Goody Good Sweets

Check out the goodies Goody Good Stuff sent me! Vegetarian and vegan gummies!! The one and only thing I miss since going vegetarian is gummy sweets! There are some out there but they aren't that great. When I heard there was a new sweet on the market I was very excited to try it. There are eight varieties, I've tried 4 so far. There are 4 sour varieties which are all vegan and 4 gummy varieties which are vegetarian.

The sours

The gummies

The strawberry cream flavour were yummy, the texture was as close to a gelatine sweet as I've tried!


Loved these! There were different flavours and they really reminded me of haribo tangfastic sweets or sour patch kids, yum!


The peach sweets had a great peach taste, scrummy!



These were what I was waiting for, I never thought I would ever get to eat a cherry sweet again! YUM! Absolutely loved these, they were always my favourite :-)

My little selection, yummy!

I really loved the sweets, they are all natural flavours and colours. Only downside is the sugar in them, I wouldn't want to eat to many for the sake of my teeth! It will be hard not to though!

Disclaimer: Whilst Goody Good Stuff sent me the sweets to try for free I have not been paid for this review and my opinions are honest.

My sore throat did not turn into tonsillitis! Hurrah! It's just a (bad) cold, I've never been happier to have a cold though haha. I would have been worried if it had been tonsillitis again! I've been feeling pretty poorly with a cold and haven't done any training since Sunday :-( So annoying but I'd rather wait until it's clear as otherwise I know I'll be out for even longer.

Given that I haven't been training I didn't really have much interesting to say! We might have some really exciting news soon but I don't want to share it yet in case it all goes wrong! I'm scared to jinx us!

Just before I dash off check out this wonderful, and very generous giveaway over on Anne Marie's blog Goals for the Week! She's giving away a gift certificate for Athleta worth $150!

For Luke at The Super Fatlete, here's my favourite running book!

Density Day

I'm embarrassed to post my weekly totals this week.. I know I was off running but what is up with them..! I hope these dodgy numbers help kick my bum into gear for next week!

Miles - 4
Gymnastics - 1
Boxing - 1
Core - 1

Today I did a bodyweight strength density session, as many reps as possible in 20 minutes, I'm happy to say I wooped my last attempt! Last times numbers in brackets.

Push-ups - 40 (27)
Chin-ups (some reps are negatives) - 10 (6+37s hold)
Frog stand - 65s (36s)
Chair dips - 75 (43)

I'm amazed I even beat my last time's numbers as I'm feeling pretty rubbish today, I feel like I've got yet another throat infection coming along.. If I do it will be the third in less than three months, the last two have put me out of action for almost two weeks a time so I really, really hope this is a false alarm and these itchy sore tonsils are back to normal tomorrow. If not I guess I'm going to have to go to the docs again and see what they say, booo :-( Anyone got any advice on avoiding throat infections? I've heard to change my toothbrush so once this one goes I'm going to use a new one. I hope it's something as simple as that!

We went to my mum and dad's for a barbeque today, I ate inside with Mike though as we brought Roxie who thought it would be fun to try and eat all of mum's prized flowers! Eeeek! I forgot to snap a pic until part way through my plate but I had some tofu and vegetable skewers, a nutburger, salad, coleslaw a couple of quorn goujons and a potato waffle... sooooo full!

Before I go to watch the rest of Anchorman here's a few of Roxie's latest pics :-)
I might be a teensy bit biased but I think she has the prettiest eyes I've ever seen!
See you all tomorrow, hopefully without a nasty throat! Cross your fingers for me please!!

Farm Shop and Cafe

As some of you might have read on twitter my mum took me, mike, my gran and my grandad out to lunch today to celebrate my new job! We went to a farm shop/cafe which boasted locally sourced produce.

This was near our table, looks like someone composed it for the cafe, had to take a pic even though I couldn't get the right angle... well not without climbing on the table and I have a feeling that would have been frowned upon...

I got the mozarella and tomato sandwhich with basil, unfortunately the bread was buttered, I can't stand buttered bread, or buttered anything, I think it stems back to primary school dinners where they spread it on super thick! I didn't ask for it not to be buttered as I didn't expect it to come buttered so I did my best to wipe it off with my napkin... probably looking a little loopy in the process but who cares!
Here's a close up, I wish there had been more basil, I love fresh basil! All the salad andstuff was locally grown and available to buy in the shop which was cool.
Mike had a cheese and mushroom omelette with local free range eggs.
The only picture of me... I don't know why I pull silly faces in front of the camera... I'm drinking scrummy green tea, I love green tea with meals. I liked the cake painting on the wall too however I couldn't snap a pic of it without sitting on someone's knee so that's all I got hehe

The outside was really nice too, they have little holiday lodges for sale, Mike and I both agreed we could easily have lived in one!
Mum, gran and grandad outside the cafe, isn't it cute!
I love wooden buildings!

We had a really nice time! Afterwards we dropped the boys off and had a girly shopping trip, I didn't really buy anything but it was fun!

I ended up taking a rest day today, we had a bit of a stressful night last night, I don't really want to go into details on the blog in case anyone stumbles accross it who I wouldn't want to read it.. Plus I don't want to be all doom and gloom! But anyway we were both a bit tired and stressed and decided to take a rest.

Before I go runners, get yourself over to Teammarcia's blog for a fantastic giveaway!

Fun Run

After being tired and having a slight pulled muscle I had a few days off running. It was good to be back today though! I also enjoyed not having a plan to follow for once, not having a set pace or distance and not having to worry. Don't get me wrong, I love following a plan, and I love the challenge it provides but sometimes it can be a bit overwhelming, especially when things don't work out to plan, as they so often don't! The 10k plan I'm following at the moment is very focussed on speed, which is great as I want to get faster. But today I enjoyed just running, no looking at my pace on the garmin, no feeling crappy that I wasn't running sub 9 min/miles, just running along and enjoying the scenery and the me time. I found a new route too with more hills than usual which is awesome as I want to include more hill work, good all round!

I ended up covering 4 miles in 39.09, average pace of 9.47
Mile 1 - 9.59
Mile 2 - 10.02 (biggest hill)
Mile 3 - 9.28 (longest downhill)
Mile 4 - 9.39

I wanted something sweet today and didn't have anything in the house that I fancied, cue kitchen experiments! Chocolate and vanilla tofu mousse is born! I don't really have a proper recipe cause I just threw it all in and hoped for the best, but I'll give you a rough idea... First blend up some silken tofu.
While your blending your tofu mix up some vanilla custard and try not to do what I did and forget about it while your melting the chocolate.... Ooops!
Melt the chocolate over a bain marie and mix all three together (custard, choc, tofu)
Drizzle with some melted chocolate if you're feeling fancy and then set in the fridge.
They turned out really nice, even Mike liked them, and that's saying something cause his sweet tooth is non-existant!
Ok, off to watch the film we tried to watch the other night.. I fell asleep.. I'm so predictable! Better luck tonight perhaps...

Greek Salad

Tia would much rather wear the feather boa toy I bought her than play with it.... I bought her a new toy as she seemed to like feathers before but since we had her spayed all she wants to do is eat! She is not interested in any of her toys... I try in vain to get her interested in chasing things hehe
I made a yummy lunch today so I had to share it it was a mish-mash of greek salad and a nicoise salad minus the tuna and the eggs.. so mainly a greek salad with new potatoes I guess hehe
It was so dull today I was trying desperately to find some light... The sink was my best option haha

I started with mixed baby leaves, chopped cucumber, local tomatoes (from Mike's auntie's garden), and green stuffed olives.. then I boiled some new potatoes and dressed them in salad cream while they were still warm. I tossed them all together with some crumbled feta cheese. Yummm! I didn't need any dressing as there was so much flavour from the potatoes and cheese :-)

We did some gymnastics today... I still can't do a handstand but I'm still trying haha... one day, one day! We did all the usuals too l-sit progressions, frog stand, back lever progressions. With the gymnastics stuff it's really wierd, sometimes I feel like I'm really progressing and sometimes I feel like my body's completely forgotten what it's supposed to do... Today was one of the latter days... My frog stand was more like a frog flop and don't get me started on the dreaded handstand! I must look so funny when I'm doing all the moves hehe Mike takes to it so naturally and I'm so clumsy.. I will get there though!

I think my leg will be good for a run tomorrow! I can't wait! Not sure what I'm going to do yet, maybe 4-5 miles at an easy pace, more if I feel good, less if I don't!

Hope everyone's had a good day :-)

It's All in the Head...

My leg was still feeling a bit iffy today so I decided to hold out on the running a bit longer. I hope it clears up soon, I definately must be injury prone! Mike's not running this week either as his legs are not great so we did a boxing workout instead.

10 x 1 minute rounds/1 minute rest

Although you get the same rest time as work time it just means you have to work harder in the work time! We're pretty tied to doing workouts where the rest time is the same as the work time or where we incorporate another exercise into our boxing workouts as we usually do them together and we only have one bag up! On the last round Mike said to me imagine you have to beat someone to save me cause I'm in danger.... The bag never stood a chance ;-)

After we'd done the boxing we did about 20 minutes of core work which got me thinking. Do I really need to quit when I think I do? I mean yeah it hurts but when I think I can't do any more is that really the case? I always think I can't carry on but if I really, really had to I'm sure I could push through the pain.. It's all mental isn't it!

Well it's just a quick post today.. Going to see if I can keep my eyes open long enough to watch a film... It's probably a no!

Bloggy Award

I can't remember if I mentioned the job interviews I was having last week and this week for some care homes.. I found out about both of them today, I actually got offered both of the jobs! I couldn't believe it. I've taken the one which is closest to my house and seems to be better experience for mental health nursing. I'm really looking forward to starting, I'm a little nervous of course, but in a good way!

I didn't do any running today, I was supposed to be meeting my mentee for a jog but she didn't show up and didn't answer her phone.. I hope she's ok. It worked best for me in a way because I've pulled a muscle in my right calf I think.. It might be just sore I'm not sure, all I know is it hurts to walk so running wasn't a good idea really, I was glad to rest it in the end. Fingers crossed I can run tomorrow, I've decided to have a light running week this week to give my legs a bit of recovery, Mike is doing the same, we both feel like our legs are a bit battered! We'll be back on the programme next week.

Laura @ Keeping Slim and Getting Stylish and Neen @ Broad Bean to Runner Bean both kindly gave me this award :-)
Here are the rules:

• Thank the person who gave you the award.
• Share seven things about yourself.
• Nominate fifteen newly discovered blogs.
• Let your nominees know about the award.

1. I love Disney, my family used to go on holiday to Florida every year and I have very fond memories of the place.
   
2. I have tattoos on each hip, my back and shoulder, I'll probably get more!
   
3. One day Mike and I would like to open a safe house for people with mental health difficulties where we have an office and the residents have their own rooms and independance but lots of support.
   
4. We'd also love that house to have a room spare so if people were stuck for a night we could help them.
   
5. I'd also love to be able to have a home for animals in need, I wish I had loads of money so I could just do voluntary work for the rest of my life!
   
6. When I was about 16 I considered becoming a body piercer and actually worked in a body piercing shop but never pierced anyone, I just sold jewellery and greeted people.
   
7. I want to move to Germany one day, or maybe America, or maybe both, at different times of course!
   

I nominate...
Zupakat
Cazza
Happy @ Thirty
Becky
Fitness and Cake
Running Slim
Kat
Amy
Gluten Free Tries Vegan

They might not be new blogs but they're new to me!

8 miles

Hope everyone has had a great weekend! Mine and Mike's was fun, we just got home from a barbeque at my mum and dad's.. Unfortunately dizzy me forgot my camera but the food was lovely, we had tofu and vegetable skewers, nut burgers, bean burgers lots of salad, yum! I might get some pics of the leftover skewers tomorrow, if they're still photogenic that is.

Yesterday I did 8 miles at long tempo pace, my target pace 8.53, ended up 8.56 for a total time 1.11.24. Not exactly as fast as it should have been but not far off, I'll take it!

The times in brackets are the times I had intended to run each mile in. On long runs I tend to do one on pace, one slower and one faster giving me some recovery time. It seems to help me keep pace better, it didn't go exactly to plan on this run, I think the hills in it slowed me down more than I'd expected but I'm glad I did the route I did cause the hills are good training!

Mile 1 - 8.55 (8.53)
Mile 2 - 9.18 (9.23)
Mile 3 - 8.39 (8.23)
Mile 4 - 9.08 (9.23)
Mile 5 - 9.07 (8.53)
Mile 6 - 9.24 (8.23)
Mile 7 - 8.19 (8.53)
Mile 8 - 8.34 (8.53)

This 10k plan from Run Less Run Faster is really hard work! It seems a lot more intensive than the half marathon plan in the book but I love it. It's really pushing me to my limits and I feel like I'll be a lot stronger runner when I make it to the end of it.

Weekly Totals
Miles - 16
Gymnastics - 2 - I did some on Friday but I forgot to blog about it!

Can any UK bloggers get in touch with me please.. I'm trying to figure out how many UK healthy living bloggers are around. Also if you know of any UK blogs can you pop a link in my comment box so I can go check them out... I'm hatching a masterplan ;-)

Also I just signed up for this resource too, it's a directory of healthy living blogs, if you're interested go check it out and get yourself on there too! There's only one UK one on there so far and I know there are more of you!

Healthy Living Blogs is a new resource for the health blogging community. Created by Lindsey of Sound Eats, HLB is a site designed to enhance the positive community of the healthy living blog world. Bloggers and readers can explore the site and find more blogs to love, bloggers in their area, and forums to deepen healthy discussion and support. If you're interested in having your site listed on HLB, simply send the following information to healthylivingblogs@gmail.com and check the site out for yourself!

• Email subject line: MEMBERS

• Your name (please share if you prefer to go by first name, first and last, or however you prefer to be known on the Internet)

• Blog Name

• Blog URL (please start with http://, not www.)

• Your twitter handle, if applicable

• Your location (if you prefer not to disclose this information for privacy's sake, that is completely understandable. We'll simply include your blog listing in the A-Z listing, not by location, too)

• Any specific labels (i.e. vegan, gluten-free, weight loss, running, etc.)

A 6 Mile Stitch

But first, The Deep! Yesterday we went to the Deep with some of Mike's family, it's a pretty cool ocean life museam kind of like a small seaworld but all inside.

The Architecture
(those horrible looking clouds did indeed soak us on the way out)

An ugly fish... I'm not sure what sort!

Luminous jelly fish

Sharks

Nemo! They were so cute!

Now, on to the running!

6 mile tempo
1 mile easy, 4 miles mid tempo (8.38), 1 mile slow

My Plan
1 mile @ just under 10 minute pace
8.48
8.42
8.34
8.28
1 mile @ just under 10 minute pace

What I did
6 miles in 53.31 average pace 8.55
Mile 1 - 10.00
Mile 2 - 8.48
Mile 3 - 8.24
Mile 4 - 8.37
Mile 5 - 8.37
Mile 6 - 9.02

Why I didn't stick to the plan...
It's all well and good having plans, and I love making plans! But in running and training sometimes your body just wants something else! In the first mile I got a stitch almost straight away, this is really wierd, I never get stitches. I putt it down to the fact I'm running after a day out where I didn't plan my food or drink well. I know I was dehydrated before I left the door but it was too late to remedy, I also felt pretty full but I didn't want to put the run off any longer as we hadn't seen Roxie much all day and we wanted to spend the evening with her.

I took mile 1 slightly slower and paused at one point to try and get rid of the stitch, it soon became evident that the stitch was there to stay! I felt really defeated in mile 2 thinking I'm never going to hit pace with this stitch.. grump, grump, grump... However, just before mile 3 it dawned on me, the stitch was there to stay no matter what pace, and the faster I went the faster I'd get home and could stop running! Subsequently mile 3 felt strong and although I'd intended to go for negative splits I decided to just go with it! I pulled back a little for miles 4 and 5 aiming for pace of 8.38 and hit just under. Overall I got slightly faster than the mid-tempo pace. That just shows what the mind can do, if I'd stayed being all defeatist I'm pretty sure I would not have hit my time. My cool down mile was a bit fast too... I just wanted to be home!

Running is such a mental game sometimes, that's one of the reasons I love it!

Hope everyone's had a good week, mine's been pretty productive! I've bagged myself two job interviews and some more voluntary work. The job interviews are for working at care homes and the voluntary work will be on an acute psychiatric ward. All will be great experience for my application for mental health nursing. I will get on that course! I got feedback from my interview, apparently only 2 people from my group got on!! You had to get full marks on the interview and I was a few short, it was really competetive just to get an interview as they had a 300% increase in applicants... The lady I spoke to said I probably would have got on last year so that was kind fo comforting, at least it wasn't me, it was just that some were better. I also feel better for next year knowing they do think I'm capable. It just means a bit of waiting, but so long as it all comes together eventually what's a year?

Hilly Intervals

I'm not sure how it happened, apparently it was my idea, but, in a moment of madness we ran our intervals on a hill today. This felt like the toughest workout ever. I really wanted to go run my second repeat somewhere flat but I sucked it up! It's surprising how fast your lungs recover, the worst thing was the mile jog back down the hill as we knew exactly what was waiting for us at the bottom! My flat mile time for intervals should be 7.50, I couldn't do that on the hill (+144 climb) but I wasn't tooooo far off;

Mile 1 - 8.07
1 mile recovery
Mile 2 - 8.05

I can't believe I did the second one faster! Mike was a total speed demon, his target pace was 6.01 and he ran both intervals in 5.59! I don't know how he does it! We also did just over a quarter mile warm up for a total of 3.3 miles, we were both wiped out afterwards. It was a great workout though and I'm sure it will have been great for my legs, as soon as I've forgotten how awful it felt I'll be doing it again for sure!

Anyway I'm going to keep it short and sweet tonight as I'm not very awake anymore.. Just went downstairs to feed the cat and forgot to feed the cat... She's been fed now! Before I go head on over to read my story on (never home)maker. I'm really chuffed to be featured on such a great blog!

Killer Boxing Finisher

We did some gymnastics today, all the usual moves! I seem to be one step forward two steps back with the gymnastics stuff, it's hard! But it's getting there, even if it's slowly!

Handstand
L-sit progressions
Frog stand
Back lever progressions

The handstands are still being done by climbing up against the wall, I added some small push-up movements in this time though :-) I hope I stop getting so dizzy soon!! Slightly terrified of falling on my head as I get dizzy almost straight away.. I think I'm just a big wimp really!

We did a boxing finisher afterwards, 10 minutes of 30s high intensity/30s rest, it was hard but good hehe! The last 30s I punched constantly as hard as I could then flopped on the floor as soon as the buzzer went, I was so glad for it to be over haha! It's great because 30s is just short enough to work at a really intense rate but the 30s recovery gets harder and harder everytime so you really feel like you're getting a good bit of work done in a really short space of time.

I think I mentioned the ginger cat who visits our garden, he/she came again tonight and I snapped a picture, isn't he adorable (I'm going to call it he as it has a blue collar on and I think it's a boy..)!

I am slightly worried though, he seems to play with Tia and they have seemed playful and stuff the past times he's been in but today I'm not sure if he was chasing her too much, at one point she ran out and I don't want him to be scaring her out of the garden.. I'm not sure what to do, I don't want to chase away a play mate but I don't want her to feel pushed out of her space.. I'll have to keep an eye on it! - If anyone has any suggestions or similar experiences I'd appreciate hearing about them :-)

Here's some of Roxie growing too, here she is today at the park and...

Totally worn out!

Now that picture is what I feel like now, I sense an early night coming!

It's Been a While..

I never seem to post on here when I've not been training, and I was still feeling a bit rough after my intervals I haven't done much this week, training anyway! Been fairly busy otherwise! I did a talk at SEED, the ed group on Wednesday about my recovery. I was pretty nervous but it seemed to help the people there and they were really grateful that I'd talked about my experience and that made it so worth doing. I also found out about a conference on treating ED's and I'm thinking about going, if I do get on the mental health nursing course I would really love to specialise in eating disorders and that is likely an area I would do my dissertation on so it could be really useful, but it's over 100 pounds which is a lot of money to me at the moment.. Not sure if it's worth it...

On Friday I was supposed to do my 7 mile tempo run... let's rewind to Thursday night.... We went to one of our old student haunts as Mike's grandad was doing a poetry reading there and after he went home we got rather drunk.... All night I was still doing the tempo run but come Friday, I wasn't doing the tempo run, I haven't got drunk in a looooooooooooong time and I felt rough as anything! I did manage something though - just!

10 DB woodchoppers
10 DB squats
5 push-ups
30 lateral jumps

x 8 rounds in 12 minutes

Not nearly a tempo run but better than nothing! I still got my tempo in, I did it today, I normally take Saturday as a rest day but I've had plenty of rest this week and the week wasn't going by without my tempo!

Tempo Run
1 mile warm up (10.02)
2 miles short tempo (8.33, 8.12)
1 mile easy (10.53)
2 miles short tempo (8.36, 8.13)
1 mile cool down (9.58)

1.04.27 ave pace 9.13

Tempo runs are sooo hard! I can't believe how much effort they seem to take out of me, this felt a lot harder than my last 7 miler and that one was a fair bit faster than this one at 8.48 per mile.

I tried a go energy gel in the middle mile. Not a fan! I've never tried a gel before and I didn't like the taste... plus I'm not convinced it really helped me.. Anyone else from the uk had the go gels before? What do you think? I got it free in my half marathon packet but I don't think I'll get them again, I preferred the coconut water.

Weekly Totals
Miles - 10
Push-ups - 40

Hope everyone's enjoying the weekend!

Me and Intervals aren't Friends at the Moment..

I think I've been doomed so far with my favourite interval workouts!

• The first interval workout was foiled by a school sports day,
• The second we had planned on doing on a field but dead battery garmin lead to us swapping the run with our long run with the plan on doing our intervals later in the week, cue tonsillitis getting in the way.
• Today I had the third mishap as I couldn't finish my workout, or keep pace, I just felt dizzy and breathless and decided to stop after three 800's - I think this is still naughty tonsillitis foiling my plans!

So today I was looking forward to my 5 x 800m, as much as someone could anyway ;-) On the plan this week was 5 x 800 @ 3.47 with 400m RI. Here's what I did;

1 mile warm up 9.51
800m 3.41
800m 3.48
800m 3.51
1.5 mile walked cool down

3 miles in total, excluding the walking. Well, it's better than nothing - here's to a good interval session next week!

Weekly Totals, Monthly Recap and Roxie

Thanks for all the get well messages, I think they've been working cause I'm feeling much better! I thought I'd put my weekly totals up anyway cause I got a bit of work in before I was took down by the dreaded lurgy as my dad would say..

Weekly Totals
Miles - 7
Push-ups - 50
Chin-ups - 0
Pull-ups - 0
Neck exercises - 0
Isometric punches -0
Wrist curls -0
Core work - 0
Gymnastics - 1

I'm hoping to be back running tomorrow as although I'm still on antibiotics I think I'm ok to train again :-)

July Recap
Running
Complete half marathon (current 4 miles) Half marathon: done!
One mile in >7.30 (current 7.55) was 6.52 - New goal>6.30 if possible before the end of the year! Not tested this month.
Two miles in >15.30 minutes (current 16.23) 15.24 - new goal >15 not tested this month
5k in > 25.00 (current 25.08) not tested this month.
Four miles in >35 minutes (current 35.47) 34.49 during a 6 mile run! New goal > 34.30.
Five miles in > 43.00 (43.40)
10k in > 52.30 (current 52.56)

Monthly Totals - July
Miles 36
Push-ups - 169
Chin-ups - 7
Pull-ups - 0
Neck exercises - 0
Isometric punches -0
Wrist curls -0
Core work - 3
Gymnastics - 6

Now all my numbers are out of the way here's some Roxie pictures... We took her to the park yesterday and she loved running around. There's quite a few so this is the end if you don't want to look at them!





Her ear popped up for a second, it might have been the wind but she looked so cute we managed to get a picture :-)

Bathtime!

Let me out...!