Lisa - Fat Girl Fit

Style Sportif

Last night I had the pleasure of attending the launch for Style Sportif organised by the lovely ladies at The Earned Agency at Lights of Soho.

Style Sportif is run by two ladies, Joanna and Jemma, and they specialise in high-end fashion sportswear. Everything in the collection is super stylish with pieces that you cannot help look through and not want them all!

I attended this with a friend of mine, Helen, who is also very active. We often do events together and naturally being ladies we are interested in fashion so this was right up our street! I leaned toward the more striking of the pieces, which are fabulous, this was my favourite:

Whereas Helen veered more toward the less bright items in the collection with this being her favourite:

There is something for everyone with both fitted and looser items.

When I got home I was straight on the website looking through the entire collection and have myself quite a wish list right now!

Its not just clothing they have on offer either, there is a range of accessories too.

I love the Ooh la Lara hair bands they offer which double as a bracelet and perfect for any activity.

Having attended my first pilates class last week I am also drawn to the amazing yoga mats they offer too and think I may need to purchase one of these beauties.

This is not your average run of the mill work out clothing, it is a premium brand – think Adidas by Stella McCartney combining both the fashion with the need of the sport. And don’t let this fool you thinking it is purely fashion, it is hugely well thought out with the brains behind it coming from both ladies; Joanna, when training for the London Marathon and Jemma with her retail background and huge styling experience.

Dynabites were also at the event with samples of their nutritious snacks. They were tasty and I will be ordering some of these too. I find gels and shot blocks etc do not agree with me so tend to stick to my good old faithful Nakd bars/bites or make my own – all natural is my preference and it works for me and Dynabites are the same. Made from four main ingredients; almond, coconut, honey and vegan protein powder. They have no refined sugar, high protein and 100% natural and tasted great – green tea was my favourite!

Category: Fitness

Getting back to training and finding it tough!

With my current training schedule I have 1 maybe 2 rest days in the week. Recently I had a pretty intense training course for a week and then a weeks holiday. Whilst on holiday I swam a lot, got in the gym, did aqua aerobics and also yoga but it wasn’t as full on as my usual schedule and so last week when I got back I wanted to get straight back to it. But it was hard!

I missed run club on Tuesday as I fell asleep – I was pretty tired. Wednesday I had spin class, which was fun as usual. Thursday I used the excuse to see friends to skip run club again – so bad, but I was finding it hard to get back to being motivated and so any excuse I was finding myself saying oh ok I won’t train….again! On Friday I went to the gym where the amazing Emma had put me together a weights plan and we ran through that and followed that up with my first ever pilates class. I loved it! Already booked on for next week. I did pretty good with it though some of the girls in there are super flexible and could bend themselves in half – not me! When We had to sit on our heels and lean forward most of the ladies were literally bent in half, I was ok but not there so a way to go.

With the weights plan I realised how weak my upper body strength is and when I say weak I mean almost non existent. For now. The plan is 1.5 hours and so Emma has split into three half hour sessions for me so I can fit into my weekly schedule – there is no enough time in the week for all this training!

So my new training plan is:

Monday – TrainerRoad on the turbo

Tuesday – Run club

Wednesday – Spin class

Thursday – Run club

Friday – Pilates

Saturday – Park run

Sunday – Romford CC club ride

On top of the above on three mornings I will also do the weight plan. It will be worth it though.

I ran on Saturday with the dog and it was actually really nice to get back out with her again. I won’t lie I struggled to get out of bed and was arguing with myself in bed to get up and run but I was warm and cosy and didn’t want to move. I am pleased I did though.

Sunday I got back on the bike and I didn’t realise it has been over a month since I’ve been out on the bike and I was nervous. I had my new socks on though and it was a beautiful morning, although we were assuming it would be as cold as the day before so wrapped up warm and proceeded to cook for the rest of the ride like a boil in the bag chicken. I thought we would be doing about 30 miles but 65 miles later I was at home. I could really feel I had not been on the bike for a while. It was thoroughly enjoyable though with all the great members of Romford CC and lots of laughing, joking and singing along the way.

I have damaged my bike though from when I fell off the turbo on it. When climbing and going in the little ring my gears had a mind of their own and were changing all over the place. Turns out I have a bent rear mech something or other but nothing the amazing Nate from Yellow Jersey cannot fix. I don’t like hills at the best of time so don’t need my bike to play up when I’m on them. One day I am sure I will be amazing at them but then again…….

Category: Fitness

Back from Sharm el Sheikh = where’s the sun gone?!?!

I’ve been away for a week in sunny Sharm El Sheikh and it was lovely!

As has become the norm for me this year, included in my suitcase was my gym gear and trainers. Yep I’ve turned into one of those crazy people!

I am not sure who I thought I was kidding when I packed the trainers so that I could run. It was way too hot for that – 40 degrees most days or close to it! Even when I set my alarm for 6.30am and begrudgingly got up with a yawn and walked to the balcony, as I opened the door the heat smacked you in the face like a hot water bottle – no chance of running outdoors then!

However, there was a gym. So on day two I got changed and me and him indoors headed down there.

Given the extravagance of the hotel (it really was lovely) the gym was a little disappointing. Don’t get me wrong it had everything you need – weights, lots of different weight machines, a cross trainer, two stationery bikes and two treadmills and a large area for mats for floor workouts. Given my recent experience with stationery bikes and the fact that I hate them they were out and one of the treadmills was out of use, which meant for me (still nursing a very tender wrist) the weights were out and so I was looking at the cross trainer and the treadmill though it would seem everyone working out was also wanting those two machines. This included the hubby!

Also there was a time limit of 25 minutes maximum use on all machines – I do get this rule so it is fair and everyone can work out but 25 minutes is not enough. But better than nothing so on we went.

On the first visit I had a blast on the cross trainer and in my 25 minutes covered 1.87km.

The following day we were off on a yacht to go around a nearby island and snorkel. Now I am petrified of boats and also open water but I got on and even did the snorkelling! (whilst looking around to make sure there were no sharks of course).

The next gym visit I managed to get on the treadmill. I did try and take a selfie whilst running which explains why the pic is pretty rubbish. I actually hate running on a treadmill. Everyone I know says they run faster on a treadmill but I am the opposite – my left ankle always burns and I fear I am going to lose my footing and shoot off the back taking some poor bystander with me. It would be a funny story if I told you this was what happened but touch wood it has not yet. Sorry!

Most days then saw snorkelling or swimming in the sea – I am pretty surprised at myself but it was crystal clear and too beautiful not to.

I took part as well in the hotel aqua aerobics one day in the main pool, which was funny. Mostly because I was next to some crazy German lady who just kept grinning at me and laughing. I realised when I got out that my swimming costume seemed to have taken in water in the chest area – I’m not small chested and so with this inflation I am not surprised she was laughing – I had my own buoyancy aids!

They also did yoga, which I took part in too – definitely going to add that to my training schedule. I never stretch, which I know is bad but I have read the benefits of yoga and pilates for those who run and cycle and so will try and fit that in somewhere in my week – there aren’t enough days!

It was quite easy to stay on track with food as there was such a huge selection and always fresh salad, fruit, meat and fish. It surprised me the amount of people who would queue for chips when there was such a nice selection available? There was even a diet station! I was recommended to steer clear of the salad – lots of tales of dodgy belly’s from Egypt but I ate it every day and was fine – I am fairly certain I have a lead lined stomach! Don’t get me wrong I did treat myself to a couple of the mini desserts that were on offer – I was on holiday after all!

Getting back to England was harsh – it is now so cold and there is no lovely man in my house to make me fresh omelettes every day. I fear the winter training gear is ready to come out now – booooooo!

Still back to run club tonight and my usual schedule – holiday is well and truly over!

Category: Events, OCR

Bear Grylls Survival Race 10k

So we’ve all heard of Bear Grylls and probably watched him on TV do some whacky skinning of an animal to keep warm whilst camping out in a freezing forest and also evading being eaten by bears or something equally as sinister.

Well Mr Grylls has launched a survival run and when my crazy friend Laura was getting a team together for this I jumped at the chance of taking part and we all signed up including my friend Helen who is equally as crazy. It was marketed as a tough race and a substantial challenge, requiring both physicality and courage. They were ensuring there were at least 35 obstacles and saying that you needed to complete lifts, carries, water obstacles and a variety of medium and difficult obstacles. If you couldn’t complete an obstacle you were warned there would be a penalty and told to think of a 25m bear crawl through xxx (wait and see)!

Yesterday morning we headed to Trent Park in London and made our way to the ‘Festival Area’ where the race began. This area was full of people, stalls, segway experience, bungee jump, a huge inflatable that you jumped form a height on, which I was disappointed to see in this area as I had seen a pic of this and thought it was one of the race obstacles. There was a stage, food stalls, and loads more including stacks of stuff for kids and spectators, which was good considering they were charging £15 (if paid in advance) to be a spectator!

We headed over to the bag drop and there was only one word for it – carnage! The queues were ridiculous and a complete mix of people dropping bags and those who had already run and were collecting bags. There was no structure to it and at the front of the queues there were staff just chatting as our wave time drew closer and closer. When we got to the front they asked where our plastic bags were – what plastic bags? The staff on the table with the bags to be given out that you put your kit in were to one side chatting so no one had these! The race had not begun and we were miffed already especially as there were people everywhere who had completed the run and were not happy about a lot of things!

We managed to get all bags checked in just as our wave went off so we all ran over to see if we could nip through the cloud of orange smoke that was now the start and the marshall had no idea so we went anyway only a few hundred yards behind the wave anyway.

The rest of this review leaves me a little baffled as to what structure I put it in or what order. Do I mention first that the ‘obstacles’ were poor? Do I mention first that the signage was useless? Do I mention first that pretty much apart from the start and finish there were no marshalls? There’s more but where to start?

The last obstacle race I had done was The Commando Series at Hever Castle and it was brilliant. The group of 9 I was in have all done Nuclear Races apart from me and Helen and they also said that was brilliant. Helen has done Tough Mudder and I have spectated when my husband has taken part and that looks brilliant. My husband has done the Spartan Trifecta and I have spectated at the sprint, super and beast distance events with him and want to do those myself next year as they look brilliant too! Now I know that Bear Grylls is not mentioning any of these events or comparing his to theirs but the reason I am mentioning here is to show that between us we all have more than enough exposure or first hand experience at other OCR events.

It was lucky that Bear Grylls showed us how to survive without water by drinking out own urine because all of the water stations were unmanned or was simply a sea of empty bottles that had been discarded!

The first ‘obstacle’ was some wood that was across the path that you had to get over and when I say wood I mean about half a metre high and a couple of cms wide – just walk over that then! We had a cargo net and then another cargo net, then monkey bars, and more monkey bars, at least 2 or 3 ‘walls’ to get over, 2 ‘walls’ to get over or through, some hay bails to jump over, some hay bails covered in cargo net to crawl through, rings, pulling a weight on a rope to reach the top of a metal construction, wires in the forest, getting across a wall using pegs in holes, getting across a wall with foot and hand wooden cubes on the wall, carrying a rucksack weighing 20kg up a hill through the forest and then back down, carrying tanks of water up and down, carrying another weight up and down, pulling a weight up and down a length of floor, shimmying across some metal bars without falling on the floor, getting across slack ropes and a sloped wall to climb up with a rope. Barely any mud and the only water was a ditch you ran through where the water covered your feet.

To make it more interesting we ended up kicking the mud and water in the ditch over each other. When we finally found a bottle of water we threw it over each other to make up for the lack of water. And at one point we decided to roll down a hill and make up our own obstacles.

I am still struggling with my wrist injury and can’t put much weight on it at all so some obstacles I had to do the penalty and it was just a bear crawl or 10 burpees or star jumps not through anything like they said with wait and see!

We finished looking barely any different to when we started. But we started as a team and finished as a team and we made it fun and laughed along the way. Though to be fair we could have probably done most of that in a local park!

On completion, where a 70 year old lady ran to the end – kudos to her – awesome, we were met by some more event staff who were mostly chatting but when we walked over to ask what we were supposed to be doing they offered us a tshirt, then a medal, then we asked for a bottle of water and then we just helped ourselves to an energy bar as no one was giving them out – shoddy.

Back into the festival to wander round and hunt for some more freebies we were promised which were beer and coconut water and the guys on these stands were lovely! Also Newton Faulkner was performing on stage and the atmosphere there was great (apart from everyone moaning about how sh*t the actual event was).

When we collected our bags there was a stand for magic towel company MazMik and I was so impressed by these and would recommend buying them – I will be! If you have seen the film Spy you will have seen where the waiter brings over what looks like a little marshmallow, pours water on it and it expands. In the film the lady eats it thinking its food but its actually a towel and amazing and only £2.99 for 50! Best thing at the event ha ha!

So all in all I can say that this is overpriced (way, way, way, overpriced) you are basically paying for the festival area which is great but if you are going for the event you expect your money to represent what you get from the event and this did not. Bear Grylls should hang his head in shame at his weak attempt at trying to rival other obstacle race leaders such as Spartan. This seems to not just be my opinion either as the Facebook event page is filling with bad reviews and complaints as well. And whilst I mention Spartan it is because some obstacles were similar (pretty much the same, well exactly the same) so no originality there! Where could they have come from? Who knows? No idea where the bins in the festival area could have come from either *insert sarcastic face here*!

Category: Cycling, Fitness

You can read this and laugh

After my first Functional Threshold Power (FTP) test on Trainer Road I got an average over an hour of 167. It then created workouts based on my FTP and you go from there.

I thought I would get on with the training and so picked a workout. I should have read the title as it was another FTP test but I had started so figured what the hell – I was going for another hour so might as well do that as an FTP – an hour’s an hour anyway right?

So I started – music on, head down, towel on the handlebars, water bottle next to me and I was off.

Again it was up and down with the resistance, with sprints and intervals and I was keeping in line with the levels set – probably went off a little too strong if I’m honest but will know for next time.

I felt good though by the end yep I wanted to puke. It does that. I have been told if I feel like I want to puke then I’ve done it right so as much as I don’t want to feel like I need a bucket nearby I think thats a good thing – maybe?

Garmin stopped, ride saved, brow mopped and glugging the water I was finished and my new FTP score appeared on screen. I had increase by a whole…………….2! Ok so not the best increase but a marginal improvement and more training done so won’t complain.

Unclip the right foot. Unclip the left foot. Oh no the left foot isn’t unclipped. Too late, lost my balance and fell! That is right my friends I may be one of the very few people who can fall whilst on a stationary bike. The bike toppled over, my left foot was still clipped in and as I fell my left wrist slammed into the wall.

The pain was instant!

For what was such a stupid thing I was very emotional. After I managed to unclip my left foot and get up (which was not easy as my wrist was so painful) I burst into tears and I can’t even tell you what I was crying about more – the fact that my wrist was on fire or that my bike was on its side and I was worried I may have damaged it or the turbo.

Yep I have become that person that is worried about their bike rather than their health!

Go ahead and judge me – after you’ve stopped laughing that is. It’s ok I don’t blame you.

I ended up at the hospital as I thought it was broken though it is just badly sprained. The lady who gave me my X-ray results told me it wasn’t broken (which him indoors said – I hate it when he’s right) and went to get me a support. This support would have fit a 7 year old and I tried to joke that I was too fat and she then joked that me and her were elephants. It was all said in good humour but come on – not only am I at hospital but I am now an elephant as well – thanks love!

My god can I feel the pain though! When I explained to people I had fallen off my bike and needed to go to hospital – they were all very supportive. I left out the part that I was not cycling on the road but attached to a turbo. My boss laughed at me and said ‘so basically you fell off a bike with stabilisers’. He’s right.

Who does that? Me it would seem.

Thankfully I think both the bike and turbo are ok and I am hopeful that I will feel fully recovered by the weekend for my 117 mile bike ride on Sunday, though when I mention this to fellow cyclists I am getting some funny looks but I will not give up just yet!

I shall sign off now and am waving with my new attractive and rather fashionable (not) wrist support, which is a similar colour to Nora Batty’s tights – it’s not such a good look.

Category: Events, Running

London Zoo Stampede 10k

Yesterday I took part in the London Zoo Stampede 10k run. After an early start heading up to Regents Park with my friend, and fellow Romford CC member, Steve (the monkey) we found ourselves at London Zoo for 8.30am having a leisurely wander around the animals before we were due to head off at 9.30am.

It was chilly to start but the sun was about to come out. So many people were queuing up in face paint and animal costumes and the atmosphere was great. The crowd started a countdown from 10 and off we set, through some of the zoo and as we passed the gorillas and meerkats we then headed out into Regents Park.

The run was laps. Why are all runs laps? I hate laps! There is something soul destroying about running laps and every lap seems to feel longer than they actually are.

After the first lap the sun was well and truly out. By the second lap I was feeling good which was surprising as it was very up and down with the ups being long gradual inclines which I could have happily done without. I knew it was like that before we started as I had a quick google and found a Strava profile from last years run.

It’s funny how you can walk or stroll round a park or any area and think it is flat until you have to run it – not so flat.

By the third, and last, lap I was feeling good and there was a lady in front of me that I was sticking with. Then she stopped and turned to look behind me. I quickly said ‘no don’t stop I’ve been pacing myself on you’. She, like me, had got split from her friend and like me was feeling bad so was turning to see if she could see them, as did I, but we had no luck so decided to carry on (oh dear bad friend alert). I had a brief turn around to see if I could see Steve and ended up on the floor almost face planting! I didn’t see the lady in front of me stop to tie her laces and ended up doing some sort of leap frog ending up in a less than graceful heap! And the poor lady said sorry to me! I’m such a clumsy old cow.

We finished and I must say I felt good and really enjoyed it.

Medal on, bottle of water in hand, then was given a banana, then told to pick a Clif bar and then given a goodie bag from Whole Foods! The price for this event was about £30 and on top of everything else you were then allowed to spend as much time as you wanted in the zoo, which of course we did. I will be back next year and would recommend if you are thinking about it! Lovely day out!

Although at first I was a little disappointed that very little of the run is in the actual zoo (given the name I assumed the majority of it would be in the zoo where possible) everything else made up for it and Regents Park is beautiful and lovely to run in.

My friend Anna was also running with her cousin Charlotte and her other half and she managed to knock off more than 5 minutes from her 10k time of last week at the Nike Run to the Beat 10k!

Yesterday also saw the London Duathlon in Richmond Park and my friends Minnie (the machine) and Tim (routemaster) were taking part completing a 5km run, followed by a 22km bike, followed by another 5km run. They smashed it as I knew they would! So massive congrats to them!

No weighing today as I cannot figure out how to find the weight scale on my new Garmin without the hubby around (such a girl and technophobe!).

Category: Cycling, Fitness

Some new training using TrainerRoad and our Wahoo Kickr

Whilst I had an amazing day riding stage 8 of the Tour of Britain I saw the photos and realised, what I already knew, that I do not look great in lycra and i need to lose more weight – again something I already knew but this has spurred me on to change things up a bit.

I want to ensure my training does not reduce during the winter and so going to use our Wahoo Kickr (otherwise it is quite an expensive piece of kit just sitting in our spare room). The Wahoo Kickr is an indoor turbo trainer for the bike. The difference between this and others is that the back wheel from the bike is removed and you attach it directly to the Kickr for a more realistic road feel – and it is just that! The first time I used it I was surprised that it felt tougher than our previous turbo but is more realistic and I will remind myself of that as I sweat profusely during my training on it that it will make me improve.

My hubby recommended signing up to TrainerRoad and so I did. Following joining a running club this is the second change I am making with more to come!

TrainerRoad measures speed and power and then creates customised training plans to use based on your individual fitness, all of which have been developed by a USAC Level 1 coach. Him indoors trains off cadence and is a complete gadget geek and likes to know all the stats including power and as I am clueless with most of this I am happy to follow his lead and from what I read about TrainerRoad it sounded perfect.

I signed up and after entering all of my information took my first fitness level test to get started. This 20 minute test establishes your Functional Threshold Power (FTP), which is used to plan the workouts and monitor progress.

TrainerRoad claim:

When you train with TrainerRoad, you’re using the most effective training tool to become a stronger, faster and better cyclist or your money back. Indoor cycling training can be hard, it takes diligence and it takes dedication — but with TrainerRoad, it works.

That had me sold!

So him indoors got me all set up and headed out to leave me to it – probably because he knows how grumpy I can be on the turbo this was a wise decision on his part.

The training test is self explanatory and you basically follow the plan they lay out and it explains as you go what is coming up so you know you have 1 minute sprint intervals for example.

Being slightly dim I thought the 20 minute test would last for well 20 minutes but it would seem not. The 20 minute test is in fact 1 hour long, with the FTP set at 200, you have 30 minutes of warming up before the 20 minute test itself even begins. I was doing ok up until 30 minutes and managing to keep pretty much at the same level as set but by the time I got to 30 minutes knowing I had 20 minutes of all out effort and feeling somewhat uncomfortable in the saddle I started to get fidgety as can be seen from the profile (the three dips are where I had to stand briefly to change position).

After the 30 minute warm up and 20 minute test there is a 10 minute easy spin cool down, which was lets just say……nice. I looked like I’d been swimming (and that’s not the best look).

It gave me an average of 167 and it sets my plans according to that. I have no idea what an average is but this is my starting point and I will be able to see over the coming months any improvements.

Things I learnt from this:

1 hour on the turbo is not fun
1 bottle of water is not enough
I sweat a LOT
I need to invest in a fan pronto
Wearing the best padded bib shorts when doing this is a definite!

Also thanks to my hubby of course for his help with all of this and his usual encouragement and also a friend from Instagram, the amazing Miguel, and Graham from Havering Tri – I have been picking their brains about all this and they’ve all been so helpful – much appreciated!

Category: Cycling, Events

Riding stage 8 of the Tour of Britain

The Aviva Tour of Britain has been taking place for a week and I had the opportunity thanks to a lovely friend, Laura, to be able to ride the final stage, stage 8, before the pros hit the course.

I have a new gadget, the Garmin Edge 1000, and so yesterday me and him indoors got our bike stuff ready and drove into London with this little gadget ready to record my ride.

We both work in London and don’t live that far away and so the fact that it took us 6.5 miles to make the 2 mile journey from where we parked, and even when we reached St James’s park we couldn’t find the start, was the not the best beginning but we got there in the end and queued with 498 other people who were also riding the stage before the pros.

It was a slow start, as is to be expected when you have 500 people starting together, but once people found a space and everyone could ride at their pace it soon spaced out and we were able to enjoy the fact that the roads we are used to seeing full of cars were empty aside from the cyclists.

The streets were lined with people who had come to watch us ride. They had all come out to see me, Lisa aka Fat Girl Fit, cycle around the streets of London!! Ok so they were not really there for me they were there for the pros but as we cycled past they were cheering and banging the advertising boards that lined the route and it is an amazing feeling.

As usual our club kit being bright yellow and pink attracted attention immediately and within metres of the start line we already had two groups shouting ‘come on Romford’, which continued as we cycled laps around the route.

The start was on a gradual incline and so every time we passed it (and our speed went down) we passed the same group who carried on cheering ‘Romford’ – thank you to whoever you were it was much appreciated! On our third lap him indoors wanted to take advantage and went for it up the hill and as I trailed behind the same group cheered again but this time were saying ‘go on girl catch him up’. I can’t catch him up without him slowing but it still made me smile.

We were allowed to ride the route for 45 minutes and we managed four laps in total and thoroughly enjoyed every minute! Every minute on the closed road course that is – the ride there on the open, and busy, London roads was not something that I can say I enjoyed and it was definitely a squeaky bum moment for me!

When we finished we took a walk around the pro team vans to see if we could catch a glimpse of some of the riders and although we hung around unfortunately we didn’t manage to see anyone.

It wasn’t the longest ride and it was laps, which is generally not my favourite though the experience was amazing and if i could have the chance again I would jump (on my bike) at it!

Weigh in this week saw a 1lb gain but thats ok I shall try my best to get that of for next week – onwards and upwards!

Category: Events, OCR

Who am I to pass up spending a day with some Royal Marines?

I was invited by the lovely people at The Earned Agency to attend a media preview day for a new obstacle run at Hever Castle.

The obstacle run is part of the Commando Series and the man who runs these events, Brian Adcock, is an ex-Royal marine. The obstacles on this course are designed to be exact replicas of what marines would do in training.

It is a 6k course, includes 15 obstacles set in the beautiful grounds of Hever Castle and is endorsed by the Royal Marines Charitable Trust Fund.

After a warm up with 3 (easy on the eyes) marines we had a gentle jog over to the lake where we had a briefing by Brian. We were shown a map of the course and we were told what the Commando series spirit is, which include things like unselfishness, cheerfulness (I think we all smiled the whole way round), determination and unity to name a few.

We set off as a group and were going to be staying as a group for the whole course. This included the 3 marine instructors, Brian, some photographers (kudos to them for getting around the course and some of the obstacles and taking pics of us along the way!), and Brian’s daughter, Esther. Before I go on let me tell you about Esther, she is 10 years old and I think it is fair to say she put us all to shame. She was the coolest child I think I have ever met; fearless and quite simply amazing. Her parents must be so proud and in reverse how lucky is she to have such cool parents to put on events like this!

So off we set on the course and the marines ensured we slowed when necessary to regroup and we manoeuvred every obstacle cheering each other on and helping when needed. For the actual event you can opt to do the family course, go round at your own pace or to be treated like a commando.

Some of the names of the obstacles were as follows:

Smarty tubes – 8m long drainage pipes sunk in the ground (there are two tunnels on each side one with water and the other dry – I opted straight for the water pipe)

The wires – 40m long in the woods where you have to work your way over/under/through metres of elastic cord whilst smoke bombs are being thrown in
Monkey bars – 5m long with some differing bars and hoops (I wont lie I managed two monkey bars and fell into the arms of a marine, which made it slightly worth the embarrassment)
Doom drop – 30m steep slippery slide (so much fun!)
Catacombs of doom – 30m long cave (not made for this course but an original part of the estate, which is pretty cool)
Peter’s pool – 30m of chest-deep muddy water to navigate across using the laid out rope

River cross – crossing of a river using suspended and tensioned ropes (there was a lone fisherman on this river as we descended upon it – he was such a good sport and not his every day fishing to have us lot appear from nowhere)

The chasm – 20m crossing over a lake (which is more mud and clay than water) either crossing on the ropes by crawling across a single rope or the double rope for the Tyrollean Traverse where you stand on one and hold the other above your head (I chose this one, was talked through it by Brian and had words of encouragement from the marines and other members of the group as I was so nervous I would end up in the swamp but I managed to not fall in!)

Sheep dip – where you completely submerge yourself and go through a tunnel of water (there was a nice marine to push us through and another to pull us out)

The obstacles all have an easier option as this is an event that is not only aimed at adults but children (for ages 8 and over) and families alike so all can take part.

We were all soaked through and covered in mud and it was awesome.

The event takes place on 14 November at Hever Castle and you can buy your tickets here (and I recommend you do so you don’t miss out!):

The Commando Series is partnered with Six Physio, who will be there to offer massages after you cross the finish line, and KitBrix. Have you heard of KitBrix before? They make kit bags that can be used individually or can zip together so for triathlons and multi events are perfect to keep kit separate and easy to use. Also perfect for the Commando Series as you will have some very wet and muddy clothes at the end. I have met Rob from KitBrix before at triathlon events that my husband has taken part in and these bags, from me and my husband, are highly recommended and you will notice them more and more at events as I have found and for one reason and one reason only, which is that they are brilliant.