Running - Maria Runs

Activity lately

Hey peeps

Over the last few weeks I have been running pretty consistently, which I am pleased about. Although weekends have been busier which has meant my favourite thing of parkrun on a Saturday and a long run on the Sunday has not been possible.

A few weeks ago Andy suggested a day out on the Sunday, if I got all my work done on Saturday. I headed out early for an 8 mile run, before ploughing through. I am really glad I did, because we had a great day on the Sunday.

We walked all around London. Through Greenwich Park along the Thames to the 02 (that part of the Jubliee Greenway is not as scenic as the more central part through!).

We got the cable cars across (I am not a huge fan of cable cars), then got the train to the Tower Of London.

Where we saw the poppies.

It was really stunning and really though-provoking too.

We walked along the river some more, and ended up in Covent Garden. We looked at going to the BB Bakery for tea and cake, but it was busy so in the end we bought a brownie to take away with us, and headed home.

I have still been managing to run on two evenings when I get home, although the fields are pretty much out of action now as it is so dark. One evening I had gone there in the light, but could hear motorbikes being driven around the fields and didn’t fancy that, so tried to make a short cut. I ended up in the field with the big cows and big horns, the path (that had a proper sign post) went down a ditch, around a corner and the finished, so I was there in the half-light trying to find my way out. I got to the edge of the field but the fence was covered in two layers of barbed wire so I had no chance of jumping over it. It was dark by the time I got out and home- not good.

Last Saturday I was planning on going to parkrun, as it was the 10th anniversary. But I was out on Sunday (I went to the Cake and Bake show) and knew I had to have a long run. I did think about driving to my brother’s, then getting him to drive us there, then running parkrun and back to his, but it seemed a big faff, and I don’t really like big breaks in runs (eg the queue for the scanning) so in the end I did 10.5 miles (I mis-calculated the new part I added on) before the rain.

Last week at Sweatshop was my 25th run since getting the new card, so I got a free nutrition pack:

Although I don’t think I will use the gels- if anyone wants them I will post them to you- let me know.

Body Pump was back too (the instructor has been off)- we had one last week of the one we were used to, and then last week started the new one. I liked the music for the squats (The Killers) and there was a funny one for biceps (I think?)- something like “rave, eat, sleep, repeat”- reminded me of my run t-shirt, although I suspect the song came first….

But, the Kinetic Revolution has fallen by the wayside. I have had days where I am working until 10pm and at that point the last thing I feel like doing is jumping around the living room. So, I will finish those 30 days, but slowly! And I think once I have finished, I will probably go back to the first two weeks as I felt those would benefit me the most.

This Saturday a new parkrun starts near me, so I am planning on going to that to check it out, but take it fairly easily as I have the 10 mile race on Sunday.

How has your activity been lately?

A PSL kind of weekend

Not to be confused with PMSL, which I think of every time I walk past a Starbucks. I wish they would not use the abbreviation.

Anyway.

To re-wind a bit first. The last few weeks have been very busy- late meetings at work, evenings out (on a school night!)- including seeing Michael Palin, and going into London to see Ken Burns (he makes documentaries). Last weekend Andy promised me a trip out on Sunday if I got all my work done on Saturday, so I worked pretty late and we had a lovely day out. That is for another post though.

For a few weeks I have been wanting to visit my Nan, but I had a cold, then a cough, and then another cold, so I could not risk it. This week I was free from germs at last, so went to see her after work.

I got home to find Andy cooking dinner, and we had a lovely chilled out evening, watching Central Park Five (by Ken Burns- which is really worth a watch when you are in a serious mood) and then cheering ourselves up with Gogglebox! Hurrah!

Saturday I was out fairly early on my long run. I ended up doing 9.5 miles (I got home and my watch said 9.43, so I ran up and down the road until I got to the half!)- it was fairly slow, but I wasn’t worried about speed, I just wanted to do the miles as I don’t think I have run over 8 miles probably since doing the trail half back in the summer.

Yes, I have posted this already, but I love it. Great breakfast. Although I was a bit silly as when I got home I noticed that the kitchen floor needed sweeping, so I did that, and when getting the dustpan out I saw the dusting stuff, so dusted the living room and bedroom, and then realised how full the washing basket was, so put on a wash. Then I had a shower and suddenly after that the hunger hit. Silly me.

I got on with some work, and then popped over to see my parents. Then I had to go to the shops, and I was very excited as Starbucks had emailed an offer where if you bought a pumpkin latte you got a free slice of pumpkin bread. Free pumpkin bread? Yes please. I parked a little way from town and walked in as it was just gorgeous weather. By this point it was about 4pm, so pumpkin cake was going to be my late lunch.

Alas, when I got there they had sold out of the loaf cake. Boo.

I did look at the sandwiches, but nothing appealed so went for a cinnamon roll. (I had already ordered the drink- pumpkin latte minus the coffee, which is way sweeter than a chai latte, but I was having a bit of an energy crash so it was needed). It was so good to be sitting outside in late September without a coat on.

After getting home I did some more work and then got dinner ready (a rare occurrence now).

I roasted veggies (red and yellow pepper, courgette, red onion) with some oregano, then added some haloumi pieces, cooked some giant cous cous, and served with rocket.

On Sunday we went out for brunch with some friends. I was awake early so was trying to find coverage of the Berlin marathon on TV (according to their website, BBC2 and Eurosport had the rights) but it was not on at all. Grrrr. Shelly Woods won the wheelchair race, but I suppose she does not have a high enough profile to tempt the TV bosses….

Anyway, we went to a new place (The Bakehouse) which was really good- I had French toast with banana and maple syrup, but was tempted by home-made granola, fruit salad, or banana and raspberry loaf. After that I wanted to get a few bits in town so we walked around in the sunshine.

Fat Face were having a sale, so I picked up these two dressed that I had my eye on already- they didn’t photograph very well, but they both have short sleeves in a darker colour, so there is a sort of double neckline. Also some more shampoo from Lush as I was running low, and a new Essie nail polish. We decided to walk down into the park, so went to Starbucks to see if they had any of the loaf (the voucher ran out today)- luckily they did, so we got a drink to have whilst walking through the park.

On the way home we stopped to get some garden bits (a fence panel has come down, but our neighbours’ landlord has not replaced it, and so all their weeds are coming in our garden, so we picked up a roll of bamboo fencing to cover the gap), and also put up some pictures, and then it was time for a bit more work.

I wasn’t going to have another run, but the weather was so good, so I headed out for 5 miles around the fields before it got too gloomy.

For dinner I hadn’t planned anything, but had been flicking through the Oh She Glows book and saw this lentil oatmeal bowl. I had the ingredients, and it sounded good, so I gave it a go. Although I missed out the oats (it said you could) and just had lentils.

Lentils cooked with herbs and tomato, with tomatoes, avocado, sourdough topped with sundried tomato pesto, and some tomato and basil hummus.

Then I had half of the loaf (I saved the other half for Andy, as he had gone to Wembley to watch the NFL). It was tasty, but not particularly spicy. I had a chilled out evening catching up on TV and doing a spot of baking (again, for another post).

Did you have a good weekend? Any other annoying abbreviations or acronyms?

Baldock 10K recap

I only signed up to this race a few weeks ago, and then forgot (well, I thought it was later in September). Luckily the race pack arrived this week to remind me!

I found it via Runners World but when I clicked on the reviews it took me to a different race instead. Anyway,10k was the distance I fancied, and it was not too far away.

It was a bit of a faff to get there, as there was no parking at the race start, so I had to park in the Tesco’s in Baldock and then they had two minibuses picking up runners from the high street and taking them to the start. The last one left at 9.20, so I erred on the side of caution and ended up at HQ at 9am.

The HQ was by some fields and barns, and sort of industrial buildings, and there were toilets in one of them (real ones with soap and everything), and the bag drop in another. I waited a bit as it was chilly so didn’t want to take my jacket off too soon. Then we had to walk 800m up a hill to the race start. I got chatting to a girl who was on her own (lots of people seemed to know each other) so that was lovely. The start was funny as the guy started doing the race briefing, and with the wind it was a bit hard to hear. But then thy set off a drone (no idea, maybe for photos?) and we could not hear anything over the noise of that!

Anyway, it started through (uphill) fields on rough track, so you had to watch your footing carefully. Some parts looked chalky, which turned out to be very springy and much nicer than the big flint stones. Then we went onto country lanes, but still with lovely views across the countryside. It was pretty hilly to begin with- short steep hills followed by longer slow ones. I was glad to get to half way. There was one water station but I prefer to wait until I finish as I can get a stitch- the girl who I was chatting to had been keeping up with me, but stopped for water whereas I carried on. It wasn’t long before she was behind me again.

The course was well marked with lots of florescent arrows, and marshals stopping traffic, pointing the way and cheering. I find 10K races strange- on the one hand they are not too long, so I want to not wish them away and actually enjoy it. But on the other hand you have to run a bit faster so I often find myself wanting to stop and walk, and have to consciously slow down so I can catch my breath. At one point I was running up a hill and dreading the uphill walk to the bag drop when I finished!

Anyway, after half way there seemed less hills, and after 7 or 8K a marshal told us “no more hills after this one” which turned out to be nearly true! I have had a cold since Thursday, so I wasn’t really focusing on time, I just wanted to enjoy it, but seeing that at 5 miles my watch said 50 minutes spurred me on to the finish. At one point I spotted the barns through the fields so I knew the finish was near, but 1K seems like a long way when you are tired! I turned a corner and could see everyone who had finished lined up by the side of the road cheering us slower runners home, which was nice but really I know I look awful by that point so would rather no-one could see!

As soon as I crossed the line I was given a print out of my chip and gun time- 1:01.23 chip time- how fancy! Then, the best part. As well as a bottle of water, medal and wrist band (with other events on the band- clever idea) they had a choice of either a banana or a spear of pineapple. Let me tell you, pineapple is amazing for after running. So juicy and refreshing.

They did the trophy ceremony at 11am (well it must have been just after as it was a few minutes after I had finished) so I watched that before getting my bag and waiting for a minibus.

Not sure where I put the medal now, but it had the date and the race name on it.

As I had parked in Tesco’s I had a quick look in case I could find coconut peanut butter. Well, I couldn’t, but I did find these things.

Dark choc pb for £2 a jar, and also gingerbread Alpro puddings! I love their dark chocolate ones for a treat, so when I saw these I had to try them. £1 for each pack too, bargain. And to balance things out some nuts and white chia seeds. Don’t know if they are different to black ones?

Anyway, I am really glad I did that race, it was good to run somewhere different. It was a bit of a faff using the minibus, so I think if I did it again I would look to park in a nearby village and walk there, as I didn’t get home until early afternoon when it is only a 25 minute drive away.

Now we are off out to dinner with Andy’s family, and I made us an apple cake for dessert.

With apples from my little apple tree!

Did you have a good weekend?

The streak comes to an end

Last week I mentioned that at parkrun I had managed to run in consecutive weeks 229.34, 28.34 and 27.34. I did think that 26.34 was out of my reach, and on Friday night I didn’t sleep too well, so decided to enjoy parkrun and not worry about time. Luckily I had decided that as my Garmin was still playing up, despite deleting all the files from it (something that had not occurred to me, as I thought that when I uploaded them to Garmin connect they were removed from the watch- nope, it had around 300 runs on there)- it refused to find a satellite for the entire run. It was with more anticipation than usual that I waited for my text- I finished higher in placing that last week, but it seemed busy and you never know how fast everyone else will be. I managed a 28.02, which is good, although I was hoping for something starting with 27, I was only 3 seconds from that, so not too bad.

I did get totally covered in mud though. There is one section of pavement still flooded, but there is a narrow path through the centre that is just muddy. I aim for that, but on my second lap I was lapped by a speedier runner who decided to plunge through the deeper parts – I don’t think he had realised how deep it was as he tripped and almost fell in the lake.

Mud like that was all the way up the front and back of both of my legs- he really did flounder about in the mud and splashed it all over me! Luckily I am not too precious about keeping my car clean!

Home for French toast- the last of the brioche (it’s been in the freezer)- two of the slices were end slices so very thin.

After some jobs at home we were off to Ikea, oh the joy of visiting on a Saturday afternoon. We picked up things for our spare room (we decorated it last weekend and Andy has been putting down the laminate flooring with help from his dad this week), and then of course faced the puzzle of how to fit them in the car. Then we were off to our friends’ child’s second birthday party for a BBQ. I had offered to bring my own veggie burger, but then as we decided to go to Ikea I didn’t want to leave anything in the car for all that time, so ended up having salad and rice salad. This was good (tasty) but meant I woke up early on Sunday morning very hungry indeed. I had a berry nakd bar before heading out on my run, as I didn’t think it would be that sensible to run.

I did the same 7 mile route as last weekend- I reset my Garmin overnight and although it took a while, it did find satellites in the end and seemed to be pretty accurate. I had to stop a few times as my new spi-belt is too big for my phone so kept working into annoying positions where my phone was smacking me in the back- I ended up with it on my hip. But I did get to hear my Marathon Talk rate your run- I had no idea they would read it out (sometimes when you rate it, one of them replies so you have an inkling that they might)- what a surprise! Then buckwheat pancakes.

I have still been following the Kinetic Revolution program- you can see my page here. Although I have missed a few days, so although I am on Day 14 I have been doing it for more than 14 days if that makes sense. Some of the moves are pretty tough now, but I am hoping that if I continue I will see some improvement. I really like the stretches from the first 6 days so have been carrying those on too. It is free, so I would recommend you checking it out.

We went to see Andy’s parents and sat in their garden for a couple of hours before coming home and getting on with housework, so after doing the Kinetic stuff I really fancied something cold, and remembered I had this in the fridge. I didn’t think it would be fizzy (it was) but I loved the delicate rose flavour.

Photo: My new office !

While I was doing that, Andy finished building my new desk and chair for me. Hooray- this is my new “office”- really the little corner of our spare room behind the airing cupboard- the room has always been Andy’s office before now, but now we share. I don’t think my desk will stay clear for long!

Are you an Ikea fan? When I was little I loved the showroom bit as you could pretend you lived there, but now I just want to get around as quickly as possible!

Cous cous with roasted vegetables and haloumi

Hey peeps,

I hope everyone is doing well. Well this week was back to work after the summer holidays, which means me getting back behind with blog reading again!

I may have mentioned before that my Garmin has been playing up a bit recently- it sometimes takes ages to find a satellite, and sometimes makes up where I am, saying that I either do a mile in a minute or in 20. It also has not always charged up- I am not a fan of the clip anyway (instead of a USB or something to connect to the watch, it is a clip with 4 little metal sticks, that have to line up with 4 metal pads on the watch) – it sometimes takes a lot of tries to do it up properly. So I have started browsing and reading reviews as I really like having it. Any recommendations would be greatly received by me. Yesterday when I got home I found that the battery was flat, which was annoying as after my long run at the weekend I had left it plugged in to the computer for ages to make sure it did charge up. I didn’t mind too much as I wasn’t going for speed- I went around the fields (probably about 5 miles) and just took it easy.

I am off to Sweatshop later – the email warned/ informed us of doing dynamic stretches (ministry of silly walks) first.

Recently we have sometimes been having a very easy dinner of roasted vegetable cous cous, salad and haloumi cheese. It is easy because we buy the cous cous ready made, and so all that needs doing is grilling the cheese.

Saisbury’s recently sent me some of their dried giant cous cous, so I thought it was about time I had a go at making it myself. At the same time Andy’s mum gave us a little vegetarian cookbook, which had a recipe in there (although it was for cous cous with roasted veggies and flagolet beans) so I half-followed it for a speedy dinner.

First up, I chopped and roasted a courgette, pepper and red onion. I added a little olive oil to the dish, as well as basil and oregano, and roasted them for 30 minutes.

The giant cous cous was simple to make- just put in a saucepan (40g per person), top with water, and then bring to the boil and simmer for 8-10 minutes.

While that was cooking, I sliced some haloumi cheese. I put some balsamic vinegar onto the veggies, topped with the cheese, and then baked for another 10 minutes.

Served with a salad, this was really easy (and much cheaper than buying the ready made pots of cous cous).

Are you a fan of cous cous? I prefer the giant one as it was a bit more like the texture of pasta, but it makes a nice change from quinoa.

If you use a GPS watch, which one do you have? What would you recommend?

*Sainsbury’s sent me the cous cous and a voucher for the other ingredients in exchange for a post. All opinions are my own.