yoga for relaxation

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April is stress awareness month and one of my favourite relaxation techniques is Yoga, of course. Join me on the mat for a quick 20 min yoga for relaxation practice to stretch hips and shoulders, the muscles that hold most of the tension we build up during the day. If you missed any of the previous posts for April, here’s where you can catch up: How to reduce stress. My top tip Time management and productivity tips Don’t want to play the video? Here’s the list of the poses, hold each of them for 5 breaths. Yoga for relaxation poses Seated side bend, both sidesRead More →

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It’s week 3 of our March challenge. On week 1 we talked about batch cooking, on week 2 I gave you a simple formula to create meal prep recipes and now let’s talk portion control. The simplest way to put it is this: if you want to maintain the weight you have you need to eat as many calories as you burn; if you want to lose, you need to eat less; if you want to gain, you need to eat more. It’s math anyone can do. If you want to know how many calories you need, we explain it in this blog post. OurRead More →

blog title image with yoga and chakras

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A while ago, my Yoga journey opened a new door for me. I started learning about the Chakras and got the opportunity to understand even more about myself, my life and how the body reacts to different events or emotions. The beauty of the Chakras system is that even if you don’t believe in it, you get the chance to evaluate what’s going on with you, find the issues and start working on the solutions. I am now a certified Chakra therapist, and I invite you to join me for a 7 Day Free Challenge to explore and restore balance in all aspects of yourRead More →

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Many runners know now that static stretches are not recommended during warm up. Then what do we do to prepare our muscles for a race or a training run? We used the following sequence many times and it had a positive impact on performance and how the body reacted to long distances. Here’s our running warm up, that we used even if we’re outside, next to the start line, in a hotel before a race or just preparing to leave our house for a training run. Running warm up sequence 1. 3 Sun Salutations (if we’re inside or have a mat) – full body warm-upRead More →

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After setting our goals for 2018 and signing up for the Kauai Half Marathon and Marathon event, we started training. Both in the gym and on the road. Luckily at the beginning of the year, I was allowed to work from home for two weeks, so I was able to join Alin on 2 of his weekly running workouts: hills and running intervals. Here’s what we did and how we modified for my level. 1. Hills workout This is one of Alin’s favourite type of running workout, and he wrote a few times about the benefits. 1. Warm up with a few squats, lunges and hipRead More →

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It’s that time again. Time to look back at the year that went by even faster than the previous one. To be honest, I’m surprised that I could find a few things worth mentioning because 2017 wasn’t our best year. We changed home, I changed my job and developing a new routine has been challenging. Plus, the constant uncertainty of what’s going to happen once the UK leaves the EU added some stress. But still, life goes on. And there’s one thing that didn’t change. We kept running. Races in 2017 1. [Alin] Southern Cross Country Championships Alin started the year with his first XC race.Read More →

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You finished your couch to 5k programme; you ran your first parkruns, maybe a 10k or a half marathon here and there, but you want to be faster. And of the handful of running workouts you can do to achieve that, there is one that’s at the core of speed improvement: intervals. The deal with intervals What is the role of the intervals? Let’s take a single mile as an example. You are currently running a mile in 8 minutes. You can split a single mile (~1.6km) in fairly even quarters of 400m each. When you run a whole mile, your split times for eachRead More →

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I ran the Chester Marathon in 2h 56min. The race review has its own blog post, but let’s also talk about preparation. And today in particular, about having a clear mind and warmed up muscles. Sleep well It’s not only your muscles that need to be in a good form, but also your mind. A good night sleep during the last few nights before the race is essential to keep your recovery on track. Don’t let those days pass and leave it only for the night before the race, you might not be able to sleep as well because of all of the scenarios going onRead More →

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I ran the Chester Marathon in 2h 56min. The race review has its own blog post, but let’s also talk about preparation. And today in particular, about nutrition. As I already mentioned, there are many things that can go wrong while running a marathon. Some of those you can’t do anything about (weather for example). But for a few, you can minimize or even eliminate the risk. Hydration I used the loo before the start at Chester, not because I needed to go, but the queue was reasonably fast, and I wanted to zero the risk of having to wee. But I could have skippedRead More →

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Finish time 2h 56min 32sec Splits 10K – 41:39 20K – 41:11 30K – 41:32 40K – 42:31 I don’t know if I heard this somewhere else, or my brain became too philosophical during the marathon, but it ran in my mind continuously during the race. And it’s true. The faster you are, the more pain you will have to deal with, and your brain will try to convince you to slow down by all means possible. And in the end, performance is all about how you cope with all this. I started to train at the beginning of the summer and followed a self-designedRead More →