5 Motivation Hacks

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Whether you are a seasoned runner or just starting out, it’s often easy to allow your mind to talk you out of running particularly in the world of virtual training. Try these motivation hacks…  ALWAYS run early It doesn’t matter whether you’re a mum juggling kids, work and training, a singleton juggling work, or a fifty-plus juggling life, leaving your run or training until ‘later on in the day,’ is almost ALWAYS going to make it hard to stay motivated. Tiredness affects your mojo, so why work up fatigue all day to make it harder. Roll out of bed before

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Do you want to be a Girls Run the World contributor?

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Do you love running and exploring the UK and the rest of the world as you run? We do, and we think that other women of GRTW do too. That’s why we’re looking for YOUR help   We are working behind the scenes on creating a fantastic website and on that, we’d love to create a space for women to send in their reviews of the most amazing, awe-inspiring running events that they’ve taken part in, from 5km and 10kms to half marathons, marathons and even marathons. We’re not just looking for the typical ones though – London Marathon, Royal

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Race refreshments around the world

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While picking up my Mumbai marathon race number a few years ago, I met a couple from Sweden and the wife told me that she has stood on the sidelines of the Stockholm Marathon for the last ten years, handing out refreshments. And the refreshment of choice for Swedish runners?  Salted cucumber. Genius, I thought.It begs the questions, just how different are race refreshments around the world? In Paris, I’ve been given bananas and oranges, in England it’s all about sports drinks, while Mumbai was sweets and biscuits, as was Lake Garda  (sadly, as I was hoping for some genius pasta variant).

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Girls Run the World Guide to…Strava

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The list of running apps is endless but we champion the use of Strava. With its talk of leaderboards and course records, it may seem too competitive to some but it’s great for motivation and being part of a virtual community Strava is super easy to use, open the app, tap the big record button, and off you go. When you finish, stop, press save and hey presto, you get a little outline of your route and it has recorded your data. So far, so like every other app but it is in the way that the data is presented which is the real

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Chicken & Prawn Pho

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Last winter (December 2015) I returned to the backpacking destination of my twenties, Cambodia and Thailand, to take part in the Angkor Wat Half Marathon. It reminded me once again how fantastic the food is; tasty, cheap and brilliant nutritionally for runners. It combines lots of fresh spices and herbs to boost the immune system as well as protein to help the muscles repair and recover. This recipe is simple and very quick to make. If you’re vegetarian, you can replace the chicken stock with vegetable stock and just pack with vegetables instead. Ingredients Chicken stock Thai chillies, chopped (I used

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Race Review: Fort William Marathon

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Kilts, killer single track and whiskey chasers mark this inaugural Scottish marathon in the highlands as one to try out Kilts, midgie spray booths and downhill mountain bikers in full body armour. It’s not what you’d expect to see on a marathon start line, but it’s the scene that greeted me as I registered on the morning of the inaugural Fort William marathon. With just 293 runners (the race is capped at 1000 due to restrictions on the route, so apply early for next year’s event on 31st July 2016 ) this was a small race. Yet the nationalities of

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Race Review: Angkor Wat Half Marathon

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Paris, London, Berlin, Mumbai, Istanbul are all impressive cities to run a race in. But none have offered the spellbinding magic of running around the 12th century ruins of Angkor Wat, the former centre of the Khmer Empire I arrived in Siem Reap, the town on the outskirts of the Angkor Archeological Park a few days before the race to acclimatize to the humidity and heat. Although it is held in Cambodia’s cool season, temperatures can still reach 87 F with over 80% humidity. On the plus side, it meant I wasn’t shivering on the start line. By the time

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