Tag Archives: exercise

My Current Favourite Workouts

So its been ages since I’ve blogged anything fitness related, and that’s been for multiple reasons. Firstly, I’ve been struggling a lot with talking about fitness for a number of reasons, which I talked about in this post, and secondly because at the start of April I broke my ankle and I’m still very much in recovery.

Even after the ankle situation happened while I was at the gym, I was itching to get back. I actually can’t imagine my life without being in the gym at least 3 times a week and it was torture being on crutches, then having to wear the ugly boot cast, and I got so desperate that I actually went to the gym in my boot several times. Problem is, I’m still not fully healed, and I’m still going to physiotherapy, so my marathon training has also been thrown really out of whack, and I’m even having to adjust my usual gym workouts so I don’t put too much pressure on my foot and cause any more damage to myself.

Its forced me to try some slightly different things, and in doing so I’m finding some new things that I love, and also seeing results I didn’t expect!

Sit down bike

I’m trying really hard to keep up some cardio activity while also keeping my body weight off my feet and keep any impact to a minimum, and cycling has been great for that. Its also got some strength back in my thighs (which are seeing some shape come back as a result as well btw!) and the movement is helping stretch out the ligaments in my foot that are healing at the moment.

Boxing

Little known fact about me is that I’m actually a black belt in Taekwondo, but I had to give that up when I was 18 because of hip problems (isn’t my body fab?), but it does mean that this girl knows how to throw a punch! I’ve been doing a lot of boxing with my PT lately, because it gets my heart rate up, works a lot of my body but also doesn’t have to involve moving around on my feet too much.

Lunges

I’ve never been that much of a fan of lunges, but for a long time after my accident I wasn’t able to squat, so I switched to lunges, and they’ve become a really important part of my physiotherapy exercises because of how much they stretch out the ligaments and are helping to increase my flexibility again

Battle ropes

I’ve always liked flinging battle ropes around the gym, but I’ve just found myself using them a lot more lately and loving it. I can also feel how much stronger I’ve got because I used to get tired with them so quickly!

The road to recovery isn’t easy, but I’ve been so much happier getting back into things, and even though I’m not where I want to be right now, its all about those baby steps!

Twitter / Bloglovin / Instagram
Leave a comment

My Favourite Lower Body Exercises

So despite starting the year with a promise of monthly fitness update posts, that literally only happened in January. Oops, my bad.

I’m a little bit ashamed to say I’ve yo-yo’d a bit this year. I started the year on a high, but various aspects of life have been challenging my fitness journey and this has led to inconsistencies and going backwards at times, and while I’m a little bit annoyed about this, there’s nothing I can do looking back on it so all I can do is move forward.

My gym recently went through a big refurb, and while it never looked back in the first place, it looks so much better now! We have new equipment, new areas and a new pink wall that I’m particularly fond of, and the update has done wonders for my motivation.

If you read my new fitness plan back in May, you might have seen that summer is the time when I tend to focus more on my legs as I’m not running as much (and hate running during summer heat), and these are some of my favourite workouts for my lower body at the moment:

Plyo Box Jumps

The most popular new piece of kit in the gym is our new PlyoSoft boxes, and while I’d always considered them to be torture before I’d actually used them, but now I’m obsessed! I start off on a 45cm, the quickly moved up to 60cm and now I’m on 75cm and I’m aiming for 90cm by the end of August. Its a great bodyweight-only workout and I’m already seeing results!

Bosu ball squats

Because squatting isn’t tricky enough at the best of times, I’ve now taken to doing them on top of a bosu ball.. While this might not seem too different to squatting on solid ground, you’ll be amazed at how many more muscles you get working while you’re trying to maintain your stability!

Donkey kicks

While it may seem very cliche gym-girl, I love donkey kicks, and all the different variations of them. I have a little donkey kick routine that’s my go-to on days when I’m focusing on lower body, and I will do it over and over until the backs of my legs are screaming just cos for some reason I really seem to enjoy it..

Wall sits

Wall sits are probably the easiest possible exercise for your legs ever, and its amazing how much you feel the burn afterwards. If my legs aren’t already knackered, I’ll try and get in a few minutes of a wall sit at the end of a workout just to push myself right to the end – and then probably fall down the stairs out of the gym.

Swiss ball leg raises

These are killer for both abs and legs! Gripping a Swiss ball between your knees/calves, then raising your legs straight up and down while lying on the floor; I’ll tell you now its a killer!

What are your go-to leg moves in the gym?

Twitter / Bloglovin / Instagram
1 Comment

Airborne Fitness at Oxygen Freejumping

I’m a firm believer in fitness being fun, otherwise its just a chore, right? So I, quite literally, jumped at the chance to try out the latest craze of trampoline fitness classes at Oxygen Freejump in Southampton.

Oxygen Freejumping

Now I actually have a background in trampolining (which made me even more excited to try this out), as I did it from the age of 3 until about 15, everything from weekly training to regional competitions, but I was definitely a little out of practice when I took to the springs yesterday!

Oxygen Freejump

Not only was I lucky enough to try out this class, but I was also able to bring my friend Jess, so after an early morning drive to Southampton, which is about 30 miles away for us, we arrived early and had a coffee in the little cafe.

Oxygen Freejumping

I had no idea how big it was there! In my head I had pictured a big room full of trampolines, but there were actually a bunch of smaller sections, as well as the main freejumping area, and it was in one of these little side areas that our class was held. Before we could get onto the trampolines, we had to get a pair of special grippy socks, which were £2 (but you get to keep them for future use!) then we were lead through to the hall by our instructor, Tyler.

Oxygen Freejumping Airborne Fitness

There were 16 little trampolines making up the floor, one per person, as well as three walls of trampolines and a small strip in the middle which is where Tyler demonstrated all the exercises. As with all good workouts, there was a warm-up consisting of 30 second rotations of different exercises – high knees, star jumps, lunges etc – before we got into things properly, and by the end of the warm up I was already feeling the effects; it was hard work!

Oxygen Freejumping Airborne Fitness

An hour flew by! Although we had quite a few little much needed water breaks, I’m not really sure where the time went; we moved from exercise to exercise, some were solo, some were done in pairs, and exercise sets were broken up by jumping laps around the room. We did everything from planking to bouncing off the walls, and while it was hard work, it was so much fun! I don’t think I stopped smiling and laughing for the whole hour.

Its worth noting that while the class is held in a separate area to the other bounce sessions, there’s just a net between you and the other Oxygen users, so its not entirely private! Not a problem for me, but if you’re not keen on public workouts, this may not be for you. I’d also recommend bringing a water bottle with you, it gets hot!

The class is £10/session, but I would 100% recommend it to anyone looking for something a little bit different and I’d love to go back; if I lived closer I’d probably make it a regular thing, and I’d also love to give freejumping a go!

Have I inspired you to book? Use discount code HERO20 today to get 20% off at your local Oxygen Freejumping centre!

I was able to participate in this class free of charge in return for this review. All opinions are my own.
Twitter / Bloglovin / Instagram
1 Comment

YearOfFit – Home Gym Essentials

These days there are a million ways for you to stay active without paying out for a gym membership.

There’s workout videos, YouTube, dancing, Pinterest, and you can even buy your own machines so you don’t need to share with smelly strangers, and if you’re doing any of these things, you might be thinking about setting up a little ‘home gym’. Yeah? Well here are a few bits of kit you’ll want to consider!

Home Gym

1. Swiss ball

There are a lot of things you can do with a Swiss ball, from pilates to core work; you can even use it as a chair or bench!

2. Skipping rope

Skipping is a great way to get your heart rate up and burn calories, and a rope is a really cheap piece of kit!

3. Resistance bands

Another budget piece of kit, but a great way to save paying out for pricey strength training equipment

4. Kettlebells

Although I really hate them sometimes, kettlebells are a really versatile option if you’re thinking of buying weights

5. Foam roller

Most people, runners especially, have a real love/hate relationship with the foam roller. Personally, although it can hurt, my foam roller is my go-to for tight calf problems and general muscle aches and pains.

6. TRX/Suspension cables

If you’ve got somewhere safe and strong to secure them, suspension cables are a great piece of kit that utilises your body weight for strength training. The possibilities can be endless!

7. Step box

Whether you’re using it for an aerobics workout, a weight bench, or just a general prop, a box can be a great purchase for your home gym area

8. Dumbells

Dumbells can be a pricey piece of equipment, but if you want to take your home gym to the next level, a pair or even a set of dumbells is the way to go!

9. Mat

Save yourself from workout out on cold or uncomfortable floors with a foam or rubber exercise mat!

Do you prefer to workout at home or at a gym?

Twitter / Bloglovin / Instagram
3 Comments

#YearOfFit – Fitness Goals for Everyone

Happy Wednesday! Are we all feeling good today?

I guess, following the previous introduction post, this is the first ‘proper’ #YearOfFit post of the year, yay!

SONY DSC

If you’re planning on joining me and having your very own year of fitness success, you’ll probably have set yourself some goals or targets for the year – I know I have! – but today I’m going to talk about the goals that anyone can have and achieve, even if it takes a little bit of hard work! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again and again: fitness is for everyone, whether you’re hitting the gym every day or just trying to walk more; it all counts!

Learn to swim

As far as I’m concerned, this is about more than just fitness, its about safety. An article in The Guardian last year said that 1 in 5 adults in England can’t swim, and to me that seems crazy! Swimming is not only a great way to keep fit (especially for those with injuries), but knowing how to hold your own in the water could save your life one day. I’m not going to get morbid, but please, if you can’t, promise me you’ll learn to swim this year?

Run a 5K

Yes, I’m bias, but a 5K is a great goal if you’re taking it up running this year. My best tip on how to get into running? Step outside your front door. It doesn’t matter if you start off running for just 10 seconds at a time, and walking in between; you’re still trying and it will get easier. Is that the finish line in the distance? Yes, yes it is.

Plank for 2 minutes

Planking is a great way of working your whole body with minimal risk of injury and minimal effort. Start by holding it for 10-20 sec, then add a few more seconds on every day. You’ll get there in no time!

Incorporate weight training

Weight training seems to have such a negative connotation with many people, but seriously guys, ITS REALLY GOOD FOR YOU! Try and add some weights into your workouts, and I promise you’ll find yourself feeling better and noticing results!

I truly and totally believe that every single one of these goals can be achieved by anyone. Go, surprise yourself!

3 Comments

#YearOfFit 2016

Welcome to #YearOfFit 2016!

SONY DSC

New-ish series, following on from my previous #fitfordisney posts last year, this is going to be all about keeping fit and healthy, and enjoying it!

Now I just want to start off by saying I am no personal trainer, nor am I a nutritionist or expert; I am just a girl who loves keeping fit. If you’ve followed me for the last year or so, you’ll know that I spent the whole of 2015 training up for the two half marathons that I ran at the beginning of this month, along with another 5k and 10k. I love going to the gym, and tend to do so 3-4 times a week. Long story short, I am really enjoying my fitness journey so far, and I want to share more of it with you, and would love for you to have your own journey this year.

Another thing I want to clear up before this series really kicks off – there will be no body shaming here. This is about fitness and health, not size, but also your body is your body, and it can look however, and do whatever you want it to. Skinny? Good for you! Consider yourself a little on the larger side? Great! Fitness and a healthy lifestyle looks good on everyone!

So what can you expect from #YearOfFit this year? Well I’m going to be writing a combination of fitness tips and advice, sharing some of my favourite workouts, and also covering diet, from meal prep advice to some delicious healthy recipes, and if there’s anything you’d like to see, get in touch!

So right now I want you to think about what you want to get out of your #YearOfFit. You might want to run your first 10k, you might want to take up a new hobby; whatever it is, write it down, take pictures, whatever, and please please PLEASE get in touch to tell me what you’re up to! I’m excited to see who’s going to be with me on this adventure this year!

Ready?

Let’s do this!

(Want a little head start? Read my previous #fitfordisney series for some of my older posts!)

3 Comments

RunDisney 2016: 13.1 (5 Weeks to go!)

I know that I post my RunDisney training updates on Sundays normally, but this week is a special exception for two reasons: 1) I have a special Christmas post for tomorrow, and 2) today’s run needs talking about.

Quite simply, we did it.

13.1 miles.

2:40:40.

Done.

13.1

Despite many people believing that you shouldn’t run the distance you’re training for before the race itself, given that Dad and I have been physically ready for this distance for a good while having trained for almost a whole year, we wanted to just get out there and do it, to feel 100% confident in our ability to do it, and also to set our first PB, and a time we can work from.

Knowing this was our goal for the week, we kept our midweek runs short – around 30-40 minutes each, and pretty much entirely flat, leaving us in a good position for this morning.

Conditions today were not ideal. The wind at the seafront was ridiculously strong, which despite giving us a nice extra push for the first 5-6 miles, it was kicking up all the sand from the beach which got into our face and shoes, forcing us inland for the second half, at which point we had to turn around and start running back against the brick wall of wind. It was hard work, and had conditions been better we would have been totally fine, but the extra work took its toll mentally as much as it did physically.

In terms of pacing and split times, we remained fairly consistent. For the first 7k, 1/3 of the total distance, we kept an average of 11 min/mile, and completed it in just under 50 minutes, and despite feeling much longer, the second and third 7k splits only actually took 55 minutes, so we were pretty well paced the whole time, even if fighting against the wind drained us of energy.

After finishing, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, although I was too exhausted to do either! I’m honestly just so relieved and impressed, and 100% feeling prepared for January now!

°o°

1 Comment

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!

DSC09103

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

DSC09107

DSC09127

DSC09149

DSC09156

DSC09169

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!

DSC09182

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°

Leave a comment

RunDisney 2016: 20 Weeks to go!

Despite my positive attitude to our new training schedule, I knew a week like this would happen at some point: the ‘disappointing’ week – the kind where running isn’t top priority.

In all fairness its my fault. I had two total burnout gym sessions this week which left me too tired and too achy for our early week runs, and it was the sensible decision to give them a miss in anticipation of a bigger distance on Saturday.

11698829_1208864912472802_6490097083861375045_n

So this week we ran 7.5 miles, in the fairly respectable time of 1 hour 30. Sure, we’ve been faster, but this week wasn’t about pushing ourselves, it was about keeping going. Plus, despite being a British summer, its still August and it was really warm, even at 8am, and I really struggle with heat.

So what else has happened this week? Well becoming an ever-increasing priority for Dad and me is improving our eating habits, and while its a bit of a challenge, we’re slowly getting there, and probably the greatest revelation on this subject is our lasagne transformation. Lasagne is my all-time favourite meal, we eat it every week, but we’ve made a few simple changes – swapping beef mince for Quorn mince, and adding spinach as well as using spinach lasagne sheets – and we’re definitely onto a winner, it tastes amazing! I’m also making an effort to prepare more meals in advance so I’m not tempted to grab a ready meal at work or give into my snacking temptations.

11228511_1208864869139473_5712196581495965058_n

With all this in mind, I’m pretty pumped for getting back into things properly next week with a few key mantras in mind:

– Always find time to stretch and cool down properly

– Eating healthy makes for happier people

– Just keep swimming!

°o°

1 Comment

#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.

SONY DSC

SONY DSC

SONY DSC

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.

SONY DSC

 

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!

SONY DSC

SONY DSC

SONY DSC

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.

SONY DSC

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
Leave a comment

RunDisney 2016 – Training Week 16

This post is coming out a day late, but the weekend drained me so much that I decided to take a quick power nap at about 6pm yesterday before writing my weekend posts, and I ended up sleeping through til 10pm, at which point I decided I should probably just get some sleep and start fresh today!

Yesterday Dad and I ran in the Poole 10k, our first competitive 10k since last October, which was our first. Now I’m not one to brag or anything, but we smashed it! We shaved 4 minutes off our time from October, finishing in 1 hour 3 minutes, and we actually did the first 5k in a record pace of 31 minutes! Safe to say we’re feeling pretty happy with ourselves!

Now we made a couple of changes to our plans this week..

With sign up for the Star Wars half marathon weekend opening early to APs, DVCs and travel companies, we got in touch with the travel company we thought about booking Disney World with (but didn’t in the end), and when they came back to us with prices, we had to think a lot about comparing prices from all our options, and we made a rather spur of the moment decision.. to do the Rebel Challenge!

So originally we were going to do the 5k, which will be on the Friday, and the half marathon on the Sunday, but Rebel Challenge is completing the 10k on Saturday and half marathon on Sunday, essentially running two longer distance races with no rest day in between, eek!

Either way, we decided to book through the company, which means we’ve officially been accepted for early registration! We decided we won’t be staying on property in California; the local hotels are literally only minutes from the parks anyway, and are about a quarter of the price, so for only a few days, which we’ll spend entirely in the parks, it wasn’t worth the extra spend.

So this has been a pretty great week! We’re going to dial down training a little in the run up to Japan, then kick it back up to full notch once we’re back!

°o°

Leave a comment

RunDisney 2016: Training Week 15

Another week, and a new PB, yay!

Jeff’s training schedule implements something called ‘Magic Miles’, which is where every other week you time yourself for one mile, and then watch how this time improves with your training. Dad and I, however are sort-of bypassing this, and instead taking part in our local ParkRun 5k every other week instead, and tracking our improvement based on our times for that. Last time we did a ParkRun, we set a PB for the distance, and this week we managed to beat it; granted only by maybe 20-30 seconds, but an improvement all the same!

The great thing about our local course is that its mixed terrains and levels, from grass to dirt tracks to concrete paths, with uphills and downhills, so it really covers everything, and although most races tend to be fairly flat, it prepares us for all eventualities and works different muscles for all round effectiveness!

We’ve (rather spontaneously) entered a 10k next Sunday, and we’re hoping to beat our previous record for a race, which is 1 hr 7 mins, but its looking like its gonna be hot, hot, hot, and its mid-afternoon, eurgh!

°o°

Leave a comment

RunDisney 2016: Training Week 14

This week an important lesson was learnt.

Never EVER wear new/different shoes on the day of a race.

I mean it.

If you’ve been following our training, you’ll know that this week was going to be the week we hit the big distance. We decided to forgo the 12.5 mile target and hit the big 13.1, set our first PB and feel super about doing it..

We didn’t. And I’m not going to lie, it was entirely my fault, which I hate.

I have two pairs of trainers that I run in: a pair of Nikes, which I’ve done the majority of my running over the last year or so in, and a pair of Karrimor running shoes which I use on and off, but not very often, so I’ve been trying to use them more recently to wear them in a little more and check their suitability. I wore them for all our runs last week and they were totally fine; a lot more lightweight than my Nikes and slightly more supportive of my feet.

So I figured why not wear them this weekend? We set off bright and early yesterday morning, and totally opposite to our last big distance, the weather was sunny, not much wind and for 7.30/8am, it was super warm, and by super warm I mean sweaty hot. But we continued to run into the heat of the morning sun, keeping a good pace, and hit the 5 mile mark in a record time (for us, obviously) of 57 minutes, which was a great feeling and could only mean good things for the rest of the run..

And then we hit 6 miles, and the blisters formed.. A runner’s nightmare, and all because I wore the wrong shoes. I’d never run more than 4-5 miles in my Karrimors, and the result of going past that point meant I quite literally have blisters upon blisters, in the same place on both feet. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the shoes are bad, I’m just stressing the importance of proper testing of shoes before a big race because I’d hate anyone else to have to give up mid-run, or do any serious damage to their feet.

I’m totally gutted we weren’t able to do it this week, but with plenty of training time to go, its not the end of the world!

°o°

Leave a comment

RunDisney 2016: Training Week 12

Another week of running, another week closer to the main event!

Yesterday was another big run – 11 miles! And d’you know what? It was easy. Well, that’s not entirely true; we ran the first half into what I like to call ‘brick wall wind’ (because it literally feels like you’re running into a brick wall), and there was a sand-in-the-eye incident, as well as a little bit of rain on the way back.. But running wise, we really got into our stride, if you pardon the pun.

Because both Dad and I had a little bit of calf pain in the week, we thought we’d be better off doing regular run-walk-run intervals, which once we hit the wind, we were eternally grateful for! So the first half (into the brick wall wind) we ran for 0.4 miles, then walked 0.1, and then on the way back we did 0.9 and walked 0.1, and we averaged a steady 5 miles an hour the whole way through, finishing the total distance in 2hrs 13mins. That in itself was an incredible accomplishment, but even better was knowing that we could have easily kept going for another two miles!

We nailed everything, from the time of day for good (by which I mean not too warm) weather, to eating a good breakfast that had us energised, but not feeling stodgy, and even having on-course snacks of a wine gum every few miles. For the first time I think we know that not only can we do it, but we’re easily going to do it in a great time: sub 2hrs 30!

°o°

Leave a comment

RunDisney 2016: Training Week 7

Yeah we might have skipped last week.. Dad was still recovering from his shin splints and I thought my body could do with a rest, so we had a break and continued this week..

Which wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, yay! If anything was difficult it was probably the mental side of getting back into the swing of things, but we managed all three runs with no real difficulty, although we did take it slowly to start with, just to test the water. The weather in Bournemouth has been a bit up and down this week, not that we let it stop us, but running in sunshine is certainly a lot nicer than rain!

In my week off I spent time working a little on my core as I’ve read in a few places that a strong core helps prevent the dreaded stitches that I suffer from quite regularly. I’ve only really done a couple of different exercises, but I am starting to notice a difference which is promising!

Next week we take on 8 miles, which for me is only 1.5 miles more than last week, but Dad missed the 6.5 mile distance so we’ll probably take it a little slower. This coming week marks the start of April, which means we’re less than one month from our first sign up, and we’re going to be looking at booking our flights, so there’s much to look forward too, eek!

°o°

2 Comments

RunDisney 2016 – Training Week 3

I can’t believe we’ve been at this for 3 weeks already!

Today was a first for us: the first time we’ve ever run in rain. Normally we would use the weather as a reason to put off a run, but today that wasn’t an option; we’re half marathon running wannabes, and the weather is no longer an excuse for us. And the best part?

Today was the fastest pace we’ve maintained. Ever.

Our distance was 2 miles today, which we completed in 20 minutes, which means we kept a steady pace of 6mph (just under 10km/h). I don’t know if it was the weather keeping me going, or the fact I was managing to keep going that was keeping me going, but whatever it was it worked for me because that felt like the easiest run we’ve done both physically and mentally; my muscles weren’t screaming for me to stop and my stitches weren’t unbearable, and I didn’t have that little voice in my head telling me to stop and walk for a bit.

This week I bought a Joni Vest from Fabletics to add to my warm running attire. I’ve been looking at getting one for a little while, but hesitated because I was a little concerned that it would be too bulky to run in, but I figured I could always return it if it wasn’t to my liking, so I went out on a whim and ordered one. When it arrived, I was then a little concerned that it was so lightweight I wouldn’t actually be kept warm, but it was just right! My fitness wardrobe is generally blacks, blues and purples, so the colour fits right in, and the pockets are surprisingly deep.

With any luck its going to start getting a little warmer soon, but this is England so there’s no knowing really!

Next stop, week 4!

°o°

Leave a comment

#fitfordisney – My Top 20 Disney Workout Songs

1. When Will My Life Begin – Tangled

2. I’ll Make A Man Out Of You – Mulan

3. Zero to Hero – Hercules

4. One Jump Ahead – Aladdin

5. I Wanna Be Like You – The Jungle Book

6. I Just Can’t Wait To Be King – The Lion King

7. Under The Sea – The Little Mermaid

8. Let It Go – Frozen

9. He’s a Pirate – Pirates of the Caribbean

10. A Star Is Born – Hercules

11. Belle – Beauty and the Beast

12. Strut – The Cheetah Girls 2

13. I’ve Got A Dream – Tangled

14. Get’cha Head In The Game – High School Musical

15. Almost There – The Princess and The Frog

16. Hasta La Vista – Camp Rock

17. Digga Tunna Dance – The Lion King 3

18. Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo – Cinderella

19 – We Belong Together – Toy Story 3

20 – Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride – Lilo and Stitch

Leave a comment

Why get #fitfordisney?

Alongside a number of other upcoming events in my life, Disney is a big reason for improving my fitness levels.

‘Why do I need to be fit to go to Disneyworld?’

Yes, its a theme park, not an assault course, but there are still a number of reasons for hitting the gym before your trip;

1. You underestimate how much walking you’re going to do – the average guest covers around 7 miles per day in the park (I’m going to do some research on this during my trip with the help of my Fitbit), and if you’re not accustomed to walking long distances, or if you’re going in the scorching summer season, it can be a shock to the system.

photo 3 (5)

2. Disney food is to die for – the last thing you want on your holiday is to be on a diet; where’s the fun in that?! With ice-cream sandwiches, bakeries on every corner and some of the coolest restaurants in the world, you shouldn’t have to be concerned with calorie counting, skipping meals or feeling guilty about what you eat.

photo 1 (6)

3. Disney workout clothes – check out what Lookhuman have to offer, but Etsy and other places have amazing stuff too!

photo 4 (4)

4. If you’re going to run just one distance race in your life, runDisney – runDisney organise running weekends and festivals, and yes, the course you run is around the parks! Each weekend/festival usually has a 5k, 10k and half marathon, as well as a Fitness Expo, and these events run throughout the year at both Disney World Florida and Disneyland California. A runDisney half marathon is very high on my Disney bucketlist!

photo 1 (7)

5. Looking good on your holiday – whether its a summer bikini body or just slimming down for photos, a holiday is one of the most common reasons people give for wanting to get fit. It also gives you an excuse to splurge on new clothes, especially if you’re going to be hitting the outlets!

photo 5 (2)

I’m not a total selfie nut, promise! These pictures are from my Instagram @lottiedoesdisney and I tag my workout pictures with #fitfordisney 🙂

Now.. how #fitfordisney are you?

Leave a comment