Happy Monday. Here we are again at the start of the week. And two weeks until my half marathon crazy trail run. Mmm, I’m a little bit nervous!
So this weekend has been very low-key. Don’t you just love those kind of weekends? Ben and I had Parkrun in the morning on Saturday. I beat my last time by 15 seconds which I was over the moon about.
Then we had my parents over in a tag-team style affair on: my dad came over to watch football with Ben (joy of joys) and then my mum popped over later for coffee. Conveniently for Ben and my dad, they had on purpose accidentally got the time wrong and ‘unfortunately’ had to play an hour or so of Fifa on the Xbox before kick-off. *sighs*
While they did that I got on with a very important task: cake baking. I rarely bake because I’m really not that good at it. I really wish I was…but I’m just not great at following recipes. I don’t read them properly or just don’t follow them as well as I should. That’s fine for cooking…but baking, not so much.
I chose a Victoria sponge, because that’s my favourite and I know my mum likes it too (perfect for afternoon coffee).
*sighs*
I honestly followed the recipe exactly. But to no avail. It all went fine until I had to get the damn things out of their baking trays (I had greased them well I thought)…then the jam didn’t seem to like the cake. Oh it just didn’t work out well.
I bet you’re thinking: wait, that doesn’t look so bad. Right? Well, we all have bad angles in photos (I know I do!) so let’s see this baby’s bad side.
As much as I’d love to say that big gaping crack was due to me throwing my face in head first for a good old bite. But, alas, no. That’s just what it looks like naturally. And my lovely father called it the “earthcake” (as in earthquake but a cake).
But clearly the most important part about a cake is not it’s appearance, it’s the taste. And it tasted gooooooooooood. And I have you know, both parents, my mother-in-law and Ben all enjoyed it. So that’s that.
After having a good old natter with my mum, I spent the afternoon just chilling reading my Empire (movie review) magazine. I read an interview with Richard Curtis (legend in my eyes – Notting Hill, Love Actually, Bridget Jones and of course Four Weddings and a Funeral) and I read a bit to Ben as something made me laugh. And Ben goes “I’ve never seen Four Weddings and a Funeral”.
…
“What?” How am I married to this man?? How did I not know this? Seriously??
Four Weddings and a Funeral is like the quintessential British comedy. It is one of my favourite films of all time. How has he not seen it? Well this needed to be rectified immediately. Needless to say we had our Sunday afternoon planned.
Sunday morning I ran my 12 mile long run. Compared to last weekend’s long-run (which I thoroughly enjoyed as was just one of those great runs)…this run sucked. I started running and I just knew it wasn’t going to be good. Maybe I pushed myself too hard at Parkrun, maybe I didn’t eat properly the night before (cake before bed is never a great recipe for a good run I’ve found) or maybe it’s just one of those things. It really felt hard the entire time. Last weekend’s run was 8.11mins/mile average for 13 miles but this weekend it was 8.32mins/mile. Well, you win some you lose some.
After the run I had breakfast, then my mother-in-law came over to catch up with coffee (and cake), and then I went to body pump which was OK. I’m sorry, I can’t get excited about weights. It’s a purely supplementary exercise for me in order to stay injury-free and get stronger to support better running. The rest of the day was watching back-to-back Friends episodes (we have the entire box set – amazing) and then Four Weddings and a Funeral in the evening. Perfect.
And to recap this week’s workouts:
Monday: Spin
Tuesday: Hill session with running club (7 miles total)
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: Lonely 8 mile run on my own as I got home too late for running club
Friday: Spin
Saturday: Parkrun (3 miles)
Sunday: 12 miles and body pump
Total miles: 30
Quite happy with the week. With the half marathon coming up my mileage is higher than normal but I’m loving it so that’s fine. Spin is still tough but I find after running it really shakes out my legs.
Because I’m running quite a lot and spinning now as well I’m very careful to make sure I’m eating more to help sustain me through the week. I’ve been adding chia seeds to my oatmeal, having nice large dinners, lots of snacks at work (such as pistachios and dried fruit) and, er, yeah lots of cake. But I’ll show more of that on Wednesday
How was your weekend?
When you increase your workouts, how do you fuel to make sure you’re not going to flake away?
What have been your baking fails? Please tell me I’m not alone in my lack of domestic goddess-ability.