Year: 2019

Where I’m At, Yo (or something)

Given the tumbleweeds blowing across the strongmum blog, you’d be forgiven for thinking that I’ve not worked out in any capacity since October, with that being a one-off too. This couldn’t be further from the truth, although illness — mine and my children’s — and work have unsuccessfully conspired together to take me out of […]

2019: A Year of Grown Up Business Decisions

Each year I try to make small improvements to my life, my work, my fitness, my well-being etc. Small incremental improvements are much easier to maintain in the long term than large overhauls (although I’m no stranger to those either!) 2019 has been mostly about making grown up decisions to improve my financial standing & […]

Having Fun at Shrewsbury Half Marathon 2019

As it’s a local race, and Shrewsbury Half Marathon was a personal best setter for me in 2018 (even with its hills!) I felt obliged to enter this year’s race as soon as entries were opened. Despite promising myself I’d remain marathon fit after completing Edinburgh marathon back in May, I had let my long […]

Growing Pains

I posted a house update back in May that included some pictures from the garden and some notes on what I’d planted – or was going to plant. Four months on and things have progressed: both out in the garden, and up in my head as I plot next years… well, plot. Not everything has […]

General Training Update

I currently have several posts in the works about specific aspects of my training — my macro counting, my latest runs, my weights progress — but I don’t quite have enough time or energy to give each their due, and so have fixed that by writing nothing. D’oh. To prevent an extended writers block I’ve […]

10 Micro Optimisations for a Faster WordPress Website

(Update 2019-08-07: this article is now available in Brazilian Portuguese: 10 dicas para um site WordPress mais rápido) — Website speed is a huge factor in your search engine (specifically Google) ranking: As part of that effort, today we’re including a new signal in our search ranking algorithms: site speed. Site speed reflects how quickly […]

WordCamp Europe 2019, Berlin #WCEU

I had the privilege of attending WordCamp Europe 2019 this past weekend, thanks to the team at Wordfence who flew me out there & paid for my ticket. I was very humbled to be able to take this opportunity and can’t express my gratitude enough to both Wordfence, and to the awesome WordCamp Europe team […]

Juneathon (Week 1)

I first tried to take part in Juneathon in 2015, and managed to just about drag myself to day 7 before pitifully failing and never mentioning it again. (You can see how it went over on my other blog, but it’s not inspiring.) Of course, I’m a tad more active these days, so it seemed […]

I ran a marathon

If you’d have asked me this time last year whether I’d ever be able to run a marathon, I’d have probably laughed in your face. Not because I didn’t think I was potentially capable of running 26.2 miles, but because I knew that to do that sort of distance I’d have to train, and my […]