Category: Running

The weeks certainly seem to be flying by at the moment!

Today was a much needed rest day- I was not stiff but my legs did feel tired today. I did some foam rolling last night, and hada gentle walk today (although in the wind it was still hard work!).

The day started with some porridge in a jar! Using small jars of peanut butter has it’s advantages- they run out sooner!

(I had to leave some in the bowl as it would not all fit in the little jar!)- I added some carob powder to the bottom of the jar and then mixed it in- topped it with some cinnamon- yummy 🙂

I cannot think what the carob reminded me of (carob topped 9 bars/ seed stacked bars?)- I like the flavour but it is slightly different to cocoa powder. A nice change anyway.

I also unpacked my shopping from yesterday!

Holland and Barret were having another “buy one get one half price” sale, so I stocked up on PB. I love the meridian stuff (as it is 100% peanuts- no oil, salt or sugar)- once crunchy and one smooth for variety! I also got some mollasses (although later I found out that it was not black strap which has the most iron, grrr) and some blackcurrant fruit spread. In the health food shop I found date syrup (I was looking for rice syrup which I got last time and have used it all, but they didn’t have any), the carob powder and some scrummy orange chocolate.

So here is the weekly review;

Monday I did a 6 mile run with some intervals in the middle- these went ok but I think they tired me out for the week! Aerobics was busy on Tuesday, and on Wednesday I was very tired after such a busy day at work, and so my planned 6 mile was cut down, in the end to 5 miles so not cut down too much. Thursday in body pump I managed heavier weights for a bit longer during the back track, and on Saturday I managed the 12 miles just fine, even with the wind. In fact I think I may have gone too fast. I totalled 23 miles this week, my most so far (and I got onto blue level on Nike+ which means 1000km since May!). I do weigh myself each week, and although at the moment I am focusing on maintaining, I did lose 1lb this week, which may also explain why I was more tired than usual. (I am in the mid range for my height so losing some will not hurt but I did know this week that I probably was not eating enough and so I want to keep an eye on that as often after a longer run I lose my appetite and I want to have enough protein, carbs etc to recover properly from the training). On the whole I feel positive about this week- I know I was annoyed on Wednesday for not completing the allotted mileage, but that is me and my obsession with ticking things on lists! I know in the long run it won’t make any difference. I am pleased with how the 12 miles went, as again it is the furthest since my half marathon (in the summer I think my furthest training run was 11.5 miles or something) so I am pleased I managed it without totally wearing myself out.

The next 2 weeks are going to be hard, as I have a couple of late staff meetings and parents meetings on different days, so my routine will not be the same as normal. I have planned when I am going running, to fit around work but it is not ideal. Fingers crossed I will manage it.

Hope everyone else had a good week/ weekend 🙂

PS I have also added a page; my race calendar to show how I moved from my 5k race for life to my races now. It was quite satisfying to see how far I have come 🙂

Evening all

I did a lot of foam rolling last night as I started to feel a little stiff and very tired. It seemed to help as this morning my legs felt fine. I was most excited that this evening it was lighter for so much longer! As it was such a sunny day that helped too. In the autumn I start getting impatient to leave work before it gets dark, so I can run, but in the winter I get really used to running in the dark and in the end I quite like the dark (so long as the street lights are on)- it means no one can see how red my face is! So although I love the lighter evenings, it does not affect my running as much as in the autumn if that makes sense? Anyone else love/ hate running in the dark?

After work I had an oaty bar for some energy;

 These are replacing my seed stacked bars for the moment (although they have only a sprinkling of seeds). It had dried strawberries but actually they were quite moist and like little bits of jam in the flapjack (which is made with coconut oil and sweet freedom). Seemed to do the trick anyway!

I layered up with running tops and then headed out- I looked at the pacing on my Nike+ instead of the time or the distance to see if that helped- 2 mile warm up, 2 miles with intervals- this time I did 9 lots of 2 mins running faster (9.30 ish for the faster bits, 10.30ish for the recovery pace although it was hard to see in the dark!), then 2 miles cool down (although I was so cold I did not need much of a cool down). We continue with the theme of me making myself like intervals- these ones were ok but I think I need to go a bit faster. Maybe next week…

Then it was home for some lentil chilli- I forgot a sweet potato so while it was heating up I added some quinoa and water to cook in with it- seemed to work 🙂

I baked some plums yesterday as they were “ripen at home” but have not ripened, so I might have some of those a bit later as another snack 🙂

Night

Happy Sunday all

So time for the weekly recap. This week I did 4 miles on monday, aerobics Tuesday (and got stiff calves during this for some reason), a 6 mile run wednesday (still with stiff calves), body pump on thursday (which helped with the stiff calves a lot), a long run of 11.4 miles on saturday, and had a nice walk today. Total miles this week= 21.4 miles. I tried those clif bloks for the first time and they did not have any side effects. I have been foam rolling most evenings which does seem to help, although it still hurts a lot! I have also been trying to drink more water again today.

Today began with porridge in a jar- the most exciting thing about making pumpkin pasta was having some left over pumpkin that I could add to my porridge. This one had a blob of pumpkin puree, some allspice and a few dried cherries.

The addition of all the scrapings of peanut butter from the jar made it even tastier 🙂 I do sometimes (especially on saturdays) add a blob of pb to my porridge, but when it is from a jar you get peanut flavour in every spoonfull. Plus the dried cherries were amazing- they had plumped up overnight and added bursts of sweetness- yum.

I had a walk this afternoon to stretch the legs, and then for lunch I tried the PB2 (powdered peanut butter) from the lovely Jess.

I was so impressed- once you added water and mixed it was just like peanut butter-(hold on, peanut butter tastes like peanut butter? really?)- really tasty pb too 🙂

Yummy!

We are off to see Andy’s parents in a bit so fingers crossed they like the cake. (And also that the icing does not fall off on the way round!)

Also we signed up for the Great South Run yesterday- I love watching stuff like that on TV but the last few years the Herts 10K has been on at the same time so we have always done that instead, but this year we decided to go for that race. I have never done a 10 miler so am looking forward to that, and I think the crowd support etc will be nothing like I have ever done before either, as the races I have done tend to me smaller local ones. It’s not every day you get a chance to run a race alongside Blue Peter presenters now is it ?

Enjoy the rest of the weekend folks 🙂