10 good things that happened in 2016

2016 was a bit of a rubbish year, many celebrities died, we had the whole Brexit problem (it's ok I'm moving north if Scotland goes independent) and I feel like sometimes I live in a society that isn't understanding of others. There is hope for 2017 I think but I thought I would start 2017 with a post about 10 good things that happened to me in 2016. This is a carry on from my 18 things I've learned in 2016 post if you haven't read that one you should. Here are 10 good things that happened in 2016:

1. I helped organise the first This Girl Can award evening in Newcastle. 

I was really lucky and got asked to help organise Newcastle's first This Girl Can award evening after being an ambassador for over a year I couldn't have been more excited to help. It was a great event with over 200 women all there to support each other for the work they had done in their community.

2. I got my first real job.

When I say real job I mean a job that is related to my degree. In April I became Newcastle's Ping Activity Officer, my job involves me looking after table tennis across Newcastle and developing a free program across the city. I love it, I've had my moments with it but I think I've found my feet and can't wait to start 2017 program. 

Me and my colleagues at the launch of Ping in Newcastle

3. I passed my driving test the first time and I got my first car.

This was a big step for me in June I passed my driving test and got my first ever car. Driving for me was more of a necessity than a pleasure. I have a love/hate relationship with cars I'm on to my second car after my first one decided to break 2 weeks after buying it and as I'm writing this my second car is in the garage after breaking down. Who knows I might have a better year when it comes to cars in 2017 but I do like driving and I'm glad I've done it now. 

4. I got lots of amazing blogging opportunities.

I was a lucky girl this year with the number of opportunities I got through blogging. I was able to go to the Mineral House at the Crowne Plaza to do a review of the spa. I've been to a number of ElleFluence event that the lovely Laura runs for Northeast blogger and who I must say is an amazing lady. I've been sent amazing products to try out including some Adidas products from Blacks and even got to trail out anytime fitness in Gateshead.

5. I tried out 2 new fitness classes.

This year I got to try out 2 very different types of fitness classes. The first one was a trampette fitness class that was run by the lovely Nicki at Great Park Community Centre and the other was the Extreme Air class at Newcastle's new Trampoline centre. 

6.  I started going to church.

2016 was about learning and this year I learned that I needed to do things for myself. For around a year, i had been thinking about going to church but I didn't go because I felt that people around me would think differently of me. In August I watched one of Louise's (Sprinkle of Glitter) video about religion and how she had taken the step towards becoming a Christian. I think that was what helped me take the leap and about a month later I took my first step into the church and Christianity, I went to a 4:30 pm service and I never turned back. I've started to find what I was looking for and I think its helped to make me a better person. I even finished a 7-week course called Christianity explored which was a massive help for me, I'm excited to see what my next step is. 

7. I ran my first 10K 

One of the many opportunities, I got this year included the chance to run the Mo run. I talked all year about how I wanted to run at least one 10k this year and I did. You can ready about it here.

8. I went on my first ever winter holiday to Poland.

This was 1 of the main highlights this year. I had never been on a holiday abroad in Winter and I was really excited when my sister agrees to go to Wroclaw with me. It was amazing, I'm in the middle of putting a photo diary together so keep an eye out for that in 2017.

9. I ran my fastest 5K with a personal best of 27.57

The 10th December just before Christmas I ran my fastest ever 5k at Newcastle's Parkrun. I was going for around a 30 minutes finish after not being able to get below that. I somehow was able to not be far behind the 28 minutes pacer and absolutely trashed my last personal best by a whole 2 minutes. I felt that this was one of my biggest achievements this year.

10. I met Mr. M. 

If you've read my 18 things I've learned in 2016 you will know that I was very lucky and met Mr. M. I'm not going to go into loads of details about him because I want to try and keep some things private, that might chance later on but for now I like our little private bubble. What I will say tho is that meeting him was definitely one of the highlights in 2016. We already have quite a few plans for 2017 which I'm definitely looking forward to. 

It's strange because I thought I would find it really hard to write this post hard as I thought that actually not much good had happened to me in 2016 but it shows that even the littlest of things can make you happy. 

Extreme Air - Newcastle Trampoline Park

I’ve always been someone that’s been pretty active, doing any sport that my mam would let me do. It turned out that trampolining would be my  main sport around 5 years you can read more about that below. So you can imagine my face when I heard that there was going to be a brand new trampoline park opening just up the road from me I knew I had to find out more. Newcastle Trampoline Park opened up in October 2016 and one of the main things that drew me to the centre was their new Extreme Air class.

So like I said before my main sport throughout school was trampolining that was because when I was in school I was asked to join a trampoline team and I think that was where the jumping bug started. After 4 years of competing for the school team and then for a club the jumping bug had to be stopped after falling off and injuring my knee quite badly. 6 years after not going back on I knew that my knee could handle doing it again. The only thing was that I had grown too old to join a club so didn’t know what to do.

That was when luck hit me and my local sport became the new Newcastle Trampoline Park. I’m not going to lie, I was very excited for this trampoline park to open but when I heard through the grape vines that they were thinking of doing trampoline fitness classes I knew this was meant to be. When the park officially opened they put a call out on their facebook for people to try out their Air Extreme class.

Myself and my friend Shane decided we couldn’t miss this opportunity. We had no idea what we were letting ourselves in for but we knew we just couldn’t turn down the opportunity to try it out.

Main Trampoline area in the park.

We arrived at the trampoline park all ready to go, the centre itself has had a refurbishment since being taken over by North Country Leisure, it looked nothing like its old self and the trampoline park itself was bright and light. We arrived at reception to be greeted by the reception staff and they were all lovely. When we had booked over the phone, we got told that we would have to buy some of the trampoline parks socks which were £2. When you think about a number of times you could wear these socks £2 is nothing.

The next thing we had to do was sign a form which was like the terms and conditions of the parks. Along with the form we had to watch a 3 minute which was a basic briefing of what you couldn’t do in the park, this included all the safety aspects of jumping (you have to watch this every time you go to the park). I will say the noise it makes for a broken bone puts me off every doing something you shouldn’t. We also got to met our lovely instructor for the class called Millie.

Me trying to get some height while trying to look cool.

After all the safety talks and watching the video it was time for the class. I had no idea what to expect but let’s say I was a little excited at getting onto the trampolines.

Me doing a tuck jump

The class is a mix of your traditional boot camp/fitness and a trampoline class. Trampolining can be one hell of a cardio workout. When we started off the class with cardio I knew we would be working hard. We started off with the simple warm up with us doing the 3 simple trampoline moves, these are tucks, pike, and straddles. The warm up was also the time for everyone to get used to the trampolines and get used to the surrounding.

Me doing a full turn

 Then the real workout started, in trampolining the higher you bounce the hard it is on both your legs and core. We did a simple HITT session to start with us working out for 30 seconds, 10 seconds rest, 20-second exercise, 10 seconds rest and then 10 seconds exercise, 10 seconds rest. We did this for all 4 of the basic trampoline moves and I will tell you that I was sweating and my legs were burning.

We then went on to do a leg and abs workout. You might be thinking this is the simple part but when you think about doing squats and keeping your balance on a normal floor it can be pretty hard, so now imagine doing that on a trampoline, your legs and core are working overload.

Me having too much fun. 

After all that it was time for a cool down. The class works out about 45 minutes long and its full body workout. You definitely come away from the class sweating and expecting to be in pain the next day.

If you are looking for a workout that is something new and different this is definitely the class for you. I would recommend this class to anyone that is up for a challenge. The class run on both a Monday night between 7pm-8pm (with Millie) and Tuesday night between 8pm-9pm (with Emma). If your not a member of the park the class is £5, but if you become a park member you can get it for £3 and even better if you become a member of the gym you get it for free as it is part of the gym membership.

If you fancy booking on (there are only 13 spaces for each class so you have to be quick) you can book here or you can call the centre to book on.