Bootcamp in Business

I have just completed my Personal Training qualification where I gained distinction - I'm delighted!  Woo hoo!  With this, I am in the process of starting a part-time Personal Training business complementing my little sister Mairi who is undergoing her qualification at the moment and plans to do the same.  It is such a rewarding job as I love to encourage people into running or fitness.  I believe exercise doesn't only change the way someone looks, it reduces the chance of developing major illnesses, improves your mood and relieves stress. 

Mairi and I taking a combat class behind the Great Wall of China - we'll do this routine at our Bootcamp!

We are also hoping to arrange bootcamps throughout the year, maybe once a month with longer sessions in the summer to encourage and support people to get fit (and have fun!)  Starting this Saturday, 24th January, Mairi and I are hosting a Kickstart Bootcamp for anyone (all abilities) who is keen to improve their fitness and have fun!  We will be offering taster sessions in:

Combat:  my martial arts inspired aerobics class (jab, cross, uppercuts and kicks!)

HIIT:  High intensity interval training (lots of burpees, press ups and other lovely things)

Piloxing:  Pilates, boxing and dance set to some upbeat party tunes

Strength:  Conditioning work for your core, legs and arms

Stretching:  Cooling down and working on flexibility

Since advertising on facebook we have had lots of interest so we are now putting on 2 sessions, 1 at 11am and 1 at 2pm.  They should last approximately 2 hours and are taking place in the Free Church on George Street, Campbeltown.  If you are free and fancy giving it a shot - come along!  We are limited to 30 per session so please arrive early - and bring a bottle of water and a towel.  Introductory price is just £5 per session.

We are super excited about it - we hope you are too.  ANYONE can do it - it's never too late to give exercise a go.  It will be worth it :-)

Weather Warning

It's been a week of crazy weather - 75mph winds, hail, thunder storms, downpours and now snow!  It's caused havoc with travelling around the country.  Even our January MOKRUN planning meeting didn't escape the disruption, with some of the committee not making it or having to abandon cars at the bottom of our hill, having to walk up in the snow!   

Despite the weather warnings, we had a great week and tried not to let it hamper training, ploughing on with club sessions and surprisingly had a high attendance!  We chose sheltered places in the wind, utilising the wind at our backs and tried to avoid the slippy pavements.  This did mean we didn't get to do the sessions or routes on our plans but we got out and that's the main thing :-)  I didn't get out on the bike at all but I'm hoping spin will keep up my 'bike legs'.  Only 19 weeks or so to go until Arranman?!  Argh!  

Highlights of the week:

Big fla meets Wee laila for the first time on Monday (2 days old) - a natural ;-)

Cold weather = hot chocolate time

Frosty the snowman on the decking - fun

My cuddles with baby Laila getting me broody

The happy parents :-)

1st Selfie!!!

Spicy tomato, pepper & bean soup

Homemade chicken curry - yum

Lovely walk along westport with Maz, Jen and Alix (and Mia and Barney!)

 

Training log for the week - 55 miles running, 3 spin sessions and 3 swims. Along with 1 fbx, 1 kettlebells, 1 combat and 2 core workouts.  Shame the nutrition has let me down a little.... mum's birthday cake and a discovery of a box of celebrations didn't last long!

New Starts

Along with the most of the nation, I ate and drank my way through the festive season.  OK, I kept up my training as best as I could but even that couldn't combat the over indulgence.  And do you know what?  I enjoyed every single minute of it!  It was just brilliant to have some time (at home) to relax and catch up with my friends and family, eating my way through a mountain of chocolate.  I took time to reflect on 2014, a year that was packed to the brim with amazing experiences and ordered some photos - it's been a while since I've had some in hard copy not just on the computer!

Some highlights of 2014 - charity trekking in China, PB in VLM with friends, combat/piloxing charity masterclasses, publishing my 1st novel, Prague, Clyde visits MOKRUN, Barcelona, best friends wedding, 5 ferry cycle and helped organise the 1st MOKTRI and MACC Challenge to name but a few things!

So again, with most of the nation, I start to make plans and resolutions for the new year ahead, a new start! Actually hoping for a much quieter year and just have a few targets.... (so far!)

•  Personal Training and Bootcamps  - I aim to finish my Personal Trainer level 3 qualification (and my Scottish Athletics Coaching certification) as I want to continue to promote a healthy lifestyle, motivate and help people achieve their fitness goals - starting with a mini bootcamp on 24th January with my sister Mairi, bring it on!
• Arranman - half Iron-man (1900m open water swim, 56 mile cycle and half marathon)  Fiona Irwin and I have already entered and started our training... I'll blog occasionally on this and you can follow my training on www.strava.com
• Budapest Marathon - not until October so will think about this later.....

• Better nutrition, particularly less sugar and alcohol (cutting out completely is just never going to happen!)
• holidays, friends and family time - 2015 looks to be filled with some exciting things, best friends weddings and new babies to arrive!  I also love to travel so I hope to go to some lovely places but also spend time with some lovely people :-)  
  

Had some fun over xmas taking some selfies, even a hungover 1 at Westport  beach before the annual dip in the sea!!

A lot of people have an aim to complete the Mull of Kintyre Half Marathon or 10k this year.... I launched entries for MOKRUN on 2nd January and it filled all 1000 places within 6 hours, wow!!  The committee are totally overwhelmed by the demand of these so here's to making our 10th year the best yet.   The race also made it into the top rated race again in Runner's World magazine.

Running training continues, hoping to help Joc with her Boston Marathon training.  This pic was taken after 14.5 miles of hilly running on Ballochgair - loved it!

Whatever your goals or targets are for 2015 - happy new year and happy training everyone!

MACC Challenge Success!

The MACC Challenge was absolutely awesome!  What a great success in a busy, activity packed weekend in Campbeltown (fireworks, lights, ice skating and xmas markets!)  I didn't think I would get to take part, having to organisel but I would've been devastated not to participate as the atmosphere in the morning was just so exciting, so after setting off the last wave of military-gear-clad challengers I set off round the course - and it was fantastic!

Dougie making it extra slippy and slidey

Seumus, Tommy and Ralphy on the up and unders

Stuart and Tommy 'enjoying' the mud

Navigating the 'not so river rapids'

Margaret and Alex jumping the reel to reels

Kareen and Ailsa climbing out the water

River rapids

50 sit ups!

Jump the bales

25 burpees anyone?!

NJ showing us all how to do a real star jump

Dougie is now on the 'naughty list'.....

"Dougie, give me a shower please?!"

I did it!

Check out race report from my wee sis at http://www.campbeltownrunningclub.com/news-race-reports and fab review on http://forargyll.com/2014/12/mud-guts-the-brave-kind-and-community-spirit-at-the-first-macc-challenge/

I'm not going to lie, I'm glad it is over in a way as it was time consuming and stressful at times but it was completely worth it!  And we hope to donate over £1,000 to the Kidney Dialysis Unit in Campbeltown Hospital.  Well done all who took part or helped, many many many thanks.

Photos courtesy of Hazel Scally.

Making a Right Boob of it

Last Saturday I took part in the Bella 10k, a flat, 2 loop course round Bellahouston Park in Glasgow and conditions were perfect.  I had taken part in this winter race a few times before and always didn't enjoy it, I don't know particularly why, but I just found it tough! I was cajoled into doing it again....

Katie (my lovely pacer) and Heather post-race and CRC prizegiving cocktails

I had tried to keep up with Katie at the Tin Farm race the week before and wasn't too far behind so she offered to pace me to aim for that 46 minute 10k.  The race was packed with 'serious' runners, club vests all around, and despite Katie having 7 min 33 secs programmed into her virtual partner on Garmin we still set of like hares at the beginning, our first mile just over 7 minutes.  That obviously soon caught up on me and I settled into my pace, my aim to keep with Katie for as long as I could.  

Usually a saviour.  Not on Saturday.

2 miles in, disaster strikes.  My head doesn't go down.  My right boob does!  PING!  Off pops my strap of my now not-so-trusted sports bra.  "You'll never believe what's just happened" I exclaim to Katie.  She thinks that I've needed a pee too much.  Not this time, worse.  "What should I do?"  I pant in panic.  Katie checked the Garmin and we were again, still ahead of pace - do we stop and sort it?  No, I decided to persevere.  Running round the rest of the route hoping my right boob wasn't flapping about all over the place.  I hope no-one was taking photos!!

So it might have not been the most fortunate scenarios I'd hoped for in a race and I didn't manage to keep up with Katie all the way BUT I did manage a Personal Best of 46.19 which I was ecstatic about!  The other CRC members also got some cracking times and PBs including my husband who came 15th overall with a time of 35 mins!!  Thanks to Katie but no thanks to Shock Absorber!

Boys aren't impressed with my poses at pre prizegiving cocktails...

At least it gave us a laugh as we ate our cakes back at the bowling club and at the CRC prizegiving later that night :-)

Surprizes

I LOVE running, fitness and challenges.  You may have gathered that!  But I'm definitely not the fastest or the best.  I work very hard at it and put my all into training, but I'm not a naturally gifted athlete so it's very rare that I get a prize.  Therefore, I was super surprised, a tad embarrassed but delighted all the same to receive 2 prizes at the weekend!

Cathy Dobbie - Coach of the Year

Along with many deserving athletes and sports people, I was nominated for a prize at the South Kintyre Sports Council Awards.  And shockingly I won Sports Person of the Year!!  Obviously not because of my accolades of winning races (I wish!) but my determination to training and personal achievements such as PBs in marathon, half marathon and 10k this year and my efforts of promoting the sport, coaching and organisation of events within the community.  It was a lovely surprise and it ended up being a great night out - good food and brilliant company.

Table banter - Eilidh wins £20 on heads/tails.  Wine time?

The next day was the annual Tin Farm 5 race - a muddy, hilly multi-terrain race at Ormsary Estate.  CRC had a bus of runners up to the race and our runners dominated the podiums once again which was fantastic - Kenny Campbell, of course, flying to victory and closely followed by my husband Stuart in 3rd as well as a host of many other prizewinners from 'the toon'.  I loved the day, it was windy but I dug deep behind Katie to try to keep up.  I was extremely happy with my course PB and even more shocked to discover I was 3rd senior lady and got a lovely glass trophy :-)  The organisers put on an excellent spread of soup, sandwiches and delicious cakes which we all devoured.  The only thing to do afterwards was to celebrate with some ciders and an indian meal with the club - great day out, looking forward to next year already!

Marjorie and Suzy joint winners of the day

Kenny, Jennifer & Stu pick up 1st team

Photo is fuzzy but evidence that I did get a prize!

Soup time!

Beer time

Tea time

I can't compete with that shirt time!

Cake time

Let's get on the bus and go to the Burnside time!

Trick or Treat Engagement?

Saturday night family banter ;-)

Another week back after our Great Wall Charity Challenge and I still can't stop thinking about the amazing experience.  More so, it has helped me reflect and think about what I want in life.  I'm still challenging myself to my love for running, swimming, cycling etc (whilst contemplating on another big challenge of running the himalayas and/or an Ironman....) BUT I'm hoping to cut back on some of the extra duties and tasks I get caught up in over the year(s).  Although I spent the full weekend at a Scottish Athletics coaching course, I also made time for going out for celebratory post-challenge cocktails and dinner at the Ugadale with my close family.  It was just lovely - time to eat good food, drink good wine and have good banter.   I am looking forward to doing more of this in the future!

On another note, on reflection....

One of my best buddies Johnny proposed to his long term girlfriend Eilidh after one of my biggest challenges of 2014 - at the finish line of the London marathon.  Fantastic!

One of our new trekking friends Steven proposed to his long term girlfriend Nicola at the end of our Great Wall of China challenge.  Amazing!

Who is going to be the lucky 3rd set and propose after my next challenge?  I'm doing Tin Farm 5 this Sunday anyone?!  ;-)

Family selfie