If you are in London, you will have noticed that everyone is going cray cray over the weather. Because we can’t handle sun in the UK. I’ve had a think about why it’s great, but also the problems I am currently encountering….(i.e. MANY)
1. Racer back tan lines. Or cyclist tan lines. I seem to get the majority of my tan when I am doing outdoor activities. This means it is a combination of racer back, sports bras and cyclist jerseys. Meaning I can NEVER wear strapless dresses without having to fill in the gaps with some stripy fake tan. Cycling glove lines are a firm favourite!
2. The tube is too hot. Yesterday I did ONE STOP from Southfields to East Putney and I literally could feel myself melting. Sorry if it’s TMI, but I felt like I was leaving the gym. Whilst squashed with 25 other people also leaving the gym. After wearing a ski outfit. I am glad I cycle to work because it’s then acceptable to be sweaty…
My answer now to the question ‘have you done a triathlon?’ can now officially change from ‘no because I hate swimming’ to ‘yes, I still hate swimming but the fun of the rest of it made it alright really’ . And by alright I mean quite fun. And by quite fun I mean I will probably do another one…
I picked Thames Turbo on the sole reason that my club was running a novice programme where this was the end goal.I also had several glasses of wine when I agreed to it. If I am honest, I basically ignored most of the training sessions and made up my own thing because a) marathon training took up a vast proportion of my time and b) I moved back home at the start of April and away from club sessions. Oh and c) I really don’t enjoy swimming in case you didn’t know that already.
Basically, there was a bit of googling and some laid back assumptions that I would get by. Actually, my training was pretty much useless if you want to think about dedicated triathlon training. I think I swam about once a fortnight on average and I just relied on my base running and cycling to get me by. I went to about one spin class and heavily relied on the fact that my commuting and every-other-weekend (ish) cycle legs would get me through (except for the fact that I stopped cycle commuting about 6 weeks ago). Oh and my first ‘proper’ brick in this block was two days before the race where I did a hilly parkrun and bashed around some Chiltern Hills for fun. I did no transition practice (but having done duathlons, not completely blind to it) and tested out my tri top on race day.
We’re on a bit of a review rampage this week, here’s another one for you folks! This time it’s all to do with fun, fitness and flinging paint…
When we were emailed by the lovely people at Run or Dye to ask if we would like to run their crazy, paint-filled 5k in North London last week, we jumped at the chance! Given I’m not much of a runner at all, I was surprised that that was my reaction, but the thought of prancing around a 5k course to some bangin’ tunes whilst hurling powdered paint at K-Ferg just sounded like good, clean (or not so clean) fun, and a great way to kick-start my half-marathon training. So off we trotted to Cockfosters on a breezy but dry Saturday morning to join the throngs of other runners for some fun!
We were treated on arrival to some face-painting to get us in the party mood – courtesy of the ladies at Artyful, who had come to support the event – it certainly worked! Then we changed into our very own Run or Dye T-shirts; just by entering the race, every runner is given a free t-shirt, a wristband, some snazzy transfer tattoos and some powdered paint to get messy!
Soon enough it was time to get going. As we took our place at the starting hold, we were struck by the variety of people who were in attendance – from those who were there to try and knock a few seconds off their PB, to whole families including small children in buggies or being carried on shoulders – Run or Dye really is for everyone! We loved the fact that the staggered start was not done by predicted finish times. There is no elitism here, it’s truly inclusive and has a great family, party atmosphere as a result. The tunes were blaring (Katie did a lot of singing to Taylor Swift… gutted I didn’t manage to catch it on video), and as we waited to reach the start line the DJ almost caused a riot (I’m obviously massively exaggerating, but people did get very excited…) as he threw free gifts of sunglasses, tutus and packets of paint into the crowd, and then we were off!
The course was set out around some parkland, taking us over fields, pavements, mud tracks, through woodland and most importantly through the ‘Colour Zones’ where paint is hurled at you by some very enthusiastic volunteers! It was pretty windy on the day, so the paint had a tendency to just float away rather than stick to the t-shirts, but just running through a big blue cloud full of squealing people was good fun in and of itself.
We made it to the end with big old grins on our faces, and a fair bit of paint in our mouths (it’s not the best tasting, but it’s totally harmless, and frankly you’re having so much fun you barely care!). I was so pleased to have actually run it without dying, but I was so distracted by the music, cheering and paint, I barely had time to think about the actual running. Runners, joggers and walkers alike, cheered each other on as we went, and there was plenty of support from the side-lines too.
To top it off, you finish with a party – hooray! The DJ gets spinning and everyone bops away in a final flourish of a paint-throwing bonanza!
For anyone who wants to run their first 5k in a fun and friendly way, this really is the race for you – and for all you seasoned runners, RoD is a fun morning out, and something a bit different to do with your Saturday, for £25 we think it’s a bit of a bargain!
30 May – Exeter, Great Fulford 6 June – Liverpool, Aintree Racecourse 27 June – Cheshire, Cholmondeley Castle 5 July – Kent, Penshurst Place 11 July – Bournemouth, Kings Park 18 July – Perth, Scone Palace 25 July – Ipswich, Chantry Park 1 August – North Yorkshire, Castle Howard 5 September – Paris, l’Hippodrome de Chantilly 12 September – Galway, Ireland, Lough Cutra Castle 26 September – Oxford, Cornbury Park 3 October – South London, Hever Castle 10 October – Derbyshire, Chatsworth House 18 October – Edinburgh, Hopetoun House
I’m still on a high from this. It was the start of what has been a brilliant week, and I am totally buzzing from a PB where I really was not expecting it. Caveat – 3 and a half hours seems to have blurred into about 10 minutes in my mind and therefore I keep forgetting who I saw where and what bits happened when so this write-up might not even be that good! I’ve also interspersed a few elite/celeb photos courtesy of my family (mainly because my mother wants me to marry Jenson Button which I feel might prove slightly difficult….)
After my last minute marathon prep, I woke up at 6, and managed to cross paths on the way to the bathroom with my sister, who was just coming home….and my parents were up shortly after to wish me good luck! Drove down to the station, parking super easy but the train was late AS USUAL THANKS LONDON MIDLAND.
Into Euston and then a quick hop down the Northern line to London Bridge and out to Maze Hill. I ate my bagel with peanut butter & banana at some point on this journey! It’s about a 10 minute walk UP A HILL to the green start, and obviously straight to the toilets. Had the usual chats with random people in the lines, with me explaining why I was still wearing my uni tracksuit bottoms despite having graduated 4 years ago…(they are super comfy and have really long zips up the sides so you don’t have to take your shoes off!) Bag drops well organised as per usual, but the second time toilet queue was just TOO long, so we all went and weed next to a tent. Super classy. Listened to the Paula announcements. Thought about how amazing she is. Hopped into my pen. Had a gel. I am one of these clever people who doesn’t own any form of race belt and I like to carry all my gels in my hand.
You may have heard, Katie Ferguson ran the Virgin Money London Marathon 2015 on Sunday. But she didn’t just run it; she smashed it. 3.33.24. For those of you who don’t know, that is a very, very good time.
Spot the happiest runner…
I went to watch the runners whiz past at Canary Wharf and found myself carried away on a wave of unexpected emotion. As I’ve mentioned before, I am not a fan of running. I’m quite bad at it and I don’t really understand the appeal of running for its own sake – except the fact that it is fantastically good exercise – but something about watching the London Marathon this year really inspired me. When I spotted Katie amongst the throngs I (a) screamed so loudly that I scared an old lady, and (b) honestly almost shed a tear of pride. What an outrageous and ballsy thing it is to set yourself the mental and physical challenge of running 26 miles. What sort of extraordinary person wakes up on a Monday morning, goes into work and at the watercooler utters the words “I achieved a GFA time at the London Marathon” in response to the question “How was your weekend”?
Mentally? I don’t know where I am. I picked up 3.30, 3.35 and 3.45 pace bands and genuinely don’t know how it’s going to go. I’m not sure I’ve got the miles in the legs for the 3.30. I mean two years ago, March mileage, 182…this year…74. LOL. But that did finish off with a stress fracture whereas this year there have been about 4 or 5 full weeks off in my training cycle. After the Achilles faff I’m just shooting for a GFA which unless it flares up and/or I have a massive mental breakdown (entirely possible) should be achievable. 8.34s doesn’t sound that bad. But I know inside my mind I don’t want to ‘just’ GFA. 3.30 is going to be my nemesis and I’m going to keen having to take a bash at this marathon business until I get it (so the sooner the better really!)
I’ve had a couple of decent shorter races recently where I’ve really surprised myself with my grit but it’s a completely different ball game. I’m ambivalent about the weather – I’ve done a couple of my long runs in fairly grim weather (and hungover but that’s another matter) What I am worried about however is the hanging around beforehand in the rain. Bleurgh. Binbags it is. But apparently now it might not rain so WHO KNOWS?!
So here is what I got up to to take my mind off things!
So, the clocks are back and I’m finding it easier and easier to get out of bed to go running in the morning……
But the motivation to spring out of bed and pound the pavements isn’t always everyone’s idea of fun, so we have put together a list that provides you with a multitude of activities, some of which involve being active and some which involve a very very loose link to being active….
(Realised a lot of these also rely on it actually being warm, which in the UK is very questionable)
1. Wear fewer clothes. Go running in a sports bra (!) GET SOME VITAMIN D. Buy some snazzy new sunglasses to hide your running face of pain. All these are now totally acceptable given its not 2 degrees and drizzly.
OK, so I promised last Sunday evening that I would document what I was eating this week as an attempt to vaguely undo any cheese-and-wine-and-beer-and-all-the-food related damage from a week in Chamonix. However, as I mentioned during the week, this is kind of a necessity when skiing because a) I ski hard and b) I am not working a season and doing this every week for 5 months and c) HOLIDAY EXERCISE = CALORIES DON’T COUNT
However, I am conscious that I’ve been a bit lax recently even before skiing because I’ve been injured, work has involved a lot of late nights and takeaway sushi, I’ve got to move out of my flat so there has been some mega stress there, far too many nights out recently……but these are pretty pants excuses so I have decided that I need to get a bit of a handle on things for a while as there is a difference between intuitive eating and ‘throwing all your toys out of the pram because sod it, I can do what I like and surely that’s better than obsessing over everything I eat’
Also apologies for all my pants iPhone photography.
Back for more are we? Really sold it to you with the Clare Balding love and egg hatred? In the second of our two-part, tell-all exposé, Katie reveals rather too much about her gross, old pants and Kate is thoroughly ‘smashing’…
A poignant question. And one I’m going to try and be open with.As much as I can. I’ve flitted either side of the line for years. I probably always will. When you’re on the more harmful side, you’ll try to kid yourself you’re on the other. And it’s not an easy decision to make. Exercise addiction isn’t on the DSM-V. Exercise is frequently prescribed as a coping mechanism for recovering from other mental disorders. Exercise is always good for you…right?
DISCLAIMER: I’m not a psychiatrist or psychologist nor any way trained in this field. This is a combination of my thoughts, discussions and general knowledge of the topic. Please, if something I cover resonates with you, talk to someone.
These Girls Do 