Stephanie M: Runner, baker and .... well, SHE MAKES CAKES, PEOPLE.

She runs and she bakes cakes.  Oh, and she runs a cake club.  Ummmm can we be friends?  Meet the lovely Stephanie: 

1. I started running 9 months ago and it's taken me on a voyage of personal discovery and helped me meet lots of lovely people and make stronger bonds with exisiting friends
2. I run because 1. I want to eat cake 2. the gym never worked for me and 3. now I'm addicted. I wear a pair of Brooks Ravennas
3. The last run I did was a 10k yesterday morning along the Thames path. It was actually pretty easy, I was feeling sad because I managed to record my slowest ever parkrun on Saturday morning, so decided to go out and not care about pace and just run, when I looked at my phone when I got home I'd managed 10k at the same pace at the parkrun the day before. Cue feelings of elation and relief that I had not lost my ability to run!
4. My current fave bit of kit is my iphone armband. Until I save up for a garmin, I use nike+ to track my pace, sometimes its unreliable but better than nothing. As the weather warmed up I was finding less and less pockets in my clothes for my phone!
5. I did have a place at Windsor half, which I can't attend so I'm now running 16m at the Kingston Breakfast run in October and I'm thinking about a full marathon in 2014, Brighton?
6. Running made me feel alive on Christmas Morning 2012, I'd only been running a few months, but was determined to get out. The whole world seemed to be asleep, I counted the other people I saw on one hand and I glowed with pride all day. 
7. I participate in Parkrun and Wimbledon Windmillers (only just signed up) and they've helped me meet liked minded people, stay focused and have a new weekend routine, I can't image not doing Parkrun now, and I'm generally pretty grumpy if something stops me!
8. I started eating almond butter and nakd bars and other naturally sweet things since I started running and it's changed the way I cook and bake. Now my body does marvellous things I want to give it what it needs, and sometimes it needs cake, but reducing sugar and fat can actually work out really tasty.
9. I'm currently obsessed with sweaty betty's free yoga classes and it's keeping my running legs and muscles more flexible and helping me keep calm to my day-to-day life.
10. I'm bringing kids apple puree squeezies to this blog, and throwing it down on the table.  I wasn't happy taking gels/anything non natural on my half marathon as my body doesn't react well to caffeine. My mum found me some apple purees with easy open lids which I ate half of during Richmond half marathon and it really fuelled me. I'd recommend them - I got mine from decathalon. For some unknown reason I was still clinging to the packet over the finish line.
11. I'm currently having issues with speed, I've completely plateaued and haven't had a PB in ages. In fact my 5k time has been steadily getting slower since February - can anyone offer any tips? 
12. Finally, here's my inspirational quote. I adapted it from Piglet. It keeps me going on long runs.  Now go, run!

You can keep up with Stephanie's delicious baking and squeezie-fuelled running over on her twitter and her facebook.