nike
My love for NTC
So following my post about finding other activities other than just running to enjoy I introduce you to NTC – Nike Training Club .
In the summer of 2013 I joined a run club led by Nike Trainer “Kezia Lopez”. Now sadly a few weeks later the club came to an end but Kezia mentioned that she runs a “NTC – Run To Train” class from the Nike Covent Garden store and that I should come along so off I went to see what it was all about it.
Entering the store I was greeted by Kezia and a whole host of other women getting ready to head out into London. After a couple of warm up drills we gently ran over to the location of choice for that evening, which if I remember rightly was a section of Regent’s Park, and then Kezia led us through 40 minute session of planks, squat jumps, lunges and her favourite – burpees. Once these exercises had been done over and over again in a pyramid sequence we “ran” (I am not sure you could call my slog back running) back. I can actually remember the entire workout, and how flippin’ difficult those squat jumps were but what I can also remember was how much I enjoyed the session and that it was free!
Week in week out I headed to the Covent Garden Store for 18:30 ready to run to a different location in central London and be made to work! I even managed to drag my wonderful friend along with me which meant that my NTC sessions supplied a work out as well as an opportunity to catch up (it also usually involved dinner afterwards too :D).
When I was offered a spot in the Manchester Marathon my NTC sessions became a key part of my weekly training plan. It is very easy to just RUN whilst training for a marathon and that be that but the NTC classes ensured that I was getting at least one weekly session that built on strength, particularly glutes and core which all runners are repetitively told to work on!
Now due to a change in schedule I don’t get to head over to Covent Garden on a Tuesday evening now but a few weeks ago I was able to make it across to see whether things were still like I remembered. I was extremely pleased to see that this NTC session still attracts lots of women of all abilities, creating a lovely, supportive community of like minded people. It’s also worth mentioning that these sessions in particular offer a fantastic opportunity to explore that incredible amount of free “gym” spots that London offers, whether it’s tricep dips on a bench, shuffles around a water fountain or legging it up and down stairs it all proves that you don’t need an expensive gym membership to get hot and sweaty.
I cannot recommend the various NTC sessions that Nike provide, particularly if you are new to London as it is a great way to meet people and make friends whilst doing something you enjoy and if time would allow it I would love to do more!
If you fancy giving a FREE workout a go I could not recommend NTC enough so click and book in!
Friday’s Fact File
Things that I have discovered or just loved this week …
Music!
Wookie – Battle 2015 mix – ok so the link is for the original as the 2015 version hasn’t been released yet. This track reminds me of one my first times wandering London by myself. I was staying in Hackney, I was 15 and this was pumping out a window – I loved it! Nothing but good vibes!
Pharrell Williams – Freedom Not my usual choice but there was something about watching this at Glasto …
David Zowie – House Every Weekend … WEEKEND!
Eats!
Ok totally random I know but whilst wandering around the streets of London Paulie and I popped into Skandium to look at lots of nice things and in the back they had a little confectionery section and we couldn’t help but pick up these …
These are filled liquorice sticks, the green pear and vanilla, the purple blueberry and raspberry. Now I know that liquorice is a very love/hate thing but I personally love liquorice, as does my entire family and it has to be said that these little sticks are amazing!! They taste exactly as you imagine and amazingly not at all artifical! At 40p I shall definitely be picking up some more the next time I pop in!!!
Stuff, things, bits and pieces!
NIKE LEGEND 2.0 MEGA LIQUID TIGHT
I know it’s a little bit hot for full length tights right now but I couldn’t help but spot these whilst on the Nike website the other day … YES PLEASE!
A Spot of Tennis: NikeCourt Club
In hope of encouraging more people to pick up a racket Nike have completely refurbished the tennis courts over in Tanner Park, Bermondsey, providing a hot pink and blue court, seriously bright tennis balls and umpire-style seating!
Tennis has always been in my family with my mum still playing in events weekly however … sadly the tennis gene never really got to me, I mean I can hit a ball but that is when my mum is playing nice and basically gliding it over to me! So when this happened …
…yes that is the Roger Federer, World Number 2, on the other side of the net. When Roger walked on to the pink and blue court it was nothing short of embarrassing and proved that I definitely needed to pick up my tennis skills.
The good news is that from now until 4th July Nike are offering free tennis coaching and fitness classes to all ages and (even more good news for me) to all levels of tennis players! Whether you would like basic instruction or to be put through your paces with “fast tennis” head over to the Nike Event page and get signed up here now!
Thanks again to Nike for offering the incredible opportunity to meet an absolute hero (however, not sure how much I appreciate my lack of hand, racket, ball coordination being shown to the World Number 2 ;D)
See you on the court!
Friday’s Fact File
Things that I have discovered or just loved this week …
Music!
Nicki Minaj ft Beyonce – Feelin Myself – THE VIDEO!!!!!
Julio Bashmore ft Sam Drew – Holding On
Eats!
Beltsander Brownie
As you may have noticed, not being able to run long as meant that my focus has turned to other things, mainly to strength work. As we all know in order to help muscles recover and grow we need protein! During a recent meeting with the incredible woman that is Zanna van Dijk she mentioned a tasty treat which would help me up my protein intake, and well I am now obsessed!
Simply put you just need a scoop of protein powder (I have been trying Optimum Nutrition’s Gold Standard Casein Chocolate Supreme), a pinch of baking powder, and 1/4 cup of liquid (water/milk/soya/almond) and that’s it (though you could add more shavings of chocolate if you want)! Mix all the dry ingredients together, add in the wet ingredients then stick it in the microwave for 30/45 secs and ta dar!!!!
Now sadly I don’t have any pictures … if I am honest I keep forgetting and it’s gone before I remember. HOWEVER if you click here you get the gist! Simple, extremely tasty and FULL OF PROTEIN :D!
Thank you Zanna for bringing this to my attention, MY DAYS it’s good!!!
Stuff, things, bits and pieces!
Oh Nike, you do make some good bits and well I could not resist these beauties when I went in last …
These are Nike Free TR 5 training shoes made for strength/gym workouts and well, they are an absolute pleasure to wear. Extremely flexible, very lightweight and have fantastic grip so perfect for my gym sessions where I jump from intervals on cardio machines to lifting on the floor, oh and they are pretty wonderful to look at too ;D
Check out the other colour ways here
Friday’s Fact File
Things that I have discovered or just loved this week …
Music!
Regulate – Warren G ft. Nate Dogg(Linden Jay Re-Imagined)
Don’t judge me but stumbled across this and well it’s chilled … Jaden Smith – The Coolest
Good Lovin – Ludacris ft Miguel
Eats!
Moving has meant a whole new area to explore and luckily I live with a 6 minute walk of this place!
So you have to excuse the photos, the lighting is perfect for everything except photo taking (which is not a bad thing!) The menu is pretty simple, “chicken n sides” alongside the biggest collection of sauces I have ever seen (be warned all the sauces come out extremely quickly, we may or may not have had an incident with the hot sauce, luckily not on my plate!) The chicken was extremely tasty, the corn was awesome and I am told the fries were pretty good too! However, the main reason I wanted to come here was for the pie, I had been told that their pie was pretty darn good. When I ordered the Chicken Shop Apple Pie I was handed the following …
Yep, that was my plate, you can imagine the joy, well actually you can see the joy on my face! The way it works is that you usually get a bowl given with ice cream already in it and then they scoop the pie out fresh from the oven pot. HOWEVER, if you are lucky enough to have the last portion from the pot you get the HUGE bowl. This apple pie was absolutely delicious with HUGE chunks of apple (how every pie should be!) I can happily say that it lived up to all the hype and cannot wait to go back again for more!
Stuff, things, bits and pieces!
So the wonderful ladies over a Lunges and Lycra brought these to my attention …
Oh Nike … I am 100% in love!
Friday’s Fact File
Things that I have discovered or just loved this week …
Music!
Julio Bashmore – Rhythm of Auld
Jack Ü ft Kezia – Take U There – I love it when the beat breaks on this track!
Uptown X.O. and Rob Low – Through The Night – Sadly no link yet but will add soon! I promise it’s a good ‘un!
Eats!
After an glorious 15km run and then a wander round some galleries Sunday was spent enjoy all the FOOD from Franze and Evans! I discovered this little place when walking back from a trip to Columbia Road Flower Market! So, the salads look incredible, the tarts extremely tasty but let’s cut to it – the cakes are AMAZING!
Awesome creations like courgette cake, croissant cake and of course chocolate bomb cake?!? Now personally I was desparate to try the courgette cake but my partner in cake crime was drooling over the cherry chocolate cake and well I have to admit she made a fantastic choice! Firstly the slab was bigger than my face(WINNING) and then secondly the chocolate cake was perfect! Not too dry, not too sickly and then all the cream instead of icing! I don’t think it will be long before I’m back … you have to make sure the other cakes taste as good right ?
Stuff, things, bits and pieces!
This bag makes me smile! Thanks Stylist for bringing it to my attention.
Click here to buy buy buy! And if you do photos please!
Friday’s Fact File
Things that I have discovered or just loved this week …
Music!
Ne-Yo – She Knows It’s a little cheesy, but it makes me move my shoulders!
Tinashe – Wildfire Again cheesy but I think it might just grow on you …
Eats!
So I got given one of these bars from a fellow Spartan as they are proud sponsors of the races and well thought it would be the best idea to try them as part of my breakfast before “The Beast”! As it states on the website these bars are made up of real food offering a “fast energy boost”, easy to eat on the go. They are free from wheat, artificial colourings, preservatives and flavours and well if you like flapjack MY GOSH these are good, particularly as you can taste the honey and butter!! So so so so GOOD plus full of those incredible chia seeds ;D! These bars are absolutely perfect pre endurance and I was lucky enough to pick up a couple more after the race! I will definitely be keeping them for my next long run and will definitely not be sharing them ;D
Stuff, things, bits and pieces!
Sneaker boots! I got a little email the other day that was all about these …. I might just have to pick these up whilst in New York …. though I don’t know I could wait that long …
Friday’s Fact File
Things that I have discovered or just loved this week …
Music!
Stylo G – Call Mi A Leader Sampling Bob Marley I love this, definitely gets you bouncing around…
KOF ft Terri Walker – Name in Blood – UK talent sounding oh so good!
Chris Brown Ft Jhene Aiko – Drunk Texting – A new track form his new 21 SONG (!?!) album!
Eats!
I actually don’t think I need to say much more ….
Stuff, things, bits and pieces!
Bitch please my ride is a unicorn!!!!
This was shown to me my by a friend on Instagram … You know it is going to get bought come pay day!!!
Friday’s Fact File
Things that I have discovered or just loved this week …
Music!
George the Poet – “Georgie Porgie” No official link but you can hear his live session for Huw Stevens here and it’s about 15 minutes in!
Mary J. Blige – “Right Now” (again no official link to the song) but this is Mary J. Blige produced by Disclosure you know its gonna be good!
Eats!
Within a lovely goodie bag from the wonderful Fashercise Launch I was lucky enough to find one of these little protein packed balls of yumminess. A few weeks it got me through an interesting run at 4am so I thought it was only right I mention them here!! Bearing in mind I had had 50mins sleep max, irregular food the day before oh, and already run 18miles, munching on this before my next 6miles worked perfectly! These little balls are high in protein, high in fibre, gluten free and come in eight different flavours! They are perfectly travel size, caused me no stomach issues whatsoever (I sometimes find these things are very heavy on the tummy) and well really tasty! They are also quite dense and so it took me some time to munch through, perfect because it felt like it was lots of food = WINNING
Stuff, things, bits and pieces!
Everyone loves a Rolex right? So who wouldn’t love a Rolex with my pal SNOOPY on the face! I love every thing Rodnik put out right now!! Wish list for days!!!!
Rain, raving and racing!
… “Run, eat, rave, repeat” …
Monday
So staying over at Lissy’s meant I had the pleasure of doing my circuits over looking the beautiful canals around Wapping so it all started well – 3 rounds of full body circuits. This, if you read my previous work outs, is usually followed by a run however, if you can remember the weather on Bank Holiday it was awful and I mean AWFUL! But because Lissy and I are crazy and had originally planned to be in Shoreditch for around 3pm we decided to brave it, Lissy on the bike (so she could enjoy shouting abuse at me to run harder) and me, well I was the idiot in shorts and my Games Maker jacket. This run was hilarious, we got absolutely soaked, couldn’t hear each other to talk to as I had my hood up and Lissy had her helmet on, and by the time we got to Shoreditch we were so unbelievably drench thanks to a car purposefully driving quickly through a puddle we just went home. Still we got a run in ;D
Tuesday
A killer 6.5mile run with the crew! I actually think this was one of the most epic runs yet! Led by the machine that is Chris we straight away hit an awesome pace tearing our way through the streets of London headed for Trafalgar Square. Once at Trafalgar Square we of course stopped for a few photos and met up with the rest of the crew. From there we headed down to the river and then RAN … and ran and ran all the way until the path stopped and it was time to head back North towards 1948. It was a long, hard slog but the sense of achievement at the end of it was IMMENSE. I know I say this every week but I LOVE Tuesdays!
Wednesday
Morning Gloryville RAVE!!!
Bouncing about for 2 and half hours definitely counts as a work out!!! Kicking off a 06:30 in the morning Lissy, Steph and I made our way across to East London to be welcomed into a space full of leotards, glitter and killer leggings!!! With live DJs at the decks playing some killer tunes we bounced, giggled and sung along from 06:30am – 08:45am having the time of our lives … and then quietly made our way to work.
LITERALLY THE BEST WAY TO START YOUR DAY!
Thursday
Bring on those 10 x 1 repeats and of course the double helping of granola!!!! This week a bizarre thing happened … I started my sprints and don”t get me wrong they were hard, but not as hard as last week. In fact I managed to go further in each minute! Keeping in mind consistency rather than killing my legs (and myself) and well it worked! I hit my targets every single lap, even managed to go a few strides further on my last couple of sets … I think this is what you call “winning” at sprint sets. As you can imagine my celebratory portion of granola was pretty EPIC!
Friday
Oh hello rest day … all the protein and GBBO …
Saturday & Sunday
A casual 30 mile run, in a team, during the afternoon, just after midnight, in the dark hours and in a glorious, sunny morning! I got scrambled …to be continued… #spitfirescramble
Run Round Town 