a week's roundup

Hello!

just thought I'd leap on the puter and give you a quick round-up of the past week's events as I've been a dreadful pathetic excuse for a blogger recently! If I don't do this now I'll be sat at work typing so better get this out!

Saturday 8th August
Joe and I had a fab time at ShockShock's launch party, the electro-pop evening my friend had organised. Unfortunately our preparation was poor to say the least and we had no outfits sorted out.

We also didn't get to the venue until quite late as we were at our friend's house for a BBQ to celebrate the couple's awesome results in Ironman UK the week before. My friend finished in 13:09:31 - in her first Ironman! More impressive is the fact that she managed a sub 3:45 hour marathon at the end, after having swum 2.4 miles and then cycling 112 miles!!

She actually ran the marathon faster than her husband who did it in just over 3:45 but was faster overall as his bike time was 6:34 and his swim was faster by almost half an hour.

It was also a farewell party for the Iron husband as he's just taken a job opportunity with his company, in Zurich, so will be living there for the next two years. My friend's staying here as she has a rather good job and is studying at the mo, it's a bit sad really as they only got married last year and bought their lovely new house quite recently! Ahh well, they're both very independent people and they'll be seeing each other on weekends (taking turns to fly to Zurich or London). Not sure how I'd feel though if my new husband said he wanted to leave to work in another country for a few years - well actually, I think I know exactly what I'd say but I'm not going to type it here!!

Before we went to the BBQ I realised that I needed to do a relatively difficult (for me) run before the next weekend because of the 10k I'd signed up to. I've not actually run a 10k race since October 2007 so am a bit rusty to say the least!

Our local lovely lush (but hilly!) park is 1 3/4 miles round the outside path, with a decent sized hill in the middle of that and some other less taxing (but nevertheless noticeable!) undulations. The run was bloody difficult, it was quite warm and the hills were pretty tough... after the first lap I felt knackered (pathetico!) and after the second I wanted to stop but I knew that if I couldn't run 5 1/4 reasonably tough miles I wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in hell during the 6.2 miles the following weekend!!

I kept myself going with some indie, rock and fallout boy (not sure which category they fall into!) I remember struggling up the hill and the song "This ain't a scene" came on and that helped me power up :-)

I had to lie down for a bit when I got in.

Anyway, after the run and BBQ we finally made it to the ShockShock venue, sheepishly lacking in costumes - I wore the hat I'd bought at the Secret Garden Party and experimented with lots of silver eye-shadow - Joe wasn't not immune to my make-up efforts, haha.

On arriving at the venue we met up with friends and managed to pilfer a few items so had silver gloves, head boppers and pom poms - perfect! That's the way to do fancy dress, just turn up and borrow everyone else's!! :-D

We didn't leave until the party finished at 3am and got back via an assortment of night buses, love my city, there's always some way you can get home (provided you don't live too far out). Also managed to persuade Joe not to visit brixton's finest late night restaurants - MacDonalds and deep fried KFC, go me ;-)


Sunday 9th August
Despite feeling a little worse for wear I managed to avoid temptation in the form of the obligatory weekend bacon and egg sandwich that my boys are so fond of scoffing and thought I'd experiment yet again with the whole protein pancake concepts.

And - Woo hoo, managed to nail it!

I kept it very simple, didn't pack it full of fruit and also used a whole egg as well as two egg whites and a scoop of banana flavour maximuscle promax diet. Topped it off with half a tub of quark and some strawberries - delish!

Look, soft inside and not like rubber - hurray! haha :-D

Sunday was my rest day, exercise-wise, felt like a good thing too after the running the day before and then dancing the night away!

Monday 10th August
My big tubs of Promax Diet arrived and, with them, my free box of Promax Crisp bars - yumtastic, love those little crispy chocolate beauties!

I didn't get to the gym that night til quite late so didn't get a chance to do my lower body routine there and just stuck to upper body weights. Felt really good actually and I've put the weight up on most of my machines, quite chuffed about that :-)

Tuesday 11th August
I got up at 06:15 to haul my tired arse out of bed and got to the gym in preparation for my Tuesday morning spin class, only to get there to discover that the class has been cancelled - fume!!

Decided to make the most of it and do my lower body routine so the early start wasn't entirely wasted.

That evening my work's wine club was holding a tasting evening. Had a fab evening, the guy who played Darcy in last month's play was there with his wife and we all had a giggle.

My favourite red wine is Malbec and I've discovered quite possibly the most tasty Malbec ever thanks to the evening! It's by Susana Balbo and it's a 2006 Malbec. I would highly recommend you getting a bottle if you can, it's bloody marvellous!

Wednesday 12th August
I didn't get to exercise on Wednesday but I did get out to my local Holland and Barrett where I purchased what can only be described as the largest tub of peanut butter ever!

haha look at it, it's monstrous, I'm scared to open it as I'm worried how long it'll last :-S

I have such a love for that nutty goodness, I do have to watch it or I'll litterally take a spoon and eat it out the jar - and this is a tub, easy access!!

I also bought some rye flour and some spelt too which is great as I've been looking for some for ages and nowhere seemed to sell it!

Incidentally, Healthy for Men, H&B's own mag, is a fantastic read, lots of advice on supplements and healthy eating, it's only 75p and has decent nutrition and training tips too - the current issue has an article on Crossfit - that looks nuts, I'm tempted!!

It wouldn't be the most stupid thing I've done, after all, I did do Tough Guy!

Now that was nuts, and I started to get hypothermic, my lips were purple, as were my fingernails, and the bruises on my legs took ages to heal - one of the most amazing things I've ever experienced, definitely don't think I'd do it again though!!

I also found a jar of Barleycup and thought I'd give that a go as I could do with cutting down my coffee intake (I get enough caffeine in the promax diet meal bars and drinks!). It's actually really nice! I tried a chicory/barley blend a few years ago when I was doing some daft extreme detox but it wasn't as smooth as this. This is more than palatable and I'm definitely going to drink it in place of my normal coffee (aside from my 'wake-up' cup of course ;-) )

Also picked up some almond nut butter, it's very delish, Joe doesn't agree which is great for me but I'm hoping that my son doesn't either!!

I didn't get home from work til late on Wednesday so wasn't able to do the run I'd planned.

Thursday 13th August
I went to the gym at work and hopped on the treadmill (really don't like those things but I'm a bit time-limited during my lunch hour!).

I started off my run at 10 minute per mile pace and increased my speed every five mins until I was running 7:53 m/ms. That was tough but I needed to know I had the speed in my legs as I knew I had the endurance after the hill work.

That night I went out with a few girlfriends to a fab restaurant in Covent Garden called Wahaca. This place is great!! The food is really fresh and tasty and the price is pretty reasonable too. It reminded me of a Mexican version of Wagamama with the long queues and the fast service - the meals are also brought out as and when.

If anyone's stuck in Soho with nowhere to go eat I'd recommend you get your butt down to 66 Chandos Place! They also have restaurants in Canary Wharf and White City.

Friday 15th August
Friday was the Pride & Prejudice after party. We all met at Pizza Express on the Southbank (love that place, have to get down there more often and take in a little culture!).

I proved incredibly popular when we came to pay up as I have a Taste London card and Pizza Express recently joined the network of restaurants and we therefore got 50% off the entire food bill - a saving of £77!

The meal was nice, I had just one dough ball and went for the Pollo Salad with low fat dressing instead of a pizza as it's very yummy, has chicken and goats cheese too, scrummy :-)

As it was the night before my race, I didn't drink any alcohol, which was honestly actually pretty miserable for me!!! I really wanted some red wine with my food, and everyone else was getting rather merry while I sipped my diet coke

halo was intact though and I was very pleased with my willpower :-D

Saturday 16th August
Race morning, woke up feeling fresh and soooo glad to not have drunk any alcohol. Same couldn't be said for Joe who wasn't feeling as perky as he'd had drinks after work and then about half a bottle of red wine at home. Silly boy.

I pretty much always have had porridge for breakfast on the morning of a race so decided to experiment with oats and protein powder to see how I got on.

My pre-race breakfast was

30g porridge oats
2 x scoops of vanilla Promax Diet
1 x teaspoon of acacia honey
1/2 a banana mushed in for good measure

It didn't taste very nice. It was super super sweet!! Still, I forced it all down and was so incredibly glad I did!

The race itself was 3 laps in Victoria park, east London. I have mixed feelings about multiple laps during races, I think for a short distance like this it's okay but if it were any longer I'd probably feel less chuffed with the idea!

I started off quite slow, and then slowed down progressively just to make sure I didn't burn out as was worried about if I'd have enough energy to do the whole 10km. I took a reading every km and made damn sure I didn't go over 6 minutes for a kilometre as I was determined to get sub-60!

The first lap felt quite good and I kept my speed down for the 2nd, but picked it up by the 3rd and my last km was the fastest at 05:26. I crossed the finish at 57:01, nearly 7 minutes slower than my PB set back in 2004 of 50:27 for the Nike nocturnal 10k - that was fun, I was a lot fitter and thinner too!!

Anyway, the last kilometre was really tough and I felt exhausted straight after I finished but that feeling didn't last long. I recovered really fast and was beaming away at Joe. So chuffed to have gotten in under the hour, and convincingly so (I think!), and also so pleased to feel like I still had fuel in the tank and I could have run faster overall if I'd really wanted to!

I think my breakfast was absolutely perfect, (I'll definitely do the same again for my next race but might use a scoop of vanilla and one of chocolate instead) and the little angels who organised the race gave us all bagels with cream cheese - I didn't feel hungry until I bit into them, then, yummmmm!

Our wonderful neighbour was having a BBQ last night and we all went along in full pirate dress as it had a 'desert island' theme... a few people came as castaways, it was great fun. My friend had made rum punch, lethal stuff!! There was plenty of meat on the barbie so I think my muscle stores were well re-stocked up afterwards.

Sunday 17th August
It's now half past midnight and I've been typing for a while now so I'm going to get off and go to bed.

Joe's wonderful parents were round earlier and we made a mammoth lasagne which I'm sure was highly unhealthy although I did use lean beef mince and half fat cheese for the sauce - I think it was the sheer quantity that might have done it though, ahh well!

Tomorrow will be back on the old health food wagon and I'll write more when I get the chance.

Hope everyone's had fabulous weekends and that the week ahead will be a good one.

TJ x