Category Archives: #fitfordisney

Winter Run Wear

Its the season of big coats, woolly hats and hands stuffed into pockets because you forgot your gloves yet again, and any excuse to stay home in the warmth is welcomed with open arms, unless you’re a runner..

We’re a strange breed, and a year or two ago I would look out on those braving the low temperatures to get in a training run and think ‘is it really worth it?’, but now I’m part of this world I welcome a brisk winter run because I know how to dress for the occasion.

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My first winter essential is my fleece, which I save for the coldest weather; its great for keeping away the chill while you’re out, but once you get back home you’re gonna want to whip it off pretty quick before you start to cook!

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Next staple of mine is a bunch of lightweight long sleeved tops, like this once from Asics. On cool days, you might worry that they’re not gonna keep you warm, but once you get going you’ll warm up nicely, but also avoid overheating. Something I love about running in colder weather is that its cool enough to run with my hair down, so chunky headbands that keep the cool off my ears and the hair out of my face are pretty great!

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I love my bodywarmer in the winter months – its super lightweight and not at all bulky, but at the same time makes all the difference out in the cold. I would also recommend a lightweight infinity scarf; even if you don’t want to run wearing it, it’ll help keep you warm once you start your cool-down.

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Bring on the thermals! Forget the idea that they’re thick or too hot, and find yourself a nice light one because you’ll be amazed how much warmer they’ll make you! Sometimes I also like to wear a hat – you lose a lot of body heat from your head, so it helps prevent you cooling down too much, and the same principle applies to gloves!

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Finally, the dreaded waterproof jacket! I say dreaded because who likes running in the rain, right? Well, like it or not, a lot of runners still do it, so the waterproof is fairly essential. I found shopping for mine pretty tricky; a lot of jackets claim ‘splashproof’ or ‘water resistant’, rather than waterproof, so you have to take a risk on whether you’ll be fully protected from the weather, but generally I would recommend avoiding cheaper/high street brands and go to a proper sports brand!

Once you’re fully equipped for the cold, there’s nothing to stop you from keeping up your training through the winter months. You never know, you might enjoy it!

xoxo

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RunDisney 2016: 6 Weeks to go!

Six weeks. SIX WEEKS. That actually sounds like a short length of time right?!

We’ve dropped well below the 40 day mark now (TOMORROW ITS 5 WEEKS TIL WE LEAVE), and everything is becoming more and more real, not that it wasn’t before! We are 100% sorted on everything now, to do lists are ticked, and the only small thing I have to worry about is sorting my running outfits for the Star Wars races!

Our races are now top on the RunDisney site!

Our races are now top on the RunDisney site!

As for running this week, its been fairly non-existent I’m afraid.. I’ve been having some problems with my knees and getting so close to the main event I really don’t want to cause any problems. Dad’s also been working away a lot this week, so there really just hasn’t been a lot of time.

The original plan this weekend was to do another mini rebel, starting with a Parkrun yesterday. Instead of our usual course, we decided to try out our other local course at Poole as they were having a pacer event and we thought it would be fun. The Poole course is a lot flatter than Bournemouth, so the potential for a new PB was definitely there, but getting caught up in the pacer event, I started the course way too fast, and ran the first half on the heels of the 27 minute guy, and considering I have a PB of 28:14, it was a major stretch. By the 3k mark, I was having some real issues with my heart rate (which is becoming more of a recurring problem, and I know when it happens I should stop running..) but I pushed myself onwards, having to stop every few minutes to walk and calm myself down; I even had to stop mid-sprint-finish which is ridiculously unlike me. BUT my time came out at 28:39, so only 25 seconds off my PB, and I think had I not pushed myself too much at the start, a PB would have been possible.

As for today, after spending my shift at work hearing about severe weather warnings on the radio (50mph wind, what), Dad and I made the decision to give it a miss, and save ourselves for next week when we’re going the full distance and hitting 13.1!

°o°

PS. We signed up for our first ever virtual run yesterday, but more on that closer to the time!

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#fitfordisney – A Fitness Lustlist

Happy, healthy Wednesday everyone, good day to you all!

Today I’ve put together what I like to call my fitness ‘lustlist’. Its sort of like a wishlist, except full of wonderfully expensive products that I could never justify spending the money on, and that’s ok, because I’m happy to admire them from a distance! Sure, if I won the lottery or something, they’d definitely be on my shopping list, but while I find them beautiful, I can live without them, I just thought it would be fun to share a few with you!

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First of all, there’s Rundies! Yes, as the name suggests, undies for running, kinda like day-of-the-week pants, but with different runs printed on them, cute right?! $65

Sweaty Betty is a fitness brand that prides itself with beautifully designed workout clothes, and the Chromo Run Tee (top centre) and Ultra Run Bra (bottom right) are no exceptions! £125 and £42

I’m also a sucker for a bit of Nike, which I think makes me a bit of a fitness snob, but hey ho! I’m not 100% sure why, but I kind of love the Pro Engineers Giraffe Training Tights (bottom left) and I love the colour and design of the Dri-Fit Knit Epic Crew Training Top! £50 and £47.99

We also know how much I love Fabletics, right? The Moorea Bra (centre) is such a nice change of design from regular sports bras, and comes in a few different colours too! £30 (or £22 for VIP)

And finally, despite my general favouritism for Nike running shoes, these Asics GT-1000 are such a lovely colour! £97

Quite a stunning selection right? Do you have a lustlist too?

xoxo

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#fitfordisney – Superfood Favourites

Superfoods are really becoming all the rage, and while some of the claims made about some of these foods might be a little exaggerated, personally I think there is nothing wrong with adding good food to your diet!

No, I’m not telling you to only eat celery, or that goji berries are going to make you skinny overnight; superfoods primarily get their powers from the anti-oxidants they contain, that work behind the scenes to keep you nice and healthy.

I’m also not recommending you eat all of them, just find those that work for you and that you enjoy eating, otherwise healthy eating becomes a chore. Today, I’m going to share a few of my favourites:

1. Matcha

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Matcha is a highly concentrated green tea; personally I use the powder from Teapigs. I love it because one little scoop is packed with goodness, and I add it to my morning juice for a subtle kick of green!

2. Blueberries

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These little guys are my heroes! I add them to cereal, porridge, yogurt, and for a treat, frozen blueberries are great to crunch on.

3. Spinach

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I used to think spinach was the worst thing in the world, until I actually started eating it! Now, I add it to lasagne, pasta sauces, and also really like it raw as a side to fish or steak.

4. Broccoli

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Bet’cha didn’t know how good broccoli really is for you? My latest favourite broccoli use is in my morning omelette!

Are you a superfoodie?

xoxo

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RunDisney 2016: 15 Weeks to go, and Tough Mudder!

Ok, we all know what this week was about.. Tough Mudder.

With that looming at the end of the week, we decided to only run once, on Tuesday, and skip Thursday to save ourselves for Saturday.. It was a nice little 5-6 miler, nothing special, but Saturday..

Saturday was all about the mud. If I’m being honest, I’m still a little in shock and awe that its all over, and that we did it. It was beyond insane.

Up and on the road by 7.30am, a rush to sign in and find our team, and into the warm-up zone for a quick jump around before making our way to the start line – which of course we could only get to by getting over a 6ft wall!

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From there, it was only 11.8 miles with almost 30 obstacles to get through before we crossed the finish line again, no biggie..

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Ice baths, mud miles, 12 ft walls, tunnels, hills, and electric shocks – the photos don’t do justice – and just over 4 hours later, we crossed the line and were greeted by goodie bags and a pint!

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I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it was such an incredible experience! Definitely hard work, but amazing. Our team was phenomenal, especially Dad, who only actually signed up for this during the week, but was such a trooper and blew us all away!

Would I do another one? Let’s just watch this space..

And as for Run Disney, today marks the first day of double digits – only 99 days until we leave!

°o°

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#fitfordisney – Fitness Goals and Stepping Stones

I think fitness is a journey, not a destination. You can always better yourself, and even when you’re as good as you think you can get, you can’t just leave it there; it needs maintaining.

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I’ve definitely coming a long way on my journey, but the more I improve, the harder I want to push myself, and there are a few specific goals I’d love to hit, almost like a fitness bucket list:

Running Goals

5K Goal – 25 minutes

Personal best – 38:00, 31:47, 31:25, 28:49, 28:14

10K Goal – below 1hr

Personal best – 1:08:17, 1:03:20

Gym Goals

Leg Press Goal – 100lbs 150lbs

Current weight – 55lbs, 70lbs, 85lbs, 90lbs, 100lbs, 105lbs

Chin up Goal – no weight assist

Current weight – 32kg, 27kg, 23kg

 Ok, so I don’t have that many main goals, but I’ve made and am making so many improvements in my training by working hard and pushing myself. Better yet, the results are actually becoming visible – I actually have some definition in places!

There is absolutely plenty more room for improvement (especially when it comes to my diet, oops!), but every day is a new opportunity to become my best self; work harder, lift heavier, run faster.

I am my own worst enemy and my own best trainer, and I will make my goals a reality. Will you?

xoxo

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RunDisney 2016: 16 Weeks to go!

Coming off the high of last week (Dad’s PB and our longest continuous run), this week has also been a great one. We’ve definitely found our stride, if you pardon the pun, and every aspect of our running seems to be improving so much, we’re actually surprising ourselves!

As per usual, we ran twice in the week, Tuesday and Thursday; both very different runs. Tuesday was a fairly regular route for us, with a difference: we ran basically all of it! Pretty much all of our training so far has been a rather loose interpretation of Jeff Galloway’s ‘run-walk-run’ method, whereby walking breaks are encouraged so as not to overdo it or cause injury, but following our first continuous 5K last week, we’ve really found the kick up the backside to keep going, knowing that we can. We did walk a steep bit of hill, but other than that, we ran the full distance.

Thursday was a split run – we ran down to my nan’s house, about 3k, stopped off there for a quick visit, and then ran back home, so about 6-6.5k altogether. Generally, the outward journey is downhill, and the homebound uphill, but we tried to push ourselves as much as possible. Yes, we hate hills, but they do appear in most of our routes, so they’re pretty much an inevitable part of any run. When possible, we run what we can, but personally I don’t see any shame in walking them because it does save straining ourselves, and it still works our legs pretty hard.

Saturday was a 10-miler. Its the first really long distance we’ve done since we got back into training after Japan, but with the successes of the last week in mind we kept fairly positive. The route was chosen based on us having a pretty good knowledge of the distances of certain legs, and that helps us keep pace and also have an idea of the end goal, so off we set..

We ran at a slightly slower than usual pace, and comfortably completed the first 5k in about 33 minutes – not too shabby – but we kept on running. Comfortably, we hit the 6k mark, and then the 7k mark, and were basically shocking ourselves as we kept going! We decided that we would stop at the halfway mark – 5 miles/8k – mainly because I needed the toilet, and also to take on a little bit of fuel, but super proud of ourselves for running that whole distance without stopping to walk! Quick loo stop, fuel loaded, and off we went again, running all the way to the 14k mark before we reached a nasty hill that we walked, and then stormed the last stretch home!

Overall, we actually did about 10.1 miles in 1hr 58 (including our toilet stop!) and more importantly, feeling as if we could go on for another 3 miles quite happily! Knowing that, I feel totally confident in our ability to run the full half marathon in 2.5 hours, especially with another 3-4 months training.

Yep, pretty happy this week! Next week I’ll be running my first ever Tough Mudder race, which will be something a little different and I’m totally terrified, so be sure to send lots of pixie dust my way!

°o°

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#fitfordisney – Fitness Motivation

The biggest response I get from people when I tell them about my training routine is ‘how on Earth do you find the motivation to: wake up at 7 to go to the gym/go for an 8 mile run after a 9 hour shift/choose a salad over a burger?’

Motivation is a funny thing really; different things work for different people, and I’ve written before about what motivates me, but there are a few methods that in my experience work really well:

1. Tell everyone what you’re doing

Be prepared to annoy people. Tell everyone about what you’re up to, post photos of your healthy meals on social media, share those pre/post gym selfies! While you might feel like everyone’s getting bored of it, by making your actions public, you’re more likely to keep it up because it feels like more people are involved; if you slip up, its not just yourself who knows about it. (I probably haven’t put this into words very well, but it works, promise!)

2. Never forget that end goal.

Surround yourself with your vision. Personally, I’ve plastered pictures around the edge of my bedroom mirror to remind me of the body I want and the clothes I want to look good in. I also follow a lot of fitness accounts on social media, so whenever I check what’s going on in the world, I’m greeted with motivational images.

3. Reward the small steps

Sometimes the bigger picture can seem so far off that it can be a struggle to keep fighting for it, so don’t forget to reward the little victories eg. a new PB, another step towards your goal weight etc with a little treat.

4. Surround yourself with like-minded people

Friends, family, coworkers, whoever, seek out other fitness boffs around you who you can talk to about your training, share advice and keep you motivated!

5. Don’t do it alone

If you struggle to motivate yourself, find someone else to motivate, and they in turn will keep you going! Get yourself a gym buddy or a running partner, or join a class – being surrounded by others gives you the umpf to work harder.

6. Dress to impress

Its not a superficial thing, its genuinely true that wearing nicer workout clothes makes you feel better about yourself while you’re sweating yourself fitter!

7. Do it for yourself, and don’t let anyone get in your way

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RunDisney 2016: 19 Weeks to go!

So we’ve already completed the first 4 weeks of our new training programme; time is flying by and we’re creeping ever closer to the 100 day mark!

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Remember last week was a bit of a bust? Well this week was always going to be more of a success, and it was for the most part. We did three decent runs: a 45 minute one, and two 5ks, and I think what we’ve noticed most this week is how much we’ve managed to cut down on walking intervals during our runs.

I’m also really happy to be at the end of August now and heading into autumn – I’ve spent the last week getting erratically angry with the sun. Goodbye summer heat and hello brisk winds and running in the rain! My body sucks at regulating its own temperature and I’ve been finding summer running pretty horrendous, even doing it at 7am when its a little cooler.

Next week I’ll be running our first ‘mini rebel’ – 5k on Saturday and 7 miles on Sunday. Its essentially half the distances of the real Rebel Challenge races, designed to get us used to running big distances with no rest day. Unfortunately Dad’s away on Saturday so won’t be doing the 5k with me, but he’s not getting away without 7 miles on Sunday!

That’s all for now, folks!

°o°

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#fitfordisney – Me and my Fitbit

I feel like its about time I wrote this post because I’ve been meaning to for ages!

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This is Zip. She’s part of the Fitbit activity tracker family, and I’ve had her for almost two years (this isn’t strictly true, following an unfortunate incident with a washing machine, I had to replace my original one). Zip goes everywhere with me, either in my pocket or clipped onto my underwear, and counts my steps, calories and distance. She’s like a tiny fitness Tamagotchi; the more you do, the happier it gets!

This Zip is the bottom of the range from Fitbit (around £40), so doesn’t have all the fancy features of some of the other trackers – sleep, heart rate, waterproof, etc – but personally I don’t feel like I’m missing out. Its battery powered, but it lasts about 5-6 months before it needs replacing, and automatically syncs to a USB Bluetooth dongle when its nearby, but while other Fitbits can sync automatically to your smartphone, the Zip doesn’t.

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The Fitbit Dashboard is where you can check out all your stats, as well as link up with other Fitbit friends, and log activities, food, weight and more! Because my Fitbit can only really track my step movement, after a workout I can log all the extra stuff I do; you can select popular activities from a pre-prepared list, or add your own custom workouts, and this also updates the number of calories burnt, as well as your ‘Very Active Minutes’. The Dashboard is really motivating – nothing better than seeing all your targets go green!

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You can also win badges by reaching certain targets – I just won the Monarch Migration for reaching 2,500 lifetime miles!

I really love my Zip, its amazing how motivating this tiny tracker is! I would definitely recommend it to anyone; despite the lack of some features, I don’t feel like I miss out on anything, and the Zip is way cuter than other trackers, and a great price!

If you’re looking for fitness motivation, look no further!

°o°

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#fitfordisney – What’s in my gym bag?

I love reading ‘What’s in my bag’ posts on other people’s blogs, so I thought it would be fun for a #fitfordisney post to do a ‘What’s in my gym bag’ post!

I’ve written before all about my gym bag itself, and how much I love it – its the Fabletics Sophia Satchel, and you can read all about it here – but today I’m emptying it to share the essential items of my gym kit that I love.

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For starters, I have a LOT of hairbands; everything from scrunchies to headbands. Because I have such long hair, keeping it all out of the way when I’m at the gym or out running is damn near impossible with just a simple hair tie, so I generally keep a skinny headband on me at all times, either to wrap my ponytail up into a bun, or to control the wispy hairs around my face which drive me mad! The wider headbands I tend to wear more around the house, or when I’m doing yoga.

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I generally walk to and from the gym, so don’t use the shower and changing facilities there, which means I don’t carry a massive amount of toiletries, but I cannot be without lip balm so I keep one of my many Eos balls in with my kit, as well as Vaseline hand cream in a vague attempt to keep my hands soft after doing weights! I also always have my combination lock, because you have to provide your own at my gym, and the nifty tool that opens my Fitbit when I need to change the battery, just in case!

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While hygiene is important in most aspects, I feel that foot hygiene is pretty high up there on the list of most important places to keep clean, and generally fairly forgotten about. As a runner, my feet are the most used body part in my workouts, so I always keep a can of shoe deodorant in my bag to spray my trainers after use, as well as a spare pair of socks. On the topic of feet, I also keep my pair of yoga socks in my gym bag, should I need them. They might look weird, but they’re crazy comfy, super grippy and I love them.

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Then there’s the gym essentials: a water bottle and a sweat towel. We all sweat, its entirely natural and you can’t do anything about it, but you can be considerate to other gym users by wiping down your equipment after use, whether you’re super sweaty or not, and for your own good, keeping hydrated is vital for replacing the water you lose while you’re working at your hardest. I have an Aladdin water bottle which is 600ml, and I generally will end up refilling it halfway through my gym sessions because I try to drink as much as possible.

So that’s me and my gym bag, what’s in yours?

#fitfordisney
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