Firstly, thank you for all your kind words about Sunday’s half marathon. It made my day I’ve literally been floating along with happiness since then. What was also nice was everyone at work was so lovely about it and there was a lot of banter as there were about four other guys from work who did it too (I beat all but one! One guy did it in 1hour 36mins wowza).
This week has been crazy busy. And what makes it worse is I think I’m one day ahead…Friday is going to be painful. Because of the half marathon on Sunday it’s just skewed my perception of the week as the race took the entire day and I was so tired afterwards it didn’t feel like a proper weekend!
Anyway it’s Wednesday so we’re not too far off from the weekend. And it’s What I ate Wednesday link up.
I’ll show you a random selection of eats as it’s been a bit of a random week.
Breakfast is the standard oatmeal with almond milk. No changes there I’m afraid. Still as satisfying.
Lunch this week has been a mixture of my usual salads as I’ve missed them and they’re also so easy to throw together the night before (whereas my sandwiches don’t tend to be as nice if I make them the night before). I tend to make two lots of salads at the same time on Sunday night and then that means I can have a more relaxed mornings. Monday morning I was shattered and didn’t set my alarm till 7am which was heaven (usually I get up anywhere from 5.45 to 6.15am).
And with this I have a fruit salad with Greek yogurt and a Babybel.
But! This morning because I’m off to Cambridge (a two hour journey) a bit later for a FIFTEEN MINUTE presentation I didn’t know what was going to happen with lunch. I couldn’t realistically bring in a massive box of salad and I don’t know if I can buy lunch there or en route. And I’m not sure we’ll even get a proper time for lunch so I basically packed a stupid amount of snacks that I can discreetly eat at any point.
This is rye bread with peanut butter smeared onto it which I’ve sandwiched together. A bit more discreet than a ‘proper’ sandwich I hope…and I’ve got a Babybel, a packet of Snack a Jacks, an apple and these:
Which I got in my swag bag from the half marathon.
I think I’m sorted!! I hate not knowing what’s happening with lunch and like to be prepared.
Dinners have been a lot more interesting. On Monday night Ben and me had one of our usual easy go-to meals: salad with grilled halloumi. Normally I roast a lot of veggies to go with this to make it more filling (butternut squash, sweet potato, zucchini, peppers, etc.) But I had the leftovers from that side salad I had at Jamie’s Italian on Sunday that needed using up.
It’s basically bulgur wheat and quinoa mix. Ben looked extremely sceptical about it. I had to convince him it was basically like couscous. And…he loved it! In fact he’s requested I attempt to recreate it. Win!
Last night I tried my hand at moussaka again (which I got wrong in the previous post by saying moussaka is usually made with pasta – it’s actually potato. Apologies, I should have done my research!)
This time though as I wanted a more quick mid-week meal, I left out the eggplant as that’s what took ages last time (salting, frying etc.). I basically just fried a small onion, lean beef mince, crumbled in a beef stock cube, added Worcestershire sauce, passata and herbs and let it reduce a bit while I made the top sauce. This was using one egg, a good few dollops of Greek yogurt and a tablespoon of parmesan. I put the mince mixture in an oven dish and poured the sauce on top and then grilled for about 10 mins. Perfect!
I did miss the eggplant but it was still very yummy and definitely filled me up nicely.
In terms of running. My legs have been aching hugely since Sunday. I was hobbling like an old lady on Monday. On Tuesday though I thought I’d venture out for a very easy run just to shake myself out. Plus, I am pleased to say that Ben has been inspired to get back into running! So we went out together and I stuck with him the entire time to force myself from not trying to go too fast (though I doubt I could have as it was so tough). So we kept at a nice 10min/mile pace for 3 miles.
Ben has decided to give up alcohol for the next 8 weeks and to get back into running as we’ve both signed up for a 10k race in May (in 8 weeks time). I’m so proud of him! It’ll be lovely to do a race together as it’ll be nice to talk to someone after the race specifically about different parts that you know they’ll have experienced, you know?
My next run will be tomorrow and I’m just going to see how I feel. I don’t want to push myself and be silly as I need to recover properly, but at the same time I’m desperate to get back out and run again. So easy pace, no more than 5 miles.
And that’s all I’ve got. Like I said, it’s all a bit busy and crazy with work which isn’t ideal as I just wanted an easy week this week! But such is life.
Hope you have a great week!
Do you run/workout with your partner?
What do you do if you don’t know what’s happening with lunch at work? I think I’ve over-prepared!
I definitely don’t work out with James other than the odd walk – he doesn’t really do exercise although I think if we had bikes he would! Hope your legs feel back to normal soon 🙂
Yeah Ben was very much the same until his new health kick, bless him.
That is lovely that you are doing a race together- normally Andy does the same races as me, but faster, so we can have a chat at the end about how we found it- in the summer I might manage to keep up with him though, who knows!
I think I will probably not run with Ben for the actual race as I will be faster but it’ll be nice to talk about the race afterwards.
Ok first of all: “so I basically packed a stupid amount of snacks” had me laughing out loud. That is so something I would do too when I’m traveling or not sure what my day will be like. Too funny!
And I wish Matt would run/workout with me more. He’s speedy like you though, ran track and cross-country in HS and used to run a 5k in 19 minutes. So yea, I dunno that he’d want to run with me! But when the weather gets nicer I’m hoping we can go on some hikes or something else active together!
I so over-prepared as well on the snack front…we just went and bought lunch, whoops.
Woah 19mins 5k, that’s super speedy!
Hikes sound great – I wish we had hikinig locations close to us but it would mean journeying more north to like the Peak District or Scotland.
hahaha I love your snack instead of a ‘proper’ sandwich!
It pretty nuch was a sandiwch I guess but just a mini version hehe.
I see peas on that salad, which automatically makes it a winner! 😉
Haha yes peas in a salad, or anything really, does make it that extra yummy.
Good for Ben!! That is so awesome 🙂 It’s funny you have to slow down for his pace; Fabio has to slow down for me! Haha! Boys…
I’m sure if Ben carries on training he’ll get faster than me and then we’ll have a nice bit of competition going on hehe.