Baking - AnnaTheApple

March 29, 2013

My running week and a baking success

Hi guys! Hope you’re enjoying the long weekend (if you’re lucky enough to not have to work/study). And would you believe the sun is out? OK it’s still very cold but there is actual sunshine and sunlight coming through the window as I type. Hurrah!

Well this week has flown by (I guess it would do being only four days). But I felt like I’ve done a fair bit. I have finally joined a running club. I found a very local one to me that meet on Tuesday nights. Originally I was sceptical of running clubs because I never run in the evenings. It just isn’t my thing. I like to get up and get it done first thing.

However, the appeal with running with other people was quite tempting. So I joined and went on Tuesday night. It was weird getting back from work and putting my running gear on and going running. I wasn’t used to not having dinner straight away.

The running club meets just over a mile from where I live so I ran there. There were so many people! About 20-30 I think. But I felt like such an outsider as everyone knew each other. We started warming up outside in the car park and it felt a little like a PE/gym lesson with a teacher. This went on for about 10 mins and I was thinking “let’s just run already!” All the faffing around was a bit annoying. Anyway we finally started and we did intervals. Basically the main guy stood a distance away from us and we had to sprint towards him as fast as we could and then jog slowly back. Then he would move further away. It was INTENSE. Hello competitive Anna. It was nice to have that motivation to run fast as I’m sure when I do intervals on my own I don’t push myself that hard! Though there were four guys who were just astounding in their speed. Crazy fast. Then after warming down it was over and I ran home. The next morning my thighs were so painful.

I’m still not wholly convinced as it basically took my entire evening from me and I do prefer running in the morning but it was nice mixing things up and the intervals obviously pushed me hard. Well, I’ll see how it goes I guess.

I made things a bit easier by making dinner in the morning so Ben could still have dinner when he got in and I could just grab something quick when I got back from the club. I made the chicken and apricot lentil thing again which was so good after the running.

Running, in general, this week has been back to normal after recovering from the half marathon this week.

Monday – 5 miles, average pace 7.42min/mile.

Tuesday – running club

Wednesday – I ran with the guys at work during my lunch break and I felt shattered. My legs ached and I was tired. We ran 3 miles, average pace 7.42min/mile.

Thursday – I wasn’t sure about running but Ben persuaded me (yes you read that correctly). The preference of getting the run done Thursday and fully enjoying my lie-in Friday made sense. Also meant I would be rested before my long run Saturday.

Friday – rest

Saturday – 10 mile long run planned.

Sunday – rest

And I’ve been loving my new trainers.

Mizuno Wave Alchemy 12

Because I have over-pronation when I run (my feet roll inwards) I needed trainers with a lot of support to help prevent this from happening as otherwise it ripples up my legs and makes my knee painful because I’m not running properly (my physio tells me!) So with insoles as well I’m sorted. Apart from a MOTHER of a blister when I wore them for the first time on a run, they’ve been brilliant. I’ve had no issues with my knee or my Achilles’ – TOUCH WOOD!!

I meant to post this earlier in the week but never got round to it but I went on a baking frenzy last weekend to bring cakes into work and for Ben’s work for people who sponsored my half marathon. I thought I’d pick a two very simple cupcake recipes to make it easier, but honestly I was baking for HOURS. I did like 6 batches of cupcakes!

And that wasn’t even all of them!

I made a standard chocolate cupcake but with a chunk of dark chocolate in the middle that I poked in just before baking, and I made a vanilla cupcake with vanilla icing and either the sugar balls or sweets stuck on the top.

I am a self-confessed bad baker (see exhibit A) so I am so pleased these actually turned out really well! The only disaster I had was when I was whizzing up the icing sugar and butter to make the frosting with a hand blender the icing went up in a huge puff of icing smoke literally coating everything, including my hair, in a film of sweet dusting. Alfie loved it.

So today is all about chilling and getting the chores done. We’ve got just two episodes left of Game of Thrones, a custom-made pizza from Sainsbury’s (no cheese, extra veg, chicken & BBQ sauce – YES) and maybe some sneaky chocolate…well, it is Easter

Have a great Easter everyone!

What have you got planned for this weekend?

What kind of trainers do you prefer?

Are you/have you been part of a running club?

February 25, 2013March 10, 2016

Lessons Learnt and the World’s Best Brownie

Can you believe it’s Monday again? The weekend felt like it zoomed by. How depressing! I feel shattered! The weekend was brilliant though.

On Saturday morning I got up early and ran my 12 mile long run. For the first 6-7miles it was brilliant. It felt easy, I was running a fast pace; I was really chuffed. Then I started to feel quite tired around mile 7. So I thought I’d have a sweet to pick my energy up. Last time I had a mini Tootsie Roll but found this really annoying to eat because it was so chewy. I chose a boiled sweet I got from Bulgaria in our epic pick ‘n’ mix swag instead so I could just suck it as I ran. However, it wasn’t a boiled sweet at all but another chewy sweet. I find chewing really hard when I run because I ordinarily breathe through my mouth when I run so when I have to chew I find myself gasping and not taking in enough air.

By the time I had finished the damn sweet I then had a stitch (this is about mile 8 now) and it was a killer. I knew at this point I had stupidly started too quickly – of course it felt easy and amazing at the start: I had only just started!! I didn’t think that maintaining that speed for another 10 miles would feel so hard. I know, I am incredibly dim.

Mile 9 was the hardest. The stitch was so painful I had to stop. I stopped my Garmin and took in huge lungfuls of air for 30 seconds just to get rid of the bloody stitch. Then I got back to it and everything was fine again. But it did really worry me.

My time was great but if I’m honest I feel really stupid and sheepish about it. I was too fast. I shouldn’t have run like I did. Maybe for the actual half-marathon it wouldn’t have been so bad, but not while I’m training. Really, really stupid. Risking all kinds of injuries…stupid, stupid.

So I’ve learnt my lesson. No matter how good the run feels at the beginning, always start slower. Your legs will thank you at mile 8 or 9 or whatever mileage your aiming for.

Anyway, so after running I quickly got myself together, had breakfast, and got on the road to Bristol. It wasn’t a bad drive and I listened to a Marathon Talk podcast which reinforced how stupid I had been earlier.

It was so lovely seeing my university friends again. And I got to meet Kate’s (the girl who lives in Bristol and who we were staying with) little pug, Doug.

Awww, look at his little face. He is adorable. Completely different persoanlity to Alfie, but adorable none-the-less.

After catching up for a bit we headed out to grab some lunch and do some shopping in Cabot Circus, which is a huge shopping centre in Bristol. So good. Designed in a way to get you lost though so you spend more time and money there!

We had to wait 20 minutes before we got a seat in Giraffe (love this restaurant) as it was so busy. So by the time we were sat down ready to order it was like 2.30pm and I was quite extremely hungry by this point! I ordered a feta super salad…

There was avocado and bulgar wheat and borlotti beans in there as well. The menu said broccoli as well but as you can, there wasn’t any. As my friend also ordered this and was broccoli-less too I complained and the waiter brought us out a plate of broccoli. I think he thought we were a bit strange, but seriously I want what I ordered!

On the side I also had sweet potato fries (because I was so hungry!)

Can I just say, hands down, they were the best sweet potato fries I’ve ever had.

After lunch we did a bit of shopping and I bought some jeans and…three scarves!! I just couldn’t stop. Here’s one of them that I’m wearing today.

I love this! It’s got skull and crossbones on it. So different from my usual scarves.

After shopping we dropped into Tesco to buy something for dinner and then headed back. We chatted some more and relaxed. Then it was dinner time. I had bought a beetroot and horseradish soup (sounds weird but really, really good) and had that with a bit of bread and then my apples for dessert (well, what else?). My friends know me so well they know about my apple obsession. In fact, Kate had even bought a load of apples purely to feed my addiction! Bless her. She also bought porridge oats for me as well for the morning

Really yummy. Going to see if I can find a recipe for this soup.

Now, every time my friends and me meet up and stay over someone’s house we always have a tradition. We make the world’s best brownie. Technically, it’s probably not a brownie. Not the way we eat it! I can’t disclose exact the recipe (because it changes every time & I’d have to kill you ) but it vaguely goes like this:

World’s Best Brownie (serves 4-5 greedy girls) – edited for an evolved better version

90g flour
50g caster sugar
2 eggs
2x 400g tin of prunes in own juice (with stones)
300-400g milk chocolate (ideally Cadbury’s – more chocolate is never a bad thing)
Bar of Mint Aero/bag of Mint Aero balls
Optional piggy extras: digestive biscuits or 120g Milky Bar

– We mix the flour and sugar together.

– Break up all the milk chocolate and then melt it over a pan of simmering water. We like to reserve half the Mint Aero bar to add in just before it goes in the oven as finding semi-melted mint bits is incredible.

– De-pit the prunes and get rid of the juice (or reserve for another recipe?). Then cook in a small pan until all broken up and squidgy. Allow to cool.

– Then add melted chocolate and beaten eggs to the prunes and blend together. Blend really well because seriously, a big blob of prune in a brownie rocks no one’s world. We always use a hand blender.

– Then fold in the flour and sugar and stir in the added extras.

– Bake for an undefined period of time. This is where it gets interesting. For how we eat it, I’d say 15mins. For normal people, I’d say 20-25mins (but this misses the point as you will see).

Important points: We don’t bake it for long enough to cook the entire thing ‘properly’. We make sure it’s cooked 3/4s of the way so that underneath the crust it’s seriously gooey.

We also don’t cut it. We literally put it in the middle of the table and each have teaspoons. We wait, oh, all of 5 mins and then dig in. Then proceeds the expressions of pain and gasping of “this is stupidly hot!!”

Yes, this is sheer gluttony. Yes, we do feel very sick afterwards. Yes, it pretty much is the best thing to do EVER.

The Mint Aero is a delightful addition to the brownie. Big blobs of melted mint chocolate are scattered throughout and it’s like a treasure hunt. It’s closer to pudding then a brownie as you can see, but it is bliss whatever it technically should be called. And between 5 of us, we finished the lot. Though, as usual, we all felt quite sick afterwards. But a contented sick feeling.

This brownie, and it’s long-standing tradition, came about because when we were at university we all lived together (this is years ago now) and would often make cookies. We got bored of cookies and wanted something different. Something a bit healthier so we didn’t feel so bad scoffing it. Also, a measly cookie never satisfies the need for something really naughty.

So we Googled a recipe and I think it was THIS one we found. We wanted a recipe that didn’t have butter (as God forbid we included something as fattening as butter! Don’t worry about the sugar and chocolate haha). However, this recipe obviously does have butter and I think we just didn’t read it properly.

Since then we’ve always made this brownie, but it’s been tweaked and adapted and extras have been added through the years to increase it’s amazingness. Obviously, it is not a healthy brownie anymore (or was ever?) but the prunes instead of butter allow us to live in our dream-world that it’s better than a normal brownie haha. Also, the texture is SO good. We do this about twice/three times a year.

Anyway! We then chatted and went to bed at like midnight – seriously past my bedtime! Haha. The next day we had breakfast and then took Doug for a lovely walk around a beautiful park.

VERY cold though.

And then I drove home! My lovely husband had done all the chores, bless him, so I just got back and could have lunch and chill. Perfect weekend!

What did you guys get up to?

Do you do any crazy/weird traditions with your friends when you see them?

Have you ever learnt from a fitness mistake?

February 15, 2013February 15, 2013

Friday catch-up and Valentine fail

It’s Fridaaaay! I think my absolute favourite time of the week is Friday evening just as I get in from work. It’s that glorious moment of ‘whew the week is done’.

This week has been pretty good in terms of key dates – Shrove Tuesday and Valentine’s Day. And also, my dad’s birthday (which is also 14th February). Happy birthday for yesterday, dad!

So Tuesday evening Ben and me celebrated Pancake Day with eating pancakes for dinner. Ben had the standard egg, milk and flour pancakes with sugar and lemon. I even managed to convince him to use wholemeal flour (OK, we didn’t have any regular flour so there wasn’t much choice). I’m not a big fan of the sugar and lemon variety, but luckily I was inspired earlier in the day from the lovely Ffion from ChocolateAndRaspberries blog.

Definitely wanted to give them a go and such a simple recipe! So I microwaved some chopped sweet potato for around 5 minutes, let is cool and then whizzed it up with one egg with a hand blender and then fried a few batches in coconut oil. They didn’t quite work out as I hoped in terms of presentation – they fell apart. However, they tasted mighty delicious!!

I topped them off with some stewed plumbs (cooked in a bit of a water and sugar) and then added a good dollop of PB2. Really, really good. Thank you Ffion!

Thursday was obviously Valentine’s Day and my dad’s birthday and it was our work bake off and bake sale. I was planning on making lemon drizzle cake and some cheese scones but on Wednesday night I didn’t get back from work until fairly late…So I decided to just stick to cheese scones. I used THIS recipe and didn’t amend it at all.

In true Anna fashion, something always goes wrong with me and baking. It’s usually because I don’t read recipes properly. It doesn’t matter so much in cooking but baking is more precise and so the problems arise for me. The recipe instructions said:

“Lightly dust the surface with a little flour. roll out the dough no thinner than 2cm”

I read that to be that I was to roll it out to be 2cm, no thicker. So I got very mini flat scones. And loads of them! They were more cheese biscuits than scones. They still tasted good though – and the recipe says they’re 130 calories per each one, but as I made twice as much they’re likely to be half that

On Thursday morning I put my scones next to all the other bake goods that had been brought in and I felt mine didn’t quite living up to their peers. Ah well.

There was a carrot cake, two banana breads, chocolate muffins, chocolate cupcakes, Mars Bar crispy cakes, ginger cake, lemon drizzle, my cheese scones/biscuits, more muffins, and a marble cake.

Well, we had to stand there and watch one of the managers try a small piece of each cake to make his mind up which was going to win. It was excruciating as I just wanted cake!! And watching him stuff his face was unbearable. At this point I couldn’t care less who won!

In the end one of the banana breads came third, the Mars Bar cake came second, and the marble cake came first.

We later found out that it was actual the winner’s wife who made this cake, not him! Haha.

Anyway, though I wanted a bit of everything I went for two Mars Bar crispy cakes as honestly they were UNBELIVABLY good (I had one and just had to go back for a second), a small slice of carrot cake (very moist and yummy) and a small slice of lemon drizzle as this was my dad’s cake. I couldn’t believe it when he told me he’d baked. He never bakes. I have never known him to bake anything in my entire life.

And it was very good!

I was hyped up and full of sugary goodness by 10.30am. Can’t complain.

We then sent them down to reception to sell for charity to the other companies in the building. I was really chuffed later as I saw a woman from another office walking along with two of my biscuits.

So it was Valentine’s Day. Ben and me had previously agreed to do nothing. I’m not that sentimental in that I need a card or chocolates to know Ben cares. Now I have nothing against other people celebrating it together and sending flowers – if that makes you happy, enjoy it! For Ben and me it was important at the beginning of our relationship when I was at university and he was at home, so sending flowers and cards was lovely as I didn’t get to see him that regularly. This year we just wanted to save some money and not bother.

BUT in the afternoon I was sat in a meeting when someone came in and told me there was a huge bunch of flowers in reception for me. I couldn’t stop the huge grin on my face and feebly saying “we said we weren’t doing Valentine’s Day this year…”. I skipped off down to the reception and found a box of flowers waiting for me to unwrap. The receptionist helped me and we giggled together about how lovely it was. I opened it to find twelve beautiful roses.

Ben’s never sent me roses before (other flowers, yes, but not roses) so I was surprised and initially thought it was a little bit of a cliché but these thoughts were quickly swept away with happy thoughts of how romantic Ben was in a very classic way.

As I headed upstairs I opened the little card that comes with it:

“Love you lots, love Rob xxx”

Who the hell is Rob?? They must have confused the cards! That’s all I could think. As I headed back to the office one of my colleagues saw the flowers and commented how lovely. I told him about the card and said how strange it was. He burst out laughing and said “Rob is the other Anna’s partner”.

Oh. My. God. Reception rang the WRONG Anna (there are two Anna’s in our office) and gave me her flowers. So I walked back into the office, sheepishly gave the other Anna her flowers and apologised for opening them. How embarrassing is that? The whole office thought it was hilarious. I did find it quite amusing (after my cheeks had faded from the beetroot colour). I mean, you have to laugh, right? I told Ben and he felt really bad.

As he should

So that’s my week. I’ll do a recap on my running at the weekend – it’s been a hard week! And I have a 10 mile run planned for tomorrow morning so finger’s crossed it goes well.

Did you celebrate Pancake Tuesday? What kind of pancake did you have?

Did you enjoy Valentine’s Day? Any surprises?

What would you make for a bake off?

November 25, 2012

Starbucks, banana bread and a very muddy run

Hurrah for the weekend! What’s everyone up to?

Work has been crazy lately. Looks like I’ll be in Reading for longer than expected. This is a bit of a pain as the commute is so long. But I’m loving what I’m doing so I can’t complain too much. I just get sick of the same roads and the same traffic. Anyone have a helicopter I can borrow for a few months…? No? Damn.

Friday was a pretty good day. My dad and me work together so we’re sharing the commute to Reading (take that as a plus and a minus ) and I persuaded him to stop at Starbucks just before we got to the office. He treated me to a hazelnut syrup Americano and a HUGE mince pie. First one of the season, wheeee!

It brought some light amusement of watching my dad drip coffee all over himself as I drove the last mile and a half back to work. This was just ten minutes after him telling me he had put his newly washed beige chinos to look smart…whoops

The mince pie was deeeelicious. I was chuffed for this as my Graze box didn’t arrive (*sobs*) and I needed something to fuel my run at lunchtime.

Speaking of my run, though in my last post I mentioned I was a bit dubious about it as it’s always weird running with people you don’t really know – and work with. Anyway, it was great! There were five of us in total and they took me on a great 4.5 mile route around some lakes and fields. We got covered in mud and at times it was more splashing than running but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

There was a range of running ability and this was great. One guy was super speedy – we’re talking 6 minutes a mile at his best! I started off fairly easy going running with the woman I knew and then I ventured out to run with a guy who ran at my usual pace (not the 6min a mile guy!!). This really pushed me to keep up. With the rough terrine and the speed of the run, I was pooped by the end!It’s funny because after showering and basically inhaling my lunch afterwards, I went to stand up and my calves were aching already! I’m guessing this was the crazy terrine as I’m used to plain old roads. Anyone else find this?

Saturday morning I had my Pilates class.

I thoroughly enjoyed this. It’s not a class to get sweaty and out of breath in but you definitely feel it in your muscle the next day. The class was quite small with a total of six of us. But it was a lovely friendly atmosphere and instructor is so attentive and ‘hands-on’. That sounds weird, but it really helps if she sort of guides your leg or foot or whatever to the right position as it can be quite complicated.

The rest of the day was filled with chores and looking after an unwell Ben. He does not have a simple cold, oh no. Nor is it flu. How foolish to think it would be something quite so simple. He has…Man Flu. Full on, at death’s door, incapacitated, can’t do anything Man Flu… He is currently a pathetic human being. We’re talking blankets, Lemsips, and constant sofa attachment. I am trying to be the caring and loving wife but it’s tricky as I’m not naturally sympathetic and, ladies, we all know about this Man Flu business. It’s a cold. Joking aside though, I am looking after him and he does have a waiver for all chores. Fun for me.

I did a bout of baking as well. Apparently one of Ben’s work friends finds the idea of banana bread crazy and Ben has enlisted me to change his mind. I mean, who doesn’t like banana bread??

It got rid of some dying bananas as well and it was fairly easy to whip up.

Banana bread (based on THIS recipe)

75g (1/3 cup) butter, softened
2 eggs
4 ripe bananas, mashed

110g (1/2 cup) caster sugar
125g (1 heaped cup) plain flour
100g (1 level cup) wholemeal flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. mixed spice

– Preheat oven to 180C.

– Combine butter, sugar, eggs and mashed bananas.

– Sift flours, baking powder and spices together. Then fold into the banana bread and stir until combined.

– Bake in a loaf tin for 50 mins (until a tooth pick comes out clean).

My little loaf tin struggled to contain all the loaf so I had to make mini banana loaf muffins as well. What a shame

Then we headed to Ben’s mum for dinner. We brought along Alfie as well (which is always a bit worrying as Alfie is Alfie and Ben’s mum’s house is pristine).

Apart from an accident on the carpet he was good as gold (this was mainly our fault anyway as we hadn’t let him outside before going out as it was raining so much so we weren’t angry at him).

How could I be mad at that furry face? And Alfie too

The meal was so good. We had honey smoked mackerel to start (apologies, no photo I was too busy gobbling it up). And then we had roast chicken for main with a whole host of veggies and stuffing:

Definitely a winner! Made up for enviously ~~drooling~~ seeing all those delicious Thanksgiving meals on many blogs this week.

And then fruit salad for pudding. Again no photo, but imagine a HUGE bowl of pineapple, melons, grapes, blueberries and strawberries. I love having meals at Ben’s mum’s house as she and I have similar tastes (big fruit & veggie fans). It was a lovely and relaxed evening.

So now it’s Sunday and I’m just watching the world go by while looking after the poorly husband. Well, as much as I can do while he plays on the XBox…

Hope you’re having a lovely weekend and for my fellow Britains, I hope the rain stops soon!!

November 14, 2012

Caprese Chicken – WIAW

Hi guys, hope you’re week is going well. It’s official. It’s cold. The heating has been put on at home. It had to be done. We held out as long as we could.

Aren’t the weeks are flying by?! I have less than four weeks left working on the customer site so can then go back to a more reasonable commute. It’s not too bad as I drive in with my dad (yes I work with him, yes he sometimes drives me mad) and we listen to podcasts (love the movie review ones). Any recommendations for podcasts are welcome I want to find a good health and fitness one but haven’t found anything I like yet.

So it’s WIAW as per usual. Thank you Jenn – check out her blog to catch all the other blogs involved and of course her own blog which always has some great recipes on.

This is what I ate Sunday.

Breakfast: I didn’t have pancakes (*sob*)…as I couldn’t be bothered and fancied porridge – but slightly different (I stress the word slightly here as I struggle with change…baby steps!) I had my usual oats cooked with almond milk but I added a heaped tbsp. of unsweetened coconut.

It adds a lovely coconut taste to it. I sprinkled some more coconut on it after it was done. It was a great change (OK fair enough, not massive but, like I said, small steps).

Yum. I’m really not keen on sweet porridge (sacre bleu I know) so it’s hard to find ways to jazz up porridge in a savoury-ish way, if that makes sense.

We didn’t do much on Sunday to be honest. Just the usual cleaning of the bathrooms, ironing and hoovering. We watched some Grey’s Anatomy as well. If you’ve never seen it then I can’t stress enough how much I love this programme. We watched the last two episodes of Season 6 and it was AMAZING. Literally Ben and I just sat there gripped. Even Alfie was gripped. OK that’s a lie, Alfie was asleep. But I’m sure he would have been gripped if he’s been paying attention.

Lunch: a fairly standard meal. A three egg omelette with half a tin of tuna and some fried veggies, with Brussels Sprouts of course.

One of my favourite easy meals. Not as good as Saturday’s omelette obviously, but I can’t eat that all the time…somehow I don’t think it’s that good for me!

Dinner: I was at a bit of a loose end for exciting recipes this week but I decided to try making my own Caprese chicken. It’s a very simple meal but I’ve written the recipe below anyway.

Caprese Chicken (serves 2)

1 tbsp. oil

2 chicken breast fillets

4 large tomatoes, sliced

1 large ball of mozzarella, sliced

Bunch of fresh basil leaves

Lemon juice

Season the chicken and then heat the oil in a frying pan and add the chicken. After golden on both sides and cooked through, put on a plate. Then just pile the tomato slices, mozzarella and basil leaves on top. Season and squeeze the lemon over.

It’s a very easy recipe (as you can see) but it was delicious. I loved the simple and fresh flavours.

Alongside this I made my cauliflower mash potato with some cheese thrown in and had some roasted root vegetables. I really enjoyed this.

Snack: obviously my usual ~~million~~ apples, a banana and some Snack a Jacks. And I’ve been enjoying some Greek yogurt for a change.

Total Greek Yogurt is my favourite brand for Greek yogurt. I love this side pot of honey! Scrummy.

I also dabbled in a bit of baking on Sunday. I decided to try THIS recipe. Don’t get me wrong, I love big fat unhealthy cookies, but I saw this healthified recipe, had the ingredients to hand and thought might as well give it a try.

I just decided to make four larger cookies, rather than 16 tiny bites. They’re quite crumbly and fall apart fairly easily, but they’re not bad! Ben enjoyed them – and that, people, is the deciding vote.

Fitness: just my usual really. I ran Tuesday morning as I was meant to run Monday at work but it was tipping it down. I avoid washing my hair at work as it takes forever to a) wash b) comb, and c) dry. I tend to just tidy it up a bit and carry on. However, rain is a game changer. Rain = Anna looks like a drowned witch at work. So I thought it best to avoid, for everyone’s benefit really. I did enjoy the morning run though.

And managed a good time so I was chuffed. Usually it’s easier to get a good time during the day rather than the morning so I was pleased. I just need to get myself back into longer distances soon…my half-marathon training will start late December and I just know it’s going to be a shock to the system.

My strength training is still going well. I feel that it’s getting easier so it should be soon time to change things up again…The worst routine is the lower body workout though. I hate lunges. I like strength training because it really does shape my body nicely, whereas running has never really done that to a great extent. But it’s deadly dull, isn’t it? At least with running you can look around or zone out. Using weights is just so damn repetitive and boring. Just my personal observation!

I also can’t wait for the Pilates class to begin – two weeks time!

And here’s what I’m wearing today:

I really like this top, I got it in American Eagle when I was in America. I LOVE that shop. I bought a ridiculous amount of clothes from there. And blazer is from New Look, and jeans from Top Shop.

Not much else to report really. I’m feeling a bit boring lately, sorry!

How’s Wednesday treating you?

Oatmeal/porridge – does it always have to be sweet for you?