Because apparently I am very slow and am certainly not the gingerbread man (shh marathon talk listeners, not that type of gingerbread man).
I think my Nike+ is struggling- although I have had it for 18 months now. It keeps losing the signal from my shoes, and today I did nearly 5 miles (and I only just calibrated it)- at a fair pace for me, in 47 mins, but it thinks I did just over 4 and had an average pace of 11.30, and it won’t upload my run. Grr. Anyway it was a bit of a mind battle today- during the day I was looking forward to a run, but after leaving work and driving through the drizzle, by the time I got home all I fancied was a cup of tea and some TV. But I did know that I would feel better after a run, and regret not getting out, especially if later in the week the weather is worse- if it tips with rain on Wednesday at least I know I only have to do a short run because I did a longer midweek one today. It was so dark though- I went up to Sweatshop on Sunday to get some high viz things with my vouchers, but they were shut (grr), so I am planning on stopping by on Thursday after work. I don’t mind it where there are lots of street-lights- I never need to worry about bad pavements, but when I am driving it reminds me of how seeing pedestrians is really hard, so when crossing the roads I was getting a bit paranoid. Was glad to be home!
But I did have a yummy gingerbread man after my dinner to make up for that fact. These are tasty but not that gingery- I think my taste buds are so used to lots of spices that I need more! And more! Also they would be yummy with a little melted dark chocolate on top- does that destroy the “no junk” promise? I will use nice chocolate 🙂
Last night I tried some Teapigs Lemon and Ginger tea ( I love the little piglets so much!)- this was yummy- not too gingery and I think perfect if you were feeling like you had a bit of a cold or something.
How do you eat your gingerbread men? I like to eat the legs first (so they can’t run away- cue evil laugh) but also because then they keep smiling at me. Weird.
Now a technical question- I quite like the idea of a facebook page (sort of getting with the program, I am afraid I am never going to understand tweeting but I can do facebook!), but I wonder if I am better to have a profile instead of a page? I don’t really want people from work reading my blog (I know stuff on the internet can be found by anyone, and if they did come across it then fine, but I don’t want to put it out there to make it easy!) and I tried to make a page this evening. But then I can’t seem to add people (I would like to add my lovely blog friends) like you would on a normal page- anyone with some idea of how it works I would appreciate a few pointers! Cheers.
Saturday started with some gingerbread porridge (2 boxes for £3 in Waitrose, but they only had 1 box left!)- nice but I think it could do with more ginger! I think I am a spice addict.
This was meant to be my post run snack, but I actually forgot to drink the milk. The Larabar was amazing though- tasted very similar to the almond fudgy bars.
Then heat 220ml almond milk and add 2 tsp dried yeast- leave to bubble for 10 mins. As the almond milk was sugar free I also added a tsp sugar here to help the yeast.
This gets sticky! You may need to add a little more flour to make it into a soft dough.
Then leave covered for 2 hours to double in size.
Hooray!
Then put it on a board and roll out, pour on the fruit mixture and knead it all in.
Then split it into however many loaves you want (I did 3). Roll each one out, put some marzipan in (which seems to be vegan? For some reason I thought it contained egg whites but the ones I have are just sugar and almonds) and sprinkle a few flaked almonds inside.
Then roll up into a loaf shape and attempt to seal the crack down the middle. Leave for an hour to rise. Then heat the oven to 200C.
Bake for 40-45 mins, and then dust with icing sugar. This is in the recipe but also handily covers the bits where the dough opens back out again.
I could not wait to try some (with some lovely vanilla rooibos tea). My one came out blurry, but look at this slice;
The marzipan in the middle is the best bit! 🙂
Look! I am super excited-for our allotment we get to buy seeds super cheaply from a catalogue and they all arrived! They even had seeds for spagetti squash! Plus some really pretty beetroots 🙂 I just hope some of them grow….
I also enjoyed an old favourite the other day- porridge in a jar! I finally finished one of the massive Whole Earth pb, so I got to enjoy super peanutty porridge. Mmm.
This morning I got my race bits ready (clif bar for breakfast to eat in the car, banana for after).
Like the Thundercats style timer chip? It was a sticker on the back of your number which was a good idea.
Then we drove to Sherwood Pines Forest, where the race started. The parking was right by the race start- you had to walk through these lovely paths to get there.
There were real toilets (as it was a visitors centre) as well as port-a-loos. You can see the start/end inflatable arch thing in the field.
The scenery made it just fantastic- the first few km smelled so strongly of fresh pine trees.
Most of the trees were turning, the run was on wide tracks (sort of dirt roads) and there were lots of walkers and cyclists out too- perfect.
So pretty!
Near the end my Nike+ lost the signal from my shoes, and then told me I was going at 15 min miles, so I really had no idea how I was doing for time. But I was steadily overtaking people and I felt like I was pushing myself quite hard although I wanted to save some in the tank for the last little hill.
I overtook a few people going up the hill, and put on an almost sprint finish at the end (didn’t quite catch the last person!)- there was no clock but when I stopped my Nike+ it said 61 mins (and looking on the computer it was 61.33)- I was so pleased with that- close to my best ever 10K time but still not breaking the hour mark. Ah well, maybe next time!
I was still very excited about my time!
It has the list of the runs on the back- I think the kids run was the Maid Marian dash or something! It is a womens large, but proper cut so I might actually wear it as I rather like the colour too. We also got a £5 sweatshop voucher and some High5 samples.
I loved this race sooooo much- I think it could be my favourite race ever! I pushed myself hard, but still enjoyed the experience and the scenery. It was busy so I was never running alone, but the paths were wide and it was never congested so I felt I could run at my own pace and never struggled overtaking people.
HOORAY!
The winners of the hampers of 
The winner of the 
The winners of the 