Today is my Runniversary. It's nine years to the day since I first stepped into a gym and onto a treadmill in a pair of trainers a size too small and a cotton tshirt with "Fight for your right to party" on the front. I was 26 and unfit, and and these clothing errors were [...]
It's marathon season. The longest run is either fast approaching or in the bank and all that's left to do now is panic and obsessively check the long-range weather forecast, right? No, don't do that. In a weird kind of any I'm jealous of all the runners with their tired legs and maranoia. It's the [...]
Last week my beginners' running groups started up again. I have two groups both with 20 beginner runners who I'm sure turned up last week feeling a combination of keen and nervous. I haven't led beginners since last Autumn, and although January saw a lot of emails about when I'd start the 0-5k groups again, [...]
In this episode I chat to Louise Green, a plus-size athlete, personal trainer, and the founder of Body Exchange, a plus-size fitness boot camp with seven locations in Canada. In her book, 'Big Fit Girl', Louise describes how the fitness industry fails to meet the needs of plus-size women and thus prevents them from improving [...]
Now that I work for myself, I don't have a set lunch hour. So although my working days can start as early as 6:30am and finish at 8pm, I generally have plenty of time in the middle of the day to head to the gym or for a run. Yesterday was my first day back [...]
It was a coincidence, but a fitting one, that the latest This Girl Can campaign launched the Friday before the National Cross Country Championships. As I took off my warm layers and headed with the rest of my team through the club tents towards the start, a sea of men in coats parted as we [...]
How far is it round the Emirates? And why does it matter? For more than a year now, I've been coaching some of my run group sessions round the outside of the Emirates Stadium. It's a good place to run: well lit, no traffic and a wide, flat loop. Early mornings and late evenings year-round [...]
I'm not great at drawing. I like the idea of being good at it, of drawing portraits that look like the people they're supposed to be, or of setting up an easel in the countryside and painting a landscape that I could then proudly hang on my wall and tell people who came round "Oh [...]
I don't know why my run yesterday was so difficult. It could have been the cold, maybe I was tired, maybe it was any one of a hundred things. All I know was that the whole time, my legs were complaining. I called it a day at three miles and recorded the video below that [...]
Running injuries: avoiding them and fixing them Being injured sucks. Last year I dropped out of a half marathon half way with a problem with my right leg. It was the right decision to make but that didn't make it easy. I saw a physio, had some time off and have been sticking to low [...]
