Brit Chick Runs

Erro erro.

Hmm so I’m being told that some of you are having trouble donating to enter my give away? I honestly have no idea what to do..I’ve had donations from England, America and New Zealand, which have worked, so the only thing I can suggest is trying again? Sorry I can’t be of more help!

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It were kalt today! Well, compared to the past few days – only about 20degrees (70F), I even wore a JUMPER! Cool weather is so much better to run in though. As I said yesterday, I had the most horrendous 6miler on Tuesday, took yesterday as an easy, non-running day, and had today as my mid-week ‘medium long’ run – 8miles. I was actually feeling pretty nervous before I left! It’s amazing how just one bad run can knock your confidence so much, but, like a fall from a horse, you need to get back in the saddle ASAP!

Anyways, so the run today was a bit better – I felt like I could breathe again cos the humidity was right down, but I still felt a bit drained – I’m not sure why. I’m having rest days, but I wonder if I’m underestimating how much fuel I need now my mileage is increasing? [I'm on about 27-30 miles a week] I’m thinking it might be worth upping my cals / protein, to see if my energy is boosted…hmmm. Any thoughts?

Regardless, I still did 8.5miles in 1hour9, which was an 8.10 pace. My splits were funky though! Mile One was 8.29 pace, but my last mile was 7.58! Maybe I just need longer to warm up!!?

Breakfast was BEAUtiful – oh, and boring! I had my current favourite: a big banana smoothie (with loads of strawburrehs, vanilla, chia seeds and soya milk):

As well as an unpictured bowl of oats / millet flakes, made with lots of ginger and cinnamon. It was GOOOOD!

I rode Chika Pony this morning too – she was good! She went into the school with her eyes on stalks, believing that the WHOLE of one side had unexploded bombs [or at the very least, a scary naughty pidgeon], but she contained herself well and produced some faboosh work. I know I’ve said it before, but when Chika and I go our separate ways, i am going to miss her SO much.

Lunch came late, but it was awesome. Actually – NO. It was delicious. I’ve noticed I say ‘awesome’ raaather a lot, so I’m going to try and switch up my superlatives :-p

That would be a 5 days past its’ sell by date seaweed tofu burger, with stir fried gran-grown swiss chard, garlic granules, soy sauce, agave and roast parsnip.

Honestly, it was to die for! I take back my swiss-chard-dissing, cos it was real yummy :-p

The other half of lunch was an amazing tropical smoothie! I bought a cheapo mango the other day which was perfectly ripe – after hacking away at it, I only had about 2/3 cup flesh, so I just blended it (of course) with a big frozen banana, some melon, a handful or two of beans (leftover flagelot beans from yesterday’s hummus-y thing), lime juice, soya milk, xanthan gum and cinnamon.

(the colour in that photo is effy, but I’m too tired to mess around with it :-/)

Uh, WOW!! Amazing smoothie! You totally couldn’t taste the beans, but they added a nice dose of protein and fibre #win

For dinner, my mum, stepdad, aunt and grandparents went out for a meal at The Crown to celebrate my exam results. Hannah was absent, cos she’s spending 6 weeks doing an accelerated teacher training programme, before she starts her Teach First placement in September (Teach First is a programme where the best of the best new grads go into failing / struggling schools and teach for 2years – she’s got a school in London, and she’ll be a proper teacher and everything, with her own class, planning time tables etc etc).

Annoyingly, they’d changed the menu from what was online, and there wasn’t a single vegan option! Soo I had to be a little creative :p

For starters, I ordered the crab cakes…minus the crabcakes:

It was actually lovely – the salad was a citrus marinated fennel thing, with a delicious soy dressing. I ate every bite!

For mains, I went for an olive, tomato, goat’s cheese, sunflower seed thing, with a mustard-y dressing – minus the goat’s cheese!

I also ordered some toast on the side:

The toast was DELICIOUS! Like two massive crunchy croutons – loved it. The salad was so-so..I ate it all (cos I was hungry) but there wasn’t enough olive for me :-p

For dessert, I went for the only vegan thing they had – sorbet. I had wanted summer pudding, but apparently that wasn’t vegan!? Last recipe I checked, summer pudding was bread and fruit…but whatever….regardless, the sorbet was DELICIOUS! I had two scoops of blackcurrant, and one rhubarb and ginger:

Lovely!

It was a great meal, but the service was awwwwful – we were there at 7, didn’t get our starters til 8, and didn’t get dessert til about 9.30. Oh, and they forgot my aunt’s cheese tart thing AND my toast! Boooo. At least the food made up for it!

Though I was still a bit hungry when I got home, so I just chowed down on a plate of crackers, an apple and some yogurt :-p Girl gotta eat!

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Aah, on the radio this morning, they were talking about the co-presenter (Dom, on The Chris Moyles Show, in case you were curious) jumping out of a plane, to FACE HIS FEAR! He was hating the idea, like really really hating it, but me? I would LOVE to do a parachute plane jump thing!! I would be terrified yes, but ohmygosh I would jump at the chance. Do you know my mum did a parachute jump once? Yep, it must be in the blood. I’d also love to do a bungee jump, swim with sharks (I love love love sharks – I have a collection of information books about them and all :-p) and….hmmm…i’m sure there’s another scary thing I’d love to do, but I can’t think what!

One thing I would NOT do though, would be to do something with spiders. You know, like have to be in a box with loads of spiders, or hold a tarantula…ugh. I get the heebies just thinking about it!! I also wouldn’t want to do something like white water rafting, or swimming in deep sea water (minus the shark cage) – deep sea water freaks me out, and rough water like in white water rafting would be horrific to me. Cold + wet + fearing for my life = worst thing ever. But throwing myself out of a plane, or off a bridge with just a rubber band stopping me from hitting the ground? LOVE IT!

Would you ever do a bungee jump / parachute jump / swim with sharks? What scary thing would you NOT do?

Did you enter my give away yet? Please please do if you haven’t already – there’s only been a handful of entries :’( I thank you MASSIVELY in advance.

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Contrary to popular belief, I am not a farmer. Nor am I a rain cloud, nor am I winter-soil, nor am I the winter months.

Which therefore means that I can’t magically make parsnips grow and grow well during this pesky month of June, in turn meaning that I am currently going through parsnip withdrawal – a Parsnip Famine, if you will.

Folks, the situation is bad, very bad. Parsnips are MY vegetable, my babies, the thing I look forward to most in the world – I just LOVE them! But they are few and far between right now; I’m about to run out, and when I enquired at the store today as to whether they had any out back, I was told they’d stopped selling them during these silly hot months….

So, I now have just 2 or 3 of my white beauties left, and I’m having to ration myself! There is ONE good thing that has come out of this dire situation, however – I’m having to eat other vegetables :-O! See, I get stuck in ruts, and I would quite happily eat parsnips all day, every day, at every meal, but I can’t do that anymore – I’m being forced to branch out!

Take today’s lunch – I forbade myself from eating any parsnips (they were being saved for dinner), so instead I had a stir fry, made of:

- Gran-grown beets, gran-grown swiss chard, non-gran-grown-wrinkly-needed-eating yellow pepper, non-gran-grown courgette, all with soy sauce and a bit of agave nectar. Oh, and a sheet of nori.

I was half expecting it to be horrific, but actually, it was REALLY good!! Like, really ever so ever so good! I surprised myself Plus, look at all those bright COLOURS! Vitamins, hooray!

On the side, I made the most of the abundance of fresh beets, and made some beet pancakes ( using 1/2 c. gram (chickpea) flour and cocoa powder ).

Uuuh….ugly much!? A crime to pancakes! Incredibly delicious though.

Oh, that blob on them? WELL! This morning, I’d done some stretching but wasn’t feeling hungry, so I thought I’d make a quick recipe before breakfast, one that I’ve had my eye on for agggges – Katie’s Cinnamon Dessert Hummus [Katie being my future roomie at the HLS]. It was just a case of blend, so I figured it wouldn’t take two mins The only changes I made to her recipe, was that I used flagelot beans, subbed in pumpkin puree for the sweet potato (the last of what was in my can) and almond butter instead of cashew. The result was OMG-worthy. Aka, absolutely INCREDIBLE!!! I honestly could not believe how good it was! I just had to add a little spoonful to breakfast:

(Pumpkin OIAJ, by the by)

A tiny blob yes – cos I’d just eaten my weight in the stuff when cleaning out Vincent :-p

Now, what else do I have to report……

Oh yes! In the essence of being different with my vegetable eating habits, I did the most awesome thing yesterdee – I was making my mum’s sandwiches for lunch (yes, I make her sandwiches for lunch everyday. Tis what I do.), and found about a tbsp’s worth of 2 week old basil pesto in the fridge, whilst I was diggin’ about. I had a taster whilst I was making the sandwich, and had a realisation – basil pesto is TASTY! There were scrapings left in the jar, so I saved it…til my own lunch

Enter: adzuki bean sprouts mixed with soya yogurt and basil pesto:

Note: That was NOT my whole meal! Far from it.

OH my YUMMNNNNEESSSS!!!! My new favourite thing, for sure!

Hmm other favourite things? My new PLATE!

And my new MUG!

Oh, I do love new dishware. #oldbeyondmyyears

Also on the favourites’ list:

Almond butter LIME cookies, a la Mama Pea!

Um, wow.

Milky – yogurty oats.

Um, wow [again].

I hope tomorrow’s meals are equally wow-worthy – I’m having a meal out in the evening with the fam to celebrate my exam marks, so here’s hoping the restaurant can do something vegan AND tasty OH, and tomorrow I’m running 8miles too! Fingers crossed it’s better than yesterday’s six miles, which was HORRIFIC. It was incredibly humid, and i just could. not. breathe. Literally, I went 200m and was puffin’ like a smoker on the top of Everest. Not fun! I took today as an easy day in the hope that tomorrow will be better It’s not meant to be as humid…..

ANYWAY, off I go!

Question: Last recipe you made?

What’s your favourite vegetable?

Ok, so I could be cruel and make you wade through acres and acres of text and blurb about my day and about oats and about scary thunderstorms and flooding stables…but I won’t. Instead, I’ll jump straight to telling you about my big old International Give Away I’ve been banging on about recently!

Remember how I signed up to do the Royal Parks Half Marathon in London this October? Well, the reason I got a place is because I am running it in aid of The Brooke Hospital for Animals.

I chose The Brooke for a number of reasons:

Firstly, they work with equines; horses, donkeys and mules, and y’all know I have a slight love affair with a certain horse-shaped blob called Chika! Their work is predominantly in places like Kenya, India and Pakistan.

Secondly, they are not a charity that just puts a metaphorical plaster over a horses’ cut, but instead, they look at the very root of the problem. The owners of the equines they help are very, very poor, and have little to no knowledge of how to care properly for their animals. However, they depend on them for their work, to help feed their families and keep themselves alive. But, because the owners are so poor and don’t know about correct care, the animals are often underfed, overworked and mistreated.

(source)

For example, many people believe a horse will work better if it is forbidden from eating or drinking throughout the entire day – in climates of 40 degrees and over (90 F) that is awful. Many owners do not know how to fit tack or harnesses, or how to clean wounds, resulting in a huge amount of pain and suffering for the animal.

The Brooke however, not only gives the animals aid, but also teaches and educates the owners how they should be looking after their animals. They teach them about correctly fitting tack, veterinary care, that the animals need rest and water, that beating them will not make them go faster – The Brooke even trains farriers and equine dentists, thus actually increasing jobs available to the local community. The Brooke workers teach the children too, so that as they grow up and get their own equines, the problem won’t even begin because they know the correct practices.

I could go on and on about the incredible work The Brooke does – benefitting both the animals and the community – but I don’t want to lose you! I would urge you to visit their website however, to learn more, watch videos, or go donate a chunk of your life savings to them; they’re truly worth it!

SO anyway – my giveaway!

I have a target amount of money I want to raise for them, and I need YOUR help to do it!

Therefore, I am holding this international give away, paid for solely out of my own (ever dwindling) savings. It’s open to anyone, anywhere, and I’ll pay the postage. Here’s the stuff one lucky person can win!

3 Nakd bars (Ginger Bread, Cashew Cookie, Banana Bread) <— my three favourite flavours

2 Nakd raisins (Lemon, Orange)

Munchy Seeds (Vanilla coated pumpkin seeds)

9Bar (Nutty)

Tamari Roasted Apricot Kernels

Rice Quinoa Spaghetti

Good Stuff sweets (all natural jelly sweets, vegan and gluten free!)

Dried mulberries

Chocolate flavour herbal tea

Montezuma’s Lordy Lord dark chocolate (one of my all time favourite dark chocolates!)

Coconut and Raspberry dark chocolate

Ombar Probiotic Coconut dark chocolate

2 x Pulsin’ bars (Bliss Bar, Raw Chocolate Brownie)

Lovebite LoveBall

Natural Balance Foods Trek bar (Cocoa Brownie)

Wheat syrup waffles

Mixed nut butter

VitaFlax Organic Milled Flaxseed with dried pomegranate flakes

2 x Organic Food Bars (Chocolate chip, Kids Chocolate Brownie Crunch)

Phew! I think that’s it

Everything is vegan, except the 9Bar which has honey. I’ve tried to pick a bunch of stuff that shooould appeal to both Brit readers and non-Brit readers, to get the max number of entries possible

You can enter a number of ways, but the first entry is a MUST.

1) You must must must donate £2 to the Brooke, via my Just Giving* page. If you do not donate, I will not accept any further entries from you, regardless of how much you tweet, blog or spread the word. Of course, feel free to donate more ££ if you can afford it! In fact, for every £1 more you donate, you get another entry! Just make sure you leave a comment on this post for each £1. If you’re in America or Australia or Finland or the moon, you can still donate; the Just Giving page should accept everything (although obviously I can’t test that out).

Each of these next methods is worth an additional entry – just leave a comment saying you have done so.

2) Tweet about the give away, mentioning @BritChickRuns

3) Blog about the give away in your own blog (if you have one), and provide a link to the post in the comments section

And that’s it! Remember, this is international, so anyone can enter. You don’t have to be a blogger, you can be a reader, but the rules are still the same: no entry will be counted UNLESS you have donated a minimum of £2 via my Just Giving page.

The give away will close in one week, so get those entries in!!

*JustGiving is a 100% secure way to donate money to the cause, with all proceeds going to The Brooke. I will not be receiving a single penny from any donations.

Heads up: My international give away is going to come tomorrow instead of today – the thing I need to do to make it work, I haven’t done yet…but good things come to those that wait, right!?

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OOKKK so before I launch off into one today, I have a quick issue to address.

A reader (at least, I hope they’re still a reader!) sent a comment to my Formspring, about a topic I want to talk about quickly. The comment was actually sent the other week, but apparently Formspring hasn’t been sending me notification when I get a question!? Hurrumph. Anyway! She basically said that my talking about ‘how rubbish’ my marathon time was, was making people who run their best and get 5hour+ times feel bad. I really did not mean to make anyone feel that way! I’m sorry if it came across like that to anybody, but what I have been moaning about is other people making me feel bad about my time (remember I spoke about the running shop assistant a few weeks back?).

My other issue with my own marathon time is that, for ME, it was disappointing. Going by my training runs (run at sub-10min/mile pace), and how I began the marathon, I was on target to get 4hour20, so to add on 33 minutes because I fell apart from mile 20 was upsetting. I was disappointed in myself, because I knew I could’ve done better. But, there is NOTHING wrong with my actual time, or a time of 5hr+ – heck, regardless of the time, you just ran twenty-six point two miles; that’s no walk in the park! But we need to keep in perspective the person running the marathon – if Paula Radcliffe ran a 3hour marathon, she’d be absolutely gutted. If I ran a three hour marathon [I'd probably die after] I would be so over the moon that I would never return to earth! I read running blogs where the runner’s are furious if they run a 3hr50 time, because to them, that’s slow. It’s all relative. One person’s five hour time might be the equivalent of someone else’s 3hour time.

My point is, I really did not mean to make anyone feel bad. I am truly sorry if it came across that way. ANYONE who runs a marathon, whether it’s in 2hours or 10hours, has done something incredible.

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You know what it’s been today? Hot. Or as the Americans call it, ‘fairly warm’ – It actually hit NINETY degrees today!!! In England, that is really friggin’ hot, so much so that the trains in my neck of the woods were cancelled, because the heat caused problems with the power cables and track. LOL! The poor old horses were actually sweating when I brought them in this morning too – but if I had terrifically thick skin and a fur coat on, I’d probably be sweating as well :/ Needless to say, I didn’t ride Chika today; she was quite content dozing in her stable, out of the sun and the flies, so I left her to it.

Besides, I had much more pressing matters to attend to – such as eating mighty bowls of faux-ice cream!

Would you look at that…incredible. In the mix:

(technically, makes 2 servings – aka, one Freya-size serving)

- 1 frozen banana

- approx. 5 BIG frozen strawburries

- uh…a lot of frozen melon

- 1/2 tsp (ish) of vanilla extract

- 1/2 tsp xanthan gum (optional)

- 1/2 c. soya milk (you could use wasser, or any old milk, and I bet coconut milk would work really well too)

- a dash of cinnamon and a pinch of salt

Liquid first, then hard stuff. Blend blend blend. Add powdering stuff. Blend blend blend. Voila!

SO refreshing!! I had it for breakfast along side a bowl of gingerfied oats / millet flakes (shocking choice, I know.)

Yeah, those two pictures are basically exactly the same :/

Hurrah!

I took a big old trip into the closer-to-home town today, and it was glorious – I wore one of my new summery dresses and my big sunglasses and I felt very lovely – until a gust of wind blew my dress up, and there I was in the middle of a crowded car park, looking a little bit like this:

(source)

Actually, in truth, I probably looked more like this:

(source)

Sigh. (Side note: that famous dude on the right of the picture? I saw him at an airport once! Stood next to him at check-in and all )

Whilst I was in town, I got the most GLORIOUS iced Americano cawfeee! It was one of the best ones I’ve ever had, so refreshing. Walking around with my big shades and pretty dress and iced beverage kinda made me come over all celeb-like…

Sometimes I really wish I was a celebrity. It would be so amazing to have aaall that money, and not need to worry (though the whole paparazzi thing might grate after a while)…but if I DID have millions in the bank, I would want to start up my own charity, and do volunteer work – I would just go mad sitting on my butt all day, not being productive! I think after my exams finished, I managed a grand total of 3 days not doing anything, before I went stir crazy and started looking for jobs. I always have to wake up with a mission or a plan each day, even if it’s something simple like baking or going to the bank. You certainly won’t see my lying in past 8.20am either! I just can’t stand doing nothing, y’know!?

You know what’s NOT nothing? Eating food! (ahem, yes, that was a poor way to link the above paragraph to my lunch, but whatever!)

Roast brok-lee, fresh cherry tomay-doos, roast pars-nipnip and a date sizzle dressing.

(Note: the empty coffee mug. It not only signifies the fact that I FORGOT to make some faux-iced coffee last night, but also that I bought a new mug yesterday, that didn’t smash, like my bowl did, when the bag fell on the floor!)

A kinda tofu pudding thing – plain raw tofu, blended with carob powder, soya milk, chia seeds, frozen melon and frozen cherries.

Tremendous!

You know what I did in the arvo? I sweated. Well actually, I went for a walk with the new book I’m reading (The Bone Collector; the first crime thriller I have EVER read, and so far I’m loving it! I’ve seen the film, which makes it easier), and mucked out the horses, and did some job searching, and watched an episode of Two And A Half Men – but walking + mucking out in the 90degree-ness is a sweaty, hot task!! Thank goodness I had some cold coffee to come into Oh, and a cold dinner – a cold sesame tofu burger, roasted and cooled veggies, and a smoothie oat blend, made with cooked oats, frozen banana and frozen pear. Repetitive? Yez. Refreshing? Very!

Right! I have to dash! It’s dessert time AND job search time AND I may possibly be dragging my mamma out for a nice evening walk too

Question: If you won £100million, would you a) continue in the same job, b) quit and live a life of luxury, or c) quite, and do a different job?

I really hate writing posts on Sundays.

Sunday posts are kinda…irritating. If I haven’t blogged on Saturday, then there’s always a ton of photos on my camera, a ton of odds and ends to mention, and … well, that’s it; the extent of why I don’t like Sunday posts. Reading back, that’s actually not much at all..heh. I think I need to re-think my theories!

Well, whatever. As it IS an Annoying Sunday Post in theory, I’m just going to blog about whatever the heck I feel like – which today, is about EATING whatever the heck I feel like!

I used to be very set in my ways: breakfast was oats or cereal. Lunch was cold. Dinner was hot, and had a protein, carb, and veg, in separate compartments as it were. That way of eating is nothing to do with past EDs or anything, it’s just how I was brought up (me and 90% of England). I’ve begun to realise the past 6months or so though, that I don’t want to live by all those rules. Sometimes (like that lady who does really awesome photos and has a pretty darn awesome blog, awesomeawesomeawesome), I like breakfast for lunch or dinner, or something cold for dinner, or something hot at lunch. Sometimes, I don’t want a MEAL, I just want a plate of snacks. Sometimes I don’t want dinner at 7.15, I want it at 8.15. Sometimes I want a snack at 11.30pm, right before I got to bed (terrible, I know….I haven’t died yet though!), and sometimes I don’t care if I have loads of processed soy in one day, or if my sugar intake is probably 3 x over the GDA (ahem, maple syrup and overripe bananas….). It’s freeing to not obey The Rules all the time!

Like, eating and running. I think there are SO many ‘rules’ around eating and running; you must eat 30g carb per hour, you must have a carby snack before you run (but make sure it’s 3hours before or you’ll projectile vomit everywhere), don’t eat fats before you run or you may have a poop-situation, don’t do this, eat this snack whilst you run, blah blah blah…..

Well, SCREW those rules! I abided by The Running Food Rules on my marathon, and I truly believe it screwed me over – I should’ve stuck to what I know!

Take today, for example. I did:

9miles, 8.10 pace

That.

It was a super hot run, cos I had a lie in (til 8am! :-O) so didn’t start running til 8.50, and it was HOT out (think: sweat running down my chest….image of beauty, right there. Thankfully, I pur-chased a sweat band yesterday!). I wasn’t sure how far I was going to go, so I had my usual snack before I ran, which is probably not on the recommended list of pre-run snacks:

A big apple, 2 dates, 2 tsps wheatgerm, 2 chocolate covered espresso beans, a few brazil nuts, a handful of cereal. Oh, and I ate it 10mins before I left!

That snack though, just works so well for me on sub-10mile runs. If I run further, I’d probably have a Clif bar or something (the big 68g ones, not the mini English ones!). For runs of 6miles or less, that snack is fine and dandy for me – Anything over, and I bring some dates, a Gu or a sports drink with me. Today, I dug out some Lucozade jelly beans that expired in October LAST year… I didn’t really fancy them, but knew they needed eating. I could feel my energy start to waver slightly at around 7miles, but I so did NOT fancy those jelly beans! They did NOT appeal in any way, AT ALL – so I just skipped the snack and kept going. Bad runner! I was out for over an hour and didn’t snack!? Bah. It just about worked today, but I was certainly ready to finish at 9miles

As soon as I finished, I came into the house, downed a glass of soya milk, and walked for 20mins. Re-fueling after a workout IS a rule that I try and obey – I really needed to walk out to cool off (sweat dripping, sweat dripping!) but I needed something – milk it was!

When I got back in, I kinda disobeyed all those pesky Eating Time rules – I didn’t sit down to my breakfast til about 11.20! After the walk and a shower and some blending action, it was getting late!

Aahh, talking of breakfast, it was a goodun’! I did try and stick to the re-fuel rules, with protein and carbs, but more than anything I just wanted something COLD!

Frozen banana, frozen melon, half a pear, 1/2 c. soya milk, xanthan gum, salt, vanilla

Hit. The. Spot.

The protein / carb came from some Non-Overnight-Overnight-Oats! It wasn’t til I walked in the door post run that I decided I wanted some, so I quickly mixed up 1/2 c. oats, 1 tbsp chia seeds (after reading Born To Run, I want to up my chia intake!), 1/2 c. soya milk / 1/2c. water, cinnamon, ginger, LOADS of nooch, vanilla extract, cacao nibs & agave nectar. By the time I’d mixed it, blended the other stuff, had a shower, and eaten the blended mess, my oats were ready:

Perfect!

It was kinda two full breakfasts though – but you know what, screw official serving sizes! I’m a hungry runner, and I need my food! Bah.

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Post breakfast, I took my little Chika out for a hack – the weather was PERFECT. Hot, still, sunny. She got very sweaty, but her ears were jammed forwards and she had the best time, cantering through all the long grass. i am going to miss her SO much :’(

Lunch was eventually eaten at 3.30 (oh yes, another rule broken! Mwahahaha) – I wasn’t hungry, but I had a slight stomach ache and figured it was a ‘now or never’ kinda thing. But before lunch though, disaster struck…..

I bought that bowl YESTERDAY!

I had been doing the whole hoover thing (you know, trying to be a good daughter and all) and somehow, the bag holding my bowl fell onto the floor. It was like slow motion, as it happened…and then I heard the crack as my beloved new £6 bowl broke in half. GUTTED!

I phoned my mum asap, to ask if she could get some superglue on her way home. Fingers crossed…

Anyway! Back to lunch!

Peanut butter coated roast parsnip chunks – Crunchy PB, melted with soy sauce, water to thin, ginger and lime juice. Roasted red pepper on the side (which caramelised and was TO die for)

OH> EM> GEE.

Do I really need to say how delicious they were!?

For some real calories, I had some pumpkin pancakes drizzled with date sizzup (yep: I wanted pumpkin – think: autumn – pancakes – think: breakfast food – at 3.30pm – think: not a mealtime at all!?):

Uh, disappointing. Very disappointing. I used a mix of millet flakes and wholegrain spelt flour, and added in molasses and ginger and cinnamon and 1/2 c. pumpkin, but they were so BLAND! I’m not sure where I went wrong…le sigh. Chocolate made me feel better :-p

The pancake thing was a shame though – I was SO reluctant to open up a precious can of pumpkin (I only have one left now!), so I’m going to have to think very, very wisely about how to proceed with rest-of-the-pumpkin-can-usage….

Actually, I DID think wisely by the time it came to dinner! Looksee:

That dark blob? A few tbsp pumpkin, mixed with cinnamon, ginger, molasses, salt, water to thin, & a tsp of carob powder.

(once again) OH. EM. GEE. What a friggin delicious sauce! Like, it was really quite ‘woah’ worthy, and that doesn’t happen often in my world! I think I want to make it again and have it with kamut spaghetti or something….yum!

On the side, I had a big, massive, oat blend (frozen banana, cooked oats, vanilla protein powder, frozen melon):

You know what my cooked-and-cooled oats look like before they get blended?

Like a pancake!

My dinner was a prime example of not sticking by rules: I’d had very similar meals in the day, it wasn’t proper hot cooked food, but it was exactly what I fancied. If you obey your cravings, you can’t go wrong

Now I’m in a pickle though…I am stuffed to the gills in fullness, BUT I have some Booja Booja ice cream sitting in the freezer calling my name………..

Question: What’s your favourite day of the week? I like Friday’s and Sunday’s – Friday cos it means the end of the week and the prospect of a lie in the next day, and Sunday cos it’s Long Run Day!

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PS: Random photos (below) which were on my camera – they just didn’t really fit with the post BUT I still think they’re cute

Delicious oats, *new* cawfee (it was GOOD!) & new socks (reduced to clear) – you know they are my first EVER pair of ‘proper’ running socks!? TBH, I didn’t really notice the difference between them and normal socks. A big old waste of $$$ really :-s