By day I'm a software developer, by night I'm a climber and runner (and also develop software).
Career
I am a software developer with eight years’ experience developing back-office applications for the financial industry and personal use, which includes ASP.NET websites, Windows Forms and Console applications. I specialise in Microsoft technologies, including Visual Studio, Team Foundation Server and SQL Server, using C#, VB.NET and Transact-SQL.
You can read further details on my career and resume pages.
Climbing
I started climbing indoors in October 2012, with a trip to Sardinia in April 2013 being my introduction to rock climbing.
Since then, I regularly climb at indoor climbing walls and on trips around the UK.
My climbing page contains details of my outdoor climbing since I began recording my ascents.
Running
My running began in early 2016 when a friend told me about a style of running called "hashing" which is used in events organised by his running club, the Mersea Island Hash House Harriers (MIHHH). I was encouraged to try this out so I went to my first hash on 11th April in Manningtree and returned for my second hash the following week in Chappel. It was at the pub after where I was told about a national running event called parkrun which sounded interesting and I went to my first parkrun within a fortnight.
Three months later, I joined the Essex Stragglers Orienteering Society (SOS) and have taken part in a number of their orienteering events, both woodland orienteering in the summer and street orienteering in the winter.
In the second half of 2017 I joined the Running Colchester Facebook community and ran my first official race, the Dedham 10km, which I completed in 53:19.
Shortly later I signed up for a couple of half-marathons talking place in early 2018 and joined the Parkside Running group on their half-marathon training runs. In February 2018 I completed my first half-marathon, which was at Great Bentley with a time of 1:49:01.
On top of this, on Saturday mornings I often volunteer at my local parkrun, the Colchester Castle parkrun. I have completed 184 parkruns and volunteered on 181 days, covering 337 roles, with my personal best for the 5km being 21:51.
Full details of all my runs can be found on my running and parkrun pages.