2017 - The Plans!

Wow, didn't 2016 go quick?!

It really doesn't seem like that long ago that I was sitting down to do my first piece of 2016, and here I am doing the first one of 2017... Whilst a lot went on (and that's probably why it went by so quickly) I'm certain if I looked back onto the things that I wanted to do sporting-wise and to do with this blog I certainly wouldn't have met half the targets I might have set myself!

The idea for 2017 is to set myself a few targets and see how I get on against them - you could call them New Year's resolutions, but that just gives them a feel that they are only for the beginning of the year and so halfway through they'll be forgotten! If I call them 2017 targets then at least I've got something to aim for by the end of the year rather than just the start!

My three areas that I want to build these around are health, events, and my blogging/vlogging. They've all got challenges, but I can see the events and blogging sections being the harder to keep up, so any support from you guys is really appreciated!

Health

This might be one that some people find contentious, I'm lucky in the fact that I still have a pretty high metabolism and can therefore eat quite a lot and still remain roughly the same weight, however as I'm sure mum has said for a number of years "it'll catch up with you at some point!". To that end I'm trying to make sure that I eat more healthily during 2017, meaning less takeaways and booze, and more home cooking and forward planning about meals!

To help with this section a late Christmas present Ali and I bought each other were Fitbits, and so I'm tracking how I'm getting on through the app. I've set a step goal each day of at least 6,000 steps which is below the recommended number when you first open the app but is a more realistic goal given that my job consists of sitting at a desk for a decent amount of the day! So far this year I've actually managed to meet the target each day, so fingers crossed this will continue!

I am also aiming to exercise at least three times a week for a minimum of 30 minutes each time - whether this be running, cycling or going to the gym. Looking at the app for the Fitbit it counts a brisk lunchtime walk as one of these exercises but I'm hoping to get in three "proper" sessions as well each week.

The final (and possibly likely to be the most debated in the household) health target I'm aiming for is to lose the little bit of additional weight I've gained over the past couple of years. As I said at the beginning of this piece, I'm lucky in the fact that I can often eat whatever I want and still maintain a relatively constant weight, however when I compare myself to how I was at peak fitness when I started uni and was playing badminton constantly last year's lack of training and post wedding relaxing has definitely won! I'm hoping to get myself down to around 84kg (I'm somewhere about 86kg at the moment) but at the same time have muscle instead of wedding excess!

Events

I'm really looking forward to doing a few events this year, as it makes the pain of exercise and training for bearable, and gives something to work towards. As it stands I'm only entered into one event for the year - a 5k night run in Bristol at the end of February, but I'm hoping to complete at least five running events and one triathlon by the end of December and maybe even a cycling sportive or two! These might not seem like a lot of events to challenge myself to enter nad complete in a year, but given that last year I only took part in (and completed) one event this is quite a step up!

As for what sorts of running events I'm going to take part in we'll have to wait and see - things like Tough Mudder don't really take my fancy, but the Endurance Life Coast Trail Series looked quite good fun when Ali took part in a number of their events last winter so I might be eying up a few of them towards the back end of the year. The main aim for any of the events is to have a fun and to finish - if I end up getting a good finish time out of it then that's a bonus!!

Blogging

Where would I be in setting targets for 2017 on a blog if I didn't set some targets for that as well?!

One thing that I really want to make sure that I do is doing a monthly 'progress' piece on here to see how I'm getting on against the targets that I've set myself for the year, what this should do is make sure that I'm keeping focused on what I plan to achieve over the course of the year because these posts could be super boring if ever month was "I did nothing"!!

I'd like to upload more content onto the Keep em Spinning YouTube channel through the year - whether it be a monthly vlog to accompany these blog update posts, reviews/videos of events that I've taken part in, or snippets of races that I've been to see. Make sure that you keep your eyes on there for any new content that's uploaded!

All the blog posts and videos will be shared via the Facebook page, so it'd be really great to get a few more 'likes' on there before the end of December! I'm going to set myself a challenging target of 500 likes by the end of the year, and will be running a few competitions to try and help me on my way - so watch out for those…..

If you'd like to take part in posting on here, by sharing your experiences about your sporting time or a specific event that you've taken part in, then either drop a comment at the bottom of the post or send a message on the Facebook page - it would be great to have a few more people to share their stories!

'til next time

One Life - Liv 4 It, Love It

Rob 

Monthly Update - March 2016

And just when I thought that I'd managed to catch up with some of the distance lost over the first couple of months (at least with the running side of my challenge), it's all gone a bit Pete Tong again!

However the good thing from the month is that I have actually been out on the bike, it's not been much but I have been out pottering along the canal on the mountain bike which certainly made the ride on the road a lot tougher but did mean that I could ride pretty much anywhere even though it had been chucking down with rain for the previous couple of days! The weather seemed to be my main excuse for not getting out running or cycling, the swimming excuse was that I just didn't want to get out of bed! Haha

The other excuse I managed to give myself was Ali injuring herself in the middle of the month, which is definitely not the thing to do given that she had her marathon in Paris right at the beginning of April - because I'm a nice person (and I seem to find nearly every excuse) I didn't exercise very much at all after that because it would have meant going out without her which for her was on a par in annoyance of being injured in the first place!

April's a new month though, and is the being of events for the year for me, and the major sporting event of the year for April with the Paris Marathon. Let's just see what it holds!!

One Life - Live It, Love It 

Paris Marathon - The write up...

What a weekend!!

Over 72,000 participants in the Schneider Electric Marathon de Paris and our two runners finished (a superb achievement!) and technically came pretty much in the top 50%!

From the official results page, nearly 30,000 people didn't even get to the finish line - so very well done to Ali for walking / hobbling the last 3 miles with a bust hip, and very well done to Emma for running the full distance. If you want to see their times then they are available on the P4YTS Facebook page!

It was a glorious day to be out, especially if you were a spectator, but maybe a little on the warm side if you were running 26.2 miles..! Both runners were up bright and early, and with game faces applied were off out the door whilst the support team took a more leisurely journey to the first point to see them (via the bakery of course!).

The planned meeting point was supposed to be the start on the Champs Elysees... However, due to manic Metros and yummy pastry we ended up waving at them, and snapping the first photos with the Eiffel Tower in the far distance, in Place de la Concorde.

The plan was to see the girls at the 10km marker next, just as they ran into the first of the Parisian parks, however as you might be able to tell our plans didn't always go to plan! By the time we emerged from the Metro (after meeting up with Jamie) and fired up the phones to see where they were they were already on their way to kilometre eleven - onto the 19th km then, just as they exited the park....

Since this was only a very short walk to the exit of the park we had plenty of time to kill, and had the chance to get a few snaps of the various costumes being run in, and even managed to see a couple of impersonators (Jamie!) as they jogged along in the crowd. However, since he'd just been off with Craig to find some cold beers to cheer on the runners with we couldn't really be too peeved that he was looking like he was taking part!

Not long after the beers, our two (still very) smiley runners were on their way past, taking the high fives, and ignoring the beer salutes! 

We were then off on the travels again, following the route and wandering past the feed station just after 20km - the scale of one the food for an event of this size is one that you have to see for yourself - it must have been over 100 metres of tables FULL of bananas, bars, water and sugar cubes!

Once back onto the Metro, the support team headed over to around mile 20 (as requested), and just where the local fire team had set up some hoses to spray the runners. The look of joy on some people's faces as they ran through the freezing water really gives away quite how warm and painful the marathon was for them!

Ali's hip started to cause some real problems at around mile 17 so by the time we next saw them both they'd split up to make sure that they were both able to try and finish in their own pace. We ended up putting Craig in the middle of the road on 'Ali watch' to make sure that we saw her (and she saw us) for a bit of motivation and a health check! The smiles were still there (just!), but with only 6 miles left to go the end was in sight...

The next stop for us was just around the corner, and near the top of a cruel false flat that seemed to be the final tipping for a couple of runners, and unfortunately we saw more that one leave the race at that point - the more worrying thing was the number of ambulances that we saw head back down the field when we were waiting for Emma and Ali to come back past!

Still, come past they did - with a cheery wave, and turning down another beer(!) a final lap of the park was all that stood in their way before the finish line.

Once we'd topped up on our picnic, and then topped up on provisions for the post-race binge, the race was on to get to the finish line before either Ali or Emma got there. Safe to say we lost, blame it on blokes shopping, public transport, or Emma running too fast, but she was finished quite a while before we got to the exit of the finish area. Even Ali had crossed the finish line, after hobbling the last three miles with her hip before we finally found where Emma was taking a well-earned rest!

Congratulations to both Emma and Ali for completing the event, you did us all very proud and obviously enjoyed the event massively by the size of the smiles on your faces the whole day!

Over £350 has been raised for The Richard Cann Wildlife Foundation and The Gabrielle Gray Foundation, if you haven't donated yet then follow the links below!

One Life - Live It, Love It

The Richard Cann Wildlife Foundation

The Gabrielle Gray Foundation

Duston Triathlon 2016

After Ali and Emma have successfully got through the Paris marathon, it's now my turn to take part in an event that I've been (supposed to be) training for over the winter - the Duston Sprint Triathlon!

I was hoping that Ali was going to take part in the event as well, along with her brother James, but since she buggered (that's the technical wording!) her hip a couple of weeks before the marathon, and then battled around the roads of Paris it's just going to be me v James in the family battle!!

James is taking part in the event with one of his fellow directors of the Mr Smith Group, Paul Smith, and they are hoping to raise as much money as possible for the Multiple Sclerosis Society. Head over to their JustGiving page (via the link below) to help them reach their target!

As with the Paris marathon there will be plenty of other posts, pictures and updates leading up to the event (even if it is only next weekend!) and during the event (Ali's in charge of the camera this time!!)

James and Paul do a Triathlon JustGiving page

One Life - Live It, Love It

Paris Marathon - two weeks to go!!

The countdown is really on now! Only two weeks to go before the Paris Marathon!!

From what I've heard it's beginning to get to be a case of "let's get it over and done with", training has been done to the best of Ali and Emma's abilities so the best way to help motivate them is to help raise as much money as possible for their chosen charities.

Please click on either (or both!) of the links below to donate.

The Gabrielle Gray Foundation

The Richard Cann Wildlife Foundation

One Life - Live It, Love It

Ali and Emma run the Paris Marathon!

I know I've mentioned it in other blog posts, but most of the time Ali is training for one event or another...

At the moment, she's training with her friend Emma to run the Paris marathon - "just for fun" to quote them both, but they'd also like to raise a bit of charity if possible.

The first charity they are running for is the Richard Cann Wildlife Foundation, a charity set up in memory of one of my University flatmates. For more information and to donate to this charity please click on this link, and to see where I've mentioned it before see this blog post.

The second charity is The Gabrielle Gray Foundation, a charity set up in memory of one of Emma's friends who passed away in 2012. To donate to this charity please click on this link.

Thanks!

One Life - Live It, Love It

Monthly update - February 2016

Am there I was thinking that January had to be the worst month for training, but I had to go and prove myself wrong didn't I?!

Whilst I did manage to tick off a number of kilometres by foot and a few hundred metres in the pool I still just failed to hit my running distance, am a long way behind in swimming, and haven't even passed over the start line on the bike!!

It hasn't all been doom and gloom though - whilst I might not have completed the distance running I think I made it up to myself by pushing the pace I've been running instead. Since the triathlon is a sprint and only a 5km run I'm trying to aim for 25 minutes or less for that segment, which is why a few of my run have been getting close to 5 min/km over a distance of more than 5km just to see if I can still last it after a longer "warm up".

My fastest pace wasn't actually reflected by the upload to Strava though, and we all know that this is the law don't we!? I had the big dog with me that time, and she decided that she would spoil the pace by relieving herself multiple times during the 10km which meant I had to stop, clear up and then find a bin to put it all in...! However I was able to prove to myself that I should be able to do 50 mins for 10km on the right day, I'll just have to go out and do it again without a running companion!

The main problem I had this month was motivation, which seems odd considering the post I wrote at the beginning of the year - a full day of work and then a commute are not a good way to prep up for exercise, and whilst others might be able to do it I've had to change tactics a little to get any exercise done. Lunch time and running at work once I've finished are beginning to be the norm to get runs in midweek and then I just have to keep the motivation up at the weekend to keep Ali and the dogs company.

Another thing that we've got this month has been a canicross belt, so that we can run "hands free" with the dogs rather than getting elbows pulled out of joints for the full run distance - for anyone who hasn't run with one of these it does take a bit of getting used to and making sure that it's set up right to pull along by your bum rather than the bottom of your back! Although when on your back and the dog has a sudden surge of pace there are some true comic-style running styles on display!

#onelifeliveitloveit