Frugal Fitness!!!

It's January and it's cold!!!! I know this because I'm training for the Playtex Moonwalk 2009!!!
Given my usual activity level is something along the lines of wander the 2 miles home via the shops stopping on a bench for a cigarette on the way - I have some work to do.

For those of you that don't know, the Moonwalk is a full Marathon walked over night around the streets of London to raise money for breast cancer charities. The breast awareness is heightened by the fact the all 15,000 of the walkers are encouraged to complete the course wearing just their bras (on the top half - I hope I'm allowed to wear shorts too!!).

I applied for the event in the autumn of last year and was very lucky to get a place - as almost everyone else I know who applied didn't. I thought - ok this will take some work - but how hard can it be?

Back in 1996 (when I was a mere girl of 19) I joined my university rowing club - the first (and turns out last - to date) sports club that I had ever belonged to. I was always last to be picked for team sports at school - this was when I wasn't sitting fully clothed at the side of a badminton net trying not to fall asleep under the guise of "umpire". Needless to say, rowers, even not very good ones, are FIT! And in the true spirit of first year at university - the team was full of boys too! Yum!...... ... sorry..... phew!

Anyway - there was a true incentive then and I realised that in the last 10 years of growing up, getting jobs, finding places to live and generally getting on from one thing to the next I really hadn't had the time or the inclination to exercise. Obviously there have been crash diets for weddings and parties and things that I simply had to lose half a stone for - but really nothing but a self-esteem goal rather than something more tangible.

I'm planning a 13mile walk tonight..... this is the oddest statement ever coming from me. I'm refusing to join a gym and I've made a modest outlay on some basics. My local council gym is £34 per month, this gives unlimited access to the gym and to the classes. The corporate gym memberships I can access through work range from £45 to £98 per month - I work in the City - it's the most expensive place in the UK! Working on this basis as a member of Virgin Active Broadgate I would be forking out £1176 per year to use their facilities.

I didn't want to do that, the council gym is good (it is in fact the one where Bridget Jones was filmed falling over after peddling madly on the exercise bike) - but it's seriously dull and the treadmills face the weights and so you either stare at your stats on the treadmill's little LED displays or watch sinewy men gurning away while giving themselves a hernia! For £408 a year - you can keep it.

So, I decided the virtues of shank's pony were to be explored. On New Years Day I walked home 7 miles across London from my friend's house. I thought - New Year, New Start - and these boots were made for walking and all sorts of other motivational cr*p brought on by long sleep, not too bad a hangover and sausage sandwiches...... My boots are stunning (see investment buying post) but, they're not really made for 7 miles of hard pavement - by the time I got home my right little toe hated me so much that it decided to burst.... sorry too much information - it put me out of walking action for a couple of days. Schoolgirl error I decided so I started to walk everywhere in my trainers.

I bought my trainers 3 years ago, about the same time as I bought my Lateral Thigh Trainer - any insomniac with freeview will know what I’m talking about (but I did get it on eBay for £40 instead of the £90 in three easy instalments as advertised on the shopping channels). They had seen a little bit of action - a few walks to work and the odd jaunt a little further - definitely NO running and certainly no team sports. They were old and dirty and past their best. My back started to hurt - all this walking and now I was starting to waddle - oh no! How was I going to face 26.2miles walking like a duck? I needed help.

Someone told me about Runners Need - a shop where they actually video you walking on a treadmill to assess your gait and therefore supply you with shoes that do something wonderful and technical to your running ability. Lost me to be honest - not that interested in such things - you know these fit freaks that sit around in their size 0 leggings and complain about not having enough time to run the 20miles a day they need.... (please please let me be one one-day!). I decided to go, be brave and face it, the chap who helped me out was so lovely - and I ended up with a pair of the ugliest shoes I've ever owned! They do have pink bits on them, so that made them appropriate for the Moonwalk.



I also forked out for a nike-ipod widget thingy (technical jargon hey?) - it turns out that you don't have to have nike shoes to use one - they sell these little pouch things that go through the top of the laces of any trainers and it works just as well. It attaches to your ipod nano - I've got one - is that frugal? Perhaps I should do a post on cheap downloads and filling your ipod for free one day..... - it's ever such a clever gadget. It tells you how far you've walked (or run - weirdo), how long it's taken you and how many calories you've burned.


The lovely chap at Runners Need showed my where to put my battered old trainers so that they could be recycled and off I bounced into the cold air of a January morning in the City and into a totally new fitness regime. I did spend about £90 in there - and I did pay £20 extra for the trainers with the pink bits, convincing myself that they were a better fit than the £50 ones with the peach flashes (who designs these things and where did they get their taste from??) - but I really feel like I've got the good deal here.

I know I'm very lucky living in Central London and being able to walk pretty safely (touch wood) in the dark as there are lots of people around in most places and CCTV covering every inch of the place. I know too that a £90 outlay in January is something few people could relate to - but in the long (walk) run I think I'm doing pretty well. There is a brilliant free tool for mapping routes around the city - it covers the whole world so you can use it where ever you are - http://www.mapmyrun.com/. I managed 45miles around the big smoke last week, the big smoking is lesser and lesser everyday and the thighs are shrinking - do I need anymore reasons - besides raising money for such a good cause?

Next - frugal weightloss - surely not eating is not spending? (joke!).