Blog
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10 Stunning Places Near Oban To Plan a Swim, Run or Cycle Adventure
If you are looking for a stunning place to visit with amazing beaches, majestic mountains, plentiful wildlife, and superb coastal vistas and then look no further than North Argyll. It was originally known as the Gateway to the Isles, the Capital of the West Highlands and then the Seafood Capital of Scotland, but I have lived here for over 20 years and to me it is the Adventure HQ for Scotland. Adventure in all its forms from exhilarating boat rides to remote wilderness, playful outdoor fun to amazing wildlife encounters. It is not a lie to say that this small area of Scotland really has it all and it is accessible to almost everyone, no matter how old or how active, there is something that will suit you if you want to explore, experience, voyage, venture, expedition, scramble, race or simply get away from the rest of the world. -
How Best Can I Train Through a Lock Down Winter? 8 Tips to Keep you at Peak Performance
At the weekend when it is bright and chilly I love to run up a hill or get out on my mountain bike still and I still go swimming on a Sunday morning at the beach But in the wet, windy and in Scotland what we call ‘dreich’ weather I feel much less like getting out there. So I do have my road bike set up in the hall on the turbo trainer, I tend to do more yoga following online tutorials and if the gym is open I will go to a spin class. But what do the experts recommend and what are the best tips for training through winter, especially this year with lockdown stopping us meeting up for group activities and most of us finding the gyms are closed again? And how can we keep ourselves in peak performance and ready for a better 2021? -
The Powerful Combination of Exercise and Nature & 3 Reasons Why Exercising Outside is Good for You
Those of us that love nature, being outside and in the wild have no doubt found that when we are engaging with the great outdoors whether it is walking, running, cycling, swimming or any other sport we can find our minds calming and we get a great sense of relief from any ongoing stress. I personally find that taking my coffee out into the sun for ten minutes in the morning, getting up from my desk for a short walk as well as pottering in the garden are all beneficial for helping me feel good. So I wondered, why it is that nature seems to reduce stress and anxiety and that being active outside is so good for you? It got me thinking that the combination of exercise and nature could perhaps be quite powerful and maybe even synergistic, meaning that together they are more potent than when indulged in individually. -
6 tips for climbing hills faster on your road bike and how they will help your performance
If you are like me when you think about hill climbing on your bike a lot depends on your current state of mind. At the start of a day when I feel good, I think bring it on, it will be fun, I can do it. After I have been out on a club ride and my legs have been spinning at my maximum speed for quite a while and are starting to hurt, the thought of a large hill in front is much less appealing. I start to envisage that I will be at the back, I probably have not eaten enough to have the energy for it, and I might have to get off and walk! But are there things that we can all do to help us get better at climbing hills faster on our road bike and will it help our performance? Well I thought it was worth looking into so over the past few weeks I have pulled together my 6 best tips for climbing hills faster and I have been testing them and seeing real improvements. -
Ten tips on how you can have a positive impact on climate change as an outdoor sports athlete
There are probably more options than you would first think when it comes to making personal choices that have a positive impact on climate change. We have been conditioned to believe that when we adapt our lifestyles to help combat global warming, we will feel more limited, it might be less attractive and not as adventurous. We will no longer be able to idolise a jet set lifestyle that has previously been seen by many to be the ultimate dream. I want to give you more ideas about personal change that you can make which might not just help tackle climate change, especially if we all push for societal and cultural too, but options that you might just find it gives you more pleasure from taking the slow and sustainable approach to outdoor sports and it might even change your mindset to life itself! -
Life Balance and Adventure
Last weekend I completed a 69km wilderness ride that I had been wanting to do for a long time. It was a ten hour epic including a 4 mile hike your bike section through one of the wildest places in Scotland where hardly anyone has set foot. A few years ago this just simply wouldn’t have been possible for me as I suffered from burnout and spent several months unable to do even the simplest things such as meeting friends for a coffee. Fortunately, I turned my life around and found a much better balance to my work, life and adventure. Fin out how I balance work, life and adventure! -
10 ideas for active adventure holidays in Argyll
'extreme sea kayaking, wonderful wild camps, amazing mountain biking’
So I started thinking back over the (almost) 20 years I have lived in Argyll and all the adventures I have had, trying to pick out the best and most wonderful experiences to share with you. It took me back to extreme sea kayaking, wonderful wild camps, amazing mountain biking and edge of the world mountain ridges. It makes me feel the wind in my hair, the sun on my skin, the exhilaration of reaching the top, the sheer joy of seeing wildlife and the peacefulness of feeling at one with nature and the sheer delight of a fire in a remote island spot.
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5 tips for getting started road cycling and how to improve your confidence
This week last year I completed my first major road cycling event, the Loch Ness Etape and had an amazing experience. Having been totally daunted a... -
Why should you care about sustainability when you buy a skin care product?
So I've been planning to write about sustainability and now that we have all been over-taken by events with Covid-19 our focus has obviously chan...
