Brit Chick Runs

Nooo. Not the PB & Co peanut butter (though that stuff is freakin amazing!) – me! Yes, I was quite the smooth operator today…the timings of my day were so slick, as was the food. It was like a script! I shall explain all in a minute…

So last night, I was craving hot blackberries, sausages and lentils. I had the first two The savoury part was mixed veggies (kabocha, parsnip, aubergine, garlic, soy sauce), cooked with a vegan sausage for a good protein hit:

And served with some brown sauce:

YUM!! For some reason that meal takes me right back to when I was little; that plate is one I used to eat off all the time when I was about 6yrs old, and I can always picture having brown sauce on it and being satisfied..it’s kinda comforting weird right!?

The sweet part was my blackberry thing; the berries, blended with some home grown plums:

As well as little bit of watermelon, cocoa powder, xanthan gum, agave nectar, mixed spice, and 50g cereal – topped with grated cacap:

Well. It satisfied my blackberry craving, but in a ‘oh, that was disappointing..I don’t crave that anymore!’ kind of way it was nice – just not as good as it CAN be, and I have no idea why. Such a shame!

Today got off to a better start though – I had a faaaabulous night of sleep (despite Carter – literally – sitting on my face at 6am :s), and woke up feeling fit and fresh for 55mins of home workout dvds! Pre-dvd, I had an apple, a rice cake and my wheatgerm + selenium hit

Breakfast was a wooonderful Epic Green Monster:

Oh the fabulousness!

It was somewhat overflowing today, but tasted SO good!!! I will never, EVER get sick of them! (Though I said that about mac n cheese when I was little. And honey sandwiches. And Weetabix. And garlic cabbage. And Minstrels. And soya mince. I could go on…..)

After breakfast, I had a ‘challenging’ wonderful schooling session with Chika. The demon from yesterday switched sides in the arena and was back with a vengeance today!! Alas!! We got there in the end, although we both worked up quite a sweat

Post-ride, my smooth-operater-ness started to fall into effect….see, between the hours of 12 and 5, we were expecting the Aga man to come fix the Aga (a weird heater/oven type thing) *coughAweekLateCough*. So that meant I had to be in the house for all that time in case he came…my timings were so perfect! I finished riding at bang on the right time. I finished lunch, got the washing in, and 5mins later, he turned up!!

Disaster :O though, when he said (as we suspected) it was an electrical fault, not an Aga fault which led to the breakage. Soo I phoned up the electrician; you know those guys, they’re like farriers – they take forever to come out, cost a bomb and often are late. Well, not this time! In fact, just 15mins after I phoned, he turned up! He fixed the problem in 15mins, and left at bang on the same time as the Aga bloke, which left me the perfect amount of time to sort the horses out, go and buy my newspaper/trash magazine, do more washing-related stuff, then sit down to pump this post out – like clockwork. JOYS!!

Working Aga and undisturbed lunch = very happy Freya.

Oh yeah – lunch! It was so fab today!!

I fried up together parsnip, beets, marrow and gran-grown yellow tomatoes, in mixed herbs, salt and pepper and balsamic:

And when that was all done, I started to make the most incredible sandwich

Layer 1 – mashed cooked grey pumpkin and cinnamon:

Marrow (stained by the beets):

Beets and yellow tomatoes:

Pink parsnip chunks:

The lid!

I served it with the rest of the veggies:

AMAZING sandwich! One of the best yet

I also made myself a smoothie, cos I wanted to use up this miserable looking pear:

Poor thing I blended it with some blackberries, 1tsp agar agar, 1tsp date syrup and the last tiny chunk of my watermelon – then served with a sharonfruit

Very good! Though the agar agar didn’t do the thickening I was hoping it would Disappointing, agar agar. Disappointing. Have you ever used it before?

Dinner-wise, I’ve got a Mama Pea recipe lined up (which was on Jess’ blog the other day too) – I’m so excited about it!! I can literally taste the deliciousness

Have a good evening!

Question: Do you have any comforting meals, that take you back to a certain time in your life?

Are there any foods you used to love, which you’re now sick of?

That’s what we did today. Well, kinda. My mum did a lot of cleaning, I picked blackberries, I drank my weight in water (I seem to have an insatiable thirst and a come-and-go pounding headache today :/), I unpacked my life from the past year (aka, all my stuff from uni), I rode, I ate, aaannd…that’s about it. A true day of rest!

Last night though, I had the most wonderful lovely dreamy dinner..

My reward to myself for having run a tough but awesome half marathon

Tempeh, with hummus, cocoa durum wheat and my favourite soy-sauce coated veggies…

…heaven on a plate folks!

I also had a dessert whilst watching that Martin Clunes horse programme again (why, fyi, was super! I wish it was a regular show, not just a one off The guy really loves his horses! Though random sad fact…1million horses were sent to WW! – 60,000 came back -  …but I’m digressing!) -

Yogurt with Grape Nuts and a homemade peanut butter muffin, fresh from the freezer

Zehr delizzzzious!

——

Wheatgerm, selenium and a wonderful breakfast were on the cards today:

Cereal, milk, yogurt, flaxseed, watermelon, spinach, banana, vanilla essence, xanthan gum

The return of Grape Nuts!!

It was sooo cold today I actually had the thing at room temperature. Seriously, what is the world coming to??

I had a lovely ride on Chika though My mum gave us a lesson (first one in…like, 3 weeks!?) and Chika tried so hard! She was a super girl, despite the crazy wind, and the demons lurking behind the E maker in the school (damn those demons! They’re so pesky)…

Ay, I’m holding Carter! He and Chika are having somewhat of a love affair :p Though it’s no longer secret, ever since I caught him sleeping on her back in the stable the other day :p BUSTED.

Lunch – thrown together faaairly quickly cos I was helping my mum with Tig. I had – an English muffin, toasted and with lots of hummus, as well as soy sauce and smoked garlic veggies (swede, parsnip, squash, edamame beans):

Gah – steam blur!

I use this blue plate too much

A wonderful ripe sharonfruit SOMEHOW made its way onto my plate:

Such a delicious meal! But I think I’ve accidently fallen back into my food rut Note to self: EAT DIFFERENT FOOD!!!!

The afternoon was spent unpacking…UGH. I hate that job so much!!! I feel like I don’t have space for everything, like no storage, so stuff just piles up and piles up…I seriously need to hold a junk/clothes cull in my room, and just be ruthless! I think unpacking is actually my worst chore :/

BUT! I did do one fun task!!! I fiiiinally managed to create an official space for all my bars – a whole drawer!

Incredible right!? That drawer is so organised- a section for energy/workout bars (ie Clif bars, Mojo bars etc), a section for protein bars/shakes (Builder’s bars and a few others), a Nakd bar stash, a general snack section, a squeezy nut butter section….I could go on :p Oh how I love organising stuff like that

But yes. Now I need to go and discover dinner. It’s gonna be hard..I never know what to cook for dinner :/ At the moment I’m thinking sausages, or a lentil stew..both scream to be eaten when it’s cold out! Though I do want hot blackberries too. Hurrumph.

Question – what’s your worst chore? What’s your best chore? I hate unpacking clothes/suitcases/junk etc, BUT unpacking food shopping or the dishwasher is my favourite chore Apparently if something is food-related, I’m loving it….

What are you having for dinner tonight?

Good evening lovemuffins! I did my third competitive half marathon today (my 7th overall though..I think…)! Recap very soon to follow; I’ll just whiz through the delights that was X Factor day Saturday.

Actually – Friday night – part of my intuitive eating plan! I wasn’t hungry but I was craving something dense and chocolatey….

….and so I satisfied that craving Love!

—-

Saturday

I woke up to two tsps wheatgerm and a brazil nut, and then went on a nice little 1/2hr power walk although it was a running day off, I do like to do something! Breakfast was an EGM:

Is it me, or does that face look a little creepy…?

So cute/creepy!

For lunch – post very-fast-Chika-gallop, I pretended to be semi-raw – I made a ‘soup’, which was a blend of raw squash, an apple, apple cider vinegar, water, salt (lots n lots of salt…one must salt-load!), mixed spice, cinnamon, 1 tsp date syrup, and 50g cereal, topped with a tiny bit of granola:

On the side, for added carbs, I had some extra cereal:

Oohh the soup thing was so so so lovely! I wasn’t sure how I’d like a non-hot soup on a cold day, but it actually worked tremendously well!! I was happy

For dinner, I decided to play it safe and have a very similar meal as last Saturday. After all, my 13miles last week went so well, so whatever I did obviously worked! I had a mix type thing of lentils, aubergine, kabocha and parsnip, all mixed with cinnamon and mixed spice and other seasonings, and topped with tempeh (marinated in soy sauce, maple syrup, stock, cinnamon and apple cider vinegar):

I ate that meal in front of a roaring fire, under a blanket..that’s how cold it was!

For ‘dessert’, I had a Trek bar (for a carb hit ).

—–

Sunday

Half mary day!

I was up at 6.45am to get everything together for the day – I had a very light snack before I left, consisting of my usual brazil nut, 2 Food Doctor crackers, a date and 2 tsps of wheatgerm.

It only took about a 1/2hr to get to the venue which was a relief, cos the walk from the car park to the start was a good 10mins. It was times like today when I am SO glad I get tetchy about time, and always want to be early!!!

Before we started, I had a carrot cake Clif bar (unpictured I’m afraid..) – it was good, but I think the mint chocolate is still my favourite flavour :p

And then we were off! It as SO cold and windy when we started (and throughout the whole thing) – I had my jacket on right up until the start bleep went off :s

I set off pretty quickly – on more than one occasion, I glanced at the Garmin and saw a 7.30 pace :s BUT – the HILLS! Ohmydays, the hills….they were BIG! I was totally not expecting them to be that big, and was equally not prepared!! I seemed to go really fast up some of them though, in comparison to my usual up-hill pace…but mile 6 – HELL! It was sooo hard and steep…!! And I was bursting for a bathroom break which didn’t help :p

Anyways – the first 7 miles or so went pretty quick. At mile 7, I had some kendall mint cake (and a quick walk while I ate it):

(It’s basically made from sugar, and I know a lot of walkers eat it on long walks…plus it only cost 60p :p)

It gave me a super sugar rush for about a mile..but it also sent my blood sugar crashing. I saw my mum about mile 10, but mile 11ish was AWFUL. I had to stop for a minute or so because I actually thought I was going to be sick – I felt very very nauseous and my breathing was shallow and horrible and difficult. Every time I tried to run, I felt worse, hence the slow split!! I just wanted to cry..but instead I just took deep breaths and willed the feeling to pass, which it did; and before I knew it mile 12 had arrived, I had 1mile left, so I made up my mind to not do any more walking and get on with it!! Despite having a huge dustbin blow about 2feet ahead of me across my path, I finished in one piece

With my t-shirt

Official chip time – 2hr2. Official Garmin time – 1hr58, 13.2 miles. I believe the Garmin, cos the chips all started at the same time (despite me not starting at the front), and it didn’t account for the 2 bathroom breaks I took :p

My official splits:

Mile 1 – 8.46

2- 8.37

3 – 8.16 (way too fast!)

4 – 8.50

5 – 8.41

6 – 8.44

7- 9.03

8- 9.24 (eating the mint cake!)

9- 8.49

10 – 9.27

11 – 9.39

12 – 9.57 (Mile from Hell!)

13 – 9.19

+ 1min.44 for the final 350metres.

Despite being much much slower than my previous two half marathons (1hr43 and 1hr50) I was really, really pleased I definitely did the best I could’ve done. The hills were so tough, and I think it did my fitness a lot of good. Plus, I think I’ve learnt some lessons!! I was thinking about why I hit that odd wall-type thing at mile 12 -

1) I didn’t eat enough before the race

2) I didn’t eat enough during the race (I only had about 1/2 my coconut water cos they were handing water out on the course, as well as the mint cake)

3) I drank too much water with not enough salt and electrolytes, meaning I had that weird too-much-water thing going on…I forget the name!

4) I went much too fast in the first half. Although my splits weren’t crazy, the max. speed in the first 4miles or so was a good 2.5k faster than later on, so I was obviously not pacing properly.

What do you guys think? I’m going to email my nutritionist later and see what she says.

 

Post-mary, I had a very delayed breakfast (which I was STARVING for – my mum declared ‘you ARE normal, after all!’ as usually I lose my appetite after a run :p) overnight oats! Last night, I mixed up 1/2 c. oats, with 1tbsp chia seeds and a load of carob powder:

Mixed with 1c. milk and about a 1/4c. yogurt, in my Salad Pod -

- kindly sent to me by America’s Nutrition to try out. I love it! It’s the perfect bowl size, and it most definitely does NOT leak, which is obvs highly important..!! I didn’t use the removable ice pack that fits in the lid, but I can imagine that’d be super useful too Thank you A.N.!

I mixed the oats with blackberries and a banana given in my race goodie bag:

So good! PERFECT post run food!!

I also had some watermelon, ideal for hydration –

An apple that my mum didn’t like, and later on, my oat toppings which I forgot to add – granola and dates:

We didn’t go home after that though; instead, my mum and I drove to my uni house (we were basically already halfway there) to move out the rest of my stuff. As of now, I no longer live there AT ALL! Hoorrrrraaaayyyy!!!! We also stopped at Waitrose on the way home, where I nabbed 3 big kabocha squashes :p

When we did eventually get home, I had a very late lunch  (3.30pm!) – 1/2 c. oats, 1/2c. milk, 3/4c, water, banana, mixed spice, salt – topped with cinnamon raisin PB and cereal:

So wonderful. Hot oats on a cold day = bliss. I may or may not have finished off my yogurt pot too….

….my body was obviously craving protein!

My mum and I took the dog for a walk after that, but now I’m going to reellaaax and cook one of my favourite dinners and just…be!

Have a good evening

(PS – I would love to know your thoughts on why I had that strange mile towards the end of the race!)

(MASSIVE thank you to the lovely lady who commented yesterday and told me I could use the ‘shift’ key instead of the ‘caps lock’ key to get capital letters – love her!)

BRRRR!!!! Love A chill is in the air! Blimey O’Reilly is it cold here! I’m wearing a t-shirt, a cardigan AND a big thick jumper! All I’ve craved today has been hot food..yet I’ve only had one hot meal :’( ALAS!

 

Last night’s dinner was completely random, very similar to lunch, but 100% what I was craving -  a roasted teriyaki veggie mix with edamame beans:

Annnd a smoothie, made from:

50g cereal

watermelon

1/2 tbsp chia seeds

carob powder

strawberries

blackberries

pear

Blended in Vincent, and out popped this:

I nuked it in the microwave so it was all hot, and ohmygosh was it good!

*DINGDINGDING*!!

Dessert involved some Rawr raw chocolate

———

So yesterday (Thursday), my 7miler was rained off, so I decided to do it today instead; Mr Online Weatherman told me today would be cloudy, possibly with light rain..I woke up and was confronted with heavy heavy HEAVY rain! AGAIN! Needless to say, I was NOT pleased. There was no way I was gonna run in it (I’ve had my fair share of torrential-rain-runs, and I do NOT care for them), so I decided to cross train again.

I’d done 25mins of Jillian’s 30 Day Shred (part 3), when I looked out of the window and the rain had stopped! Soo I quickly threw on my trainers and set off for 5miles As luck (?) would have it, it poured with rain for 40 out of the 42minutes I was running…but whateverz. It made me run faster!

The computer seems to have eaten the splits when it crashed this morning, but I believe I averaged the 8.15-8.20 mark Despite the last mile seeming to draaaag by – I don’t think I ate enough before hand (2 rice cakes and an apple) to fuel such a long workout

When I’d finished, I was coolllldd and I wanted HOT oats! Silly me though…I had overnight oats (actually, two day overnight oats – I’d made them in prep for Thursday’s run) waiting in the fridge instead :/ In the mix:

1/3c. oats

1 cup milk

1tbsp chia seeds

1 serving Vega chocolate smoothie mix (from HLS swag bag!)

I then layered in blackberry-banana soft serve:

Topped with grated cacao:

And a tiny bit of cereal:

OH MY!

It was a super duper mix! The berry/banana thing with the chocolate flavour was simply divine I recommend!!

A quick rainy dog walk and a lengthy drying off session later, and I was off to work. Which was very, very dull….just me in the back of the shop, hanging and steaming clothes. For the whole shift. With no entertainment. The highlight of my day was when the boss asked me to go and get a pint of milk from the store. WILD TIMES!!!!

Actually, the real highlight was lunch (as always): yet another teriyaki roast veg mix, with lots o’ garlic:

(I’m a tad obsessed with that combination at the moment :p) As well as a m ix of roast beans/corn:

That mix is SO salty and SO full of carbs and protein – I love it!!

When I got home, I was in need of something else, so I finished off my tub of soya yogurt, with a sprinkle of cereal:

Hit the spot nicely thank you

For my dinner, I was really really craving hot, volumous (is that a word?), filling food. Enter a lovely stew/mix/mash/thing, made from:

• lentils
• soya mince
• curry spices and cinnamon and stuff
• kabocha
• parsnip (yes, what else!?)
• celeriac
• stock

The result was theeees:

OH I felt SO much better after it!! There’s nothing like satisfying a craving It’s comparable to scratching an itch!!

Question: What food do you crave the most? Especially when the weather is cold? Hot oats, soya mince, roast veggies. They make me happy!

PS – Don’t forget, it’s my 3rd competitive half marathon on Sunday!!

quick note – my caps lock key on my laptop appears to have broken, so excuse the poor grammar!!

 

right good, now that’s done and said i can stop whacking the keyboard so hard trying to make it work

last night – my pretty smoothie cereal blend got a quick yogurt/cereal dust- make over before i ate it:

and while i was at the cinema, seeing grown ups, i ate a clif builder’s bar, from my gabriela swag:

loved it! filling and dense and delicious and very good – unlike grown ups…it was ok, but just ok. a few funny jokes, but quite  a few ones that fell on deaf ears too…i can imagine it’ll be for sale at £2 soon after the dvd release!

when i got home, i was craving carbs – although i wasn’t strictly hungry – so i had a small (30g ish) bowl of cereal with a splash of milk (apparently, after over a decade of gagging at the mere smell of milk and cereal, i can now just about stomach it!).

oh – and the little (2009!!) christmas present my friend got me when she was in germany last year:

so cute! ich liebe dich aussi, lucy!!

——–

today – sports nutritionist appointment day!! more on that later – first i had to pump out a 7mile run. which i didn’t. :p

i woke up and it was poooouuurrring with rain, like really heavy, torrential, flooding-the-stables type rain. so i decided to take a rain check on the run and do it tomorrow. instead, i did about 1hour of home workout dvds, so at least i’d done something before i commenced said workout, i had an apple and 2tsps of wheatgerm.

breakfast was a proper epic green monster, with a few strawberries thrown in for good measure:

only after i’d spent a lifetime and half photographing it, did i remember i had a sack full of fresh blackberries waiting….

….much better

theeen it was time for my appointment! i think my poor little car almost died in a very deep flood on the way there, but we did eventually make it in one piece and i gotta say – i love my sports nutritionist! not only has she got horses, she’s also run a handful of marathons and done an ironman triathlon! you know the ones – where the running part is an actual full length marathon!? yeah. mad! i knew we would get along after that

sooo here’s what she said:

• basically, i’m extremely healthy! i am very very slim yes – but she said it’s not in the least bit a problem, as she could see just by looking at me that i was very healthy – thick shiny hair, bright eyes, healthy skin etc etc.
• she said my calorie intake – compared to what someone like me should be eating – was as close to the recommended daily allowance as she had ever seen! proof that you can eat right if you listen to your body!
• she was very impressed that i don’t drink alcohol – she herself doesn’t drink, and she described it as a ‘poison’ (which i agree with). it was nice to hear someone praise my tee-totalness for once, instead of being greeted with shock!
• she recommended i drink before meals, not during – if you drink too much water with a meal, it can dilute the gastric juices, thus interfering with the digestive process. a glass 1/2hr to an hour before a meal was her recommendation.
• the words ‘totally brilliant’ came up more than once
• she suggested i have maybe a few more carbs before my morning workout – so maybe switch the apple for some more rice cakes or a banana, which seems fair play.
• she was highly impressed with the amount of fats i eat
• she was 100% cool with the vegan thing
• she loves clif bars too! her favourite flavour is my favourite
• she told me that during my marathon i should wear my name on my running top – then people will call out ‘goooo freeyyyaaa’!’ or whatever, which no doubt will be very uplifting!!

that’s all the good stuff (well, all that i can remember without the official notes to hand). the vitamins i was low on:

• iodine – very simple to combat. a few sheets of nori or seaweed a week and i’ll be fine
• selenium – all i need to eat is one (yes, just one is sufficient for me!) brazil nut a day and that’s covered too!
• b vitamins – *sigh*. of course i am…good ol’ veganism! she recommended a b-vitamin pill, which is totally vegan of course
• i have a slightly higher ratio of sugary carbs to starchy carbs, but that was fine, considering how *perfect* my diet is otherwise just omitting the occasional teaspoon of agave would be ok
• aaannd finally, she was talking about salt/electrolytes running (cos it can cause achey legs). she had a few suggestions, but the only one i remember at the moment (she’s emailing me the notes) is nunn pills <- like electrolyte pills that you dissolve in water. tres clever!

other random stuff:

b-vitamins play a heavy roll in energy and..ok, i really can’t remember it exactly now, but in other words, there would be a definite link between my achey legs/occasional energy running problems, and low b-vitamins. yay!! i’ll know more when i get her email.

check out how my chart (bottom), showing the proportions of fat, carbs, protein etc matches the recommended one (top – alcohol is bright yellow, carbs are blue):

what a nerd i am

she also gave me lots of recipes and a huge thick printout thing with all my stats and other info in:

love it!

all in all – it was a super appointment! i’m going to have a follow up one with her in later September, after i’ve had a while using the b-vits, and we’re also going to talk marathon day strategies

also – if you’ve never seen a nutritionist, sport or otherwise, i recommend you do – it’s so helpful!! if anyone has any questions or wants more detail (there’s lots i didn’t write here), feel free to email me

———–

in other news!

1) after a 2+ month disappearing act, obama made a reappearance:

she was fat, hungry (2 servings of cat biscuits and a serving of meat have already been consumed), wet, and very very talkative (new addition number one)!

2) my toy snow leopard arrived!!!

i got it as a present for sponsoring a snow leopard for the wwf charity (new addition number two!) not sure if the cats really cared for it though….

…oh! randomly – i went outside to go and wave at chika, and carter was all curled up asleep on her back!!! lolza!

 

lunch today – a lovely mix of teriyaki veggies – swede, parsnip, squash, celeriac, garlic:

along with some of this:

which i was madly craving, mixed with this:

vanilla-almond vega smoothie mix from the healthy living summit! despite the somewhat alarming green colour, it’s delicious

tastes just like marzipan! love.

oh, and i ate some selenium a brazil nut. better to start as i mean to go on!

other activities of the day…a dog walk in the pouring heavy rain, where i got extremely wet feet, horse activities, lunch making for tomorrow and…er…that’s about it! the sports appointment took aagggess so i kinda ran out of time!

and now i’m gonna go think of something to make for dinner..hurrumph. could be difficult!

question: have you ever seen a nutritionist?

what’s your favourite thing to do on a rainy day? be warm – that’s it for me!!