Skip to main content

Half Marathon Motives (or am I just crazy?) : how to kick start your fitness

  'Rachel and Emily' taken by Rais Hasan 

            

 

It seems pretty obvious, but when it comes to fitness, setting goals is a great motivation. I’m generally a little bit different from most of the fitness industry with my attitude, I’m never really aiming to lose weight, be able to lift heavier in a certain amount of time, and I never make myself train a certain number of times a week. This is because in general, I like to train to feel healthy and happy. Yet, I completely get why setting goals is important and a fantastic way to be active. It's also very very good when you've lost motivation to train. At Leeds Girls Can we have the attitude of being active for yourself, not to please or impress others, but to push yourself and widen your comfort zone that little bit more. This often does involve a challenge!

Earlier this year I went along to the Week 1 Kirkstall Couch to 5k session. This means that the ladies at this session were brand new to running. After completing their many weeks of training together, I hear that they are now working towards 10k. This really inspired me, they have pushed themselves and beat their own personal challenges. I thought that it was only fitting that I do the same, as in October I will be leaving the UK to go off travelling. This means that my Leeds Girls Can ambassador role will be paused for the time being. I decided that I wanted to do something to show that #leedsgirlscan before I left. So, I, along with Ant, are going to run the Great Scottish Half Marathon in Glasgow on 30th September.

Many people have said to me, Emily, you’ll be able to do that easily because you do lots of sports anyway. But I find running to be a whole different thing, it’s not easy at all! So many little things can affect your running performance, nutrition, sleep, rest. Then you have the actual act of running, I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with it. Sometimes it makes me feel like I'm going to keel over and have to order a taxi because I can't see how I will get home and sometimes it makes me think I'm some sort of invincible super human. We are now at the start of September so I really need to up my running game. We are aiming for a sub-two hour half marathon. (Eek!)

If you’re going to set yourself a challenge, what better way is there to keep yourself motivated than to fundraise for charity? I have been volunteering for Brain Tumour Research and Support across Yorkshire (BTRS) since beginning my second year of university when they opened their first Coffee Charity Shop, No. 31, Otley Road, Headingley in 2016. After two years of volunteering, I joined the staff team for the summer as a fundraising assistant. BTRS does amazing work within the community of Leeds and Yorkshire, supporting those whose lives have been turned upside down by a brain tumour. BTRS also funds research which takes place at the University of Leeds. They recently made a break through, discovering how to kill gioblastoma cells. This is a real game changer in the brain tumour world.

Being part of such an amazing charity has made my time at Leeds so much more enjoyable and I would highly recommend to all students at any university to get involved in some sort of community project or organisation. I wanted to show my appreciation to BTRS by fundraising for them as I leave Leeds for the time being. If you can make any small contribution towards my fundraising efforts I would be so grateful, or if not, just to pass on the word about BTRS and what they do. 

So far the training is going fairly well, I have been on a few long runs and my pace is going up quite quickly! I just need to make sure I’m eating the right fuel and getting out there and running when I need to. Let me know if you are training for any challenges! No matter what challenge you set yourself whether that be a 5k run or an ultra-marathon, as long as it is a challenge to you personally, I can assure you it will give you a kick-up the behind and motivate you to get outside and get active. I'll give you an update on my training progress in a few weeks!

Here is my Just Giving link if you would like to support me, thank you so much!

Em x

Facebook: Emily Ankers - Leeds Girls Can Ambassador
Instagram: @active.em.blog
Twitter: @active_em_blog 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Active Em on tour: Koh Lanta, Thailand

Time of year visited: Mid October Favourite place visited: Klong Khong Beach Favourite food: Vegetarian Med Brunch at Kunda Restaurant Favourite activity: Snorkelling (apart from when I thought I might die) Most random thing that happened: The host at our hostel rubbing talcum powder on our hands to make us better at pool (whilst he was wearing a towel) There’s a strong chance that you might get this blog post quite soon after the Krabi post because this weekend we are at the Kuala Lumpur Major Dota 2 Competition (video game). Ant has dragged me a long and as much as I try and watch the games I just can’t get into it so I’ll just sit here and write while he watches magical heroes fight... So! We travelled to the Thai island of Koh Lanta by mini bus from Ao Nang. Our hotel offered better prices than the numerous tourist offices in the town. It took about three hours and was a really easy way to get there. We stayed at a hostel/ guesthouse type place called ‘Peace Lanta M...
Post a Comment
Read more

Active Em on tour : Bangkok

Hi! So here am I, writing this blog post on my tablet in Ho Chi Minh City airport, waiting to board a flight to Da Nang. It seems like I will be writing the blog posts about countries a little while after I have left them. Mostly because I don’t know what I really think of a place until I’ve left it and most of the time I’m too busy trying to get my head around where I am to be able to write about it! We arrived in Bangkok on 10th October, after making our way down to Heathrow, onto the 12 hour flight, after figuring out the airport link train and to our hostel via a dodgy, definitely overpriced taxi. My initial thoughts on Bangkok; humid, chaotic, colourful and smelly. We stayed in the old quater of the city, which is the most popular location for budget hotels and hostels. We were too exhausted to be interesting on our first night in the city but we did make it out for some Thai street food. We found that in every case in Thailand, the cheaper the food, the more tasty it was. On our ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Leeds Sports Awards 2018

With Leeds Rhinos ladies Charlotte Booth and Lois Forsell Hannah Cockcroft MBE Sam Smith Izzy Palmer  The Leeds Girls Can Ambassadors were very lucky and grateful to be invited to the Leeds Sports Awards 2018. It was a rare occasion in more than one way, we swapped our trainers for heels, the only problem was that we hardly recognised each other in all our finery away from a muddy park or sweaty spin studio. Held at the First Direct Arena, this was a highly prestigious event, just to give you a sense of the scale of the awards, it was sponsored by Leeds Bid, Banana Kick, The University of Leeds, ImageCo, Blacks Solicitors, First Direct Bank, Leeds Bradford Airport, Sport Leeds, Yorkshire Sport Foundation, Resource, SWPix, Leeds Sports Federation, Leeds City Council and the Yorkshire Evening Post. Quite a mouthful. It was a wonderful evening celebrating the achievements of all sorts of people involved in sports in Leeds, with young, senior and special contributions awards, it was a...
Post a Comment
Read more