What I Ate Wednesday (WIAW)

I've been meaning to join in with this fantastic weekly blog event for ages, and now here I am! What I Ate Wednesday is the brainchild of Jennifer at Peas and Crayons, and the idea is simple - you just post on a Wednesday telling everyone what you've eaten. It doesn't have to be Wednesday's food - plenty of people pick a different day and just post about it on the Wednesday.

Unfortunately I totally forgot to take photos of my breakfast and lunch, but here goes...

Breakfast was my usual porridge mix - I have a big tub with a mixture of oats and wheatbran and Waitrose date and coconut porridge, and I take a portion of that with me to work every day. Then I just mix it with water, microwave it for about two minutes, and add a splash of milk. While British strawberries are still in the shops I've been having plenty of those chopped up on top of my porridge, but I might move on to apples soon!

Then lunch was a bowl of New Covent Garden Indian Summer soup, which was delicious. I'd never tried it before, but it was coconutty and fragrant and mildly spiced and very filling thanks to all the lentils! I also had a bag of Kallo sea salt and balsamic vinegar mini rice cakes, and a 'heritage' British apple (I bought a big bag of them from the Co-Op supermarket near work) which tasted just like the ones from my mum and dad's trees.

And then I came home and started taking photos of my food! Wednesday nights are running club nights, so when I got home I had a slice of rye toast with a little bit of Whole Earth organic smooth peanut butter...

...and a spoonful of bee pollen. I found this jar in the supermarket in Portugal for about 4 Euros, which was a total bargain! It's meant to be ridiculously good for you, and I think it's yummy, so I'm giving it a go!

And then I went running and had a great time! It's too dark to run through the parks these days, so there are now three options for the club's evening runs - a 3.4-mile, a 4.6-mile and a 5.6-mile. I did the 5.6-mile route and LOVED it - it was the first run in weeks that I'd genuinely enjoyed. My shoes felt great, my hip didn't hurt, it was a nice cool evening, the route was good fun, I ran it in 53:16 which is perfectly respectable...I feel like I've rediscovered my running mojo!

When I got home I had this dubious-looking treat waiting for me!

It's a protein shake made with Good Hemp chocolate Gym Shake powder. Nic over at The Fit Writer (who, by the way, just bagged herself second place in the BNBF British bodybuilding finals - only her third competition ever!) kindly sent me a shaker bottle and a few hemp protein powder samples, and I had a go for the first time tonight. It's an interesting taste (I couldn't think what it reminded me of until it dawned on me that it tasted like the smell of horse feed!) but one I think I could get used to, and its nutritional profile is fantastic. I can almost feel it repairing my muscles!

And then supper was leftover curry with cauliflower, chickpeas, tomatoes, spinach and peppers, topped with a poached egg. The egg was slightly overdone, but I have a thing about runny whites and would rather overdo it than end up with horrible undercooked egg!