Healthy Wings Owned The Night: Nike Women’s 10k race

The Summer in England is coming to a slow end this year and for us it means less running outdoors and more running indoors.

Nike We Own the Night track

We took a look over the races in London this year and our favourite one was the Nike We Owned the Night 10km race in Victoria Park, East London.

Starter pack with a gorgeous Nike We Own the Night carrier bag

The race was extremely organised and the set up was sleek and entertaining. Although the weather did not cooperate we loved the details Nike bestowed. For example the euthusiastic group warm up from the stage and the gorgeous brass band on the side of the track that cheerfully encouraged the runners.

Start Line

As the sun set, hundreds of balloons and light-displays brightly gave you the nod as you passed by; tunnels lined with Christmas lights and large numbers lit up letting you know how many kilometres you had conquored.

Tunnels of light along the track

Lights brightly cheering you on as the sun sets

Tunnels of light along the track

Alex Monroe crafted beautiful medal necklaces that were handed out at the end of the race to all those who finished.

Alex Monroe medals – one gold, one silver and one bronze

There were sculptures (large blocks) covered with all the runners names and a glass of champagne to celebrate the finish.

Giant blocks displaying the names of all the runners in the race

Giant blocks displaying the names of all the runners in the race

And after the race, everyone (runners and friends) could enjoy a drink (coconut water cocktails for those not needing alcohol) and a ‘dance-off’ in the party tents.

Champagne to celebrate the end of the race

Vita Coco Coconut water bar

After party

We used our Nike + Running app to train for the race to ensure we could get our quickest and best time.
Yoga is a must to help stretch out after each run and of course a healthy diet.

A little post race shopping at the Nike store tent

Nike treats

A little post race shopping – Nike Fuel Band

A little post race shopping at the Nike store tent

A little post race shopping at the Nike store tent

A little post race shopping at the Nike store tent

This is definite must do for next year and although the race is only 10km, it’s so worth it, just for the entrainment and post Nike shopping!

Thanks Nike and see you there!

We’d love to hear about your favourite races this Summer. Please send us some suggestions: healthywingsblog@gmail.com

For more information on the London Nike We Own the Night race click here

HW x

Net-a-sporter

Today marked an exciting day in fashion and fitness and in our office! The long awaited launch of Net-a-sporter finally arrived, bringing high fashion luxury and practical work out wear to our fingers tips. Noticing a huge trend for health and wellbeing, the fashionable women of the world can now get their work out wear in the same purchase as their wardrobes – because who doesn’t want to look just as good on the treadmill and on the street?! Now you can shop on the sports dedicated pages, sorted by category (some of our favourites being dance and yoga, gym and cross fit and running) so you can easily find what you are looking for based on your exercise of choice and brimming with luxury and chic sports labels and ample choices of garments to keep you and your look working hard. Boasting brands like Ballet Beautiful, Bodyism, Montreal, Zimmerman and Live the Process to launch with, there is much more to come – leaving our wallets quivering in our handbags! Gym Kit, its time to get serious.

But with its own dedicated homepage on the site Net-a-porter also brings you health and wellness content, specially created shop links (todays favourite is the ‘Protect your Pedi’ link) and a great playlist of all the best health and fitness video content at the bottom of the page so you can click to buy then click to work out…what more could you want!

This is sport with style and these are some of our favourite pieces…

Live the Process Floral Sports bra

Ballet Beautiful Leather Ballet shoes

Jawbone UP24 Bluetooth Activity Tracking Band

Nike Crop Leggins

Lifeform Yoga Matt

The Juice Well

Juice Bars and health cafe’s are popping up left quicker than you can say ‘green juice’ in London at the moment and one of our new gems is the Juice Well on Peter Street in Soho.

Quick not to miss out on these things, having heard the beauty girls at work rave about the press day I was hot on the heels to get there and see for myself. With a mantra of ‘Drink a rainbow every day’ they promote nutritious balanced clean eating and shout about it the minute you arrive with their colour chart to guide you through the nutritional value of fruit and veg by colour – genious!

The bar itself is urban and cool and completely dedicated to juicing, smoothies and nutrition and rivals the cool interior of many and American Juicery. The Juice Well offers a wonderful varied selection of juices, each with its own nutritional values and unique blend of veggies and fruits and some enticingly delicious sounding smoothies that I cant wait to try! The portions are generous and great value compared to the usual £6 for a teeny bottle of green goodness, these are full on meal replacements and extremely satisfying.

All cold pressed on site and created by co-owner Joe Cross (who owns some of my favourite restaurant like la Bodega Negra) and foodie Elizabeth Peyton Jones to create a menu that is “fun, easy and delicious”. Cross also wrote ‘reboot with Joe’s Juice Diet’ and directed the documentary ‘Fat, Sick and Nearly dead’ and as a result has helped thousands of people around the world shed some pounds so we know we are in safe hands here. Their 103 day juice cleanses have been carefully designed to get you maximum nutrition and help your body detox without feeling the pangs of missing out on food and at just £36 a day this a real steal whilst being so packed with juices I dont actually think i would manage to drink them all.

I think I feel my first juice cleanse coming on… time to drink the juice well rainbow.

head on down for your self to 4 Peter Street, London, W1F 0DN.

London Lulu

Wahoo! Lululemon has finally opened the doors to its first UK store on Long Acre, Covent Garden in London!

Having developed quite an obsession with Lulu on various trips to the US it has been brilliant to be able to pop into their showrooms in Chelsea and Covent Garden to stock up on yoga and work out wear but the new flagship store is something else. A large glistening beacon of positivity, clourful yoga wear and friendly staff to brighten your day, you are spoilt for choice when you walk through those doors.

The shop is split into sections, by tops, bottoms, bras and accessories and has the biggest selection of lulu menswear i have ever seen – i didnt even realise how wide their mens selection was! With positive and inspirational messaging scattered throughout the store to keep you motivated and in the lulu frame of mind. Not only is this a store though its a lifestyle and their wall of ambassadors that offer free weekly classes in yoga, HIIT and run will inspire to you to keep active in your lulu leggings! I’ve always loved their free weekend yoga classes in their old courtyard so look forward to seeing what the new classes look like!

To celebrate the opening they had a DJ in store all day with some impressive yoga displays going on in the window so this was an all round hollistic and modern celebration of yoga and fitness, bar the slightly cheating but incredibly delicious hummingbird cupcakes on offer as you left the changing rooms! Oops!

I left with a gorgeous new pair of grey ‘Wunder under‘ yoga crops and a slightly complicated but stunning ‘Flow and Go‘ yoga tank and a LONG wish list!

WELCOME TO LONDON LULU!

Londons Juicing

Halaluja, at last London has its very own cold press juice bar! The long awaited opening of Roots and Bulbs is finally here and we for one are super excited that London has its first cold pressed juicery!

We popped in as soon as we could and were suitably impressed by the rustic but fresh feeling store dedicated to cold press juices, smoothies and raw foods. They have a small but scrumptious menu of juices at the moment, sorted by letters and numbers, available in two different sizes so if you are just after a mini juice fix you don’t have to shell out £6 to do so!

We swooped up two juices to go, a G3 and a C1 – green concuction and carrot apple and ginger for an afternoon snack as well as the ‘Gym Freak’ smoothie packed with protein for a post work out fix.

Health is the New Black

This is a little late coming as healthy Wings have been busy re-designing our new website! All very exciting so watch this space but I have been meaning to write about the wonderful Hip & Healthy Wellbeing event we attemded a few weeks back… so here it is…

January was full of healthy decisions, resolutions and detoxing, so what better way the month kick starting 2014 than a wellness event hosted by the wonderful people from ‘Hip and Healthy. We rushed from our busy days at 6pm on Thursday evening to get to uber cool Hoxton Hotel where H&H had posted up for the evening, we were greeted sinks full of yummy smoothies, rows upon rows of ‘Jax’ coconut water, treats by xxx and a pick n mix bar full of nutritious but yummy nuts! One half of Healthy Wings being pretty allergic to a certain type of nuts had to avoid the nut bar but I can tell you the detox kitchen macaron balls were a big YUM!

We arrived just in time for a fab yoga session before heading into the pop up boutique full of gorgeous work out gear, including Lorna Jane‘s exclusive pieces for Hip & Healthy – too many wonderful gym outfits to choose from! We were particularly coveting the ballet wear from xxx, which inspired us to pick up our new DVDs from ballet Beautiful this weekend and get toning and lengthening our limbs with some barre moves.

Before wrapping up the evening over some sparkling water in the hotel bar we managed to get a quick mani and a seat at Alice Mackintosh’s talk on sugar. The big trend of 2014 being the enemy that is sugar, Alice gave a super insightful and inspiring talk on how to avoid sugar and how it effects our health. Healthy Wings have been trying to give up the sugary beast but this certainly gave us some great tips on how sugar in the most unlikely suspects can effect our GI – the trick being to make sure you eat protein with every sugar, so every oat, fruit and beg you innocently pop in your mouth, to keep blood sugar dips at bay. We will certainly be taking this forward into our daily nutrition to se if we can eliminate those emotion and stress dips in our day!

Our highlights of the night after catching up with good friends and the lovelies from Addictive daughter had to be meeting the lovely Sadie who is the brains behind Hip & Healthy and someone we hope to be collaborating and working with more so watch this space.

Here is to a wonderful night of clean and healthy fun, proving that a sober and nutritious evening is all you need for a good time and that health is in fact the new black.

For more updates on Hip & Healthy and to visit their shop and blog click here.

Good Life, Good Life

At last London is starting to catch up to the ways of our American friends with its new offerings of healthy eating options. You would be stuck to find a neighbourhood in California and New York without a local wholefoods or health store and their very own hip and healthy cafe or juice bar. But this year has seen Wholefoods blossom now with 8 UK stores and super markets and restaurants offering gluten-free, dairy free and vegan food options, making healthy living an easier and more delicious descion. Even more exciting though are the new cafes and juice bars popping up all over London, which brings me to The Good Life Eatery…

Having seen many an instagram post from the likes of @camillamackintosh (Millie from Made in Chelsea) and @russellsbc (personal trainer to some of the hottest bods around and creator of Skinny Bitches Club) from this cool cafe I couldn’t resist any longer. Off I headed to Chelsea to get my filling, and check it out.

The Good Life is a small venue between South Kensington and The Kings road, brimming with atmosphere and character and simple but warm wooden interiors housing a bustle of trendy looking crowds. All of which looked as though they were grabbing a post work out snack or were on their way to the gym so I knew I was in good company. As i stood in line, behind Millie Macintosh (!!!), I was immediately hooked, I wanted everything!

From breakfasts to lunch, there is a wonderful offering of egg plates, salads, smoothies, coffees, juices and gluten-free baked goods to die for, finding alternative ways for you to enjoy even your more indulgent favourite eats. Good Life have guaranteed you wont leave feeling hungry and ensured each recipe is crammed full of nutrition and flavour.

The wait for a table was quite long when I rocked up at lunch time so I decided to get some bits to take away and vowed to be back soon (*read next weekend). My favourite thing was the fridge as you walk in, crammed with cold pressed juices and protein snacks to take away. It feels like years of waiting for cold pressed juices to arrive in the UK and here they are, Good Life is London’s first cold pressed juice establishment and I was not disappointed. I grabbed three juices, a Doctor Green, Drink your Salad and Apple-Berry Coconut to stock up for the week, then piling up their dairy free and sugar-free Peanut Butter Cups and Cookie Dough Balls, slightly disappointed the chia seed puds were all out I headed to the counter. Having stopped to drool over the gluten-free baked goods in the window I decided a smoothie and match latte with almond milk would do me for this trip!

God Life have absolutely nailed the West Coast hip and healthy vibe with all its authenticity in food and nutrition as well and style and brought it to London. I cant wait to return and will certainly be dropping in to stock up on EVERYTHING at every opportunity!

Gym fanatics and yogis take note – this is THE place to get your food fix!

The Good Life Eatery
59 Sloane Avenue
SW3 3HD London, LND
United Kingdom