One year anniversary and being exceptionally greedy

Asides from managing a run this weekend, Kyle and I also had an enjoyable couple of days eating ALL the food and celebrating our one year anniversary.

After parkrun (and brunch) we got ourselves showered and ready to meet up with my friends Mike and Hannah for some very entertaining mini-golf. It was nine holes, Kyle and I versus Mike and Hannah and honestly it was hilarious how bad we all were. I think I was probably the worst, but it was a close call.

It was good fun and the weather, despite being a bit rainy and overcast in the morning, was lovely in the afternoon. Kyle and I lost! We then popped into the Tenth Hole cafe for some tea and cake afterwards.

Anyone who’s been to Southsea will be aware of the Tenth Hole and their amazing selection of cakes. To be fair, the Parade Tearooms (where we went for brunch) is also amazing so really you’re spoilt for choice.

Because Kyle and me are greedy creatures, we both ordered a cake each and a cake to share as we couldn’t make our minds up. Why do we do this? Normal people order one cake. Or normal people SHARE a slice, especially the size that Tenth Hole serve.

But we are who we are. So I ordered a slice of the raspberry and coconut cake, Kyle ordered the flake cake and we shared a chunk of rocky road (our absolute favourite). In retrospect this wasn’t sensible. We absolutely didn’t need the third cake. But you only live once (a short life at the rate I’m going ha).

The slice of raspberry and coconut was GINORMOUS. The chunk of rocky road was rather large too. I could neither finish the raspberry cake nor my half of the rockty road. But you know what? It was nice to have the two to try!

I did take the rest home for my parents so it wasn’t wasted.

The next day was a special day for us as it was Kyle and my one year anniversary. I won’t go into too much cheesy mush as that’s not quite my style, but I’m very lucky and feel very loved 🙂 We’ve had a fantastic year and look forward to many more.

To celebrate we decided, of course, to go out for food.

We chose 7Bone Burger, which is one of Kyle’s favourites and then Sprinkles for pudding, which is one of my favourites. Don’t get me wrong, I do really like 7Bone Burger but I’m not a huge burger fan (whereas Kyle is) but I know their chicken wings and halloumi fries are awesome.

So we headed their for lunch on Sunday. I ordered two portions of the buffalo wings (technically they were sides…) which came with a blue cheese dip (and I got the buffalo sauce on the side as it’s super hot) and halloumi fries. Kyle got a burger and halloumi fries.

It was delicious! I decided to eat strategically and made sure to leave a few wings and halloumi fries so I wouldn’t be *too* full later for Sprinkles. I’m good but I’m not THAT good.

After 7Bone we did a bit of shopping in West Quay (hugely helping to let things digest and go down a bit) and then walked to Sprinkles.

I went for my absolute favourite, the Sticky Situation. This is basically vanilla gelato with white and milk chocolate sauce and buttons with hot cookie dough at the bottom of a jar. It is INCREDIBLE.

Kyle ordered two milkshakes (a peanut butter one and a hazelnut chocolate one) because he couldn’t decide and wellllll we were celebrating.

We both felt very full but satisfied afterwards (*cough* slightly sick). Yes we are clearly very greedy but we don’t do this that often. We certainly enjoyed ourselves. Plus guys I ran THREE MILES the day before. That’s a lot of calories burnt (you know I’m joking).

So a fantastic weekend of running (yesssss), good times and good food.

What’s your favourite ice cream related dessert?

Are you a burger fan?

Are you good at golf? (Mini/crazy/”proper”)

The consequences of being too greedy… ice cream and running don’t mix

The weekend after a marathon you want to basically do nothing. And well, that’s pretty much what I did! Well, sort of.

On Friday night a bunch of my running friends and I went to a very lovely Chinese in Southampton (actually my friend Mike’s stepmum’s) called Shanghai Bay. Now I’m actually not a big Chinese food fan. I’m more an Indian fan, but Mike assured me that this was not your everyday British Chinese restaurant. It was where the local Chinese community come to eat. When you see 90% of the customers are Chinese you know it’s going to be authentic and tasty!As none of us really knew what to order, Mike suggested he just get a selection of bits and pieces to share between us (cue Anna mini panic on sharing food. Needn’t have worried! So much food!). There was a large turning bit in the middle of the table so we could rotate the different plates round which was great for the sharing situation. We started with a platter of ribs, sesame prawn toast, spring rolls, crispy seaweed and peanut chicken skewers.Very tasty indeed. And obviously I loved the ribs. Then following this we had crispy duck pancakes followed by mountains of main courses… sweet and sour, black bean beef and another one (a pork dish, no idea what it was but it was delicious). Oh god, so much food… We barely made a dent! The above photo isn’t when all the dishes are out… I got too distracted eating to take better photos! So yes, we were quite full afterwards. It was also highly amusing seeing some of the “older” generation using Snap Chat filters for the first time. I don’t use Snap Chat either so it was quite an education for all of us!Then after those fun and games we all headed to the nearby Sprinkles Gelato for a bit of pudding… even though we were all feeling quite full. But as we know, there is a separate stomach for pudding.I ordered the Sticky Situation, which I’ve had before… basically a dessert in a jar. It was vanilla gelato with cookie dough, white and regular chocolate sauce, chocolate buttons, real cream (not the cheap squirty stuff). But yeah, it was FILLING. Mike and Kate ordered the peanut butter version of it and they struggled towards the end too… I guess a crepe, waffle or a smaller sundae might have been a more sensible choice (as the others had gone for) but that’s not how I roll!
I was SO full (as you imagine). It was delicious though. We all stumbled out of Sprinkles feeling very much in a sugar coma. I went to bed that night not feeling my best!

And unsurprisingly I woke up not feeling my best. But I headed to Southsea to meet my marathon buddy, Joe, his friend Matt and Matt’s dad for the Southsea parkrun. I parked about a mile away (near The Tenth Hole, where we’d be going for a post-run trip after) and jogged down. A handy little warm-up – which I never usually do before parkrun.The temperature and weather were fantastic. It was lovely and warm and the breeze was fair minimal. The perfect time for a trip to Southsea parkrun!
Joe was planning on testing his marathon legs and I was just planning on surviving. My legs had felt fairly good post-marathon but I wasn’t expecting or really intending on attempting anything too fast or crazy.

We started far too far back. Joe should have been far more forward (being the sub 18min 5k’er he is!) so the first 100m or so I was dodging and weaving between people. Joe and Matt zoomed off and I just tried to get my legs going. Surprisingly things seemed to go OK as I got faster and faster. Southsea parkrun course is quite dull in that it’s a flat 1.5 mile run along the prom and then a turnaround and 1.5 mile run back. But it’s a quick one if that’s what you’re looking for. I managed to get my legs to go faster and overtook a number of people. My legs felt fine and my lungs felt fine… but my stomach was NOT happy. I felt incredibly sick. In fact, I was genuinely concerned I would BE sick. And the smell from the cafes nearby made things so much worse.

As we turned around and headed back I tried to maintain my pace (now with a very slight headwind, but you can always feel these things when you’re trying to run fast) and I remember several guys effortlessly gliding past me (or so it seemed). There was a very young lad sailing along just ahead of me and I tried to hold on to his pace. I did wonder where his “responsible” adult was though as he was very much under 11 and running solo. But that did help distract me from the sicky feeling to consider what you’d do if you had a very young child who could outrun you so much but wanted to join you at parkrun. You’d have to find someone just as speedy that he could run with I guess. Running parent problems!My official time was 21:44 which I was really pleased with. I was more pleased that I wasn’t actually sick. Though after finishing I had to take myself off to a nearby bush and breathe deeply for a good few minutes before I was in the clear. I wasn’t sick but good god I was close. Lessons have been learnt.Joe didn’t do as well as he’d hoped (19.30ish…so slow! ;-)) and Matt got a PB. Matt’s dad did very well as well and we all agreed our previous night nutrition (the boys had had chips and beer) hadn’t been stellar so our performance wasn’t too shabby all things considered!And then Matt and his dad headed off while Joe and I headed to The Tenth Hole for a post-run coffee. We had originally intended on having cake or breakfast but the reality was I felt so sick even the smell of food was turning my stomach. So we settled instead on a coffee and ordered cake to take-away.I knew future Anna would regret not getting cake! I also got three little cake’s for my parents (they come as a trio of cake selection). This way they’d still get cake but it would fit into their Slimming World diet being smaller cakes. I chose a s’mores Rolo brownie and a peanut butter caramel cake (sweet ‘n’ salty – there was more popcorn on top but I nibbled at it).They’ve gone into the freezer to stock-up my cake supply. I honestly couldn’t have had stomached them. Who even am I! In fact, I didn’t actually eat “breakfast” until 1.30pm as I really just didn’t feel right. That will certainly teach me and my greedy self. The coffee was lovely and it was nice to catch-up with Joe again post marathon. Then I headed to Asda to do some food shopping (best time when you really don’t want to be around food…) and had a very lazy day not doing much else.

The next morning, after a deliciously long lie-in, I intended on heading out for about 8-10 miles. I felt so unmotivated and, weirdly, still tired. I just really didn’t fancy going. I took Alfie for a walk to get my head in the game and decided instead to head out for three miles and see how I felt. Well I headed out and within the first 30 seconds I was already feeling like I wanted to go back. But I thought the first mile is always the worst so give it more time. Nope, two miles in and I was already wanting to be home. Everything felt fine, no niggles or anything like that, but nothing felt right, if you know what I mean. I just felt very lethargic and not enjoying the run so I headed home. When I finished I just felt even more tired and not right. I wondered if I was coming down with something…

After getting showered and sorted my mum suggested a nice walk along the Lee-On-Solent prom and then a coffee. Well that sounded lovely. Sometimes you just need to spend some quality time with your mum!We had a nice coffee and chatted away before heading back down the prom to the car. Exactly what I needed! I’m glad I hadn’t tried to push my run earlier as I really didn’t fancy it and I’m not actually training for anything right now (more on that in another post). So for now I can have those days when I don’t fancy running and not run. Lovely. I might have also picked up a slice of coconut vanilla cake and a chocolate beetroot cake to join my other cake friends in the freezer… 😉

The rest of the day was spent chilling and catching up on life admin and Graham Norton. Some days you just need to chill. I still wasn’t feeling entirely well so the relaxing and care-free day did wonders. Especially as the coming weekends I’m going to be busy again!

How do you relax?

Do you ever spend one-on-one time with your mum? What do you like doing together?

Have you ever felt/been sick on a run?