Afternoon practise

Evening all

Today was the Christmas Fayre so my morning run was put back to later (also as the stockholm marathon starts at 2pm I need to start doing some long runs in the afternoon so I am used to it). The fayre was fun (lots of face painting, present wrapping, carol singing, mulled wine and mince pie eating (not by me though)) and after that I popped to the shops. To cut the story short, we are away for Christmas and so Andy has said we won’t bother putting up the tree or decorations which I wasn’t happy about. In the end we compromised by saying we would get a little tree, so I got one. Only the misunderstanding was that I was meant to get a real tree. Which I was tempted by but thought I was being so good at resisting. So tomorrow the saga will continue.

Anyway, I had lunch and then started making some stollen (currently addicted to it).

It takes ages as you have to soak the fruit, make the dough, leave it for ten mins, add butter and sugar, leave it again for a few hours, add in the fruit, leave it again, shape into loaves (add marzipan in), leave again….. It’s a day project that keeps on needing to be revisited.

After a lot of the prep, I went out on my run. This morning was quite bright, but as I got ready the rain started. Not too hard, so I thought it would be ok. After about 30 minutes the rain got very heavy, but I was not feeling cold so I carried on. But my glasses fogged up and the tissue in my hand was also wet so useless for clearing them. At the lakes there was a lot of slush about, and the lakes were still half frozen (randomly with a lot of seagulls sat on the ice). Then on my way back I was so mad because by this time the puddles were quite big, and the puddles on the roads were bigger too. As I was on the pavement right by the road a car actually swerved into the puddle to actually splash me with a wave of icy muddy water. My shoes were soaked through, the wet got through my capris and tights, and so the last 15/20 minutes of my run were spent freezing and soggy. I was not a happy bunny.

I was also starving when I got home. I normally now have porridge in the morning before a long run, but I tried 2 slices of toast with sunflower seed butter (peanut butter is a no-no before a run for me). I didn’t want anything too heavy, but I think I need a little more protein possibly. Anyway, I downed some chocolate milk and a normal clif bar, before peeling off my soggy cold clothes and warming up in the shower.

Then it was time for some tea;

Christmas tea 🙂 It was from Whitards last year (black tea with orange peel and festive spices) but I saw it in a pretty new tin this year too. I love my teapot 🙂

After my post a few weeks back on nutrition, my amazon order arrived so I spent a bit of time flicking through it;

Vegetarian Sports Nutrition . I look forward to reading it.

After dinner it was time for some stollen (still warm, mmmm);

Love those cranberries.

So I am pretty pleased with my first afternoon run, it went ok- my pace was pretty similar to my other runs of that length, and as I know that fuelling is the main issue it is something I can experiment with between now and May. Anyone taken part in an afternoon race/ race at a funny time? Any good tips?