A morning with Essex Boot Camp...

Half Day Essex Boot Camp 

 As you know if you read my blog, still find it odd that people do, last November I spent 24 hours running up and down the hill at Great Notley Country Park. Well today I was back on 'my hill'!

I train twice a week with Essex Boot Camp and love it, I have been a member for over 5 years and apart from a few months last summer have always gone regularly. It really helps with the running, having a strong core, upper body and also the mindset you need to get through sessions.

After my 24 hour challenge Wez and James from EBC said they would put on a half day boot camp for members and ask them to donate to Moorfields Eye Charity.

So this morning myself and 69 other boot campers arrived at Great Notley Country Park to be put through our paces. It was a brilliant, muddy, tough morning. Having been struck with a cold on Friday it would have been all too easy to ditch training plans this weekend but so glad I didn't as a good tough workout and I am feeling a lot better!

The warm up involved lots of running up and down the hill with some press ups, squats and burpees thrown in!

Warming up!

We were then split into four teams and had four sessions to complete during the morning. Our 

first one was with Wez and we were exercising with tyres and doing hill runs, the hill never gets any easier to run up, not even after 265 reps last November!

Next was onto James and some team log carries, my cold was making breathing trickier than normal, but with great encouragement form the instructors and members I was able to keep going. 

We then moved onto Glynn, more hill running with bodyweight exercises and some team trye pulls up the hill. The hill seemed to get muddier as the morning went on and staying upright was becoming tough.

Our final session was stretcher runs with Aaron, one person on a stretcher the other four carrying, we took it in turns and had to complete 5 burpees, 10 press ups and 15 sit ups at various points around the course. It was a tough one to finish on but we got it done. The whole morning went really quickly and was great fun.

Training with Essex Boot Camp is always tough but good fun. The instructors will push you to your limits and get the best out of you. They also encourage that positive mindset that is so crucial in all of my running challenges. It is true that spending your time with positive, like minded people  is so important not just in fitness/running training but in all parts of life and EBC motivates and encourages everyone no matter what their fitness level, goals and ambitions!

If you are inspired to get involved have a look at their web site, there are sessions all over Essex.   www.essexbootcamp.co.uk

Finally a massive thank you to all the instructors for this morning and to everyone who came out, trained hard, got muddy and donated to Moorfields Eye Charity, we raised over £400 which is awesome and will really help the charity with their research into cures and treatments for many eye diseases. Thank you all.

Have a good week and happy running/training xx

So that was 2015...

I had a great running year in 2015, 1700 miles covered and much fun along the way with the best friends a girl could ask for.

3 marathons - Halstead, Stour Valley and Thetford.
4 ultra marathons - St Peters Way, Saffron Trail, The Chilterns Ultra, Monster Ultra
a few other shorter races and my own Touch the Bird 24 Challenge which is really an equal highlight to finishing Saffron Trail!

Final very emotional lap of Touch the Bird 24

I had one DNF (or RTC, refused to continue, as some like to call it!) at the Chilterns, purely for mental reasons but I learnt from it and I will go back, probably not this year but one day.

As I said the highlight for me in 2015 was finishing Saffron Trail, a 70 mile overnight race that I hadn't finished the year before. I had awesome support from friends along the way and that helped enormously and thoroughly enjoyed every step!

Awesome support crew at Saffron Trail Ultra

My big sister and I!

Great Notley parkrun has also given me many, many happy memories, great runs and new friends over the last year. Tomorrow is the anniversary of my first stint as run director and joining the core team has been fantastic both in terms of my own self confidence and being able to put something back into running. An added bonus has been my sister taking up running and as a result we have spent more time together.

Great Notley parkrun Core Team

I don't have huge plans (yet) for this year. I have some races booked, I am looking forward to running St Peters Way with Richard and Len and supporting them as they run their first ultras. I am going to run the Malverns Ultra in May and am looking for something long later in the year. I need to keep the summer free in the hope a suitable guide dog is found for my son and we need to be available for training. I plan to spend more time just packing my race vest and going out exploring the countryside and  to continue to enjoy my running as I have done over the past months. Who knows what other crazy challenges I will come up with, Touch the Bird 300 is already lurking in my head!! I also aim to run 2016 miles this year which means about 40 miles a week.

To sum up 2015 was awesome and 2016 is just going to be even more epic!

Many, many thanks to every one of you who has shared a mile or more with me in 2015 and here's to many more fun filled miles to come.

First parkrun of 2016

Happy New Year and happy running xxx