Month: July 2011

How to make chia pudding?

Evening all! Hope you all had a lovely weekend. Especially the tennis! I got a text from my Dad saying he would be doing the Men’s final, but I had already arranged to go and visit a friend, so I taped it and am watching it now (just saw him!!)- I did listen to the match on my drive home but it is hard to listen while driving.

Anyway, I spent Sunday out visiting, and did do some yoga in the evening. So here is the belated (yet again) training for the previous week.

Monday- Just under 6 mile run- it was baking that day and I really struggled.

Tuesday- Aerobics- I was full of energy and loving it!

Wednesday- Rest day- walk up to cinema only to find film sold out! Walk home and yoga.

Thursday- Body pump- most notable was the full real press ups! OK so only 4, but still!

Friday- Audiofuel intervals- hard work (esp the fastest ones as you would expect)- followed by cheesecake! (Well, not right away)

Saturday- 8.5ish mile run, then helping at Summer Fayre

Sunday- Rest day- and yoga.

I am pleased I have kept up the yoga twice a week, and I might look at some of the other podcasts available for some variety.

Other stuff- I tried some chia seeds yesterday. They have been a bit of a craze (and raved about in Born to Run) and I looked for them in the little Wholefoods in London. Anyway, Lucy offered to send me some!

I mixed a small mashed banana with some cocoa powder, then added a tbsp chia seeds and a splash of milk, and left it in the fridge all day. I had it after my yoga in the evening and it was lovely- the chia seeds soaked up the milk and obviously banana and cocoa is already a winning combo!

I topped it with a pear and some garden strawberries- yum 🙂

Also ages and ages ago I tried some of the Nature’s Path cereal, and also joined their mailing list. A while back they sent an email saying “click here for free cereal” and I did, thinking it would be a small pack. Well it came in the post!

A real proper sized box of cherry and coconut cereal. Yummylicious indeed!

And today I had a run after work- I did the same route as last week but my legs felt heavy (not sure why as I rested yesterday- maybe teaching PE all afternoon in the heat?)- I picked up the pace at the end but it still took me 64mins (only a couple of mins faster than last week in that baking weather). Ah well I will take that I suppose.

I have also signed up to some more races- The Brighton half marathon and the Silverstone half marathon, and…..

.. next weekend Andy and I are off to Silverstone to see the Grand Prix!!!!!!!!!!! Woohoo! 🙂  He surprised me on Friday and I am so excited! 🙂

Any exciting races or other plans for you guys?

How to get faster

OK, so for a while now my goals with regard to running have mainly been to go further. A few years ago I started with a 5K, the following year I did a couple of 10K’s, the year after a couple of half marathons, and this year the full marathon. During that time, I have got a little faster, but I have not really focused on it much- I am getting ever closer to the 1 hour 10k, but have not made it yet. I have been reading (and listening to marathon talk of course) about this subject, but the bottom line is, in order to run a faster race, I have to train faster.

So Friday after work I did another audiofuel interval workout. I did the middle one again, which tops out at 180 steps per min. Although the recovery parts are slower than I normally run, I have come to realise that I need to have them slower in order to be able to run faster in the other parts. The first intervals feel a little fast, but fine. The second ones feel comfortably hard, and the fastest ones feel very hard (like, I want to stop and have a little trouble breathing but in a good way). Without access to a track I have always found doing intervals hard- it would be a combination of looking at my Nike+, flipping between time and pace to make sure I kept it up, or running fast between lamp-posts etc, so really more fartlek style. I like the fact that these tell me how fast to go and I manage to maintain that pace consistently, as oppose to my fake interval training where in realilty I must vary my speed all the time.

Anyway, the run was good,but I was glad to get home!

Time for some refreshing coconut water! My face does not look at all red, or in fact that sweaty and I have no idea why, as I was baking and dripping yet again!

Anyway, I am going to keep this up as I can see that it forces me to run faster than my comfort zone, which can only be a good thing.

While I am on the topic of running faster, I have a little plug for my beloved marathon talk. At the end of every interview they ask the question “if you could have 6 months of guaranteed perfect training dedicated to this, how fast could you run one mile?” and they have a little magic mile leader board. They are having a little magic mile summer challenge– basically you register on the site, and then between 1st -14th August you have to run one mile flat out, and log your time. There is some kind of complicated age ranked scoring system, and it is basically UK vs the world,with participation ranking higher than speedy times. So go on, sign up! I am! They even have a training plan, if you want to take it super seriously. 🙂

On Thursday it was body pump, and I did like the music a little more this time (phew). I found a couple of tracks a little easier (squats being one, although that may be because I have cut back the running miles for the moment) so I went a little heavier (although the lunges track is a killer)- I also went crazy and did full push ups! Well, we only have 4 at the start of the shoulder track (I normally do half girly ones- you know, on your knees but with hips low but I did used to be able to do full ones ages ago so I knew I was capable)- no going back to girly ones now!

Friday night we went to friends’ house for dinner, and I provided dessert. So, if you do not want to see cheesecake, STEP AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER / scroll down a bit as healthy stuff resumes further on.

It was a chocolate, caramel and hazelnut baked cheesecake from the new Hummingbird book. You made the base, chilled it, made the cheesecake mixture and then mixed half with caramel sauce, and half with melted chocolate- you can kind of see the layers. Then it was baked.

After chilling overnight it was topped with caramel sauce and roasted hazelnuts. Yum. My friends actually discussed kidnapping me and keeping me tied up in their kitchen- to be honest I would love to be baking all day haha!

OK- healthy stuff resuming alert!

I have had some tasty dinners, including lovely pasta with roasted veggies and pesto (one of my fave meals).

I topped this with a little reduced fat cheddar (which was on offer and it actually pretty nice- I do not normally go for the reduced cal/fat stuff, but it tastes nice). Yum.

This was lovely banana-cocoa-pb pudding topped with raspberries. Delicious.

Today I went out on a run- I did the route from 2 weeks ago, and actually 2 mins slower, but my legs felt really heavy. I think the extra weight from body pump and also the harder run yesterday probably didn’t help that. I did though have water with me (well, water with a nuun tab) which did help a lot. It was lovely, but I was in a hurry after as I had to get to my school summer fayre. Anyway, before I left I could not resist trying a Clif bar from my bloggie swap!

Yummy! It was scrumptious. Andy had a bite and said “will we be living on Clif bars this summer?” (as we are going to America) and then “do they sell them in supermarkets over there?”- US blog friends- where do they sell them?? And thanks again to Britt- what a super tasty parcel 🙂

Anyway, as it was hot I took some water with me to the fayre and then spent a few lovely hours, first manning a bouncy castle, and then wandering aboutin the sunshine. Love it. 🙂

So, how do you runners out there get faster? And have you signed up for the magic mile challenge? Go on, you know you want to!

🙂