My 2025 review

Every year, right back to 2016, around about the last day of the year or soon into the next, I write a brief yearly review and look back at all my photos. Back in 2024, I started to do a post every month and have somehow kept it up, just facing a bit of a blip for the last few months of this year (server storage issues, cry!). I will include those photos below.

I do love spending time going through my photos of the year. It gives me an opportunity to reflect and does wonders in allowing me to recall approximately when things happened. It would blur otherwise. The photos would just enter my stream and to be honest, I probably would not look at most of them ever again because life happens and they would get buried as time moves on.

This is a very public diary so of course not every photo is included. It is a selection of photos which have some meaning but they sit alongside some which seemingly do not at all. I cannot really fully describe why I have picked a few. Some of mundane life? My interests? My obsessions?! Something caught my eye?

My 2025

I think as each year passes it gets busier and time moves faster. I remember in early secondary school a teacher explaining that a year to me seemed so different to a year to him as he had seen more of them.

As I was writing the below review of the year, I realised that I have created some TikTok videos of the described. Some of them are really useful for remembering the events so I have linked them for my reference. In a bumbling, slightly chronological account here is a non-exhaustive write up of my 2025:

I started the year with running a lot, ate out, went to Manchester, did some Olio, brought my speaker to Parkrun a lot, increased my gymming, cycled a lot, I went on holiday to Australia!, many Critical Mass rides, and Kidical Mass rides happened, attended a couple of weddings, rode my first Penny Farthing, Nottinghamshire Pride happened, encouraged more people through work to walk and cycle and generally too, ran some more, a Nottingham Open House type event happened – seeing the People’s Hall and the Freemasons, got a Dyson hoover, went to Manchester a few more times to see my sister, ran the Robin Hood Half Marathon, dressed up in fancy dress a few times and liked it, watched the new Nottingham Bridge lifted, went to a few events with my friend’s pug – I’m his uncle, had a brain angiogram, purchased my first ever real Christmas tree, recycled lens and plastic bags, had a clear out, campaigned for better cycling, and more importantly found time inbetween to relax! And so much more! Here’s to an even better 2026!

My Cycling

It is tradition to record my total amount cycled this year. On quite a few occassions by Garmin just could not find the GPS signal until I had nearly finished the journey and this year has seen me use Lime hire bikes more. Oh and I did go on a three week holiday which would have had an effect on my totals. But also, I do think my way of cycling has changed. I noted that this year I used my road bike even less than in years gone by. This was a source of racking up some miles.

This year I cycled a total of 1,319.79 miles (Strava) (1,265.7 miles from my Garmin. This burnt 77,307 calories which roughly equates to 10kg of body fat. I averaged 9.72 mph. This equates to having spent 5 and half days on the saddle.

My Running

I started back in 2023, really got into it in 2024 and continued throughout 2025. I am now certainly a runner. I try to do every single Parkrun on a Saturday and attend Nottingham Frontrunners on a Tuesday night. Last year I did the Nottingham 10k but in 2025 it fell just before I went away on holiday. Knowing my luck, I would, well, fall or something so I decided to sit that out. Later in the year was the Robin Hood Half Marathon which I completed in 2 hours and 11 seconds.

This year I ran a total of 584 km equating to a total of 2 days and nearly 6 hours.

My Gym

I was in the gym for 6,208 minutes which equates to 4 days, 7 and a half hours. I went 111 Times
for around 55 mins each.

My relationship with photos

I take a lot of photos. I like to be able to sit at my desktop and scroll through my photo stream. So many memories are there. I do not have a memory where I can recall in great detail a certain event. I imagine without photos, the memories would completely fade.

I go by the idiom ‘if a photo is not taken, did it really happen?’ which of course staddles the fine line between taking photos to remember important moments and living my life through a lens. What memories are important to capture? What’s too much? Below are some photos selected from the year. Of course, I have omitted quite a few.

Wishing you a very Happy New Year for 2026!

My 2025 collage: