Here we are in August, and although many found themselves with more free time over l’down and q’tine, that defo was not the case for me in the end. Being self-employed meant that when gyms closed in Spring 2020, that proportion of my income was immediately wiped.
And all my freelance / influencer stuff? Well, budgets were frozen and campaigns were put on hold or cancelled indefinitely. It was a very worrying time to begin with in the beginning especially as support was put in place much later for the self-employed than for the employed.
Anyway, my last life update was in February and when I read it back, I had to laugh. It was like reading abut unicorns and rainbows… and oh, how hilarious is hindsight. Flights had been booked for Australia, races and events had been booked… plans had been made. G*d laughed.
Triathlon Training Camp
At the very end of February, I packed up my bike and headed off to a triathlon training camp in Lanzarote with Triliving and Ful-on Tri. Having been to Lanzarote and Club La Santa before, kinda meant I was prepared. But this week probably was a sign of things to come in the world tbh.
It started with a crazy sand storm which made it difficult to train outdoors, then we spent the rest of the time watching as the global situation started to unravel back home in the UK.
But overall, it was a great week and the best kickstart to getting my fitness back after a bout of illness the previous few months. I’ve got plenty to share from the week so keep an eye out on the blog for that!
Online Fitness Classes
It was about two weeks after I landed back from Lanzarote when we officially went into l’down. Initially, I was completely thrown and had no idea what to do with myself. But after a couple of weeks and a little pep talk from my friend Carly, I decided to offer some online classes.
The first classes I offered were free as I was aware many others, like me, were without an income. It was also partly for my sanity – I missed teaching and I missed the social aspect. Working from home was not new for me; but having no time out of home to hang out with other human-beings doing what I love was affecting me.
Read about my online fitness offering here:
- Rollin’ With My Foamies – Online Foam Rolling Classes
- [Video] 30 Minute No Equipment Core Workout
- Improve Recovery & Performance With Foam Rolling [+Video]
- How To Stay Fit By Working Out From Home
- 30 Minute Hiit Home Workout [+Video]
- Lockdown Strong Online Fitness Programme | June 2020
Once I started to get into a groove, I added a whole timetable of classes to my weekly schedule which also inspired me to work on my own fitness.
Couch to 5k
L’down was the perfect time to work on my running fitness ready for the return of parkrun (one day), as well as my cycling and general fitness. I had luckily upgraded to a smart trainer before it became evident that l’down was a thing and for running, I decided to start from scratch with couch to 5k.
The recent hot weather has stalled my progress but I made it to week 8 and am determined to finish, even if I have to repeat a week or two to get back on track.
The One Where Everything Went Virtual
As time went on, events and races were cancelled all over the place. I only had a couple in my diary – the Adidas City Runs One Hour and a little duathlon I had booked on at the end of March to benchmark my post triathlon camp fitness.
The One Hour run went virtual – and tbh, I had no motivation to run for an hour on my own but loved the tee (top picture) and have the medal (lol). The duathlon got cancelled. Personally, I’m not a fan of the virtual formats as I mostly need the external motivation and atmosphere but if it’s something you enjoy, you can read all about how to run and race virtually here.
The Spring 2020 University Update
One thing I had kinda been looking forward to from my last update, was my Graduation, scheduled for Spring 2020. Of course, this got cancelled but rather than dwell on it, I celebrated the best way I could.
I commissioned this illustration to celebrate and honestly, I’m more than happy. It would have been nice to celebrate but this was a lot less effort and the same reward… a lack of graduation ceremony won’t take away from my two years of very hard work.
L’down Lust List:
Sure Movement Champion
My last update for part one is my Sure Movement Champion announcement. Just before this happened, I was becoming very disillusioned with brands especially in the fitness industry. The amount of requests I was getting to work for free went through the roof – and yes, I had time, but I had no energy and no income.
There are some brands that did provide paid work and for that, I will never forget them. Shout out to Gymshark, to Sweaty Betty and to Sure. As part of my collaboration with Sure, I shared a few tips for everyone over on their Instagram page and created a couple of IGTV workouts for my own Instagram.
This collaboration basically eased my worries about not being able to feed myself over the coming months. Everyones support through my online classes and ko-fi page was a massive help too!
The last 6 months went by in such a blur; I think I’ve covered the main goings on of Spring 2020 in this post. So I’ll be back really soon, with an update on what happened after this in Summer 2020.
I figured writing this post would be the inspiration I needed to start writing again as my posts have not been as consistent as they used to be or I would like.
But I enjoyed documenting some of the highlights of l’down and q’tine and I’m pretty sure I’ll enjoy reading them at a later date. As I said, hindsight is hilarious.
You can catch up on the rest of my l’down period in my Summer 2020 life update here.
What have been your l’down or q’tine highlights?!
Elle
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