I AM NOT A RUNNER!

I signed up for this half marathon in hope that it would get me out running frequently, moving more, losing weight, becoming the healthiest version of me. Plus a full marathon was lurking on my bucket list (emphasis on the word was). However last night, whilst running 5K around Florence Park in the sunshine I realised something.

 I AM NOT A RUNNER!

Many people could have told you that, from my PE primary school teacher, to my boyfriend and if you’re reading this and you know me, you probably knew that already.

Now 'rumming' a half marathon
is more my kind of thing

It took me until yesterday to realise this (better late than never), but I don’t particularly enjoy running. I want too, I always thought it would be cool to be a runner – I’ve always admire runners for various reasons. They’ve got a great physique, they can eat loads of carbs, they seem to easily run distances that I struggle to walk, plus they always seem so switched on and determined in life. So being a runner to me seemed to be the ultimate picture of health.  I’m not saying I don’t like exercise, I’m very happy in exercise classes or on the cross-trainer.

However what I do like about running is I am slowly improving and seeing progress, and that I have a challenge to work towards (have I mentioned that I’m running the Oxford half marathon?). I was hoping that along my journey that I would fall in love with running, and that by now I would be at the stage where running was just something I do 3-4 times a week and don’t even think about it, but I’m not there. I'm still pep talking myself into running on my drive home from work, finding excuses of why I shouldn't go, then reasons why I should. So far I've been good with getting out there and putting my left foot in front of my right with a bounce in my step. Though,with less than 10 weeks to go, I feel like I'm never going to get there to the 13.1 mile stage, but I'm determined, even if I have to walk / crawl across the finish line, I'll make it. 

I’m also running for the Williams Syndrome Foundation, a cause that is extremely close to my heart. Williams Syndrome does not get enough exposure or research into it, so the more we can do the better. Yesterday after completing my fourth kilometer and sweating buckets, wanting to give up, this is what got me through; the fact I’m doing this for the Williams Syndrome Foundation and for everyone and their families who are affected by it.

So whilst I’m not a runner, I’ll still keep running for the next 10 weeks and I will  run 13.1miles around Oxford (and collapse in a big heap at the end). If you would like to sponsor me and my team you can do by clicking here. Thank you to everyone who has donated so far.

Machofest 2014

Saturday 26^th July 2014, saw the 5^th annual Machofest. For people who don’t quite know what Machofest is, or have never been I thought I’d give a brief explanation / FAQs

What is it?

It’s a big house (garden) party, that’s a little like a festival as we have live bands preforming.

Why is it called Machofest?

My family name is Machado, and its hosted by us Machado’s – Machafest doesn’t have the same ring to it, so we named is Machofest.

What kind of Bands preform there?

Any really – this year we had an urban rapper / singer - Mr Rootsy, Ben from Phats and Small and Du Bellows -a rock/indie band. We usually have a 60s / Beatles cover band, who really know how to get the party started, but they we’re having a Machofest break this year.

Is there a bar?
No – we ask everyone to bring a bottle, and we just put everything together, make some punch and drink till we can’t remember our names.

What about food?
My Mum and her brothers are the world’s greatest cook, so they make a tonne of awesome food for everyone.

Can we camp?

You can stay over (as in find a place to crash in the house) but we don’t let people put tents up, mainly because the garden isn’t that big.

Are your parents going to be there?

Yes, of course, it’s there house and our family party. Dad is the shot man and Mum is the feeder of chicken. Without them there would be no Machofest.

Sounds a bit crazy? Well it is, and new friends who come to it every year still can’t quite believe that we do it, but we do and we love it.

This year was amazing, the weather was glorious, and even though my google weather app said they're might be a 50% chance of rain, we didn't feel one drop. Surrounded by lovely family and friends, it was a good place to catch up with everyone who we don't get to see very often. The booze flowed, the punch was sweet and strong (that's what 64% rum does), the moves on the dance floor where questionable and the music was great. We had some of the best new acts popping up on the scene right now, and a little rewind to the old school with Phats and Small. We worked hard to put it all together, but we also partied hard and enjoyed it. 

I'd like to thank Mr Rootsy, for kicking off the party with a great session. Mr Rootsy preformed his new song Boyfriend, which I instantly fell in love with, having that sense of a new urban rap, with the familiar undertones of a slightly cheesy love song. Check it out on youtube - the video is awesome; click HERE for the link to his youtube channel.

Big shout out to Ben from Phats and Small for generally caring about all of us and asking 'what's wrong with you?' and waking the neighbours up. 

Thanks to DuBellows for rounding up the live acts with their calm, beatiful indie beats.

Without you all it would just be a house party entertained with my awful spotify list and bad DJ-ing skills, not a festival.

As I spent most of the night fairly intoxicated...I shall leave you with an array of photos of the night, to get a real feel of how the Machofest went.

Our youngest Machofest-goer, got caught with a bottle of Rum

Mark's two 'bosses' Mum and Vanessa

Family Oscars-Style Shots Selfie

PHOTO BOMB from Mr Rootsy

My Dad's proudest moment of me - SHOT GIRL!

Mum and Ben (Phats and Small) audition for a dental advert

Lots of Glamour

Even more Glamour here...

And then it was a little downhill from here....

Before Kraken....

'We've drunk so much Kraken, we can't feel our face'

Curly Girls

The Morning After

Secret Weekend Away: Part 1 - dating like we're sixteen again

The title of this blog is called ‘Have Love, Will Travel’ – I write about all the love I have around me fairly often (I do have a lot of it!), but I’m yet to write about Travel. Though to be fair the theme of the blog is not about love or travel, in fact I’m not too sure exactly what the ‘theme’ is – the blog and I are still at our ‘finding feet’ stage.

I digress…so back to Traveling (& love too), I was recently whisked away for a surprise weekend. It was my birthday present from Kyle, but it was a complete surprise – all I was told prior to the trip is the following:

• Take the Friday off work
• Pack light
• Take shoes comfortable enough to walk in
• Take something ‘pretty’ to wear
•  Liquids over 100ml are acceptable

Upon hearing that I immediately thought we were going to Scotland; did a little Scottish Jig and started picturing us walking up the hill to Edinburgh Castle.  However when Friday came around, we got onto the M4, then south on the M25; my next immediate thoughts were ‘we must be going to France, we’re heading to Dover’. But no…we started driving to the North of Kent and ended up in the beautiful seaside town on Whitstable on the hottest day of the year so far.  

The colourful beach huts at Whitstable

I was pretty happy with  Whitstable, the beach was beautiful, the seaside smelt fresh, the town was quaint and picturesque, also ‘stay-cations’ are so in right now. So we parked up, walked along the harbour front, got an ice cream, mooched around a bit, enjoying the scenery and beautiful town, then I was put back into the car. I assumed we’d head to a nice little B&B, but as we were driving through some of Kent’s finest Country Roads I slowly worked out that we kept heading towards Ashford.

Now I've never really been to Ashford before, nor is it famous for anything particularly touristy; however it does play host to an ‘international train station’ – the last stop on the Eurostar before France. Excitingly I thought we’d be heading straight for the station….but no, Kyle had other plans and we pulled in at the Ashford International Hotel. We checked in, went to our rooms, and then straight out again; this time to the local bowling alley (I kid you not). I know ‘dates’ get less adventurous the longer you've been together – but bowling? Really? Are we 15 again?.

I knew (hoped) things would get better for the rest of the weekend, so I went along with it and really enjoyed it. It was only two of us, so our turns came around really quickly. Usually I hate bowling, because you’re in large groups, and by the time your turn comes around you’ve lost interest (especially if your losing). However it was just the two of us, so every second go was mine – and I spent most of the time winning (even with the sides down). I felt like I was 16 again, hanging out with a boy – but this time I wasn’t worried about how cool I was or if my make-up still looked fresh, I was having a loads of fun with my boy. We played another game (which Kyle won, but only by one point), and then followed it up with a game of air hockey (which Kyle won, I had to let him win that one, his ego was bruised from losing to me so badly from the first game of bowling).

By this point, our bellies were rumbling, so where is the best place to take someone after bowling (remember Kyle was in 16 year old mind set today) – Nandos!

Nothings says 'I Love You' like Peri-Peri

Belly full of chicken, tired from a day at the beach and bowling, we headed to the hotel bar to enjoy the sunset over a few glasses of pimms, and then it was strict instructions to head to bed early for Part 2....coming soon.

The first four...

If  you follow me on Twitter you would have known that from Monday 14^th July 2014 things got serious – serious in the sense that it’s just over 12 weeks to the half marathon. 12 weeks seems like ages right? That’s a whole 3 months, a quarter of the year, plenty of time to build up to 13.1 miles. But a big lesson I've learnt about turning a year older, is that time flies by…like literally you blink and it’s the next month (what happened to June?).

So it's time to step up the training, form a routine training plan and give up alcohol (except for my four scheduled alcohol-allowed events; this weekend, Machofest, Kyle’s birthday and Carnival), the rest of the time I shall be T-Total (and probably quiet grumpy and boring on weekends now).

The Training Plan:

I’m using a mix of training plans I've found online and fitting them in between my body pump classes (as we've got to keep the muscles strong and lean right?). As it’s just over 12 weeks, and I’m away this weekend (it’s a surprise trip, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to go for a run whilst I’m away, hence the '?' in my plan) I shall be repeating week 1 twice – it will also help build  the plan into my routine that I have to stick to for 12 weeks. I’m notoriously bad at sticking to things, so hopefully shouting out about this on my blog means that it’s making me accountable for it, and I have to do it, plus its for charity and I’m running with a team, and I've told loads of people, and spent a lot of money on running shoes etc, etc.

Monday's are the toughest day, and I originally had the 30 minute easy run on a Tuesday, but trying to move the day after a Body Pump session can be tough (I barely make it up the stairs at work), so I've put my two rest days the days after body pump. It's also an easy run on the Monday (as legs are still recovering from Sunday's long run), so I can do it just before my body pump class on the treadmill, in the comfort of an air conditioned gym.

As I have created the plan, and I’m not a fitness expert I shall be changing and adapting it as I see fit (with the 13.1 mile goal in mind). I should probably run this past someone who knows what they are doing; so if you are an experienced runner/athlete/personal trainer who is reading this and can see massive flaws in the plan – give me  a shout.

I’m not going to bore you with the full 12 week plan so far (partly because it scares me a little to look at the full 12 weeks at once), so I’m just going to post the first four weeks on here.

Want to join me? I mainly run just after work around 6:30 / 7pm in East Oxford - so drop me an email / comment / tweet and we can meet up :).

Birthdays, Cake, Loved ones and Sunshine

Birthday Lemon Drizzle Cheesecake - 100 times better than Birthday Cake

On Saturday I turned 25, and like all good birthdays it consisted of lots of cake, loved ones and sunshine. July is popular in my Mums family, as 5 of us celebrate our birthday within 7 days of each other, so on Saturday evening we celebrated an 18th, a 21st, a 25th and a 55th birthday...we were hoping it would be joined by celebrating a new arrival in the family, but she seems to want to stay put for now.

For the last two years I have dreaded my birthday, blaming a wonderful childhood of excellent birthdays parties and being thoroughly spoilt by family, making slightly 'older' birthdays a bit of an anticlimax. However this year I was looking forward to spending a day with my family, and partying with the extended family in the evening, and it lived up to every expectation of feeling absolutely loved and appreciated. The 100+ messages, phone calls, emails, tweets and texts helped too - I really do have a great bunch of people around me.

As was the plan, I didn't start my 25th year on earth with a 10K around Dorney Lake, with a busy day planned a head, and not wanting to wake up any earlier than I normally do on a Saturday, I relished the extra time in bed and substituted 10K for a lie in. Though I will make up my miles this week :).

More post to follow this week on my new FitBit & my 3 month training plan...so watch this space.

#100daysofsummer

100 days from tomorrow (24^th May 2014) will be the 1^st of September.

The 1^st September usually marks the end of the summer holidays, I’m not ruled by academic years anymore; but having the academic year structure be part of your life for so long, it ingrains into your head a little bit.

So with 100 days of summer left; I've decided to make a ‘Summer Bucket List’, so I can make the most of it and not let it flash past in a daze of pub gardens and daisy.

Punting in the River in Oxford

Lots of picnics in the Park

Notting Hill Carnival

Cowley Road Carnival

Read 3 Books

Spend a whole day eating all three meals outside

Outdoor Movie

Theme Park Day

Go to the beach

Run 10 miles

Big Summer Family Picnic

Go for a long hike

Make Daisy Chains

I’m also going to be joining the #100happydays movement and documenting 100 happy summery shots, but adding to it my own hashtage #100daysofsummer.

Join me – let’s make memories this summer.

What’s on your summer bucket list?