Category: Uncategorized
In the Lake District!
| August 18, 2012 | Posted by Sweet Tooth Runner under Uncategorized |
HEY guys, happy weekend!! I’m blogging from my phone, so please excuse typos and weird formatting!
Yesterday I travelled down on the train from London to the Lake District. I’m here on my own for a couple of days, and then my family are driving down to join me, so for now I have this place all to myself!
This is the cottage we’re staying in! It’s so pretty, and it’s situated on the banks of a small lake! The interior is lovely too, and so different from my home!
I ran into a guy who is staying next door who is also on holiday, and he helped me with my suitcase so we are now best friends;) It had just gone 9pm and I hadn’t eaten dinner yet, so Neighbour Andy offered to take me to the local pub which he recommended highly, but I have my priorities straight and insisted on a little test of my new home first…
testing the springiness of the beds…so mature;)
The local pub is my new favourite place on earth. Everyone there was SO friendly and welcoming, and the barman is a TWENTY time marathoner!! We talked about running for ages and he recommended some good running routes that I’ll hopefully be exploring soon! Unfortunately the pub had already stopped serving food so all we had were drinks!
I had serious run-motivation issues this morning. On only a few hours sleep, and no food since yesterday lunchtime, I was in no mood to run! But as soon as I got my butt out the door, my mood turned right around, as it always does! 5 easy miles on quiet country roads in the rain is perfection:)
Running in the Lake District is definitely testing my legs! The hills here are INSANE! Hopefully though it will really pay off when cross country season starts in a couple of weeks! The views are breathtaking, although you’ll just have to take my word on this since my blurry iPhone photos snapped on the run do them no justice!
Now I am starving and off to get some brunch! Have a great weekend friends!! <3
The Olympics in my Hometown
| August 15, 2012 | Posted by Sweet Tooth Runner under Uncategorized |
Since July 27th, I have been living and breathing the Olympics. And since it ended a couple of days ago, I have been missing it like crazy. Having been completely immersed in it for 11 days, it’s hard for me to believe that it’s really all over! Thanks to the wonderful BBC and their live coverage of every single Olympic event, I basically watched the Olympic action all day every day when I wasn’t at events! I was actually supposed to be a kit-carrier, but unfortunately all the mandatory training days clashed with my music tour!
One of my favourite days was when I went to the Olympic Park to see the athletics. The Olympic Park is absolutely HUGE, and the stadium is massive too!
My running team and I were lucky enough to have been given free athletics tickets by the organisers of the London Marathon, which I am SO grateful for as I missed out on these in the ballot!
The seats were great, the action was incredible and the atmosphere was amazing, especially when Jess Ennis (Team GB’s poster girl) came on! The cheers for her were deafening!
I also managed to see some amazing track cycling action…out of a possible 12 gold medals in the velodrome Team GB won 9 of them! And a silver and bronze too 
I also went with my friend Jessy to see the women and men’s marathons. It was BEYOND AWESOME to see some of my favourite runners up close! I was so upset to hear a week before the women’s marathon that Paula Radcliffe was pulling out, but I still got to see some of my other favourites, including Kara Goucher and Shalane Flanagan!
Shalane Flanagan <3
The marathon route was the same for both the women’s and men’s marathons, and it was a lapped course which meant that we got to see the runners FOUR times! Jessy and I managed to get the same spot on the Embankment for both marathons…it was the best spot right next to the clock and we saw them at miles 1, 9, 17 and 25!
Stephen Kiprotich (Uganda), the men’s marathon winner
One of my favourite things about the London Olympics was the huge public screenings of Olympic events. After watching the women’s marathon, Jessy and I headed to Hyde Park to the BT London Live screening to watch Andy Murray win gold in the tennis!
The atmosphere there when Andy Murray won was INCREDIBLE, with thousands of people celebrating togther and red+white+blue streamers raining down on us Definitely worth the hour of queuing and the OTT security to get in!
I can’t believe it’s all over! I think I very briefly suffered from Post Olympic Depression, but that soon turned into Post Olympic DETERMINATION. Rio 2016? 
I’ve missed blogging, and I’ve missed all of you!! I should really start tackling the 500+ unread items in my Google Reader and the near 1000 unread emails, but right now it’s too intimidating so I think I’ll leave that to stew for a little longer I’ve just written up a running+life update post for tomorrow/Friday because I have SO much to catch you all up on!
Did you watch much of the Olympics? What was your favourite event to watch? Athletics, obviously! Mo Farah winning DOUBLE GOLD was the highlight of the whole Olympics for me
Hope you’re having a great summer! <3
Puppies and Olympic Excitement!
| July 28, 2012 | Posted by Sweet Tooth Runner under Uncategorized |
For those of you who follow me on Twitter, I apologise for spamming your news feeds with pictures of puppies. But now I am going to put them all over this post.
On Wednesday, I visited my friend and her new puppy! Say hello to Roxie, the West Highland White Terrier puppy!
And then Thursday and Friday I’ve been living at my aunt’s house because she has just gotten a puppy too! But this cutie isn’t just any old puppy…
…this is Questa, and she is going to be a guide dog when she is older! My aunt and uncle are fostering her for a year and training her, and she will hopefully go on to help a blind or partially-sighted person
How on earth they are going to be able to give up this little cutie is beyond me. I couldn’t even put her down for a second!
She is SO playful, and I spent a good half hour playing with her on the slide. She is adorable!!
That completely exhausted her, and she had to be carried indoor and then fell asleep on me. This is TRUE LOVE and I am currently formulating a plan to steal her.
Okay, puppy time OVER now, I promise
It has been seriously hot here in London recently, and after a horribly hot run on Thursday…
…I took yesterday’s run to the gym! It’s the new gym that I mentioned before, and this is why it is my new favourite place on Earth:
- I was the only one in the gym for almost the whole time! No waiting for machines or equipment = win!
- The treadmill HAS IT’S OWN FAN. Best thing ever.
- Has a cool “random hill” button on the tread which was fun when I got bored;)
- It is a nice 10 minute walk from my house, and has good opening hours so I can get in early morning or late night sessions! Oh, and their showers are actually nice!
- Young athlete discount means it is CHEAP:)
Just over 7 miles done!
I refuelled with an ice lolly on my walk home, which I’m sure all the elite athletes do too…
I always read running magazines whilst on the treadmill (being able to read and run is one of my many skills;) and I was SO excited to find Running Times in WHSmiths!! You know your life is thrilling when you get excited over a magazine…! It is my favourite running magazine and I stalk the website on a daily basis, but it was only available in America until now!
In the evening, my whole family (including my aunt and uncle who are over from New York) came together and sat down to watch the Olympic Opening Ceremony. What did you guys think? I thought it was great, and SO British! But my aunt and uncle didn’t understand a lot of the connotations, and parts that left me and my family in fits of laughter just left them confused! But we all loved the James Bond bit:
The whole thing left me feeling very proud to be British!
What did you think of the Opening Ceremony? I thought parts of it were great (the young athletes lighting the cauldron, Rowan Atkinson+the LSO, David Beckham and Sir Steve Redgrave, etc.), but was it too domestic, to the extent that parts “baffled foreign viewers”? Certainly did in my uncle Anthony’s case anyway
What Olympic events are you most looking forward to watching? ALL Olympic running events (track and marathon), gymnastics, swimming, rowing, cycling…so pretty much everything! I will be glued to the TV for the next couple of weeks. And next Friday and Sunday I will be seeing the action live! 
Random: Tell me about what run/workout you are doing today! A 9-miler with my BROTHER (I take full credit for his transformation from a couch potato into a runner;) as soon as I can tear myself away from the Olympic coverage!
Have a great day friends!! <3
My back hurts.
| July 3, 2012 | Posted by Sweet Tooth Runner under Uncategorized |
Right at this second I am CRANKY because I haven’t run today. On Friday, I was lifting some heavy boxes and I hurt my back. I took a day or two off because of it (moving hurt a lot!), but it felt better so I went back to a track session yesterday. NOT A GOOD MOVE. It was such a great run, because it was a good session (just me and my friend Sonia, who is a 400m/800m distance star, so her speediness really challenges me!!) and it rained, which I love! I got soaked:
why is this photo so yellow?! totally unedited!! must just my awesome photography skills then…
Workout: 1.5 miles warmup, two sets of 600m, 500m, 400m, 300m at target paces (1.58, 1.30, 70, 50), then 2 miles cooldown in the park. This kinda stuff (short distances with a fast middle-distance running partner!) is wayyy out of my comfort zone, but I’m making good progress, so I’m happy! This is my last full week of track work and racing before base-building totally takes over, so I’m making the most of it!
As much as I loved the run, my back certainly didn’t and it feels even worse today! I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that another day of rest, getting lots of sleep and eating lots of (vegan) ice-cream straight from the tub will heal it. Fool-proof plan
I’ve been keeping VERY busy on the music front. Since Saturday, I have had three concerts, four quartet jobs, one recording session, and countless hours of rehearsals.
getting ready for a quartet job is a serious business
Today’s job was a Summer Ball, and the venue was so beautiful…
…and as always, freeeeee drinks at the bar for us musicians! I don’t drink alcohol, but Appletiser is the new love of my life:)
All my rehearsals are fuelled by cookies. For anyone who doesn’t know, bourbon biscuits are vegan(!!), and we always have those and other cookies at every rehearsal to get us through the long hours. I usually demolish about half the packet. It’s a talent of mine.
It’s also time for me to buy some new running shoes, as mine have waaaay too many miles on them! I love my current training shoe, the Saucony Kinvara, but which one to get?! What do you think?
The purple is the Kinvara 2, which I am more tempted by because it is cheaper, and the bottom is the Kinvara 3 (i.e. the latest version) but I think I like the colour more…this is obviously an important life-changing decision which I am taking very seriously, because I LOVE running shoes…
my current rotation of spikes, racing flats, and training shoes
Tomorrow I am travelling up north for a music competition, which means a SUPER EARLY run. Not my thing. So I’d better hit the sack now if there’s any chance of that happening! 
Tell me about your last run/workout! I genuinely love reading about other people’s runs/workouts, so please tell me about yours!
What is are your favourite running conditions? Rainy and about 10C with a slight breeze. I put a lot of thought into that;)
Are you loyal to a certain shoe or brand? Does shoe colour matter to you? This will be my third pair of Saucony Kinvaras, and all my other current shoes are Saucony! p.s. I am not associated with Saucony in any way, so I’m not biased! And yes, trivial as it is, colour of running shoes matters quite a lot to me! I love bright colours, and shoes that stand out!
Have an amazing day!! <3
P.S. My email got hacked today, so apologies to anyone who got a weird email from me!
Some really random (mostly running related) thoughts…
| June 25, 2012 | Posted by Sweet Tooth Runner under Uncategorized |
As soon as I walked in from this evening’s session, I passed out on the couch and napped for almost an hour. Then I woke up and read a running magazine…seriously my life is tough
Today’s session was tough. Mostly because of this:
I forgot that doing tough sessions alone is harder! Long track intervals on a muggy evening was difficult, but I managed {relatively} even splits, so I’m happy!
Also, if you suffer from shin/calf problems like I do, shin compression sleeves ROCK. I wear these ones from 2XU all the time, and much as I love compression socks too, these are better in my opinion for when you’re actually running:)
Random question: is it possible to develop a sudden random allergy to pizza? I had this pizza on Saturday night, which I’ve had a pazillion times before, but woke up really sick because of it! I feel betrayed by one of my favourite foods.
I thought it would make great running fuel, but actually it was the opposite haha!
My running club had a fun team-building session on the trails the other day after a track session. It was SO FUN and I only fell on my butt in the mud twice, which is a new PR. Also, this is gross post-run hair at its finest:
Base-building is going well for me so far (*touchwood*!), and I’ll talk more about it soon, but it’s not really so well for my dog…I tried to take Buddy out for a short run and he lasted less than a mile before flopping haha!
Exciting news, a new gym has been built down my road SPECIFICALLY for young athlete development! I quit my previous gym about 6 months ago after they put their prices up again, because that wasn’t conducive to my running-shoe-buying addiction. It’s going to be very cheap for young athletes AND it has awesome brand-new equipment AND there will be special classes for specific strength and conditioning work! How amazing is that?! I looked around today and I will be joining soon!
TREADMILLS THAT DON’T HAVE A TIME LIMIT (my heaven) and the weights area, where I really should go more than once a decade
Sorry for the completely random thoughts post. I won’t even read back over it because I know it makes no sense but in my defence I haven’t had caffeine in almost an entire day so I’m seriously flagging
What is the FIRST thing you do after you finish running/working out? I want to say a shower, but that would be a lie. Usually drink chocolate milk or nap.
Do you love pizza? What is your favourite kind? I always order the vegetable supreme with extra mushrooms and no cheese
Are you a gym member? How cheap/expensive and good/bad is your gym? My old gym was expensive, but did have all the best group exercise classes!
Have an amazing day friends!! <3
Father’s Day and a Birthday!
| June 18, 2012 | Posted by Sweet Tooth Runner under Uncategorized |
HAPPY {belated} Father’s Day to the best dad in the world!!
twins
You know they say that in families one kid is more like one parent than the other? Well that is definitely true in my family! My dad and I are very similar personality-wise, and my momma and brother are the same. I look most similar to my momma though I think!
Also, I love my dad for being the person who supports my running, and he is there when he can to cheer me on in races!
And he takes super-flattering photos too
To have that love and support means the world, and I can’t thank my dad enough for always supporting and having faith in me…LOVE YOU DAD <3
And a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my brother!! Not only was it Father’s Day yesterday, but it was David’s birthday too! Even though we are polar opposites when it comes to personalities, we get on really well, and I love him to bits:) He also started running (I got him running shoes for Christmas!) and is loving it, which makes me the happiest girl in the world!!
Sadly, my bro is up at university in York right now, so he wasn’t with us for his birthday, but he’ll be down this weekend so we can celebrate with him then. I also spammed his Facebook with birthday love in the early hours yesterday which I’m sure he appreciated
So on Sunday, after a wonderful hour on the VERY MUDDY trails…
…I had a nice hot shower, spruced up a bit and headed off to church.
I am becoming addicted to Instagram! I’m ‘sweettoothrunner’ if you want to be friends
On a random note, my church’s new pastor is Irish, and I am obsessed with his accent. I am seriously considering moving to Ireland just so I can be surrounded by that beautiful accent every day.
For lunch, we headed over to my aunt’s with the whole family (almost twenty of us!) and she made me VEGAN MOUSSAKA. It was amazing, and now I am obsessed and have to try to recreate this soon!!
All the rest of my family eat meat, so I REALLY appreciate that she went out of her way to make something nice for me! I had about three plates full, and I was stuffed afterwards! Deeeeelicious
vegan moussaka, roasted parsnips, roasted squash, roast potatoes, green beans and carrots
And now I’m off to eat some freezer cookies before bed… p.s. I had some right before my track session today and I almost saw them again. Not a good move!
And I’ll be back tomorrow with my first WIAW in too long! And talk about my base-building! Aaah I’ve got so much to catch you guys up on and I’m excited to get back to blogging and blog-reading regularly again!!
Who would you say you are most like personality-wise, your mother or your father? Definitely my dad!
What accents do you love the most? IRISH. I melt. Also I love Australian accents!
Random: When is your birthday? I’m September 2nd…any other September babies out there?!
Have a GREAT week friends! <3
I’m Back!!
| June 13, 2012 | Posted by Sweet Tooth Runner under Uncategorized |
Back from my holiday to Crete? Unfortunately not. My passport that I sent off to be renewed didn’t turned up, so I never left.
![191110_it_british_passport-[54333]_res](http://sweettoothrunner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/191110_it_british_passport-54333_res.jpg "191110_it_british_passport-[54333]_res")
Sadz. But I am getting a refund/compensation for the whole passport shenanigan, so at least that’s something! PLUS in a month’s time I am off to France for two weeks…Disneyland Paris here I come wahoo!!
Instead, I took a different kind of holiday. A complete break, away from work and the computer, and instead doing things and spending time with people I love…
…like lots of trips to my fave place in Londres (Camden town!) with this BEAUTIFUL girl who has been my bestie since we were five:
See, proof
is it just me, or do I look exactly the same now as I did then?!
Lots of shopping done…and Gabby I know you appreciate it when I take weird photos of us;)
…and regular trips to what in my opinion is the best vegan bakery in London:
Cookies and Scream rocks. Awesome food, great ingredients, lovely people.
Their brownies are out of this world. Gabby (who is as far from vegan as it is possible to be ) totally agreed with me on this one.
I have dreams about this brownie
I also went with some friends last week to see the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee parade. We managed to get a good spot and saw the Queen pretty close up!
Prince William+Kate, and Harry:
I’ve also had the time to join in my family’s monthly Ultimate Killer Scrabble Tournament. You don’t have to tell me, I know we’re really cool. My grandma is super-competitive and hates being beaten, which is hilarious to watch!! I am awesome at this game. I’m also really good at being modest
clearly I was a little bit excited over my win…
Running has also been great!! Lots of trail runs, and beautiful views
my fave riverside trail and view
Happy post-run Emma! This isn’t even Instagrammed, just my weird face and quality photography;)
I am starting 12 weeks of summer base training this week, so I’ll have a few workouts and races where they fit in, but mainly building up easy mileage. I’ll talk more about this next post!
And I updated my running wall! This is just part of it now, and it makes me so happy to look at it and see how far I’ve come since last year, and all the exciting things I have to look forward to!
Oh, and last random thing…I got a much needed haircut!! It’s quite a bit shorter, but I like it!
Got any fun holiday horror stories to share? Not passport related, but on my first music tour, a security guard asked me at the airport whether there was a bomb in my viola case, and, thinking he was joking, I said yes (I was young and naive ). He wasn’t joking, and I was thoroughly searched for a good half an hour. Never again!!
For those of you who live in or have visited London, where is your favourite place in the city? Camden has my heart, but I also love where my aunt lives in Kensington…and Hyde Park is awesome too!
Do you keep your race numbers/medals? If so, what do you do with them? I’ve kept almost all of them and stick them on my wall, but most of my friends don’t bother with anything like that!
I’ve missed you all, and can’t wait to catch up with you guys! Not looking forward to tackling the billions of unread items in my Google Reader though haha! Have a great day! <3
Randoms.
| May 30, 2012 | Posted by Sweet Tooth Runner under Uncategorized |
1. I WAS going to write a WIAW post, but I’ve forgotten to take photos of pretty much everything I’ve eaten. Except this photo which documents my recent obsession with ice lollies:
the scariest thing is that this photo has not been edited/filtered…I clearly just naturally give out an alien-like glow
2. I raced on Monday, and I absolutely LOVED it!! I have to admit, I was nervous for it all day, as it was the shortest distance I’ve ever raced, but I really enjoyed it! I don’t have the official results or any photos from the race yet, but I think I got around 5.25 for the mile…? I’ll confirm the time when I find out It was weird running such a short distance…it was over before I knew it! I just LOVE racing though, and dropping down in distance was definitely a good test for me! I need to learn to push more over short distances though, as I still felt that I had more left in me.
3. My race was the latest one I’ve ever done (gun went off for my race at 9pm!), so by the time I was done, I was starving and ready for dinner! I went straight to the nearby supermarket afterwards to pick up dinner, and I got a LOT of funny looks! Is it not normal to wander around a supermarket at night in racing gear…?
4. It is the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations this weekend, and the green just across from us is having a fete and a picnic to celebrate! How cute is that?! Sadly, I should be in Crete then, but it looks SO FUN.
5. I discovered that I prefer cold partly-frozen cookies to warm ones. I’m sure you’re so happy you made the decision to read this post and find out all these fascinating facts about me I made PB choc chip cookies and then froze them, and they are SO GOOD from the freezer!
6. I just saw the movie The Dictator with my friends. I have an embarrassingly loud laugh and I don’t think my friends will ever invite me to a comedy again. Also, I am The Dictator’s spitting image:
twins. all I need is a beard and I could be his doppelganger
What is your favourite hot-weather food? Right now I am in love with ice lollies…I am such a child!
What is your favourite genre of film? I think comedy, but I really should work on making my laugh less scary before I watch them in public
Random: Do any of you guys like iced coffee? I LOVE regular coffee, but iced coffee sounds weird to me! I want to try it though!
Have a great day!! <3
Summer Lovin’
| May 27, 2012 | Posted by Sweet Tooth Runner under Uncategorized |
HEY friends! Thanks for your comments on my last post! It feels so good to be able to relax after weeks of stress, and to be able to blog properly again! I have so much to catch up on with you guys…seriously my Google Reader is overflowing right now!
Saturday involved summer shopping! I am leaving for Crete in FIVE DAYS(!!) so I just had to go out and buy all the essentials….and by essentials I mean giant floppy hats and summer dresses
After shopping, I headed over to a friend’s house for a barbeque. I was excited because this was my FIRST ever barbeque! And my friends were excited because I was there. Obviously.
See? So excited to see me
Barbeques are totally my new favourite thing. We all brought some stuff, and I was in charge of bringing the meat-free options for us vegans/vegetarians. I brought veggie sausages, veggie burgers, and vegetable kebabs, and had about a thousand of each.
Also, I discovered that pita chips are my latest newest foodie obsession. I brought them to share but ended up knocking everyone else’s hands out of the way any time someone tried to take some. Mine.
This morning began with a short shakeout run (I’m racing tomorrow), which was hot and sweaty, and then I headed off to church. Just so you know, dry shampoo is a lifesaver after a morning run!
It was a perfect lazy Sunday afternoon for sure, spent walking the dog in the sunshine and lying in the grass reading one of my favourite books…
I can’t WAIT for the film to come out at the end of this year!! And the fact that Leonardo DiCaprio is Gatsby just makes me the happiest girl on earth
What has been the highlight of your weekend? Spending time with the people I love whilst eating delicious barbequed food:)
Your fave barbeque food? The veggie kebabs were SO goood!
What is your favourite book? I have so many! My favourites are probably To Kill a Mockingbird, Les Miserables, and The Great Gatsby!
Have a great week!! <3
I am FREE!
| May 26, 2012 | Posted by Sweet Tooth Runner under Uncategorized |
Finally, after exams every weekday for a fortnight, and after a month of living in the library…
“THIS IS SO CONFUSING”
…I am finally FREE! All my exams are done, and it feels good to be out in the sunshine relaxing, and to finally have clean hair again
The weather here has been so hot and sunny recently, but it sure made my decision to run late morning a very bad idea!! I headed to the trails for my easy run to try and avoid the heat. but I was still boiling! Six hot miles later I called it quits and jumped straight into a cold shower.
This is actually my first summer of proper running! This time last year I was injured with bad shin splints, so spent most of the summer not running, or making my comeback. This is my excuse as to why I am not so great with running in the heat
I also had a TOUGH workout in the muggy heat on Thursday evening. I hadn’t done a workout in a couple of weeks because of the exams, so this tough session on slow legs was interesting It was 400’s at 800m pace (2.24 pace = 72 sec 400s) and then 30s rest before a 200m at the same pace. And then that repeated a lot of times. My legs sure met the lactic yesterday!! As usual recently I was doing the workout with the middle-distance girls to “challenge me”. I feel SO slow when I train with them haha! It was tough, and I had to keep reminding myself of the quote that’s written above our track door:
Running is a big question mark that’s there each and every day. It asks you, ‘Are you going to be a wimp or are you going to be strong today? ~ Peter Maher
Love that quote. And I chose STRONG.
Apart from my run, I spent most of my day today lying on the couch watching TV doing absolutely nothing, and it was BLISS I caught up on everything I’ve recorded in the last four weeks, including the coverage of the Great Manchester Run. Can we just talk about how AMAZING and inspirational Haile Gebrselassie is for a sec?
I LOVEthat man. He has the sweetest personality too!!
I am writing this post whilst demolishing my third bowl of (non-dairy) ice cream. I am obsessed. As soon as the sun comes out, I go crazy with the ice cream.
vanilla+chocolate=SO GOOD
ALSO I am dropping down in distance to race my first 1500m on Monday night! My coach thinks it will be a good test of my (non-existent) speed, so it will be interesting for sure
What is the shortest distance you’ve ever raced? As of Monday, it will be 1500m! I love 5ks and 10ks the most I think
Running in the heat or in the cold? Cold I think, because I run faster! In the eat I run slower usually haha!
Are you an ice cream fan? What’s your favourite flavour? Chocolate, obviously! I hope someone starts selling cookie dough vegan ice cream…that would make me the happiest girl ever!!
Have an amazing weekend friends!! <3
