The RunWay: Back On The Road (And At The Barre)

The time has come. I can't deny it any more. It's 'new year, new me' season, and I've vowed to get my sorry ass running in 2015, by hook or by crook. The Run Way is my journey, and it starts right here.

I did it! I actually took some fitspo from my previous post, and went back to the grind... Lovely Sophia Robb O'Hagan tweeted me some Transatlantic good vibes, so I put on my trainers and did a 4k on Easter Monday. Which is actually pretty splendid when you consider I had put my back out on 'Good' Friday and spent the rest of the weekend either walking like a robot or lying prone on a hot water bottle.

And then, having done my run, I only went and followed it up with some more progress on the very next day! Even if it did nearly leave me flat on my back again...

Like everyone, I've been up to some concerted egg snaffling of late - and as of this week, much to my chagrin, I've hit the top limit on my 'healthy' BMI. So, taking the matter in hand, I decided to hit up Jourdan Dunn's favourite London workout class - barrecoreMIXED - at barrecore's Mayfair studio. You can see the kind of things we got up to in our exclusively video of their key toning moves here. But what you won't see in that video is a comedy hippo contorting at the back of the class. That would be me.

I'm blessed/ cursed with hypermobility, which means I can pull some pretty interesting shapes on the dance floor. However, it also means that my overall control of - and therefore damage to - my joints is pretty horrific. So when the class began warming up with some variants on basic floor stretches like press ups, I managed to simultaneously lock my elbows and not be able to bend my lower back within the first five minutes. I considered a moody flounce-out, but held true and continued.

As we moved on to the main routine - a mix of hardcore repetitions of leg/ arm/ pointy toe raises whilst balanced on a foam brick, or suspended from purple karate belts looped over ballet barres to exercise all those small muscles we don't usually wake - I did a pretty poor job of concealing my bitchy exercising face. The instructor and class were the perkiest people I've ever witnessed, making every move look unutterably graceful and effortless, while I flailed in front of the wall of mirrors just to stay upright. Naturally, it was the most mortifyingly inspiring thing I've done so far. Plus a bit of core strength and flexibility can't but help my running prowess - and the burn of the class made me miss the release of the run.

Since then, I've felt an achey mix of shame and pride through my 'muscles'. Shame that I'm still this unfit (and that my joints mean I might be a bit incapable of being a Barrecore babe), but pride that I've started making a dent in it again. Things can only get better... Can't they...?