Month: March 2011

Yet another positive week

Hey guys

Yet again Sunday is here and it is time to review the past week. It was a bit all over the place due to work stuff, but it actually went really well.

Monday- 6 mile run after work, complete with 3 miles at 10.06 pace in the middle. Feeling good.

Tuesday- 10 mile run after work- I spent all day trying to fuel up for this, and I think that really helped. Pace was a bit more all over the place (not sure why but this could be down to crossing more roads, more hills etc). Pleased to have managed a run of that distance after work.

Wednesday- rest day

Thursday- Body pump- still keeping up with the same weights- fun as usual

Friday- sort of rest day- 1 mile fun run at work and 2 mile walk after work

Saturday- 16 mile run. I am still in shock as I type it that it went so well! I kept a fairly even pace which only tailed off for the last couple of miles (to be expected I suppose).

Sunday – rest day- had a 3 mile walk to keep the blood flowing as I am not feeling really stiff or anything, but my hamstrings feel a little tight, and my knees feel stiff when I first stand up.

Weekly total- 32 miles. (Well 33 if I count the run at school!) Crazy!

I still have 6 weeks to go until the 20 mile run/race, and 10 weeks til the actual marathon, so I feel like I have plenty of time to increase mileage. The training plan is almost on a fortnightly cycle, with one long run and one super long run every 2 weeks, so hopefully I can keep the momentum going and not burn out.

All in all a very positive week. I was nervous of the 10 miles after work, and of the 16 miles, so I am really pleased to have completed them. I think I am getting better with the pacing for my long runs too.

I think I am getting better at fuelling my runs- especially the ones after work. I am used to doing 3 or 6 mile runs after work, and tend to only need a small snack, but really with these runs getting longer I know I need to pay more attention to this. I think the reason why I often feel tired at aerobics is because the later start means that I am getting hungry as I would normally eat dinner at around 7 (but the class goes on til 7.30). So I am trying to plan my snacks in a smarter way.

Last night I made some chickpea stew- this has in it 1 aubergine, 1 red pepper, 1 courgette all chopped and cooked in a pan with a squirt of oil, then I added a tin of chopped tomatoes, some garlic paste, 1/2 tsp lazy chilli, 10g ground almonds, a load of rosemary, a tin of chickpeas and 100g baby spinach.

This simmered away for 25 minutes. I was so stuffed after that (it made 2 portions so half is in the freezer now- and it doesn’t look that big but trust me it was a massive food pile!). It is lovely and I liked the addition of the spinach.

Later on I popped over to see Andy’s family- they had watched a football match and had fish and chips, so after eating my dinner I brought them dessert.

These are hazelnut caramel squares, from one of my Rachel Allen books. They are similar to millionaire’s shortbread, but the base is almost cakey- it’s flour, sugar, butter, eggs and cocoa powder. The caramel has toasted hazelnuts in it, and then it’s topped with dark chocolate. Yes a total sugar bomb but also pretty amazing!

Today I tried another porridge pot (cue Andy with a joke about the porridge never running out);

I cooked it by adding hot water to it, and the cinnamon smelled lovely, but it didn’t really taste very strong. Oh well.

We had a little walk today, and I also had another honey stick bar alongside more tea.

Yum! I have reviewed all the bars so if you want to, check it out here.

I also attempted pumpkin chocolate pancakes. I basically made a batter with flour (half chickpea, half spelt) milk, cocoa powder, baking powder, spices and pumpkin puree. When I cooked them in the pan I added some dried cranberries and chocolate chips.  They were alright, but I could not taste the pumpkin (maybe I should have gone for plain pumpkin ones and not chocolate pumpkin ones)- they also were not very sweet- I think I should have added some honey or something like that. You win some, you lose some.

They looked pretty anyway, and the cranberries were lovely in there.

Right that must be enough pictures for now!

Hope you all had a lovely weekend- feel free to share anything 🙂

Especially if you were getting out and enjoying the sunshine 🙂

16 miles with the fairy

Wow I am on top of the world right now!

Thanks for all the comments regarding my running conundrum. In the end I did the mile run at work, then walked 2 miles to the shops, did some housework and pottered about. Then I was very tired! I figured that altogether I had done 3 miles on my feet, so that was enough to check my legs still worked!

Today it was 16 miles and that was all I dreamt about last night. After porridge (with some maple pb yum) and starting off making some bread for lunch, I was ready. Then I remembered I had not actually planned my route, so had to sort that out! Anyway, I did the 10 mile route from in the week (which is sort of most of a 10k loop, turn around at the 5 mile mark and backtrack), then the last 6 miles were up to the lakes, around the lakes for a bit and then home.

The weather was beautiful. I have no idea how it was for the rest of England, but here there was a heavy frost (which had gone by the time I went out) and there was not a cloud in the sky. Just miles of deep blue beautiful sun filled sky. I was feeling so good too. I didn’t even look at my watch until over 5 miles had gone. Then I was already 1/3 done! I had some shot bloks with me which I took at mile 8, 10 and 12. I also found half a packet of urban fruit (dried mango and pineapple) in the cupboard so I nibbled on that during the second half of my run. That seemed to go alright as well although my tummy was rumbling by the end! I happened to glance at my watch and notice I had done 13.1 miles, so I had a look at the time and I had run that in 2 hours 24 minutes, which is pretty good I think. Seeing as it was feeling like a slow run, that is right in the middle of my 2 half marathon times (2.32 and 2.19)- it gave me confidence that I am still maintaining the level of fitness I built up last year. After that it started getting harder (not sure if that was partly because I allowed myself to think about how far I had run/ how long I had been out for). The last few miles again were harder as I was getting a little stiff again. But not awful- I was glad when I reached home but I did feel like I could have carried on a little bit. The running fairy was well and truly with me today! It took me 3 hours and 4 minutes, a bit of that would be crossing roads I suppose. It has given me more confidence for the 20 miler too (the time limit is 4 hours and I am pretty slow) as I am sure that I could do the last 4 miles in an hour. I keep feeling very emotional this afternoon- this was a jump from the 14 mile run, but finishing it and enjoying it (I am sure a lot was down to the lovely weather) has really given me a little confidence that perhaps I will manage the actual marathon.

Anyway, once home I gulped down a chocolate alpro carton, popped the bread in the oven and rushed for a shower as by then it was about half 1 I think-  a long time since breakfast!

The bread was sooooo good! I have not made cinnamon raisin bread for ages and it is really worth it! I have a mini loaf tin so I made it in that this time. The recipe is on here somewhere but basically I put about 90ml warm water, 1tsp yeast, 1tsp sugar, 1tbs flour and 25g raisins in a cup for a bit to activate the yeast. Then I added this mixture to 150g flour (half white, half wholewheat) and a load of spices- cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, mixed spice, ginger.., kneaded it together and left to rise in the tin. This baked in the oven (180c) for 30-35 minutes.  I had mine with maple pb (plus apple and pear) but Andy had his with pure spread and it would be amazing with cream cheese.

Later on this afternoon I had some lovely Christmas tea yummy!

During my run I listened to marathon talk, and this week they did 2 versions of the show- one with added in sections of music from audiofuel. I put both on my mp3 player in case it was annoying, but actually it was quite funny. The music is sort of like keyboard demo music, and every now and then a man talks “keep your arms relaxed….. this feels easy…. take more breath than you think you need…… you need to drink water on runs longer than an hour….. run to the beat 1,2,3,4”- it reminded me of the Friends episode when Chandler tries to quit smoking by listening to the hypnosis CD, but I think it was also pretty good! Anyone used their other podcasts as I had a look on the site and there are special training ones?

Anyway, they mentioned this site- run for Japan. We all know how much help Japan needs, and this website is raising money by people dedicating one of their runs for Japan (you say how many miles. km you ran), and then donating money (eg 10p/ £1 per mile/ per km you ran). They want to have at least one run per country in the world so if you live somewhere exotic then please dedicate your run. And even if you live somewhere boring (you know what I mean) then still please dedicate one run. Anyway, for more info look here.

Maple peanut butter

Hello!

So I was looking on this website, basically salivating over all the flavours of pb. I have finished my jar of chocolate pb so I decided to mix things up a bit. In the mini chopper went some smooth pb (I think it would explode if I started with nuts), some maple syrup and some cinnamon. Loads of cinnamon!

The picture does not do it justice! Enjoyed with a crunchy jazz apple- yum!

Body pump was great as per usual 🙂

Ok so I am having a bit of a dilemma. I normally have a rest day Friday and Sunday, but this week I had an extra one on Wednesday (I missed aerobics for the 10 mile run). Tomorrow I will be home pretty early, and I have the 16 mile run planned for Saturday. I am leaning towards having a 4 ish mile run after work, as I have not run since Tuesday. I need a rest day after a long run, but tend do be alright if I run before. But the only times I have run twice in a row, the second run has been 10 miles max. Also I have only got up to 14 miles, so will it spoil my chances on the 16 miler? Am I better to rest+ walk?

I am leaning towards a walk, some work and maybe the housework that I normally do on Saturday. When I mentioned it to Andy he told me I was silly to think about it, which sort of makes me want to prove I can do it. Hmm. This leads me to believe perhaps it is silly? I have done the midweek miles that the plan says for this week. And I am running a mile at work tomorrow for comic relief (we all are).

I think I have rambled for too long! Night

(Actually it is not night for me, it is read blogs while watching the channel 4 thingy).

Dreaming of holidays

Hey guys

I love holidays! They are my favourite thing in the world. My cereal bar habit aside, I don’t have crazy shopping days/ go out drinking or anything like that. I save my money for holidays! I was looking through some photos today, so if you don’t mind I am going to share some pics from some holidays. They were all over 2 years ago, but they feel so recent.

Loved Canada 🙂 Sooooo soo beautiful!

There is amazing wildlife (we were not that close- Andy has a great camera so he zoomed in but some people were only about a metre away- crazy).

And cute wildlife! We had walked around a park, got back to our hotel and then saw on the news that there were loads of racoons there so the next day we went back! Maybe they are like squirrels to Canadians but to me they were exciting!

This is me trying to hide my nerves while going up a cable car at Lake Tahoe. The views were worth the nerves!

We went to San Francisco twice- the first time the bridge was surrounded by cloud for the entire trip (and I had to buy a coat as I didn’t take one with me!)- the second time it was beautiful weather so we walked a long way to get the perfect picture!

The stunning Pacific Coast highway- amazing scenery again.

And of course it could not be complete without a Disney/ gingerbread photo! 🙂

Just looking at the blue skies has lifted my mood- today was such a grey day and I felt in need of some sunshine!

Normality resumed, today was a rest day. I had a staff meeting, and when I got home I had a cup of tea (teapigs chocolate) with a sesame honey stick;

Yum! Then I did a spot of baking (I had a brown banana you see….)

I made the banana oatmeal breakfast cookies from the vegan cookie book (I used half chickpea and half wholegrain spelt flour)- the only sweetener they have is 1/4 cup brown rice syrup, and 1/8 cup agave (I used sweet freedom as that is what I had), and of course the banana and some dried cranberries. I used brazil nuts instead of pecans, and added a few chocolate chips. Yum 🙂

So on the subject of holidays- what is your dream holiday?

I love a good road trip, I love sightseeing, walking and being outside. I do not like laying on a beach. I would love to go to Hawaii to see the volcanoes, the blue skies and blue sea.

Off to dream some more….

Eating

Oh my word I feel like I have been eating all day!

I was very conscious of the 10 miler planned after work, so I packed extra snacks and actually made sure I ate them.

(Extra’s in bold)

Breakfast- porridge + PB + dried cherries

Snack- 2 clementines, nakd cocoa mint bar, small box of almonds, brazils and choc cranberries (10g of each)

Lunch- Sandwich with cream cheese and roasted peppers,  an apple

Snack- Pear, clif bar

Mid-run fuel- clif bloks

Post run- Kara coconut milk with sprinkle of nesquick

Dinner- Green mountain! (Spaghetti with pesto, courgette, peppers, cheese.)

To be continued… (later this evening! )

Honestly! Usually my long runs are at the weekend, so I have time to eat extra food! Fitting it in to work was hard as obviously I cannot eat while teaching, so there are only small times in the day (I can now eat a sandwich and apple in 10 mins which for me is good as I eat very slowly indeed- although this did not help the run today as I could still kind of taste the bread- not good!).

So I was nervous all day, it was on my mind. I changed quickly and headed out the door before I had time to change my mind. I had a good old Adam and Joe podcast (from 6 music) to cheer me along- I managed to not laugh out loud (mostly). The first 2 miles were tough, the 3rd mile something went wrong as I slowed down loads (and it was not even uphill) but then out came the clif shots to work their magic (possibly psychological)- I had one at 4, 6 and 8 miles and they helped. All in all 10 miles took me 1 hour 47 minutes- I was relieved to have finished under 2 hours, and actually my pace was under 11 minute miles, which is not bad for such a long distance.

I am pleased I managed it, and apart from the 3rd mile I kept a pretty constant pace, even on the horrible long slow hill. I am also pleased that my runs were moved about as I think tomorrow being a rest day is more ideal than having to run 6 miles following on from this.

Question- According to WLR today I have had 32.5g fibre already- I have read before that over 35g (?) starts to hinder the amount of nutrients your body can absorb. So what to eat to up the calories without having crazy amounts of fibre? (And this was without any pulses in my food diary- rare for me). I don’t want to resort to sugary things …