Running - Maria Runs

Hard run

Hey all, and welcome to the non gingerbread post of the weekend!

Friday and Saturday evenings we had family over for dinner and stollen etc, so it was pretty busy.

I went on my run, and it was my last long run before holiday. I managed 8.7 miles in 92 mins, but it was hard work, my legs felt heavy and I felt tired. I told myself it was all in my mind, and I knew that if I didn’t do the whole distance I would be annoyed with myself for a while. Also I had not taken any water with me. I normally do on longer runs, but the last few weeks it has been so cold that my hand holding the bottle (even with gloves) had got too cold so I have been leaving it at home. Yesterday was much milder and I should have taken it with me. Anyway, once home it was time for nesquick and my last US clif bar, only I had run out of nesquick. Please note that cocoa powder mixed with milk does not mix as well or taste the same!

After a shower it was lunch time (it was about half 1 I think!) and so I treated myself to toast with chocolate PB;

Yum 🙂 I also had some nuun rehydration (well, a tablet in a big glass of water). I really think it helps; without fail I would have a headache every single Saturday after a long run, but since taking this as well as water I hardly get them at all. I still do occasionally, but not regularly and certainly not every week. So if you have a problem with headaches after runs then they would be worth a try. (I just ordered a new pack from wiggle so they are on my mind).

Over the weekend I was busy making the gingerbread house. I also made a cake for our work tea next week, which I cut into little squares and have since covered in marzipan and icing. Very fiddly, but I think they will be appreciated.

Today I tried mince pie porridge- I cooked porridge as usual and then added a spoonful of mincemeat and some cinnamon. It was tasty.

My legs have been so stiff today, so I think I actually found the run yesterday harder work than usual. I had a walk up to the shops and back (for about an hour) which helped a bit, but I am going to see if a bath later will help.

Tonight I am going to watch Inception- we had some kind of deal with Sky to get it for free, so the plan is to watch that while wrapping the last few presents, and writing a few cards. It’s not a festive film at all, but it gets deleted tonight!

Anyone else loving the Kirsty and Phil Christmas shows? I think (exepct for cooking the ham and stuff) they did all my favourite festive things. I think in an ideal world home-made gifts are perfect. When I was little we made decorations for the tree and I have no idea how we did them, I would love to do that sort of thing. Although making cards has never appealed to me. I have made some fudge for people at work so hopefully they will appreciate the time and effort 😉

More festive fun

Evening all

I was inspired by some other blogs for some close ups of my decorations, so skip to the bottom if you want to read about my run instead!

I got this moose candle holder from Copenhagen last year- Andy and I went there for 3 days last December for our christmas presents to each other. It is so pretty 🙂

I love the Happy Holidays theme in america- and I also love gingerbread, and Minnie mouse. Andy got this for me one summer from the disney christmas shop.

The Snowman is my ultimate Christmas film, so when I saw these I had to get them. Normally they hang on the tree, but they are heavy and the little branches cannot hold them this year.

This is a tealight holder from Whitards. When there is a candle in it, the light glows from the little holes and it looks so pretty 🙂

Another disney present from Andy- a cute gingerbread Mickey with the disney recipe in it too- bonus 🙂

Ok, now onto the normal stuff!

After work I wrapped up and went out on a 5.7 mile run. I was thinking I would take it easy as my legs were stiff today, but I did it in 54 minutes so I was pretty speedy, not sure what happened! I think the cold is helping! There was fog while I was driving home, and the frost did not melt from the trees all day, so it was quite spooky, but also really beautiful as all the trees looked like they belonged on a card. I was a bit worried that the pavements would be icy, and as I was running there were twinkling bits, but they were fine. Phew. I did see a couple of other runners, which is always nice- I always feel pleased to see other people getting out there (and it proves I am not crazy for going out).

I also got around to icing some of the gingerbread cookies to take into work;

I am hoping to spread the festive cheer, as it is so busy at the moment that no-one is pausing to enjoy the fun stuff.

I might do some wrapping later 🙂 The bottom of the tree is all lonely!

Night

Afternoon practise

Evening all

Today was the Christmas Fayre so my morning run was put back to later (also as the stockholm marathon starts at 2pm I need to start doing some long runs in the afternoon so I am used to it). The fayre was fun (lots of face painting, present wrapping, carol singing, mulled wine and mince pie eating (not by me though)) and after that I popped to the shops. To cut the story short, we are away for Christmas and so Andy has said we won’t bother putting up the tree or decorations which I wasn’t happy about. In the end we compromised by saying we would get a little tree, so I got one. Only the misunderstanding was that I was meant to get a real tree. Which I was tempted by but thought I was being so good at resisting. So tomorrow the saga will continue.

Anyway, I had lunch and then started making some stollen (currently addicted to it).

It takes ages as you have to soak the fruit, make the dough, leave it for ten mins, add butter and sugar, leave it again for a few hours, add in the fruit, leave it again, shape into loaves (add marzipan in), leave again….. It’s a day project that keeps on needing to be revisited.

After a lot of the prep, I went out on my run. This morning was quite bright, but as I got ready the rain started. Not too hard, so I thought it would be ok. After about 30 minutes the rain got very heavy, but I was not feeling cold so I carried on. But my glasses fogged up and the tissue in my hand was also wet so useless for clearing them. At the lakes there was a lot of slush about, and the lakes were still half frozen (randomly with a lot of seagulls sat on the ice). Then on my way back I was so mad because by this time the puddles were quite big, and the puddles on the roads were bigger too. As I was on the pavement right by the road a car actually swerved into the puddle to actually splash me with a wave of icy muddy water. My shoes were soaked through, the wet got through my capris and tights, and so the last 15/20 minutes of my run were spent freezing and soggy. I was not a happy bunny.

I was also starving when I got home. I normally now have porridge in the morning before a long run, but I tried 2 slices of toast with sunflower seed butter (peanut butter is a no-no before a run for me). I didn’t want anything too heavy, but I think I need a little more protein possibly. Anyway, I downed some chocolate milk and a normal clif bar, before peeling off my soggy cold clothes and warming up in the shower.

Then it was time for some tea;

Christmas tea 🙂 It was from Whitards last year (black tea with orange peel and festive spices) but I saw it in a pretty new tin this year too. I love my teapot 🙂

After my post a few weeks back on nutrition, my amazon order arrived so I spent a bit of time flicking through it;

Vegetarian Sports Nutrition . I look forward to reading it.

After dinner it was time for some stollen (still warm, mmmm);

Love those cranberries.

So I am pretty pleased with my first afternoon run, it went ok- my pace was pretty similar to my other runs of that length, and as I know that fuelling is the main issue it is something I can experiment with between now and May. Anyone taken part in an afternoon race/ race at a funny time? Any good tips?

Fayre fun?

Today was the turn of the plain porridge. Yesterday I tried the apple porridge (pictured), which was also delish (lots of pieces of dried apple, a few sultanas to add some more sweetness). I added a tbs of dried cranberries and some mixed spice to the plain porridge to amp it up a bit and it was gooooooood. Well, isn’t all porridge delicious 🙂

On my way home today I was closely inspecting the pavements (well, as closely as you can while driving along) to check for the level of ice. There was a mile which was clear, near home, so I piled on the layers (3 on top and bottom seem to be working although I do look like a michelin woman) , warmed up by doing step ups on the bottom stair, and carefully walked along my road over the smooth ice pavements (and road) to get to the clear stretch. I then managed just over 4 miles by going out and back twice, and then a out a little way and back at the end. Annoyingly, when I got to the first mile I looked at my Nike+ and noticed it had stopped on 2 mins, so I had to re-start it (no prob)- and then add on the time at the end.

Once home it was time for a warm shower, and vegetable and bean bake with a little bit of home-made wholemeal bread. Delish 🙂

It’s the christmas fayre tomorrow so I am looking forward to helping on a stall and seeing all the children getting super excited 🙂 We always have a chocolate tombola which is always so popular, and we also have a cute secret present room where children can go in, get a present for mum and/or dad, and wrap it, so the parents will actually get a surprise from the children come christmas- it is so sweet to see the things they choose. They also do fun christmas crafts like making paper chains. I used to love making paper chains- we used to buy the strips of gummed paper so they only needed to be dampened to stick. So, fave stall or fave christmas activity?

Mudbath!

Afternoon all.

So today was my final race this year, the Watford Joggers Autumn challenge. I found it via the runners world website, and as I had not done a 5 miler before I fancied it. The route was 1 mile in a park, 3 miles in some woods (clue there) and the last mile back in the park. My trainers, by the way, started out off-white. Now they are various shades of brown!

The race was really good- it was very small; no chip timing or anything like that. On the start line we had a minutes’ silence for rememberance Sunday, and instead of tannoy systems they had a whistle and an air horn. The first bit was so muddy- like running across a rugby pitch! I found it tricky to keep up my pace, and the first mile took me 11 minutes (I was aiming for ten min miles). Then there was a crazily steep hill (I ran the whole way but loads walked as it was really steep- steeper than a steep road), and some really steep downhill bits. The woods were nice (the rain held off which I was so pleased about), and there were lots of marshalls cheering everyone on. Several steep hills (up and down), muddy bogs and downhill steps later I emerged back into the park (4 miles in 41 minutes so I had managed my ten min miles in the woods even with the crazy hills). Then, bliss, a 30 metre run on tarmac (how bouncy the tarmac felt- I was alsmost flying) and then back to the rugby pitch. By this time it was hard to get any grip and I was slipping all over the place. I still managed to overtake a few runners, and boy was I grinning when I caught sight of the finish line. There was no official time (there was a man with a clipboard and stopwatch so I will have a look on the website later) and I didn’t stop my Nike+ right away, but I finished in about 52 minutes which for a cross country race was pretty good. Instead of a medal (which I love but are useless!) everyone got a shoe bag;

Pretty smart right? And more useful than a medal 🙂 I actually really enjoyed it, although I found it very hard to run through all the mud (it sucks your feet down into the mud, or it is hard to get any traction)- I think that is partly why I felt so pleased, because it was a challenge. Although I do not think I am converted to cross country running, I am glad I did it, as if I had known what it had been like (eg if it was called the cross country challenge) I probably would not have even entered.

Once home I had some nesquick with coconut milk (mmmmm) and after a hot shower I have spent the rest of the day baking, and watching the grand prix.

I made chocolate brownies with a peanut butter swirl;

Pretty swirl 🙂

I also attempted mince pie cookies. I had a fun shopping trip yesterday with some friends (another outing for my new boots 🙂 ), and saw Millies cookies had all sorts of Christmas cookies, including mince pie cookies. So I thought about it and have adapted an oatmeal raisin cookie recipe;

Put 110g mixed dried fruits (including mixed peel) in a bowl and add 1tbs brandy- leave to soak for around an hour. In a bowl cream together 130g butter (or pure dairy free) with 80g caster sugar and 80g brown sugar. Add in one egg and 1tsp vanilla (although orange would be nice if you had it). Then mix in 150g flour (I used white spelt) and 40g ground almonds, some mixed spice, cinnamon and 1/2 tsp bicarb. Then stir in 50g oats and the dried fruit mix.

Put blobs of it onto baking tray and bake, 170C for about 15 minutes.

Voila:

Ok, so they look just like oatmeal raisin cookies but I am hoping they are a bit amped up and taste more like a mince pie 🙂

Onto other things- after my trial of rude health cereals I decided to buy another box, this one has seeds in it and a few other grains (quinoa, barley, some other ones);

Close up of the seeds;

It is tasty, but more savoury than the other ones. I tried the top banana one as it was on offer, and although it was ok, I prefer the fruity date one. I think I like a bit of sweetness with my porridge 🙂

And finally (well done for reading this far)- entries to the Teapigs giveaway end midnight tonight- leave a link to your fave recipe on the comments section of the giveaway post.

My post race treat is going to be some of my baking 🙂 alongside some Whitards Christmas Tea (loose black tea with orange peel and spices).

What is your fave post race treat?