walk

Bright as a Larke for 2015…

RNLI threesome

This time last year a very good friend of mine and fellow ‘weight warrior’ completed  a one-kilometre Reindeer Walk for the RNLI and kick started a life-changing year, in which her 50th birthday suit featured greatly and frequently! Get ready to raise your glass to my guest blogger -a lady who truly does ‘Dream, Dare and Do’ – Averil Larke.

Averil writes:

Two days to go until the end of 2014 and I’m Continue reading

Feeling sásta Down By The Lake…

photo 1The alarm sounds at 0600 and I’m fresh out of my bed and off to make my porridge. It’s day one of my sásta bootcamp and I’m holding the tiniest paper sachet of oatmeal I’ve ever seen, but I’m determined to follow the rules. I’m here for a week and I want to see how my fitness levels improve and whether I lose weight when someone else is calling the shots. We’re training at 0800 and I need to have breakfast finished an hour before, to get the best value from all that carbohydrate.  Looking around the kitchen I can’t see a microwave so I drag out a saucepan, and turn on the electric hob. I am used to gas, and the dull grey rings look uninspiring. Bored already, I add some water to the pot and leave the porridge to get on with it while I head for the shower.  Twenty photo 11minutes later, I’m dressed for the gym and heading for the door – picking flakes of burned porridge from between my teeth as Continue reading

Walking On Air This October…

Walking, Leisure and Culture

Sierra Nevada national parkI’ve just heard from Travel Department that our walking holiday in Spain is ‘flying out the door’.  We’ve been planning the trip since last year, but all of a sudden I feel it’s really happening and I’m getting a thrill of excitement about meeting new friends and ‘walking my way to fitness’ surrounded by blue skies, high mountains, plunging rivers, snowy white villages and a full week of adventure and exploration.

We’ll be staying in a tiny little hotel nestled above the Poqueira The alhambraRiver that carries snowmelt from the ice-capped Sierra Nevada Mountains to the sea. We will walk along the river gorge to the abandoned settlement of Le Cebadilla and stay in the hillside town of Capileira, the gateway to the mountains and the highest village that public traffic can reach….  relaxing after each day’s adventure with wine and tapas at the hotel pool. Capileira is the highest of the ancient, little, white villages that appear to
cling to the mountainside as though about to slide into the Poqueira Gorge.  At an altitude of 1436 metres, it is one of the highest towns on the Iberian Peninsular.

Memories to last a lifetime

A holiday is such an important part of the year;MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA we need to come back with memories that will last for a lifetime. I’m confident that Spain’s magnificent Sierra Nevada will deliver. We’ve signed up local walking guides to show us all the special places and answer all our questions. Along with the stunning mountains and river gorge we get to explore the fortress of Alhambra in Granada. Dating from 889, Alhambra was rebuilt to grace Muslim Emirs before being claimed by Christian Monarchs and then European scholars. It’s now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and just one of the many adventures on our list. We travel to the coast to the beautiful Salobrena Castle, have a full day sightseeing and shopping in Granada and still have time to sit by the pool at our charming rural hotel Finca Los Llanos.

Taking it easy

This is a holiday that combines walking, leisure and culture. We’ll divide the trip into different groups, depending on how active you want to be. I like to walk slowly and enjoy all the beauty of the mountains, so there’s no pressure to be ‘speedy’ if you’re coming with me. The average Salobreñawalking distance is 8k on hilly terrain with some steep inclines, so bring trekking shoes and a walking pole. There’s a discount on your equipment and clothing at Great Outdoors, Dublin, if you’re going on this trip!

We leave with Aer Lingus on October 1st – but the holiday has started booking heavily in the last week, so don’t leave it until the last moment. Visit Travel Department’s website and have a look around our hotel’s picture gallery.  If you’ve got any questions, give me a shout on my email: hello@teenagates.com or on Facebook or Twitter.  I’m looking forward to meeting you in Spain.

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Getting Off The Couch…

It was a busy weekend – on Saturday I met the gang that are joining me in a brand new TV programme called ‘Get Off The Couch’.

This 6-part series with Athena Media & the BAI on Setanta TV,  is aimed at encouraging a bunch of enthusiastic candidates from all over the country to get healthy and improve their fitness, using our beautiful great outdoors.  Say a big friendly adventurous ‘hello’ to Damien McElligott, Karen Bowers,  Joe Grey, Maryanne Treacy, Cathy Whyte, and Eamonn Waldron – our GOTC team for 2013.

Adventure is the name of the game, but if Saturday’s ‘meet and greet’ was anything to go by, it’s also going to be a lot of craic, fun, and teasing the girls…..  The boys wound us up a bit over a fitness test.  They had to do it first – and they let on it was much worse than it was.  I’m not sure they knew what they were unleashing.  Girls never forget!

We started out on Saturday with a leasurely ‘walk in the park’ – the Phoenix Park that is.  It was beautiful;  fuelled by yummy scones and lashings of tea from Helen, in the park’s gorgeous Visitors’ Centre.  Ok – it’s Lent now, and the scones may have to go, and the exercise will have to get a bit more animated.  Yes it’s all ahead of us!

Next weekend, the girls are off to Limerick to bond and learn about triathlons.  Lads – I think ya better look out!  😉

Clients
  • Communicorp
  • Danone
  • Irish Farmers’ Journal
  • Dublin Airport Authority
  • WeightWatchers, Ireland
  • Limerick City & County Enterprise Board
  • ‘Foot In The Door’ Media Trainer for Independent Commercial Radio, Ireland
  • Clare County Enterprise Board
  • Carlow County Enterprise Board
  • Great Outdoors
  • Adrian Hendroff ‘From High Places’
  • Chernobyl Children International
  • Concern Ireland
  • The Hope Foundation
  • LauraLynn Childrens’ Hospice
  • Travel Department
  • Helly Hansen Killarney Adventure Race
  • 98FM Dublin
  • Newstalk
  • TodayFM Radio
  • Learning Waves Skillnet
  • BCFE, Ballyfermot
  • Pat Falvey, 'The Summit Book'
  • DSPCA