ParkLives from Coca-Cola and Partners

Sponsored Post

Like many people I was very aware that Coca-Cola is involved in sport and sporting events through their sponsorship of global events such as the Olympics, the FIFA World Cup and the Rugby World Cup. In fact I won a trip to the London Olympics by writing this post about being an outdoor sporty family.

What I wasn't aware of until I went to the seminar before Blogfest was that they started working at the community grassroots level of sport with the launch of ParkLives in 2014 in partnership with local councils and sports charities. They wanted to piggy back on the success of the London 2012 Olympics to get people active in their own communities.

In 2014 they set up events in Birmingham, Newham and Newcastle which were so successful that they set up events this year in Glasgow, Manchester and Nottingham. This video gives a taste of what has being going on:

The great thing seems to be that there is something for all ages and its all free. For example today in Birmingham the programme included:

• Nordic Walking
• A led walk
• Tai Chi
• Zumba
• Family Fun

As a runner I am pleased to see that all the parks offer a range of running classes to suit all abilities:

• walk to run
• couch to 5 k
• active running
• 5k to 10k groups

I now need to work on persuading my local council to work in partnership with Coca-Cola to get ParkLives up here in Cumbria!

Reasons to be Cheerful: Olympic Edition

The hop is being hosted by Fay at a Glass Half Full this week. With what I've been up to the only theme I can have is the Olympics!

1) Olympics with my children

We were amongst the lucky people to get the cheapest seats in the stadium in the ticket allocation. This meant that on day 1 of the athletics we were seated right at the top of the stadium looking down the entire thing. It was a wonderful atmosphere and such an amazing experience for us all - especially cheering on Jessica Ennis on her way to gold!

2) Olympics with Coca-Cola

My second trip was my prize from Coca=Cola for my Sustainability Post. This time I went with my mum and met up with 2 other mummy bloggers Pippa (plus her husband) from A Mother's Ramblings and Lou (with her daughter) from Bloggomy as well as the lovely PR ladies. This experience was a lot more laid back than travelling with my children!

We were seated 10 rows from the front for an evening session and got to be close up to the action for semis and finals. It was very exciting being so much closer to the track side. I definitely came out with a huge grin at the end of the night.

3) Olympics at Home

My children have really taken on board the excitement of the Olympics. It has been fantastic watching them and their friends in our street recreating their own Olympics with running and cycling races. My son seems to think he is the next Jessica Ennis bless him!

Olympics with Coca-Cola

Tonight my mum and I enjoyed our prize trip to the athletics thanks to Coca-Cola! What an amazing experience. Here is a taster before I can write a full post:

Coca-Cola Olympic Games Sustainability Challenge

Pippa from a Mother's Ramblings has been asked by Coca-Cola to challenge us to showing our family getting into the Olympic spirit by getting more active. Regular readers to my blog will know that I am trying to get myself in shape and encourage my children to be healthy so this is a great challenge for me. 


We spent the last week up on Royal Deeside with my parents and it proved the perfect place to be really active as a family. For starters we were staying in a lodge at Craigendarroch with a hotel on the site. This meant that we had access to the hotel pool and spent up to an hour each day in the water. My children have been having swimming lessons and loved practising their skills and acting a bit like dolphins. The grown ups also got a chance to do some swimming and show off some tricks such as underwater handstands and swimming between legs. Just wish we could swim more often as a family back home...


One of our biggest active adventures was an all day bike ride. My son only learned to ride a bike without stabilisers in May but really loves spending lots of time on two wheels. His big sister enjoys showing off her cycling skills too so a family bike trip sounded like a fabulous idea. We hired bikes from a local centre and on the only sunny day of the week set off on our adventure:

We aimed to head off through some forest trails on the north bank of the Dee that had newly been opened. First of all we had a short ride along a quiet road (just as well when your 5 year old can't cycle in a straight line!) Things started off well as the gates on the track were bike friendly with special handles to open them on the top whilst sitting on a bike.


Really annoyingly it was on this trip that my iPhone played up about taking photos and I also managed to lose virtually all the ones I did take :-(


Along the forest trail it was a lovely ride although my son did struggle with the uneven surface and had a few bumps. At one point we had to ford a stream that entailed me carrying over children and their bikes! Then we must have taken a wrong turn on to a very narrow footpath with some steep descents:

Once again Mummy the sherpa carried down the children's bikes down the steep hill. We had a lovely walk pushing the bikes along the banks of the Dee - although my daughter was caught by a salmon fisherman who wrapped his hook around her handlebars! We paused for lunch by the Cambus O May suspension bridge. The bikes needed manhandling over the turnstiles on each side. Once again this gave me a good bicep workout...:

On this side of the Dee there is a bicycle route built on the old railway line. This surface proved a lot easier for everyone especially my son. We pretty much whizzed back towards Ballater. There had to be plenty of rest stops for tired little legs - especially ones that managed to cycle through nettles at the side of the track...


Back in the town we had some time left on our bike hire so headed off to a river side car park and picnic area where the children practised mountain biking skills by going round and round over a humpy course. It was amazing they had any energy left after a 7 mile bike ride! Even more surprising they still wanted to go swimming after we got back...


The next adventure was on the Friday when we hiked around Loch Muick. The weather forecast wasn't brilliant but it didn't deter us or the children. The key to keep them going was to have them looking out for all the local wildlife such as deer:

We also had regular snack stops at various points to keep up their energy levels. It didn't seem to matter that at times the rain was coming down in torrents the children just kept on going - even if granny's big umbrella was sometimes needed to keep the worst of the rain off:

Keeping the grown ups safe by leading us across the rocky bits and finding the least puddly bits of path must have clocked up another couple of miles. There was a feeling of triumph to reach the top of the Loch (you can see how wet it was by the fact the camera was damp too!):

It all brought back memories of my childhood spent youth hostelling and camping in all sorts of weather. Hopefully it will encourage my children not to just be fair weather hikers. It was amazing how few moans there were on our 8 mile walk so let's hope we can keep it up and extend all our stamina. To sum up the walk here is my daughter's verdict on the day:

Now we are back home and we aim to keep up the momentum during the summer. We have proved to ourselves that it doesn't matter if its raining when we go out getting active (though my waterproofs could have been more effective!) which is just as well if this summer carries on the same way it has started...


Breaking update: all the exercise paid off as I have lost weight (OK only half a pound) despite eating and drinking more than normal whilst away!