Kickstarter a Teddy!

simon Life Comment
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For those that do not know my wife Sian Wheatcroft  is a crafter. She makes everything from little bags to teddy bears

She is currently running a kickstarter in order to raise funds to create a range of mohair teddy bears.  As a backer you can get a wide range of things, including a PDF pattern or kit, a unique mohair teddy in a range of sizes, right the way up to a group workshop.

Each teddy bear is made by hand and is completely unique. She been making jointed teddys for a few years and holds workshops in schools frequently. She’s also been on the cover of a well known crafting magazine with a tutorial.

She is also working on a series of youtube tutorials to accompany the kits and pattern in her kickstarter. Here’s the first of the series.

Click here to visit her kickstarter page – she only has a few days left and the project only happens if she raises the full amount, so your support would be greatly appreciated, please share with anyone you know who might be interested. read more

It keeps on changing

simon running Comment

I often get asked how I mentally prepare myself to run my outdoor route.  I always answer with the same thing “I just assume the route stays constant and their won’t be any obstacles”.  However that assertion doesn’t reflect reality.  The route has been different recently due to two variable speed and the time of year.

I rarely enter races to obtain a specific time, I am usually happy to finish.  So running quick is not something I usually concentrate on.  But there is a local 5k in my hometown that I decided I would run.   But not just run, run in a competitive time [competitive for me anyway].  So I have been doing some shorted runs outdoors at an increased pace.  This has made navigating a lot harder.  I don’t get a very good read underfoot at speed, so I struggle to correctly locate myself on the pavement, it also means obstacles appear much quicker than they usually do.  An obstacle that usually takes 1 minute to reach now takes a lot less than that.  So Ihave to be a lot more vigilant and try and read the pavement quicker.  Because I don’t have much practice at this it has led to me running into a few things. read more

Making Kindle Books Work With VoiceOver on the iPhone and iPad

simon Uncategorized 6 Comments

***UPDATE*** kindle for iOS now supports VoiceOver! and it works fantastically well.  I have left the instructions in place below as they may be applicable for OS X Mavericks and iBooks if Amazon do not relase a VoiceOver compliant version of Kindle for Mac.

Being blind access to books is difficult. In an age of digital content you would of thought it would be easy, but no. it is increasing difficult thanks to things like DRM and odd restrictions imposed by eBook retailers.

There are a number of options below that I have broken down by company.

Amazon

Audible
Has a wide rang of audiobooks with a great monthly price. If the book is available as an audiobook this is a fantastic option and I cant recommend it enough.

Kindle

The books are only truly accessible in two scenarios
1. Kindle app for Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD.
2. Kindle for PC with accessibility plugin. read more

Filming for Carphone Warehouse

simon Life, running 1 Comment

Around november last year a researcher got in touch with me to talk about how I use my smartphone. It turned out there were looking for individuals to feature in micro documentary commercials for Carphone Warehouse. Because I rarely say no to an opportunity I agreed to do it. Rather strangely in the same week another reseracher also got in touch asking if I would be interesed in a commercial for SKINS.

After a couple months of speaking to SKINS it fell through. I am still not to sure why, I don’t know if the campaign was cancelled or they went with someone else. However as the SKINS commercial fell through Carphone Warehouse got back in touch. I was still very interested in doing the commercial as my smartphone really has enabled me to do great things. In total it took around 6 months from initial talks to actual filming.

So where do these opportunities come from?

read more

Holiday, illness and vision loss

simon Uncategorized 2 Comments

We have been back from our holiday for a while now. We had a really nice time, Grayson got to do all his favourite activities. Including riding a steam train, he loves trains. It was nice to get away as an extended family and Grayson really enjoyed spending a lot of time with his cousins. They all played together non stop.

Ascot also loved his time away. His puppy walker really enjoyed having him back for a while and Ascot loved playing with the guide dog puppy in training.

The roughest thing about being away was the fact we all became ill. Sian, my mum and I all came back with a terrible chest infection. I didn’t get out of bed for days, it was the illest I have ever been. While we are all now recovering I unfortunately lost a large amount of vision while I was ill.

Being away from home you don’t really notice that you may be losing vision. You are in unfamiliar surroundings so put down an increase into bumping into things or struggling with vein in a new location. Then with my illness on returning home I was bed bound, so wasn’t really getting up to much to notice my vision loss. read more

Holidays all round!

simon Life Comment

Sian, Grayson and myself are off on our first family holiday. We have been away for a couple of days before, but that was just to support me on runs. This is the first time we are going away with the sole intention of it being a holiday.

Grayson is particularly excited as we have bought him a special Thomas travel bed. He loves it; just not as a bed. It’s a slide, a ramp, a bouncy thing and a weeping. Basically anything but a bed. So the chances of him settling down are minimal.

You may have noticed I didn’t mention Ascot (my guide dog) going away with us. Well that is because he has gone on a very special dog holiday. I didn’t want to take him away with us as we are doing so many activities that aren’t dog friendly he would of spent a lot of the time in kennels. So I decided to arrange his own holiday.

I contacted the people who originally had Ascot as a puppy. They were delighted at the thought of having him back for a week. So we dropped him off today and for 2 hours he played non stop with their new guide dog puppy. He is going to love it, he rarely gets the chance to play with other dogs. There is also another dog and cat to play with, so he really will have a lot of animal fun. read more

The Cycle Begins

simon running Comment

With my plan to compete in The Grimreaper in early August I have just officially begun a training cycle. I have been working on a little base mileage the past few weeks, peaking at the 15 mile mark on long runs. But now the long trawl of improving every week begins!

Historically I have always run splits. When I first started running I went straight to the 100 mile distance. I had never even run a 5k before. So in order to increase my mileage consistently and rapidly I decided to run splits. I would run for 25 mins and walk for 5; repeating this until I had achieved my distance. This also had the added benefit of allowing me to time my food intake. So every 25 minutes I would aim to consume something, it differed for each split but I would always eat something.

The downside of this was the fact I was terrible at anything below ultra distance. I could rack up the miles but I couldn’t achieve shorter runs at speed. As a result my half marathon and marathon times were terrible. For this training cycle I have decided to do away with splits and just run. read more

Why ultra running?

simon Uncategorized Comment

A friend sent me a tweet the other day to a video of Dean Karnazes (featured below).  It was a nice reminder of why I decided to go down the path of the ultra distance.

Years ago I was still able to read books.  Even though I could read books I rarely did.  It would usually be through necessity, so either a manual for work or a Time Out guide for somewhere I was planning to visit.  It never really occurred to me it might be an idea to read a lot of books before I was unable to.

So when I did read a book it really stuck in my mind.  The only books I can remember reading are near to the entire work of Hunter S Thompson and one book by Dean Karnazes.  The Thompson books could certainly explain why I drank so much back in the day!  The Karnaze’s Ultramarathon Man  really stuck in my mind.

I read it at a time when my vision was beginning to severely deteriorate.  I hadn’t realised it at the time but it would become the last book I was able to read.  Due to the fact it was the last book I ever read it held a special place in my heart and mind and created something.  Something that would re surface years later. read more

iWatch, Breitling, Hublot and Pebble

simon Uncategorized 1 Comment

With recent rumours of an Apple iWatch its been a hot topic amongst my friends. Woill Apple release a watch? I am not convinced. It just seems a little far from Apple’s path to me, I also can’t see Ive designing a watch.

Now I would love to be proved wrong and Apple release a watch with a beautiful face. Using the swiss railway face that they licensed would be a great start. The number of features a watch could introduce could be interesting too. Controlling your phone from a wrist device is a nice idea, which is one I ordered the Pebble. More on that later.

All the talk of an Apple iWatch reignited my love for watches. Before I lost my vision I collected watches. I particularly liked watches with unique faces with a penchant for unique ways to tell the time. Hence my collection had a lot of Tokyo Flash watches. I also collected a little higher end with a few designer watches a classic gold faces watch and the prize of my collection my Breitling Cosmonaut. read more

Public speaking

simon Uncategorized Comment

A couple of weeks ago I was invited to give a talk at a school a few miles away from where I live. It was healthy living week and they had asked if I could give a talk on running and nutrition.

Now if you have been following along, my original running nutrition was diabolical. With little money for sports nutrition and the limited knowledge of sugar powers you! I ate rubbish. I would power runs on chocolate bars, Mr Kipling and anything else that was cheap and high in sugar.

The interesting point was when i transitioned from this terrible sugar intake to sports nutrition and EC stack, and eventually something lower in sugar. My initial foray into sports nutrition saw the obligatory gels (which I still use) to my transition into “normal food”. Just eating fruit, nuts and sandwiches.

So I had a little I could detail on nutrition. I began the talk by giving a brief introduction to what ultra running is, which was then followed by my ASICS commercial. Viewing the commercial was the first time these hundreds of students would know I couldn’t see. read more