Posts Tagged ‘running’

My Favourite East London Running Route

Thursday, August 2nd, 2012

Running comes with all sorts of challenges (mainly keeping your lungs inside your body) and the environment in which you run can make all the difference. I’m not one for running of the fell, mountain or trail variety. I’m very much a big city chick. I love London with all my heart and pounding its pavements on my training runs just confirms to me each time how much. My life and work are based mainly around East London, so I thought I’d share a route I run regularly and enjoy.

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Posted in life | 7 Comments »

Bangs in the Press!

Tuesday, July 24th, 2012

It continues to amaze me that my running journey inspires others. I’ve recently appeared in a few magazines talking about running. If it goes even a little way towards getting people to think about being more active, then hey, I guess my life won’t have been a complete waste of time.

More info on the mags and articles after the jump.

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Posted in fashion | 3 Comments »

Dear Running

Thursday, July 12th, 2012

Photo by Simon Wisbey

This weekend marks two years since our love affair first began. Little did I know where you’d take me. What a journey we’ve been on.

The very first time I tried you, I hated you. Seriously. With a deep, burning passion. I wondered why so many sung your praises. You made my lungs burn, my heart pound and every part of my body ache. You wouldn’t let me master you for more than a couple of minutes without me having to stop and go back to my old friend, walking. But I see now, I see what you were trying to do. You were trying to break me. Without me even realising, you were teaching me lessons. Oh Running, you and your Jedi mind tricks. You got me. Because rather than say ‘screw you!’ which is what I wanted to say, somewhere inside me, I had a deep urge to prove to myself that I could get my head around you, that I could one day be good at you. And so, we began.

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Run Hard, Party Harder

Monday, July 9th, 2012

So you may think that the life of a runner is pretty boring. All 6am runs and a strict diet. Not so! No siree! As you know, I run with the mighty Run Dem Crew and our runner life is anything but boring, amigos. This past weekend, we almost outdid ourselves in awesomeness. It was the British 10K on Sunday and we had various Nike running crews from all over the world (Amsterdam, New York, Mexico, LA, Paris, Russia, Tokyo, Beijing to name a few) fly in to run it and celebrate with us. This is the second time we’ve gathered the crews (the first time being for the Berlin half marathon back in April) and we call these gatherings ‘Bridge the Gap’. Our aim is to share our lives through running and creativity and make connections with others around the world who share our passions.

This weekend was really one for the books. On Friday night, the first event coordinated by Run Dem Crew leader Charlie Dark was drag racing in the Leake Street tunnel. Maybe you had to be there to really get how awesome this was, but I took as many pictures as I could to hopefully give you an idea of how much fun we have, how much we bond as a crew and how it doesn’t matter where you’re from, everyone understands the language of RUN!

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Blurt It Out

Monday, June 11th, 2012

I’ve said many times before how running has brought some amazing people into my life. One of those people is Jane Hardy. Jane (pictured second from right) was on my second Team Bangs on the Run team and was an absolute beacon of friendship, strength and support throughout.

Jane was very open and honest about her struggles with depression and I couldn’t be happier to see her channel her own experience into wanting to help others. To do so, she has set up a charity, Blurt, to help fellow depression sufferers get the help they need. The philosophy is to ‘Blurt it Out‘ – tell someone about how you’re feeling. Blurt hopes this will go a way towards stamping out the stigma of mental illness, but will also help resolve problems through support, friendship and mentoring.

The charity has been going for almost a year and I’ve seen Jayne pour her heart and soul into it. Her passion for helping people is infectious and Blurt has helped over 500 people so far, with that figure rising daily.

In order for the charity to keep doing the amazing work they do, it obviously takes money. So, if you fancy raising some moolah and doing a bit of running, Blurt has 30 places in the Oxford Half Marathon in October. If you’d like a challenge and to raise money for Blurt, get in touch with them via their website or Twitter (@BlurtAlerts).

If you or anyone you know is going through a hard time, don’t forget to Blurt It Out.

For more information, go to www.blurtitout.org

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Posted in life | 1 Comment »

Fast Interviews with Fast Girls (and a guy)

Monday, June 11th, 2012

As I’m a runner, you’ve probably guessed that I’m a little excited about the new movie Fast Girls, about a women’s 4 x 100m relay team (head on over to my other site Spikes and Heels to read a full review). Last week I had a chance to meet some of the cast for a chinwag. We talked about training, the rarity of having four female leads and what their event would be if they were competing in the Olympics for real. Check out what they had to say below.

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The Legacy of Team Bangs on the Run

Monday, April 30th, 2012

When I started running, it was a solitary experience. Running at 5:30am, under the cover of darkness, hoping no one would see me having to take a walk break and nurse a stitch. For my first half marathon in October 2010, Charlie Dark came to my aid and offered to run it with me. Without his support that day, I would most likely still be on the course in floods of tears. That day, I realised the importance of a little encouragement. When I asked if people would like to run my next half marathon in Paris with me, I honestly expected two people to reply. Twenty did. And so, Team Bangs on the Run was born. A happy accident to start with, it has become more than I could ever have imagined.

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Bangs in the Press!

Friday, April 13th, 2012

What a whirlwind period of awesome it’s been in the life and times of Bangs of late. Racing in Berlin, starting Spikes & Heels, just having so many damn awesome people in my life – I wake up every day high fiving life! To add to it all, myself and two of my Team Bangs on the Run girls are featured in the May issue of Zest Magazine. We did the shoot a month or so back and had an absolute blast doing it (which is pretty evident from the finished product methinks).

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Bangs Does Berlin

Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012

This past weekend I went to Berlin. It was my birthday when I flew out on the Friday and what better way to celebrate than to run a half marathon on the Sunday? I’d wanted to go to Berlin for a very long time, so the levels of excitamacation involved in this trip were pretty ridiculously high. Not only was it the culmination of months of hard work for my Team Bangs on the Run girls, but I was out there with about 60 members of the crew I run with, Run Dem Crew, so the weekend was extra special.

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Bangs Does PopHive

Friday, March 16th, 2012

The fabulous Cate Sevilla, founder of the awesome website Bitch Buzz, recently expanded her awesomeness exponentially with the creation of PopHive, an internet TV show all about pop culture. She recently asked if she could interview me and I’m never one to turn down til avec La Sevilla. We had a great ol’ chat about blogging and running and a quick fire round of questions for which I gave some rather embarrassing answers (well, my love of Phil Collins may be embarrassing to you, but I’m fine with it).

It just stands to reason of course that we filmed this on what must have been my worst skin day in a very long time, so apologies that you have to look at my rather distressed looking face, but hopefully you’re too busy being distracted by my mind blowing intelligence that you barely even notice.

You can check out more PopHive here and Cate’s other site Bitch Buzz here – both highly recommended by moi.

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Posted in fashion, video blogs | 5 Comments »