Fitter than the average Brit?

Just a bit of fun for a Monday morning... Predator Nutrition have a survey on their website that aims to give you some indication of how fit you are compared to the average Brit. Of course it's not terribly scientific, but it's quite fun to see if your habits put you in good stead.

It's spattered with facts and information about the nation's food choices and exercise preferences and gives you a few tips at the end on how to boost your score even further. Apparently I'm 23% fitter than the average Brit and my area for improvement is my diet (no surprises there).

If you're finding that your resolve around your New Years Resolutions is fading, perhaps use this to give yourself a boost. Or just for fun.

A Running Questionaire

There've been quite a few serious posts on the blog lately so I thought that it was about time I posted something just for fun. So how about a running questionnaire! I pinched these questions from Mary's blog, and some of them really made me think.

Would you rather run along a beach path or on a mountain trail?
Ooo tough one to start with! I loved and hated the beach sections of Tiree in equal measure with their flatness and seemingly never-ending nature so I'll probably err on the side of mountain trail. I've little experience here but despite hating hills, trails are fun and what goes up must come down. Plus, views, right?

Beach running on Tiree

If you could choose the flavour of Gatorade at your next race’s aid stations, what would it be?
I wouldn't. I don't drink it. Nor do I drink Lucozade. The only thing I tend to drink that's not water is nuun and my current favourite flavour of that is lemonade.

If I gave you a £100 gift card to a running store, what would be the first thing that you would purchase with it?
I *ought* to by a new sports bra and maybe a fancy reflective jacket but in reality I'd buy capris! I've got enough trainers (although there are plenty I still covet) but I'm a sucker for funky capris.

Do you prefer to follow a training plan or wake up and decide then how far and how fast you want to run?
I always have good intentions of following plans, and do ok, but can feel quite constrained and overly worried about following them so given the choice, and if I didn't have an event to train for, I'd prefer to just run as I feel.

Would you rather start your run with the uphill and end on the downhill or start your run with the downhill and end with the uphill?
Always get the uphill out of the way first. There's the argument for the legs being more warmed up at the end of the run but they're also tired and I'll be grumpy so let's pick the option that involved least swearing.

When you can’t run, what type of cross-training do you choose to do?
I cross train even when I can run, because I am the type of person who get's bored if I'm only doing one thing all the time. I mainly do metafit, HIIT, boxercise-type classes, circuits, kettlebells and yoga but will swim or cycle occasionally too. I'd love to dance more often but that's fallen off the radar recently.

 I've tried trapeze and trampolining too!

What is your preference—> Out and back, point to point or loop runs?
Loop runs are best for me because it's harder to talk myself out of turning back early and saves on the logistics of getting home again in a point to point.

If you could recommend ANY running related item to a new runner, it would be a—>
pair of trainers that you LOVE. If you love your trainers then you're much more likely to want to put them on and go show them off.

Do you ever see any wild animals while out on your runs?
Yes, mainly squirrels around this way. There was the occasion when I actually kicked a squirrel by accident having apparently snuck up on him. I'm not sure who was more surprised. I've seen the odd deer in the forest too but that's about it.

Ever gotten lost while out on a run?
Not to the point that I've had to call for help but there was one occasion in particular when I got lost in the forest (with company) and it took a bit longer to get home than expected, adding a couple of miles on to what was a medium length run. 

If you could have one meal waiting and ready for you each time you got home from a run for the next 30 days… what would that meal be?
I can't possibly answer that question because I don't have a favourite meal and often I'm not hungry for a full meal when I get back from a run. A chocolate milk drink and a bit of cake wouldn't go amiss though!

Capris or shorts… what do you run in most often?
Capris. I own very few pairs of shorts, and certainly no loose fitting shorts, that don't start chafing after 3 or 4 miles.

At what mile (or how many minutes) into your run does your body start to feel like it is warming up and ready to go?
It takes me about a mile to warm up and get into the flow of a run. There have been a few occasions when it's taken longer or never really happened at all but when you find that moment of complete flow it's pretty special.

What do you do with your key when you run?
Put it in my shorts pocket. I have a special pair of keys, free from key fobs etc, that I take when I run, rather than my usual set.

If you could relive any race that you have done in the past, which one would it be?
A real tough one. There are so many that I've loved, either for what I've achieved or the fun I've had. It would probably be one of my marathons, maybe Marathon Du Medoc. 

Party time at Medoc

What has been your biggest motivation lately to get out the door to get your run on?
My growing sense of lethargy. I know the longer I leave it, the worse it will be so I just go out to run with no set agenda.

When you go for a run, do you leave right from your front door or do you drive somewhere to start?Almost always from my front door. That's part of the attraction of running for me, that I don't have to go anywhere to start. I'll travel to run with friends, for races and parkrun, but I'm lucky that I have a lot of loves places to run within a couple of miles of my front door.

When running in daylight—> are sunglasses a must or an annoyance?An annoyance usually. Of course it depends on the light, and the trade off between wearing sunglasses and being able to see but despite having a really good pair of sport sunnies with interchangeable lenses, I prefer to go without. My eyelashes catch on the lenses sometimes and I can't stand it.

When you get tired, what keeps you from quitting?
I honestly don't know. Perhaps it's breaking down the distance left into more manageable chunks, seeing friends or family on the course, or just a fear of feeling guilty if I don't do my best.

I'd love to hear your answers to these questions! Pick one or two to answer in the comments or link me up to your version on your blog :)

100 Happy Days

“We live in times when super-busy schedules have become something to boast about. While the speed of life increases, there is less and less time to enjoy the moment that you are in. The ability to appreciate the moment, the environment and yourself in it, is the base for the bridge towards long term happiness of any human being”.

This is the block of text at the top of the 100 Happy Days website. 100 Happy Days is a project which encourages you to stop and smell the roses, appreciate the moment, think about enjoying what you’re doing, rather than just whizzing along from one thing to the next. The idea is simple. Sign up on the website, then submit a picture everyday of what made you happy to twitter, facebook, instagram or email (if you don’t want to make it public), tagged with #100HappyDays.

I found out about the project via twitter and signed up there and then. I love stuff like this. I write a diary, I reflect on things, I like playing the “three things that were good about today” game; this is just an extension of that. I’ve already lost track of how many days I’ve been doing this (I think I’m on day 6… 7?) but I am really enjoying it and I’m already seeing patterns. It’s come as no surprise that food makes me happy, as do my close friends and family and books. This could be quite a revealing exercise, not only about what makes me happy but the way I think about happiness. January can be a bit mournful and blue so finding good things about each day is quite helpful and puts you in a positive mindset.

Chocolate and candy cane covered pretzel, given to me by a colleague I didn't know on a Very Bad Day at work.

But it’s not always easy. I’ve found myself feeling too embarrassed to take pictures sometimes, or thinking that it would make a really uninteresting picture or not really capture why it made me happy. I scrabbled around on one day to find something to take a picture of that related, vaguely, to the day I’d had in order to make the midnight deadline and I wished I’d been brave and taken the photo I wanted to during the day.

The website seems to suggest that at the end of the 100 days you can receive a little 100 page book with your 100 happy days but I’m not sure how that works yet or what it costs. It’s a lovely idea though.

Book! Oh how I love books. This was my unread stack a couple of days ago (excluding hardbacks which are elsewhere). I've since shortened it by one.

I encourage you to sign up to this or carry out your own project, whether it be finding something that makes you happy each day or maybe writing down 5 things you’re grateful for at the end of each week. If you’re happy to share I’d love to hear about it.

Achy Breaky Legs

I was reporting a particularly hard run to a friend the other night and mentioned my achy legs, to which they responded "achy breaky legs?" and I thought "ooo I could write that version"... so I did just for a bit of fun... and this is how it turned out.

This goes out to all you runners who always find just one more race.