Having suffered from a kidney problem for the past few years, I can certainly relate to those people that just don’t have the motivation to exercise. When you’re poorly or suffering from Chronic Pain, it’s difficult to find that get up and go! It doesn’t just affect you physically, but it gets you mentally too! Anyone who has followed my blog over the years will see that!
Last April/May time, I started Karate locally. It was great and it really helped me get my foot back on the exercise ladder. The club I started at was nice, but it was very slow going, so in June I joined a serious Karate club. Since then, I’ve trained two hour sessions, three times a week and it’s made me feel great! It’s certainly started building my motivation and stamina. My cardio has, however, been suspect and so despite attempting to start running last August, it’s not until now I have found the get up and go to run.
I’ve started running with the help of a couple of apps and I would like to share those with you and hopefully help to motivate some people to do the same as me. In a couple of weeks, I also start a beginners running course, where I will hopefully meet other ladies like myself!
The first and most suggested app to me is the NHS Couch to 5 k App. This is a great app for the complete beginner, like me. It starts you off slowly with brisk walking for 90 seconds with a 60 second run and builds you up to a running 5k from there. The course is a suggested 9 week, but you can do it in your own time. Never move up until you feel ready or you will find yourself back at stage one!
I partnered this app with Strava to track my run and give me all the necessary stats. Not only does it tell you your time and calories etc, it will also show your route, you can upload your run pics and of course it tells you the distance you’ve run. You can connect with friends and you can also take part in challenges to help keep yourself motivated. Of all the apps I’ve downloaded like this, Strava is by far the best.
It can also link to my Garmin account. As I decided to take this running malarkey seriously, I invested in a second hand Garmin Forerunner 15 with heart rate monitor. This is a nice watch for beginners and those starting to advance in running. You download the software from the Garmin site and you can link up you other apps, like Strava at it to keep on top of your running stats. For those more experienced runners, you might want to look at the more advanced models. Garmin are certainly one of the leading fitness tracker brands I’ve found. Others include Fitbit, Polar and Tom Tom to name a few.
I’m hoping to bring you a few more awesome running apps and products. We will be doing a fitness week at the end of March, so if you have an app or product you would like us to review, please get in contact by emailing leila@girlsngadgets.com