Just Keep Running and More

I’m just going to come out and say it . . . Gyms are boring and I bet 98% of the people using them think so too. That being said, I actually joined my local Everyone Active gym last week and shall now embark on another exercise experiment . . . is it possible to lose weight and get fit without stepping foot in my gym.

Now, I’m not saying I won’t be doing any form of exercise as we have 3 Everyone Active centres in my area, all of which I am entitled to use as part of my membership, all of which have a swimming pool, one has an ice rink and they all offer facilities for fitness classes and racket sports. What I will not be doing is going into the actual gym and spending time doing weights, running on a treadmill or cycling on an exercise bike. All of these seem to be an important part of everyone else’s exercise regime but, really, I can not be bothered with it.

I’ll still be running 3 times a week and Zumbaring on a Monday evening, but I’ll also be taking full advantage of the free classes and amenities.

So my exercise plan now looks like this –

Monday: Running and Zumba

Tuesday: Legs, Bums and Tums class

Wednesday: Running and Aqua Fitness class

Thursday: Badminton and Supple Strength class

Friday: Running

I can not wait for my first Legs, Bums and Tums class or my Aqua Fitness one . . . I have, however, attended our first Supple Strength class and survived, just!

Supple Strength is a combination of Yoga, Pilates and Tai Chi, attended by Yoga bunnies, in their yoga pants with their yoga mats and me in my Zombie Outbreak tee and Yoga pants . . . turns out my spare running pants are actually yoga pants, who knew. I enjoyed it, even if I failed quite badly due to being directionally challenged and not very supple, on the plus side it did what I wanted and that was to help my leg muscles stop tightening so much when I run.

Quick weight update, I lost 2lb this week, 1lb of which is the weight I gained last week. Stay tuned to see how well I achieve my goals with all these classes by following the #LittlerFairies tag on Twitter.

Ease Into 5K – Week 7 . . . and a bit of 8

I’m not going to lie to you, part of my need to conquer this running thing is the possibility of hopefully surviving any future Zombie Apocalypse by being able to run away . . . and keep running.  It is also because I want to participate in the awesome 2.8 hours later event, hopefully next year.

As you may be aware we missed another week of run training. This was due to an unfortunate accident involving a pair of hair straighteners, a naked bum, copious amounts of alcohol and a Lisa. Needless to say it was sore and she couldn’t actually run . . . or sit down, so we had a week off.

I didn’t want to start week 7 from the beginning again, as Lisa had bravely managed to do our Monday run, so we carried on with Day 2, a straight run of 26 minutes. I have to admit I am loving the straight runs much more than the run, walk, run part of our training. Wednesday was a run of 27 minutes and today saw me begin Week 8 Day 1 with a 28 minute run. I had to run by myself today as I knew I had a lot to do today and people popping around so I decided to get it out the way with as soon as possible.

I actually sprinted the warm up/cool down part, so managed nearly 40 minutes of running. This also meant my walk pace was faster than my run pace. I felt fantastic afterwards. This week I believe I have finally caught the shiny, happy, running bug.

In other news, I managed to lose no weight this week, probably due to lack of exercise last week and not adjusting my daily calorie intake. But I did still get my tattoo last week and booked myself in for another one in November.

Join in with our joy of exercise over on Twitter by following and tweeting the #LittlerFairies hash tag

Ease Into 5K – Week 6

Welcome back everybody . . . settle down at the back and we’ll get started. Today we completed Week 6 of the Ease into 5K app. Yes, I am aware that last week was meant to be the whole ‘Hooray we completed Week 6’ thing, but we didn’t, hence the missing blog post.

We completed Day 1 of Week 6 last Monday and then Wednesday happened, Lisa was very poorly sick so cancelled our run . . . I was up and ready and phoning her at 5:30 demanding she get up. I am yet to figure out exactly why I thought I was capable of running for a solid 20 minutes, after 2 hours sleep and technically still being rather unsober. Still, for the record I was up and dressed and ready to go for a run at mental o’clock.

Anyway, we decided to rest up for the week and get back to it this week. When I say rest, I obviously mean that I still attended my gym sessions and started Zumbaring on the Monday night. So, this Monday saw us complete, for a second time, Week6:Day1 and actually look forward to the 20 minute run we knew would be coming on Wednesday . . . and we did it. Or as my status said ‘ran non-stop for 20 minutes, didn’t die’. Quite an achievement really, from complete non-runner and non-exerciser 6 . . . er, 7 weeks ago, to running non-stop for a whole 20 minutes and managing to not die. I felt amazing and then today it was back to pushing for that extra bit as we completed a total of 25 minutes running. Tonight I ache all over having completed a huge amount of exercise:

Monday: Run Training and Zumba

Wednesday: Run Training and Gym

Thursday: Gym and Zumba

Friday: Run Training

Then there is all the walking I do. Walking the dog, school drop offs and pick ups, walking the daughter to the bus stop, etc. I am very much looking forward to a nice relaxing weekend of doing nothing, although I have three children so the ‘doing nothing’ isn’t exactly going to happen.

On the plus side of all this exercising and calorie counting I have managed to lose a massive 3lb this week and I can tell I have lost inches everywhere.

Continue to join in with our antics by using the #LittlerFairies tag on Twitter and don’t forget you can win a Ouija Board necklace from Jewellery by LittleFairyCult if you join in with the Pin Fairies October Projects