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I ran 13 MILES! A HALF MARATHON! I’m still in shock, and completely elated about it.

After a bit of a rough nights sleep I got up early and ate a Cocoa Brownie Trek Bar for fuel.

I got all suited and booted and headed out. My plan was to run 12 miles starting off slowly. I started off really slowly and my first mile was tough, but soon after that I got into my groove: I made an awesomely random play list -

- and I was just chugging along nicely. I stopped at 7.5 miles to buy some water and eat 6 dates that I had brought with me in a little bag. They worked a treat and I headed back on my route. Unfortunately the GPS on my phone failed between mile 8 and 12 so I had no idea how far I’d ran or what my pace was. It came back right at the end. With the missing GPS my distance showed as 13.14 miles in 2:14. I actually did further than this as when the GPS came back it just jumped a straight line. I tracked my route out on Take to the Streets and I had actually ran 13.5 miles! Here’s my splits, you can see where the GPS went out during mile 8.

Its a shame it didn’t track properly as I would have loved to see all my figures clearly. Anyway, as you can imagine I was buzzing when I got home! My legs felt great and I actually felt that I could have kept on running for at least another couple of miles. I stretched, drank a vita coco…

…then sat in a cold bath to ease my legs for five minutes. I wasn’t immediately hungry but when my appetite came back I made a big bowl of chocolate chia oats (oats, water, chia seeds, chocolate whey powder and two teaspoons of raw cacao powder) I then topped it with a spoonful of peanut butter.

Lush!

I got sorted and dressed. The weather has been gorgeous today so I went with shorts.

Shirt - River Island, Belt – Vintage, Shorts – Dorothy Perkins, Tan Leather Sandals – New Look, Tan Leather bag – Mango, Gold Japanese Doll Necklace – Accessorize, Brown Leather Plaited Cuff – shop in Majorca.

It was my Mam’s birthday on Friday and she wanted to have a day out shopping in Newcastle with my Sister and myself. We hit the footy match traffic (well done the Toon 6 – 0!) but got parked up and headed straight to our favourite Asian Buffet restaurant. I was famished by this time so put away quite a bit of food! I started with a couple of pieces of sushi and some cold noodle salad and spicy pickled cucumber salad.

Then beef in black bean sauce, veggies, crispy fried greens and noodles

Then more of the cold noodle and pickled cucumber salad (I could only manage half of this as so spicy)

Then some plain rice, Mapo tofu, Cantonese Chicken and more crispy fried greens

For desert I had a bowl of ice cream with melted milk and white chocolate sauce x 2 (it was heaven!) and a plate of fruit.

My Mam wonders where I put it all! It was all delicious and the perfect way to celebrate my Mam’s birthday and my 13 miles. We had a look round the shops and in line with my Big Budget Challenge I didn’t buy anything :-(

I did get this bottle of flavoured water (which I drank before I could take a pic). It was nice and didn’t contain any added sugar but was 100 calories from fruit concentrate.

I think I’ll have to start making up jugs of iced fruit tea for when I want something cold with flavour. I also had this bit of peach.

Not quite a whole one as a bit of it had turned mouldy. As I’d ate so much at lunchtime I just made myself a green monster for dinner as I felt like I needed the greens and the energy. I used a frozen banana, some frozen mango, lots and lots of spinach, a teaspoon of maca powder and soy milk. I topped it with a small tablespoon of muesli.

I then had two chopped apples (a granny smith and a brae burn) with soy milk, goji berries and cinnamon.

I’ve really been enjoying bowls like this over the last week – just enough like muesli to satisfy me!

Home Week: Living Room

 

What we did: I probably got the most creative in this room! We painted the windowsill from dark to white to match the window frame, bought a new retro style red lamp on sale at TK Maxx for the side board, bought chair pads for the existing dining table and added a vase and flower feature, restyled existing accessories by grouping the Russian Dolls, removing items from the chest and adding the HOME decoration, moving the love union jack print from the bedroom to the living room, making my own art work by framing some free patterned wallpaper samples in black ikea frames, bought the new screen to hide gym equipment in the corner and customised it by adding free patterned wallpaper samples, rearranged the shelving unit and added a box from ikea to the top to store our printer and laptop bits and pieces. Everything else was existing. The black and white canvases are of Paris and New York which we love as we got engaged in Paris and honeymooned in New York. I really love the screen – it has made such a big difference to the room being able to hide all the ugly gym equipment!

How have all your weekends been? I’m just getting myself mentally prepared for going back to work tomorrow :-(

Hope that you have enjoyed ‘Home Week’ and seeing pics of my humble abode! x