Woo hoo!

Look!

How exciting! I won a prize on the lovely Rachel’s blog 🙂 And the prize arrived! So exciting! 🙂 With the cutest peanut postcard too!

After dinner me and Andy tried a booja booja truffle each. These were rum sultana ones-and I don’t like alchohol or drink, but I do add stuff like that to a Christmas cake -and these smelled like a Christmas cake. Or maybe just like rum- anyway they were super strong! But booja booja always make such amazing chocolate- the rest are safely in the fridge for another day. Thanks so much Rachel I am looking forward to trying every single item in the box 🙂

Now for a catch up;

Monday- good run after work- 4 miles and no walk breaks.

Tuesday- Aerobics- super hard and no time for a cool down! My calves were stiff on Wednesday.

Wednesday- Another good run after work- another 4 miles- so so windy but again feeling good and sped up for the last bit- under 10 min miles at the end which is super speedy for me at the moment. I am now feeling optimistic about Sunday and feel that I could run the whole way.

Thursday- Body pump baby! Heavier weights for squats (quite a boring track I think) and also for the back (as it is slow so I feel I can add more weight and have more control).

Warm butternut and goats cheese salad. This was spinach zapped in the microwave for half a min, topped with roasted butternut, herby goats cheese, caramelised onions, and quinoa cooked with beetroot, tomato, pepper, courgette. Yum.

Lemon slices (from Hummingbird)- I made some for my Nan 🙂

Yay my new bowl! With chocolate alpro and chocolate granola.

Alpro with coconut extract, and chocolate granola. More yumminess.

Also can I just say a massive thank you to everyone who has sponsored me so far! I really really really appreciate it (and the lovely comments too). Plus, exciting news- I have a few more prizes that will be added in the next few days. Altogether now “oooooooooooh“.

Question- how do you get ready for a race? It is 10K but at the moment that is the most I have run for maybe a month? I think the day I got the stomach bug was the last day I ran that far. So anyway I was thinking of going for 2 miles tomorrow and then resting Saturday (well, my parents are over, we have to go to the allotment and I also want to start baking some “bribes” for people at work to sponsor me)- but Andy is resting tomorrow also. He will probably tell me off for going for a run, but I need to wash my hair. So- what would you/ do you do?

Cheers.

WIAW- weekend edition!

Wow it is that time of the week already! Hooray for Jenn for organising the party.

This week I chose Saturday as my day.

Breakfast;

Date and cinnamon porridge (as part of my quest to pimp my porridge). Then I went on a run so this was also giving me some energy.

Post run snack;

Chocolate cherry almond bar from my blog swap with Errign, and some peach and mango coconut water.

Lunch;

Cinnamon and raisin bread with organic crunchy pb, and lots of watermelon. Back on those summery fruits with this hot weather.

Afternoon snack;

I only had one haha! One carrot and raisin cupcake 🙂 I had a friend over (was supposed to be friends but others were ill) which is why I put these out.

Dinner;

and

Half a huge sweet potato with almond butter (thanks Errign) and rocket, and something new from my Graze box– apple dippers with caramel sauce. How have I never tried this almond butter combo before? It is amazing!

Evening snack;

Ecomil chocolate almond dessert (amazing!!!!), cherries and a little granola dust (the end of the packet!).

I was not doing very well with veggies that day! Ah well, can’t have everything.

Please check out my giveaway to help me raise sponsorship for Cancer Research UK. Do you have any good fund raising tips?

Raising sponsorship

Hey

So some of you may know that I am running The Great South Run at the end of October. It is a 10 mile race and I have chosen to raise money for Cancer Research UK. I even have a Cancer Research vest to wear (proves I am taking it seriously). They are a charity close to my heart, and usually I run a Race for Life to raise sponsorship- this year I am doing the GSR instead.

I will be doing some sponsorship incentives (?) with work and things, and I wanted to do something on my blog as well.

With the help of some really generous companies I have put together a little giveaway which you can enter if you sponsor me.

Teapigs are launching their brand new website this week. You can follow them on Twitter (@teapigs) and also like their facebook page. I reviewed some of their teas last year and I love them!

They have kindly contributed some sets of Teapigs English Breakfast tea, Peppermint tea and a very very cool mug.

Natures Path make lots of flax based cereals and really delicious flavours- check out my review here.

They are generously contributing some hampers of their entire range of cereals. They are on facebook too.

I also love Rude Health cereals- I tried some of their cereals earlier in the year and loved them too.

They kindly contributed some Rude Health muesli and Granola.

I also love seedstacked bars (in my opinion much tastier and healthier than 9 bars)- see their products here.

Seedstacked kindly sent me some cases of their original bars for this giveaway. Check them out on facebook too.

And some baking/ fudge from me (winners get to choose what I send)- an example:

There will be 7 prizes open to UK residents only:

  • 3 x Nature’s Path Hamper
  • 3 x Teapigs set (English breakfast, Peppermint and mug)
  • 1 Rude Health Muesli +Rude Health Granola

All prizes also include some Seedstacked bars, and one lot of baked goods (e.g. peanut butter cookies/ white chocolate fudge/ vegan cookies of some sort).

I will also be having one prize for people in the rest of the world;

Some nice nakd cereal bars, some other things from the UK too (still getting these bits together) , and some home-made fudge too.

To enter, please sponsor me by clicking here (or use the button at the top of my blog). Please leave your name/ blog name (however I will know you), and then comment on this post to say you have done so. A small plea to say please do not mention my blog as I am asking people at work to donate and I keep my blog separate from my work. The minimum is £2 and I really really appreciate every penny that is raised.

To get an extra entry, please link to this page from your blog and comment on here to say you have done so.

The competition will be open until I have run the Great South Run, so I will close it at the end of October.

Then I will be taking names out of a hat and winners will be notified in the beginning of November.

I really appreciate any donations to this Cancer Research, so thank you in advance if you do choose to sponsor me- every penny counts.

Pancake Sunday!

What??????? I hear you all cry- no porridge??

No, I answer. I fancied pancakes today. So that is what I have. But, do not panic (were you all panicking?)- pimp my porridge will continue next week. Especially when I get some more coconut.

These are super easy- 100g flour, 100ml milk, 1 egg, I tbsp sugar, 1 tsp baking powder, and cook away. I put on some dried cranberries and Andy had his with some maple syrup.

I had mine with Whole Earth caramel and chocolate spread. Mmmmm.

They look so much better in natural light!

We needed this as today we had planned to do a load of gardening. This warm weather has been fantastic, but it has sent some of our plants into overdrive. We spent an hour in the garden, chopping things back and getting out the nettles that grow from under the fence. Then we headed to the allotment for another hour- we planted some strawberries, a blackcurrant bush, some rhubarb and some daffodil bulbs. A lot of weeds had grown back, but the earth is so lovely and soft that they pull out easily. We decided to only weed the bits we need right now.

After that we were super hot and tired. I made us smoothies, which turned into soft serve! A frozen banana, some frozen mango and a carton of coconut water= 2 delicious smoothies that need to be eaten with a spoon!

It was a bit later for lunch, so I went for an apple and a pear covered in honey pb (from my blog swap). 🙂 Yum.

I also did a little review for Rawr chocolate- look here if you fancy seeing their lovely flavours, and one for Beyond Dark who make delicious (and healthy) dark chocolate drops- look here for that one. Have you tried any of these products?

I am about to have more autumn chilli with sweet potato fries- yummy 🙂

Hope everyone else is having a lovely Sunday 🙂

Parcels in the post!

I love getting things in the post! These last couple of days I have been super lucky and have been opening up so many parcels!

I did a blog swap with Errign and she sent me a massive pile of goodies! Nut butters, energy gels, different types of clif and luna bars, plus lara bars which I am super excited to try!

I had the mint brownie bite straight away and it was delicious! Thanks Errign 🙂

I also got my Graze box– we get one of these every other weekend and share the punnets as a snack at the weekend- it included a new one which was apples to dip in caramel sauce. Sounds yummy!

Some lovely looking almond desserts from Ecomil- I cannot wait to try these, perhaps in my new bowls?

How cute are they???? I got them from Paperchase when I was getting some birthday cards, so not actually in the post, but I just love them!

Oh yeah, and a commiserations magazine. This was actually for Andy, who, when his marathon training was going well, decided to sign up for the London ballot (and he didn’t tell me until after the deadline! Not that I would have applied, but anyway)- after Stockholm he was hoping to have not got in, so he was very relieved to get this in the post!

Post run snack- Chocolate Cherry Almond Luna bar courtesy of Errign- delicious 🙂

With the running, it is proving hard to get back into. I tried a run this morning and managed 4 miles, but I had to walk as I was getting stomach pains- not sure what it is all about. Anyway we have the 10K next Sunday and I was originally hoping to be able to beat my previous 10K time, but I realise that it is not going to happen. So I am going to enjoy the run- it should be pretty scenic. We have the great south run at the end of the month, and we decided to sign up to this race– a 10K the week after the GSR. Maybe by then I will be back to running and might stand a chance of beating my time. And if not we have another weekend away and a run somewhere pretty.

Today I got on with more baking for my friends.

I made some carrot and raisin cakes to go with the peanut butter cookies I made yesterday.

Before the cream cheese frosting- I am getting a little obsessed with the mini loaf cases!

Oh, and one final photo- I ordered some bits from Lakeland- including piping bags and nozzles (so I no longer have to just dollop the icing on!), muslin cloth squares (for my almond milk hopefully) and these cool trays that are already divided up. I am terrible at cutting things evenly and so I am looking forward to making brownies, flapjacks, bars etc that are all perfectly the same size.

Do you love getting things in the post? I find it much more exciting than going shopping (plus no queues!). What was the last thing you received in the post?