Author: Maria Runs

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.

Tempted by Parkrun

Hey peeps! How are we all doing? Hooray for the weekend etc.

These were well and truly urgent to help me get on with my marking on Friday afternoon/evening!

So at the moment my running is going well. I have been gradually increasing distance and making sure I stretch after each run for a long time, and doing yoga each week. Only once a week but I have to start somewhere.

I was planning on doing my long run of 11 miles this morning, but yesterday we were watching the weather and it promised strong winds and heavy rain. Hmm, not so tempting. I have a bit of a cold (a child sneezed in my face the other day, the joys of the job!) so spending nearly 2 hours in the rain was not very appealing for that reason either. Plus Andy was off to the football and due to all the flooding had to leave earlier – he is running tomorrow morning and it is nice when we run together.

So then I started thinking, should I go to Parkrun in the morning? It is the off road course so I would not be going for a pb, just trying out my trail shoes in the mud. Then on Sunday morning I could go for my long run with Andy instead of on my own…

So this morning I pottered about before heading off. It was sunny when I left, so I was thinking that perhaps I had got the weather wrong and it was meant to rain on Sunday. My drive there was diverted twice due to roads closed due to flooding so my final route took me much longer- I got there at about 8 minutes to as it started to rain heavily- just enough time to get my parking ticket and try to listen to the race announcer (but it was windy, and also people near me were talking over here how rude). I heard the countdown and then jogged over to her to ask her what the route was (as they only put the normal route on the website)- I am fine following others but I wanted to know how many laps it was (3).

The normal course is super flat with only a small incline near the end, but this one was uphill on the way out, through a lot of squelchy mud, and then down hill on the way back. I feel I need to develop a technique for running on the mud- I felt much more stable in those shoes as they do grip better but still the mud is so slippery.

My shoes at the end with a good inch of mud all up the sides- I took trainers to wear on the way home so I would not be slipping all over the pedals

Anyway, I heard someone at the start saying they think the off road route adds about 2 minutes to your normal time. I didn’t look at my watch at all during it, I was concentrating on not slipping over! The rain stopped for the second lap but then started again with a vengeance in the third lap. You had to run past the finish chute which was a bit strange- and a little disheartening when people have finished ages ago and you are starting out on your final lap. But still, I enjoyed it- I think the great thing about Parkrun is that it is over in about half an hour, so even though the weather was horrible I got my fresh air fix. My final time was 30.36 (I was 124th/169 but only the 24th female out of 47- crazy that it is still so dominated by men)- a personal worst (well not officially as there was a time the results went wrong and we all got 59.59), but probably around the time I should have been aiming for.

I did a few stretches in the car park but it was cold so I headed home for some tea and muesli in front of the snowboarding on TV.

Now I have a little ache at the front of one of my legs, near my hip, so I have been feeling a bit paranoid, but hopefully it is just a normal post running ache and nothing worse.

I do like the fact that Parkrun is not too far either- I have enough energy left to get on with all the housework (I even cleaned the fridge but that was more to do with putting off my work than anything else), then got on with most of my work before having a break and walking into town for a Starbucks. Now I have a bit more work to do but hopefully I can power through.

Hooray for Parkrun! How I have missed it. Although I think to be sensible next weekend I won’t be going, will have to wait until March for my next fix.

How was your Saturday? How is the flooding by you? There are roads near me that always flood in the winter, so they of course are underwater, but there are so many roads between fields that are closed- driving back from town today even the roads that were open probably shouldn’t have been as the water was so deep and still just pouring off the fields. I am very lucky that our house is relatively high so even our garage has been fine.

Monday night chilli

Hey peeps,

How are we all doing?

At the moment I am very much enjoying our Monday night dinners. Andy has been making sweet potato chilli (based on this recipe)- he makes a big batch one week which we then freeze and have for the next few weeks which make for super easy dinners.

Yesterday I had mine with some spinach and an avocado- so tasty and filling. I had just been on a run (4.3 miles- gradually making my after work runs a little longer) and it was cold outside so this was just the ticket.

Last week I made some peanut butter brownies- they went down very well with Andy’s family so here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

100g butter/ spread

160g caster sugar

30g dark brown sugar

125g dark chocolate

1 tbs golden syrup

2 free range eggs

100g plain flour

2 tbs cocoa powder

1/2 tsp baking powder

2 tbs peanut butter

Method:

Easy! Put the butter, sugars, syrup and chocolate in a large pan and heat gently- keep stirring until they melt. Leave to cool for a little.

Preheat the oven to 170C and line a brownie pan with baking paper.

Stir in the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder, and then finally the eggs. It will be quite runny.

Pour into the pan and then spoon over the peanut butter. Feather with a knife so it swirls about a bit. Yes that is a technical term.

Bake for around 20 minutes, depending on how gooey you like them. I check that there is a little wobble in the centre, as they will firm up as they cool (the chocolate will solidify).

Slice once cool.

Optional icing:

Melt together 2 tbs peanut butter and 80g white chocolate (I did it in the microwave). Drizzle over the top. You could do this with dark chocolate for proper chocolate hit but I wanted the colour of the icing to show up, hence the white.

Mmmm, slice into many many slices. This made 28 very rich and delicious brownies.

I had plenty of the icing left, so decided to make pb cups with it, of course. I chilled it in the fridge so I could spoon it into the cups more easily.

Melt some white chocolate in the microwave, spoon into paper cups, fill with a little tsp of the pb mix, and then top. I also found these super cute hearts (from Dr Oetker) so added them to the top of each one.

Yes the white chocolate heart does not show up that well on the white chocolate cup. But they taste pretty addictive- not something to make all the time! You have been warned…

On Sunday evening I did some yoga and it made me feel so much better after. It does have some challenging moves in there, but also some of the stretches just feel so good, almost like a massage from the inside if that makes sense? I must remember to keep up the habit.