For the last two years I went each year on a 5k race, both very enjoyable: Run or Dye and Color Run. This year I’m going on a serious 5k race: Women’s Running Race Series, sponsored by Roots Collective. I want to get a good time, so I have to prepare. I made a schedule that works with the other things I have to do. I allowed one month for training. I’m relatively fit to begin with, so I think a month is enough.
In this post I’m going to talk about the workouts, the food and drinks. These delicious blends by Roots Collective will help me get to my goals. If you follow my blog, you know that I try to eat as healthy as I can. Recently I blogged about 1 year of daily smoothies and a few months ago I’ve challenged myself to have 10-a-day for 1 week.
This is the program I’ve created for this month. After I’ll finish it, I’m going to talk about the program again, to see how it went. I don’t think running is enough to get ready for a race, so I inserted a few Insanity cardio workouts in the program. I did Insanity back in 2012 and it felt great, it’s a hard working out regime, but it’s so good. When I say it’s hard, it’s really really hard. But this is how I can get good results in a short period of time, so it’s worth it.
I made sure I can do that workout in that day and I hope I can finish it as it is. So far I did what I planned and I’m very happy with the progress.
On Father’s Day we spent some time in the garden with Festus. He had a couple of toys to play with. One of the pigeons who has his nest on our neighbour’s tree arrived for his breakfast. Of course, he wasn’t bothered by Festus. He is used to Festus and that makes me think he is the same pigeon that had the nest close to us a couple of years ago. I think they are more comfortable with Festus as there aren’t any cats in our garden. We make sure we chase any cats from the garden, as we don’t want them to come when Festus is in the garden. Unlike with the pigeons, Festus is very interested in cats.
Last year we bought our first caravan without going on a caravanning holiday before. I wasn’t sure I would love it, but it was perfect for us and I do love it. So, considering most of us are thinking of holidays, I’ve decided to talk about my caravan and Why I love caravanning?
Caravanning has an impressive history, that I found out by chance. Dr. William Gordon Stables started caravanning in late Victorian era. The first caravan ever built was called The Wanderer and it was made in 1884 by Bristol Wagon Works Company. It traveled tens of thousands of miles in its lifetime. Amazingly, that first caravan still exists and it’s displayed at a Caravan Club. The caravan was meant to be an land yacht and it was inspired by traditional horse-drawn Romany wagons, pulled by two horses named Captain Corn-flower and Polly Pea-blossom. The interior was made mahogany and maple wood, painted black and gold, in an Victorian fashion and it obviously had a bookcase.
If it wasn’t for him, for me, our holidays wouldn’t be as exciting as they are. I blogged last year about the Things I learned about caravanning, have a look if you fancy to read that post too. Let’s go back to why I love caravanning.
Freedom. We can take Festus with us without any problems and he feels at home in the caravan. We also have the freedom of going where we want. Also, it doesn’t matter if it’s London, Edinburgh or Anglesey, the prices are pretty similar.
I’ve been to see the newly opened gallery on the Ancient Egypt at Liverpool World Museum. The museum is free and so is the new gallery, so don’t miss it, it’s really interesting. The restoration finished earlier this year and now it’s UK’s second largest Ancient Egypt gallery after the British Museum.
The Liverpool in hieroglyphs is hilarious, but quite accurate I would say.
There are a few videos that are really interesting. I enjoyed the most the one about what happened when an Egyptian died. The process was quite complex, there were 42 gods and the dead had to say to each one a bad thing he didn’t do. If they had money to pay for talismans, those would have protect them if they would say a lie. After talking with the 42 gods, their heart was weight in and if it was lighter than a feather, they would go into a sort of heaven, where they would meet their relatives and spend their time sowing cereals. If they had effigies of servants, those would do their work for them. If the heart was heavier, they would have been eaten by the Cerberus and they would be gone forever. It sounds like a very complicated afterlife and with a lot of work without the servants.
The mummy room is so interesting. The thing that I found the most interesting is that one of the mummies has a relative at British Museum. I think it’s amazing that both are in UK and it’s known that they were related by DNA testing. The mummy room has warnings on both entrances that there are human displays. I think that is respectful both towards the visitors and the mummies.
I went through the remaining questions from the 365 Thought Provoking Questions to Ask Yourself This Year and picked the ones related to money. Last month I did a 100 Questions in 10 words or less and I enjoyed the twist of answering like that. So now I will talk about money. It’s a subject I don’t like to talk about, it should be personal. Also, what I consider a bargain can be deemed overpriced for someone else, while what they consider a bargain can be overpriced for me. We can have different values and priorities and that influences the way we relate to money. Anyway, I answered these questions and I enjoyed writing the post.
1. What can money not buy?
Not a lot of things. Money are important, from getting a place you are happy in to clothes, petrol and tickets for travels and sightseeing.
Loyalty, love, attention, these in theory can’t be bought. Showing love, appreciation is not easy without any money. You have to buy ingredients for a special homemade dinner, a card for an anniversary or a bunch of flowers. Some of these things might be only a few pence or a couple of pounds. Even if the gesture is more important than the value, but that still means money.
2. What do you do with the majority of your money?
This is the sort of question I would avoid. So, my answer is: I buy things and services, can’t be more vague than that.
3. Other than money, what else have you gained from your current job?
Money are not the most important thing for me when it comes to jobs. Being able to be creative and loving what I do is more important than more money. I need a challenge and I have that too.
4. How much money per month is enough for you to live comfortably?
I think I live quite comfortably as it is, I have many things that make me happy. With more money I would pay my debts faster, get a newer car, I would do a bit more work to our house, buy lots and lots of crockery and kitchen tools&utensils. I might travel more. If I would get all those things, would I want to stop there or would I think I want another thing? I think it’s only human to strive for more and adjust the definition of what is comfortable to add a bit more.
5. If I gave you $1000 and told you that you had to spend it today, what would you buy?
I would book a weekend away with my husband and our dog. With the rest I might buy some kitchen stuff and shoes and maybe a dress and some makeup and a few books. Something for the dog and for my husband.
6. How would an extra $1000 a month change your life?
I would do a few of those items mentioned in question 4. The more important questions is what I would have to do to get those $1000 a month? If it means I should get a 2nd job, my life wouldn’t necessarily change for the better, as it would mean less time with my husband and less time doing other things that make me happy, like reading and cooking.
7. What things in life should always be free?
Why should anything be free? I think we appreciate more the things we work for and not those that come free.
8. What job would you never do no matter how much it paid?
I wouldn’t do a lot of jobs that would be against my values, too many to make a list.
1 year of daily smoothies, sounds like a lot. It was never my intention to do it. In June 2015 I’ve started a Colourful Smoothie Challenge with an American blogger. During that month she wasn’t as keen to keep us on track. I did the first 10 days, then the next 10 days. After that I had another couple of smoothies and I stopped.
The next year, in June, I thought I should make my own Smoothie Challenge: 30 days of smoothies, hubby joined in. I’ve mentioned about it on a forum I’m active on and went from there. Someone else said she wanted to do a similar challenge, but not with smoothies every day, but smoothie or soup. As it offered more flexibility, after I successfully finished the first 30 days of the challenge, I continued with the smoothie/soup option. I didn’t set up a target from the begining of going for 1 year, but only after 5-6 months or so. There were days when I had soup and smoothie, there were days when I had 2 soups and a smoothie.
I’m so happy I took the challenge again. This year I had more than 500 soups and smoothies. If I consider, in average, 2 portions of fruits/vegs per smoothie/soup, that means I had more than 1000 fruits and veggies. That is impressive. A small bowl of soup has 1 portion of vegetables. I would add another portion by tossing in some roasted mushrooms in a mushroom soup, for example.
When it comes to smoothies, I usually make them like this: 1 banana + 150ml juice (no added sugar) + 1 fruit or 80g of frozen fruit/veg. That means a total of 3 portions in a glass like the ones in the picture. To that I add Chia seeds or oats. As an extra healthy kick, I would add spirulina, cinnamon, turmeric, cocoa powder, pollen, hemp seeds. It’s so easy and the taste is amazing.
To celebrate the year of smoothies, I made these 7 smoothies in the colours of the rainbow. You can see all the ingredients on my food blog: Rainbow of smoothies.
Last Friday, my husband and I went to the 40th anniversary of Williams at Silverstone and it was amazing. I was one of the 30,000 fans who joined them on the day. Rebecca (from becster.com) was there too and we went on the pit walk together. Prepare for lot of pictures, I was so excited that I pestered my husband to take lots of pictures.
I saw that Williams was organizing a special event at Silverstone to mark their 40th anniversary and we’ve decided we should apply for tickets. We got them and we also bought the Pit Walk tickets for the 5pm session, the earlier ones were sold out. We got there just in time to hear the interviews with Claire Williams, to see Sir Frank.
I was a bit emotional when I arrived at Silverstone and I saw the start line. 19 years ago I’ve started watching F1 and Silverstone was the first whole race I saw. In 1998 Schumacher won the race on the pit lane, after a controversial decision. I forgot about it, until I saw a re-run on youtube. I think I should get the old races on DVDs and watch them. It was so exciting back then.
