My small but persistent request for evidence from the Scottish Conservatives about the data underlying their mischievous claims about food safety in Scottish schools has been picked up by the prestigious on-line environmental health journal, EHN Online. Tom Wall, the reporter who wrote the story based upon the posts in this blog, relates that even he couldn’t get the party to show their working. Perhaps shaming on a UK stage will now prompt a response. As always, watch this space.
Pampered Feetsies (Can Outrun The Bombsquad)
Thanks to Girl Runs Wild for this! 🙂
A few weeks ago, the wonderful Tartan Jogger and I thought it would be fun to swap our running music playlists.
But rather than being all boring and lazy about it (and just e-mailing a list of all the songs), we decided to spice things up a little: each of us bought an mp3 player, uploaded our unedited running tunes (yes, including the embarrassing ones) and posted it the other person.
When I got home from work yesterday, I found a little parcel waiting for me and was surprised to find that it was rather bigger than your average mp3 player! The reason for this is that Tartan Jogger had included not just the mp3 player, but also an entire pampering kit for my tortured feet – including a soothing and cooling gel, soft socks and nail varnish – wonderful! After racing my socks off on Sunday, this wonderful present…
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Let’s Do Lunch
Today, as I was having my lunch, I was thinking about how predictable this meal is for me. I’m a creature of habit. I don’t deny it 😉
I’m very fortunate, as we have a staff canteen on site. And almost every day I have soup for lunch. There’s always a choice of two home made soups available, and there’s a great range of flavours which staves off boredom.
I also find that this keeps me going until my run when I get home from work.
Despite my understanding of how counter productive it can be, I tend to eat my lunch at my desk, while working. I know, I know the benefits of taking a break, and I’m the first to tell everyone else to walk away and have a proper break, but I struggle to do it myself!
Tonight, I got in a great four mile run, in lovely weather once again! So, that’s another 6.44 kilometres, totalling 11.47k for the week so far, and 40.25 for the month.
So, how’s your lunch? What do you have? Do you take a break?
Monday Motivation
Welcome to another fresh week, laid in front of us, ready for us to run all over it!
I think that the sunshine today has gone to my head 😉 We’ve has a lovely day here on the west coast of Scotland!
And so, it wasn’t difficult to head out for my Around the World Running Blog Relay run tonight! I got in a speedy-for-me 3 miles, which felt great after Saturday’s long run. That’s 4.83 kilometres in the bag for week two, and a total of 33.81K for March so far. I can’t believe how far we ran during week one: you can check out Kyla’s week one recap here!
How has your day gone?
Affy Windy
This morning, @TheWelshWookie and I headed out to do our eight mile run. We had perfect running conditions: it was cool and overcast but dry. However, it was affy windy. So much so that when we got to the harbour the Tarbert – Portavadie ferry wasn’t running!
We headed out on around glen road, which was where we ran a fortnight ago. It was quiet, and we kept our pace slow. We then headed back into the village, and along our usual harbour route to Garvel then around the harbour to the concrete and back. 8 miles done. It felt really good today!
This was @TheWelshWookie’s longest ever run, and he felt good afterwards, too: the steady, slow pace and fuel practice paid off.
I took the MP3 player that Girl Runs Wild sent. And, I can tell you, she has some great taste in music! It has loads of really good, upbeat tracks, including ‘Gloria’ by Laura Brannigan, ‘Suddenly I See’ by KT Tunstall and ‘Grace Kelly’ by Mica. I was so excited to hear a track by The Lightning Seeds that I hadn’t heard for years! (It was ‘Sugar Coated Iceberg’ in case you’re wondering). Then, at around the 6 mile mark, I heard the first track that we both have, it was ‘Teardrop’ by Massive Attack. Love that.
As I got to my final hill, I was cheered by some good old Meatloaf, and I was signing along like a loon! @TheWelshWookie thought I was singing ‘I Battered the Hill’ instead of ‘Bat out of Hell’, so I think I’ll be sticking with those new lyrics from now on 😉
To finish the final mile, I had some Mumford and Sons, which was just right at that point in my run. I can definitely say that I am so glad we did the swap: I’ve heard some great tunes I don’t have, or I had forgotten about, and I’ve been introduced to some great music I hadn’t heard before. I’m not sure what Girl Runs Wild will think of my playlist, but I’m looking forward – with trepidation – to finding out!
After today, I’ve added to my Around the World Running Blog Relay total by another 8 miles, or 12.88 kilometres, which brings my total to 28.98 kilometres for week one 🙂
Good luck to everyone racing this weekend: I know it’s LA Marathon time, and the Inverness Half tomorrow too.
Are you running this weekend? What’s your goal?
Non-Foodie Friday
Welcome to the weekend once again! What do you have planned?
I have an eight mile run tomorrow morning, followed by a weekend of watching more Six Nations rugby action 😉
Tonight, I was going to post a Foodie Friday blog. But, when I checked, I didn’t have enough pics to share! 😮
So, here’s a picture to make you smile instead:
#ATWRBR2014
Don’t forget to email Kyla tomorrow with the number of kilometres you have run this week. I can’t wait to see how far we’ve run during the first week!
An Update
Evening all!
I thought I’d give you a quick update on my half marathon training plan, and the headline is that it’s going really well.
So far, Hal Higdon is working out really well: it’s a good mix of runs, with four days running, one day cross training and two rest days per week. I’ve now reached Week 5, Day 4, so I’m not quite at the half way point yet. I’m managing to do a mix of running outdoors and dreadmill runs, which is also helping to stave off boredom.
So tonight, I’ve added to my Around the World Running Blog Relay mileage: another 3 miles, or 4.83 kilometres, which brings my total to 16.1 kilometres so far 🙂
In wedding news, I now have virtually everything arranged, I think. And if I don’t have it arranged, it isn’t happening! I’m just about to finish off writing the Order of Service, and that will be another job done! 🙂
I feel as though some things are just about coming together, in terms of both running and wedding planning this week 😉
What’s going well for you at the moment?
Wednesday Wisdom
Let’s be clear – the #ScottishConservatives lied about #foodsafety in schools
I’m a patient old Hector, but five weeks is plenty long enough for me to wait for the Scottish Conservatives to offer up the evidence behind their unfounded assertions about food safety in Scottish school kitchens. They may well be right in thinking that I’m an insignificant blogger – and my stats wouldn’t disagree – but that’s not the point. I care about evidence-based environmental health, and I care about the press and the public being given accurate information based on reliable sources about food safety and other matters of public health interest. In fact, it’s more important that the press are given accurate information, because the majority of media outlets simply don’t have either the scientifically-trained staff, the time or the inclination to check the assertions that are presented to them as facts.
And this is where the Scottish Conservatives fall down. I’m going to reiterate the whole sorry…
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The Playlist Swap
Tonight, I headed out for my second dry run in a row for ages! I was running four miles, and so I was able to listen to some of Girl Runs Wild‘s running playlist. I was very excited!
The first forty five minutes worth of music is a really great mix, all of which I really enjoyed. It included:
- the theme from Flashdance
- a good smattering of Country music
- some old skool James tracks
- some Katie Melua
And, as I finished my four miles, I was running to Roar by Katy Perry! Yay!
I’m looking forward to hearing more! As I think of some of the sad tracks on my own playlist, I think I’ve benefited from this swap! It was great to be able to run, and have no idea what music was coming next. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this aspect of my run tonight.
So, I’ve added to my Around the World Running Blog Relay mileage: another 4 miles, or 6.44 kilometres, for a total of 11.27 kilometres so far 🙂
What’s your favourite running track?
TartanJogger 