This blogging game is hard work, especially if it’s not just your sideline or hobby, but what you actually do. It’s a constant hustle, there is no ‘off’ time, no office hours. We manage our own editorial and if it goes wrong, there is no buck to pass, it’s all on us. We work tirelessly to peep our heads above the sea of more than 180 million or so blogs there are out there to build an audience and become recognised in our field. It ain’t easy. Now that mainstream media is starting to cotton on to the impact of blogs, they all want a slice of the action. But it’s all coming off a little bit like they’re late to the dance, but acting like they sent the invites. We are still being made to jump through hoops to get mainstream recognition. Surely, we can do better.

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There are certain moments in life where you learn a lot about yourself. They can be brief, fleeting moments that, if you’re not paying attention, can just fly right by without you noticing. I was lucky enough to be present when one of these moments happened for my Team Bangs on the Run member Sarah Mei over the weekend and it’s been replaying in my head ever since.

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The Team Bangs on the Run training for the Berlin Half Marathon is now in full effect and the girls are off to a cracking start. Though our official training plans didn’t start til the second week of January, the girls all took it upon themselves to pound the pavements and clock up as many miles as they could so they were ready for whatever the plan threw at them. But being a good runner isn’t just about running. And Team Bangs is about working fitness into your life in a way that you enjoy, so I want to try to give the team a well rounded fitness experience. With that in mind, we are training with Sexy in the City Bootcamps twice a week.

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A couple of months ago, I took my Team Bangs on the Run girls to Nike Town to have their gait analyses done and said to a friend of mine who works there ‘I’ve just brought my bitches in for you.’ Seconds after I said it, I cringed. I’m talking about a group of talented, driven, inspirational women and I referred to them as ‘bitches’. I’m sure they knew that I meant it affectionately, but I was disappointed in myself that I’d said it. Having been guilty of casually flinging that term around for years, recently it has not sat well with me. Though many feel we have ‘reclaimed’ the word, are we right to be using it?

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Just over a year ago, I wrote a blog post that gave me serious anxiety. It was about how I suffer with acne. When you have bad skin, you spend your whole life covering it up, literally and metaphorically. You are constantly hiding, constantly worried someone will point it out. That post was one of the hardest things I’ve ever written, but the response it received let me know it was necessary. I was flooded with emails from women who felt my pain. And so, today is phase two of ‘getting it all out there’. The above picture is me, no makeup, no retouching, just me. This is the first time since probably age 13 that I’ve appeared in public with no makeup on.

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It’s an odd thing where you can’t speak about achievements in a matter of fact way. Anything alluding to some form of success must be preceded with a ‘sorry’ or ‘I don’t mean to sound big headed but…’ Never mind that you most probably slogged your ass off to hit said achievement, you should feel sorry about that and never mention it. Yeah, like I said, odd. It’s something I’ve noticed more and more on social media – someone mentions an achievement/something they’re proud of – a certain sector of people shout them down for bragging and say how inappropriate that is. People, let’s stop the nonsense.

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Last Friday, a news story swept around the internet faster than…well, faster than it would have in print. It was about a woman named Julia. Julia had met a nice chap while on holiday in Ibiza (a destination known for romance, arts, culture and the finer things in life – by all that I of course mean foam parties and getting sloshed). They shared one kiss. Julia gave him her number, he never called. Months pass and Julia, now convinced that the fella is the love of her life, thinks she may have given him the wrong number – THAT’S why he never called. So, she did what any woman who’s never heard back from a guy would do: she launched a national PR campaign to find him. Cue intense cringing.

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The very first blog post I did on here back in 2007 was entitled 51 Things You Should Know About Me. I figured some time has passed and by now there are surely 51 more things I can share with you. Aside from anything else, I find this is always quite a good writing exercise – makes you take a good look at yourself and you often realise things about yourself when you write them down that you didn’t before. So, here goes…

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With a New Year comes all the lame resolutions everyone likes to make about stopping smoking, going on a diet or signing up to the gym. Yawn. Most people fail – mainly because to place such importance on the ‘New Year’ like it has some sort of magical powers that will automatically rid you of your slack ass ways is ridiculous. So, I have come up with 12 things that will be easy for everyone to do and will, I believe, make the world a better place (marginally) (if we’re not focusing on the big things) (at least all of them are cheaper than a gym membership).

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I met with a PR last week who regaled me with stories of how she gets bombarded with requests for free product from bloggers. Oh dear. I always feel a little embarrassed as a blogger when I hear that. I’ve written before about the sense of entitlement newer bloggers seem to have, but perhaps it’s time we examined in more detail how the PR/blogger relationship works specifically in relation to free product.

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