Category Archives: Events

Muscle pain

May 21, 2013 3:30 pm , Leave a Comment ,

Team Naturally Run - Nike We Own The Night

10km done. Big thank you to Leah for her complete enthusiasm and the sweet goodie bags – I’ve said it before, I do love a goodie bag! I probably really should have trained a lot more. But instead God sent me a gorgeous man with a “90 minute” pacer sign. He pushed me through that final 4km which meant I finished my race in under 90 minutes. Afterall, no-one wants to fail in front of a hot man.

Now’s the time I should really keep my running up. I tell myself I should, and if the weather would just bloody cheer up here I’d do it!

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I’ve signed up for 10km with Team Naturally, Run

March 25, 2013 10:38 am , 3 Comments ,

I’ve signed up partly for health reasons. I wanted to give myself an exercise goal; something to work towards. I also signed up for vanity reasons. I’m going to Ibiza in August, Croatia in September, and my sister is getting married in October so I need to look gooood. It appears that 2013 has become the year of the bikini and bridesmaid dress.

Miraculously I am ahead of the training program that lovely Leah sent out to us all, and I went on my first run (in 5 weeks!!) yesterday. I came out of my room in my running gear to find all my flatties in the kitchen and as one asked “are you going for a run?” the next responded with “Kiwi’s are insane” followed by the third stating it was raining and snowing outside. THANKS TEAM. After politely telling them to shut up I told them I was only off for a 3km run, it would be piss-easy.

As soon as I stepped out the front door and breathed in my heart stopped. I tapped start on my Nike iPhone app and my music started pumping. I knew the only way I wouldn’t die of pneumonia was to start running. So I did, and due to the freezing cold temperature (3*!) I ran the first 1.5km without stopping. After the first few minutes my nose was running, my ears hurt, my chest felt like it was going to explode, my hands were numb (even in gloves) and my throat felt raw. But I knew that if I kept running it would be over much sooner and I’d be back in the warmth of my house after a hot shower with a steaming cup of black coffee in my hand. I kept running, and by the second kilometre I was warm. My throat and chest still hurt like hell, my nose was still running but my body temperature was warming up. I felt like the female Bear Grylls. Probably a slight exaggeration, but to me, getting out and running and pushing through that cold temperature and RUNNING made me overcome an obstacle I would normally have avoided. If I hadn’t signed up for the 10km run I would have stayed on the couch watching Suits all day, which is what I did in the afternoon, but I TOTALLY EARNED IT.

Now that I’ve done it once, and survived, I know I can do it again. I’m a little weary about running at night as it’s still quite dark out but I plan to stick to main roads, and bully coerce one of my flatmates into running with me.

If you’re keen to sign up for the London run, or just keen to join in and train for a 10km run wherever in the world you are – you can read up more over here.

Bring on May 18th!

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Officially an official bridesmaid

December 14, 2012 12:39 pm , 1 Comment ,

As I touched on in my previous post, one of my beautiful younger sisters is getting married! They’re still deciding on the official date, but it is more than likely going to fall in November next year. I received an email from her a couple of days ago asking if I would officially be her number one bridesmaid. Of course I said yes. I nearly replied saying I’d already decided I was one, and told people how excited I was to be a bridesmaid for the first time but thought it better not to steal her moment.

She’s told me the theme is a teal, country wedding. Which will be beautiful as it will be going into summer in November in New Zealand and it’s a very good excuse for a visit home. I’ve been asked to find bridesmaids dresses here for my youngest sister and I as there is far more choice so I will be all over that come summer in June. I’ve even started a Pinterest board of teal, country wedding inspiration to help with any bridesmaid duties I may have. Unfortunately I wont be able to plan or organise too much from here, but I can bombard her Facebook wall with pretty wedding centre pieces and cakes.

Being in the wedding party also means I need to give the body a complete overhaul. So starting January (because seriously, there is way too much mulled wine around asking to be drunk pre-Christmas) it’s all on!

The toughest task though will be finding a date to take. I have less than 12 months to find a man, keep him entertained and madly into me, then convince him he’d absolutely love to fly to New Zealand and meet all my family together at once at my sister’s wedding. How could he resist?!

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Poor neglected blog

November 25, 2012 11:47 am , 2 Comments ,

I am still alive, and I’m not sitting at home in my pyjamas, sipping tea and refusing to participate in all things London.

I’m out there, doing shit. At the detriment of my blog.

It’s been roughly a month since my last post; so rather than divulge into every tiny detail of every day I’m going to be super lazy (and also because I have limited time and my male flatmates are insisting I head out to the pub to drink beer and watch Chelsea [football, yes, this is something new to me] v Man City with them – perfect example of “doing shit”) and post a sumarised list of events. I like lists, I know other people like reading lists. Plus the guys think I’m doing my hair to go out. We all win.

  • Spent a weekend in Istanbul, you MUST go. ALL of you. I want to go back, so if you book a ticket, please book me one too. The food, the markets, the mosques, the people (except that one guy that grabbed my ass on the tram), the warmth! It’s beautiful.
  • I went on a severely boozy blind date. He was a nice guy (from what I remember), a whole decade older, and totally at a different stage in his life to me. It wasn’t going to work – but there was no awkwardness, thankfully.
  • I finally got my highlights re-done and my hair cut!
  • I was invited by Mr & Mrs Q to a fireworks show in a massive paddock on the coldest night ever. It was lovely though.
  • I went to my first movie here in London, Skyfall, seemed appropriate.
  • I’ve been to my first live musical, Les Miserables. I think my expectations were HUGE. The cast did not sing loud enough for my liking, which meant I couldn’t sing a long too. It was still a beautiful and moving story.
  • We’ve had numerous people leave my work – which is worrying and made me re-list myself with my recruitment agencies. Purely for the fact I don’t want to be left in the lurch should the company crumble. It’s also meant lots of boozy leaving drinks events.
  • I experienced my first homesick day on Friday when my younger sister rang to say she was ENGAGED. So thrilled for her and my future brother-in-law. They’ve been together nearly seven years, so we knew it was coming!
  • I also got some superbly amazing news from my bestie, SHE’S MOVING HERE! Well not to London, but to Nottingham. In February!! So happy to have her so much closer.
  • So if you throw in a few dinners out and a few long lunches with friends – she’s been a fairly hectic month and this next month is not looking any less busy!

I will try and make more effort in the next few weeks leading up to Christmas. But first I need to experience my first live football match (in a pub, I will go to an actual match soon enough) with a bunch of rowdy British men. Also another win.

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Too many dicks on the dance floor*

July 5, 2012 12:41 pm , 2 Comments ,

On Sunday I scored some sweet tix to Flight of the Conchords. Turns out my boss couldn’t make it, so he swiftly, yet disappointedly handed over his four tickets to me. SCORE. Needless to say it was very easy to find three willing friends to join me. It was one of the best concerts I have ever been to! I have to admit I have not watched all their shows or live concerts so I actually was not aware at their level of talent. Holy crap, amazing. If you haven’t seen them live, you MUST.

It’s also NZ Film Festival time here, I’ve managed to lock in eight movies in six days before I head away. Very thrilled. Although, there are another three that I’m gutted I’ll miss – fingers crossed they come out in cinemas or at least on DVD so I can watch them at a later date. A quick search has found that the London Film Festival is in October this year, so I’m keen to see as many of them as possible!

Counting down the days now, just 22 until I go! Really I’ve done all I can at this point. So now the excitement is building, but also the goodbyes are starting.

*My favourite song of the night. Brilliant.

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