Happy Wednesday everyone, you ready for another WIAW?

I started my day in the usual way with a mug of warm water and lemon juice then I headed out for my run. As I did my half marathon at the weekend I decided to take it easy and have a recovery run. I did 6.4 miles in 59.25 with an average pace of 9.17. It was a pleasant run but even though the sun was shining it there was a freezing wind! When I got home I did my abs and core exercises then made a giant smoothie for breakfast:

This was delicious! I blended up some kale, cos lettuce, 1/2 avocado, nectarine, frozen strawberries, coconut water, vanilla sun warrior protein powder, spirulina, barley grass powder, maca and the usual gums for thickness. I topped it with goji berries, coconut, pistachios and a little granola. I decided to wear a nice yellow top to match the sunny weather:

Yellow camisole: Old Navy, Black cardigan: M&S, necklace: H&M, gold crown earrings: Accessorize

For lunch I had some wonderful sweet cantaloupe melon followed by a big bowl of my gorgeous Smokey Spicy Black Eye Bean Soup and a couple of Ryvita pumpkin and oat crackers:

 

I was in meetings all afternoon but managed to snack on a peppermint stick Luna bar:

For dinner I had defrosted one of my sweet potato falafel burgers which I baked in the oven and served on top of a big salad of rocket, summer lettuce, cucumber, sugar snaps and red onion alongside some sweet chilli hummus watered down into a sauce:

This was so delicious, the sweet potato falafel burger tasted wonderful and the hummus was lush! I haven’t had shop bought hummus in ages as I’ve been making my own so this was a great change. Dessert was some raw banana goji cake from the freezer:

This was made from sesame seeds, almonds, banana, goji berries and dried cherries, yum!

I was very excited and chuffed to come home to this:

My race pack for the Great North 10K! This is only my second race so I still get really excited about these things!

I’ve also been invited by Alpro Soya to attend the Kendal Calling Festival! I’m a fan of Alpro products and was actually thinking about checking out a smaller festival this summer so I think it must be meant to be. Looking forward to finding out even more about Alpro and their products. I’ll post all the details soon!

What’s the best thing you’ve eaten today? Do you run races? Do you still get excited when you receive your race pack?

I’m still surviving in the lovely snow we have here in North East England, its so festive and is putting me right in the mood for Christmas!

Thanks for your comments to my Perfect Porridge and Rude Health Giveaway post – take a look if you would like to enter or if you just want to get some amazing ideas for porridge flavours and toppings! I’m going to do my best to try them all out!

Over the last couple of days I’ve had some thrown together but tasty eats. Yesterdays lunch was a salad made up with left over brown rice, carrots, cucumber, red onion and spinach with a big handful of roast spicy chickpeas thrown in plus some spicy peri peri dressing.

I love having roasted chickpeas handy as they are an easy and tasty way to add some protein to a salad without having to open a full tin of beans. I also had a couple of plums and an orange.

I picked up these Ryvita crackers at the supermarket the other day. I was impressed with their simple ingredients list, only wholegrain rye flour, pumpkin seeds, oats and salt. I had a couple of crackers topped with tasty marmite as a snack.

As decided not to try and make the journey from Durham to Newcastle for my yoga class I dusted off my old Yogalates DVD instead. I did the full hour workout and really enjoyed it! I think I’ll be using this DVD and Yoga Download workouts to try and maintain my flexibility until I start my level 2 course in the New Year. Earlier I had also done my usual Thursday morning workout DVD – Davina Top Fit!

For dinner I decided to just have a mug of miso soup with ginger followed by a huge green smoothie. This one contained spring greens, 1/2 frozen banana, frozen strawberries, ice cubes, vanilla rice milk, maca powder, ground flax and nut mix, agave and xanthan and guar gums. I topped it all off with some goji berries, coconut and cacao nibs.

This was lovely and filling, I actually crave green monsters now!

This morning I made a gorgeous breakfast of an apple and peanut butter spelt wrap plus a Vanilla and Chai Coffee.

Over the last week I’ve been experimenting with combining different teas, my favourite this week being green tea with lemon and ginger tea (I just chuck one tea bag of each in the tea pot). Today I decided to brew up some French vanilla coffee in my press then add a chai tea bag and some vanilla rice milk. It tasted so good – do you ever mix up your tea / coffee like that? If not give it ago!

That breakfast kept me full for hours. When I did get round to lunch I had a bowl of Courgette and Watercress soup with two organic pears.

Mid afternoon snack was a Cocoa Delight Nakd Bar. I then hit the gym for an hour workout – HIITs – 15 minutes on the cross trainer, step machine and bike followed by some abs and core work on the stability ball and some upper body free weights.

When I got home my organic veg box delivery had arrived so for dinner I roasted up a sweet potato, beetroots, parsnips and red onion then served on top of some sautéed spring greens and topped with feta, parsley, toasted seeds and a Dijon mustard, balsamic and olive oil dressing inspired by the warm winter salad recipe in Sophie Dahl's Voluptuous Delights Cook Book.

This was amazing – all organic and just so tasty on a cold winter night! I have lots of leftovers to eat over the weekend. I followed this with a big bowl of Double Chocolate Protein Ice Cream – the first bowl I’ve attempted with Sun Warrior (plus ice cubes, rice milk, cocoa powder, guar and xanthan gums). I crumbled a couple of my little chocolate sesame coconut cookies on the top.

This tasted fab, the Sun Warrior has a much richer chocolate flavour than my old whey protein powder – just so decadent tasting!

So I’m quite enjoying the snow at the moment, yesterday I decided to invest in a really good pair of wellington boots as this weather is likely to last, if not return over the next couple of months. I decided to get these cute polka dot ones:

Joules Dutch Blue Printed Wellingtons, £35 Amazon

I also made a bit of an impulsive Christmas gift purchase. I had been trying to decide if I preferred a bread maker or a juicer as a gift from my parents. As neither me or the hubby eat a great deal of bread, and since I’m a totally fruit and veg junky I went and ordered this juicer:

Philips Whole Fruit Juicer, £66 Amazon

It has great reviews and I’m really looking forward to making delicious fresh juices, especially in January when I’m planning a bit of a detox!

In other news, I signed up for the Great North Run 2011! I had the opportunity and thought f*** it! This way I don’t have the pressure of reaching a fundraising target and I also have guaranteed entry each year until 2013. I’m looking forward to it already!

Tomorrow I’m off to do some Christmas Shopping, catching up with friends and family and making lots of soups and stews. I can’t believe it will be December next week! Have you had snow where you are? Do you gravitate towards certain foods / exercise when the weather turns? I just have real cravings for soups and stews and I certainly don’t want to run outdoors, but I love to walk instead!

Happy Monday everyone! I’m in a more cheery mood than usual today as I’ve had the day off. I’ve managed to get loads of my to do list done, stretched out my Great North Run worn legs with a little yoga and indulged in a lovely hot bath. Thanks for all of your lovely comments to my race recap yesterday. It was an awesome day that I’ll never forget and I can’t wait to do it all over again next year!

Last night I was like some kind of eating monster, nothing remotely edible could survive! I had loads of random food including cereal, three snack type bars from my finishers bag, some plums and this delicious peppermint dark chocolate.

Today I’m really trying to get some normality back to my eating. Breakfast was some fresh blueberries with Total full fat Greek yoghurt, plain jumbo oats and some local honeycomb.

Simple and gorgeous.

This morning I tried out a new teapigs variety – Silver Tips White Tea.

This was nice, very mild flavoured so a little bland for me, but if you dislike the flavour of green tea I can imagine this would be great.

I popped into my local Marks and Spencer Simply Food as a treat and bought a salad bowl and a little pot of Greek salad which to which I added some additional spinach leaves, beetroot and a crumbled Lentil, Spinach and Feta muffin from my frozen stash.

This was lovely, just what I needed – lots of veggies!

I followed this with a fantastic fruit plate including strawberries, blackberries, blueberries and some cubes of watermelon.

Mid afternoon I snacked on an apple with cinnamon and maca powder.

I also made myself a matcha soy latte sweetened with a little agave syrup.

For dinner I made some teriyaki marinated salmon and served it with stir fried broccoli, pepper, mushrooms, carrot and courgette with extra soy sauce and ginger.

Desert was a big bowl of vanilla protein ice cream with chopped strawberries.

Lush!

I feel a bit strange now that I’ve completed the Great North Run, the last 6 months training has pretty much all been geared up to completing it. I can’t believe that just 3 months ago I was thinking I may not even be able to do it when I had injured my knee.

I’m now starting to think about my fitness and training for the future and I’m really excited to be able to have a fresh start. As I mentioned last week I’m all signed up for my yoga class and I’m going to have a play around with my usual schedule. I usually like my routines but I can’t wait to be able to introduce at least a couple of little changes – I think its going to give me a fresh boost!

Do you schedule your workouts or do you just wing it? I tend to like to have goals which I use for motivation and having some kind of schedule makes it more likely that I will achieve them! I also like to be able to schedule workouts around work and other commitments as I find I’m less likely to miss a workout that way. What do you do when you feel you need to change things up?

Hi everyone! Hope you are all having a great weekend so far. I’ve had a lovely relaxed day getting myself ready for the Great North Run tomorrow! My kit bag is all packed, my running gear is all laid out ready, I have safety pins, timing chip, powerade, tissues, a big bag of dried dates, my stop watch and my fully loaded iPod shuffle (I’m not taking my iPhone in case it rains!)

This morning I was up and off to Sainburys for it opening to stock up on fruits and veggies. When I got home I enjoyed a lovely big breakfast of Dorset Cereal Really Nutty Muesli with a chopped apple, some fresh raspberries and soy milk.

This may just be my favourite muesli out of all the Dorset Cereal muesli I’ve been sampling. Its packed with big chunks of almonds, brazil nuts, cashew nuts, hazelnuts and big fat raisins, dates and pieces of dried apricots.

For lunch I toasted a thick slice of my home made soda bread and smothered it with proper butter (got to love buttered toast!) I also had an omelette made with 1 egg, 2 egg whites and filled with two sliced babybel light. I also had some sugar snap peas on the side.

I then made myself a berry smoothie using frozen strawberries, frozen mixed berries, a heaped tablespoon of Greek yoghurt, soy milk and a couple of ice cubes. I topped the smoothie with another big spoonful of yoghurt, some agave syrup and a few fresh raspberries.

Just delicious!

Mid afternoon I had a mug of teapigs chocolate flake tea along with a mystery flavoured Nakd bar!

Oh my this was good! I wish I could tell you what flavour it was but basically its one of my favourite flavour combos and it was everything I was hoping it would be. I can see me bulk buying some of these when they come out, delish!

Dinner was of course, pasta! I made up some wholemeal pasta and added some sautéed courgette, spinach and red pepper along with some chopped basil and tomato, beef mince and mushroom sauce which I’d had stored in the freezer. I also had a salad of cos lettuce and sugar snap peas that I couldn’t finish from lunch.

For desert I made my now ritual pre long distance run favourite of banana softserve made with two frozen bananas, soy milk, 2 ice cubes, some matcha green tea powder and 3 chopped dates all blended up and topped with a further two chopped dates.

Rocket fuel! I’m now pretty stuffed :-)

Thanks for all your well wishes and advice to yesterdays post. I really feel I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. The plan tomorrow is to be up bright and early, breakfast on porridge with banana then make my way to my parents house who will drop us at the metro station so we can make our way to the starting line. My hubby and parents are going to meet me at the finish line and one of my friends is coming to cheer me on – I just hope I spot her! After the race we are all going out to my parents favourite Italian restaurant for a meal. I think the thought of a proper Italian thin crust veggie topped pizza will be more than enough to get me through the race!

I’d forgot to mention this before but if anyone is interested in sponsoring me here is my Just Giving Page. I’m running for Cancer Research UK, a cause very close to my heart as we lost the Hubby’s Mum to cancer 3 years ago (she was only in her Forties). I’ve also lost a good friend to breast cancer. Right now my cousin is fighting Lymphoma – she’s only 29 years old. I’m honoured to be running in memory and in celebration of these people.

Completing the Great North Run is not only achieving one of my ‘life goals’ but its almost the culmination of my healthy living journey so far. I never dreamt I’d be fit enough to run 13.1 miles. I know I’m certainly not the fastest runner, and never will be (lets just say I don’t have a typical runners figure!) but just getting to that finish line will be a huge achievement for me. Like I said yesterday I’m not going out with any target time in mind as I just want to enjoy the day. I’ll save setting my PB for another race…oh my god I just said another race! I think I may be hooked on this running thing ;-)

Good night everyone, wish me luck x

Hi everyone hope you’ve had an amazing weekend! I apologise if this post is very hyper, I’ve eaten a full bag of cinder toffee followed up with a packet of energy bites, you could peel me off the ceiling!

Today I joined 54,000 other people and ran the greatest half marathon on Earth and it was bloody awesome! I completed it in 1hr 52 minutes and 11 seconds, and considering that I’ve been dealing with an injury for the last month and have only run a few miles I am utterly elated! That time is also 15 minutes faster than my time last year!

Last night I got in some quality carb loading with this huge bowl of whole wheat spaghetti and courgette noodles in some of my Roasted Tomato and Red Pepper sauce with some brown noodles mixed in served on top of steamed savoy cabbage and topped with nutritional yeast and fresh basil:

Nom!

This morning I fuelled up with my favourite pre race breakfast of banana porridge with nut butter:

I went for some drippy almond butter and added some coconut nectar as a sweetener and for extra energy!

My work colleague helps to run a youth football team and some of the parents were running the race to raise money for them so we ended up being able to get a lift on their mini bus. James accompanied me as my official supporter bless him!

On my way to the start having just got off the bus

After a long wait at the toilets and eating some dates, aka my rocket fuel, I made my way to my starting area. Last year I ended up right at the back as I’d missed the gates closing so I made sure I went with plenty of time to spare. This year I was placed much further up the field so I was hoping that I would miss a lot of the congestion I’d experienced last year (unfortunately it made no difference, I spent the whole race dodging people!)

We were really lucky with the weather too, it was a perfect bright autumn morning! The gun went off and it took about 10 minutes to cross the starting line. I was so happy to wave to the amazing Mo Farah!

I was happily running along just about to get onto the Tyne Bridge when someone tripped me up. I went flying on to my face and hit my injured knee pretty badly.

Can’t believe my fave running pants are ruined. Good job I was wearing my knee support as that fall could have been a lot worse without it to cushion the blow!

If I hadn’t been wearing my gloves (I have terrible cold hands) I would have had very badly scraped hands too. Some lovely woman helped me up, and for a fleeting second I wondered if I should continue. But when you get knocked down, sometimes you just have to get back up and keep on going!

Obviously with my injured knee I was really worried that I was going to get the bad pain and tightness back, but I’m very happy to report that apart from a painful stinging from my fall, I didn’t even get a single twinge!

I managed to keep to a pretty solid pace for the whole race and when I checked my pace at 7 miles I knew that only a serious problem would prevent me from finishing in under 2 hours. The rest of the race just flew by, I enjoyed it so much! We did get some heavy rain but it had been getting quite warm so the rain was lovely and refreshing!

Crossing the finish line in the time I did, after dealing with my injury and having that fall at the start was just amazing. I felt invincible!

Cheesy pic alert!

After the race we waited with the guys from the football club for all the other runners to come in. I downed a carton of coconut water, more dates and a Clif Bar but when I was still hungry I had only one thing on my mind – chips! I also got a bag of my old favourite sweet treat, cinder toffee. It was delicious although I feel like all my teeth might fall out ;-)

I’ve just eaten this delicious Thai Red Tofu and Vegetable Curry with whole wheat noodles (none of my usual greens as I just didn’t fancy them for a change):

I’ve also has this amazing and very tasty smoothie:

This contained a frozen banana, frozen strawberries, vanilla rice milk, vanilla sun warrior, a lot of peanut butter and for toppings some PB&Co White Choc Wonderful and chopped Reece’s Dark Chocolate Miniature cups. Since I’m already high as a kite off the sugar I’d might as well enjoy it!

I’ve had an absolutely amazing day, I never thought I’d be able to top last years race but I think the fact that I’ve had a few obstacles to over come has made this years race even more special to me.

I’m off to soak in the bath now and have a lovely early night (plus eat more chocolate!) Hope you have a great week ahead :-)

The Red Arrows display was amazing, I loved this so much!

Thanks for all your great comments on yesterdays post regarding ‘plus’ size models. It seems that we all wish that a variety of body shapes and sizes could be represented on the catwalk. Hopefully one day things will change, and using models that differ from the standard size 0 will become the norm rather than something that still grabs the headlines!

I think that yesterdays assault on my cold must have done the trick as I've felt much better today! I got up and went to the gym and did 30 minutes of gentle cardio – just enough to work up a sweat, followed by some chest and back weights a couple of side planks and some work on the stability ball. This is my last workout before the Great North Run on Sunday and it felt good to gently work my legs. I came home and made myself a lovely carb filled breakfast:

 

A standard green monster (frozen banana, spinach and soy milk) along with two slices of my home made soda bread from the freezer toasted and smothered with almond butter and naturally sweetened black cherry jam. I just adore this bread, so dense and filling. It was also nice to have a ‘plain’ green monster for a change, however I did have to use a spoon to fish out lumps of banana. I really need that new blender!

Lunch was a big salad including cos lettuce, green pepper, red onion, carrot, tuna and two crumbled kallo rosemary crackers (for additional carbs) plus a tablespoon of balsamic salad dressing.

The crackers added a lovely flavour and crunch! I also had two plums and a nectarine.

We have a new member of staff at work and this was the end of her first week so she bought some cream cakes in. I would have usually passed but I thought it would be rude to say no ;-) also if I’m ever going to be able to relax on the eating front its now! I had a chocolate covered cream filled éclair which tasted delicious.

Unfortunately it left me with a head ache and a bloated tummy – its interesting how my body reacts to unhealthy food now. I used to be able to eat stuff like this all the time with no problem but now its like my body says ‘you must be kidding putting that crap into me!’ and rebels.

When I got home from work I was extremely excited to see that I had received some goodies from the lovely people at natural balance foods:

New Nakd bar flavours! They haven’t fully announced the new flavours yet so I won’t spoil the surprise, all I will say is that they all sound delicious. My husband thought I was a bit crazy as I literally let out a little squeal of excitement, I’m such a child sometimes :-)I really had to stop myself from launching into these and stuffing my face! All in good time…

For dinner I had some of my delicious falafel bites in one of my home made seeded spelt egg white wraps with spinach and ketchup along with some carrot, yellow pepper and cucumber on the side.

 

My wrap was so tasty, love the falafel bites!

I had been planning a chocolate peanut butter mousse desert made with the last of my Total Greek Yoghurt stash but after the éclair at lunch I decided to try and go with something a bit lighter. I made a huge bowl of vanilla matcha green tea protein ice cream (1 scoop of vanilla whey, 1/4 teaspoon of matcha powder, soy milk, 8 ice cubes, 1/2 teaspoon of xanthan gum) instead which I knew would fill me right up. I topped it with a few dark chocolate chips and some agave syrup.

Check out the volume in that! This was super delicious, has left me lovely and full, and this bowl couldn’t have been more than 200 calories.

Marks and Spencer Love

This morning while I was at the gym I saw the new Marks and Spencer advert:

I was really impressed with some of the pieces in the advert. I’m very much an M&S undies girl – I love their Ceriso range which is now being moved into their Limited Collection range. Obviously M&S food is one of my favourite things too. What do you think of their clothing? I have to say there’s quite a few pieces I would like to add to my wardrobe! I know they don’t go the whole way, but I also like that they use more realistically sized models in their promotions too.

Great North Run – Let the count down begin!

Less than 48 hours to the Great North Run, I’m so excited! I’ve checked the weather forecast and it looks like unfortunately for me, it will be cold with light wind and rain. I hate running in the rain! It may actually work for my benefit as I’ll run faster just to get to the end! After talking to a few people who have ran it before I’ve decided that I’m not going to go and worry about trying to achieve a particular time, they have advised me to just go and enjoy the whole experience. They said that some people who have gone and wanted to run a particular time and have then missed it ended up not fully enjoying the day and appreciating it for what it is. I know that I have ran that distance in 2hrs 5mins during training which is bloody good for someone like me so I have nothing to prove to myself.

Tomorrow I had been thinking about heading over to the big expo at the Quayside in Newcastle, but to be honest I think I would much prefer having a relaxed day at home getting mentally and physically prepared… and eating lots of carbs of course ;-) I also have grocery shopping and cleaning and tidying to do.

Any of you guys who have ran half marathons or marathons before got any last minute advice for me?

Hope you have all had a great week and have a good weekend planned too!