Reviews - Maria Runs

Going bananas!

Hello!

First, thanks to everyone who commented yesterday- I think I replied to you all but I really appreciated them. I do know that the runs of this length are going to be hard work, and so I just need to do some positive thinking to keep those worry thoughts away. I did not mean to sound fed up, but I really found it hard and I was also much more stiff following on from the run that I have been recently. It was like when I was first training for a half marathon- after 10 miles I was exhausted for the rest of the day, and pretty stiff. (Although after a few hours yesterday I was feeling better, and even had the energy to go the B&Q for compost).

Onto today- I was mega hungry this morning! I think I read that while Alison was training for Berlin she shared out her calories from the long weekend run over the 3 days, and I have started doing this a bit. I had a little extra food on Friday (which isn’t hard as it is a rest day so less cals anyway), and even after an afternoon snack and some dessert I still had about 600 cals left to add on to today (which I needed!).

It started with banana in my porridge- I hardly ever have this but it was so yummy! (and some pb and cinnamon too).

Sooooooo yummy!

Then I used the leftover banana to make a topping for my toast (for lunch)- I mashed the other half with some cocoa powder and some more pb.

This was sooooooo good! I was worried that the cocoa would make it bitter, but the sweetness from the banana balanced it perfectly. Yum.

Ok that is actually all the banana stuff for today. But it was so yummy! And so I wanted it in the title!

I spent the day relaxing, and also standing up in the kitchen doing some cooking while listening to a new Adam and Joe podcast (6 music in case anyone fancies some hilarity/ general silliness to listen to).

Roasted veggies for pasta sauce and peppers for sandwiches this week.

Vegan rocky road cookies (with almonds and chocolate chips).

These merged into super cookies on the tray, and then proceeded to hang on to the tray with all their might!

So I managed to salvage enough to take around for Sunday tea, and the rest are crumbled up in a tub. But they tasted good!

I was so tired standing up though- my knees are a little stiff when I stand up, but I did feel in the afternoon like the energy was fading away from my legs. No walking today. I did plant some seeds 🙂 And do some weeding.

But the seeds are more interesting. Yay! Some pumpkin seeds, yellow and green courgettes, sweetcorn and basil. I love my garden 🙂

Onto this week;

Monday- 9 mile run after work. This went fine, some faster paced miles in there.

Tuesday- Aerobics- better fuelling = better aerobics

Wednesday- 6 mile run fartlek style- finished pretty quick for me

Thursday- Body pump- back with heavier weights

Friday- Rest (well actually rush about after work visiting people/ shopping for work/ getting petrol)

Saturday- 18 mile run. Possibly 19 miles if I believe my Nike+. Or 18.5 if I believe mapometer.com. Either way it was a long way! It got harder as the run went on. But I did it. Which is the main thing. And I am so pleased that I did.

Sunday- Total rest (plus all the weekend relaxing like cooking, baking, gardening, seeing relatives).

Total miles = 33

So another week with all runs and exercises completed. I think I need to look into some sort of stretching thing (like the yoga for runners or similar- any links I would love) to do on my rest days. But I think this week was positive.

On a side note- did anyone see the James Cracknell Toughest Race on Earth? I watched the marathon du sables one yesterday and it was amazing. Not just him doing it (it’s something like 7 marathons in 7 days across the desert) but all the non-elite athletes doing it as well. It was on Discovery so worth a look.

A quick review

Hey

This week went well.

Monday- 10 mile run- went well with some good tempo miles in the middle.

Tuesday- Aerobics- again went well- not too tired from the longer runs.

Wednesday- 3 mile with intervals. Yeah I have not done intervals for ages. Whoops. But I got on and did it this week.

Thursday- Body pump- new release. Hard work! But in a good way!
Friday- Rest day (not even a walk as I went out straight from work)

Saturday-12 mile run- good overall time but erratic pace.

Sunday- Rest day- not too stiff now as I did some foam rolling earlier on.

Total miles- 25, so a bit of an easier week.

Lessons learned- I can go faster than I think during longer runs. I need to eat a good snack before aerobics and then I will have enough energy. I need to focus on even pacing during my longer runs. Not sure if I learnt anything else? Actually it was a busy week, work wise, and I still managed to fit the running in.

Night

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 🙂

Another successful week

Hi guys

I can’t believe another sunday is here yet again- the weeks are going by so fast!

Today I was tired from yesterday! I also forgot to get my porridge ready last night (shock) but then I remembered I had a couple of porridge pots- I am thinking these are good for weekends away etc.

I made it with coconut milk- porridge rescued 🙂 Although it did make it so thick- I kept on adding more milk as I like my porridge more runny than this!

We walked up to the shops to stock up on nuts in Julian Graves (and I also found some dark chocolate coated cranberries which I don’t think will last long when I open them!), I was tired on the way home- not too stiff but a little.

Then I made chickpea pancakes 🙂 I don’t like making the thin pancakes (I don’t like them as much, plus they are hard to flip over) so I made little ones with (I guessed the amounts) chickpea flour, baking powder, egg, milk, vanilla and cinnamon. While they were cooking I added some chocolate chips, and also topped mine with a little choc pb.

They were tasty and I was pleased they actually looked like real pancakes 🙂

Onto the week;

Monday- 6 mile steady run- completed but I was still tired from the 14 miles on Saturday.

Tuesday- Aerobics- fuel fail meant I was tired again. But I still did it.

Wednesday- 7 miles- done- mind over matter made me complete this one.

Thursday- Body pump- kept the same weights and matched last week on the abs track front.

Friday- Much needed rest day!

Saturday- 10 miles accidently turned into 11.7 miles- lesson about route planning learnt!

Sunday- Another rest day and again well needed! Managed a gentle walk but I was very tired by the end.

Weekly total; 24.7 miles. Lesson learnt- fuelling and route planning are important. I am calling it a successful week as I managed to complete my runs, and I recovered ok from the longest run I have ever done. I was doing well with my snacks etc in the previous weeks, but this week for some reason I have not done so well.

I am going to really concentrate on eating properly during the next week, as next Saturday I am supposed to go 16 miles. I don’t want to think about that too much, but if I get there tired then I will do no good. I am also having another messed up week, due to an extra and longer staff meeting, so I am going to miss aerobics and do my runs on different days. Anyway, I won’t ramble!

I need to do some more foam rolling now. So, what have you done this week that you can call a success? Let’s all be positive and celebrate our achievements 🙂

On a completely random note, I got an email from wiggle saying that until Tuesday (I think) they are having 20% off “nutrition”. So any guesses on what I have ordered? (Clif bars and nuun). But someone might find that useful? They also do Mule bars on there, but I like the apple ones and Andy doesn’t and it made sense to order ones that we both like.

Busy in the kitchen

I spent a lovely few hours doing some cooking today- not sure how it will all fit in the freezer! I made some lentil and cannelini bean chilli (whoops no more kidney beans but I am sure they will be just as tasty), some roasted vegetable sauce for pasta, and some bean and veggie wraps (plus roasted some pepper for lunch in the week). Phew!

Yesterday I made some cowboy cookies from the Vegan cookie book.

Yum. These are oatmeal cookies with some coconut and chocolate chips. They were supposed to have pecans in them too, but I didn’t have any so I just left them out. I have not had one yet but Andy approves. I am loving this book 🙂

Today began with some pb&j porridge (well kind of, oats with dried cherries, pb and cinnamon);

Yummy 🙂 But the cherries kept floating to the bottom when I was trying to take the picture!

Now onto the review of the week.

This week again has been very positive. After the 13 miles last weekend I was apprehensive about being tired or stiff for my midweek runs, but they all went fine.

Monday- 8 miles- did over 7.5 miles in the end (in the rain)

Tuesday- Aerobics- a better snack before I went helped me keep my energy levels up.

Wednesday- 6 mile run- done and in the beautiful evening sunlight to begin with.

Thursday- Body pump- back to my highest weights.

Friday- Good old rest day.

Saturday- 14 mile run (a little over 14 miles I think)- last 4 miles were really hard work but they are done with now.

Sunday- another lovely rest day. I had stiff legs this morning but as the day has gone on they have continued to feel better.

Total- 28 miles give or take a little bit. Again the most miles so far, but only a little step up from last week. I managed it and am feeling like I am getting better at this anyway!

Some snacks I enjoyed this week;

Oatcakes with pb and choc pb, cherries and possibly teapigs chocolate tea.

Cherry and coconut cereal with vanilla alpro.

And the king– rice pudding with cooked nectarine, chocolate chips and pb.

Also, we have signed up for the 20 mile run. It is organised by the south cheshire harriers, and had some good reviews from last year. Although mp3 players are not allowed- hopefully the scenery will take my mind off my awful breathing! I do need to get used to running without it I suppose, as it seems that more and more races are banning them. The Berkhamsted half marathon which I did last year has banned them for this year, when last year they were allowed. I always keep mine turned down low- I can hear my footsteps etc, but I suppose some people have it way too loud and it is not safe on open roads if there is no pavement or whatever. Anyway, I will have to run 5 miles per hour to keep within the time limit (not sure what happens if I miss the cut off- perhaps my race number self distructs?), and although it says the course is pretty hilly, I am going to think positive.

So I will leave you all on this positive note and with a random question- what have you achieved that you never thought was possible?

I never even thought I would be able to run a 5k (which is why I kept it as a secret) and even when I did that, I then secretly signed up for a 10k as again I doubted myself. I am trying to change my perception of myself, as I was never sporty, always got the leftovers at sports day and so on, and I still feel now that when I am out running people are looking at me and wondering what I am doing. Which is silly, but it seems my brain is taking a long time catching up with me legs!