It’s My Birthday!

It’s my birthday! I’ve turned the ripe old age of 25 today. I can now be rounded up to 30. I’m half-way to 50. I’m a quarter of a century old. In my head I’m still 19 though Winking smile I don’t feel like I should be an adult yet. Do you remember when you were younger and your twenties seemed like the age when you became an Adult. Responsible. Old. Confident. You knew what you were doing.

Hmmm. I’m not quite sure I’m there yet!

T Rex

Well anyway I’m one year older and I’d like to think one year wiser (ha!). Though I do feel more confident in myself and where my life is going. I’m head of heels in love with my husband, we’re enjoying our life in our little home and I feel happy with where my career is going. So not bad!

And in a nice coincidence it’s What I Ate Wednesday (thanks, Jenn).

Here’s a mix of today’s breakfast and lunch from yesterday and dinner and snacks from the weekend (random I know, but more interesting this way…believe me).

Birthday breakfast: oatmeal…seriously what else would I be eating on my birthday!

Birthday

This morning Ben had set up a treasure hunt for my presents so I was running all over the house to get my gifts. We decided to do a surprise this year so I had no idea what I was getting. The boy did good though!

For Lunch I went crazy and had something different. Mainly because I was running late and had forgotten to make my lunch the night before but hey ho.

IMG_4476

Chicken salad with beetroot that I had from home. With this I also had popcorn and fruit with Greek yogurt (I had just enough time to get those in order – and seriously, I’ll be late for popcorn Open-mouthed smile). My office is used to the smell of popcorn now…but unfortunately I’m moving into another room as I’m changing teams and so I’ll have to explain my popcorn obsession again to a whole different set of people…

Dinner: on Sunday after the 10k race we had roast chicken.

IMG_4526

So, so good. I love the smell of the house as it’s cooking away. So homey.

IMG_4527

With this I had roasted butternut squash, Brussels sprouts and watercress (but of course) that we got from the race. And I went back for seconds of the chicken (in fact I’m pretty sure I had a breast, a thigh & a drumstick). It was so good. I obviously had a big dollop of BBQ sauce by the side as well…

Snacks: on Sunday I carved up the beast of a watermelon we had. I can eat a never-ending amount of watermelon. I’ll get full and then 5 minutes later I’m ready for more. It must be the water content. Great for after the race to rehydrate!

Watermelon

Happily I found Ben hates watermelon, which meant more for me!

Running: my running is almost back on form. I ran 4.5miles on Tuesday morning and my leg still didn’t feel completely better. Not painful, just discomfort and it felt like it was holding me back. But I’m continuing to stretch and ice it.

image

Today’s run (because I have to run on my birthday!) was better but towards the end it became tough. And stretching afterwards felt amazing.

image

I’m also loving the below yoga moves for helping get back into good shape (read: avoid injuries):

One-legged pigeon pose

Pigeon Pose

Source

This is great for stretching out tight hips and the muscles right near the bum!

Ardha-Matsyendrasana

image

Source

Good for hips (again), spine, abs and bum, while also stretching outer thigh, back, chest and shoulder. Nice.

Janushirasana

image

Source

Good circulation stimulator.

Dandayamana Bibhaktapada Janushirasana

2

Source

Stretches the hamstrings.

So I’m giving those stretches a go when I can and though I’m definitely not looking as good as the pictures in terms of form and position, it does feel good and I swear each time I do them it feels a teeny bit easier (probably psychological…) Seriously though, what kind of names are they!!

Unfortunately this weekend I can’t celebrate my birthday as I’m off tomorrow on a team building event with work. A crazy orienteering/mountain biking/puzzle solving/running around getting lost in Dartmoor thing. Wish me luck. I’m the only girl going!!

My parents should be coming over tonight…potentially with a cake. Hopefully by the end of tonight I won’t look like this:

Mm cake

But let’s be honest, knowing me it’ll be something like that haha

How do you like to celebrate your birthday? We’ve postponed the celebration for a few weeks (as we have friends coming over the next weekend). Our plan is to go for a lovely meal and get a taxi home.

What do you think of yoga? If you’re a runner, does it complement your running?

Do you always have a cake on your birthday? I always try and drop not-so-subtle hints to my parents to get me one…

22 Replies to “It’s My Birthday!”

  1. Happy Birthday lovely! Hope you have a great day, love the candle in your porridge, that is so you 😉 That pic of the dog at the end of your post is awesome!

  2. Happy Birthday!!!! My hips are so tight today that as soon as I saw that pigeon pose I just had to go ad do it.. with a bit of difficulty which shows just how tight I am, I think I should foam roll later too! I must have cake on my birthday! I make sure I know what the cake situation is, so if I have to, I’ll get my own!

  3. Happy Birthday Anna! Oatmeal + candle = super awesome way to start 25 off right 😉

    Enjoy your day, and your upcoming celebration in a few weeks with friends!

    I haven’t done much yoga, but I’m interested to hear your thoughts.

  4. Happy Birthday Anna 🙂
    I think you have to have cake on your birthday, although when my birthday falls midweek I might save it until the weekend.
    I liked doing yoga (I followed the yoga for runners podcast) but have got out of the habit and just keep forgetting. I am so inflexible though so sometimes it is just depressing when I can’t really do anything close to the real pose!

    1. Cake mid-week was quite nice I must say, but I usually do prefer to save these things for the weekend so they can be fully enjoyed. But I was away for the weekend 🙁

  5. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! Hope its fabulous 🙂 My mom always buys me a cake because my bday is on Love Day, so she gets me a love day/bday cake since everyone else always cops out and just gives me a box of chocolate or those sweethearts candies!

  6. Happy, happy birthday – so sorry it’s late! Hope there was cake and that it was good? x

  7. Happy happy late birthday! I just love the idea of putting a candle in oatmeal. I may just have to do that in October for my birthday! A treasure hunt sounds like so much fun! That’s so cute! I run xc a ton during the week, and I love all those yoga stretches. It’s so crazy, but even after the first stretches, you start to feel better! I hope you enjoyed your cake and did something special for yourself! xx

  8. Happy birthday for last week! Sounds like you had a great time; love the candle on the porridge, bless Ben for doing the treasure hunt and everyone should have cake on their birthday, it should be law 🙂
    Hope the team-building went well!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

CommentLuv badge

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.