If you read my last post, you’ll know that I’ve been thinking about doing the “75HARD” social media challenge for a while, but have been put off by the creator’s sketchy opinions and general persona (that’s basically the gist of the previous post, no need to read it now)
I went on to Instagram earlier this week to look for hairstyle inspiration as I have a hairdressers appointment this afternoon (thinking ultra short pixie but we’ll see what happens later) and the suggested content / search page was wall to wall fitness influencers trying to sell me — a perimenopausal woman — products and packages that would help me manage my hormones and regain lost fitness etc. They were using FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) techniques to achieve their sales: basically making out that perimenopausal women are all training wrong, that we’re working too hard, cortisol spikes are working against us, we should be doing ~gentle~ workouts in zone 2 only, definitely no HIIT and definitely not working out more than a few times a week.
This pissed me off. I’m not a delicate little flower that needs wrapping in cotton wool lest I accidentally work a little too hard. My “belly fat” (why do all the videos talk about belly fat?!) isn’t because I spiked my cortisol when I did a hyrox class last week. My poor sleep isn’t caused by running hill sprints or accidentally training twice on the same day (someone has to walk the dog).
When I woke at 3 (again) this morning I was — irrationally, perhaps — really bloody angry at these types of videos targeting women who are tired, confused, and dealing with massive hormonal changes (and fucking insomnia) that we don’t talk anywhere near enough about.
So I decided fuck it, I’m going to do 75HARD. I’m going to do it prove to myself and shitty FUD fitness influencers that we can do hard things. We can train at our limits and get up and do it again tomorrow and we won’t die. Yes, we’ll be tired for a while. Yes, our bodies will take time to adapt and overcome, but we’re not suddenly going to gain 10lbs fat and destroy ourselves doing it.
My diet is already decent from an “avoiding junk, eat enough protein” point of view, so I’m committing to eating my ‘5 a day’. No booze, lots of water, 2 workouts, 1 progress pic, read 10 pages. Doesn’t sound so hard?
Today is day 1. Let’s go.
I’ve been thinking about doing the 75HARD challenge. If you’re not familiar with 75HARD, it’s a fitness challenge that first did the rounds years ago and has had a bit of a resurgence this year. The rules stipulate that every day, you must: This isn’t a new thing, I’ve considered it several times, and even… read full entry »
I am just over a week out from Newport marathon. It should be the ”finisher”, to round off one of my 40 before forty goals. It’s a compromise on “Run a marathon in every major UK city” (because it turns out many major UK cities don’t have marathons) in which I decided I would run… read full entry »
I was umming and ahhing about writing a 2024 review lookback style post. I didn’t want it to end up a rehash of all the shitty bits, which these things inevitably end up being, but at the same time there’s no denying that some of the things that happened in 2024 had Consequences. Fundamentally, the… read full entry »
I recently entered the Shropshire Shufflers’ Severn Bridges 10k in Shrewsbury (after a little bit of a kerfuffle where it wouldn’t accept my affiliated club name) and ran with Gaz to celebrate his birthday. Never expected Gaz to choose a 10k to as a birthday celebration and yet here we are; I like to think… read full entry »
Last week I successfully climbed Scafell Pike, England’s highest peak, as part of item 3 on my 40 things before I’m forty challenge. I’ve been fascinated with the idea of climbing mountains since I saw a talk by Ed Viesturs (first American to climb all 14 of the “eight-thousander” mountains, and the 5th person to… read full entry »
I was beginning to think I’d never be able to write this post! After entering powerlifting competitions in 2019 and 2020 that were cancelled because of covid, entering again in November ’22 and having to pull out because of a rotator cuff injury, and then missing entry into the West Mids competition in July this… read full entry »
I recently started reading 80/20 Running by Matt Fitzgerald. The general gist of the book (so far) is that most people too fast in their training runs, and should slow down: 80% of training runs should be done at a low intensity level. At the same time, I’ve been reading more and more about zone… read full entry »
Oh man, is this post overdue or what?! I have a half written blog post about how I was planning to “ease myself back in” after the lockdown eased in the UK and gyms re-opened, but that didn’t happen: the post or the easing in! Once the gyms were re-opened I threw myself back into… read full entry »
I first came across ADFIT back in 2019 when I saw someone on Instagram wearing their ‘Fearless’ leggings with cut outs in the thigh. They looked awesome, and after purchasing a pair in khaki, they rapidly became one of my favourite pairs of gym leggings. There’s something about the feel of the material those leggings… read full entry »
