I am a great advocate of not caring what you look like whilst exercising and having watched a girl at the gym last week in full make-up, sat on the exercise bike in a hoodie whilst cycling at a snail’s pace and texting, I have to say if you’re still looking like you just left the house after a workout or a run then you’re probably not doing it right. I end up sweaty and tomato-faced when I come back from running club at work on a Tuesday and I know I make some pretty interesting noises (a sort of groan-grunt) so I fully accept that I am not at my most attractive when running (and frankly, who cares).
However, there is a lot that can be said for new exercise gear when it comes to renewing motivation. Packing a new pair of trainers, vest or trousers in my gym bag always gets me excited for a workout and the transition from warm summer-y mornings to misty autumnal chill-in-the-air type runs has given me an excuse to pick up a few new bits.
I get most of my running gear from SportsShoes, who have a really good selection and the best prices I’ve found. I actually came across them when searching for a guide as to the right sorts of running shoes for me and they have a really good guide on their website of how to find out what kind of runner you are based on your footprint which I always recommend to people. As well as being a massive fan of SportsShoes, I’m also becoming a bit of a Nike trainer collector so you can imagine how excited I was when they got in touch to ask me if I wanted to road-test some new running shoes, with a particular emphasis on their awesome Nike range.
I need a cushioned running shoe as I have really high arches so I picked these Nike Lady Zoom Vomero+ 8 running shoes (£89.99). They have the added advantage of being so ridiculously bright I’m guaranteed to not be missed when running at night! I teamed them with my new galaxy print Adidas leggings for a very *ahem* subtle running look.
This is me pre-run when I’d got home from work one day, hence the fact that I’m wearing make-up and don’t look like a wet tomato (post-run photos are not making a regular appearance on the blog!)
trainers: sportsshoes.com £89.99* // leggings: adidas £28 [sold out]
top: nike at sportsshoes.com £17.59
In the same order as I ordered the top I also got a Shock Absorber sports bra for £15 which I was pretty impressed with as sports bras in my size tend to be £30+. My washing machine ate the hooks on one of my other ones so sadly it was time for a replacement.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this little insight into my new running wardrobe – I’ll probably be posting about running and fitness more often on the blog (I hope you don’t mind!) so you might be seeing more posts like this in future. I need to atone for a weekend of eating cake and sweets so I’ll be out on another run tonight and possibly a gym session afterwards if I can keep my tiredness at bay!