I was quite surprised when an invitation to attend breast screening arrived on my door step. I wasn’t expecting one until I was fifty and that’s three years away. Anyway, it turns out that I was being asked to be part of a trial, to see if lowering the age for screening was a worthwhile thing to do and whether the benefits outweighed the risks.
I was honoured to be invited to take part in the ‘Transcending Sport’ podcast with WiSP Sports. You can listen to my interview with Chris Stafford, President and CEO of WiSP below.
Top marks to the BBC Breakfast team for #BBCMenopause. They have without doubt, raised the profile of and broken down taboos surrounding the menopause. The coverage has been interesting, informative and very much needed.
I have to admit it, my running has been a bit stagnant over the last year. I haven’t stopped running. I’ve done a few races, including some marathons, I’ve got a few PBs at different distances but something has been missing. I haven’t really known what.
Is it just me or do you find that your running journey is a bit of a roller coaster? Exhilarating, unpredictable, fun and occasionally nauseating! I’ve been running now for eleven years and there have been many twists and turns, loops and ups and downs but I’m still on that rollercoaster and currently reflecting on my journey and keen to get others to board too.
Stitches can quite literally stop you in your tracks. It’s hard to ignore a dull yet stabbing pain which takes your breath away, hurts more as your feet hit the ground and sometimes feels as severe as you’d expect a pain requiring surgical intervention to feel! What actually is a stitch? Why do some people get them more than others? How can you prevent a stitch and most importantly, what can you do to get rid of a stitch?
I’m beginning to sneeze already! As soon as March kicks in and the tree pollens start to appear, hay fever can begin to interrupt exercise. If you’re unlucky, the sneezing, itchy eyes and runny nose can go on until October. You can feel grumpy, lethargic and not in the least like exercising and being outdoors just makes things worse. What can you do to get rid of hay fever symptoms? How can you stop hay fever affecting your exercise plans and performance? In this week’s #quickquestion I’m sharing my four Cs for exercising with hay fever.
The last Quick Question blog answered the conundrum of why exercise makes you need to poo, so now let’s figure out how to stop it! Can you stop the runner’s trots or exercise induced pooping? What can you do to prevent the diarrhoea that exercise can cause? Here are a few simple tips that will help you reduce the need to poo when you exercise:
Are you one of the many people who find that once they start doing some exercise, particularly vigorous stuff like running, you get a sudden urge to open your bowels? More often than not it’s a runny motion too. Why does exercise give you diarrhoea? Is there such a thing as exercise-induced poop? It’s so annoying, can be really inconvenient (think crouching in the bushes) and actually put you off being active in the first place. It’s a very common problem so I thought I’d answer it for my #QuickQuestion this week.
More and more women over fifty are increasing their fitness levels and discovering just how much they can do. From a health perspective, it’s a wonderful time of life to be maxing out on physical activity, reaping the benefits and slowing the ageing process. I for one am really inspired by these women sharing their stories on social media and it makes me feel enthused and positive about the years ahead (I’m 46). Katie Holmes is one of these women, it hasn’t been an easy journey for her and she’s now taken it one step further by collecting stories of runners over fifty for her blog. I’ll let her tell you more in the interview!
