Easter Weekend Blog Update

The Easter Weekend provided a good opportunity for some training as well as the traditional chance to stuff my face with chocolate. 

I trained in some way or another on everyday getting my Ambitious April campaign off to to a great start. I incorporated running as well as my 30 day fitness ab crunch challenge.

On Good Friday after a good treadmill interval session on Thursday I didn't run but did a quick early morning circuit of ab crunches, squats and press ups before heading off to visit family.

On Saturday I was up bright and early to venture into East London for Hackney Marshes Parkrun. Linking up fellow asics 26.2 bootcamper Chris Brammer we enjoyed a good run on a crisp morning. Chris is on the verge of running two marathons in three weeks, Paris on April 12th and London on April 26th. His superior fitness levels helped push me round to a time of 22.59. I was really pleased to duck under 23 minutes and this was really down to Chris's pacing as left on my own I think I would have struggled to get under 24 minutes. 

Pictures courtesy of Hackney Marshes Parkrun facebook page

So a big thanks to Chris for his supportive pacing and the coffee and pain au chocolat afterwards! Hes looking in good shape, running so effortlessly and hes talking in a very positive way so I am confident he will go well below his sub4 hour marathon target.

I would recommend Hackney Marshes Parkrun as a great run with equally friendly runners and course. The course is beautifully flat out and back course withe real PB potential and I will definitely be coming back in a few weeks to try to take a good chunk of time off my PB.

This run also saw me debut my newly purchased calf guards. I am continuing to struggle dreadfully with pretty severe pain and tightness in my calves and these are just another step in trying to counter this ongoing problem. I will be honest and say I didn't notice any real benefit but I was quick to take them off after my run and will be keeping them on longer post run to aid with my recovery.

Sunday morning I was also out early for a pre Chocolate Egg binge run. I did an hours run down and back to the newly redeveloped Raphael's park. To be honest the first twenty to thirty minutes were agony in my calves deapite my calf guards. I perserved though and completed the tun just aiming for a slow and steady pace, I probably covered around 11K in the hour period. I then finiahed off with a few strides to try to continue to work on my speed.

Monday was eventful in terms of running gor several reasons.

Firstly it was a run to break in my shiny new trainers! A brand new pair of New Balance 680's.

Secondly I entered Hackney Half Marathon on the 10th May where I am planning to launch a serious attack on my PB.  

Thirdly I confirmed with myself that eating loads of chocolate and gorging on cake and rich food on Sunday before even more chocolate before heading off running on Sunday would not make for a very good run! I ended up walking at least half but it was fine as It was really about wearing in my new trainers which I did over a period of around 35 minutes.

So ambitious April has got off to a great start, new trainers purchase and another Half Marathon less than six weeks away, here is to an exciting few weeks ahead! 

Post marathon eating binge

After a marathon you are meant to eat loads right?

Firstly to replace all the calories you have burned and to refuel your body with all the nutrients it needs to recover from its exertions.

Secondly to reward yourself for all the hard work during the actual marathon and all the efforts of training. 

I know using food, especially bad junk type food as a reward is not a healthy mindset but hey we all do it, right?! 

To be honest following this latest marathon I haven't had a massive appetite. Directly after running I felt empty and quickly consumed some water, a lucozade and a mars bar from my race goodie bag along with a tortilla wrap. But other than that I didn't feel hungry and writing this article three days on I still haven't had a huge hunger. 

Come an hour or two later I still didn't feel that hungry. Not really knowing what I wanted to eat only knowing I should eat we headed to wetherspoons as I knew they at least provided a wide range of food options, my selection was a Mexican chicken burger and two pints of cool refreshing cider.

To be honest I struggled to finish! It wasn't the greatest burger but was perfectly edible and wetherspoon chips are a personal favourite but I just couldn't really manage it all.

I know your body including your stomach takes an absolute hammering during a marathon and its not easy for your stomach to recover from all the sickly sugary energy gels and lucozades.

Later on in the evening I tucked into a few sweet treats, again not through a sense of need or hunger but from a sense of reward and entitlement.

What the old marketing phrase? A finger of fudge is just enough to give the kids a treat? Or in my case a whole pack is just enough to give the marathon runner his chocolate fix!

My post marathon sugary eating binges are nothing new, after the Beachy Head Marathon last year I consumed pretty much an entire packet of a Marks & Spencer chocolate biscuit selection pack at around 4am in the morning after the run as I couldn't sleep and felt bored in my hotel room with only the biscuits to keep me entertained! 

Monday morning the day after the race I was sure I would feel ravenous after not eating that much on the day of the race so I eagerly looked forward to taking advantage of our hotels buffet breakfast.

I didn't really feel that hungry and to be honest didn't eat a crazy amount, my metabolism is definitely working overtime though as I didn't feel stuffed or bloated at all and my stomach soon felt emptish again.

Tuesday and back at work I treated myself to a Japanese curry as a nice break from my training staple of brown rice or potatoes. 

I then carried on the chocolate eating with a pack of 'family sized' twirl bites. 

I blame supermarkets for providing these snacks at such a cheap price and the advertising them as soon as you walk into the store!

After an intense training programme I think its important to let yourself go for a few days and just eat whatever as its hard to sustain complete healthy eating for longer periods. In my case its necessary to have a few 'cheat' days with another event coming up so quickly so I can get eating bad foods out of my system before I refocus on a healthy diet again.

Thanks for reading, what do you like to eat after a long run? Any favourite cheat foods or weird urges you love to eat after running?

Tiredness, new trainers and Banana cake

Yesterday I wasn't sure what kind of training to do, I tried to listen to my body but had no idea what my body was trying to tell me. On the one hand it felt good and ready to run and on the other hand it felt lethargic and good for nothing.

I headed out for run with a very loose plan just to see how I got on...

I did a gentle ish 5km and felt OK, I felt how I should at this stage in marathon training running a gentle 5km, good with plenty of energy to run more. My legs still didn't feel quite right though.

I wanted to do some speed work as I have neglected this a bit in recent weeks.

I did 5 x 50m sprints at around 80% followed by 50m recovery jogs.

Not a lot of energy in the tank but not too bad.

So I repeated again and I very quickly ran out of steam.

A gentle 3km jog home left my legs feeling wooden and tired, I am not sure what  to put my lethargy down to, I have trained well followed the same warm up and cool down routines, I am eating plenty of good carbs and protein, plenty of fruit and veg and I am sleeping well and in a good routine. 

All I can do is look after myself and try and listen to my body and then act accordingly.

Yesterday was the first run in my newly purchased trainers, Asics GT 3000.

My initial feedback on them is not great as I am not that comfortable with them in comparison to my previous pair which were Asics GT 2000.

I am planning to write up a review of both trainers and a comparison between the two types.

Post run I cooked up a multi veg stir fry which looked so amazingly colourful cooking in my wok but the photo below doesn't really capture the vibrant colour properly!

I also baked myself a new cake recipe that I recently found courtesy of lissyruns.com you can find the recipe here Dark Chocolate Banana cake.

All I can say is it is an amazingly magical mix of chocolately banana gooeyness which is just awesome! It is so easy to bake and will be providing me with a sweet snack treat for the week ahead.

Post run snack foodporn

Soon after I finished my marathon on Sunday I started upon the important job of refueling.

Feeling ravenous and eager to fuel my muscle with much needed calories and nutrients I quickly consumed what food I had within reach.

My post race meal consisted of:

A tortilla wrap I had packed to bring with me as an easy way to replenish on carbohydrates.

A banana, the trusted runners friend so versatile to provide a tasty shot of energy and carbohydrates either pre or post run.

Last but not least a Mars bar which was part of the post race goody bag. Having given up chocolate and sweet sugary foods in the several weeks building up to the marathon combined with the urgent desire for great tasting calories high in sugar that Mars bar tasted Amazing!

So in those few moments an idea was formed....

Why not combine the three ingredients into one awesome post run snack?

So that is exactly what I did last night after my run:

One tortilla wrap:

Add one banana:

Mash up said banana:

Add the Mars bar, I only had mini ones so decided to use three:

Pop in the microwave for a bit, I opted for 45 seconds which did the job nicely:

Then wrap up into a kind of burrito shape:

Then eat and enjoy!

The verdict:

It was everything I had hoped for! Melted gooey chocately goodness with the fruit banana flavour all combined in a warm sticky mess. OK not the ideal snack if you haven't got a sweet tooth or don't like sickly desserts but for me it worked out perfectly!

I have for a while been trying to think up some ingredients so a sweet desert based burrito and I think this idea could form the basis of my plan. I just need to finalize a few more ideas for what to add, I need a few extra flavours going on and something with a bit more bite and crunch. If you have any ideas or if you have done something similar I would love to hear! 

Nutritional information:

For the health conscious among you or just for your general information this is how this snack stacks up:

                      Wrap - 180 calories - 34g carbs
                      Banana - 100 calories - 25g carbs
                      Mars bars - 240 calories - 39g carbs 

Happy Pancake Day!

I have never really liked traditional pancakes with the usual toppings of lemon and sugar so I thought I should try creating my own more tastier alternative. 

I always felt pancakes lacked enough chocolately goodness to really be indulgent and the big blow out before lent they were supposed to be. So I have made something more to my tastes using jaffa cakes and lots of melted chocolate, now that's more like it......