmer has all the charisma of a dead fish, but I do think he’s unfairly treated by a media largely owned by billionaire’s. I saw the post below on Facebook and it’s about everything Labour has done so far. I think it’s worth re-sharing because I’m a bit fed up of people saying Labour are doing nothing. I don’t think it’s necessarily a failure of Labour to shout about these achievements, I think the media isn’t interested in talking about the good things they do and would rather constantly attack them. I also think a lot of people just don’t engage enough with politics to know what’s going on and just see a few headlines or soundbites on the news.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Labour are perfect by any means and they’ve made some stupid decisions that have riled millions up. Moreover, I think they should tax corporations and the rich more. But how anyone can think Reform is the answer is beyond me. 

While I get people are frustrated with politics and how daily life has got harder, if you’re working class and think Reform has your best interests at heart, I think you’re going to be very disappointed if they ever run this country. How can people support a party that wants to remove our human rights? That voted against more protections for women?

Reform don’t support much of what Labour has done in 2 years, and they care little about anything other than lining their pockets and serving their rich mates. The media focuses on them all the time because many of our media organisations are owned by billionaire’s who want a society that benefits the rich, not us average working class folks. I really wish people would start seeing this.

Moreover, Reform focus on the ‘stop the boats’ issue like fixing that is going to magically fix everything wrong in this country. The gap between the rich and poor is wider than ever, and I can tell you now that it’s not some guy from Africa who is causing this. While obviously something needs to be done about illegal immigration, why do people think the guy who caused all this is the one to fix it?

Illegal immigration rose sharply after we left the EU. Leaving the EU meant the UK left the Dublin regulation, preventing the automatic return of asylum seekers who crossed through the EU. Additionally, the UK lost access to the Eurodac database, which matched fingerprints of asylum seekers, making it harder to track applicants. 

So, if you’re looking for someone to blame about the boats, you only need to look at Farage. Don’t fall for a grifter who is laughing all the way to the bank. I just think a lot of people will regret it if they’ve voted Reform at the next general election and they get control of the government. I think it would be voting against your own interests.

Anyway, here’s the post I saw on Facebook. I’ve added links to source each statement.

For all those who say Starmer’s Labour aren’t left wing, don’t do anything for the working man, let’s look at some of their actions:

All this is either achieved or on track in the first 2 years of Labour being in government.

Starmer isn’t perfect by any means (especially with the whole Mandelson affair), but I feel like a lot of people base someone’s ability to govern on their personality rather than them quietly working away at getting things done. I remember people saying they voted for Boris Johnson because he was ‘funny’, like that has any relevance to being able to improve our country. Also, look how that shit show turned out.

Politics is better for us all when it’s boring. Personality politics doesn’t get anything done other than giving the media more eyeballs and the type of clickbait rubbish that infests any social media platform today. You could have the most charismatic PM ever, but if they’re going nothing to make your life better then what’s the point? Starmer and his nasally voice might be an easy target for Saturday Night Live UK every week, but does his lack of charisma make him the worst PM ever if he’s achieving the goals that Labour’s manifesto laid out at the last general election?

All this said, I still think Starmer probably has to go. His position has become untenable, and I can’t see a way back from being hated by millions of people, no matter how much good Labour is doing. I just hope Labour don’t end up like the Tory’s who fell apart into constant in-fighting and when it felt like they were changing their leader every 5 minutes. It just causes chaos and leads to people disliking government more than ever.

If you want to see if Labour are sticking to their promises, check out Full Fact’s Government Tracker.

2024: My Year Of Listening To 368 Albums

I started writing this post in January. It’s now July. So, yeah, either I’ve got a serious procrastination problem or I just kept finding new albums to obsess over. Probably both.

This was supposed to be a neat little January wrap-up. A quick “here’s all the albums I listened to last year” job. But somewhere between album #5 and album #367, I realised I’d built myself a labyrinth of guitar solos, synth swells, and emotionally devastating lyrics I had to reflect on.

I’ve been tracking the albums I listened to in yearly documents for a good few years now. It was originally done in Evernote, but since that service became unusable unless you fork out a tidy sum, I’ve turned to just dumping them into Google Docs instead. Usually I don’t set a target and just see how many albums I can fit in around my life. But, in 2024, I was a few dozen albums down just a couple of months in and I started to wonder if I could listen to 366 albums over the year, one for every day of the year (as 2024 was a leap year).

This turned into a year-long sonic adventure that spanned pop-punk nostalgia, jazz-funk detours, Latin grooves, and a suspicious amount of Jimmy Eat World. Seriously, I think they’ve taken out a mortgage in my brain at this point. I got to September and realised I was falling behind, so I had stints of the year when I blazed through 20 albums in a week. It helps that I have the kind of job where I can stick my AirPods in for 8 hours a day.

There were awesome surprises (hello, Poppy’s Negative Spaces), a few forgettable duds (lookin’ at you, new Green Day), and moments where an old classic smacked me in the soul like it was brand new (I see you, Pet Sounds, and please don’t judge me for never having listened to it until now). Some albums became instant favourites, while others made me question how I made it this far in life without ever hearing them.

Also, can we talk about how much new music came out in 2024? It’s like every artist on Earth collectively decided, “This is the year Tom must never rest.” If it’s new to that year, I’ve slapped ‘2024’ in brackets next to it so you know that it was a new release.

By the way, if one more person says “there isn’t any good music released these days” I will smack you in the face with the hundreds of Spotify playlists, Reddit threads, blogs, niche radio stations and more places I’ve checked out to prove music is as good as ever – if not even better! There’s good shit coming out every week, you just have to go beyond the algorithms and seek it out. That said, I also think Spotify’s algorithms have done a good job of introducing new stuff to me too. You’re not branching out and listening to different things if your algorithms keep throwing the same old stuff at you.

Could you say that listening to so many albums in a single year means I don’t really engage with them on a deep level? Sure, but I never said I know all these albums inside out. It’s definitely the case that I do for some of the albums on this list, as I’ve listened to them before and they’re on there because they’re favourite albums that I often return to. Some of the albums were one and done and I’ll probably never check them out again, but others will become favourites and, even though I didn’t make a note of this, I sometimes listened to an album that was new to me a few times over the course of the year.

My favourite album of 2024 is a toss up between Prelude to Ecstasy by The Last Dinner Party and From Zero by Linkin Park. If you’re going off the play count, The Last Dinner Party wins as I’ve got 164 scrobbles on Last.fm against 71 scrobbles for Linkin Park. But Linkin Park’s album wasn’t released until 15 November, so it’s not that surprising that the former got more plays. Both are fantastic albums; with Prelude to Ecstasy being one of the best debut albums I’ve heard in a while, and From Zero a welcome return for a legendary band that now has a new lead singer.

Anyway, I’ve finally wrangled all 368(!) albums into one place. Below, you’ll find the full list, Every record I gave a spin in 2024, with my very official, incredibly scientific one-word(ish) reviews. Oh, and those in bold = first time I’ve listened all the way through (as far as I’m aware). I can’t say I remember every album I’ve ever listened to, so there’s the possibility that I’ve given it a listen and just forgotten, although that may mean the album wasn’t very memorable to begin with.

Oh, and one more thing before the list. I track and rate every album I listen to over on my Rate Your Music Profile. Feel free to add me on there if you have an account.

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