13.1 miles...

The last time I ran 13.1 miles, it was in March last year at the Bath Half Marathon. My time then was 2:35, which I was really disappointed about because I'd trained for a sub-2:30 time and was really hoping to get one. Since then, as you know, we've been seriously focusing on our running, and this week Pete and I decided to go for it and run our own half marathon. And here's our time:



2:08.16! I actually can't believe it! I'd hoped for sub-2:15, and as I was feeling really good for most of the run (apart from the hilly bits!) I was quietly confident that we'd do it, but I never expected 2:08! I am beyond chuffed. It's actually quite strange trying to get my head around it - running a half used to be A Big Deal. They were things to be trained for and worried about; things that would probably require a day off work in order to recover. But now I find myself in a situation where I can just go out on a Saturday morning and run 13.1 miles! I almost feel like we must have 'cheated' in some way - but I mapped the route meticulously on Map My Run, and it was definitely 13.15 miles, and we were held up for a full two minutes trying to cross a big main road!

A little bit wet...

It's been ages since we've had proper rain here in London. We've had a few drizzly showers, but it's mostly been dry...until yesterday!

I was on my way to meet a couple of friends - when I left work, it was raining, but not too heavily. Two minutes later, the rain had turned torrential, so I took shelter at a bus stop. Thirty seconds after that, there was thunder, lightning, torrential rain and hail. My shoes filled up with hailstones!







And to top it all off, when the hail and rain had subsided a bit and I decided to make a break for it and leg it to the Tube station, a taxi went past and splashed most of the biggest puddle you've ever seen all over me. My feet still hadn't dried out by the time I got home at 11.30pm! Yuck!

Loafing about with lentils...

A while back, a friend sent me a package of vegetarian cookbooks, which had been hanging around on my desk at work ever since. Then this morning the office computers went down and we all had to log off for three hours, so I ended up looking through a couple of them to pass the time. And I spotted a yummy-sounding recipe for lentil paté - it was in a book called Cookshelf: Vegetarian, which seems to be out of print, but you can probably still get it on Amazon. There are some really good ideas in it!

I didn't hold out much hope when I put it into the oven - I'd followed the recipe to the letter, and it does say to 'drain any excess water' once the lentils are cooked, but there was a LOT of excess water. I'd probably use half the liquid in the recipe! Even when I'd drained the lentils, the finished mixture looked seriously runny. But it baked up beautifully, and it tasted amazing! I had it with some salad and roasted asparagus, and it made a gorgeously light and healthy supper.



Lentil paté

1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp ground coriander
850ml veg stock (I'd cut this down to around 500ml and see how it goes!)
175g red lentils
1 egg
2 tbsp milk (I used Kara coconut milk, thus rendering the recipe gluten- and dairy-free)
2 tbsp mango chutney (I used Blue Dragon sweet chilli sauce, which was fab)
2 tbsp chopped parsley (I didn't have any so I left this out)

1. Fry the onion and garlic in a little oil until softened. Add the garam masala and coriander and fry for another minute.

2. Stir in the lentils and stock, bring to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes or until the lentils are cooked and softened. Drain off any excess moisture.

3. Blend the lentils in a food processor with the egg, milk, mango chutney and parsley (I didn't bother, I just stirred it all together in the pan as the lentils were nice and mushy!)

4. Grease and line a 1lb loaf tin, spoon the mixture into the tin, and bake in a preheated oven at 200C for 40-45 minutes, until firm to the touch.

5. Allow to cool in the tin for 20 minutes, then transfer to the fridge to cool thoroughly (or eat it warm, as I did!)

Miserly meltdown...

Er...yes. I'm actually more than a little bit embarrassed about posting this! Miserly May was meant to carry on until next Wednesday, but it was pay day on Friday, I had some time to kill in the afternoon, and I had a voucher for 25% off at Dorothy Perkins (it's probably a bit late to head to the shops now, but it's still valid online until the end of today) and, well, it all went a bit wrong. Dorothy Perkins isn't somewhere I'd usually think to shop at, but they've got some absolutely gorgeous dresses at the moment. And you know I'm a sucker for a dress! So I ended up with this:



...and this:



And then I happened to go to Zara, and they had these gorgeous little stripy jumpers in a whole range of colours:



So I bought one in orange, and one in black. I love stripes, they're absolutely perfect for the slightly chilly spring days we've been having, and I can see myself wearing them to death...but OH MY GOODNESS, the SPENDING! I will be living on beans from here on in.

Morris dancing along the canal...

As you may know, I have a friend who lives on a narrowboat. She's currently moored up in Rickmansworth, and she invited us up to visit and to see the Rickmansworth Waterways Trust festival that was on this weekend. We had a beautifully sunny day for it, and after a spectacular burger at The Feathers (I had the homemade falafel burger with guacamole and Cheddar, which I'd thoroughly earned after another 11-mile run!) we headed up to the canal. There was Morris dancing, a narrowboat tug-of-war, and lots of food stalls and bands and all sorts of other things. It was great fun!







And then in the evening I went to my friend's birthday drinks do, and snapped a (slightly blurry) Tube mouse on the way home!

It's Friday, I'm in London...

Living and working in west London, it isn't all that often that I actually go to other parts of town. But I headed to London Bridge to meet some friends for dinner, and on the way I snapped a few interesting sights! The weather really has been glorious just lately.

Miserly May: Week Four

Hmm. Not such a great week this week. I had a bit of a slip and bought some shoes! However, they were shoes I'd wanted for ages, and they suddenly appeared in the sale, so they were 'only' £12.49. And I can think of a million things they'd go with. I haven't actually got them yet, because I ordered them online and they're being delivered sometime next week, so I could yet decide that I don't like them and send them back!

Apart from that, it's been a good week - I haven't bought anything else apart from food! Mind you, I've been eating far too much of that, so I'm on a 'get back to a sensible diet and stop these silly bad habits' kick as well as a no-spending one!