I was recently asked to take part in a blogger survey in response to the recent outrage Daily Mail columnist, Jan Moir, caused when she recently criticised singer Katherine Jenkins for running the marathon in full make up (read more here). Jenkins took the high ground by responding with the following on Twitter: “I ran in sunglasses because it was sunny. I tied my hair back in a ponytail because I expected to sweat. As if you had some insider knowledge you wrote I was wearing eye shadow, eye liner & lip gloss. Wrong again – none of the above – I had Vaseline on my lips, handed to us by St Johns Ambulance on our way round the route.”

This lead to the question: Should you be fashionable/look good whilst working out?

My instant reply was “HELL YES?! Who wants to look busted, ever?!”

However, everybody’s interpretation of “looking good” is not the same. When I was at the gym last week I spotted a girl/lady/woman/female (delete where you feel necessary) with her hair slicked up in a mid-high ponytail (the ponytail piece was not her own home grown hair), with another piece of hair sweeping down over her forehead and pinned behind her ear, and a set of false lashes. This was all caught in a glance as I was in the middle of a rather superb workout myself so I didn’t look closely enough to see if she had any foundation/blusher/bronzer on.

After seeing this, it made me ask myself the question again; this time my answer was a little more thought out.

When working out, I think everybody should feel the best that they can; because after all it can only get better, right? So yes, I will get my cute little outfits on – you know some fire running shorts/sleek leggings, a nice workout tee/vest, and some flyy trainers; sometimes I’ll throw on a little workout jacket for that extra sweat/fashion factor.

Personally I draw the line at make up, I mean are you really going to give 100% if you for one minute think you’re going to sweat your hair out or sweat your make up off??? You’d look even worse than you thought you did without your “face” on and your hair did!

I know SportsShoes, fully support Jenkins for her awesome achievement in completing the marathon for a great cause. It has certainly raised an interesting debate about whether or not you should look good whilst working out. I’d like to know if looking stylish spurs you on to work harder while exercising or are you fully focused on how you feel rather than what you wear?