No sweat!

By Melanie Leyshon

Parkrun is a simple but effective fun fitness formula. It started with 13 runners at one event in Bushy Park, Teddington, in 2004, but has grown into a well-organised 5km weekly event. Every Saturday around 34,937 participants join in at 234 UK-wide locations, from Aberystwyth to Aberdeen.

All you need to do is register online, drag yourself out of bed, print off your individual bar code and head to your local park for 9am.

This isn’t a race, it’s a challenge to raise your own fitness levels. At the end of the 5km, your barcode is scanned and this feeds the online stats table, which covers time, age grading, personal best and number of runs completed.

Encouraged by Katherine Jenkins, who didn’t even break into a sweat during the London marathon, last Saturday I joined the 100 or so runners at the Dulwich parkrun.

It started well. As an enthusiastic but inexperienced newbie, at the first bend I was in the top 15. Halfway into the first lap, I was overtaken by a man running with a buggy and child. Then a 70-year-old whizzed by, followed by a batch of children running with their parents. A few more paces and I was ready to drop out (or at least take a sneaky shortcut through the trees).

Call it pride, the communal energy, or simply the thought of writing this blog, I kept going. The volunteers helped, shouting out timings as we passed the first lap. About 20 mins in (lap 3), the endorphins kicked in and I started to enjoy myself. I even managed a semi-sprint on the home straight, but was beaten by a more energetic 29-year-old.

My finishing time? An acceptable/respectable 30 min 41 sec – not bad for a first-timer. I loved checking the stats page back at home. I was 112th out of 126 runners, but first in my female age group (there were two of us!).

I’m planning to shave those 41 sec next weekend. Not that I’m competitive, I’m just hooked. It’s brilliant, motivational exercise. Done and dusted by 9.30.41am, with a post-run coffee in the park café at 10am, feet up…

To sign up for parkrun, go to parkrun.org.uk.

Well bread

By Melanie Leyshon

The humble loaf is making waves, but not as we know it. Broccoli bread is the new low-calorie, low-carb, high-protein option, available in London, that will appeal to those Gwyneth Paltrow carb-o-phobes, who can afford to pay the minimum £20 charge for a special delivery (see planbread.co.uk).

We’re quick to blame bread for everything from bloating to weight gain, but eaten as part of a well-balanced diet it shouldn’t cause any ill effects. Even the Chorleywood process of breadmaking, introduced in 1961, which produces a low-cost loaf with a long shelf life in double quick time (often including flour improvers and additives) has its nutritional merits.

But if you have time, nothing beats a homemade loaf. It only takes four ingredients – flour, water, yeast and salt – to produce wholesome bread. And vigorous kneading will give your bat wings a workout at the same time.

Try the recipe below by Tom, the taller half of The Fabulous Baker Brothers. It’s made with spelt flour, an ancient wheat that some people find easier to digest. Tom claims his wife, a former bread phobic herself, is a convert. 

SPELT LOAF

Makes 1 LARGE LOAF

Tom: ‘Spelt is an ancient variety of wheat. It makes a loaf of substance, with a beautiful, nutty flavour, and it’s become popular over the past 15 years or so because it seems to be easier to digest for a lot of people – or so my customers say. It’s a bestseller in Hobbs House.’

For the spelt loaf

5g dried yeast (or 10g fresh)

300ml tepid water

250g wholemeal spelt flour

250g strong white bread flour, plus extra to dust

10g fine-grain sea salt

1 Mix the yeast and tepid water until the yeast has dissolved. Combine the flours in a bowl, add the dissolved yeast and the salt, and bring together into a raggedy dough. Tip it out on to

the work surface and knead vigorously for 15 minutes to make a soft, stretchy dough. Your dough will now be elastic, but not so elastic as regular wheat dough. Transfer to a bowl and cover it.

Allow to prove in a warm place until doubled in size (no more than 1hr).

2 Grease a large (2lb) loaf tin. Once the dough is proved, shape it into a firm ball between cupped hands, then place it on the work surface and gently roll with the flat of your hands until it is the length of the tin. Put it in the tin, cover and leave to prove for a further hour or until doubled in size.

3 Heat the oven to 230°C/210°C/gas 8. If you have one, put a baking stone into the oven to heat up at the same time.

4 Sprinkle the loaf with spelt flour and sea salt and transfer to the hot

oven (to the stone, if using). Spray the oven with water spray and close the door to create a crust. Bake for 30min. Remove the loaf from the oven, take out of the tin and leave to cool completely.

Spelt loaf photograph by Chris Terry photography. This recipe is from The Fabulous Baker Brothers Glorious British Grub (Headline, £20)