Only 2 days to the Great North Run!

Posted by aroundtheworldin80bakes in Around the World in Eighty Bakes, half marathon, Running and tagged with 13.1 miles, benefits of running, first time half marathon runner, fundraising, great britain, great north run, half marathon training, oxfam, running 14/09/2012

And I have ran more than 500 miles! (in training so far!)

Who would have thought that I would ever get this far after deciding late one night that it would be a sensible idea to sign up to run the Great North Run for Oxfam? Less than 5 months later and I’m counting down the final few days to the big race feeling a bit nervous and majorly impressed by the amount of support and advice that my family and friends have offered me. I just reached the astonishing £500 mark far surpassing my original £300 target!

It’s definitely been an adventure this half marathon training malrkey. Long gone are the days where I staggered to complete 3 miles and embarrassed to be seen running in public, I sprinted past anyone heading my way resulting in a hyperventilating and fushia coloured Lauren.

Our 10 Mile Jelly race! What a hot day! Only meet to run 3.1 more miles to make the Great North Run

I remember my first 6 mile race where I hadn’t actually done any real training or ran 3 miles without stopping. My pre race preparations involved adding an extra layer of make up, youknow in case the St John Ambulance crew had to pick me up off the roadside. At least they would think ‘well she looks alright, she made an effort.’ I have a feeling my pre race ritual will be somewhat different on Sunday morning!

Now I have (somehow!) managed to run 10 miles without stopping in 1 hr 34mins!! I only had to pause once to pour water into my trainers to soothe my burning bones. It was a VERY hot day. I even got a sun tan on my arms!

The highlights of my training so far includes…

being the fittest I’ve ever been!
having abs without holding my breath in! (I can actually see them and they’re real!)
spending more time outdoors
enjoying the sunshine (and somehow I’ve also learnt to enjoy the rain even when torrential)
making new friends without who I would never have made it through those very necessary long training runs! I salute your route planning skills!! And thank you for your encouragement!!
challenging myself to go beyond what I thought I was capable of
pushing myself way way outside my comfort zone
seeing a difference in my legs too! They’re strong!
trying new complimentary exercise. Hot yoga!
exploring parts of England I would never normally see on foot
there’s something glorious about being the only one running through a woodland with the Sun light streaming through the trees and discovering a beautiful waterfall and squirrels running free
running by myself and learning to enjoy it
learning to regulate my breathing
being able to eat everything in sight!
using running to actually get to and from places much quicker than walking

Running up THAT Hill!!

What I’m looking forward to post GNR

resting!
sorting out the rest of our wedding (only 3 months to go!)
baking and decorating my 4 (or maybe 5) tiered wedding cake
not aching in various places
running the Edinburgh 10k!
no longer requiring blister plasters as part of my weekly shop
not spending the majority of my free time being hot and sweaty
wearing pretty clothes more often
getting showered at work
having more of a social life!
baking more aroundtheworldin80bakes experiments!

I’m counting down the hours now until the big race on Sunday and trying to remain calm! Here’s hoping for a good time! I will let you know how I get on!I’m aiming to get a hi five from Mo Farah who’s starting the race this year!

Some International tiered cake inspiration from Amsterdam

Thank you everyone for reading for for all the support so far. If you would like to sponsor me please visit my Just Giving Page www.justgiving.com/Lauren-Prince

My Oxfam Vest

Running Wild With Raw Almond Butter

Posted by aroundtheworldin80bakes in Around the World in Eighty Bakes, Cookery, Everday Cooking, Food, Great North Run, Running and tagged with almond butter, Around the world, around the world in eighty bakes, baking, cookery, cowboy boots, Food, food processor, half marathons, healthy foods for runners, honey, ice bath, minimally processed foods, oxfam, raw almond butter, raw foods, rhinitis, running, running injuries, shin splints, shinsplints, spread on toast 16/07/2012

Apparently it’s very easy to make your own Raw Almond Butter and it’s supposed to be really good for you. (Especially, if like me, you’re training to run half marathons.) I had to give it a whirl.

Perserverance is the key to making your own almond butter. It should only take 10 minutes of whizzing up almonds in a food processor to produce wholesome wonderment… However an hour later my head and ears were buzzing from the incessant food processor screeches and I was getting a bit annoyed.

You may remember that in my wisdom this year, I have decided to run The Great North Run (all 13.1 miles of it) to raise money for Oxfam.I am trying my best to train as much as possible to gradually reach my target distance, but a few niggles have made the path to fitness nirvana rather steep.

So far I’ve;

Been chased and bitten by an overly excited dog

Been pursued by cows (Please note cows seem to like red running tops)
Bruised my spine running with my haversack on after work (Note: do not attempt to run home wearing a pair of cowboy boots and a jar of jam on your back)
Bought and broke 2 running haversacks
Cut my collarbones (see the previous statement)
Developed shinsplints and rhinitis
Endured 4 ice baths to ease the shinsplints! (For those unfamiliar with the extreme pleasure of an ice bath they are best enjoyed with your pants ON, a cup of tea, almond butter toast and wearing a hoodie)
Entered (and completed) 3 competitive races!

with more races still to come… Gateshead 10k

Cut my toes and didn’t even notice (perhaps this is what people mean when they talk about ‘getting into the zone’?!)
Purchased a running wardrobe. (There’s a lot of fluorescent pink in there now.)
Eaten an inordinate amount of cake (running makes me hungry!)
Developed muscles I didn’t know I owned
Practiced a lot of yoga to stretch out those weary muscles…

Carpet Yoga (note Super Hans’helping’ in the background)

Yet I’m undeterred! In fact I’ve even threw myself in at the deep end. Running in the UK monsoon conditions, which others may call ‘the Summer’, with my eyes closed as it’s too difficult to keep them open (perhaps this is a talent that I didn’t know I possessed?) and an all terrain 10k trail run.

A spot of flash flooding up North to keep us on our toes

Almond Butter, promised me a miracle. It’s a high protein food that is full of Vitamin E and supposed to help prevent sore muscles and ease my aching legs! Hurrah! AND I had a bag of almonds already in the cupboard. It had to be made.

I threw a 200g bag of almonds (with their skins on) into the food processor and turned it up high. It wasn’t particuarly happy with this challenge, but with a little encouragement it ploughed through the almonds.

Looking like ground almonds

About 4 minutes in (and a bit a scrapping down the sides of the bowl)the almonds looked like ground almonds, the kind you would use in macaroons. So you could make your own ground almonds from scratch too if you wished.

The instructions said to keep going and blitz them up as much as possible. About 10minutes in the almonds should ‘release’ their oils. This means that the almonds should then ball up in to a nice big lump of almond butter.

Looks like the oils are being ‘released’ -scrambled nuts

However mine did not. It just kept looking like scrambled eggs made out of almonds and sticking infuriatingly to the bottom of the bowl. I religiously scraped the bowl with my spatula to ensure all of the almonds were getting an even blitzing, so much so my spatula got a bit sliced up on the blade and had to go to spatula Heaven. RIP trusty spatula.

Adding coconut oil and honey – starting to come together….

Apparently you probably don’t need to add any oil to the mix as the almonds have enough oil to suffice. However I couldn’t get mine to stick together so I gradually added coconut oil, another super running food full of energy and good stuff (I clearly known my science stuff here) to help with those extra miles, until I got it to more of a paste like consistency. I also added a good slosh of honey to sweeten the mix, tasting it as I went to make sure it was to my liking.

Eventually I realised that I wasn’t going to get a peanut butter smoothness or glossy texture so I declared my Almond Butter done and popped the lot into a jam jar, ready for my pre run toast.

It is a little on the dry side and almost savoury (maybe I didn’t add enough honey or oil?!) but I quite like it. It doesn’t have any preservatives in it and it almost tastes healthy. You could use rapeseed oil or any other oil that you prefer too.

As it contains no preservatives, it needs to be stored in the fridge as the almond oil may go rancid. However the honey may help to preserve it as it’s the only natural substance that does not go off!

I’m going to see if I can incorporate my Almond Butter into some international baking too, but for now I’m going to just enjoy it on toast and spread on various fruits and vegetables too. Or if I’m feeling particularly lazy (or in a hurry) I might save myself the effort and chew on a handful of almonds instead…

The Final Product! Raw Almond Butter

Things I used to make my Raw Almond Butter

200g of whole almonds with their skins on
A liberal splash of coconut oil (any oil would suffice)
Runny honey ( 1 to 2 tbsp)
A Strong Food Processor

An Experimental Month

Posted by aroundtheworldin80bakes in Around the World in Eighty Bakes, Baking, Cookery, Food, Running and tagged with blog, coconut macaroons, espresso pot, experimental baking, foodiesarah, great north road, guardian, Hello Kitty, irish soda bread, madeleines, northern, running, stove 24/06/2012

I seem to have been experimenting a lot this month with various non aroundtheworldin80bakes cakes and playing around with my blog a little too. I was inspired by Sarah Hartley to create a map of my bakes so far, which has really helped me to see which countries I am still yet to visit on my culinary challenge

I was over the moon when I got a notificiation to say that my blog had been linked to on another wordpress blog. Clicking the notification I went through to find that the wonderful Foodie Sarah, (Sarah Hartley) a journalist from the Guardian and the Notice community noticeboard website had wrote a piece about me and my challenge!! You can find her wonderful foodie blog here foodiesarah.wordpress.com

Sarah is also on twitter (@FoodieSarah) and is in the process of mapping out the foodie bloggers in the North of England, of which I am one. I recommend hopping over to her blog and checking out her map of bloggers. I read quite a few of these foodie blogs and it’s great to see how much is happening up here!

I baked a shed load of cakes this month for my Mam’s birthday, my friend’s house warming and my nephew’s christening. (Some photos of which are still to follow as the teddy bear sugar christeningcookies are still to be iced!) Most of the things I’ve been baking are new adaptations/improvisations of previous aroundtheworldin80bakes cakes. The Anzacs were particularly challenging as I ran out of coconut so I replaced this with ground almonds! I also ran out of plain flour so I used self raising instead. I feel a new recipe has been born. 🙂

Other baking experiments this week – Coconut Macaroons

Other baking experiments this week – Two Tone Chocolate and Almond Madeleines

Mountains of improvised Almond Anzacs

Irish Soda Bread

In amongst all this baking I’ve been doing a bit more running too in preparation for The Great North Run that I’m running for Oxfam in September. Only 3 months left to go I’ve even started running home after work, just to fit in a few more miles, with my new running haversack (which I broke after 2 runs!).

Early morning (6am!) running down by the Quayside taking in the Olympic Torch parade

: all the lads and lasses wit all their smiling faces gannin along the Scotswood Road to see the Blaydon Races! (Pre torrential rain and river like running conditions)

The Blaydon Race was epic. It was the 15oth anniversary and the heavens opened to welcome us. It was like an endurance test running through a stream as the roads were flooded. I have never been so soaked in my life! But then again it made me run quicker (5o mins 40 secs to be exact) to finish which meant I was that little bit closer to getting home, and in a hot bath!

A good old bottle of brun ale – dedicated running!

Before today’s Alnwick 10k Trailrun – who knew what a trailrun entailed until today’s encounter with mud, uneven terrain and LOTS of hills!

And then my first ever ‘Trail Run’ which I hadn’t even realised what I had signed up for. This was one hell of an experience but it was so beautiful up in Northumberland, with the rolling hills and sunshine! Let’s hope my trainers dry out soon… and then for more international baking!