I'm sorry about my obsession with running

BORING STUFF OUT OF THE WAY:

On Tuesday I ran 6 miles, had a bad day, ate more quorn scotch eggs and painted some turds. (why?)

Wednesday: no. I did not run 6 miles. But I did make some very bad vine videos. Pretty sure the day ended with singapore noodles, which was a nice touch. 

On Thursday: 4 mile run and by the way I ran my 161st km for the month, ahem, on the last day of the month.  Do you know how many miles that is? Only exactly 100. I RAN EXACTLY ONE HUNDRED MILES by the way, January. 

Friday: Hot yoga. The 6.45am class. That counts for 98 gold points! I also found a pound coin in my pocket. I deserve beer. 

Janathon is over and I succeeded/failed in various ways. But, look at these squirrels! 

Speaking of nuts, despite my few days of rest during the month of January my marathon training is well underway and if you'd like to sponsor me you can do so on my fundraising page.  I'm raising cash for a Yorkshire-based charity who rescue dogs and cats in need.

Not sure how anyone could neglect an animal but hey nice to know there's people who are looking out for unwanted kitties.  And on the topic of being nice to others, have you bought your Valentine a card? You may need to do that.  You could even send them a postcard. There's some new pretty kitty ones in my etsy shop.

Alrighty, time for me to go.  I hope you have enjoyed reading my sweaty January updates - however Unicorn-tarnished they may have been.  Despite my one month challenge being over it's likely that I'll continue to bore you with running-based communiqué because, well, that's how I roll.  Laters!

I'm not sure what I'm talking about

How do I look today? Verging on positively mental.  With an unfortunate arrangement of crispy, wild hair, not a whisper of makeup and to make matters worse I've been gorging on quorn scotch eggs since late morning.  What's happened to me, Monday? Some sort of crazy ups and downs.

Believe it or not, despite my unruly appearance I'm on my way up.  We might need to start fresh with the not-looking-like-a-crazywoman thing tomorrow, but I promise I'll even wear deodorant and I promise we're still on with this Janathon thing.  (Illustration above done for Whitelines magazine issue 106, January 2013)

It's just been - well - you know, sometimes you just gotta stick up for yourself and say what you want.  (Sometimes that involves taking a day off, whether you like it or not.)

When in doubt: hibernate, cry if necessary and say what you feel.  Cake also helps.  As does cheese.

I didn't take the whole weekend off, nooonono.  Just Friday.  Although snow+rain+freezing temperatures makes for very challenging running conditions, so Saturday was almost a no-go as well!

Fortunately the pretty blue sky on Saturday morning was too hard to resist so I got my butt outside for 5 miles and I didn't land on said butt once.

Turns out the run was a perfect start to a top day that involved lots of time with my other half, coffee, new runners, and a lunchdate.  I was back in the game :)

PS: LOOK AT MY NEW SHOES LOOK AT MY NEW SHOES LOOK AT MY NEW SHOES

And yesterday I put these pretty things on my feet and went out for a slow and steady 13.6 miles with my training buddies.  It was followed nicely by another lunchdate - delicious sweet potato sandwich and hot cup of tea.  mmm.

And here's an absolutely irrelevant photo of some dried chillis from our chilli plant.  Give me a break, it's Monday, and I have spent a large amount of it consuming imitation meat with egg.  I need to lie down now.

Cats, cards, peanuts and porridge

Hey Cool Cats! Are you making it through the week in good spirits?  Despite it being super cold and frosty here in Manchester there's been some beautiful blue skies, which never fail to make me want to smile and dance.  What have you been up to?  I've been here packing up your orders and designing a few new products for you to see.  There's still a few of the oldies but goodies hanging about:

(My man got made to model aprons at the weekend.  I think he did a great job, hey?  Turns out taking 5 MINUTES BREAK from watching golf on the tv didn't cause him to keel over and stop breathing...)

Speaking of tv, if you happen to be in the mood for something way more entertaining than grown men knocking their balls across the garden, there's a new show which I worked on last summer with a really awesome animation agency.  It's called Let's Play and it's for kiddies.  I got to draw the backgrounds for the different worlds that the characters visit, alongside two other illustrators chosen for the job.  The animators turned our illustrations into awesome 3d scenes for the real-life characters to walk around in.  You can see my handiwork next week on Tuesday, the 'Doctors' episode is on at 10.30am/2.30pm on CBeebies (SKY channel 614).  You'll see all of the pretty backgrounds I drew.   Then the 'Farmers' episode is on Wednesday at the same time.  There are 26 episodes in total, and I am pretty excited to upload some of the artwork onto my website for you to see.

In the meantime, if you're in need of Valentines Day cards, there's plenty in my etsy shop including these foxy foxes who are also stocked at Bowery on Otley Rd, Leeds.

And I guess you'd also like to hear my Janathon update! So Monday my hips were feeling a little angry with me after my 14 mile jog on Sunday.  I did some leg stretching and a lot of walking but as it was a recovery day on my training plan I did just that.  Tuesday at run club I did 5.8miles worth of tempo running, and yesterday involved a super sweaty 90 minute Bikram session.  I got my 3 mile run out of the way this morning before my egg breakfast... I beat my 5k pb on today's run, so I guess that means I get to celebrate with chocolate covered peanuts.

I'll leave you with a photo of my chocolate protein porridge from the other day with apple, flax, sunflower & pumpkin seeds, linseed and cacao.  I'm much better at drawing cats than I am at making porridge, and I'm not very good at drawing cats.

Which one of you party animals has run 100km so far this month?

OH HAY.   I see you there standing around waiting for me to write another garbage blogpost.  Well here it is, my friend - sit back and get this in you.  (Be warned, I will talk garbage and there will likely be unicorns.)

Where did we leave things? Ah yes, I remember.  We were on the topic of unicorns.  Of course!

You can now in fact buy mini unicorn drawings in my etsy shop.  Funny, hey.  (not funny at all really.)

I have been doing a month of activities, as you may know.  If you'd like an update on my athletic movements since my last post, it looks something like this: Thursday, I ran 3 miles and swam 900 metres.  Friday I did a pathetic 200 crunches.  Saturday I ran 5 miles and Sunday I ran 14 miles.  YEA, I DID.

(token photo of clean hair to prove I do actually sometimes wear things other than dri-fit and lycra and sometimes even wash my hair)  (but it's not that often.)

Back to running related matters:  I've setup a fundraising page for my marathon, as it's happening in April.  I'm raising money for a small charity based in Yorkshire who work their buns off to help dogs and cats in crisis situations.  If you'd like to donate, you can click over to my page.  This babe has volunteered to kiss every person that donates.  Wow! Thanks, hot babe.

Speaking of displays of affection, a Malaysian-based online magazine wrote some words about moi today. Gahh people being all nice and stuff.

Ah yes and lastly we went to see Django Unchained on Saturday night - have you seen it? It's brilliant. There are numerous amazing coats worn and a spectacularly dashing black man in a cowboy hat.

Bye 4 now, friends!  (Ps: the answer to the question in my blog title is: ME) ok bye

What chu know about me

I know you want an update on my exercise, January.  So your update is this: on Monday I did loads (loads) of crunches.  On Tuesday I ran 4 miles.  Today, more crunches.  Are you bored? Don't worry, it's over.  And as a reward, here's a Unicorn sticker:

I'm selling them in my etsy shop.  I'm also popping them in with lucky orders.  PLAY ON.

12 miles, cheese love and poncey powders

A couple things that made me feel emotional this week:
1. Got to Dance.  Just pretty much all of the contestants always ever, dunno why but I cry at every single one.
2.  My mom and Dad moved to France to begin their dream of running a business and living a sustainable life together.  Mom tells me they have been given fish pie by the neighbours and my dad has told me to download a new app called 'whatsapp.'  I feel confident in saying they are going to be just fine.
3.  My freaking aprons only went and got a total big deal blog mention last week and sold out.

Turns out, PEOPLE LOVE CHEESE hey.  There were some funny comments on the blogpost specifically one person who adapted a Beyonce song to incorporate cheese. Of course.

Oh if you want to buy aprons, you still can do.  Just click over to my etsy shop.  

I also chose a winner for the giveaway on my facebook page.  Well, two winners because two is better than one (unless you're talking measures of spirulina cuz that stuff stinks and I mean it's mega whiffy) 

So yeah I'm excited to send out some love to these ladies.  Oh and speaking of sending love in the post, check out Creative Pay it Forward.  I got involved on facebook and if all goes to plan I should be receiving something handmade and also sending out some goods to old pals I've not seen in a while.

And speaking of old pals, I may have to reward my legs with denim this week as they covered some mileage this weekend and deserve a present.  2.5 mile yesterday and 9.6 mile today.  That's a new jean-worthy 12 miles. Go legs! I love you. Now please, choose expensive jeans and I shall buy them for you guiltlessly.

Last week I was having some issues with hydration/moodswings but it seems a combo of some crazy healthfood powders I can't even... Baobab (how is that a thing?) and Spirulina (don't even) along with my other protein/crazy diet stuffs my post-run hunger rage seems under control and I'm not getting major thirst headaches anymore.  Was really hoping to avoid sugarfilled sports drinks and fingers crossed I might be on the right track.  

Alrighty! Off to eat some fish, pack up some aprons and hopefully finish the book I'm reading.  Thanks for being wonderful.  It's been emotional but nothing some new jeans can't fix. 

You really are.

It's the best day of the week!  Fried-egg day! Woo. We love Fridays. Usually they mean the day before two days of relaxing, watching tv, doing a bit of work and hanging out with my best manfriend.  Right now Fridays are the day before one day of a shortish run and one day of a long run. But guaranteed I'll squeeze the other activities in with loads of chowing on food in between.

Janathon is going well so far, I got my Missy Elliot on last night at a street dance class (I'm so street!) and today my marathon training plan called for just a short 3 miler so I took my ass out pre-breakfast to get it over and done with.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have Valentines cards to design! Thanks for reading. YOU'RE A GOOD EGG!

Dehydration, yoghurt, men in a box

Did 5.8 miles tempo run last night with run club (5min/90sec recovery  4min/90sec recovery  3min/60sec recovery, 2min/60sec recovery, 1min/60sec recovery, 1min/60sec recovery, 1min/60sec recovery, easy run home.)  Felt great. Did drink too much water before bed in effort to rehydrate- needa work on the electrolyte situ. Been chowing on toast+yoghurt this morning.  Not tried it? You'll be amazed how good it is.

Been packing up a bunch of orders again today.  Seems peoples are getting sorted for Valentines Day early this year.  I'm stocked up again on aprons, and don't forget you can get a discount if you buy two!

And I updated my 'about' page in my etsy shop.  Check it out.  Hope you're having a wonderful Wednesday.  I've got a one mile time trial to do later today.  That calls for a snack-tastic afternoon.  Oh, did you enter my giveaway? It's still on. 'till Friday, yo. 

Running and gangsters and cake

Hello! It's Tuesday.  Yesterday's errands and drawing and making vegetarian chilli didn't really count as exercise so in the spirit of Janathon I did some crunches and thigh work (while the Simpsons was on the tv...) last night.  It was a 'rest day' on my marathon training plan and as I had done 9 miles on Sunday with run club I felt I owed my legs a day off.  But hey my 100 crunches must count for something.  Especially since my taco kitty tote bag was featured in the 'treat yo self' etsy newseletter (ayyy!!!) on Sunday and I was feeling in the spirit.

Today I spent the morning packing up orders and listening to UhhYeahDude.

Did you see my illustration for issue 105 (December 2012) of Whitelines Magazine?  This is it:

These cats sold out over Christmas.  This week calls for some sewing and stuffing (and maybe some cake.)

Run club again tonight.  My legs are ready.

Vitamins and purple food

Did a 6.5 mile run this morning.  I crammed some real sugary fruitcake (for breakfast? I know, I'm so healthy) in my gob and downed a protein shake pre-run and then afterwards took down a brew (love a brew after a run) a banana, walnuts, peanut butter, followed by massive mushroom+chicken sandwich.  Sometimes the feeding/nutritionising can be more tiring than the exercising itself.  Will there be enough time in the day to get all the food in, when I'm up in the 18 mile distances in March?  So boring, remembering to eat all the gosh darn time!!

I'm thinking of doing another Vitamin/nutrient chart.  This one helped me process all the info I was reading when I was training for my first half marathon.  I turned it into a tea towel late last year, for kitchen exposure!

In the meantime, here are some photos from my instagram feed of my colourful daily graze.  I guess as my training goes on I will have to start tripling my purple smoothie intake and use it as an excuse to bake more rainbow carrot muffins. (and of course an excuse to take more photos of my food. As if I don't take enough already.)

In other news, you can now order custom tote bags and custom pet portraits through my etsy shop.

Work more, sweat more, and win cats

You made it through the first week back in the real world!  So did I! This calls for chicken hoagies.  Hope you're feeling the newness of the new year and enjoying laying down the law for hows it gonna roll in 2013. I'm making a conscious effort to make more bad drawings.  Here's one I did yesterday. 

Some good words to live by.

And in celebration of reaching 1,000 fans, a giveaway is happening on my facebook page.  Because I like you.  You can win a bumper pack of greeting cards, some rad stickers, a big cat print, a Ms Spanner print, a blue faces coaster, one of the original pocket girlfriends, a Motel California tea towel, an 'I love you so much I could fart' pocket mirror and two mini drawings.  What you can't win are my feet.  I need them!

Today involved 90 minutes of hot yoga at Bikram Yoga Manchester.  Hot damn it was good.  So sweaty and so good.  Yesterday started with a fresh early morning 3 mile run.  I'm alternating my Janathon updates between here and my instagram account so's not to get my blog too sweaty or my instagram feed too running-obsessed (you know I want to though.)

My Be Obscure tote bag showed up on the etsy front page this afternoon. Wowee!!

And lastly, there's a shiny new (she's shiny and colourful) runner on my running blog. If you'd like to contribute to We Do Run Run please get in touch!

Happy Friday to you. x

Happy YOU day. And some rain.

8 mile bike ride today in the rain.  Orders posted, office supplies bought.  May have purchased a miniature anglepoise-esque reading lamp.  Put lots of cards and things on sale in my etsy shop.

Oh and there's a couple of new cards in my shop. Hey? Give 'em to someone you think is da bomb. 

Hope you had a good first day back to reality.  Please keep in mind: YOU are totally the best.  The end. x

Holiday Roundup, New Year, Janathon, and Yellow Tights.

It's 2013! Are you still there? I woke this morning with a slightly sore head which was more due to the overindulgent four-course meal we devoured last night, than the accompanying drinks.  With back-to-business day tomorrow it seems the transition from horizontal position to vertical position this year has been much easier, partly because my family Christmas took place in a very small rental house in the midlands (my Ma and Pa are the proud owners of a business in the North of France. More on this shortly.) which meant there wasn't room for spreading one's legs and arms akimbo without actually lying on another human being - and partly because I know I have a marathon in April and have thus maintained my running despite attempts by chocolate covered pretzels and Christmas TV specials to thwart my efforts.  And talking about efforts, I also decided to sign up for Janathon in further crazyness, as if I had no other things to be doing for the month of January.  Not that I need an excuse to do more exercise, that's not the hard part - the challenge will be to find the time to blog about it!

Anyways, check out these chocolate covered pretzels I created and gave to people (to myself) as part of their Christmas gifts.  I spent a little too much time on the labels. mmmm. pretzelly chocolatey goodness.  

So my holiday season started like this: finished up packing orders and posting and saying goodbye to my friends at the post office.

Drank rum at work-related Christmas dos and treated everyone in my studio to a delicious fry-up to recover (everyone being JUST ME)

Dressed up as Milhouse for our Nike Run Club fancy dress holiday run and won a sweet Nike Running coat.  I did no doubt wear yellow tights on my arms which did no doubt get very hot during our run! 

Went to visit my good friend who lives in Yarm.  It's pretty there.  Started 2013 race-planning. Where to go/which ones to try/totally nerding out. 

Got a 6 miler done did on Christmas eve, a very brisk mile and half jog on Boxing day, 9k (4k to Parkrun, 5k of puddles & mud at Platt Fields) this Saturday, 2 mile yesterday and 2 mile this evening. 

Best part of Christmas was being asked to be bridesmaid at my brother's wedding by my future sister-in-law.   (Little does she know I shall be asking the internet what this job actually entails as my knowledge in this area is based loosely on a handful of chick flicks and what I've made up in my head.)

I also was given some beautiful jewelry, amazeballs footwear and a sweet Dualit mixer which will no doubt be whipping up some doughs, mashed potatoes and batters, and looks nice on our countertop to boot.  

Speaking of carbs, here's today's bits of exercise: a hike up Alderly Edge with our good friends from Singapore and my evening run to buy two pints of milk.  Happy New Year.