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Sunday 10 October 2010

A Food Filled Post (and a little running..)

We'll start with the running! We decided to splash out and go to the track yesterday.. I love the track! My planned workout was 3 x 1600m with 1 minute rest in between, ouch!! I decided to modify it a little bit so I could test my fastest mile time. My previous fastest time was 6.53 and ... drumroll please.... It's now 6.43!! Wooooooooooohoooooooo :D

I'm so pleased with that, I thought I'd messed it up after the first 400m when I looked at the watch and it said 5.58 pace, I lost my gameplan as the track was full of teenage athletics people who were training and I was a bit intimidated haha I feel so amateurish compared to others! I felt like they were all looking at me and thinking I was slow, sometimes I wish I could shut my brain off, it's not always helpful! - Re-reading this sentence though, I should perhaps be kinder to my little brain, it has got me to the end of some horrible workouts!

Warm up - 1 mile at 9.30 pace
Mile 1 6.43 (shaved 10 seconds off!!)
Rest: 5 mins
Mile 2 - 7.40
Rest: 1 min
Mile 3 - 7.53

Damn! I missed mile 3 :-( The garmin pace said 7.40 so I thought I was ok but I actually ran 1.05 miles according to the garmin so my pacing was off! I always do this... I put too much faith in the satelites hehe.. My first mile according to the garmin was 6.32 but the track was 6.43, obviously the track is right so that's what I'm going with! The middle mile came out exactly at 1 mile... Mr garmin is confused!

Look at the lovely parcel which arrived through my door on Thursday...
All the goodies! I can't wait to be doing a long run to try the gel out, it's sugar free (brown rice syrup and agave) and full of cherry juice, sounds like my kind of fuel!
First up, the pinacolada bar. Personally I HATE coconut, really hate it! So I let Mike eat most of this but I did try a bite for reviewing purposes. The texture was absolutely spot on, really chewy and decadent, it tasted like it should have a really bad nutrtional profile but it doesn't, there is pretty much no sugar, just a small amount in the rice crispie bits which is minimal overall. It is mainly sweetened with rice syrup which I really like. You can view the full ingredient list here.
Mike's review is very technical - 'it was really nice'... Good thing I'm not relying on him for any other flavours!! He did also say how cruel it was to leave them all out with a note saying he could only try one and to save me a bite while I was at work.. He said it was far too tempting, but I must say he didn't give into temptation, he did insist we opened another one pretty much as soon as I walked in the door though!

Next we tried the Hunza nut - this had a nice flavour too, the name made me expect hazelnut but the hunza nut actually refers to apricots! I preferred the flavour of this bar but the texture was my favourite thing about it again, I really love the chewiness. Sorry no pictures... I let Mike take them... he says it's the cameras fault.. I'm not convinced! They all came out blurry though! This one is one I took!
The refuel bars were both chocolate based flavours with around 14g protein per bar I liked the chocolate date bar best I only wished they were both more chocolatey.. as a chocoholic they didn't quite hit the spot.. They were really nice but I wanted more chocolate!
Again... Mike took the pictures as he ate half this while I was at work... No comment, although it is better than the Hunza nut effort!
Mike liked the chocolate banana flavour best out of these two and likened it to a banana bread nakd bar.
*Disclaimer* - Mule bar sent me these products for free to review. All the opinions are my own (or Mike's where stated) and I was not paid for the review. Regardless of being sent something for free I will always state my true opinion.

Finally, here's that pizza I promised almost a week ago! Clearly I'd never make it as a food blogger as this is how much was left when I remembered to photograph it! It's topped with tomato puree, fresh basil, mushrooms, onions, sweetcorn, pineapple, veggie ham and of course cheese!

It's all gone now!

14 comments:

  1. Those mule bars look lovely, as does your pizza! Glad you enjoyed getting on the track, your improvement in time is awesome!

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  2. Good stuff on the track running- I was tempted my track running and decided to look into local ones but they are quite expensive- around £5 per go, which is more than an exercise class where you get the instructor in too. So in the winter I might (plus I am sure it would help me speed up).
    Those bars look yum- I got some this week too but havent tried any yet!
    :)

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  3. I know exactly what you mean about those you share the track with.

    The track I use is at Leeds Carnegie the sports college where alot of top athletes go. Its fair to say they tend to be lithe, athletic and just slightly quicker than me!

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  4. way to go on the running. Good job. It's so fun trying new goodies isn't it ;-) Pizza sounds delish!

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  5. Congrats on that new speedy mile split! Way to go. And the reward--yummy food!

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  6. congrats laura! that's a fabulous PR mile jump!!! way to go after it! woo!

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  7. wow great work on the track! i need to work on getting my recovery time down like you :)

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  8. Hi Laura,
    Holy cow! Way to get up early and get out on a great run:) PR...bonus!

    Thanks for the review on the Mule Bars, I will have to try these soon. They look great...Mmmm!

    Have a fantastic week and take care!

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  9. Way to go on the mile pb!

    400m on the track is once round on the inside lane. So if you had to move out to go round others, then that might explain the difference in distances? Sat Nav is never entirely accurate though -- go with the track rather than the watch I say.

    ps - love the pizza :-)

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  10. Thanks Laura!

    The track here is expensive too, I would use it so much more if it was cheaper.. I really can't fathom why they charge what they do for it!

    Rob that does sound intimidating!

    Thanks Heather, Misszippy, Lacey, Karyn and Julie :-)

    Luckily I had the inside lane to myself Alison, I was just concious of them all being faster than me on the other lanes!!

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  11. Wow! Looks yummy. Want to try it all! :D
    ~ brooks running ~

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  12. Cool I've never tried Mule bars before. I'll have to keep an eye out for them!

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