Caroline Sandry's Blog

Getting Fit After Cancer

csandry — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 07:11:29 +0000

I recently helped a lovely lady in the final stages of her breast cancer treatment: her mastectomy and reconstruction surgery had left her with very limited movement in her arm and shoulder joint. Together we found that some very simple Pilates exercises helped her to regain mobility which in turn helped her through her radiotherapy (where she had to lie with her arm up overhead).

Exercise can help you not only through your treatment, but according to David Haas, it can also help you to prevent any recurrence. David has kindly written a guest blog which you can read below. For more thoughts from David, go to http://haasblaag.blogspot.com/

Getting Fit After Cancer by David Haas

WebMD states that a dedication to fitness is a way to prolong your lifespan and to prevent the recurrence of cancer. So what are you waiting for? If you have recently completed your treatment, there is a chance that you are feeling a little bit at a loss. At a time when many people feel as though they should be jubilant, they instead feel frustrated and even weaker than they might have before. This is where fitness comes in.

Doctors recommend that people stay positive and active after their treatment for cancer, but the truth is that there are no exercise programs that are right for everyone. Simply recommending that someone run or get more exercise is not helpful, especially if the patient has never exercised before in their lives! The truth of the matter is that there is a type of exercise out there that is right for everyone. You should take a moment to find the kind that is right for you, especially when you are considering the aftermath of cancer treatment.

In the first place, think about what kind of environments you might enjoy working out in. For example, if you are someone who loves the great outdoors, consider hiking or simply walking around the park near your home. If you are someone who needs something challenging or if you love working out in groups, head to the gym. If you are shyer, look into exercise that you can do at home It is all about finding the fitness regimen that works for you.

Some people are not interested in exercise because it feels as though they are wasting their time. For some people, they need to be doing something productive, and for one reason or another, being fit does not really cover it for them. If that is the way that you feel, why not look into some sort of physically demanding volunteer work, like working at a local botanical greenhouse? Similarly, if you need more direction, why not consider a martial art or a dance workshop? This is something that makes a huge difference to the way that you might view exercise.

Finishing up a cancer treatment, whether it is a small surgery, chemotherapy for breast cancer, or a rare and painful treatment program like mesothelioma treatment, is certainly something that you can be proud of, but remember that now is not the time to rest on your laurels. Life is something that requires constant stimulation, so consider how fitness works into all of it. For example, think about working out with people that you have lost touch with, or simply doing it as a way to reconnect with your body and what you want.

Fitness should be one of your top priorities when you are recovering from cancer; see what even a small amount of exercise can do for you!

(http://www.mesothelioma.com/blog)

Yoga or Pilates?

csandry — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 12:37:31 +0000

For as long as I have been teaching, people have asked me about the difference between yoga and Pilates.

Here is how I see it;

Yoga is an ancient tradition dating back thousands of years. The word ‘yoga’ means union, and that can be translated as the union between body and mind. Pilates is less than 100 years old, and is derived from a method of exercise used by a Mr Joseph Pilates which he called ‘Contrology’. As a sickly boy (Pilates suffered rickets and asthma) he dedicated his life to improving his health, and in doing so has improved the health of countless thousands of others.

Yoga works very much on the mind and the body. There are 8 limbs of yoga;

Asana – the physical practice of holding and moving through postures
Dharana – concentration of the mind
Dhyana – meditation
Prananyama – breath or energy work
Niyama – personal observances (e.g. cleanliness, austerity)
Yama - Universal morality (including truthfulness and non-violence)
Pratyahara - Withdrawal or control of the senses
Samadhi – union with the divine. Achieving a higher consciousness.

The yoga ‘asanas’ or postures are the most commonly practiced limb of yoga and were originally intended to help the yogi achieve better concentration in order to get closer to the divine through meditation. The great thing about these asanas is that they help us to achieve and maintain a stronger and more flexible body.

Pilates is more simple and is purely a system of exercises designed to correct imbalances, and postural weaknesses adding strength and/or flexibility where required. Pilates (as with yoga) focuses on the breath, and this does have an effect on the mind, so almost by defualt, Pilates is also a form of mind-body exercise.

Both Yoga and Pilates have many different forms: Power Yoga, Bikram Yoga or Iynegar Yoga, Pilates mat-work, Dynamic Pilates or Power Pilates to name but a few. If you want a heart thumping stretch, try Bikram which is performed in a very hot room, if you want amazing abs and core strength, try any form of Pilates. If you need to calm your mind and de-stress, choose Hatha Yoga, and for an all-over strength and flexibility workout either Dynamic Yoga or Dynamic Pilates will do the job.

In my humble opinion, I think that a combination of both yoga and Pilates is perfect, and I have been teaching my ‘East meets West Fusion’ here at the Six Senses Spa, Maldives this week with great results, but as long as you move your body more than you did before, then you are already on your way to a healthier body and mind! (to try my Pilates, check out my Pilates dvd (Pilates with Caroline Sandry) available on my website or amazon).

Yoga and Sport

csandry — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 06:14:37 +0000

Around 6 years ago, I spent a month in a Yoga Ashram in India, living as a student with the Sivananda Yoga masters. This was one of the most incredible experiences of my life and taught me a great deal about the spiritual side of yoga, the origins of yoga and the more subtle side of yoga including prana (energy), chakras and higher conciousness. However, as a Pilates instructor, I am hungry for knowledge about anatomy, function, science and the ‘less subtle’ effects of movement. As a fitness writer and journalist, I have also learnt that people have often shied away from yoga, perceiving it to be too ‘religious’, too ‘spiritual’ or alternative for their western lives, particularly hardcore sports people such as triathletes or footballers.

This perception is slowly starting to change: I recently talked to Ryan Giggs, who has now brought out a yoga DVD, which he claims has helped him to stay at the top of his game for an extraordinary length of time. Giggs says that yoga helped him to recover from numerous hamstring injuries which could have otherwise ended his career. Yoga Guru Hayley Winter agrees and is so sure about the incredible effects that yoga can have in sport that she has spent most of the last decade developing Yoga Sports Science – a coaching course specifically designed to help sportsmen and women (from Olympic athletes to 10k newbie runners) improve their performance and reduce the risk of injury.

Intrigued by Winter’s course, I immediately contacted her, as this seemed to be the missing link in my yoga training. Winter said “It was over ten years ago when I was invited to deliver yoga to a group of athletes, that I started to question why wasn’t yoga used more widely in helping develop athletic performance? I had been practicing yoga for over 25 years, teaching for 15 and had seen and experienced the many performance benefits for myself. So, in 2001 I started working with a small group of coaches and athletes, developing my Sports-Specific Yoga techniques, putting them into practice, and assessing their impact. Over the years I went on to deliver my techniques to athletes in a wide range of sports with the outcome being the same – improved athletic performance. I believe that one of the reasons why yoga hasn’t been embraced by sport is that it’s not easy to quantify its effect and also its never been sports specific enough to know how it fits into an athlete’s training. At Yoga Sports Science we do just that and teach others how to do it too.’

Sounds like the missing link to me, so I am now a student of YSS! Watch out for future blogs to see how I am getting on!

Teaching at Soneva Fushi, Maldives

csandry — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:15:52 +0000

Those of you who follow my tweets will be well aware by now that I am out in The Maldives on a beautiful island resort called Soneva Fushi. It is one of the Six Senses Spas and is truly breathtaking. I was lucky enough to be invited here to teach Yoga and Pilates

Soneva Fushi Spa

to the guests, and am just heading out to Turtle Beach Champa (an elevated yoga room over-looking the turquoise ocean).

Later I will be trying out an Ayurvedic consultation and treatment (an ancient form of Eastern medicine and something that I am very interested in) so watch out for updates on how that goes.

But for now, I am going to hop onto my bicycle and head off through the lush tropical paths to hopefully help the guests relax, tone and stretch their bodies and minds!

Back on track

csandry — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 12:54:00 +0000

If you are a regular follower of my blog, then you will have noticed a long gap in my posts. There is a reason for this, and I have debated whether to discuss the reasons here. My decision is this: as a writer, you can only write from the heart, and so I will share my reasons here and now!

Eighteen months ago, I became pregnant and sadly suffered a miscarriage. This actually changed my life in quite a big way as it really knocked my confidence about sport and exercise. I had always pushed myself hard: training several times a day (myself and others) taking on different and crazy challenges as a journalist, running a half marathon without proper training and so on. On this occasion however, it came back to haunt me.

Not knowing that I was pregnant, I was sent out to Switzerland to review a full-on weight loss boot-camp in the Swiss Alps. As usual, I pushed myself hard, and hard it was! We hiked and ran up near vertical mountains for at least 4-5 hours each day, followed by military style circuits and two sessions of yoga. When my body began to fail me, instead of taking a step back and resting, I pushed on through in spite of 190 bpm heart rate and feeling dizzy. I just figured that the altitude was playing havoc with my breathing, sleep and menstrual cycle.

Upon returning home and after the joy of discovering I was pregnant, I miscarried a few weeks later. I really felt that I could have caused the miscarriage through my intense activity and although I knew this was actually unlikely, it really stayed with me. In the months that followed I became very unsure of myself, and every time I went for a run, or exercised, I would hold back, afraid of the same thing re-occurring. This became very limiting, and I felt right outside of my comfort zone: the very thing that I used for stress relief had now become a stress! Should I run, or could I be pregnant? Should I do Yoga twists?stand on my head? train in the heat? And how could I write about sport and fitness if I couldn’t even train myself? I felt like a fraud. However, time heals everything, and after several months of this mind-play, I had had enough! I decided to stop worrying and to get on with life and to embrace activity again.

The great news is that I became pregnant again in October! This time, I rested more and hung up my running shoes, but sadly, the same thing happened once again 9 weeks later. Now this is not a ‘woe is me’ tale, but more of an explanation for my absence in writing. It is also acknowledging that in spite of having a healthy body and doing everything right, sometimes we have no control over our destiny. One thing that has helped me this time is knowing that it is not my fault and that my first experience was obviously nothing to do with my activity levels, but it was just ‘one of those things’.

I am now back on the path to fitness:having had a shaky 18 months, plus a further three months pregnant out of sport and running, I have obviously lost a lot of my fitness, but I actually think this is a good thing! I realise now how it feels to lack confidence, I understand how hard it is to build up from a lower starting point and I feel that I have more empathy with my clients. I also know from experience that being positive will help with all aspects of life (after all – I became pregnant again once I stopped worrying about it!). I now have lots to write about as I begin my journey back to fitness, in fact I have just been asked to run the Reading Half Marathon in April. I think I will say “YES” What do you think?

(By the way, if any of you have gone through a similar story, please know that I feel for you.)

Health and Fitness Trends for 2012.

csandry — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 16:49:10 +0000

What is hot!
The experts at The Third Space think that a 4D approach to our wellness is the way forward and want us to address our fitness, nutrition, medical status and lifestyle. As Matt Julian (Head of Fitness) states “It is no good training hard at the gym for an hour, and then going home to drink a couple of glasses of whiskey!”
For your own ’4D’ approach, try to incorporate a healthy balanced diet with regular vigorous exercise. Minimise your alcohol consumption and try to incorporate some ‘me time’ such as yoga, meditation or reading a book in a quiet room to counter any stress in your life. If you have not seen a GP in years, then book yourself in for health screening: we should all know that our blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugars are within the healthy range.

The next hot trend is ‘Functional Training’. This means instead of sitting on a machine doing a chest press (working only one set of muscles at a time) you should move as many joints as possible in one movement. So imagine lunging with a twist and bicep curl at the same time. This type of movement is much more natural (imagine placing a child in the back of a car: you bend, twist, reach and push all at once) and will better prepare your body for the onslaught of life! I recently interviewed Michol Dalcourt who invented the very popular ViPR training device (www.viprfit.com/) . He invented the ViPR after working with US hockey pro’s: The fittest, strongest player was a farmer, and his everyday work of chopping, sawing, twisting and throwing bales of hay meant that he was naturally so much stronger and more powerful than the other players that Michol was inspired to create a training tool to replicate these movements. (Read the full interview here http://www.scribd.com/doc/69609627/Michol-Dalcourt)

Another trend in fitness is going barefoot. As you may know – I have been exploring this myself and am currently testing several ‘barefoot’ style shoes (watch this space for updates on my progress). As well as barefoot running, people are starting to understand the importance of strength training barefoot and of course yoga has been performed barefoot for centuries. Training without the support of trainers, means that your will get more feedback from your body and will also strengthen muscles in your lower limbs as well as improve your balance.

Hybrid classes are becoming increasing popular, with classes such as yoga/spin and cardio-pilates giving people a fun workout and saving them precious time on two classes for the price of one!

So whether you need a new trend to get you off the sofa, or if it is your straining jeans that are calling for help, be nice to your body and move it more!

For more posts from Caroline visit Body in Balance TVhttp://www.bodyinbalance.tv/http://carolinesandry.com

Look after your boobs!

csandry — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 20:31:37 +0000

No woman (or man for that matter!) wants droopy boobs. So why is it that less than half of all women wear a sports bra when training?

Your breasts are made up of fatty tissue. There is no muscle in the breast, but there are very fine supporting structures called ‘Coopers Ligaments’ which do offer some light support. These ligaments are not like the normal, tough ligaments you might find in your legs, and they can very easily be over-stretched, and once stretched they are stretched for good.

I am amazed when I see women out running or even fast walking without a sports bra: not only is it uncomfortable, but it can actually be painful enough to put you off exercising for good! The larger and heavier your breasts, the more likely you are to do permanent damage to the Coopers Ligaments, causing your once pert boobs to creep down south. Dr Joanna Scur, Head of Breast Health Research at the University of Portsmouth says that research shows a good sports bra can reduce breast movement when running by up to 55%, and that’s a lot!

Which leads me onto sports bras! There are many on the market, but I have found that some do nothing more than flatten your boobs whilst still allowing bounce, so my advice is to try before you buy. Take a selection into the changing rooms and then jog up and down heartily on the spot, watching out for boob-bounce. Personally, I like mine strapped down so there is virtually no movement, and I have found the Shock Absorber range to be the best for me. (http://www.shockabsorber.co.uk)

A great new service is available from The Sweatshop UK who have specially trained staff to measure you for the perfect fit, and a wide variety of bras for all shapes and sizes. Go to www.sweatshop.co.uk/brashop for more info.

Chest exercises such as press ups, overhead press and triceps dips will help to tone the chest and shoulder area, but the key message when it comes to keeping your breasts at their best is to invest in a decent sports specific bra.

Natural or Barefoot Running

csandry — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 11:06:53 +0000

I recently read Christopher McDougall’s amazing book ‘Born to Run’ about the Tarahumara Tribe of runners from Northern Mexico, who run 100′s of miles for fun, in nothing more than flip flops! As a keen runner, but one who never seemed to get any faster, I began to question whether my running technique was in fact hindering me, and whether I needed to go way back to my ancestors for more answers….(read the book if you want to know more!)

This weekend, I attended a course in ‘Natural Running’ which sounds like an oxymoron – after all isn’t running the most natural thing in the world? Well according to Mike Trees (miketrees.com) our coach and teacher, running may be natural, but running in big squishy trainers with stacked heels is not what nature intended, and in fact the very trainers we think are protecting us may actually be causing a less than perfect running technique that could lead to pain and injury.

Weighing up the evidence is simple – what he says makes total sense, and our amazing bodies are designed so that we can run (without huge trainers) for miles and miles and miles. We have our own in-built shock absorption system – ankles, calves, muscles ligaments and tendons, and all we have to do is go back to basics to discover our true running potential.

I am now eager to try this for myself, but one word of caution is to transition slowly! Your body will need time to adapt to the new demands and going in too hard too soon could land you in trouble. (After a whole weekend of drills including hopping, natural running and barefoot running my calves are in a bad way today and need a couple of days of rest.) My plan is to recover now, then transition slowly over the next 6 weeks building up my distance in my Newtons (natural running shoes – newtonrunning.com), so watch this space to see how I get on!!

Sir Ranulph Fiennes

csandry — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 21:11:03 +0000

Sir Ranulph Fiennes
The World’s Greatest Living Explorer
By Caroline Sandry

I am totally inspired by athletes who push beyond the norm. Even more so if they are humble and try to help others, and for that and many other reasons Sir Ranulph Fiennes ranks in my top 5 heroes! Imagine then how excited I was to meet the man and chat to him about some of his amazing adventures:-

The World's Greatest Living Explorer

Sir Ranulph Fiennes OBE is described by The Guinness Book of Records as ‘The world’s greatest living explorer’. He is a living hero. Not only was he first to reach both Poles, the first to cross the Antarctic and Arctic Ocean, the first to circumnavigate the world along its polar axis, but he has also raised millions for charity and has been named the UK’s top celebrity fundraiser by Justgiving.com.
I met with the legend at his latest charity venture ‘Seeing is Believing’ – a global initiative designed to tackle avoidable blindness. As ambassador to the cause, he hopes to help raise enough funds to help save 6,500 people’s eyesight in developing countries around the world. The first big fundraiser was, ‘The Standard Chartered Great City Race’ that took place on July 14th.
CS: You have maintained an incredible level of fitness. What’s your advice to budding adventurers?
SRF: Well, it’s totally different for a 60 year old and a 40 year old or a younger person. I wrote a book called ‘Fit for Life’ (available through Amazon) and it’s ok (getting fit) for average people who read chapter one and start doing all of it, but when it comes to the problematic stuff from chapter 10 onwards, I basically say that if you’re over 40 then don’t even try it! The same applies to me now – the sort of levels of fitness that I try to maintain now are totally limited compared to when I was younger, so the advice varies according to age and sport.
CS: I read in one of your books that you recommended 2 hours of running every other day as an antidote to aging…..
SRF: (laughs) I might have said that in the past! Actually now 2 hours twice a week is more like it! I will do a 2 hour run and then some stretches – something I have had to add in since passing 60.
CS: So you have had to adapt your training as you have aged?
SRF: Yes, you have to make those types of refinements at a certain creaky age! As of about 60 it definitely started changing and I had to refine my training to, ‘a bit more of this and a bit less of that’!
CS: How do you feel about aging and does the attention to your age bother you?
SRF: Yes, (but) you try not to think about it. The more you think about it the more it’s there. A good way to think about aging is to remember that more of us are reaching 100 plus years of age (the Queen will have to stop sending out special messages!) and the 82 of today is the 68 of yesterday! Therefore 68 is now 50! When I was 50 I was winning races and all kinds of things and I was also a part of a team where the next eldest was usually 23 years younger than me!
CS: What kind of team?
SRF: I was with the UK adventure racing B team, with people like Steven Seaton (athlete and ex-editor of Runner’s World). We weren’t right up there with the best in the world primarily because we were not specialists. You needed to have a team of 4, each of whom wasn’t going to let the side down in about 8 separate fitness sports. There was canoeing, sea-canoeing, running with a heavy back pack for many, many miles, mountain biking, horse riding, all these things and others would come into the race. This meant you could have people who were older, who wouldn’t let the side down on any of the activities, but who also didn’t shine brilliantly either.
CS: What else helps to make a good team?
SRF: You need to have a good team leader who is totally in control. You move as one, so if someone needed a pee, the team leader would wait until everyone needed a pee – by stopping all at the same time you can save a few minutes. Then for example, if the French team were sleeping 2 hours in every 24 and you were sleeping 3 hours in 24, you would be less zombie-like. The team leader needs to make those kinds of decisions.
CS: You mentioned sleeping for just 2 hours in every 24. How do you cope with this? Likewise, with the jet lag that you must have suffered on your 7 marathons/7 continents/7 days challenge?
SRF: Well, on that 2004 7/7/7 race the jet lag was a big problem. You had to sleep and eat on the flights between races.
CS: How did the 7/7/7 come about?
SRF: The New York Marathon Club had secretly wanted for a long time to do this race on every continent on 7 successive days for a long time and they wanted one non-American (like a mascot) on their team – Dr. Michael Stroud. They said to him years ago that they had this top secret goal and would he like to be their doctor. Mike said ‘yes’ and kept it quiet. Years passed and with no airline seemingly able to deliver the necessary travel requirements no progress was made. Then in around 2003, I called Mike and said ‘Mike, we haven’t done a trip for a long time. There’s a 3 month ‘thing’ coming up – do you want to do it?’ to which he said ‘Yes’! However, his employers said no to 3 months off work and said the most he could have was 7 days. He immediately thought of this 7/7/7 race and having been waiting for the call for 6 years, decided he had kept it secret for long enough! The only thing we needed to find was an air company and lucky for us, a good friend worked for BA and managed to organise the whole thing. The proviso was that they would never wait one minute (these were scheduled flights) beyond the scheduled flight time and that they would give us 5 hours at each stop including customs and security, which meant we had to average 4 ½ hour marathons. The other thing was that they couldn’t keep the nasty humid runs until last as we had planned, so we agreed to these conditions and went for it!
CS: You had double by-pass heart surgery prior to that race – how did it affect you?
SRF: My wife took me to a surgeon (hoping that he would say that I couldn’t do it) and he said to her that he had done the double by-pass on 3000 other people and none had ever asked if they could run a marathon! He was actually a great runner himself so he understood and allowed me to attempt the challenge.
After the Singapore race I ended up on a drip in an ambulance….the BBC said to me, “Is that it, the last of the 7 marathons for you now then?” (There were still 2 more to go). I said ‘Yes, obviously’. But Mike and I had a cup of tea and then thought, ‘Oh, we might as well have a go at the next one’, which was the following morning in Europe!
CS: Do you feel different now having had the bypass?
SRF: Yes totally, ever since then everything got worse – it’s harder to breathe, I’ve lung problems…….
CS: How do you keep going mentally on long expeditions such as crossing Antarctica?
SRF: I have a mental idea of somebody else, usually my grandfather or father. I think in my head that they are watching me and that I don’t want to let them down, so you can get a bit further on those thoughts.
CS: What’s coming up next?
SRF: I can’t say what exactly but something very exciting and Mike Stroud is involved! We are currently locating sponsorship.
CS: And ‘Seeing is Believing’, what drew you to this charity?
SRF: If I even partially lost my sight, it would be the worst thing that I could think of. Standard Chartered have chosen a great initiative in ‘Seeing is Believing’ because you can see the results of the money immediately – It impacts the whole family rather than just helping an individual, because if a father goes blind and loses his job then the whole family suffers.
To support the cause go to: www.facebook.com/standardcharteredgreatcityrace
————————————————————————————————————————–
Sir Ranulph Fiennes – the man the adventures
• First to reach both Poles (with Charles Burton).
• First to cross Antarctic and Arctic Ocean (with Charles Burton).
• First to circumnavigate the world along its polar axis (with Charles Burton). A 52,000 mile odyssey
• Achieved world record for unsupported northerly polar travel in 1990.
• First to by complete the first unsupported crossing of the Antarctic Continent (with Mike Stroud) in 1992/1993
• 3½ months after a massive heart attack, 3 day coma and double bypass, he achieved the first ‘7/7/7’ (seven marathons in only seven days on all seven continents) with Mike Stroud in 2003
• Climbed (Tibet side) Everest to within 300m of summit raising £2 million for the British Heart Foundations new research MRI scanner 2005
• Climbed the North Face of the Eiger (with Kenton Cool and Ian Parnell) and raised £1.8 million for Marie Curie Cancer 2007
• Winner of ITV Greatest Britons 2007 Sport Award
• Climbed Everest (Nepal-side) to within 400m from summit raising £2.6m for Marie Curie Cancer 2008
• Marie Curie 2008 ‘Above and Beyond Award’ Winner
• The oldest Briton ever to summit Everest with Thundu Sherpa making for a total raised for Marie Curie of over £6.2m. 2000
If you are inspired by Sir Ranulph and want to read more about his adventures, then we recommend ‘Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know’ The Autobiography. To learn how to train and eat like the man himself, check out ‘Fit for Life’ from Amazon.

Teva Mountain Games

csandry — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 17:29:38 +0000

I love my job! I have just spent a week in Vail, Colorado in the beautiful, stunning, breathtaking Rocky Mountains! (can you tell that I loved it!!)
The Teva Mountain Games is a huge extreme outdoor-sports event, attracting some of the top athletes in the world and is now in it’s 10th year. If you thought that Teva were just an outdoor sandal company, then think again! Teva now creates funky trainers, beach shoes and water sports shoes as well as running, mountain biking and hiking shoes.
Here is how the trip went:-
Day 1: arrived into Denver after a long 9 hour flight, and settled into a bus for a 2 hour journey up, up and up to Vail and stumbled into bed. (Oh – and can I just mention that The Lodge at Vail has Caroline Sandry’s most comfy bed in the world award! Must buy a mattress topper!)
Day 2: Awake early – a mixture of excitement and jet lag. Headed out to the Steep Creek challenge, where the fittest looking bunch of people I have ever seen were hanging out either in wet suits or cool mountain gear for this extreme kayaking event down a raging torrent of brown Colorado river. The athletes were awesome – my vote was for James Pringle (from the UK – we have to be a little patriotic right?)
After watching all the excitement, we all headed off to a mountain restaurant for superb fish tacos outside in the blistering brightness of that oh-so-different mountain sun. (Plenty of red faces to come!) I ventured out for a quick 40 minute run that evening, to see how the old body would perform at 8000 feet with jet lag: super hard work and heavy leg syndrome, but not too bad!
Day 3: The highlight of today’s events for me were the Bouldering World Cup qualifying rounds – these climbers are unbelievable and it is so exciting to watch. Russia and Austria were looking like the cream of the crop. The Teva Slopestyle event which features crazy off-road bikers jumping, spinning and flying through the air on mountain bikes was another heart pounding event particularly when one of the top riders crashed and face planted after a double somersault. (After a quick visit to hospital he was released suffering from no more than a concussion thankfully)
Day 4: The highlight of today has to be the Mud Run! Every crazy person out there dons shorts & tees to run 5k which includes a huge mud bath! (Watch out for pictures coming soon!) The serious athletes were competing in the Volvo X Country Mountain Bike challenge, kayak freestyle and heaps of other fab events. There was so much to do and see that I was practically spinning!
The evening of Day 4 was the big night time event – The Teva Mountain Ball. I restrained myself and was in bed by 1am ready for one of the biggest physical challenges of my life early the next day, but the rest of the gang partied until the small hours….
Day 5: The Spring Run-off 10K. During my stay I had heard so many tales about this race, that I nearly chickened out: running straight up the black run of a mountain, one of the hardest 10k’s in the world, straight up 3000 feet (taking us to 11,000 feet) all topped off with thin air and jet lag! However….. I am sooo glad that I didn’t listen to my inner demon, because in spite of the fact that all of the tales were true, it was an amazing, up-lifting experience that will stay with me forever! At the top of the mountain, running through the snow and trails with the most spectacular scenery below put a grin on my face that has not yet worn off!
Day 5: A little sad it was over, and with thighs so pumped up that they feel ready to burst!! Today was the last chance to soak up the mountains, sunshine and nature before heading home with a suitcase full of smiles, pictures, vidoes, muddy shoes and Teva goodies. Next year the half marathon methinks!!

Check out my race here – and watch out for upcoming articles in Ultra Fit and Women’s Running Magazine.