Rants and Raves #22

I can’t believe how quickly October is flying by! It’s almost Halloween – I thought that was ages away until I realised I had a Halloween party this weekend and didn’t have a costume… Anyway, here are my latest rants and raves.

Rave: I forgot to mention in my post about my trip to Wales that I got ID’ed for entering one of the beer tents at the Food Festival!! This made my day. I’m only 27 so really this ins’t that big a feat but in my head I believe she thought I was under 18 😉 Bahaha!

Rant: Since realising how close Halloween actually is I’ve just bought a costume for parkrun. I have no idea if I will be able to actually wear it to run in though and I’m thinking it will be too cold to stand and marshal in. *Sighs* Well it’ll do for the Halloween party anyway on Saturday night so it’s not a complete waste… I also bought a (very cheap) costume for Alfie as well. “Costume” sounds quite elaborate, but it’s really more of a jumper. If I can’t run and wear my outfit then Alfie will be coming to parkrun again and will be wearing his. He doesn’t know it yet 😉 I reeeeeaaaalllllly wanted this one but they didn’t do his small doggie size.

Halloween dog costume

Plus I’m pretty sure he’d pack his little bags and leave if I attempted to put him in that (but how cute, seriously??).

Rave: These little chocolate cupcakes are so scrummy!

Salted caramel chocolate

I wish I’d bought more from the sweet shop in Wales. The salted caramel one was to die for.

Rant: DNS’ing the same races I’ve DNS’ed for the past two years. How weird is that? I’ve now been injured at this point in the year three years in a row. It’s getting a little silly now. I wouldn’t have signed up so far in advance but these are really popular local (and cheap) races. Who was I to know Bournemouth would cause me such an issue? (Probably every other sensible runner in the world who suspected I was running too many marathons too close together…).

I’m desperate to run the Gosport Half marathon (in a few weeks time) as it’s literally where my parents live and where I’ve done so many long runs before. It goes along the coast and has the view of the Isle of Wight, which is rather nice. But it seems this one, as with the Lordshill 10 mile this weekend, it’s not meant to be.

Rave: I’ve entered the Chester marathon for next autumn. I know, I know. So far away but it was cheaper to enter now than to wait and I like having things down in the diary.

Chester marathon

I was tempted to do Bournemouth again as it was such a disaster for me this year, but marathons aren’t like 5ks or 10ks that can just do at a drop of a hat and I want to do lots of different ones rather than revisit the same ones. Chester was voted as the UK’s number one road marathon by Runners’ World in 2012 and 2013 so should be good. I can also time it nicely with a trip to Shropshire with my grandparents and parents (that also means more parkrun tourism, wheee!).

But next year I will not cluster marathons together either and ensure I have proper breaks afterwards. Oh the wise words of an injured runner…

Rave: I signed up to Tribe Pack to test out their snack boxes.

Tribe Pack

The concept is like graze where you get a box of snacks delivered weekly/monthly/etc. and it’s a surprise what you get. The range of snacks include things like seeds, dried fruit, cereal/protein bars, etc. all made by Tribe. In a box you get two bars, two trail mixes, a ‘discover’ snack and a Tribe Life magazine. My box contained Tamari Seeds (sunflower, pumpkin,  hulled hemp and chia seeds and tamari), Tumba trail mix (pumpkin seeds, almonds, organic goji, toasted coconut), Organic Mountain Berries (sour cherry, raisin, goldenberry, goji, aronia, barberry & wild blueberry) and a Baobab bar (superfruit energy bar) and a Wild Apricot, Pecan & Lucuma bar.

Tribe

Use the referral code TRIBE42383 which will get you a pack like I got for £1 (I would also get my next Tribe Pack for free).

Rant: Still no running. I could go on and on (as you can imagine). I had an extremely deep and painful massage on Monday though which I’m still feeling the effects of so I really can’t judge. The person I saw said try in a week but I won’t unless it feels absolutely fine walking, which at the moment it (intermittently) doesn’t.

Rave: I’m hoping to see Spectre tonight. And I have six free cinema tickets from my bank as part of the bonuses I get with my account. I foresee lots of film trips happening… I’m actually not a huge James Bond fan but the film does look good and I feel like I need to see it because I’ve seen so many of the others. Plus, Daniel Craig. And Nandos.

Rave: When I was in Wales I bought myself a pack of four pastry forks.

Pastry forks

Basically they’re little forks with a sharp edge that you use to eat cake. As a regular cake eater I thought it would be nice to have the proper utensils to fully enjoy the experience. I’ll be keeping one in my handbag at all times of course.

What are your rants and raves of late?

James Bond: yes or no? Who was the best Bond? I like Daniel Craig. Less cheese but still a lot of smooth moves.

Are you doing anything for Halloween? Any costumes?