Virgin London Marathon 2016

It's all real now! It has finally been confirmed that I have a Golden Bond place in the 2016 Virgin London Marathon. I have officially started my training so thought it would be a good time to tell you all about the charity I will be running for. My sister Meghan is also running the marathon but she got in via the ballot, so she to is going to help raise money for my charity.

I chose to run for The Dockland Settlements charity because it means I can make a difference in my local area. They only has 25 spaces for the marathon, so feel very privileged to be raising money for them as they are a small charity, which means every penny raised will make a big difference. 

The Dockland Settlements charity aims to provide support to local communities who live close to their centres. Their focus is on working in Newham, Southwark and Tower Hamlets and providing sporting, social, recreational and educational activities. They provide low cost playcare to help parents go back to work or remain in work and a variety of sports for people with disabilities as well as activities for elderly people to help tackle isolation or loneliness.

I have pledged to raise £1250 for them and it would be great to have you all supporting the both of us. My just giving page is: www.justgiving.com/Hayley-Bushell2

I will be documenting my progress, runs and general fitness on here as I have 3 months of training till the big day!

Wish me luck!

Comforting Banana Bread

This banana bread is absolutely delicious, a proper comfort food now it is starting to get really cold and wintery. This healthy bread is great for breakfast with some homemade Nutella spread or almond/cashew butter. If you fancy a little snack with a nice cup of tea, then this also works really well just on its own. It is a really simple and easy recipe which I got from Deliciously Ella's book, so follow the instructions below if you fancy giving it a go! This will give you one loaf and make sure you have a 

Ingredients

5 large over-ripe bananas

1 cup of almonds

2 cups of pecans

1 cup buckwheat or brown rice flour (I used buckwheat)

1/2 a cup of maple syrup 

3 tablespoons of chia seeds

2 tablespoons of cinnamon

Pre-heat the oven to 145C and then blend the almonds and pecans in a food processor so that they form a flour like consistantcy. Once it is smooth, remove the flour and add it to a mixing bowl with the buckwheat flour, maple syrup, chia seeds, cinnamon and then mix them altogether.

Now, mash the bananas together in a separate bowl until smooth. Then stir them into the bread mix, at this point the mixture should be really nice and sticky. 

Before adding the mixture to a loaf tin, make sure you grease the tin with coconut oil. Then, pour in the mixture and allow it to bake for about an hour. 

Enjoy!