For the LOVE of Running

Every morning or evening, I have a battle with myself when it comes to going for a run or working out...

Sometimes I win, sometimes my bed or my mind will win... And it's a constant and an ongoing battle that I have with myself on this... ;)

I am sure that all of you runners out there have to deal with your love/hate relationship with running...

So it was natural for me to share these 2 TVCS by New Balance when they launched this awesome LOVE/hate running campaign developed by BBDO New York back in 2008 today :)

Mighty spot-on!

The bed is always the kryptonite for us morning runners :P

So, put on your shoes and give 'em an awesome workout for the LOVE of running...

Have a good (and long for the Selangor workers :P) weekend everyone! :)

Vision Board

Our mentor, Farhanah was telling us the Oprah ladies about the concept of Vision Board during one of the dinners at Armin's house last year...

Hence, the nickname Oprah ladies derived from that heart-to-heart session that we had that night :)

The four of us (Ili, Rose, Nyna & I) with our mentor, Farhanah :)

A Vision Board is actually your dreams depicted in pictures or words...  

Basically it's what you want or desire to achieve in your life... Be it career, life, health or love...

And the board serves you as a daily reminder so that you'll achieve each and every one of them in the future insyaAllah...

All you have to do is:

1. Gather all your old magazines or catalogues.

2. Go through them and pull out images, phrases or words that speak to you or evoke feelings.

3. Place the images and words on a manila card (or a magnetic board if you're lazy to paste them!) in a way that feels right to you.

4. Paste the images and words on the card and your Vision Board is done!

5. Review your Vision Board and ask yourself these questions (courtesy of Oprah.com):

- What have I learned about myself from looking at it?

- Do I see any patterns?

- Does anything on my Vision Board surprise me?

- If I knew that all of the images and this Vision Board would come into my life, would I be OK with that?

- Who do I need to become in order to fulfill the intentions of my Vision Board

- Based on the Vision Board, what quality will I commit to developing this year?

6. Put the vision board in your room so that when you wake up, it's the first thing that you'll see and gets you motivated to get through your day :)

Here an example:

Pic taken from here

I have yet to do mine, but will definitely work on it after being reminded about it again last night and when I'm 'planting grapes' soon ;)

So, go on... Do your own Vision Board and maybe we can swap or share stories on this in the near future... :)

Sticky Date Pudding

When I was studying in Melbourne, I used to go everywhere with my dessert loving friends and try out the yummylicious desserts that the town has to offer...

The above mentioned dessert was famous during those cold winter nights and it was definitely ONE of my fav desserts there...

So, when I came back here for good and craving for them, I decided to look up the Internet and bake these goodies during the holy month (since the supplies of dates were never-ending during the month!)...

I tend to get a bit domesticated during the month of Ramadan since can't do much besides running/exercising/sleep/work... ;)

Will share more recipes as I go along k? 

Anyhoo, I got this super sedap recipe from allrecipes.com:

Ingredients:

1 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 1/2 ounces dark chocolate, grated

7 ounces chopped pitted dates

1 1/4 cups water

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 cup softened butter

3/4 superfine (castor) sugar

1 cup heavy cream

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 cup butter

About 3 cups vanilla ice cream 

(The recipe above makes about 12 servings)

1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees C. Grease a 12-cup muffin tin.

2. Whisk together flour, baking powder and chocolate in a small bowl, and set aside.

3. Bring the dates and water to a boil in a saucepan over high heat. Remove from the heat, and stir in the baking soda. Allow the mixture to stand for about 5 minutes, then scrape into a food processor or a blender, and carefully puree until smooth; set aside

4. Cream 1/4 cup of butter together with the superfine sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well between each addition. Fold in the flour mixture and the date puree until well blended. Spoon into the prepared muffin cups.

Before hitting the oven...

5. Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes.

6. Meanwhile, stir together the cream, brown sugar and 1 cup of butter in  saucepan over medium low-heat until the butter melt; set aside.

7. When the puddings have baked for 25 minutes, remove them from the oven, and cool in the pan for about 10 minutes. Remove the puddings from the tin, and place them into a baking sheet.

Almost there... ;)

8. Spoon about 2 tablespoons of the sauce over each pudding, then return to the oven and bake for 5 minutes more.

9. To serve, spoon some of the sauce onto the bottom of a plate and place the pudding on top. Top with a 1/4 cup scoop of ice cream. Repeat the same for the remaining date puddings.

Here's the finished product:

Voila! :) 

Highly recommended to all of you (especially the Muslim readers) out there that doesn't know what to do with the excessive dates at home ;)

Or you can always pass to me and I'll do them for you... 

But not for a battalion k :P 

I Run To You

One day, I'll sing this beautiful song by Lady Antebellum to my future hubby ;)

I run from hate

I run from prejudice

I run from pessimists

But I run too late

I run my life or is it running me

Run from my past

I run too fast or too slow it seems

When lies become the truth

That's when I run to you

This world keeps spinning faster

Into a new disaster so I run to you

I run to you baby

And when it all starts coming undone

Baby you're the only one I run to

I run to you

We run on fumes

Your life and mine

Like the sands of time

Slippin' right on through

 And our love's the only truth

That's why I run to you

Can't stop singing this happy song at the moment...

Happy Monday to all of you! :) 

My Running Partner

When I'm not running on my treadmill at home, I usually run at TTDI park with:

Rose

and 

Mr Adabi :P

It's fun and motivational to run with a partner... You'll forget that you are there to train for your next run/half marathon/marathon knowing that you have someone running with you and have such fun conversing with them while running (at times)... 

Hence, today I will be sharing a campaign that was done by Asics in 2007 called "My Running Partner" :)

My running partner has eight arms (referring to the four people rowing in the background)

My running partner makes me run with two plastic bags (referring to the dog and its activities)

My running partner is my evil twin

My running partner and I have never met 

Pics taken from here

You can check out and join their website called Your Running Partner, where it's a community of 6 runner-bloggers that will help you with anything to do with running... 

If any one of you out there are thinking about running for the first time, grab a friend or your lover or your dad/mom to run with you at the park... (I used to drag my dad to jog with me at the park a few years back :P) 

Trust me, it'll be much easier than running on your own when you've just started ;)

Have a good weekend everyone! :)

Coca Cola Village

Just had to share with all of you here on this supercool idea that Coca Cola has done in Israel in collaboration with Facebook...

Thanks to my colleague, Juliet for sharing this :)



I am not really a big fan of Coke (and Israel of course!) but I thought the concept was brilliantly executed and I wouldn't mind living in this village and share real-time experiences...

Aahhhh, the power of technology ;)

Quote of the day

"You don't run against a bloody stop watch, do you hear? A runner runs against himself, against the best that's in him. Not against a dead thing of wheels and pulleys. That's the way to be great, running against yourself. Against all the rotten mess in the world. Against God, if you're good enough."

-Bill Persons, fictional coach in Hugh Atkinson's The Game-

That's right, fictional coach! ;)

But I can't help it if I keep on checking out my watch on the timing though... It's the kiasu runner in me... Hehe... 

On the running against God bit, too far fetched for moi... :P