A short look back on year 2025
Some regular reflections on the past year
We just wrapped up another year (2025), and traditionally, I would like to take few moments to reflect on the past twelve months. It’s been a good, calm year with steady progress in various areas and some memorable experiences. Let’s get to it.
Blogging in 2025
Let’s start with this blog as it’s the site you are reading right now.
In 2025, I managed to publish a total of 7 articles. Not as many as I would like, but I’m committed to keep it up and going. Here is the list of posts I published in 2025:
- January 2025 training update
- A simple guide on how to use Astro with Keystatic
- February 2025 training update
- March 2025 marathon training update
- TCS London Marathon 2025 - A race report from the run
- For those who come after - A review of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Somerset, Exmoor and Cornwall - A photo story from a trip
As you see 4 of those posts were related to my marathon training and running, which I’ll expand on in the next section.
But I’m particularly happy about the other ones. “For those who come after” is a custom, art-directed article with review of the game Expedition 33. I was really impressed with the game and wanted to share my thoughts about it in a more creative way.
And if you haven’t played Expedition 33 yet, I highly recommend checking it out. It’s a great story and a unique experience.
Overall, the stats for the blog are looking okay, with a minor decrease in traffic compared to 2024. I guess I’ll just need to keep publishing more content if I want to grow the audience. Statistics definitely highlight the key topics I could focus on in the future: travel, hiking and coding.
For many years in a row now, the popular pieces of content still remain The Seven Sisters Hike alongside with 7 things to see on The Seven Sisters Walk. Besides that, my technical posts about Astro and Remix continue to bring some traffic to the blog.
I’m looking forward to publishing more content in 2026, hopefully with a bit more frequency. I know you could easily churn plenty of blog posts with AI tools, but the focus of this blog was always personal experiences and reflections, so I want to keep it that way rather than posting slop content that nobody cares about or reads.
Small technical update on the blog: I migrated the blog from Netlify to my own VPS server in late 2025. Even though Netlify was a great (and free) service for hosting the blog, I wanted to have more control over the hosting environment and reduce dependency on third-party services. Personal observation so far? The performance is actually better than before and managing server with Coolify is relatively easy. I should write a blog post about that at some point.
Work and professional life
This year has been steady and productive in terms of work, but again with some changes. I wrapped my consulting contract work with one of the investment banks in mid-2025 and transitioned to another contract role with WisdomTree Europe. It’s been a good experience so far, I’m enjoying very “hands-on” work with a small team, focusing on modernization of their tech stack and pushing the boundaries of what we can achieve with CMS-based architecture for the web platform.
I’m also continuing to work on various side projects and ideas. Some of them progressing well, others not so much. But that’s the nature of side-projects, right? You try things out, see what sticks, and move on if it doesn’t.
One of the projects that I recently launched is LuckyGrid - a simple web-based push-your-luck style game. It’s a little fun project built with Ruby on Rails and Hotwire to try out some ideas around game mechanics and web technologies. Feel free to check it out!
This year, I feel that the progress has been greatly accelerated by the use of AI tools in my workflow. Claude and Claude Code became my go-to assistant/agent for brainstorming, coding, and problem-solving. It’s a game changer and I believe 2026 will see even more integration and adoption of AI in professional work.
Running and training
As mentioned earlier, running and marathon training took a significant part of my focus in the first half of 2025. I did a lot of training throughout the winter and spring, gradually building up my fitness for the TCS London Marathon in April. It was tough at times, especially as the winter months here in UK can be quite gloomy and cold, but I stuck with it.
I successfully completed the TCS London Marathon in April 2025. Not the time I was hoping for, but I finished and that’s what matters. The London Marathon was on my bucket list for a long time, and finally I could tick it off. Overall, it was a challenging but rewarding experience.
The second half of the year was more relaxed in terms of running. I did some casual runs here and there, but nothing too structured and I definitely see that my fitness levels dropped quite a bit.
105 hours, 784km distance, 99 activities - that’s my running summary for 2025 according to Strava. Most of it in the first quarter driven by marathon training. Overall, definitely not bad and big improvement over previous year. But will 2026 be even better? We’ll see.
This is a constant struggle for me - balancing training with the rest of life commitments isn’t easy. And as I get older, I can see that recovery takes longer and motivation can wane. But I’m determined to keep running and stay active as much as possible. Relentless forward progress, right?
Travel and photography
No major trips this year for me, not much to report in this area. The main highlight was a trip to Exmoor and Cornwall in September. It was a nice getaway to discover new places around England, take some photos, and just relax.
I’ve published a photo story from that trip on the blog - Somerset, Exmoor and Cornwall - A photo story from a trip. Definitely worth checking out if you are into photography and travel.
Another small trip was a visit to Pontypridd in Wales with friends, also for a short getaway. Not much photography there, but it was nice to see and experience this part of Wales. I think Wales is often overlooked as a travel destination, I’m hoping to get back there in 2026 for more exploring.
Overall, 2025 was a bit quieter. My Sony camera isn’t getting as much use as I would like. My drone could also use more action. But it’s also not completely neglected.
There are plenty of moments worth remembering. Like this one from walks in Croydon.
Or when flying the drone in the summer evening over local parks.
Simply walking back from work in central London during golden hour.
Or this stunning sunset I captured while visiting family in Poland during easter.
Hopefully 2026 will bring more opportunities!
Final thoughts towards 2026
I’m feeling happy for how 2025 turned out. I’ve managed to get a lot done and I feel good about the progress. Obviously it could always be better, but its okay. I’m grateful for everything that happened, and I look optimistically towards 2026. Thanks for staying with me on this journey!
