12 miles

That was the plan today.

I got up, had breakfast (lots of water, and porridge with pumpkin and peanut butter), then I cleaned the bathrooms. How efficient. When Andy got back from his run, I headed out. It was super windy out there, and in some places I felt like I was at walking speed. It drizzled on and off for a bit, but nothing heavy, and as it was mild it was quite refreshing.

I took some more of those clif shots with me, and had a couple after 7 miles (and water). In the end 12 miles took me 2 hours and 7 mins, which is consistent with my half marathon time of 2.19 I suppose. I was pretty pleased with how the run went- my pace was up and down but I think that was to do with the wind. Anyway, after being so tired this week I was a bit worried, so I am happy to have completed the long run, and also I am now on blue level on Nike+! Which I think is 1000km but I do it in miles and I have gone 630 miles since May!! When I got home I was hungry so had a snack right away.

The chocolate milk was very rich, but I did feel in need of some energy by that point!

After a shower lunch was next on my to do list!

Some spicy tomato and bean soup, with ciabatta with roasted peppers, courgette and cream cheese. So good.

This afternoon I baked some banana cookies from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar (and yes I will be happy to do a review Emma 🙂 )for Andy to take with him as he is off out to watch the football. Talking of cookies, I had 2 of the chocolate ones last night and they were delicious! Amazing!

I went to the shops to pick up some bits (although the shops were so hot and when I was in the queue in Boots I actually thought  I was going to faint it was so warm- I am still only in a vest now as I still feel sooooo hot), and then made some dinner. My plan was to make those chickpea pancakes, and fill them with a lentil veggie mix and bake. But I was hungry and tired and wanted to sit down, so I made a variation!

I made a lentil chilli type thing with peppers, courgette, spinach, lentils, tomatoes, chilli and garlic, and then I made some little chickpea flour balls with chickpea flour, water and rosemary. I thought they would spread a bit more in the oven, and they didn’t, but they were yummy still.

I will for sure be having some tea later to accompany my work (what a fun saturday night I have planned!). How was your Saturday? 🙂

Treats for my eats

Evening all

Boy am I glad the weekend is here!

I was so busy yesterday- Andy was having his car serviced (he drove it there in the morning and then ran the 5 miles back home- combining training with life was clever!)- so I raced home from work, we had a quick pasta dinner and I changed, then we drove to pick up the car, I had to get petrol and then straight to body pump. I was showered and shattered at 9pm!

Over the last couple of days I have had some lovely treat snacks so here we go;

This was amazing! One pot of Rachel’s Rice pudding (although I should make my own – I do have some flaked rice somewhere..) with a tsp peanut butter and some dark chocolate chips stirred in once it was warmed. MMmmm.

A white chocolate and hazelnut flapjack- I shared it with Andy and his comment was “nice” whereas mine was “look I got a whole hazelnut!”.

Cherries with chocolate alpro and some pecan and cranberry granola. This is a classic combo which will never get old for me!

There is not much of my lovely ginger cashew cereal left (sniff)- such a delicious combo.

I think the theme might be carbs- I have been tired and I think not quite eating enough when looking at my daily allowance on WLR. I also have been sleeping badly this week (I am a bad and light sleeper anyway) and have been waking up in the night really hungry, so I have been trying to have a snack later in the evening to try to stop this happening! It worked last night anyway.

While I was driving home today, all I could think of was that I wanted to do some baking. I recently bought Vegan Cookies invade your cookie jar- it was cheap on amazon and the range of recipes look amazing (plus I don’t need to worry about having eggs when I want to bake!) so I flicked through until I found a recipe for chocolate fudgy oatmeal cookies. I think the chocolate oat combo appealed! Chocolate plus some extra carbs- yes please 🙂

I also got to use my pretty red baking measuring cups 🙂

I cooked them for a bit, flattened them some more and cooked again and they smell heavenly. I am looking forward to one or two later- they will help fuel my run tomorrow.

Body pump was fab as usual. We had more new people (the classes are getting full and we all could have only one bar each whereas usually the regulars can have a light and heavy bar made up) which makes it good, but also a bit rushed as the instructor has to keep explaining everything. I kept the extra weight on for the back track (last week I added them on for the first little bit only) and this time managed to keep them on until the last break. I was struggling to get the bar over my head right before I took the extra off,  and I am feeling it today! I also kept the heavier dumbells for the shoulders (as of last week where I made myself do it) so feeling good. I feel like I can up the weights for the squats, but my knees sometimes feel a bit sore in the squats and lunges. I am really careful with my posture, but I did used to have a bad knee and still now it can get stiff, so I am wary of increasing too much in case I strain something. My heart rate gets very high and I find it hard so I am pushing myself with the current weights, but what I am saying (in a rambly way) is that I want to concentrate on increasing weights for the non leg tracks more.

Right, off to read some blogs before a lovely dinner of veggie and bean bake and some home made wholemeal bread. 🙂

Worn out

Evening all

I am totally worn out today. I did have a very busy day at work, tiring and sort of emotional too, and I got home later than I had planned. I was supposed to do a 6 mile run with some faster miles in the middle, but I was so tired that on my way home I decided on 6 steady miles. I rushed to get ready (I do leave my running clothes out before I leave for work so I can change quickly) and by the time I headed out I had talked myself into cutting it down to 4 miles. In the end I did 5 miles, but I felt like I was running through treacle. My pace was around 10.30 per mile, so not too bad, but for a short run I could normally up it for a bit in the middle. No such luck today. It was really windy which didn’t help. I did listen to an old Ricky Gervais podcast (from the old Xfm days) and at points I was actually laughing out loud as I ran- must have looked a bit loopy.

Home for a quick shower, and I did not bother washing my hair. Shock. I did use some dry shampoo (I am not totally gross) and I will wash it after body pump tomorrow I promise. It feels alright now, and it meant that I could have my dinner much sooner. Some yummy pumpkin tofu pasta with some beetroot, green beans and a pickled onion helped to give me a little bit of energy!

I was fuelled alright for my run;

But I was so busy I did not have any tea this morning at work (normally I have a big cup of rooibos tea) so although I drank all my water, I had not had as much liquid as usual. I really think that the busy day at work was draining, and although some days a run will be refreshing and really help, today it just sapped my energy even more. It is annoying me that I didn’t make the mileage on my training plan (I know it’s only a mile etc etc) but I am sure that one extra mile would have tired me out even more and not done much good.

But now to relax 🙂

Minty tea

Mmmm.

I never thought I would like minty tea. But last time I did a teapigs order it was cheaper to get it in the mixed box, than to buy the other ones separately. So I tried it and actually I find it really refreshing. I am actually thinking that in the summer I might try to make my own (I saw Alys from Gardeners World do it before) as I have all sorts of mint in my garden. But I will have to wait for it to grow. Now I shall make do with teapigs!

And the best thing about minty tea is that if you combine it with some dark chocolate (that stuff is so good and on offer at the moment 🙂 bonus) you get an after eight flavoured snack! Perfect!

After that it was time for aerobics. I have never seen it so busy (must be all those new years resolutions kicking in)! The instructor had to go and tell reception to let more people in, as the class limit was reached and she thought we could up it. We did all fit in, but it was a case of “love thy neighbour”. It was fab, we had some great tunes (not the usual) including some old body pump songs- the girl next to be also goes to body pump so we kept looking at each other and saying stuff like “this was a lunges track”, “we had this for triceps” and so on. I was so tired by the end though- 6 miles on a monday is more than I have usually done so I think that might have been partly why.

Does anyone else with blogs get those monthly stats? I got mine through just now and it is crazy- apparently during January 690 “unique” people looked at my blog- it is strange to think that this many people are interested in what I get up to! I didn’t get any funny searches this month though. I think it is amazing that people spread all over the world get connected via blogs – people from far flung places such as Singapore are visiting. I think it is quite exciting that people are “connecting” from all over the world.

Right, I am off to put my feet up now in preparation for my next 6 mile run tomorrow.

Night 🙂

Back to those intervals again

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