sponsorship

Hurts me to ask for money, even when it isn't for myself. I rattled a bucket to collect cash at the Co-op last Saturday - excruciating. Raising money for the youth Orchestra, P playing carols in the front entrance of the shop. Now I have decided to run the London Marathon for the charity Shelter. I have just started asking people to donate, hope they think it is as worthy a cause as I do. Knee got much better but today I dinged another ligament when getting off my bike. I think it's because it is so perishingly cold. Was hoping to really get into the running over the next 2-3 weeks but icy roads aren't massively top of my list and that is of course what we have right now. Let's see, out in it again tomorrow.

knee

.....is totally rubbish now. Locks when I stand from sitting, stairs are awful. Can I run? I haven't yet - well not since Sunday, making me grumpy and feeling fat. So let's talk about food, leek, mushrooms and bacon with pasta last nght. All went down, not too much trouble. P even enjoyed it. Today Boiled rice with eggs, carrots and potatoes, eaten with small amount of butter, salt, pepper, lime pickle. Extra veggies - Pak Choy roasted in sesame oil and soy sauce. The lonely beetroot has been pan roasted with an onion in olive oil, salt and balsamic vinegar. Await return of R, T and P from the gym for taste review.

knee

Still sliding around, kneecap dislocating and locking up the joint...hmph, no run yesterday, will try today again.
Food? Last night Haddock cooked in Bengali mustard sauce. Potatoes, onions, cavolo nero from box - plus toms and coriander from the shop. Served with rice. Major spices are panch phoron, english mustard, tumeric and salt.

another subject

I am a relatively new follower of Bitten Blog, having heard about it fro AC and CG but never sure that I wanted to read about cooking when all I do in that dept is try and get a balanced, cooked, dinner on the table each night. However a few weeks ago we started getting a box of vegetables delivered from a local farm. Nothing very new, we had tried this 7 years ago with Pioneer Organics in Seattle. Didn't work too well since T only really ate cake for his first two years of solid food. Now P and T are 11 and 7 respectively and I have decided a vegetable education is required.
So far it has gone well, though after the third week of tennis ball sized beetroots (4 a week) even I could not think of another way to prepare them that I would relish eating. The last of these beetroots languishes in the fridge several weeks later (they keep well, so someday it will make an appearance on the table).
R always encourages me to write down recipes so that I can recreate those that have worked well, but honestly the time it takes to write down, I could have invented something better using those precious minutes - so rarely do two meals turn out to be identical. However the past few weeks have seen me reaching for powers of inventiveness that I never thought I possessed, though Friday night desolate fridge dinners are always my specialty. You know the one where you've got a bendy carrot, a cucumber and an egg and have to conjure up something edible and balanced without a trip to the shops.
Enough preamble, to add to my running you will now also hear about the vegetable box, it's contents and how they are dealt with. Last night, soup, a classic. Boiled chicken carcass for stock with sweet onion. Vegetables included, swede, parsnip, celeriac root, potatoes, cavolo nero, mushrooms (farmers market), garlic (store bought), leeks, carrots, dried herbs, bay leaves, salt and pepper. T excused from eating mushrooms, all the rest went down well with all! Dessert prepared by P and T, baked apples and homemade custard Mmmm. The aim each week is to have finished all/most of the weeks box before the next one arrives, so far (apart from the aforementioned beetroot) so good.
Knee cap dislocating all week, 6 miles on Thursday, 2.5 miler on Sunday...ramping up this week.

before breakfast running

Managed to haul myself out of bed this morning, out of the door at 6.31 am...back in just after 7 am. Three Selby Road hills. Highlight was a fox who just stood in the middle of the pavement and stared at me like I was the worst lunatic he's ever seen. Nice foxy though, not too skinny. Biked to work both yesterday and today, quick swim and weights yesterday evening. A good start all in all, must try to keep this going.

London 2010

Running to raise funds for the charity Shelter. Will run the London Marathon in April, better start training and fundraising. I know it will be fun on the day but nervous about raising cash, never really done much in the past - food drives aplenty but not cold hard cashola. So this blog will centre around training for this next race, along with lifes other ingredients. Saturday training was started, Wilford Toll bridge loop (4.5 miles? will check and return). Sunday the usual loop...2.5 miles. Set off with P and returned several good minutes after him, he enjoyed it though which is good. X-country for him today and then Tennis - P, Swimming - T, Aikido for both. I'll swim and do some bodypump. Hills tomorrow, Selby road.

Robin Hood Marathon

Madly enough I decided to sign up for this one. I have completed a 20 miler...some time back now I confess and it was okay so I thought I'd sign up. Since then running has been erratic, swine flu has hit and passed (sort of) and HB is in and out of hospital. We are in London for many of the weekends and quite frankly we haven't quite settled yet. The big news this time is that we have finally moved into our new (permanent?) abode. A lovely house, I'll tell you more as we go along. Work is fun, just reading and writing grants...thinking about science, only going into the office for meetings otherwise sitting in my new lovely kitchen bashing keys on my laptop. Lunchtime runs possible this week since Dd has the boys for a week in London...
Have to get a long run in somewhere this week and next and the last one before we head to Corsica for a summer holiday. Will try to update again soon.

half training

Half marathon training = half hearted training. Only the short loop today 2.5 miles. Have to ramp this up. The bikin gis quite tiring and I suppose I'm just lazy. Just found out that I'll be switching to working full time quite soon no more lazing about eating bon bons!

I'm back

Blogging or back in the UK? Both apparently. So here we are now in the East Midlands, living in Nottingham. Never really been to this city in my life before we decided to move here. R got a job at the U here. Permanent position in this economy, who was going to say no? So we left Seattle and the beautiful pacific northwest (what?). P doesn't like this deal much and T is sort of okay.
Me? I just keep running. The only controllable constant in my life. Signed up for the Sheffield Half Marathon at the end of April. When did I stop writing? I've done a couple of races since I think. Best time for a Marathon? 4 hours 59 minutes and 59 seconds. Ran the Seattle Marathon again last November. Not a good race for me, time was okay. For some reason my shoulder was tense and hurt the whole way. Probably had something to do with the fact that I was flying to London that same afternoon to look at schools and houses back in the UK.
More soon. Just wanted to check in. Swimming again too and lucky enough to be biking to work.