GOING THE DISTANCE {BLOG}

This is Leila, one of my amazing clients who’s a single mother of two boys.

We met about a year ago during one of my Happy Bootcamp classes in Swansea. We got chatting and she mentioned to me that she would like to run the Swansea Half Marathon “one day”

“So what?” You may think.

If anyone has actually run a half marathon, you know how bloody hard it is - even if you are a ‘runner’!

During her first Happy Bootcamp class, I asked Leila and the others to start jogging to warm up for about 3-5 minutes.

Leila couldn’t jog 100 metres without stopping because her lungs were giving out and her legs were hurting.

We have all been there. I certainly have.

Some people would have just simply given up and not returned. But not Leila. She is one determined woman.

She returned the following week, and the week after, and the week after that.

In fact, I can probably count on one hand the number of times she hasn’t made it to the bootcamp on a Saturday morning.

She’s there rain or shine – No excuses!

A few weeks had passed and she approached me about private Personal Training. We met up for a consultation and a taster session and she liked the sound what we could do for her.

During the past year of knowing Leila, she has become so much fitter, stronger (mentally and physically), has lost weight, dropped two dress sizes, has a much better outlook on life in general but more importantly she completed one of her short-term goals of running a half marathon.

She set a goal of completing the Swansea Half Marathon in under three hours and she did it:

2 hours 55 mins – which is an amazing achievement.

The process was no easy task. She was injured for a few months, which meant that she couldn’t run, which is kind of the point!

But against all the odds, she went the distance.