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...

Truth Out Vintage clothing was a way of expressing who I wanted to be a few years a go, but it has really helped shape the woman I am today.  I've never really been one for convention... Although possibly not always through choice. Being 5' 11, I stand out a bit. When you are an insecure teenager and you're taller than all the boys ¬ it's a big deal. Especially in a world where we are led to believe small equals cute. Tiny dog, cute. Tiny girl and tall guy, cute couple. Tall girl and marginally shorter guy, double takes in the street. [Short tangent - Don't get me started on the clothes. High street shops jut don't cater for tall women. Short women, yes. Larger women, yes. Anyone over 5' 8, forget it. But here's where vintage has the advantage. Long hemlines were fashionable 50 years ago, much to my jubilation!] It's taken me a long time to feel cute in my own skin and I guess that is something that comes with age and experience, but this is def...

This month's eBay antics and charity shop trawling. I started this blog with the intention of writing about both running and all things vintage, but as my fiancé (it’s still weird calling him that…) pointed out at the weekend, I’ve done very little running in the last few weeks. Things have been crazy and I’ve been kind of lazy.  Oh, hey there :) I’ve spent a lot of time watching YouTube;  in particular Rachel Maksy .  I came across her channel, The Pinup Companion while searching for vintage inspiration and now I am hooked! I think I may have watched ALL of her videos. She has such an eclectic and engaging mix of videos on making vintage accessible and how to thrift and charity shop your way to a vintage inspired wardrobe among other things.  This post is really about how I have implemented some of this and how the purchases I have made recently fit into my collection.  I’ve bought things from eBay, charity shops, Primark and a charity shop speci...

I'm going to take a slight detour away from vintage and running kind of this week and share with you the most exciting news because its all I can think about right now. But we can work some running into the story and possibly even some vintage inspired bling...So I know I am relatively new to this whole thing, but for any of you out there who actually know me or my partner, will have seen our social media explode with well wishers over the weekend. All because he asked me a simple little question. My hand has never looked so elegant But let's rewind for a wee minute. We met 10 months ago to the day... (I'm writing this on Tuesday and this will go up on Wednesday). On Tinder of all places, but what a whirlwind it has been since then. I moved away for work a couple of months after we met, but we have muddle through the distance, going from strength to strength. And I have done so many things in that time I never thought possible, all because of him. Well because of...