Events - Fat Girl Fit

Starting a new parkrun – we need your help!

We are fortunate to have a number of inspiring people around us, people who have helped us in our fitness journeys and continue to support and encourage us.

There are a number of amazing programmes and events that help to get people of all ages and abilities involved in some form of physical activity and we are keen to support these wherever we can.

One such initiative that has turned into a global success is parkrun.

parkrun are free weekly timed 5km events in local parks. They start at 9am on Saturday mornings each week in parks up and down the uk as well as overseas, and are a great way of getting local communities active. With clearly marked routes, helpful volunteers, back markers (no one finishes last) and a family friendly atmosphere parkrun really is a great way to start the weekend.

We both enjoy participating in local parkrun events and so Helen from 1 Vision 2 Girls decided to look into what would be involved in holding one in the park most local to us – Hornchurch Country Park.

When she asked me to work on this as a project with her of course I said yes. We are both passionate about helping people get involved in physical activity and enjoying exercise and the outdoors, how better to do this than to arrange a free weekly local event as encouragement.

We have identified a great 1 lap 5km route through Hornchurch Country Park (subject to final approval) and can’t wait to be able to launch our parkrun event.

Therefore we are now quite a way along our journey to getting this organised and we now need to gain the funding for the start up costs.

Start up costs amount to £3,000 and are a one off cost as the ongoing management and organisation is all done by volunteers, so once it’s set up and running (literally) it is completely self supporting.

We have been approved as a potential community project for Aviva and this is where we need your help. We need people to vote for our project to enable us to receive the funding we need to turn this dream into a reality and help people from around our local area to enjoy the many benefits of a local parkrun.

Please vote for us via this link and help us bring parkrun to Hornchurch Country Park!

https://community-fund.aviva.co.uk/voting/project/view/17-2622

Once you have registered you have 10 votes and we would really appreciate if you could share with all your friends, family and colleagues to help us gain some much needed support for this project!

Thanks in advance, fingers crossed we can make this a great local success.

Lisa and Helen x

Category: Events, OCR

Survival Race

I was recently tagged on Facebook by a group I am in called Mudd Queens and was the winner of a competition. I had won two tickets to a new obstacle run called Survival at Betteshanger Park in Kent. It was a 6km run with over 40 obstacles.

When I won this I was not injured and I knew that taking part in an OCR would be silly with my knee injury but I had spoken with my friend who was having the second ticket and said I could walk round and miss any obstacles that would effect my knee in any way. Not exactly the way you go into an obstacle run but I am a terrible patient, do not practice what I preach and I was bored from being stuck in the house for over a week and then hobbling around for the second week. I had gone from training six days a week to doing nothing and I needed to get out.

So on Saturday morning we set off and arrived at the park ready to start. As I mentioned it is the first time this event has taken place and so we had no idea what to expect with no previous reviews or pics to go by.

Registration was a bit of an issue with a huge queue that didn’t move very quickly. When signing up you had to select a wave time but because of the delay they were calling numbers and allowing people to start at different times so although there was a delay in starting for most there was no issue in moving to a later wave time.

To start you climbed over a large bale of hay and took part in a group warm up. The last exercise was a piggy back race but then you were on the course and off. The first obstacle was quite soon into the course so there was some congestion, which is sometimes necessary for safety as was the case in this instance, climbing up and over a scaffolding a-frame. There was yellow grip on the poles. Unfortunately for me my nemesis is anything that requires going up and over and so in my awkward position to get down without freaking out I managed to scrape my arm on every piece of yellow grip – oops!

The run made good use of the park, which was lovely and were it not so far away I would absolutely return – for those of you with this on your door step I am jealous, it looks lovely. I prefer runs that take in natural terrain by far more than urban courses. We ran through a storm drain and through forest and there was a swim across a lake. The event was in conjunction with the park and MY/PT and they have a military fitness course within the park which was included in the route.

Other obstacles included trenches, pits, rope regain, tyre pits, tranazium, slide and steep hill ascents and descents.

Events like these require volunteer marshals and most people forget the importance of this role. I understand that some marshals had not turned up to the event, which is out of the control of the event organisers though I think some of the hill ascents and descents really should have had marshals as opposed to a box jump that could have been tackled unaided.

I had a lot of fun and laughs with my friend on this and although I had to skip some obstacles due to my knee we completed and managed to jog more than walk, which felt like a slight achievement for this hop-a-long at the moment. As the pic shows I’m having a blast – not just an escaped mental patient as it also looks!

It is also the first obstacle run where I have had to climb up and into a skip filled with ……………………………………………….lettuce leaves. That was slightly odd and my god did it stink! You know if you have lettuce in your fridge and it goes off and you open the fridge door and know instantly that something has died in there well imagine a skip filled with it – new perfume anyone?

Definitely good for newbies too with nothing too daunting on the course!

Category: Events, OCR

Spartan Beast (from the other side too)

I’ve been blogging and adding posts on my social media in the run up to Spartan Beast at the weekend. I completed my trifecta last year and this would have been my fifth Spartan event. Sadly due to injury I could not take part in the event at the weekend but as I had two friends taking part I decided to go along and play the role of cheer leader for the day.

Aside from it being bittersweet I had a great day and it was interesting to see the event from the other side as opposed to being a participant in one of the races – it took me back to when my husband used to do obstacle runs and I was there for him.

Neither of my two friends, Emma and Laura, had taken part in a Spartan event before and it was me that had convinced them both to sign up so it was slightly ironic that I was the one not to be taking part though I was very pleased they would be completing it together.

We’d hit some traffic as we neared the event location and unfortunately missed the start wave they were in but it was not an issue to move into the later wave.

After the usual intro from Spartan Phil the wave was off and the girls waved as they passed me and their nerves seemed to have changed to excitement to the run ahead.

It was then I realised I had a long wait in store!

I actually bumped into a fellow Mudd Queen who I follow on Instagram and so after some quick introductions we had a wander around the event village together.

A lot of people were late due to the traffic and so the event was short some of the marshals so I volunteered to help and found myself on the Juniors course for the bucket carry.

I love that Spartan put on a kids course so they can get involved and the ages of those that take part are so varied from very small kids to teenagers and they get to take part in something similar to what some of them see their parents doing. It’s also great to see the kids out here being active rather than just stuck in front of a tv or playing computer games.

I was also in a position that I was next to the final few obstacles for the adult course and got to see the elite wave coming back in which was amazing. I run for fun. I’m not particularly fast and I’m not particularly great at the obstacles but I give everything a good go and find OCR so inclusive that there’s always a helping hand and I love it for that. I love that these events are suitable for new obstacle runners, those that complete and elites alike. Seeing those that race at a competitive level is brilliant and I managed to see those who ended up in the podium finish – very impressive.

After my marshal duty was complete I headed over to the rig which was the first obstacle back in the event village and waited for my friends to return and when they did they both had huge smiles on their faces (as well as a lot of mud).

This meant I got to see them on the rig, spear throw, balance beam, traverse wall, 8 foot walls and fire jump before completing the Spartan Beast and getting their well earned medal (and beer).

And they had loved it and were happy to announce that they were now both Spartan’s! We also saw a friend Andy who had recently been to the European champs in Andorra and had completed again in under three hours.

The highlight for Laura was completing an obstacle and ringing a bell – she entered the event village exclaiming that she’d rung a bell with the biggest smile on her face shortly before absolutely nailing the spear throw. For Emma the highlight was completing the bender obstacle – for someone so small she’s so strong.

Before they had started this event I had briefed them on the obstacles they would encounter and had said the bucket carry for me was probably the worst. It’s a simple obstacle where you get a large bucket that you have to fill with stones and then carry over a distance (that feels like forever) though there are no handles and you cannot carry on your shoulder or head and it’s awkward and your hands will burn! Both Emma and Laura agreed and said that adding in a ditch in the middle of it seemed particularly mean.

They also both found the barbed wire crawl fun and I like me they were lucky to come out without any tears to their clothes!

More positives were the marshals – often marshals can make or break an event and so positive marshals are a great asset to an event and Spartan had them in full force. The bananas at the water stops were a good idea being just enough for a boost without being heavy or overly sweet. Neither found the obstacles intimidating and said it meant most people just got on with it without lots of hesitation.

They did find there was a lot of queueing and were slightly concerned at one point that there was a swarm of wasps chasing them but then realised it was the sound from a drone ha ha. They found the floor to run on good as it was springy although Emma did liken it to something you see in a horror film where you fall through and end in a dungeon – don’t worry though there was no dungeon in the making of these Spartan’s just a lot of burpees!

When you fail at an obstacle at a Spartan event you get a 30 burpee penalty and by the end of an event it’s safe to say most people believe that burpees suck! It was funny because whenever I saw them doing burpees in the event village and asked how many they had left Laura always had 3 – the strangest thing!

Emma had to fish a heat pad out of Laura’s pants at one point so it’s safe to say events like this bring people closer.

They even made a friend – a worm that hitched a ride for the whole event and Laura found in her trainer!

Next year all three of us will be back to get our trifectas.

Aroo

Category: Cycling, Events

Velo Birmingham

Well that didn’t go to plan!

There were 8 members of Romford CC taking part in the Velo Birmingham bike ride. This was the first ride for this new event and was 100 miles on closed roads.

I was somewhat nervous as I had been told it was hilly and anyone who knows me knows hills are not my favourite but I also know that the only way to get better at them is to do them so I had signed up both myself and my husband and we would be riding together! We had completed the Ride London together earlier in the year but because of my training and his Ironman training we have not done that much together and it was, quite frankly, just nice to get away and be doing something together!

We’d arrived the day before and visited the bike expo at the NEC before heading into the city centre to collect our registration packs. I had assumed these would be in the same place as I was assuming it would be a similar set up to Ride London but this was not the case and both were at different arenas and I will admit the registration for the Velo was an anti climax with most people, including us, walking in getting their packs and leaving as there was not much there.

After a meal with fellow club members on the Saturday evening we were all ready to the ride. Sunday morning saw an early start and we were in our loading pens by 7:40am with an 8:10am start time. I’d taken the pic above and loaded to my social media with the note ‘ok Velo Birmingham be kind’ and little did I know it would do the complete opposite!

Unfortunately the start was somewhat delayed due to either an accident or obstruction on the route – not sure which as we were told both. This meant that when we were off it seemed a lot more congested than a normal cycling event.

It was lovely to see so many clubs out with numerous members cycling together – we even grabbed a cheeky pic with another local club to us Hornchurch CC.

Having groups from clubs together did result in more cycling 4, 5, 6 abreast and not adhering to the usual cycling etiquette allowing for overtaking on the right due to lack of space and when you called ‘on the right’ which is standard to indicate you would be overtaking there was no movement and often quite rude responses that were totally uncalled for.

There was some shocking cycling that I witnessed and within the first two miles the group of four i was in was in two sometimes three individual groups but this is to be expected on larger events.

Unfortunately four 4 miles in, as I was chatting with my husband, something in my left knee just went. I had no idea what was going on but the pain saw me immediately stopping although as I put my left foot down there was nothing there in my leg to hold me up and I ended up in a heap on the floor. I was, however, still clipped in on my right foot and my husband stopped as I was screaming at him to get it off me.

And that was my ride done and thanks to the support of my husband, who stayed with me, meant his ride was also over.

I can’t fault the event staff at all, they were fab! The ride itself had volunteer domestiques and several stopped to check I was ok. A medic was called and I was put in an ambulance with my bike and taken away to be seen to. My husband cycled back to meet me, beat the ambulance and meant he had completed a whopping ten miles (only 90 short of what he had intended to do).

I was told that I had displaced my kneecap, torn my medial collateral ligament and had crepitus. After lots of painful movements I was strapped up with rock tape and sent on my way – just as I remembered I had left my bike in the ambulance!

My husband got my bike and our car and picked me up and feeling pretty sorry for myself, and after a lot of tears, we started our journey home. This was not how this weekend was supposed to end.

I’ve heard that the feed stations ran out of food and water and that locals had put nails and oil on the roads in protest and I’d seen some pretty shocking comments on the facebook page for the event. I can’t comment as my four miles is not exactly going to paint an accurate picture.

I hope those who took part enjoyed it and I hope the support on the route was well received as I am sure the money raised for different charities will be.

I think for now after coming off my bike in Newcastle last year and now in Birmingham, both of which seeing me ending up in the back of an ambulance, I have learned the north do not want me to cycle there!

I am not letting this set me back though and there will be blog posts about my recovery I’m sure. I’ve had a cry, know that there are some events I will be silly to try and take part in so will miss those, but I’ve pulled up my big girl knickers, dusted myself off and back to thinking positive!

Category: Events, OCR, Running

Inflatable 5k Run

On Saturday I went with my strength and conditioning coach (and friend), Emma, to take part in the Inflatable 5k Run hosted by UK Running Events.

It was held at Kempton Park Racecourse and was a 5k run with inflatable obstacles – what was not to love?!

As you enter the racecourse there is a stage and every 15 minutes the waves get ready with a warm up from Pure Gym instructors and then you are on your way.

bounce2

We were quite early so sat in the sun whilst we people watched. There was a great mix of people at the event including many families and people in fancy dress so had a great inclusive feel.

The finish was by the start and so we could see the two final obstacles, which was a huge slide and a jump – these were the biggest of the two obstacles and I was excited to get to those!

bounce

I thought this would be an easy run and to all intents and purposes it was but it was hot and I am not great in the heat – hot sweaty mess to be precise – who takes a water drink on a 5k? Well I did on Saturday! And who knew inflatable obstacles could be harder than some rigid ones? It was hard to keep momentum whilst not losing your footing. My friend Emma was like a spider monkey and got through/up/over/under everything very quickly but I on the other hand have some very questionable Go Pro footage where I lose balance and at one point get hit full in the face by an inflatable cylinder.

Most people slid in a ladylike fashion down the slides and I was more like an uncoordinated mess with legs and arms flailing everywhere. I was, however, smiling and thoroughly enjoying myself!

There are about 10 inflatable obstacles throughout the course and my only complaint was that when we got round to the end we were then faced with the two large obstacles I mentioned earlier and you have to pick one! ONE! Like a kid in a sweet shop I wanted to stamp my feet as I wanted to go on both! You can’t show the two biggest and dangle the carrot of opportunity and make an over sized child pick just one! But they did. And I sulked. Quite rightly too. To be fair once the marshall realised I was reviewing this event on the blog they did say I could go on both but that seemed unfair on other people and the queues for these were already quite long and took a while to get on one. (I should note these were the only real queues we faced in the whole event and was for safety measures).

So the first was the huge slide which was the one I went on. It was not quite vertical at the back but almost and although there were steps you were instructed to hold on to the rope with both hands. Once at the top you sit on the edge and cross your feet and legs and down you go. Now here is the thing when I got there my friend Emma was sat there looking as if she was not going to go and I was thinking come on, man up it’s a bouncy castle slide get on with it. She had a gentle nudge from the marshal and arms and legs waving everywhere she went down. I should not have watched as I saw going down meant you don’t actually slide on anything it is like a free fall. And it was high!

My turn next and with Go Pro firmly gripped (meaning I turned off recording by mistake because I am that clumsy) I slowly moved further over the edge and then made myself go. Let me tell you it totally took my breath away and when I finally hit the slide my t shirt caught and I nearly exposed my left breast to everyone at the bottom. It literally moved further up my body as I slid down. Nightmare! Holy mother of gut! Cue laughing about it and running through the finish praying there was no photographer there – there wasn’t so not too bad after all.

bounce3

The tickets are a reasonable £25 and that is your entry, finishers medal, finishers t shirt and some milkshakes and water. There is an additional £3 for parking, £2 per item for bag drop and £6 per photo you purchase, unless you want it electronically in which case they are available early the following week for £10 per image. Adding everything up it still is not too bad though I always prefer to pay a price and not have these little surprises here and there but that’s just me.

So for those who say bouncy castles and inflatables are for children I say meh! No matter what age get on there and bounce and enjoy it! Though maybe put on a belt to hold down your t shirt or at least wear your fanciest sports bra!

My race entry was complimentary, but all opinions are my own.

Category: Cycling, Events

The Vatternrundan

So I guess this started when I first visited Sweden in 2014 as my husband was taking part in a bike ride called the Vatternrundan.

Since then I have taken up cycling and have thought about going back to Sweden to do the ride myself and mentioned it to my friend Laura who was also keen on the idea so together, with her other half James, we signed ourselves up to take part!

vattern2

It’s a very different registration process than any other event I have taken part in where you have to register interest in advance and then you get an email to confirm and then you have to log in and sign up and it’s only once you get confirmation that you know if you have a place or not and people come from all over the world to take part in this event.

It is also part of a bigger event called the Swedish Classic where you have to complete the following in the space of one year:

90km Vasaloppet cross country ski
300km Vatternrundan bike ride
3km Vansbrosimningen open water swim
30km Lidingöloppet cross country run

I was just intending to do the bike ride!

A little bit about the Vatternrundan – it is a 300km bike ride in one go around the Vattern lake. Why? Because we thought the challenge, sounded cool and we like to ride our bikes. The distance is a lot and around a lake sounds a lot but its only when you see the lake, that looks like an ocean, and you can’t even see the other side that the reality of the challenge settles in!

vattern3

We left on Thursday and were staying in Jongkoping, which also happened to be one of the places on the bike ride. On the Friday we headed to Motala, where the ride starts and finishes, and got registered and tried to sleep! When you sign up you can pick a start time which are in two minute intervals and can be anywhere from 7pm on the Friday to early afternoon on the Saturday. All entrants have a cut off of midnight on the Saturday to complete.

vattern4

We were starting at 9:22pm so would be riding through the night, something we’ve all done before. We actually missed our start time so headed out in the 9:30pm wave. This was not because Laura is the most methodical person we all know and has to lay her kit out one million times at all, no way, nope (ha ha)! Good job we love her ❤️

We had our pockets on our jerseys stuffed with everything we thought we might need on this ride from nutrition to rain jackets to battery packs and this was on top of our bike bags that had other essential kit like gas canisters in case you get a dreaded p word (puncture).

On the number you wear on your jersey on the ride is your name, where you are from and your start time. We were less than half a mile in and we noticed the name of someone in front of us who sounded English and that is how we met Adam. Adam lives in Sweden with his Finnish wife and children and he was doing the ride on his own as his second event of the Swedish Classic – he had also shaved his legs as he thought this would make him more aero dynamic but had underestimated how long this would take and how much shaving foam he would need so had run out and the top part of his thighs were still hairy, we laughed a lot about this. And that is how our three became four during the Vatternrundan. You can learn a lot about someone when you spend so long with them on the bike – when he met my husband at the end he told him he already knew so much about him!

There are a lot of rest stops on the ride with warnings 5km in advance and then another when there is 1km to go to ensure you have the correct positioning on the road to turn off should you wish. We had a plan to only stop three times and that was more to ensure we could refill bottles and apply what we assumed would be much need chamois cream. I won’t go into detail about chamois cream but if you cycle and know that saddle sore feeling and don’t use chamois cream then let me educate you in two words – get involved! Look it up, it’s self explanatory and you will be pleased once you start using it (even if the first couple of times you feel like you’ve wet yourself)!

vattern5

So we stopped first at Jonkoping at 104km where we were given meatballs and mashed potato. We were all in agreement to make the most of the proper food and not try to do the whole event on energy gels – personal preference but for us proper food works better for endurance. This rest stop was in an ice rink, which was a little odd and it also started with the cyclist in front of me stopping dead in his tracks as we entered it resulting in me having no time to unclip and promptly falling off my bike in front of quite a lot of people. Only the day before we were discussing cleats and I had said I’d not yet done the standard falling off your bike from not unclipping – I’d spoke too soon.

Our next rest stop was at Hjo at 171km where we had lasagne and blueberry soup – I know it sounds odd but it hit the spot.

The last rest stop was at Medevi at 274km, towards the end and more of a loo break as we had been told the last 40km was quite hilly. It was at this test stop we spoke to a veteran on the ride. Veterans of this event have blue bibs that actually day Veteran and I was explaining to the others that these are people that have done the event a certain number of times. So I asked a very nice Swedish man how many times he had done this event and he said to be a veteran you must have completed the ride 25 times. He was 72 and this was his 44th time doing the ride and he had done the Swedish Classic 40 times – absolutely amazing! I wished I’d had a picture with him now he made all of us smile as he was explaining this.

The ride is what cyclists would call undulating. No hills that would test you too much but lots of smaller hills and a lot lot lot lot lot of false flats and long drags where the incline is not much but could go on for up to 12km in one go and these really zap your energy. My husband had told me it was flat. My husband is a liar. Don’t get me wrong it was almost 6,000 ft of elevation and I’ve done more on much shorter rides though the drags as I said make a difference to the legs.

One thing I can say about Sweden is that it is very green, there are lots of beautiful lakes, it’s very clean and there are lots of gorgeous wooded areas – really picturesque! The ride includes cycling through all of these – its stunning! We stopped on a bridge toward the end purely to take a photo that was too good to miss.

vattern7

We had a great ride working as a team and each taking our turn on the front, building up the pace following rest stops and joining pelotons of riders when we could. As a peloton approaches it sounds like a car – I shouted car back at one point then had to say no it’s bikes – I’m not that thick but it really does sound like a car when 20 cyclists hammer past you at speed! The pelotons are very quick and if you want to ride with them you have to jump on quick and work to stay with them. Some were very welcoming and some not so – if they are there as a team you are not allowed to join their peloton which is fair enough and is more for safety than anything else as you ride very close and they will be used to riding with each other and not strangers. At one point we were in a peloton of at least 40 people and it was so much fun!

The event has been going for a lot of years and they have the organisation down to a fine art! Registration is seemless, the expo/merchandise tent has anything and everything you could want or need – I managed to bring my light and forgot the bracket to attach to my handlebars so got myself a new light. The marshalls are amazing and spread the whole way round the long course (this is not a closed road event). There were a lot of rubbish points to throw anything you were finished with in the form of large nets on the side of the road – brilliant idea!

I have to mention the locals too – the course is studded with people the whole way through the night that sit out for the whole event cheering you on, camping out and eating and drinking with music playing – I was given a toasted marshmallow on a stick with a jelly sweet on top as I cycled past and lots of high fives too – amazing!

We started together, we finished together, we laughed, we sang, we joked, we smiled and we shared chamois cream and ate too many honey buns and quite frankly we smashed it even if I say so myself! I was beaming with pride coming down the finish line as my husband was waiting and cheering us on.

vattern

I would absolutely recommend this event and I have no doubt I will go back and do it again at some point.

vattern8

I completed the Vatternrundan in a ride time of 10 hours and 26 minutes and event time of 12 hours and 42 minutes – boom!

vattern1

Category: Cycling, Events

The Pink Ribbon Tour

Yesterday I had the pleasure of taking part in the Breast Cancer Care Pink Ribbon Tour. This was an amazing event that saw over 1,000 women cycling a closed course on the streets of London. The course was 25km, comprised of four laps, to commemorate the 25 years the “Pink Ribbon has been a symbol of hope, strength and unity for everyone affected by breast cancer“.

It was the most amazing sea of pink! I am biased as pink is my favourite colour but it was everywhere and all for such a good cause.

Those taking part were normal women who cycle but also those who had beaten cancer and those who were still battling too! There were almost 1,000 ladies participating in this event.

I will share the most amazing quote from the Breast Cancer Care website from an extraordinary lady who I can now call a friend, Nadjie:

“When something traumatic happens in your life, you have to find a way to cope. For me, having breast cancer, it was cycling. Through chemotherapy, surgery and a mastectomy, I cycled my way through – wearing pink lipstick along the way!”

Most of us have been touched by cancer in some way, shape or form whether it be personally or someone we know and there are many events such as this one that encourage people to participate and raise vital funds. Visit the website and see how you can get involved.

Following the pink ribbon ride was the final leg of The Women’s Tour, where the professionals took on the same route.

I work in the city and it’s surreal when the roads are closed for events such as this and I will admit I really wanted to give a good sprint but in the spirit of the event we all kept behind a ride leader though it was amazing that we got to ride the same course as the pros!

Category: Events, OCR

The Elements Obstacle Race

At the weekend the sun was shining and I headed to Southborough in Kent with two fellow Mudd Queens and friends for the inaugural Elements OCR.

There had been a lot of hype about this new OCR in the run up to the event including the fact that they had purchased some of the obstacles from Dirty Dozen. I had never taken part in a Dirty Dozen race and so was quite excited that I would get to try some of them out.

So what did I think of it? I have one word, disappointed. I am disappointed for you if you didn’t get to take part because it was awesome!

Registration was easy though no bag drop but the parking was not far so we left our bags in the car, which was no problem. The centre of the event had various merchandise stalls and some places to get food and drink and was right by the start/finish so had a great atmosphere. The MC was the lovely Stuart Amory and, as usual, he got everyone warmed up and kept the commentary going as runners were leaving and coming back to the finish. You were given your technical tshirt at the start of the race which was a nice touch as a lot of people opted to wear theirs as they were running the course .

The event gave the option of four distances (8km, 16km, 24km and 32km) so something for everyone, which were made up of laps. That was great as it meant you were on the course with lots of other runners and everyone ended up speaking to each other along the way and giving encouragement. It’s one of the things I’ve said before that makes me love OCRs – its like a family at the different events – there’s always a supportive hand at some point.

The course used the surrounding natural terrain and that is something I like in OCRs, with urban offerings never really winning me over as much, but that is personal preference. The course took on lots of trails for running, lots of hills and lots of uneven terrain to be careful of but made the course really challenging and interesting especially running through the streams. There were lots of different obstacles – walls, irish tables, climbs, carries, monkey bars, water slide and pontoons are just some examples and finishing with Mount Smeverest – a large a frame climb with a cargo net at the top.

Really well organised event, awesome obstacles, amazing marshalls on hand with sweets and punishments as well for obstacles not completed, and if you were not aware it was the first event for The Elements you would never have guessed either as it was executed perfectly! Also loved that the Mudd Queens played the floor is lava around the course and the marshalls got involved too – hilarious when you are dragging a tyre up and down a hill and have to jump on it and balance!

I will be back next year and in the meantime will be getting a team together for their upcoming event, The Storm, in December. I would recommend this for sure!

Category: Cycling, Events

Suffolk Sunrise bike ride

On Sunday I took part in the Action Medical Research Suffolk Sunrise bike ride. I had signed up for the champion route of 102 miles and was completing this with two friends from my cycling club, Romford CC. Action Medical Research are a company funding medical research to beat the diseases that devastate the lives of so many of our children.

The three of us are taking part in the Vatternrundan next month, which is a 186 mile bike ride in Sweden and so this was perfect as part of our training and made a nice change to do a ride somewhere different.

I’ve taken part in rides with Action Medical Research before and I am always so impressed. Everything is done to such a high standard from registration to marshalls to rest stops:

Registration is seemless and as well as being efficient and simple you are also given an energy gel, emergency contacts, band for distance you are taking on, timing chip and number and then bags of jelly babies and sweets – can’t complain about free sweets!
The marshalls are always happy, helpful and encouraging on route.
The signage is always clear and easy to follow.
The rest stops are always the best! There is tea and coffee, cake and biscuits, energy bars, crisps and freshly made rolls – proper food to fuel on as well as water, squash and energy drinks. There is a mechanic at every rest stop also.
Vehicles drive the route also to ensure they can assist if someone has a mechanical.
Goody bag at the finish which included locally made marmalade and coffee, energy bar, a discount code for future rides and of course a medal (its all about the bling after all).

The ride started and finished at Framlingham Castle otherwise known as the Castle on the Hill from the Ed Sheeran song – I can’t claimed to have known this prior to the ride but my friends did! Sadly there was no Ed Sheeran to sing us in as we arrived on the finish line.

galleryeeframlingham02

When we ride we enjoy ourselves – you should always enjoy yourself when working out otherwise why do it? We laugh and we joke and we sing – the three of us were quite the choir singing around the route (also available for weddings and bahmitzvahs).

The ride, quite honestly, had the most twists and turns I think I’ve ever encountered on a bike route though I’m not complaining – it kept it interesting. It was described as a flat and fast route and there were sections that were but these seemed to also have the worst wind. Don’t get me wrong there were no mountains at all but small up and downs for 100 miles meant you felt it in your legs for sure – great for training though!

We also encountered a first for a ride – a 12 foot long python going across the road! Ok so this is a slight exaggeration it was actually just a grass snake probably no more than 2 foot long but still was a first – the last Action Medical Research ride I took part in we had to stop down a country lane to allow a pack of approximately 40-50 Labradors – what will we find on our next ride with them?

There were many funny moments on the ride, most of which I cannot share in a blog post, but one included a funny feeling on my inside thigh where I found the velcro from my new saddlebag had rubbed a hole in my favourite bib shorts so I spent almost 50 miles checking it was not growing and I was exposing myself to innocent passers by. Laura kept telling me to stop fingering my hole – in my bib shorts dirty minded people!

I must also say the people of Suffolk were the most courteous for cyclists! Coming from a London borough that is busier this, and cycling for miles and miles on car free roads, was lovely even if those car free roads had more than their fair share of gravel, which to be honest is not ideal for a road bike, so there were many cries of ‘gravel’ as we turned again and again and again and again. I had visions of loading my strava ride and seeing the map similar to a running track session.

I would definitely recommend a planned ride with these guys (both Action Medical Research and Laura and James) – currently looking at what one I will do next!

I also had the time to take note of my riding style and will be working on a few things such as:

my sore lower back – need to sort that prior to Sweden! Recently the base of my back has been on fire but my set up has not changed so unsure of the cause?
I don’t pedal round corners and coast around so naturally slow and then have to pick the pace back up.
Since my fall last year I hardly drink on the bike until a stop and this is something I have to work on getting my confidence back to do.
Not to rely on people I ride with to tell me to eat – I’m terrible at this and it’s not a good habit!
Protein is great but I must ride with my mouth open and eating bugs on route is protein I could do without!

I can just see my husband right now reading this shaking his head, mouth open, mock outrage, saying ‘I’ve told you all this a million times’ and yes I know but thanks in advance lover as a cycling coach I will be coming to you for help! 😘

#thisgirlcan #thisgirlcanessex