So it’s the first day of June and is therefore the first day of Juneathon!!! I have decided to participate, as I enjoyed taking part in Janathon. Didn’t know what I was going to do today, after not feeling great during my Eltham Park 5 mile run yesterday.
I then decided I would attempt a run with my two small people, my Pink One is 5 years old and my Blue One is only 3 years old. They’ve always wanted to go for a run with mummy – so after collecting the Pink One from school, we came home and got ready to go. I didn’t know what I would be letting myself in for, this could’ve gone hideously wrong!
They actually did very well. I had planned a mile, which the Pink One would’ve coped with no problem, but was probably a bit optimistic for my Blue One bless him! We did short bursts of ‘running’ and the odd walk, at one point I had to carry the Blue One but couldn’t managed that for too long!
After run selfie with the small people!The time we took! Not bad with two little ones!The route we took!
Don’t forget I also got up this morning and touched my toes as well – which I tweeted this morning!
All in all not a bad start to Juneathon – how long will it last!?!
On the 2nd of January I got woken up by my then 2 year old Blue One saying “I want a Spider-Man party for my birthday” and this is what he continued to say for the next few weeks. So I planned and got everything ready, buying a Spider-Man party set from Amazon (table cloth, cups, plates and napkins). Ordered red paper party bags which I was going to decorate Spider-Man style and literally the week before his birthday, which is the 11th of February, we got begging of “I want a Sporkus (Sportacus from LazyTown) party…” cue tearful sobbing.
So with limited time left, what’s a mother to do? I’d already ordered and received everything, so rather than completely give into his demands which I didn’t agree with I compromised and made it a multi-hero themed party – i.e. I made the party bags Superman, Spider-Man and Sportacus.
I then redesigned the cake so it included both Spider-Man and Sportacus, below is the photo story of the development of this cake. I hope you enjoy it…
The theme of the cake was based on the Blue One’s Spider-Man trainers – and I took this and designed/drew my own Sportacus themed trainer.
Designing the Sportacus Trainer
The cakes were all dairy and wheat/gluten free as I am currently on a Low FODMAP diet and I can’t eat these things at the moment and after putting so much work into them – I wanted to be able to eat them!!! The cake was dairy and wheat/gluten free chocolate cake (I made three sheets) – each sheet made with 150g Dove’s plain flour mixed with 1tsp Dr Oetker’s baking powder which is gluten free, 50g cocoa powder and 50g melted Kinnerton chocolate – which is diary, gluten and nut free – with a splash of Alpro Soya milk and 200g of eggs – weight of eggs is with shells removed (approx 4 medium eggs – but yes I did weigh them).
The filling and crumb coat frosting was 500g Pure Sunflower spread (this has the lowest amount of salt and tastes the closest to buttercream made with unsalted butter), 500g icing sugar and 2 bars of melted dairy free kinnerton chocolate – yummy even if I do say so myself.
I had help, as always from my cake guru sister Sarah of Caking it, for which I am eternally grateful.
Thanks goes to the fotor.com website where I made my collages for free!
Any questions or comments gratefully received and thanks for looking!
Hope you all had fun bringing in the new year and are feeling good and positive for the new year ahead!
So today is the first day of 2015 and I managed to get up and out and go for a Parkrun!!!
Now my usual way of thinking is to look at all the negatives – so I could waffle on about how bad a run it was and how slow I went etc etc, but no one wants to read about me whinging and berating myself – there are people suffering a lot worse then a bad park run!!!
Instead, as a New Years resolution, I’m going to try and look for the silver linings in my efforts and not immediately dwell on what went wrong! So here are the silver linings…
1. I woke up!!! Big plus there in itself! I am relatively happy and healthy (give or take a few stomach issues!) and I was surrounded by my beautiful family – and I mean this literally as we stayed at my in-laws for New Years Eve and so the kids were asleep on a mattress on the floor next to us!!! Haha!!! 😄
2. This counts towards my first Janathon!!! Of which I am very proud to be a participate and I just hope I can do well. If you fancy giving yourself some motivation to get exercising this month – it’s not too late, you can still sign up until the 7th Jan! For more incentive, there are prizes to be won!!!
3. I wore my Stephen Amell F&@k Cancer T-shirt!!! Very cool T-shirt, bought for a worthy cause and I feel rather privileged to be wearing one! Stephen Amell is an amazing actor, charity supporter and father/husband – plus as an aside is in a fab series called Arrow. I am happily married women, but I think it’s always good to appreciate beautiful things… ;-P
F&@k Cancer T-Shirt
4. I cleaned my trainers – this may be a small thing, but I did bring home most of Avery Hill Park on the sole of my trainers, so it’s quite a plus that I’ve already done it! I’m sure my trainers would say ‘Thank You’ if they could!
Avery Hill Park on the sole of my trainers!!!
5. I saw my friend – Janathon’s Deputy Helen. It’s always lovely to see friend – especially one who is offering me so much support and encouragement at the moment! Can’t thank her enough!
6. I wrote this blog! Hoping to blog a bit more regularly – I’m not saying everyday, but at least once a week (if I can!) Also I’ve published it earlier than 11pm at night – which is a novelty for me!
7. I made it – despite the pain in my hip, slipping in the mud and considering bowing out after the 2nd lap – I finished! I didn’t give up!!! This is a good thing – and what I need to focus on and not that it was my worst Parkrun time so far – and also remember it was excessively muddy/slippery and I haven’t been running as often as I usually do due to a poorly November/December!
It really was muddy – More Evidence!!!
8. Also need to take into consideration it may be the 1st January – but it’s not the first exercise I’ve done this week! I managed 10.66km on Monday (walking & running) with my greatest motivator Helen and on Wednesday I walked quite a distance round High Elms with the family – occasionally carrying the Pink One and the Blue One (surely that counts as weight training!)
9. It’s all good preparation for my first official 10km run on the 18th Jan at the Olympic park (should’ve been Hyde Park, but there was a venue change!)
So feeling positive – I celebrated with a hot shower, a cup of tea and a yummy sarnie made by my fabulous hubby (and some chocolate)!!! I’m so rock ‘n’ roll!
Mmmmm, Yum! Yum!!!
Great start to the new year – so let’s try and keep up the positive thinking! Until next time, have a wonderful day!!! 😊 xxx
I was exceptionally lucky that my big brother had taken up running some time before me (actually for his Christmas present 2013 he requested, and I bought him a voucher to pay for a running course!) and gave me the good advice of getting a decent pair of trainers and how to go about it – if you get the wrong trainers it could put you off running before you’ve even properly started.
Not only did my lovely brother give me this great advice, but he also accompanied me to get my trainers – some of you may not have someone to go with you to get your trainers so this post is dedicated to you and I hope it helps!
The store we went to was the Run & Become store (http://www.runandbecome.com/Home) based in London near Victoria Station. Once we were there I was met by one of their lovely staff who gave me all her attention. I had to stand and then do an interesting squat, I presume, to see whether my ankles turn out and I’m sure other things. I was then given a pair of trainers, had to roll up my jeans so my ankles could be seen, fantastic look I can tell you, and asked to run a short distance up and down outside the store so she could see my running style – after which she bought out various trainers for me to try.
At this point in my running journey I was informed I needed a Neutral trainer – I was told I ran really naturally which I was very surprised at as I hadn’t run since school and I felt like I was running like Phoebe in Friends!!! I can see it now, legs and arms flailing!!!
I tried each pair of trainers on and then had to run again in each one to see which I found the most comfortable and the ones she thought I ran best in – I decided on a lovely pair of Brooks Ghosts, ironically my brother ended up with the male version of the same trainer that day too!
They cost me £105 – but were the most comfortable piece of footwear I have ever owned, I loved them immediately! Well worth every penny!
Check out the trainers – Brooke’s Ghosts
I then started my running using my Couch to 5k app – which I’ll blog about soon – about 8-9 weeks into my running I started to find I would get a pain on the inside of my left ankle when I was starting to running solidly for 20 minutes at time, then my right ankle got in on the act too, it hurt so much I’d have to walk, so my brother sensibly suggestion I pay another visit to Run and Become.
This is exactly what I did. This time we got to the shop a bit later so had to take number and wait to be called, but it was still very calm and my number was soon called and I was given the same amount of attention as before. I explained my situation and I was asked to do the same squat as the first time and was presented with a couple of pairs of trainers to try, this time I chose a pair of Saucony Guide 7s, which have an 8mm heel to toe offset, which to be honest I have no clue what that means, but I can honestly say the ache in my ankle started to disappear immediately.
Saucony Guide 7s – 8mm toe to heel offset
The amazing thing for me though was that Run and Become just exchanged my trainers – even though I’d used my initial trainers for 9 weeks. Though I have to admit at the time I felt quite emotional about handing over my first pair of running trainers, it was like saying “Goodbye” to an old friend and I did have some feelings of guilt of just leaving them behind, but I now love my Saucony’s
I highly recommend Run and Become – because if you buy your trainers from Amazon for example, you definitely wouldn’t get this level of customer service and be able to exchange your trainers after being worn, it’s worth the additional cost of going to a Running Shop to have this extra peace of mind.
I hope this post has helped someone else who is just starting out on their running adventure go about selecting their trainers – as you have to protect your gym equipment! 🙂 xxx
Jog on Mum 