Author: Maria Runs

December running so far, and fava bean granola

My Strava feed seems to be full of running at the moment- it seems a lot of people are running every day in December/ for advent. To me, that’s crazy. I know that running 3 days in a row is OK for me, and 4 is my limit, and really the 4th run is no use to me at all as I will be stiff, tired and slow. However, I do like the challenges that encourage me to run a little further than normal. I can get into a bit of a run midweek- 3 miles is my minimum run (what’s the point in spending more time washing my hair than I spend running?), so doing a distance challenge is good as it makes me run 4 or 5 miles in the evenings instead. It is also good for my at parkrun as I tend to run a mile or two beforehand, and so I am then warmed up for the start of parkrun.  As I have mentioned before, I’ve signed up for the 100 miles in December challenge, and I also want to run 1000 miles in 2016. We are half way through December now, and my monthly total is 44 miles (not too bad you might say- nearly half way), and my yearly total is 940. As we were away for the first weekend in December I did no running then at all- missing one long run and one parkrun had a big impact. So I have 60 miles to run in two weeks. I think it’s doable. This weekend I’ll run before parkrun, and do a long run on Sunday, so that will be around 15 miles. I’ll do a normal club run on Tuesday, and then I can run in daylight (I finish on Wednesday)- I’m planning another long run on Thursday with a few of the girls from the club. I might run to and from parkrun on Christmas Eve, and I have a 10 mile race the day after Boxing Day. I don’t want to be having to run lots of days in a row so I am trying to make sure all of my runs are slightly longer.

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I’d also forgotten that I had signed up for the Virtual Runner 5k series of December- annoyingly I didn’t go to parkrun the first weekend (we were away) and last weekend I marshaled, so one day I did an out and back to get the 5k in, although a longer run would have been better, so this week I submitted the first 3 miles of a 5 mile run. The 4 medals all clip together to make a snowflake which is why I signed up.

Ages ago I was sent some granola from Fava Mills. They use fava beans from Finland to make high protein breakfast cereals.

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They make 5 varieties- Apple and Cinnamon, Cranberry, Crunchy, Apricot and Papaya, and Berries and Beets. They also make ground fava beans which you can add to savoury things, a bit like quorn mince or lentils or something.

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The apple and cinnamon is my favourite- this is on top of an apple with some almond milk, although you can’t see the apple. The granola is super crunchy, and although I do prefer it crunchy, I leave it to soak for a bit as otherwise I don’t think my teeth could handle it!

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The ingredients are: oat flakes, fava bean flour (20.5%), sugar, pea protein, rapeseed oil, apple cubes (4%) [apple, sugar, natural apple flavor, acidity regulator (citric acid)], barley malt extract, cinnamon, salt. So they do contain sugar, but then most granolas do. Each serving has 9g protein, which seems quite good.

They are available to buy only online at the moment, here. They also have some recipes on their website.

I think it would make a great crunchy topping for an apple crumble too, although I have not tried it just yet.

Do you mange to keep running/exercising during the festive period? Have you ever joined a challenge? When do you finish work for Christmas?

*I was sent the cereals in exchange for a mention in a blog post *

Encourage Your Kids To Stay Active With These Fun Sports*

I have a contributed post today, all about keeping your kids active:

As a parent, it’s natural to want the best for your kids and to encourage them to do well, but it’s also natural to want to protect and nurture them if there’s something that they don’t want to do or is bothering them.

For most parents, the line between pushing our kids that little extra bit for their own good, and letting them decide what they want can be pretty fine at times.

It’s absolutely important that we listen to our kids and support them – we can’t expect them to be enthusiastic about everything we ask them to do because, like us, they’re individuals, and we have to find a middle ground for compromise.

On the other hand, sometimes we do genuinely know what’s best for kids when they don’t, and we do have to take on the responsible role and put our foot down.

One of these times is absolutely when it comes to the health and wellbeing of our children, and as we all know, a big part of health is diet and staying active.

Most kids have far more energy than us adults, to the point where they could literally outrun us in a marathon,  but as much as they have energy, they’re not robots, so they won’t always feel like going outside to play, or doing some sports.

We have to be able to encourage them to stay committed to things, even on the days when they don’t really feel like it, because as much as we also like the odd day on the couch watching Netflix, we have to teach our kids that they can’t just go through life doing only the things they feel like.

When they’re older, they need to have a good work ethic and go to work even when they can’t be bothered. If we give in to their every little whim now as children and allow them to constantly drop out of things, then they won’t have this work ethic as adults, so it’s not only important for them now in regards to their health, but also for their future as successful adults who contribute to society.

Here are a few really fun sports you can encourage your child to get involved in. Not only are they fun and help them stay fit, but if you start early enough, then you may find your child has a real talent for these sports that can lead to much bigger things.

Swimming:

This is always a favourite with children because most of them love to swim, anyway. Swimming is a great thing to teach young children as early as possible, because they will be very fit and healthy, become strong swimmers, which is good for safety reasons, and the earlier they start, the more likely they will develop a real passion and commitment to the sport:

Gymnastics:

If you ever watch the Olympics, you’ll see that this is highly dominated by young people. They have been on the Gymnast beams since very early ages, and have developed amazing skills and strengths, not only body wise, but mentally, and they are very driven and focused on what they do.

Tennis:

This is a sport that is also best when learned as early as possible, and although it’s more popular in some countries as opposed to others, it’s definitely gaining in popularity recently. It’s a sport that you can do with your kids together as a family, and if you see them showing signs of talent or passion, then you can certainly look at hiring a tennis coach to work with them and hone their skills, both mentally and within the game.

What sorts of activities did you like when you were a child? We did a lot of walks and bike rides as a family, and on holiday we would swim or hire kayaks. One of my favourite clubs at school was the country dancing club, although I didn’t like the  orange skirts wee had to wear! What do you think it available in your area? The first junior parkrun has just been launched in Hertfordshire, and I think it is brilliant. I have put an item on the school newsletter about it as I think it is so important for families to be active together, or just being outside in the fresh air. Plus the ethos of parkrun is to join in, or watch, and it is in no way pushy. I think that forcing children to do something they don’t like causes far more damage in the long run.

We are also having a big push at work because studies have shown that most children do not reach the required 3 hours of activity per day- they are far more sedentary now.

Hatfield 5 2016

After our Saturday in Bath (a couple of weeks ago now) I was doing the Hatfield 5. It’s a fairy new race (this was it’s third year)- I ran it for the first year, but last year we were away. As it’s local, we get a great turnout of OH ladies both running and marshaling. The first year was still my 5 mile pb- a great time of 44.44 (great because of the palindromic nature as well as it being very fast for me) and I didn’t think I would be anywhere close to it.

I had also signed up to the Virtual Runner UK birthday run – it was any distance in November. I actually submitted a random run so the medal would come, but I wanted it for this run. The money went to Alzheimer’s UK, and as was pretty much 2 years to the day since my Nan passed away of Alzheimer’s I wanted to run the race in memory of her.

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The race HQ is at Herts uni, so you could use their car park and hang about inside the cafe area after collecting your number. I left my bag at the drop (although that took a while and should have hinted to me that maybe I should have just run back to my car). We only headed to the start line 5 minutes before as it was quite cold, and I lined up with a few runners who I know are a similar speed to me. I had no aims of beating my pb as I had worked out I would need to run all my miles beginning with an 8- it sounds way too fast!

I was trying to keep one of my friends (Louise) in sight, but the start was crowded so I lost her for a bit. I managed to catch her up after a mile or so, and a little later we caught up with another runner from our club (Emily-she’d only joined a few weeks before and this was her first race). After a while Louise said she needed to slow, so we left her, and the two of us pretty much stayed together, sometimes me a bit ahead, and sometimes Emily. We saw loads of OH marshals along the first couple of miles which really gave us a boost too.

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Here we are after about 3 or 4 miles I think (both feet off the ground for both of us).

As we came to the final mile we kept being overtaken by these two guys, and then they would go past us. It turned into a bit of friendly rivalry as one of them commented “you girls keep going past us”- I think we finished ahead of one of them! The final mile is the same as the first mile, but in the opposite direction, but it seemed to go on for ages! I had barely looked at my watch during the race (only to see the mileage) but I could see the finish clock, and knew it had taken us a minute or so to cross the line, and it was still under 45 minutes so I put in as much of a sprint as I could to try and beat my time.

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Chip time was 43.58! A new 5 mile pb by nearly a minute!

I managed the royal flush negative split too- my miles were 9.09, 8.59, 8.50, 8.41, 8.20. Not sure how I managed that! Just over 25 minutes for the final 3 miles, yet my fastest parkrun (and I know there’s a 0.1 to be added) has been just over 27 minutes recently.

I stayed at the finish line and cheered lots of our runners over the line, but I started to get very cold so thought I would head in to get my bag. I ended up queuing for about 35 minutes- one poor guy was on his own trying to find each bag. It was very painful and annoyingly I missed seeing the last couple of runners from our club cross the finish line. We had a few mini group pictures as we hadn’t taken one at the start (a schoolboy error)- marshals and runners. It was great to see so many familiar faces.

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From our facebook page

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The medal was a really good one too- nice and chunky. I decided that I was going to donate my finish time to the charity (like when parkrun do the donate your time campaign) so it’s properly for my Nan.

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I then had a bit of a rush as I was going into London for afternoon tea with a couple of friends- it was the first weekend of their festive one and we got mini mince pies, which excited me a lot (even though I am not the biggest fan). I think I didn’t drink enough though as I had such an awful headache at the end, and didn’t have any painkillers with me. I could have bought some on my way back to the train station, but as it was a Sunday the trains were less frequent and I thought I would rather get an earlier train and suffer on- it wasn’t good though as I wanted to sleep on the train but then worried I would miss my stop. Apart from that it was great though.

When I told Andy I got a new pb, he went “for 5 miles?” as if that wasn’t very impressive! I think it’s my 6th or 7th 5 mile race, so I was pretty pleased!

Which distances do you think you race the most frequently? I would guess 10k for me, but I need to do a tally chart to find out. Which tea would you have for afternoon tea? Earl grey all the way for me.

A little catch up

So it turns out that going away for 3 weekends in a row, plus a very busy time at work means that blogging gets a little neglected at this time of year. I’ve been meaning to write posts about various things, so they are just going together in a heap right now.

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From the Twinkl facebook page

First up- (and yes, it’s out of date because I know it is December now) but why are so many people putting up their decorations in November? Near where I live I spot a lot on my runs, and it seemed that the second people took down their Halloween things they were up with the Christmas ones. Now, I do love decorations, and I love having the fairy lights on, and candles lit, and all the lovely things that go with it. But now for too long. In the new year it is good to clear them away and feel free of all the clutter. I think if I put them up too early I would be fed up of them by the time Christmas comes around. Just me?

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My new armchair finally arrived! I had some John Lewis vouchers and so I bought this for our living room, as we only have one sofa and now we have more space. But I think it took about 6 weeks from when I ordered it to when it finally arrived. Now I need a cushion- I was going to get an owl one, but then Andy spotted some cool Totoro ones on amazon, so now I can’t decide.

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Thankfully after the nightmare I had on Black Friday with the leggings (as a reminder, they were going to be delivered to 8 Bus, Hatfield) they actually arrived, so I’ve got two pairs to rotate during December.  I’ve worn the blue ones a couple of times, but the red ones get their debut tomorrow in a Festive Five race.

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I LOVE these (this was a post run snack with some nuun)- I love salt and vinegar anything, and although it sounds like it won’t go with coconut, somehow it does. On offer on Ocado at the moment so I bought a few packs.

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Exciting news– Bluebird tea sell tea-scented candles. I bought one a while back to see if I liked it (you can probably guess by the photo that I did). I had the Earl grey cream one as I love that tea. When we were in Brighton a few weeks ago, we found that they also do festive scented ones- the mulled wine one is lovely- it smells of the spices and quite citrussy. The three pack had a snowball candle (coconut and chocolate), gingerbread chai (my favourite rooibos tea) and peppermint cream- Christmas shopping turned into some for me, some for presents…

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Back to some running. So my festive leggings had their first outing on Tuesday with my club run. They are fab although they have no pockets which is a bit annoying (I did know this when I bought them to be fair). I was umming and ahhing about signing up for the December 100 mile challenge. In the end I signed up, mainly because I am close to 1000 miles for the year. Although I am now 10 days in and still have 81 miles to go to make it 1000 (and 77 to make 100 for December) so we shall see how that goes. I am not convinced that I will manage it, but we shall see. I was a bit panicked and had signed up to marshal at parkrun this morning, so I got there early and did 4 miles (well 3.5 around and to my marshal point, and then 0.5 to get back to my car) (another excuse to wear the tights)- just keep chipping away.

I tried to include the tights in the photo but my arms aren’t long enough and I am not a selfie stick kind of person.

I also borrowed some jingle bells from work, and then it turned out that Ellenbrook has a load of instruments and clackers in the box with the signs- very cool! It was good fun jingling the bells at all of the runners, plus my point was at the end of a loop, so I saw all the runners twice (they do the loop and when they got to where I was, they turn back to the start, and the second time they run past in the other direction).  After running back to my car I changed in the sports centre as we were meeting Andy’s family for brunch, and I put the bells in the boot. Every time I went over a speed-bump they jingled!

On Thursday evening we went to see Moana, and I have been singing the songs ever since- they are just brilliant. The film was wonderful too- such a beautiful film to look at (the hair- just be amazed by the hair) and a great story.

Have you seen any good films lately? Or started to watch any Christmas films/ shows?  When do you put up your decorations?

Bath Christmas market- a flying visit

So after my visit to Swindon parkrun and a quick breakfast in the hotel, we drove to one of the Bath park and rides. It was totally chock-full when we arrived, and people had begun making up spaces. Luckily I had driven as I only have a small car- I manage to squeeze on the kerb behind some other cars- Andy’s car would not have fitted.

The town centre was of course packed (it being a Saturday), so we had a little wander, got some lunch and sat in the park to escape the crowds.

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It was a totally gorgeous day in Bath (as it had been fairly cloudy in Swindon)- blues skies and cold crisp air.

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We have been to the Bath markets for the last few years (three maybe) and it’s just so nice to wander- there are markets at the bottom of the cathedral, in a square, all along little side streets. What I love the most is that they have a lot of local products- West Country chocolates, beers, cheeses, chutneys and so on. Some markets I have been to just have the generic decorations and then a mulled wine stand, but there are so many individual ones. I didn’t take a photo but there was the most amazing stall with forged metal products like a stand for logs (if you had a wood burner- one day…) and all the fire-poking rods.

I had looked at a few things, but didn’t want to buy anything until later as we were going to the spa, so I didn’t want to have shopping bags to cram into the locker along with my clothes.

Last year when we left the spa, the queue was huge, and this year, when we arrived, it said it was a 45 minute wait- we think all the people who came last year later decided to come earlier.  I don’t think it was that long in the end- luckily as everyone has a time to leave by, the queue kept moving.

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You used to get slippers to wear, but now you get flip flops. The band is for the locker, and if you buy anything you scan that and pay at the end.

We had a couple of hours relaxing in the big pool  and going into the different steam rooms, although I am not good at staying in them for very long as I find it hard to breathe when the air is that hot.

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After leaving we had a little wander around the shops, went for dinner, and then went around the markets when they were much quieter. I even bought a few presents (including some amazing chai syrup for a friend who loves chai lattes as much as me). We then got the park and ride back, and drove home, getting back at about 11.30.

Previously we have stayed down there for the Saturday night too, but actually we don’t tend to go back into Bath on the Sunday, plus Sunday traffic is way worse, so it works out well this way as we have some time at home at the weekend too.

Have you started any Christmas shopping? What do you like about Christmas markets? Are you a fan of steam rooms?