Year 7 assembly.

I'm supposed to give an assembly to 310 year 7s this morning on the benefits of using SAMLearning.  I've already given the assembly to years 11 and 8 and had spent 4-5 hours making a Powerpoint and video and perfecting my presentation.  Yesterday I was told that there would be nobody to open up the projector box room for the year 7 assembly and I would have to do it without any visual backup aids!  Panic!  Stress!
On my way to bed last night I came up with the idea of using my running medals as a prop.  I'm planning on commenting that I had decided to want to run a marathon.  There was no way I was going to be able to run 26.2 miles straight away with no training, so each day I did a little bit of running, (they should be doing a little bit of revision each day) collecting a few medals along the way (SAMLearning gives you virtual medals for the revision you do) and eventually, last April I was all ready and prepared to take my big challenge - the marathon and gained the award I was after (ultimately their GCSEs in four years time!)  Fingers crossed it goes down well and doesn't just come across as me shouting out about my running achievements!

A l...o...n...g day!

Left for work at 7am (a little later than usual) and got home tonight at 7:45pm (a lot later than usual!) and still slogging away on my laptop!  Just taking a short blogging break now!

Tomorrow will also be manic...I have a year 10 meeting first thing, before taking the year 7 assembly and then I have a lesson observation Period 1 with a mixed group of year 9 students and I'm meeting with an English teacher at lunch to discuss my redesign of the English department website!  I will VERY much be looking forward to a run tomorrow night at club.  I have not run for three days in a row now.  I think this is the first week of 2013 I haven't run at least five days of the week and I'm missing it lots!

Breakfast was extremely boring and I had two bread rolls with Utterly Butterly light on!  I just remembered when I woke up how much I had liked the roll I had last night!

 As per usual now, I had two tangerines for lunch!  Although I want to start phasing these out over the next couple of days...I fear I might actually turn orange soon!  I'm sure I heard once that somebody that drank too much Sunny D did begin to get orange skin!  They're also making me need the toilet more!

Because I didn't leave work until gone 7pm, Dan had already had tea, so I picked up a panini at the petrol station on my way home.  I really fancied something hot and my belly had been rumbling for a few hours by then.  I've had this panini before...mozzarella, tomato and basil and didn't think very much of it last time, but quite enjoyed it tonight...maybe I was just mega hungry by this point!

By the time I got home I fancied something a little sweet, so finished off the rest of the white chocolate spread on two digestive biscuits.

This has been an extremely manic week but this weekend I'm looking forward to planning my meals a little better for next week and starting to get a little more creative in the kitchen!  I think I might pull out my slow cooker for the first time since Dan's Mum bought it for me three years ago!  (At that point I was leaving for work at 3:45am and not back until gone 8pm so figured anything I left inside during the day would be black, stiff and completely inedible!)

Just hanging on...

Breakfast was a toasted bagel - one side with white chocolate spread, one side with peanut butter...

I ate three tangerines throughout my day...one at break, one at lunch and one after school...

The Graze Pear Tatin box was also part of my break...

Made us meatballs on mash with peas and gravy for tea...

Tasty  bread roll with butter mopped up my gravy!  Yum!  :)

Dan put some white chocolate spread onto a Digestive biscuit for me for dessert...

I was supposed to be doing speed work at club but I really did not fancy going...the house was a tip, I felt like I hadn't seen Dan properly for ages.  I know I saw him on Monday night for dinner, but we talked pretty much the entire time about my job situation.  Feeling pretty stretched at the moment!  Must become a better girlfriend/daughter/house-owner/pet-owner/employee!...

Not enjoying Mondays...

I'm really not enjoying school at the moment and every Monday just lately it has been a real struggle for me to get motivated and into work.  Obviously I still go in but I am desperately job hunting right now!

I thought I would have a bowl of porridge for breakfast - guaranteed to fill me up.  Made with semi-skimmed milk and a spoonful of sugar on top.

Unfortunately I fell into old habits - I do it because in my head if I eat more it delays going into work.  I really need a new job soon!

At breaktime I had a Graze festival fruits box and a tangerine.  I forgot to photograph my Graze box until it was too late so here's a picture of what's inside below....yum!...

My stomach really hurt after school so I had a tangerine whilst waiting for Dan to pick me up.  I think my stomach only hurt because I'd been crunched over my desk since 7am though...11 hours.  Definitely on the new job wish list is movement in my job!

When Dan first moved in in August 2011 and it became clear that both our schedules were so busy with work and it meant that we barely saw each other in the week we decided on keeping one evening free from work each week to do something together, no laptops/phones allowed!  It has worked well so far and we had decided to head to The Brampton Mill.  I love it here - it's very quaint and the water wheel is a feature inside the restaurant.  Dan had never been but really enjoyed it.

Felt I needed a pint for getting through my Monday!

They do the BEST pizzas.  This is a goats cheese and roasted vegetable pizza, which had mushrooms, courgettes, peppers and tomatoes on top.

I was feeling reasonably full by this point but Dan persuaded me to have the Chocolate Brownie as he wanted dessert.  Dan NEVER wants dessert!

Definitely had my five a day today although feeling horribly full this evening.  I could have stopped at half of the pizza I think and definitely should have done without the pint.

Mum went into hospital this evening to find out more about her chemo.  I gave her a call on the way home and she should be starting the trial soon now they just need to book her in for the operation so that they can count back and see when she needs the chemo.  Over dinner Dan and I discussed what we would do if we won £70,000 on a scratchcard and when we stopped in at the Co-op on the way home there were two £70,000 scratch cards!  We decided this was fate and we would become winners so bought them up!  Dan also bought me a Kinderegg.  For the last six years we have been together if one of us has been having a rough time the other buys them a Kinderegg...the perfect amount of chocolate and a toy inside!  Genius!
My running mag had also arrived when I got home to complete the day.  :)  We cuddled up and watched The Perks of Being a Wallflower which I really liked, and suprisingly so did Dan.
Just found a job to encourage active lifestyles in young people...will definitely look at applying tomorrow.  Hopefully things are looking up!  :)

Long run mojo is BACK!

I woke up at 6:20 again this morning.  One day I'm sure I'll catch up on all my sleep!

I'd planned a long run this morning.  It was supposed to be 15 miles at 10:30 pace.  Instead, I decided on 15 miles at an 'easy' pace and made a deal with myself that I wouldn't look at my watch to see my pace at any time.  I've had lots of issues with pacing on my long runs lately, often setting off too fast and not being able to maintain, ending up walking.
Had an EXCELLENT run - really enjoyed it!

I managed to find some almond butter in Tesco yesterday.  Everybody in America raves about this stuff as a pre-race breakfast so I had it on a toasted bagel.  I'd heard that's the thing to do!
Meh.  Didn't think it was anything special!  An extremely expensive and slightly more bland peanut butter.  I'll have it again though as it obviously gave me some energy for my run today and didn't have any problems with my stomach at all, like some breakfasts have done.

It had snowed overnight and there was a light sprinkling of icing sugar everywhere and I actually slipped coming off my steps when heading out.

I set out wearing my new belt I bought especially for marathon/ultra training.  The first time I tested it was on my run with Dan yesterday.  I played around with it a lot yesterday to try and ensure it wasn't either pressing on my bladder or my stomach.  Got there in the end!

Did lots of thinking on my run today.  Work is not a happy place to be at the moment with all the upcoming redundancies (rumoured at 20%), Mum's pretty ill, I feel like I hardly ever see Dan as work takes over my life, marathon training and being behind on housework.  I need to make some changes this year...

Anyway, I decided that as I had had a new breakfast, was testing out my belt on a longer run and also haven't had very many successful long runs recently that I would link together a few of my favourite short routes that all circled by my house.  I started with a 4.5 mile route, which led into a 2 mile route, another 2 mile route and then I reran the 4.5 mile route.

At 6.7 miles I took a rasberry High5 gel.  I got a massive race pack for free when I attended the MK marathon training workshop before Christmas and I seem to get on quite well with these gels, which I'd not tried before.  It took me three attempts at swigging it before I got it all down though!  Still need a bit of practice at that!
Around mile 11 I passed a large bunch of group 5 and group 6 ladies running my 4.5 mile in the opposite direction.  I knew they were going to be out today, but I didn't think till this afternoon.  Shouted out lots of hellos and Maria ran over for a hug before carrying on.  Having only recently moved up to group 4 I'm worried I'd still be too slow to run with Groups 3+4 at the weekends on their long runs - I think it would stress me out and I wouldn't enjoy it.  I'm a little faster than Groups 5+6 now though.  Luckily I quite like my own company on a Sunday, reflecting on the week I've had and trying to solve life matters!
Just after mile 11 I knew I had done really well and feared I would spoil it by forcing myself to continue to 15 miles, so made an agreement with myself that if I continued to my front door (knowing this was approx 13 miles) without slowing or making excuses I would stop there.  Stopped my Garmin, looked down and was very pleasantly suprised!  :)

Mile 1: 11:59 (Included my warmup)
Mile 2: 10:23
Mile 3: 10:24
Mile 4: 10:08
Mile 5: 10:19
Mile 6: 9:53
Mile 7: 10:14
Mile 8: 10:12
Mile 9: 10:13
Mile 10: 10:09
Mile 11: 9:59
Mile 12: 9:46
Mile 13: 10:04

Total cals: 1735
Total time: 2h 13m 45s

When I got in I poured myself a big glass of semi-skimmed milk.  Milk is so underestimated as a recovery drink!  I also snacked on a few squares of white chocolate I found in the cupboard.  (Naughty!)  I wasn't feeling mega hungry so just had a heated up bowl of Tesco vegetable soup with two slices of wholemeal bread and spread.  I followed this up with a Muller light yoghurt.

I'd said to Dan he could have pizza for tea but he ended up being late back from the footy so I just made myself a jacket potato with cheese and beans.  Yes, that is an entire can of beans in there and yes, now I do feel incredibly full!  I also had a white finger bread roll with spread to mop up all of the bean juice...yum!  :)

Boyfriend pressure...

Not peer pressure...it's all about the boyfriend pressure!  Although I don't feel out of control which is good.  I decided to eat what I did today.  Dan just made the initial decisions!...

What's becoming my 'regular' breakfast of Blueberry Wheats, although this was the last of my box.

I was really hungry by the time we left for town and a quick shopping session at 11 and knew it would be gone 1pm by the time we were back for lunch.  All I had in that was quick to snack on was biscuits, so I snapped a bourbon biscuit in half and had what you see pictured here!

Dan made us a lunch of three skinny chipolatas and a fried egg on a plain bagel. I had a squirt of ketchup with mine and he had a slice of cheese.

This was dessert...a result of taking Dan with me to Tesco this afternoon!!!

We didn't make it to ParkRun this morning - Dan was still sleeping till gone 8am and we would have needed to have left at 8.  Instead, this afternoon we went for an easy 3.44 mile run round town together.  I felt really good and like I could have completed the 15 miles I have planned for tomorrow, although decided as it was snowing really hard by this point and I had already planned out my run for tomorrow I should probably head back with Dan.
Distance: 3.44 miles
Time: 34m 53s
Calories: 453

I decided to cook meatballs and spaghetti for tea as it's a nice quick meal.  I probably put a little too much spaghetti in the pan and I definitely put too much sauce in the pan!  It was a last minute decision to use the rest of the tin.  I was worried that just half of the tin would leave the dish flavourless.  (I made sure the presentation of Dan's plate looked much nicer than the splodge of sauce on my plate did!)  I still have not trained him to eat his vegetables though!  The picture on the right is the chunks of tomato he has pulled out of the sauce.  So awkward!

Dan then poured us each a glass of wine for after dinner with the remaining donut each, left from the four pack he bought this afternoon...

Friday and feeling so tired...

Got up at 5am on Friday morning.  I really couldn't sleep.  Spent my spare hour reading blogs online!  Discovering runeatrepeat.com last week was what got me thinking about keeping a log of my food online in a blog as well as tracking my training.  I'm hoping that I can look back and see why training has gone well or not so well dependant upon my eating habits and days before a run/race.  I've now also gotten addicted to mealsandmiles.com  I love the way both Monica and Meghann write and it's great to feel that even if it's all the way over in America, 1000s of miles away, there are a couple of other girls my age who love running and want to eat well and enjoy life!

Breakfast was my usual bowl of Blueberry wheats and semi-skimmed milk.  We have two sets of bowls, this regular-sized kind and a large deep bowl set which my parents got us for Christmas last year.  This week I've been making an effort to use the smaller bowls and eat less in the mornings, which was my problem time originally and when I would often overeat.

Graze box - The Firecracker - had this just before school as my belly was still grumbling!  This with a glass of water kept me satisfied till break!

Every Friday we have 'Treats'.  There used to be lots of us at school that participated but now it is just the Psychology department, one business studies teacher and Me.  Each week one member of the Treats group brings in goodies for everybody at breaktime and we all sit down in the staff room and have a natter.  This week it was Bernadette's turn.  I didn't feel comfortable enough yet photographing what I ate and explaining to the Treats group about the blog, but I was still conscious about what I ate and just had one tiny half white roll with a piece of chicken tikka and cheese inside, two cherry tomatoes with houmous, 1/6th of a small pork pie and one small coconut bun with a small glass of blueberry juice.  On Fridays I don't have anything for lunch as I'm usually full from Treats until the end of the day.  Today was no different.

I was very hungry by the time we got home from work though.  I think it's the cold weather!  We didn't get home until 6:45 so I made us a quick casserole and we were sat down eating by 7:20.  I peel and chop one potato and one carrot, put them into a saucepan with some butter and lightly fry them, make some vegetable stock up and slinging this in too with some peas.  I fry some sausages before chopping and adding and then add dumplings on the top.  Dan likes this, which is good, because it's much healthier for him than what he would eat if I didn't cook!  He likes the dumplings really cheesy, which isn't ideal, but I like them that way too!

Rest day running wise for me on Friday, although I did spend an hour leading ponies at Riding Club after school tonight.  Running outside with the ponies is actually what probably made me so hungry for tea!
Hoping to get to ParkRun tomorrow with Dan.  He's quite enthusiastic which is good.  :)

Feeling like I belong...

...to Group 4!
5.68 miles completed and 722 calories burnt in a quick Group 4 session today.  Most of the actual running was sub 8m 30s miles.  There were a few turn backs because I most definitely was not at the back of the pack tonight!  :)  My chest over my rib cage is feeling very muscly after tonight's session and I have a lot more confidence in my running ability again.  :)

A regular size bowl of Tesco Blueberry Wheats with semi-skimmed milk for breakfast

At breaktime I ended up having FOUR plums and a Tracker bar...

Graze Gazpacho Dip box on my lunchbreak (63 cals)

I was STARVING after school so had two small tangerines whilst marking my year 11 work

Stupidly told Dan I had been starving.  He makes tea on a Tues/Thurs night as I go straight to running club from school and don't get back until gone 8pm.  Tea therefore consisted of peas, carrots (I've taught him well!), chicken kiev, half a garlic bread with mayonnaise and chips (I don't actually like chips, we only keep some in the freezer for days when I am not there, because Dan would have them wirh every meal.  (If every meal was not a McDonalds!)