Brit Chick Runs

I have trouble sleeping!

A LOT of trouble sleeping! Last night I was practically falling asleep, I was so tired..yet I couldn’t actually sleep. My mind was busy with a billion different things (hence why I have a little notepad by my bed) and last night, I was thinking about blog posts. In a moment of sheer genius (or exhaustion?) I came up with a theme for my post this evening, so i quickly scribbled it down – ‘under the sea…swan lake…friday night…’….saayyaa whaaa-?

I had no idea what all that meant today :p

Til just now, when i looked at my photos, saw the sea spaghetti I ate, and everything came flooding back! See, look: sea spaghetti:

Funky stuff. Dry as a bone, soak it for an hour, it expands like mad and tastes like seaweed;

I paired it with my remaining tofu sea cake at lunch on Sunday:

Along with soy-sauce/garlic stir fried cabbage, and lots n lots (n lots) of veggies.

Can you tell I love my veg? Oh yes. It’s addiction. The sea spaghetti though…meh. I bought it AGES ago as a speshal treat for my fine self, had it once, then forgot about it. I think it had dried out a bit too much and wasn’t as impressive either that, or I’m losing my health-freak charm :/ alas.

Do pancakes count as healthy? I think they do when you make them with spelt and some other flour and mashed banana right in the batter, with a yogurt/peanut flour/Dessert Dukkah sauce, 1/2 a mashed Nah-Nah, frozen grapes, and puff cereal:

Boi boi!

Obvs, as I liked these, there’s an abundance of similar photos. You know me…

Mini nubbin pancake:

Bliss! That was Sunday’s breakfast though – my rushed Monday morning breakfast did little for the imagination -

• 1/2 c. oats
• 1.5 c. water
• salt
• cinnamon
• vanilla extract
• cold soya milk splashed over at the end

I sat it on Women’s Running magazine so you’d at least have something interesting to look at

I love plain oats now I also love frozen grapes:

And perfectly ripe bubbah pears:

Lunch ( a protein bar, an apple and a cup o’ coffee – yep, told you my eats were dull at the moment! I didn’t have time for anything else before my lecture ) didn’t hold me over thaaaat long, so 3hrs later, it was time for cereal+milk, as soon as I walked through the door:

Actually, the pear came first, cos I wanted to eat something before I did the important-immediate things I had to do asap when I walked in, but whatevz. Noone cares about chronological orders in this day and age.

Dinner was oats. Again. Cooked with carob powder, fruit syrup sweetener, salt, and cooked mashed butternut squash and cinnamon. No picture cos it was ugly and dull :p There was squishy roast parsnips covered in bbq sauce on the side though! Yum

Dessert today – yep, I’m still at the dark chocolate!

I also had a bite of a chocolate-banana muffin (E,D&BV baking) that I baked as soon as I got home:

Sadly, I wasn’t that impressed BUT I did change the flours from the recipe without altering anything else, so they were a little dry I also overmixed. Oh well!

—-

Now, back to the beginning of the post – my weird ramblings that I wrote on my pad? WELL – I remember now – I WAS going to say that the sea spaghetti reminded me of my favourite Disney film, The Little Mermaid (LOVE. it. I fancy Eric!), which reminded me of the highly underrated film cartoon The Swan Princess; dang that was a good cartoon! Odette, I used to love her I was THEN going to suggest that you crazy folk head over to Blockbuster on your next Friday night and rent it…but now, this whole blurb doesn’t make as much sense as it did at 1.30am last night. Maybe I’ll stop typing.

—

Running update!

Still hurts tomorrow, I’m gonna phone up the Quack and try and get an appointment. It’s SO horrible not being able to run. This morning, I set out on a 3mile power walk, but ended up doing a 50minute 4mile walk-run, running til it started to hurt, then walking. I know, I know – not ideal. But oh my GOSH I miss it. When I was running pain-free, it was so effortless and blissful and I felt amazing….I feel like Ben Affleck in Pearl Harbour, when he has crappy eyesight and he says ‘don’t take my wings from me!’ (re his plane). I feel JUST like that; after all, my life is very comparable to a Hollywood world war 2 blockbuster film about blokes

Question: What’s your favourite Disney film? And don’t say you don’t have one – EVERYONE has at least one Disney film they like!

You asked for it!

Ok, maybe you didn’t, I did..but still! As the overwhelming majority (ie everyone who commented) voted that I start doing everyday posts again, that is what I shall try and do! Ask and yee shall receiveth.

But for now, I leave you with some recent eats – hardly a wild post today is it? My excuse is that it’s Sunday evening. That’s all I’ve got. I’m not sure how that’s an excuse, but it is

My mum and I split one of the new flavour Nakd bars the other day – verdict? Impressive! It has REAL raspberries in, raw and all (as opposed to dried) and you could sure taste them. Nice and tart

If I said that was the best tofu I’d ever made, would you believe me? You should cos ohemgee it was reaaaal good! I marinated tofu slices in freshly squeezed (and very tart) orange juice, apple balsamic vinegar, soy sauce, cinnamon and fruit sweetener syrup and then pan fried it til crispy. With the leftover marinade, I added it into the pan at the end of cooking, so it reduced down and became a sticky glaze.

Holy.

Yum.

Melon (still rockin’ the Christmas plate you’ll see it in summer too! There’s always time for Christmas time, as they say) – part of a rushed mid-week breakfast, along wiiiiiittthh:

Oats, o’ course. Cooked simply with salt, water, cinnamon and vanilla essence, then extra milk added at the end. Swimming in it, obvs.

Hot oats + cold milk = true bliss.

The return of Whole Foods-bought sea cakes!!

I love love LOVE these things! SO meaty and thick and scrummy I stuffed one in a piece of tomato paste/basil toast as part of a super quick lunch after I spent the morning testing 19 (yes NINETEEN) five year olds for my dissertation. Man they’re excitable.

Fresh basil – my crappy attempt at presentation Makes all the difference, right? RIGHT?

Sadly, this particular sea cake had all the water, but little of the sea – ie, it tasted like tofu, and not much else where was all the fancy sea-flavour from last time!?

Of course, no meal is complete without vegetables Soo I roasted up some very, very sorry looking broccoli with a few other bits to have on the side

I always feel sorry for veggies when they’re on their last legs they look so lonely and sad!! I’m ALWAYS the one eating the skanky mushrooms (when I don’t really like them) or having that last bit of wrinkly pepper..it’s irritating :/ But I hate waste so…one does what one has to do.

:O

OHHH remember how I got the Eat, Drink & Be Vegan cookbook for Christmas?? WELL! I made the spiced chocolate cookies the other day:

Oh.

My.

They are SO awesome! Big and hearty and chunky and chocolate-y and the spice really shines through! One of the best batch of cookies I’ve ever made, IMHO I finally think I’ve conquered cookies now; the first time I ever baked cookies, i had these flat, weird crappy things that tasted wrong and looked like junk, and I vowed never to bake them again. Gradually, as time has passed and wounds have healed, I think cookies and I are back on track. It’s love.

Talking of love and cookies, I made pancakes for breakfast! I was doing some blog catching up before bed on Friday and was reading Jess’ post about her buckwheat pancakes. They just sounded so darn good, so i made a note on my lil bedside notepad that THEY WOULD BE BREAKFAST on Saturday! (all part of my ‘get out of the food rut’ thing :p) And breakfast they were!

I made a slight change; instead of 1/4 c. buckwheat flour, i did a 1/4c. mix of gram, spelt and peanut flour, + added cinnamon (cos I add cinnamamam to everything and anything) and salt (I got my sweat on with a Jillian workout just before, hence the need for salty goodness).

Topped with melted mashed banana (heated in the microwave with milk), date sizzup, crushed walnuts, toasted coconut flakes aannd…I think that was it

Can you tell I liked these!?

Sometimes, I can’t decide between photos of things I love – hence why you end up getting a trillion photos of the same thing Pancakes from this angle, pancakes from THIS angle, pancakes from THIs angle…you get the drift.

*GASP*! I almost forgot the Dessert Dukkah sprinkle!

Sorry for the blur :p

I tellz ya – best pancakes I’ve ever had! Thick, soft, doughy, delicious! And the banana coconut walnut thing was pretty darn cool too I really must start doing more recipes And boy, they had some staying power :/ sheesh! I actually finished them at 12am (or pm?), cos I had a lie-in aaall the way til 9.30am which was BLISS! I’ve been sleeping terribly recently – sleep at 2am+, waking up in the night, up at 7am, so the lie-in was well overdue :s But yeah, I finished them late, and then really didn’t want any lunch….enter an orange/balsamic/soy sauce bake of broccoli, butternut and aubergine:

Twas ugly, but good Most things in life are. le sigh.

Non-foodie related happenings this weekend……..hmmmm…..

I worked Ze Orse, who was VERY fresh after her week off – wind and cold and [yet more] lions in the grass didn’t help. But she controlled herself – just! – and we had a nice session I also watched a trailor for Scream 4 (CAN”T WAIT!) and watched the first 2 episodes of 30 Rock season3 (LOVE IT), did 40mins of power yoga (good old Kristin McGee and her MTV dvds) and I started work on my 2nd article for my student newspaper at uni The first one was on running for beginners. This one is on superfoods, the top5, and 5 recipes YAY! Oh, and Kovac brought in a dead (shot) pheasant, and got it stuck in the catflap. Just the usual everyday happenings really….

See ya tomozzo! (maybe :p)

Oh – ps – running update; I ran 3miles today after a week off from running, and there was still lots of shin pain

..OOOH I’ve always wanted to say that on here! But before I announce the winner of the Nakd bar give away, you have to read through some boring blabble first, k? Think of it like an acceptance speech, but from the person who announces the nominees. Not sure what they’re called? Hmm.

ANYWAY.

1) Thank you to everyone who entered! The lucky winner is very lucky indeed, considering how bad the chances were they’d win; the more entries, the less chance…you know how it goes. But it is yayness anyway – i want to host more give aways now! And I want them to be open to the WORLD! If only trans-atlantic snail mail wasn’t so darned expensive. Hurrumph.

2) Thank you to EVERYONE who offered me advice on my shin splint post! Y’all are so wise and full of knowledge, like the high school track coach I never had thank yee!

3) I want to ask everyone’s opinion, since you’re all super cool at giving them – My eats recently have become very stale. Not week-old-bread stale (things aren’t that bad), but very samey, very volumous (sp? How the heck do you spell that?) and just…dull. I’m stuck in a rut! Which leads me to think that maaaaybe I should start doing shorter, daily posts again, with my daily eats on – to kinda ‘keep me accountable’ and make me switch it up, know what I mean? After all, if I was bound to posting every day, then I couldn’t get away with having oats 5 days running for lunch (last week), or for breakfast and dinner on the same day (Thursday), cos that would be d to the u to the l l!

BUT I don’t want to lose all my loyal readers, if you guys think that’d be sucky! Soooo quick opinion poll:

Comment either ‘A’ or ‘B’:

A – keep blogging as I am – a couple times a week, longer posts, no daily eats

B – post pretty much every day, shorter posts, daily eats.

———-

Rightio! Give away winner!!!

Let me remind you – the winner receives a box of 18 bars, in the 3 new Nakd flavahs – cocoa delight, cocoa mint, berry delight. Awesome right?

*tense pause….rustle cards and paper…clear throat…..* Annnnnnd the winner IS……….*very very long pause, X Factor stylee*……

Fi over at Sparkling Snowflake!

Congrats girl!!! Email me (fluffypinksparkles [at] hotmail [dot] com) with your address, and I’ll forward it to Nakd who will send you your winnings!! To everyone else, thank you again for entering, and I’m sure they’ll be another give away soon *

xo

*I would have put a screenshot in of the random number generator I used, but I don’t know how on this laptop

Don’t forget to enter my give away!

Sorry for the wordy post..better wordy than nothing right!!?? At least I hope so…

I swear this week I don’t know if I’m coming or going! The work has piled up already, and I’m having THE hardest time trying to sort out schools and nurseries for going in with my trusty laptop to test the children. All these darn rules and regulations – they all seem to think I’ve come to kidnap the children, or at least cause them serious physical or mental harm :/ (fyi – I won’t be doing either). Gah.

Onwards and upwards right?

Well, actually not really So, last week was a strange one, running wise. I did a Grande Total of 40miles (equal to the toughest week in my novice training plan for the marathon last year) – 2 x 6milers (one of which was broken down into two, 3miles), 1 x 5miler, 2 x 6.5milers, plus 1 day off and a 10mile run on Sunday. I’ve been building up to this mileage for a while now, keeping the old 10% rule in mind – but my runs on Saturday and Sunday (two three milers on Sat, 10miles Sun) were…..hellish, to say the least.

In fact, I almost had to give up completely on Sunday. Why?

PAIN!

Lots n lots of PAIN!

Down the front of my shins….ie, I think I have shin splints.

Which is crap.

Especially since:

• I have brand new running shoes (same as the ones I got professionally fitted)
• I haven’t disobeyed the 10% rule (don’t increase mileage more than 10% week to week)
• I haven’t suddenly upped my pace
• I haven’t stopped eating right
• I’m not dehydrated
• I have rest/easy days
• ….get my drift?

I seem to be following the rules, so why is this happening?? On Saturday, I had to stop – literally – every .3 of a mile to relieve my legs. On Sunday, I desperately wanted to do a long run, so I decided to go for it and arranged to meet my kind hearted mumma at the 6mile point, so if I felt awful, she could drive me home. Sadly, I did feel awful. The pain down the front of my legs was intense! But ONLY when running, and after about .1 or .2 of a mile did it kick in. The second I walked, the pain would go. When I met my mum at mile6, I was only 3miles from home, so I arranged to walk for 2miles (I needed the headspace time!) and then meet her again.

I think mentally, knowing I was going to see her helped, cos I ran walked those 2miles, at about a 12min/mile pace, walking as soon as I felt pain. I got to our meeting point early, so I ran/walked another mile or so, at about a 10.30pace, then I met her and she dropped me off 1/2 mile from home, so i could finish bang on 10miles. I have never, ever EVER not done the mileage I set out to do, hence why i sooo badly wanted to finish!

My total time was 1hr40, averaging a 10min/mile pace – but that time doesn’t include all the stopping to stretch, talk to my mum etc. I was actually out of the house for just over 2hrs.

I’m not really sure where to go from here…

My mum suggested I go see a physio, cos maybe my style of running is at fault and is causing stupid pressure points and so on, each time I hit the ground(after all, the trainer foot people, when I went to get gait analysis for my Brooks, told me I had a really weird gait!) – suuuucks, cos they cost a BOMB!

My other option is to start focusing on doing some more core work, to improve my running style; Runner’s World told me core work is very, very important for runners, and DOES lessen the chance of injury, cos you’re more stable and strong as you run- sooo maybe it’s my (sloppy?) style that is putting my legs out of whack? (holy batman I have a gum craving right now, as I type this…)

The other option is, of course, to stop running. Buuutt, i am really not happy about that – I’m entered for a half marathon in a few weeks, I have a marathon planned later in the year, and to be honest- I NEED my running right now! For stress relief, for a sense of freedom and accomplisment,..running has become so much a part of ME that I would really struggle if I had to stop for weeks on end! Naaa wha’ ah meeen?

The other thing which I learnt from Runner’s World (I love that magazine – seriously though RW, why the big bucks in cost!!? Not fun!) was about symptoms of overtraining.…

Poor performance during training (apparently so, if Sunday was anything to go by)

Persistent muscle soreness (when running – yes)

Altered sleep patterns (YES – I’ve had many 2am cereal snacks recently…)

Reduced appetite (yes – ironic considering what I just typed above :p)

Elevated pules (no idea, I’d love to start keeping track!)

Mood disturbances (yes)

Am I overtraining?

Gah bajeezahs, am I doing too much??! Am I doing the right amount for me? Is my pain an INJURY or just tiredness? Should I see a physio? Should I take a week off from running (do DVDs instead) and see what happens? Should I crawl into a dark hole, slice off my own legs, and re-grow them, alien style?

HEELLPPP!!

*UPDATE* (the next day – I write some of my posts in advance)

I watched this video (actually, the first two) about running form and heel striking (I have crap form), posted by (the hilarious and fabulous blog lady!) Marie, on Tuesday night, and decided to try out the running tips on Wednesday. I did 1mile, making sure to flick my heels up and have my wheel behind me (it would make sense if you watched the videos!). I THINk there was less pain, but there was still pain…so I’m not really sure what to do. Time for a physio?

—–

To ease my mental pain on Sunday, my late lunch consisted of one of the best dishes on earth – Oats in a jar. It was the ONLY thing that could even slightly lift my ground level mood….

Spill over on the side :p (it was a mini jar)

Sadly, it wasn’t as spezzal as I remembered it to be! WHY Why!!???? Boooo.

Maybe it was just my mood? Even Stinky Chika outside couldn’t put a smile on my face:

She was a naughty pony – full of spooks and freshness. Blasted horses! Normally she can read my mood like a book, and knows when she need to be angelic, and when she can mess around and I’ll just chuckle. Obvs today, we were a bit out of sync! Alas.

There have been two cheery things of late though!

1) A very belated Christmas present from my mum arrived the other day:

SO many chickpea recipes – riiiight up my street.

YAY! I’ve been wanting this cookbook for SO long, and really, I am tremendously excited now Cooking passion = reignited! (In fact, as I type, I have some tofu marinating in a modified recipe )

2) This stuff, which I picked up on my London trip last Friday:

SO worth the £12 (though my poor, sad bank balance doesn’t think so :’()

Chocolate and balsamic? oh yes.

I used it to marinate some tofu (mixed with extra cocoa powder):

Which was then fried up:

Delish! It was nice to eat something other than cereal and yogurt, or oatmeal…..

(bang on 0.250kg!! And that was just chance! wowzer)

[my step dad's car died, hence the car adverts, FYI]

Being extra busy means less time for proper cooking Oooooh well.

Anywayz, this post has been long enough right!? Please please do help me out with any running advice y’all might have..I really need it at the moment! OH – and if anyone British would like to do a food swap with a lovely American girl (who has PEANUT FLOUR) shoot me an email, and I’ll get you in touch * someone found! So don’t worry

Ps – that darn gum craving is STILL here – why why whhyyyy do I have to run out of gum now!?

PPS – the search term (to get to my blog) ‘brit chick, keep on running!!!’ was too cute ;p as was ‘I desperately want to move to the uk’ – eerr why?

Give away now CLOSED as of 6.05pm Friday evening, English time

YAY! Get ready to get yo’ knickers in a twist….!!

The other day, the kind hearted people at Nakd asked me to try out their new flavour bars – cocoa mint, cocoa delight and berry delight. Obviously, I said yes Old, faithful & hardcore readers who’ve been following my blog since the beginning [of time] will know I have raaaved about this companies’ bars A LOT!

But, weirdly enough, I’m yet to try the new flavours. I rather ashamed of myself really. Especially seeing as they are so awesome:

Raw fruits

Raw nuts

Natural flavours

Nuttin’ else. Nada! Simply whole foods, rolled together.

Anyway!

To celebrate…stuff (does one need a reason?), I’m going to host a GIVE AWAY!

My first one!

A certain lucky reader (who has a British postcode, I’m afraid p + p prices, and all that….) will win:

A box of EIGHTEEN bars, a selection of all three new flavours!

Cocoa Mint – dates, cashews, raisins, cocoa, a hint of natural mint and chocolate flavour

Cocoa Delight – dates, cashews, raisins, cocoa, and a hint of natural chocolate flavour

Berry Delight – dates, cashews, raisins, (raw!) raspberries, and a hint of natural berry flavour

Exciting right!!??

To enter, all you need to do is:

- Leave me a comment, telling me why you’re fabulous (I want to spread some love n’ joy here too :p)

- Tweet about the give away, making sure your tweet includes @BritChickRuns, and leave a comment here saying you did so

- Write about it in your blog - if you have one – and leave a comment saying so.

Each method counts as ONE entry. If you do more than one thing (ie a blog post, and a tweet) that’ll be two entries. But if you tweet twice, that’s still only one entry

As I said, I’m afraid the give away can only be open to British readers/bloggers but you know, if you’re American or Australian or French or wherever, feel free to blog or tweet about it anyway Let’s make this the biggest, most AWESOME give away ever to hit the blogosphere! Seriously.

I will randomly pick a winner on…FRIDAY, and announce it in the evening (UK time). I can’t say exactly what time, cos I don’t know yet But that’s when the winner will be awarded.

So what are you waiting for? Go get tweeting/blogging/commenting!!!