Jantastic week 6

I am sure I say this every week, but the time is flying by!

This week was not that easy for me to get my 100% score, but I managed it, just.

I made some little chocolate pb cups for Andy (we don’t do Valentine’s but he bought me some popchips tp celebrate half term)- they are not really a recipe just something to do- melt chocolate, spoon into cases, melt some chocolate and pb together and use as the filling= delicious.

Back to the running:

Monday was a rest day as I had run 11 miles on Sunday and wanted to make sure I was recovered. I also got home late from work, and although I actually felt OK I didn’t want to push anything too much, especially as I had run on the Saturday too.

Tuesday I went out after work- I didn’t think I would go too far but in the end did 4.1 miles.

Wednesday and Thursday were both rest days due to being at work both evenings, and by the time Friday appeared I was crawling towards the weekend so decided to just chill out and watch some of the Olympics with a cup of tea.

Saturday I went out for a run- our parkrun was cancelled due to the council not liking them using the off road route too much, but that suited me fine as I went out for a little run by myself. After all the crazy wind I decided to run by the allotments and saw that our shed has blown over again. I tried to lift it but could only get it about 6 inches off the ground. We shall have to go at some point together. Anyway, I told myself I would just have to go out and run 1 mile (the minimum for a Jantastic run) but I felt OK and in the end did 3.6 miles- half a mile more than a parkrun.

Then I mostly relaxed (and did a little work)- we walked up to Aldi later in the day for some washing bits, and I was very excited to see these:

Chocolate marzipan hearts! They sell them at Christmas (in a different box) but I have never seen them at any other time of year.

Sunday morning we were off on our longest run- 12 miles. I wanted to do it in under 2 hours as I have been trying to keep to a sub 10 minute mile pace for longer runs. Last week we had to add on some small loops to our usual route to get it up to 11 miles, so Andy had planned a different route that he used to run when we were marathon training. It was all new to me, which I am never sure if I like or not- ignorance can be bliss when I don’t realise a big hill is around the corner, but also it is harder to pace myself when I don’t know what is coming. Anyway, from the start I think I had decided it was a bit too much of a challenge, I was tired after such a busy week at work, I was regretting my Saturday run in case it had tired out my legs too much. At least the weather was beautiful and we saw plenty of spring flowers out- snowdrops, crocuses and daffodils all in bloom. I kept worrying that I would need to stop and walk too, but luckily I won that battle against my mind and kept going. There were some tough hills, both up and down, so all we kept saying to each other was that we hope Bath is flatter than this! Nearing home we weren’t quite close enough to 12 miles so we had to add on a small loop and then our front door was dead on 12, with a time of 1.59.50! Phew.

So, 3 runs out of 3 completed. 12 miles as my longest run (that was what I set for myself).

Next week won’t be as successful as I am resting today (I did some yoga first thing)- tomorrow I am hoping to get in a 5 mile run before a busy day, and then we are off to see Pompeii- I am not taking my running things with me so shall enjoy a lot of walking and sightseeing. At least I can play my joker.

What I am loving too are the motivational messages that appear when you log in to your Jantastic homepage- today it says “Even a little run is better than no run. Yes you can.” That was what got me out the door on Saturday and although during tough moments on Sunday I was wondering why I did it, actually I am very glad I did as I felt loads better for the rest of Saturday.

One day it just said “Love running“. Which is the most important statement of all. Of course when the weather is rubbish/ you are tired from work it can be hard to get out the door, and we can get a big bogged down with trying to get faster or run further, but actually the reason I run is because I love it, all the rest is the icing on the cake.

Treat Yo Self!

In the spirit of Parks and Rec (which if you don’t watch, then hunt it out as it is so funny), I would urge everyone to Treat Yo Self this weekend.

I won’t spoil it for you, but there is another very funny clip where Ben treats himself. Worth a google.

Anyway we don’t really celebrate valentine’s day, I think it is a bit cheesy and would rather celebrate days that belong to us, like our birthdays.  But this week has been tough at work, what with end of term assessments due, general end of term tiredness and two parents evenings. So after seeing Laura mention on her blog a box from Latest in Beauty- I ordered one for myself as it had some lovely treats in there including a little box of granola, some coconut water, a 30 day supply of multivitamins, a bounce ball (love those coconut ones) and a little sample of Teapigs matcha which I have always wanted to try. I also ordered a little set of shampoo and conditioner as they were on offer and will be great for travel.

It arrived yesterday, just in time for the weekend.

Last night I treated myself to some (Christmas) chocolates.

I needed the sugar to get me through to the end of the week! These are so good- a perfect mix of flavours with a mandarin one, brazil nut butter one, ginger and lime, almond praline and a cherry one. No yucky coffee/ weird strawberry ones that need avoiding so I don’t even need to read the “menu” I can just have a lucky dip! I had 3 and then today to celebrate 3 more when I got home.

So, what are you treating yourself to? What chocolates do you always avoid?

Have a lovely weekend <3

 

Bistrotea TeaPods- Your chance to win!

Hey peeps,

A while ago I was contacted by the folks at Bistrotea to see if I would like to sample their TeaPods, and also host a giveaway for my lovely readers. The TeaPods are very clever- you pop them in your cup and they infuse the water.

They sent me a couple to try- a really lovely herbal one (herbs n’ honey- the honey flavour really came through so great for me as I had a bit of a cold) which I enjoyed on Saturday afternoon:

And Green tea with ginger, which I had on Sunday.

Green tea is never my favourite no matter how many times I try it- this one was very gingery so good if you like a strong flavour.

Because of the way they are wrapped they would be great to pop in your bag- I always take herbal teabags to work and try to buy the individually wrapped ones as I would not want teabags loose in my bag.

They have a lovely flavour selection of 11 different blends- if I could choose any flavours I think I would go for Earl Grey (always a safe bet), black tea with apple and cinnamon (you can’t go wrong with cinnamon) and the red tea with vanilla and peach- I love peach tea.

Anyway, on to the competition. You can win  a one year’s supply of Bistrotea TeaPods- this is in fact over 365 TeaPods as they come in boxes of 32 (so 12 boxes = 384) which has a value of over £175.

In order to be in with a chance of winning, visit the website here and answer the question “How many blends of Bistrotea TeaPods are currently available?“. Please note that other blogs will link to the competition too (and check the website for the T&C’s). Good luck!

You can also get a 15% discount if you click on this link.

Good luck!

Jantastic week 5- Feeling Febulous!

I only just realised that it is now Tuesday and I have not reviewed my training from last week! At least on the Jantastic website you have until 8am Tuesday to log the runs from the previous week, so I am sort of in time with that!

But first, look at what came in the post!

Some super soft Thoosa t-shirts from their sale. They are cotton so not for running, but rather for relaxing in after my weekend runs 🙂

Back to the review:

Monday- 4.3 miles after work.

Tuesday- Rest day.

Wednesday- I gave Sweatshop a miss and headed out as soon as I got home. Partly because I will be missing the next 2 weeks (due to late meetings at work and then being away), partly because I knew I would be on my own at the back, and mostly because it was raining hard and I wanted to get it over with! In the end I did just under 4.5 miles- I was only going to do 3.5 but when I got close to home I felt OK and it wasn’t raining, so I carried on. Forgot about the headwind though so the last half mile was tough when I had to turn and run into it!

Thursday- Went to Pump. No luck missing the lunges this week, we had to do all the tracks!

Friday- Rest day

Saturday- Originally I was going to do 11 miles on my own, but then Andy suggested we go out on Sunday morning together. So then the idea of Parkrun crept into my head. It was the off-road route which I had not done before- people were talking (actually shouting to each other) during the run briefing, but it was also very windy so it was hard to hear. Once they started, I had to jog over to the run director and ask her the route, well more specifically how many laps I would have to do (3). It was much tougher than the normal flat route, fun, but also very tough as in parts the mud was very slippery.

My shoes were happy to get some real mud on them!

Sunday- 11 miles. Funny story. You can read about it here.

I was going to do some yoga on Sunday evening but I was really tired and just did not have the energy. After sitting for a while at Andy’s parents my legs really stiffened up, and I thought I would be really stiff and sore on Monday, but in fact I felt OK. I kept Monday as a rest day as I don’t want to push it and run 3 days in a row (well it would have been 4 as I was going out on Tuesday).

Anyway, the next stage of Jantastic is logging the length of your longest run- I had selected 11 miles so hit it right on the head. Next week optimistically I opted for 12 miles so we shall have to see how I manage that.

How is it going for any fellow Jantasticans? 

Unexpected encounter!

Pancakes were on my mind during my run- made with the last of my Orgran Buckwheat pancake mix, with a cooked apple, flaked almonds and some chocolate pb.

So on Sunday morning we were up and out running by 9am. It was windy. It was really windy. So windy in fact that when the wind was behind us it was blowing us along- normally I don’t notice the wind behind me.

We chatted a bit at first, and then as it got tougher this changed to Andy talking to me, and me replying with one or two word answers. I managed the first 6 miles fine, although I had only taken two tissues with me and my nose was running a lot- not so good. The next few miles were tough with combinations of hills and running into the wind, so I slowed quite a lot. Then, our encounter. We were about 2 miles from home and a man walking along the pavement stopped us (I thought for directions or something- wrong)- the conversation went like this:

Him- Do you run often?

Me- Yes.

Him- Have you heard of Parkrun UK?

Me- Yes.

Him- Have you heard of Danny Norman?

Me- Yes, I listen to the podcast (for those of you who don’t know, Danny co-presents The Parkrun show, which is available on the marathon talk website).

Him- I’m his Dad (he then got out his wallet to show us some kind of ID as if people would usually challenge this).

He then proceeded to tell us about the history of Bushy Parkrun, about how Danny went to school in Hatfield, and a few other bits, asking me which Parkrun I go to, before saying “You’d better get on with your run then”.

I love that his Dad is out promoting Parkrun to runners- I do hope that he stops lots of people to share the Parkrun love!

Although starting up running again was so tough- my legs felt like lumps of rock (we were stopped for 3 mins according to my Garmin)- at least I was smiling for the last two miles. I was very impressed with my estimating of distance too- last week I did a little over 10 miles, so I thought adding an extra little loop at the start would make it up- the loop was .88 miles, and literally as we got to our front door my Garmin beeped for 11 miles on the dot. Even with that stop we did the route in 1 hr 47, with an average moving pace of 9.55. I did stretch when I got home, but for the rest of the day I felt pretty wiped out. Luckily I had done most of my work on Saturday so only had a small bit to do. We popped to see Andy’s parents, then watched an episode of Elementary for some chill out time.

Later on I decided to make a clementine cake using this recipe as we had a batch that were very hard to peel.

You had to boil them first for 2 hours, so my plan of having tea and cake in the afternoon went out the window. Later on I read in the comments that someone just microwaved them for 10 minutes instead- I think I would try that next time.

Then you whizzed them up, and then added the other ingredients (sugar, ground almonds, eggs, baking powder) and whizzed again. (I then realised I had no baking powder so improvised with silver foil- think it worked OK)

It smelled so good when it was baking.

We both enjoyed a big slice in the evening- replenishing those carbs after our long run. It was lovely- not too sweet with that almost bitter tang from the clementines as well as the lovely texture from the ground almonds.