Vintage Girl Running

Welcome back to Vintage Girl Running and another year on Planet Earth! To say it's been a while is a bit of an under statement...  About six months, but who's counting. I've been back at work for about two weeks and I'm find my way back into it after not even two weeks off at Christmas. Christmas, what's that again? We'll have to wait another 11 months to find out. A lot can change in those 11 months and in 2019 I'm going to try and make them changes for the better.  I feel like I floundered a bit in 2018 ; somethings got good, like really good and others less so. Is happiness or enjoyment of life one of those spider web diagrams where you can only have an average value of happiness, but the parameters that make you happy can range wildly in values? Some are top notch and others are less than mediocre. But in the end they average out to a middling, happy-ish value. I moved for work last year and have kind of been using it as an excu...

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...

Hello. Welcome. Bienventue. I've been thinking about starting a blog for a wee while now. A creative outlet in my otherwise very scientific and routine lifestyle. As a kid, I used to love writing in my diary and this gives me that new diary feeling. Although hopefully with less angst and definitely less boy drama. I'm hoping to combine my two favourite things in life: vintage fashion and running! An odd combination, but we'll make it work. Much like my style, we make it work. You tend to raise eyebrows when you turn up for work at a power station dressed like a 50s housewife. Such is the life of this engineer.  I can't get enough yellow at the moment I've recently been seconded away for work and my partner has taken up axe throwing in my absence. Odd, but he keeps winning me T-shirts so I can't complain. But it's off the back of this that I have been inspired by him. When we met, he lived and breathed running and the gym, but since then he has...