Dark and Lovely presents The Black Girls RUN! Preserve the Sexy Tour. This fun Fitness event made its way to Charlotte over the weekend.
The conference provided informative classes on running form, muscle evaluation and overall anatomy.
Black Girls Run and Dark and Lovely want to inspire African American women to stay fit and feel wonderful doing it.
All running levels were welcomed. The energy and motivation from all the ladies was unbelievable.
When your running and working out like this, what’s the one thing we have a time with? Our hair of course!
Dark and Lovely has created a one of a kind edge sleeker, “Anti-Reversion,” that guarantees to hold stubborn hairs in place.
We had a chance to chat with one of the Founders, Ashely Hicks
Why did you start Black Girls Run? What did you envision?
“So we started out as a blog then we really thought we would write a book and see where it takes us from there but we didn’t know that it would turn into all that it has turned into.”
What struggles if any have you had with your fitness goals?
“I think the biggest struggle is staying injury free. I’ve had a couple of injuries recently so I’m just trying to get back to having loose muscles, flexible start doing yoga and seriously doing yoga.”
“I’ve never been flexible I remember in elementary school everyone could do a split and I couldn’t so I said we’ll It’s just not my thing. That’s my thing right now is as I get older I realize its really important to really be flexible and loose.”
What has been the most rewarding part of Black Girls Run?
“The success stories. People have anywhere from losing a 100 lbs to no longer being pre diabetic to I mean you kinda hear it all.
Also, the introduction to running its a new way to realize that we didn’t have a good way of dealing with stress. Everyone has stress but we don’t know how to deal with it. Typically we eat our feelings.
I’ve had people say I’ve run through a divorce, loosing a parent or a child or
Even some horrible stories and they say I found this group and its help me deal with it.”
Do you have any health and fitness idols?
“I really like Jeanette Jenkins. I think she’s super cool
Probably Serena Williams. That’s a lot of hard work.”
Any advice for someone that’s feeling unmotivated ?
“Usually what we tell our newbies is all you have to do is start with walking. Just do some type of lifestyle change whether it’s a 10 min walk. . . every day a 15 min walk. . . . going to a yoga class. A good way for our moms is that your kids are gonna wanna go outside and play. Get out and do something with them. That’s a really good thing about this group is that we have moms. We see young little girls running now too! The moms are the new fitness role models.
Take those first steps, which is why we developed the walk before you run program, so they can meet locally in there groups and someone leads them into an 11 week training program.”
Do you all have any other new projects coming up?
“We have our summer tanks coming out and bras.”
-interview end-
Thanks Ashley for speaking with us. š
Missed the Charlotte Tour stop?
Black Girls Run will be hitting these cities next:
June 7th-Philadephia
June 21st-Washington, DC
July 12th-Houston
July 26th-Chicago
August 9th Atlanta
Be sure to follow Black Girls Run and Dark and Lovely via Social Media