Stuff I love! - Maria Runs

Hurraw Obsession

Hey peeps- I hope the UK folk had a fab 3 day weekend! I did- more on that another day!

I always have lip balm in my bag, by my bed, at work and so on. I used to like the Nivea stuff but I have been trying to use more natural products (especially lip balm as I am sure I eat a lot of it!) and last year ordered some Hurraw stuff from i-herb. I bought two; a chai spice (lovely) and a coconut one which I didn’t like so much. But they are so moisturising and are cold pressed and organic, as well as being vegan, so I was well and truly converted to the brand.

When I ran out of chai spice I went on i-herb and spent ages trawling the flavours.

In the end I went for Almond, Earl Grey, A night treatment one, and Almond, Cardamom and Rose.

Then, while I was waiting for them to arrive I went to London and saw that Wholefoods stocks them, so along with some other goodies I bought the almond flavour then too.

Annoyingly I thought I had bought the chocolate mulberries but they turned out to be goji berries which I didn’t like as much.

The almond one is gorgeous, if you like marzipan, which by now you must know that I am slightly addicted to.

The Earl Grey one is fab too. The Almond, Cardamom and Rose one is nice, but I prefer the plain almond one. The only one I am not so keen on is the night treatment one, but it is not too bad it just has a bit of a rich flavour/ scent which is not great for just before bed.

Anyway, I would highly recommend these. Next time I run out I shall be going to London instead of ordering them from i-herb, but if you can’t get to Wholefoods then it is worth a look- the almond one is here. I have signed up to the i-herb rewards scheme so if you click through the link I get a small % of credit if you spend anything.

Also, we were in Brighton on Monday and I found some of the flavours in Infinity Foods- I managed to resist even though they had a lovely sounding black cherry one. They did however stock chocolate mulberries so I bought a couple of little packets- hooray!

Are you a lip balm fan? What flavours do you like?

Pretty dresses and a few reviews

Isn’t the weather lovely first of all??? I am not sure which weather forecast I saw but I didn’t expect this!

Yesterday we popped into town- we have a wedding to go to in a few weeks time and although I have the dress, I needed a cardi or something, so I wanted to have a look. Anyway, no success there, but Debenhams were having 20% off dresses, so I came away with this:

This morning I went for a 9 mile run. I found it very tough as I wasn’t expecting it to be so warm- I wore a t-shirt when really I should have worn a vest. I also think I was a bit dehydrated- my mouth felt really dry from early on, and then I started to imagine all my blood getting thicker and my heart having a hard time pumping it around which didn’t help things either. Anyway, all done now. As soon as I got home I had an apple and some coconut water, and then after my shower made pancakes.

One with honey pb, one with blackcurrant curd, and one with coconut butter and jam.

Onto the reviews.

Seed and Bean sent me some gorgeous chocolate to enjoy.

Seed and Bean make their organic Fairtrade chocolate by hand in England. Recently they have changed their packaging and I must say that I think it is gorgeous and really eye catching. I also like it when the colours “match” the flavours if that makes sense. Also their inner “foil” wrappers are all home compostable as they are made from cellulose.

They sent me four flavours; Milk chocolate with Sicilian hazelnut and almond, Milk chocolate with Cornish sea salt and lime, Fine Dark chocolate with Espresso, and Extra Dark chocolate with mint.

I love nutty chocolates, and the combination of hazelnut and almond is just gorgeous. The lime and sea salt really impressed me too- I love trying more unusual flavours and this was great- the lime was fresh and zingy.

Andy has been enjoying the Espresso chocolate as coffee is not my thing, but it does smell good (I love the smell of coffee, but do not like the taste).

The Mint chocolate is delicious. Mint and chocolate is a classic combination- I have been having a couple of squares after dinner. The dark chocolates have the Vegan society logo on them, but also the disclaimer that they may contain milk traces.

Holland and Barrett stock them, but they never seem to have a big range of flavours, so if you fancy having a look there is an online shop here.

I was also sent some Viva drinks to try. Now, I would not agree to being sent something unless I thought I would like it (for example I was offered some Quorn products but I don’t tend to eat “fake meats” so declined as I didn’t think I would enjoy them), but when the drinks arrived I was not sure about them as I read the ingredients. They are drinks made with fruit juice, water and herbal extracts, but they also use stevia to sweeten them, and I have not always got on well with stevia in the past.

The first one I tried was the Mind drink, as it was flavoured with mangosteen and pineapple, which I liked the sound of. I liked it more than I thought I would, and I didn’t get the weird chemical/ metallic aftertaste I have had with stevia drinks in the past, so maybe they have the balance a bit better.

The Calm with melon and white peach was also quite nice- pretty refreshing. I am not convinced by the claims of the botanical extracts- I would imagine you would need to consume on a regular basis to glean any benefits, but I am sure they don’t do any harm.

My favourite one was the Detox- the Mint and Lemon flavour was lovely- like a fresh mint iced tea made with real mint leaves. If I was out and about on a hot day and needed a refreshing drink I would buy this, although some might find it quite sweet tasting due to the white grape juice and stevia.

I liked these more than I thought I would. I did find the packaging a bit hard to read- it was hard to find where the flavours were written as it was not immediately obvious.

Finally I was sent the most gorgeous cookery book:

Treat Petite by Fiona Pearce is filled with gorgeous miniature recipes for pastries, cakes, meringues and savoury bites. If you were holding an Alice in Wonderland themed party, or a delicate afternoon tea, this is the book for you!

How gorgeous do the mini macaroons look?

I love that each recipe has a photo and an “actual size” picture too.

I have not made anything from here yet, but I am sure it won’t be long!

Fiona runs a blog, Icing Bliss, which I urge you to check out as it is filled with beautiful photos of afternoon teas and delicate cakes.

Right, I had better get on with some real work! I have been excellent at procrastinating today (in a good way I suppose- I have ploughed through tidying, dusting, cleaning bathrooms and the kitchen, loads of washing and catching up on blogs from the past week) but now I have run out of other things!

Do you like getting dressed up? Personally I do not like it at all. Tights are my nemesis! Finding the right size is hard, and even the short length ones end up under my rub cage, and then I always manage to rip them when I put them on/ when I go to the loo.

Treat Yo Self!

In the spirit of Parks and Rec (which if you don’t watch, then hunt it out as it is so funny), I would urge everyone to Treat Yo Self this weekend.

I won’t spoil it for you, but there is another very funny clip where Ben treats himself. Worth a google.

Anyway we don’t really celebrate valentine’s day, I think it is a bit cheesy and would rather celebrate days that belong to us, like our birthdays. But this week has been tough at work, what with end of term assessments due, general end of term tiredness and two parents evenings. So after seeing Laura mention on her blog a box from Latest in Beauty- I ordered one for myself as it had some lovely treats in there including a little box of granola, some coconut water, a 30 day supply of multivitamins, a bounce ball (love those coconut ones) and a little sample of Teapigs matcha which I have always wanted to try. I also ordered a little set of shampoo and conditioner as they were on offer and will be great for travel.

It arrived yesterday, just in time for the weekend.

Last night I treated myself to some (Christmas) chocolates.

I needed the sugar to get me through to the end of the week! These are so good- a perfect mix of flavours with a mandarin one, brazil nut butter one, ginger and lime, almond praline and a cherry one. No yucky coffee/ weird strawberry ones that need avoiding so I don’t even need to read the “menu” I can just have a lucky dip! I had 3 and then today to celebrate 3 more when I got home.

So, what are you treating yourself to? What chocolates do you always avoid?

Have a lovely weekend <3

Bistrotea TeaPods- Your chance to win!

Hey peeps,

A while ago I was contacted by the folks at Bistrotea to see if I would like to sample their TeaPods, and also host a giveaway for my lovely readers. The TeaPods are very clever- you pop them in your cup and they infuse the water.

They sent me a couple to try- a really lovely herbal one (herbs n’ honey- the honey flavour really came through so great for me as I had a bit of a cold) which I enjoyed on Saturday afternoon:

And Green tea with ginger, which I had on Sunday.

Green tea is never my favourite no matter how many times I try it- this one was very gingery so good if you like a strong flavour.

Because of the way they are wrapped they would be great to pop in your bag- I always take herbal teabags to work and try to buy the individually wrapped ones as I would not want teabags loose in my bag.

They have a lovely flavour selection of 11 different blends- if I could choose any flavours I think I would go for Earl Grey (always a safe bet), black tea with apple and cinnamon (you can’t go wrong with cinnamon) and the red tea with vanilla and peach- I love peach tea.

Anyway, on to the competition. You can win a one year’s supply of Bistrotea TeaPods- this is in fact over 365 TeaPods as they come in boxes of 32 (so 12 boxes = 384) which has a value of over £175.

In order to be in with a chance of winning, visit the website here and answer the question “How many blends of Bistrotea TeaPods are currently available?“. Please note that other blogs will link to the competition too (and check the website for the T&C’s). Good luck!

You can also get a 15% discount if you click on this link.

Good luck!

2013 Travelling Tales and Race recaps

So, of course, today is the final day of 2013 so a recap post is due. I think these sorts of posts are really fun to write- I love going back over old race recaps and looking at photos.

This year we have had some awesome holidays, which can (through a rather convoluted set of circumstances) link back to when I was really ill a couple of years ago. I ended 2011 in hospital- this turned out to be due to a large ovarian cyst that had to be removed. We were meant to be going to New York, Washington, Philadelphia and Florida for the Christmas holidays, but had to cancel as I was not allowed to fly. Luckily we had insurance, so claimed it back (or cancelled things) but before we knew for certain Andy said to me that if we did have to cancel we could go to Hawaii in the summer (2012) instead. So we did. It was amazing. On one of the islands we went to Volcano, a National Park, and it turned out cheaper to buy a yearly pass than for the days we were there. So then we returned home with a pass for the year for all US National Parks….

Easter saw us visit Disneyland in California, before an epic road trip across several western states. We went to the Grand Canyon.

Monument Valley (not a National Park, but Andy wanted to see it)

We went to Zion National Park.

And Bryce Canyon for the day.

Plus Lake Tahoe, Las Vegas and the most amazing place, Yosemite.

I am still not sure how we managed to fit all of that in the Easter holidays!

In the summer we had another epic road trip, starting in Seattle (went to Victoria in Canada for a couple of days) and taking in more National Parks including Olympic, Glacier, Mount Rainier, Yellowstone, Rocky Mountain, Grand Tetons…

We did a 10 mile round trip hike through grizzly bear country to see this beautiful lake filled with icebergs (and saw no bears).

The next day we did a short walk (2 miles) and saw several bears, including a very close encounter!

“There’s a bear in the bush”!!! Exciting and also terrifying!

We certainly got good use of our year pass.

(This has reminded me that I have not posted a holiday recap on here for that holiday- something for a rainy January day perhaps).

This year was a great year for me running wise too. I finally felt like I was back to full fitness and not only got back to my old times, but achieved pb’s in several race distances.

I ran the Brighton Half marathon in February, and got a pb- this race was great to do because I couldn’t do it the previous year as I was still waiting for my op. I also met the lovely Lara in the starter pen 🙂

I have been trying for ages to get my 10K pb under an hour, but at my first attempt this year I didn’t make it, (60.34!!) although this was a cross country course. I made up for it back in Brighton in November, when Andy paced me around and I managed 56.14! I also coined the phrase “Royal Flush negative split” which I am pleased to report has been used several times on Marathon talk now! (Each mile faster than the previous mile).

In June I managed another half marathon pb, getting my time down to 2.10.09, and then in July I had the most fantastic experience running 5 miles in the Olympic Park. Most of the course was not that interesting, but coming out onto that track at the end was just amazing. I met up with Anna briefly at the end too which was lovely. That was a pb too, as I had only ever run one 5 mile race before, which turned out to be a cross country course.

The race I most enjoyed (apart from the final stretch of the Olympic run) was probably the local 10 miler I did. It was a week after another half marathon (that didn’t go so well), it was cold and pouring with rain, but it had the most marshals I had ever seen, it was so friendly, there was a cow on the route- what more could you ask for? Again I got my fastest 10 mile time but that is because my only other 10 miler was the Great South run a few years ago.

I also started going to Parkruns this year. My Dad persuaded me to go, and I am really glad he did. I have been to 11 this year, and helped out at about 3- I don’t go every week but when I do manage it I love it. I have managed to get my 5K pb down to 26.29 which I am really pleased with.

There have of course been some disappointing moments this year. I developed a bad cough in the summer, so could not do a 10K race I had signed up for, and I have spent the last month with this little hip niggle. But I am so pleased with how my running is going- I think running with Sweatshop has helped me run faster over slightly longer distances, and going to Parkruns has helped me to get used to that feeling of really pushing yourself. I also did the marathon talk Jantastic challenge (Go Team Run Blog Bake!) and I am sure having a good base of training at the start of the year helped. All my times have gone down this year, so I am hoping 2014 can continue. When I finished the Stockholm marathon back in 2011, I felt a bit like I had unfinished business. I would love to do another marathon, but I wanted to be faster over shorter distances first, because being out running for over 5 hours is just really tough. And I am getting closer to my target time so who knows in 2014 I may sign up for another one. Maybe.

I don’t tend to set new year resolutions or anything like that, but I like to have goals to work towards. I have signed up to the Bath half and the Oslo Rock ‘n’Roll half marathon (so excited about this) so would love to beat my half marathon time in one of these races. I also need to work on my flexibility so will be carrying on with my physio stretches and looking at booking some sports massages in the new year. But really I just want to keep enjoying running- that is why I do it.

How was 2013 for you?