Running - Maria Runs

Sunny Saturday

Wow the weather is gorgeous here!

Suncream and sunglasses on, I headed to the park as I was helping out again at Parkrun. As I was there early I was sent to marshal at one of the further points on the course. I got to wear a high viz jacket- so official 🙂

I was all set up at about ten to 9, so had a little time to find a shady spot and take some pictures.

The route is pretty flat, but this little steep bit is super tough on the way back- it is short but my head was lower than the bottom of that bin I think- it is steep!

There were loads of runners heading through the park, and quite a few people stopped to ask me what was happening, and what the run involved- think I may have signed up a few more people! They ran down towards me and my goodness me the front runners are so speedy.

The park was so busy with people walking dogs, cycling etc, but I managed to snap a few pictures while it was quieter.

Photo: Parkrunners in the distance

I could see the runners in the distance as they then all go around the lake 3 times before coming back up past me before the final stretch. I think there were about 200 of them- impressive!

I loved being a marshal- there was only about ten minutes (if that) between the last people going past me down, and the first runners heading back. I was trying to be encouraging, and it was lovely when the runners said thanks (or just nodded/ smiled- not always easy to speak when you are running fast). Once the last few people had gone I walked back to the start, and a lot of runners said thanks to me on their way home, which was just lovely and very unexpected. Hands were sore from clapping by then!

It was such a beautiful day so I went for a walk around the lake.

Ducklings! They are my favourite. There were loads of cygnets and goslings about too, but the ducklings win the cuteness factor for me.

I was totally baking by the time I got back to the car, so I headed to Starbucks for a cool down. I had packed a bottle of water but it was warm after being sat in my car all that time. Then I was off to the school summer fayre where I was helping out.

When I got home it was time for a late lunch- sourdough with almond butter on one piece and lemon curd on the other, plus a peach and some lychees, and a lavender earl grey tea. I used the new Rude Health almond drink – it is very creamy and very sweet tasting- it doesn’t have added sugar, apparently the rice in it adds to the sweetness.

Last night I picked another tub of fruit- this is strawberries, raspberries, loads of blackcurrants (going to make a cheesecake for tomorrow) and a sprinkling of redcurrants. I am going to potter around at home, and head out on a run later on when it is a bit cooler (maybe?).

How has your Saturday been so far?

Magic Mile!

Hey peeps!

As you all know, I am a little obsessed with Marathon Talk. I am nearly all caught up again after being behind for so long (long runs with Andy meant I chatted to him instead of listening to them so I had rather a backlog).

For the last few years they have launched a Magic Mile challenge for the summer. Basically you sign up to run one mile as fast as you possibly can. Previously they have had Team UK, Team USA and Team Rest of the World (all against each other) but this year it is good old fashioned boys v girls. But taking part is worth more than anything else- they don’t care if you run a 4 min mile (in my dreams!) or a 12 minute mile.

You can sign up here– it’s just for fun! I’m in, are you?? (Edit- it seems to be taking me to the 2012 competition, but according to their facebook page it will be up and running this evening).

In 2011 I signed up and was shocked that I managed to run a mile in 7.53– that may be normal running speed for some of you, but I think at that point I had only just scraped under 9 minute miles for 5K’s. So this year I want to beat that time. They are going to be talking about specific training sessions on the podcasts, but of course you don’t have to do those if you don’t want. The mile time has to be logged between the end of August and the start of September so you have a while to get up to speed.

This evening was a Sweatshop run- we had not been on The Hill route for a while, and it showed- apparently I was much slower going up it (according to the guy from the shop) but overall I managed my normal speed which I was glad about after finding I had such stiff legs on my run yesterday.

Anyone else up for the challenge?

Do you prefer short and sharp workouts or long and gentle ones?

Nut butter loving and ZMA

Hey everyone, I hope your weeks have all got off to a good start.

Yesterday we had to go to a funeral down in Southampton, and didn’t get home until about 8pm. But today has been back to normal, thankfully.

At the weekend I bought some of the new Meridian nut butters- Almond and peanut. They are lovely! I tried to make some apricot and almond jam (from my Superjam cookbook) but I think I overcooked it as it has set very solid!

Andy had bought some hot cross buns as Grand Prix snacks, so I toasted one for lunch on Sunday with some peanut butter, and put some of the jam on one side (you can see how solid the jam was!). Plus apricots and doughnut peach (from Asda- so delicious).

I have also been loving it for breakfast on overnight muesli. This one had strawberries and blueberries as well as chia seeds, muesli and almond milk. Today I had a similar one with a peach in there too.

I posted this the other day but it was sooooo good! Sourdough toast, nut butter and then blueberry sauce (made with blueberries, a splash of water and a tsp coconut sugar cooked in a pan until bubbly).

When I was in town on Saturday I saw this peanut butter ice cream in M&S- Andy had mentioned before that he wanted to try it, so I bought some as a treat. Then I realised that I had parked in Waitrose and also needed to pop in there so I had to do some speedy walking and shopping so I could get home before it would melt!

It is such delicious ice cream- the best peanut butter stuff I have tried in England (and I have tried a few…)- the peanut butter swirl was quite salty so I have had it with fresh strawberries (these are from the allotment) and a sliced peach. At least because it is so rich we only need a small amount- we have already had two servings each and there is still quite a bit left in the pot.

Today I went on a short run after work. I bumped into some of the Sweatshop runners (there is a beginners course on Tuesdays and I found out at the weekend that some of the Wednesday group have been volunteering as sweeper runners on Tuesdays)- they did invite me to join them but I want to save my legs for tomorrow. I actually had really stiff legs today which surprised me. I appreciate a rest day after a long run, but often find the first run back tough as I think my legs prefer to keep moving. Normally I would have a more “active” rest day (with a walk or the allotment or something) but that couldn’t happen yesterday of course.

Sadly no nut butter in my dinner! I have made 3 more lots of this for lunch this week. I sliced a big pack (350g) cherry tomatoes and put them in a tray with some balsamic, dried basil and a little salt. I then left them in a low oven for nearly an hour (I had a shower and Andy cooked his dinner). I cooked some quinoa and then served it with beetroot, avocado and some basil tofu.I poured over the tomato/ balsamic juices which were delicious. Mozzarella would have gone well with it too, or some fresh basil, but I didn’t have either of those.

A while ago I was sent some ZMA vitamins from Activate Nutrition. It is a supplement with zinc, magnesium and vitamin B6, and it is designed to help people recover from workouts as often people are deficient in these minerals and vitamins. You can read more about it here.

The directions were to take two about half an hour before bed, and I quite liked that as I got into a bit of a routine. Normally I have a multivitamin every other day as a top-up, but I do often forget as I am rushing about in the morning. I am not sure I felt much of an effect, but I never feel that supplements like this can do any harm. (I have not taken my multivitamin on the same days to make sure that I don’t get an overload).

Do you have supplements or just rely on your diet?

Do you have a favourite nut butter? I much prefer the drippy ones, and the 100% nut ones, so we often make a trip top Sainsbury’s as it is the only place that sells the pb&co stuff. I used to buy the big tubs of Meridian stuff in Holland and Barrett, but it used to get really solid near the bottom of the tub so I have stopped. I thought they had just re-branded their packaging, but I think they might have blended them up a bit more as I have had a stir around in the jar and it seems drippy all the way to the bottom.

Politeness vs pb’s!

Two weeks to go until my next 10k! I love it when we get race things in the post, although this is the most minimalist race envelope- literally all it contained was the number. Not even a little leaflet with the event timings, or a map, or anything!

Yesterday morning I was up bright and early (before 6am) as Andy was off to the Grand Prix qualifying. So I decided to head off to Parkrun. When I woke up I was hungry, but I didn’t really want to eat anything before the run, as I sometimes feel a bit sick on the finish line (just from the effort I think) and just feel I generally run better before food. I did pack some water and a clif bar to have after, and decided I would just take it easy on the run and see how it went.

I glanced at my watch a few times and realised I was going quite fast- each time it was showing 8 something (at one point 8.05??). I was for a while right in front of a man who was grunting and groaning in a rather alarming fashion with each breath he took- I was trying to run faster to get away from him! He caught me up and apologised (I think I said something like “glad to hear you are putting all your effort into this” but really I was wishing he wasn’t! Thankfully I managed to pull away from him for the last mile and a bit. The route is along a path to the lake, around the lake 3 times, and then back along the path. By the time I got to the end of the lake section my watch only said 24 minutes, so then I had a panic that I was going to beat my best time. Does this happen to anyone else? I get it in races too- basically then I get an adrenaline rush, and then my legs so all wobbly. I was trying so hard to think about anything other than running as it was making the run super tough. I caught up with a couple of people, who I gathered were first timers from their talk. When you finish there is a little chute (two temporary fences set up parallel to each other)- you run through it and as you run in the front, the timer person presses their thing (a magic stop watch) to get your time, and the person at the end gives you your chip. Anyway, I think I could have overtaken them right at the end (although this could be hindsight as I was pushing hard), with a couple of metres to go, but I felt that it wasn’t actually a race, and it might come across as being a bit rude. But when they got to the chute they both stopped, so I had to stop right behind them, which probably only cost me a second, but it was a bit annoying! My watch said 27.10, but my official time ended up being 27.12 which was identical to my pb! What are the chances of that? At the end of the day it is just for fun, and there is always next time!

I had half the clif bar and some water, and pottered around for a bit before my shower, so breakfast wasn’t for ages! I made some peanut flour pancakes, topped with vanilla almond butter, and some blueberries which I cooked for a few minutes to turn into a sauce.

I had a pottering about day after that. I popped to the shops as I had a Holland and Barrett voucher to spend. I went in M&S to look for a belt, but came out with chocolate peanuts (better than a belt probably) and those little sock/tights things.

In Waitrose I spotted a new almond milk by Rude Health- I love their muesli’s and multigrain thins, so I am looking forward to trying this. It has brown rice in there too (for sweetness apparently), so it is not just plain almond milk. There was a rice and an oat one too.

I had some melon and strawberries while watching some Wimbledon. Then I went on a walk through the fields and around to the allotment. I spent ages just watering the plants.

There is a little courgette growing on this plant, how exciting!

Lots of strawberries growing too! I picked a bit pot full.

The blackcurrant bush (whoops to my thumb being in the photo!) is heaving, and a few of them were ripe so I picked them too.

It is not looking too bad- the weeds are still growing a lot, but at least we can see our plants too. Although I need to pick the rest of the leeks, they are rather enormous now!

This morning I was up early again, so I went on a run before it got too hot. Well, that was my plan. It was baking by 8.30! I went for shorts- capris are quite long on me- I really want some knee length ones but I can’t seem to find any. Even when they look short on the hangers when I try them on they are long. Anyway, I reserve these shorts for emergencies and hopefully for when no-one will see me!

When I got back (after 6.8 enjoyable but hot miles) my neighbour was out so I had to have a chat. Was hoping to sneak back inside without anyone seeing me! Not sure if you can see how red my face is compared to how pale my legs are! (And yes we bought that mirror from Ikea years ago and have never decided where to put it, so it just gets moved about from wall to wall!)

I made a blueberry and blackcurrant sauce (the blackcurrants, plus about half a little punnet of blueberries, a few tsb of water and a tsp coconut sugar)- I cooked it in a little pan for about 5 mins until it bubbled. I had it on sourdough toast with some meridian peanut butter (bought some this week and it is so drippy it is lovely) and some melon. Like a posh pb&j 🙂

I am going to have another chilled out day today- watch the Grand Prix, maybe do some baking, maybe visit the allotment or have another walk.

Have you had a good weekend?

What is the last new product you have tried?

Runner up

Hey peeps,

Thanks to everyone who voted for me in the Whittard Afternoon Tea Blogger Carnival. I didn’t win (but it’s the taking part that counts)- but the runners up were also sent some tea!

I have my eye on the organic Earl Grey. Luckily we bought a new sideboard a few weeks ago, to replace some shelves in our living room, so we now have an overflow area for storing extra tea.

Also my other i-herb order finally arrived! We loved the sweet potato popchips while we were on holiday (I hope they start selling them over here soon) and I had some weight allowance left so I added them. I was mainly after the Vanilla Almond Butter which I had seen on Peachy Palate– it lives up to the expectations!

I couldn’t wait to try it so had it the next morning on toast along with a peach (think I put lemon curd on the other slice).

Scrumptious! It is super drippy too, so I am going to try it drizzled on some muesli one morning as I bet it would go really well.

On Wednesday I was actually feeling really nervous before the Sweatshop run- I knew we would be doing the long route through the fields, and I just worried I would be tired. The weather wasn’t as humid as last week which helped, but it was still hard. I ran the first mile or so at the back, but after that headed out on my own. The end of the field is so tough- it’s a good half mile of really deep grass, and narrow tyre tracks, and there were stinging nettles and brambles that had to be avoided. Also there was some confusion as they wanted to make it get up to 4 miles (it was 3.85) so talked about how to add a bit on. I thought I knew what they meant, but the people in front of me turned earlier (but still later than last week) so I followed them and we ended up doing 3.95 miles, but the lead runners (who are super speedy) and the people at the back did the extra, which was something like 4.35 miles I think. I did it all at an average 9.44 per mile, which isn’t bad as I am normally much slower on the off road sections. My run back home was much slower!

Last night I went to Pump- I mentioned last week I was not that keen on the new release, but perhaps it will grow on me. Although the abs track is rubbish- these weird hip thrust things, and then holding a weight above your head and reaching up (which hurts my neck even though we have to rest the head down between each one). I did add some extra weight to the chest as you only use the bar for a bit, used heavier dumbbells for the first rotation of the shoulders, and I tried to add extra during the biceps but had to knock it off as I couldn’t lift the bar half way through!

My shoulders are already aching today!

Have you ever won anything?