London - AnnaTheApple

September 15, 2016December 31, 2019

Olympic Park 5k

While I was in London a Twitter friend and blog reader told me about a cool race series that was scheduled for Thursday evening while I was in London last week. After my disastrous run on Tuesday night I was reluctant to venture out on my own again and the race was 5k which was actually perfect for my training plan.

The race was run by The Race Organiser, who organise a lot of races in and around London. They also provide services to other races to with things such as race management, race timing and photography. A 5k race around the Olympic Park was scheduled for the Thursday at 6.30pm which was perfect timing for me. I finished my course at 5pm, went back to the hotel, got changed and walked to the nearby tube. The tube journey didn’t take long and I was rather chuffed with myself for having figured it out on my own without going wrong(!). However, when I got to Stratford I realised I didn’t know exactly where the Park was.

I ended up walking around in circles for a bit and my lovely accrued buffer time slowly ticked away and I started to panic. Finally though I found the way (I was the wrong side of station I think) and then desperately looked around for fellow runners.

When I go to different parkruns, for example, it’s always handy when you get close when you can see runners heading in the general direction and so I just follow them. There weren’t any runners I could see though and the Olympic Park grounds are actually quite big. Eventually though I asked a security guard and he pointed me in the right direction.

A little race HQ area was set up with a table and marshals handing out the race packs. There were real toilets nearby (opposed to portable loos!) and the race bibs were chipped. I realised it wasn’t a huge event as 16 people shuffled up to the race briefing. I suddenly felt a little nervous as I was expecting a few more people. With so few people I felt a bit exposed…I wasn’t up for a fast run and the guys around me looked rather speedy.

But hey ho, no backing out now! The event director explained the route (three laps outside the Olympic Park, though the first lap included a little out and back to make sure the distance added up as there was a slight diversion on the course due to construction). He mentioned it was clearly sign posted and there were several marshals pointing the way.

I still felt a bit nervous. I mean, I’m not the best at directions (as has been made very clear lately) and if there are only 16 of us I might not have a person straight in front of me to follow if they’ve all dashed off.

But anyway we started and I went way too fast for the first 500m as I desperately didn’t want to get left behind. I think everyone felt similarly and as we got into the first mile we found our more natural paces. Luckily there were a couple of people (including my friend, Dasen) ahead of me who I could follow. I didn’t feel particularly comfortable in my running in terms of my pace and wondered if I could hold onto it for long, seeing a crash in the near future. I reminded myself it was just three miles and to hold on.

I managed to overtake the couple of guys ahead and felt myself getting strong as the race continued and this gave me confidence. The marshals were lovely, smiling and cheering us on and the temperature was a little warm but not too bad. The course was relatively flat with a few gentle inclines and declines and the wind wasn’t strong. So all in all, perfect conditions really and this spurred me on to run faster than I would have done had I been running solo.

I increased my speed at the end, feeling a lot stronger and knowing I didn’t have long to go. I finished in seventh place overall and second female (the joys of a very small race!). My time was 23:22. For not wanting to run fast (for me!) that evening, I was quite pleased at how I got my body moving in the end.

I haven’t done any speed work in months (something I really must improve on) so I can’t expect super fast times but the effort level was there so I’m happy with a good solid workout.

I received a second place prize of some interesting detox drink powder things… (I’m slightly annoyed as I did take a photo of the goodie bag contents but I think I deleted it). The goodie bag was great: Haribo sweets, a health drink, a tester pouch of the detox stuff I won, a cereal bar, a water and a medal.

I spoke to the event director and they were super friendly. I said how much I enjoyed it (well, enjoyed finishing anyway!) and how organised it was for such a small event. I even got a photo of them (which they found hilarious).

It’s not the cheapest race in the world (I think for an affiliated runner it was around £17-18) but I definitely felt like I got my money’s worth as the organisation and location were superb. We were emailed out times later.

I chatted to Dasen afterwards and we got a selfie together, of course 😉 He lives just a tube stop away so it’s very handy for him!

A great race, all in all for a random Thursday night in London! Then it was a quick hop on the tube back to the hotel. No getting lost thankfully!

Do you run many 5ks (excluding parkruns)? I tend to avoid them like the plague ordinarily!

Have you ever done a super small race before?

September 12, 2016

Running lost in London

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been in London on a course. The course was really good knowledge-wise but it was a lot of material to get through in four days so I was at saturation point by the end! But what has also been fantastic is actually spending a longer period of time in London. I’ve never stayed longer than a night so this was quite exciting.

As I’m still marathon training I needed to continue my running schedule. How fantastic, I thought, running London! You see all those “instarunners” run-commuting to and from work looking very cool. London to me in general is very cosmopolitan and exciting. So on Tuesday after my course had finished I walked the ten minutes back to my hotel, kitting myself out in my gear and headed out.

I’d received some great route guidance on Twitter so had a vague plan in my mind, basically going across the bridges and doing a 2.5 mile out and back. Simple. Easy peasy. (I’m sure you can see where this is going).

Just to quickly add a precursor as a reminder before I go on: I’m a country girl, I’m not used to big cities, I don’t go to London that often and, when I do, briefly (and usually under the strict supervision of someone more adult than me) and I’m Anna, the idiot.

My hotel was located in the Whitechapel area near Tower Bridge so I headed there first to cross the Thames. My first annoyance was just as I started going I had to stop for traffic several times before actually making it onto the bridge. This was annoying but I didn’t want to die sooo I couldn’t make any leaps of faith like I can in Hedge End (dodging one car a mile down the road).

Then as I got onto the bridge I was suddenly faced with a sea of people. Tourists and commuters were everywhere and suddenly I was dip-diving through any tiny gaps I could see. I knocked shoulders with several people and my inner-Britishness of being strictly polite at all times cringed in abhorrence. I briefly noticed a 9k race sign and wondered what was going on.

I carried on and eventually got across the bridge and parallel to the water to an equally busy area. It became exhausting having to look ahead to spot spaces and avoid people. I realised I hadn’t listened to any of my podcast. I turned it off so I could concentrate on not colliding with anyone.

I spotted a race HQ-type area and a sea of blue t-shirt wearing runners. I stopped and asked someone what was going on because I was curious. They told me it was a TeachFirst race (10k Run the River apparently). I pitied their cotton t-shirts as it was so humid that evening and carried on.

Now I’d become a pro at dodging people. I saw so many other runners that I assumed were commuting (backpacks on and a steely look in their eye that they’d seen it all before). I tried nodding and smiling but they had a fixed glare ahead. Even regular runners seemed to ignore me. I think I counted one smile and two stiff nods. Blimey.

As I got to around 2.5 miles I realised I should think about heading back. I’d gone across a few bridges and knew all I needed to do was head back and find Tower Bridge again, which was super easy because Tower Bridge is a well-known landmark and looks different to the other bridges (dangerous Anna logic).

I had to move off from the safety of the Thames and head into the “wild”. I got myself a bit confused and realised I needed to stick to the safety of the river to keep myself in check of where I was. I quickly checked the GPS map on my phone. Yep, looked about right, just gotta keep heading along the river.

When in doubt, take a selfie

I kept running and running and I couldn’t see the Tower Bridge anywhere in the horizon which was odd because surely I would by now? I checked my phone again and realised I had moved further from the area I knew my hotel was at. What?! I couldn’t get my phone to show me what direction I was pointing and by now, having run almost six miles and no sign of getting back, I started to panic a bit. I asked someone nearby but they were foreign and didn’t know. So I did what I always do in these sorts of situations. I rung my dad. I’d love to say he was surprised but he knows me too well. After he stopped laughing he asked me what was around me and what I could see. Well, the river and Big Ben in the distance and Lambeth Bridge not far from me.

My dad quickly helped me work out where I needed to go (“go past the London eye”). I now realised I was about four miles from the hotel. Bugger.

I couldn’t follow the river all the way because people had built silly buildings like hospitals right next to it () so I had to veer out again and, my sense of direction being appalling, I got myself mixed up again. I checked my phone and I was running away from the river completely. GARGH!!! I stopped someone and begged them, “please, where’s the river??”.

After getting lost and confused a few more times I ended up on a ridiculously busy area of traffic where cars were going very fast and realised I needed to cross the road. There were no crossing points, limited pavement and no other pedestrians. This was highly stupid I know but I was tired and fed up and legged it across when I could. I then realised there was nowhere for me to go as it wasn’t a pedestrian area. I could see the Thames but I couldn’t get there. Unless I jumped over the wall…which I did. Into a huge stream of blue t-shirt wearing runners. I then had to run against the tide of the race. Much to their and my annoyance – it was not a fun situation for anyone but I just had to do it. The race route wasn’t closed off to the public so technically I was allowed.

The race then looped back round so I was running alongside runners which made me feel a bit of a fraud as the marshals cheered them on. I was very thirsty by this point as it was so warm and hadn’t anticipated being out for this long (now at 8-9 miles) and wondered if there would be a water station I could beg some water from…but thankfully I spotted a Starbucks and the kind barista gave me some tap water.

I then ran past the lovely scenic Tower of London and got trapped in a garden which didn’t seem to allow me out, but then finally found my way back to familiar territory. At 10.6 miles I was finally back.

I was tired, hot and bothered. It was entirely my own fault of course but I was just annoyed.

Back at the hotel, not happy and very sweaty

It was now closing in on 8pm. So much for an early night as I still needed to get dinner.

On the plus side, my splits were fairly consistent and the run itself felt good (albeit very warm and sweaty). I got to see some of the sights and get a few selfies so it wasn’t all bad! It just confirmed my lack of sense of direction and idiocy. Not carrying money on me was probably my biggest mistake as my phone battery got perilously low.

But there we have it, Idiot Anna strikes again!

Have you ever ran in London?

Do you ever run-commute?

How do you plan a route in a new-to-you place?

August 18, 2016September 17, 2020

Secret London #SecretFitness Session

I’m not usually that keen on going to London because it’s such a faff; I hate trains and I’m a country bum. Buuut when I got invited to the Secret London event that involved getting my hair done, Alp products and yoga on a stand up paddle board, well I was convinced!

The location of the event was a mystery until 24 hours beforehand (hence the “secret” part), though I was told it would be around Oxford Street so I could at least plan my parkrun into the equation!

It was actually really easy to get to and was set in the lovely location of Merchant Square.

I was greeted straight away by the very friendly people from Secret London and Collective Two (the organisers of the event) and shown the cool set-up they had.

I got to choose a pair of SuperDry flip flops and sipped on a delicious Alpro Berry and Coconut Smoothie while I waited to get my hair done by the guys from Headmasters.

Charlie (from TheRunnerBeans blog) and Bex (from TwinsInTrainers blog) were already getting their hair done so I went and said hi.

It was a bit like meeting the cool kids from school to be honest as their blogs are a lot more popular and known about than my iddy biddy one. They were lovely, of course.

I can’t tell you how nice it was to have someone do my hair for me. I am the girl who has my hair cut once a year and the most exciting thing I do with it is put it in plaits (braids) or a pony tail because my capability to do anything else is beyond me. We were all having braids done and in cool styles. I literally said to the hair stylist, do as you wish!

In the end it looked fantastic (if I do say so myself!). It’s definitely not a style I’d be able to recreate at home or that I’d normally choose. While we were all chatting and enjoying ourselves there was a camera crew hovering around and a photographer snapping away. It felt very glam but made me a little insecure…There I was, fresh from parkrun with no make up on. Bex and Charlie looked so effortlessly glamorous in comparison, clearly more used to this sort of thing than me!

And then we headed to the water area to begin our stand up paddle board yoga. We were all fairly nervous because there was a genuine risk of falling in. I’d brought spare clothes and a towel but still! The instructor, Jen, from Pure Yoga Zone was lovely though. And she had the most adorable little dog, Clyde, with her too (yes, he went on the SUP with her too!).

We got on board and headed out onto the main bit of the water. It was fairly windy so our SUPs clustered together but this meant we could chatter and giggle together while trying to master the yoga moves.

The yoga moves weren’t tricky at all in themselves. It was fairly ‘entry level’. But on a paddle board it was a different story. Even moving from your knees to your bum was a dodgy episode that required balance and strategic navigation.

And yet as the time went on we all became more and more confident. It required us to think carefully when doing the moves and to use our core to keep us balanced on the board.

It was actually quite a tough session! I’ve done yoga before but sometimes you can ‘sleepwalk’ through it. Despite the tranquil surroundings there was no sleeping through this session!

At the end we got our boards together in a line (no easy feat in the wind I assure you) and posed together like the yoga buffs we’d become.

Then after safely getting back onto dry land we headed for some vital refuelling (I hadn’t eaten breakfast or eaten post parkrun so I was definitely ready for food!).

We were treated to a smoothie bar that was stocked with the toppings you could imagine (OK, relatively healthy toppings you could imagine) and smoothie flavours.

I went for a berry smoothie with just about everything in it from chia seeds, to fruit, to nuts and almond butter. Delicious. Now I’m not usually a smoothie lover but I was very happy to chomp this down.

The three of us then had a little interview to talk about our session and were chuffed to hear that we sounded almost like we’d had media training with the answers we gave and our ease in front of the camera. Dahhhhhling we’re bloggers, don’t you know? This is what we do. (<—Ummm, yeah I’m about the most awkward person in life ever).

It was a fantastic experience and I fully recommend SUP yoga (and now want to go SUP’ing again asap). If you get the chance to go to a Secret London session I’d definitely give it a go. It was a fun experience. And we got lots of cool goodies to take away with us too.

You can buy tickets to these events, it wasn’t purely invite only, so keep your eyes open if this is your thing!

Have you ever been SUP’ing before?

Do you do yoga?

What’s your perfect smoothie creation?

August 15, 2016

A trip to London and Highbury Fields parkrun

Happy Monday! Back at it with another week. This weekend was a bit of a mad one.

I was sent an email invitation midweek to a blogging event in London on Saturday and made the snap decision to go. It sounded really cool and, though London is such a faff to get to and get around, I’m trying to be more of a “yes” person. I also wondered if I could squeeze in a London parkrun before as the event didn’t start until 10am.

I almost gave up on the idea as it seemed all the parkruns were about 40 minutes from the location of the event and just not doable… until I had a look at Highbury Fields parkrun and realised it would take about 15 minutes on the tube.

I’m terrible at anything to do with public transport or being organised in general so I was a bit worried of all the pieces falling into place. I jokingly said to my dad he should come with me to help and he said that him and my mum had been wanting to go to London for ages so they’d be happy to come. The plan was we’d get a very early train (6.40am) and then get the tube to parkrun from Waterloo, do parkrun, then go to Oxford Street where my event was going to be near and they’d go off shopping while I did my thing. Then we’d meet up later for lunch.

We had enough buffer time to get to the parkrun thankfully so that wasn’t too much of a rush. The tube station is very close to the park and we saw the familiar fluorescent jacketed people setting up the finish funnel as we got into the park. We headed over and they explained the course and start to us and pointed me in the direction of the toilet as well.

The course was five and a bit laps around a smallish park and fitness centre (side note: I saw people running on treadmills which blew my mind as it was a beautiful day and there was a lovely park outside!). There was a slight long incline up one side of the parkrun and a gentle decline the other. I’d been previously warned about this by the lovely Helen that though the incline wasn’t steep it did become wearing as the laps went on.

I started off way too fast and the first stretch was going up the incline. My legs felt drained almost immediately. Today was not my day, I thought. My parents (my mum’s first parkrun experience) stood on the side-lines to cheer us on. My dad had brought his GoPro so got some cool photos.

After one lap my only thought was, “I have to do this four more times?”. I really wasn’t in the zone and was finding it quite tough.

I fell into step with a guy running a similar pace to me and that really helped. He was probably running slightly faster than I would have if I’d have run on my own so it was good to stick with him. We overtook people which felt encouraging.

One more lap

My pace master friend was the guy in blue in the above photo. He encouraged me to keep going on the last mile and I gasped, “I’m trying!”. He helped me pick up the pace.

I finished in 22:06 which was quite surprising (though my Garmin has measured it as 2.9 miles so maybe that’s why!). It wasn’t the best parkrun experience (in terms of actual running) and that incline DID feel more and more horrific as the laps went on. I hugged the guy and said thank you to him as honestly I probably would have gone a lot slower otherwise!

Always smiles when you’ve finished!

Then it was a mad dash back to the tube to get to Oxford Street. On the tube I had to baby wipe myself and freshen up as best as I could. I took my trainers off and put my flip flops on and attempted to sort my hair out. I was sat there doing all this next to a seriously elegantly dressed lady and felt like a right mess! But needs must.

I got there just five minutes late and they were fine thankfully. The event was a Secret London event (partnered with Collective Two) and was to involve getting your hair done by Headmasters, then yoga on a stand-up paddle board (!) followed by some smoothies from Alpro. But I’ll talk more about that in another post. Thankfully I was able to properly change and freshen up.

Bathroom selfie for the win

The event lasted around two hours and was super fun. I then caught the tube to meet my parents for lunch at Barbecoa, Jamie Oliver’s London steak house. I adore Jamie Oliver so was really excited about this!

I was still in my yoga gear so felt a little dressed down but my hair looked cool soo…

The restaurant was fantastic. It had beautiful views of St. Paul’s Cathedral and the service was incredible. Out waitress was so friendly and so helpful and made us feel very welcome and relaxed.

Top left picture is the view from the window

For starter I had chicken wings (I know, I know, so boring and predictable). They were very tasty. Though there were ribs on the menu I decided to try something different for once. I chose the pit beef which, if I’m honest, I didn’t really know what it’d be!

It came with half a romaine lettuce, bacon crumbs and bacon jam. I also ordered a side of charred broccoli with almonds and some parmesan-y sauce.

The meal was incredible. Literally every mouthful I was like, “this is so tasty”. It was very rich though and by the time I’d finished I was really full. I’d fully intended to have a pudding but I just didn’t fancy it. Who even am I, right?? I didn’t want to spoil the meal by feeling overly full so I decided to give it a miss (and hopefully find something sweet a bit later).

Then we headed to Covent Garden for a bit more shopping. Can we just talk about those stairs though at the Covent Garden tube station?! I saw a big queue at the lifts and then saw the sign for the stairs and thought that’d be quicker. I didn’t actually see the warning that there were 192 stairs (!!!). It just kept going and going and I thought I was in some weird tube station nightmare. Everyone around me was puffing and panting (as I was) and I was like “will this ever end!?”. There were two guys behind me and I kept thinking, don’t let them overtake you!

As I got to the top the security guard was congratulating everyone saying we were champions which was amusing. I assumed my parents had taken the lift. I waited for ages, seeing the people who had taken the lift all fresh faced and happy and the people who had taken the stairs on the brink of collapse.

Finally I saw my parents and they fell into the latter category. They looked like they were about to die. My mum, bless her, couldn’t even talk. I couldn’t stop laughing (I know, I’m very mean). I mean I was very proud of them of course but I couldn’t believe it – I’d found the stairs tough and I’m fairly fit!

I only had one shop I wanted to go into… Lululemon. Walking round that shop is DANGEROUS. Honestly I could have bought everything. I do find the whole Lululemon experience a bit odd though as all the staff are very American. NOTHING against them but American retail sales people are a lot different to British. They’re very chatty whereas Brits kind of leave you alone and don’t engage much in random conversation. But anyway, they were very helpful and in the end I bought a tank top, a gorgeous pair of leggings and a long-sleeved top. My credit card needed resuscitating thought afterwards!

Me in my leggings and top at the beach walking the dogs when we got back to my parent’s

Then I topped off my happiness quota by getting a giant tub of fro-yo with strawberries, raspberries and brownie pieces.

It was delicious and perfect to finish the day with!

It was such a good day but it was a very tiring day. I was exhausted when I got to bed that evening and fully dreading my 17 miler planned for the next day…

What do you like to do in London?

What’s been your favourite blogging event if you’ve done one?

Have you done any parkruns in London? I’d have loved to have done Bushy parkrun but it was just too far away to have been feasible.

August 13, 2015September 18, 2020

One Year to Go – Fitness First #EverydayWinners

A couple of weeks ago I was invited to an event in London to celebrate that August 4th was one year until the start of the 2016 Rio Olympics. The event last week was hosted by Fitness First, the official fitness partner of Team GB.

The event was at a Fitness First gym in Bishopsgate in London with workshops run by Team GB coaches.

This sounded amazing and I was keen to get involved. The workshops including Strength and Conditioning, Nutrition, and Psychology. And there would be Olympians just casually strolling about as well, such as Jason Kenny and Keri-Anne Payne.

I was also pleased that someone else I knew had been invited too, Mary (the ultra running superwoman – she’s just smashed a 70 mile trail race. Yep.). Going to London for me is always a bit of a faff so it was nice knowing Mary was going too.

Anyway the morning started quite badly when, as per standard procedure in my life, I only gave myself just enough time to get to the station within minutes of the train arriving. No contingency time for a) paying for parking and b) getting my ticket from the machine. I didn’t think I had any change for the parking machine so I automatically rang the number on the side of the machine to pay that way (I’ve done this before, it’s very handy). Like the genius I am not, I decided it would be quicker to multi-task and do the train ticket at the same time. This involved me managing somehow to crash the ticket machine and mess up my parking on the phone. So I had to go into the station and get my ticket that way. Then run like a mad person to get onto the train, while still trying to sort my parking out.

In the end it took about five phone calls (let’s not forget how intermittent signal is on the train – another genius Anna move) and two car parking payments as I got the registration number of my own car wrong the first time. I was sweating with nerves and stress by the time I finally sat down on the train. As I put my payment card away I noticed I did indeed have the three sodding pounds to pay for the parking. GARGHH.

Thankfully I got to London and successfully met Mary at Liverpool Street station. There ensued a rather comical amount of time for us attempting to find the gym. We walked up and down one road about four times trying to follow Mary’s printed map (very organised, you can tell she’s a teacher) and Google Maps on my phone. We asked random passerby’s as we started to get desperate and each person told us a completely different direction. Finally we found where we were meant to go. Only about a five minute walk from the station we started at. *Sighs* Mary and me are clearly not natural Londoners!

When we arrived we met up with other fellow bloggers, Helen, Emma and Christine, and a few others I didn’t know.

Our first workshop was run by Dr. Duncan French, a leading strength and conditioning expert with 11 year’s experience as a coach. He’s looked after Olympic, World Championship and Commonwealth Games medal holding athletes and a current world record holder.

This session involved Duncan going through several fairly complicated strength moves using a light bar. It wasn’t about the weight of the bar nor our personal strength. It was about our coordination and form.

We started with a fairly simple move of a squat, which then progressed further and further into a jump, snatch, squat routine which really did involve my head more than my body as you had to get the order of it all correct as well as the form perfect.

It was like I was back at school because I found myself glowing with pride when Duncan complimented my “hip mobility”. Though he did point out an improvement I could make and then made me repeat it with everyone watching. Oh the pressure… 😉

The next session was led by James Collins, a leading expert sports and exercise nutritionist, who was heavily involved in advising Team GB Olympic teams and individuals in the run up to the London 2012 Olympic Games, and now towards Rio 2016.

This was probably the weakest of the workshops. Understandably nutrition is such a vast area and the amount of time he was given to go talk to us was short and I think he tried to cover too many areas as it was a bit vague and textbook.

It was interesting though. He talked about how different athletes need different and specific diets because they have very different needs. And that this also changed throughout the year as their individual training peaks and declines depending on what they have going on. He also mentioned how he helps coach athletes with regards to living in the Olympic Village because the sheer amount of food available to them is vast. They need strategies to ‘cope’ and to make the sensible options for their bodies in order to perform at their best. This is especially true for those athletes that need to carefully monitor their weight, such as judo players and boxers.

The third workshop was led by Sarah Cecil, a technical lead sport psychologist at the English Institute of Sport. She has over 10 years of experience working with a vast variety of different athletes and worked with Team GB athletes across both the Olympic and Paralympic Programmes in London 2012.

Her session was by far the most interesting and enlightening. She talked about how she helps athletes cope with the pressures of the ‘big day’ and facing crowds of thousands of spectators. She went through a psychological theory (which I believe is the Triune Brain Theory though she never said – but I’ve since Googled) that our brains are broken into three areas: one being very primal focused purely on survival, the second area more emotional and to do with innate motivations, and the third is where reason, knowledge and rationalisation comes into play.

I’ll probably do a poor job of explaining it here, apologies, but the theory is that if we we overload our more rational side, then the less rational and more emotional side with take over and see a situation in terms of it being a threat rather than an opportunity. This can easily be extrapolated to Olympians just about to compete. They over-think the situation and then panic. She works with them to make sure that they see the situation in terms of an opportunity, and that nothing has changed from when they were training. Basically it’s a choice you can make to take a sep back, breathe, and then take charge of your emotions and perform better.

It’s funny because when preparing for smaller events she says she always tells her athletes she hopes everything will go wrong, so then they can deal with it and then for the more important events they know they can cope.

I found this so interesting! And Sarah was very personable, friendly and knowledgeable. All three workshops were interesting, but they could have been longer to be honest, but I think this was more the style of the event.

The Fitness First gym was fantastic and we were allowed to use it after the event. As I wasn’t really in the mood and I had intervals planned for the evening I declined. But there was a cool running strip, loads of amazing looking machines, weights and other cross-fit style equipment. There was also a huge TV screen on the wall demonstrating loads of different exercises (I got distracted by this several times).

After the event, Mary, Helen and I headed to find some lunch. Thankfully Helen is more London-savvy and took us to a great little spot called O-Food, a Nordic sandwich bar.

The menu was really good and I could have had anything to be honest. I went for a smoked mackerel salad with a side of roasted potato wedges with a sour cream dip. Oh it was divine!

They also served water with cucumber slices in it for free which was fantastic too.

It was lovely chatting to Mary and Helen, discussing racing (Helen was a fellow Cakeathonner!), bogging and what we’ve reviewed on our blogs in the past. Perhaps the event wasn’t as long as it could have been (and the goodie bag could have been better!!) but I did enjoy the day, especially the lunch and chatting 😉

How do you find getting to and being in London?

What great little food places have you found in London?

And just for fun, Team GB have created a questionnaire you can fill in to see what sport your most suited to HERE. I’m a footballer apparently!

**Full Disclaimer: I was invited to the event for free but paid for all my own transport and food. All opinions are my own honest ones.**