2 down, 10 to go

Posted on April 14, 2013 by lindaharley

Second week of full-on training for the Lisburn half-marathon, and I successfully completed my 4 runs.

On Tuesday morning I did a quick half-hour before breakfast, and my time would’ve been better if I didnt have to cross a rush-hour traffic-laden road!  Ran 4.56km at a pace of 7.14 mins per km.

Thursday was a fasting day, but I still managed to run for 30 minutes on the treadmill at the Leisure centre.

Saturday was the 5km Wallace Parkrun, and having smashed my PB last week I didn’t know if I could match that this week.  I started off quickly, but after the second lap I was finding my breathing difficult, and I even slowed down to walk up the hill section on the final lap.  But I did shave a whole minute off last week’s time, and ran it in 31.15, an average pace of under 10 minutes a mile, which I never thought I’d achieve.

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For Sunday’s long run, I joined up 2 of the loops that radiate from the house.  I started with the Waterloo Road southern section, and came home via the Lagan tow-path.  This run was punctuated by many stops – Max-pee-stops, re-attaching my wayward iPod shuffle, and chatting with the viszla that lives round the corner.  It was a damp morning – you know what they say, there’s no such thing as bad weather, only badly dressed people?  Well, these were definitely the wrong trousers, Grommit.  Jersey is too absorbent a material to make running in the rain a pleasant experience.  Still, I did 10.29 km at an average pace of 7.10 mins per km, a total of 1 hour 13 mins.  Since I ran the Titanic Quarter 10 k last year in 1 hour 15, I’m pleased with this progress.  We shall see what next Sunday’s race brings!

 

This week’s fave running tracks have been

Spek – I’m a Hippie (but I got a tattoo)

The Smiths – What Difference Does it Make?

Thicke – Get You Alone

A big thank-you to the nice people at Just Giving – I’d stupidly managed to set up 2 pages, so they quickly helped me to delete the wrong one.  The right one is

www.justgiving.com/Linda-HarleyGillespie

and thank you to the generous donors to date.

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5and2: Hairy Dieters

Posted on April 14, 2013 by lindaharley

I managed to fast on Monday and Thursday this week, which is my ideal spacing of the 2 low days.

On Monday I had Scottish Dancing in the evening – having something to go to which requires me to drive is a great way to take my mind off fasting. I munched my way through half a bag of dulse during the day – that’s a local dried seaweed, which is full of mineral goodness but only about 20 calories per bag.  Must get some more of this for next week.   I defrosted a portion of my chicky-leeky soup as a quick meal before I went out.

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On Tuesday, even though it was a normal day, I tried one of the Hairy Dieters recipes – the parma wrapped cod on roast veg. Husband thought it delicious  and he’s keen to try other recipes from the book. It seems to be a great source of ideas when sharing meals with family. We went to see the guys at their stage show on Sunday, so I’d bought a signed copy of the book there.

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Thursday I took a different approach – I knew I’d be having a sandwich lunch through work, so I made myself a typical under 100 cal breakfast, and was amazed that I had a choice of several meals in mind for under 100 cals for dinner. I could have made a big fruit salad with melon, blueberries, grapefruit and pears. I could have used those zero noodles and done a tomato based sauce to go with. I had an aubergine which I could have turned into a sort of dip to eat with celery sticks. In the end, I went to the gym first, ran for 30 minutes without any problems, and wasn’t that hungry when I got home at 8. I made a small salad with half a tin of mushrooms, spinach leaves, 2 anchovies, 5 black olives and a splash of balsamic. Finished off the evening with 2 strawberries and an options hot chocolate, feeling really upbeat and positive. I might use this approach again in future, though it doesn’t get the “fasting” benefits.

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At the weekend I experimented with a low cal dessert recipe that was in the grauniad – lavender and banana ice-cream in parsnip tuile baskets. I had to hunt for lavender, but I got it in Sawers delicatessen eventually. As my daughter would comment “Mum, you always order the most random thing on the menu!” The ice cream bit was lovely – I always stick my over-ripe banananananas in the freezer, and they’re very easy to squish out of their skins and mix with a flavouring.  I’ll definitely be doing more of that.  But I didn’t get the tuile biscuits right, maybe the oven wasn’t hot enough.

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And since husband couldn’t believe that their were pies in the book, I made the Hairy Dieter’s chicken and ham tangle pie for Saturday dinner.  This was very tasty – full of flavoursome chunks of chicken, and I used a pack of ham hock from Sainsburys as the ham element.  I’m now poring over the mouthwatering photographs wondering which to try next!

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