Vintage Girl Running

Life is either a daring adventure of nothing at all.  - Helen Keller, The Open Door. For my 25 th  year on this earth I have challenged myself to do 25 things that I had never done before.  This week I’d like to tell you about: why I wanted to do this; the 25 challenges and where I am now with my 26 th  birthday looming next month. Variety is the Spice of Life I’m a very goal orientated person. I like to have a list to work through and check things off. This is when I am at my most productive. I also live for the thrill of an impending deadline – which explains why I chose to make this week’s post the least formed of the three ideas I had at the beginning of the week… Go figure! At one of my grad scheme events this year we did this personality profiling exercise; we answered a bunch of probing questions, learnt about the psychology behind the profiling and were finally given our personality colour profile. It turns out I am a fiery red-sunshi...

30 miles of the Lancashire and Cumbria’s wildest tracks, 4500 feet of elevation and 8 hours of spectacular views that make up for the effect the grueling terrain has on your body. Man vs. Lakes was way tougher than I anticipated, but  I rose to the challenge... Blood, sweat and tears. Sunset in Morecambe Last week heralded the second event in the Man vs. series and my third ultra distance race; the furthest I’ve ever run (and I use the term loosely) in one go. Man vs. Lakes is my local Rat Race event. Starting just up the coast from Morecambe and finishing in my home county of Cumbria. It’s a truly spectacular landscape and I should have known not to underestimate it. Miles of sand, sea and more sand… Route map missing the first few miles... We did in fact start on land The Morecambe Bay is something I get to appreciate on a daily basis; on my commute into work, from the top of the reactor building and in my regular running routes as it’s a stone’s th...

23 miles across Cornwall's rugged coastline, dipping into the sea, over the top of long abandoned tin mines all the way to the end of the road at Land's End. The Inaugural Event! I've spent the last week recovering from Man vs Coast, hence the lack of post last week. It was a grueling 23 miles (although Paddy's Garmin recorded just shy of of 26 miles) and my thighs were definitely feeling it. But it combined the natural obstacles of the Cornish Coast with some more man made ones.  Sennen Cove Travel & Registration Anyone that has ever travelled to Cornwall will know that there only seems to be one road in and out of that county. We chose to travel down on the Thursday and make a wee holiday out of the trip, it's such a long way to go from Birmingham never mind the North West. The trip down was great; I regaled Paddy with facts about nuclear power stations the further south we got. When we started to see signs for Bridgwater it all got a bi...

I never thought I'd ever be any good at running or even enjoy it. When I was younger, my sister was always the good runner, she had the legs for it... It wasn't until I was at uni and it was exam time, I thought what better way to procrastinate than running? Exam time running slowly turned into park running with my dad, when I was home to every Saturday morning of my own volition. I remember the first time I went on a long run with my dad, and my sister joined us, not to be out done. I'm lucky enough to call the Lake District home and so we were running round one of the smaller, but no less beautiful lake and I was out pacing her. Me, major geek Jennifer, beating my sister the cross country queen. Safe to say I haven't let her forget it!! Father daughter post park run selfie Things got really serious though when I met my partner. I'd wanted to do a mud run, obstacle course for ages. I'd tried to rope in my dad, my friends, my course mates at uni, but to n...