Category: Running

Oh my word I feel like I have been eating all day!

I was very conscious of the 10 miler planned after work, so I packed extra snacks and actually made sure I ate them.

(Extra’s in bold)

Breakfast- porridge + PB + dried cherries

Snack- 2 clementines, nakd cocoa mint bar, small box of almonds, brazils and choc cranberries (10g of each)

Lunch- Sandwich with cream cheese and roasted peppers,  an apple

Snack- Pear, clif bar

Mid-run fuel- clif bloks

Post run- Kara coconut milk with sprinkle of nesquick

Dinner- Green mountain! (Spaghetti with pesto, courgette, peppers, cheese.)

To be continued… (later this evening! )

Honestly! Usually my long runs are at the weekend, so I have time to eat extra food! Fitting it in to work was hard as obviously I cannot eat while teaching, so there are only small times in the day (I can now eat a sandwich and apple in 10 mins which for me is good as I eat very slowly indeed- although this did not help the run today as I could still kind of taste the bread- not good!).

So I was nervous all day, it was on my mind. I changed quickly and headed out the door before I had time to change my mind. I had a good old Adam and Joe podcast (from 6 music) to cheer me along- I managed to not laugh out loud (mostly). The first 2 miles were tough, the 3rd mile something went wrong as I slowed down loads (and it was not even uphill) but then out came the clif shots to work their magic (possibly psychological)- I had one at 4, 6 and 8 miles and they helped. All in all 10 miles took me 1 hour 47 minutes- I was relieved to have finished under 2 hours, and actually my pace was under 11 minute miles, which is not bad for such a long distance.

I am pleased I managed it, and apart from the 3rd mile I kept a pretty constant pace, even on the horrible long slow hill. I am also pleased that my runs were moved about as I think tomorrow being a rest day is more ideal than having to run 6 miles following on from this.

Question- According to WLR today I have had 32.5g fibre already- I have read before that over 35g (?) starts to hinder the amount of nutrients your body can absorb. So what to eat to up the calories without having crazy amounts of fibre? (And this was without any pulses in my food diary- rare for me). I don’t want to resort to sugary things …

Hey!

So today I was supposed to have an extra long additional staff meeting (= rest day), but it was cancelled today. So, what did I do with my time? Why, run of course! I had already moved (in my head) my runs this week, and so I moved them around again (which actually works out better as I was going to have to do 6 miles on Wednesday after another meeting, and now I can have a rest day then- score!).

The small problem was that I only had some small snacks with me for the meeting (apple, honey stick bar) and remembering that apple did not agree with me before had that at lunch to give it time. So once home I had half of one of the energy bars (from the box my Dad gave us for Christmas);

This was quite nice- very sweet and chewy, a bit like a mule bar. Not sure if I would buy one (I do have rather a lot of bars) but it did give me energy for my run which is always a bonus. The plan was 6 miles which I love now at this time of year as there is a nice loop near me. I warmed up for a few miles, and then decided to up my pace a bit (I have not done intervals since being ill and have basically been back to my old plodding ways) so I put the Nike+ on the pace setting and did 3 miles on 10.06 (although this may be faster as the callibration needs doing). Anyway, that was good for me, and I was pleased to maintain it for that distance. Then I slowed down for the long slow hill and then the last mile. I felt weird running in just a long sleeved top- after all the months of wrapping up with 2 or 3 layers for my midweek runs. The sun was still shining and everything- another bonus!

Then it was dinner time- I added some quinoa to the lentil and cannelini bean chilli (felt in need of a few carbs!);

Steamy! And also very spicy- we use lazy chilli and I am rubbish at getting the amount right!

Thanks for all the comments about the running in general- I am trying not to panic about the 16 mile run- like Alison says, its only 14 +2.  I will take it slow and see what happens. I am worrying more about doing 10 miles tomorrow, as normally a run of that length is at the weekend when I have time to spare. So I will be taking plenty of snacks to work tomorrow to fuel me- I promise I am learning lessons!

This is my snack for in a minute;

A cooked nectarine with some alpro custard (tastes like normal ready made custard) with some cherry coconut cereal sprinkles. 🙂 Gotta get me some carbs for tomorrow.

Night

PS- Rob I have tried the chickpea/ gram flour in a sweet pancake bake thing, and I think it had a stronger taste than normal flour which I was not so keen on, but actually in the pancakes with the vanilla and cinnamon I could not taste the flour so I would say it is worth trying it in sweet dishes.

PPS (is that how you do it?)- I finished my cosy tea review which you can see here if you are interested – I appreciate not everyone loves tea quite as much as I do haha!

This is what I have when I drive to work. I typically leave home just after 7.30am, and now it is nice and light at that time I see loads of people out running. As I drive a lot of the roads I run on, they are often doing similar routes or roads I know well, and I just feel envious of them being out there running.  This will only increase as the weather gets better! They probably wonder why I stare at them as I drive past- I am really looking at how fast they are going and what clothes they are wearing, how springy their feet go and whether they are listening to earphones. Anyone else join me in this?

OK, yesterday I did not do well with fuelling for aerobics. Last week I had some fruit and a flapjack and some tea, all of which helped. This week I had fruit with me at work, but nothing else, and I got home later (forgot to make tea until it was too late) and only had time for a small snack- a few oatcakes with nut butter. This and maybe the longer weekend run meant that it was harder work than usual. I am learning my lessons I promise!

I did have a nice post aerobics snack (I have to have at least one picture you know, otherwise I get bored of looking at my typing)

The museli has little bits of puffed corn (I think) so it is like mini bits of popcorn- fun!

Today I included a big afternoon snack to help with the run- some clementines, a seed stacked flapjack and some almonds. Anyway, my run turned into mind over matter. I was tired; by the time I got home I did not really fancy a run (despite having a big case of runners envy this morning), my legs were tired. I told myself I was imagining it and went out. After 4 miles I got caught in a very heavy downpour- luckily I was near some trees so did not get too drenched. Anyway, I think the rain actually refreshed me and I made myself pick up the speed a bit, and in the end did a bit under 7 miles in 69 minutes- I think 7.7 miles or something like that so in fact I was fast for me.

I feel tired now though and am looking forward to my king of snacks later!

Anyone else suffer runners envy?