RED January

 I'm going to beg your patience by mentioning another fundraising initiative I'm doing, although I've set a somewhat more modest a target than I did for the Cardiff Half.

The RED in RED January stands for "rise every day", or, for some of us, "run every day". The RED January movement is about boosting mental health during what can be a challenging time of year, at least in this hemisphere. A little bit of activity, especially done outdoors, can make a massive difference to mood and well-being. I did my own unofficial RED challenge in 2023, running 31 consecutive days, and was enjoying the benefits so much I continued well into the year. After developing a few aches I eventually cut back to six out of seven days, but I kept that pattern going throughout the remainder of 2023 and found it helped enormously with mental and physical resilience. 2024 wasn't as good - I picked up a niggling injury which knocked me back a bit, and in addition, a lot of my training became focused on longer runs in preparation for the half. I'm still doing a half this October, but I won't start preparing for that until somewhat later in the year. For now, I'll be looking to run somewhere between 3 and 5K each day between now and the end of the month, come what way. Most of the runs will be outdoors but (as I did in 2023) I'll resort to a treadmill if we get snow and ice.

I'll be documenting my runs as I go. Here is my run for January 1st:

And here is a link to the RED January fundraising page:

RED January

I'm looking to raise 100 pounds for RED's charity partner, Mind over Mountains.

Other than getting my running shoes on, and making sure my Garmin and MP3 player are properly charged up, I'll be working on the Merlin book, drafting an introduction to a new Gollancz edition of REVELATION SPACE (this is its 25th anniversary - a quarter of a century!) and anticipating the next round of editorial requests on HALCYON YEARS. I'll be listening to some of the lovely new bits of vinyl I got for Christmas from my wife, notably The Police's Ghost in the Machine, Simple Minds' Sparkle in the Rain, and the brilliant Sam Fender's second album. Thanks, my wife!

And again, best wishes to all for 2025. Let's see if we can make lemonade from this box of lemons.