Britain - AnnaTheApple

March 7, 2016

Locked in a Room, ribs for days, a bloody long run and Mother’s Day

Whew, check that out for a title! This weekend was pretty damn awesome, if I do say so myself. On Friday I worked from home so when I was finished I popped Alfie in the car and drove to Bristol to meet up with my university friends. We stayed with Kate and her husband, who I went on holiday with last year to the US, as it was her birthday the other week.

Kate is a little obsessed with pugs and has her own pug, Doug, who’s adorable. For her birthday I bought her PugOpoly (a pug themed Monopoly) – how cool!?

One of my other friends bought her a pug welcome mat.

Hehe, I think she was pleased! Alfie, though he didn’t enjoy the drive up (he’s a bit of a car wuss) did appreciate me taking his bed with us so he could chill out a bit when he got there.

Kate and Jamie had made us fajitas which were very tasty and we chatted and chilled before picking up another friend from the station. Then we were all there and ready to go with our usual tradition of making brownies…

I’ve blogged about the epic brownie tradition previously, but basically we just make a huge brownie and then eat with spoons (we kind of cook it so it’s still quite gooey in the middle – a bit pudding-like). It’s a ridiculously indulgent tradition but we love it.

The key is to crumble up some Milky bar and Mint Aero and mix through the mixture just before it goes into the oven. You won’t regret it

The next morning I got up early and headed to the very nearby Little Stoke parkrun to quickly get in a parkrun (I’m now on 92! So close to 100!).

It looks rather wet and grey but it didn’t rain thankfully and actually wasn’t that cold. I did a lap warm-up and then headed to the start. It was a different start and finish to when I’ve previously done it. I’m presuming this was because it was briefly on the grass which was very wet so they sensibly kept it all on the path: three and a bit loops of the field on the pavement, nice and flat and barely any wind. I didn’t go crazy as I was conscious of doing a long run the next day (18-20 miles in the plan) but I still wanted to see what I could do. I know I wasn’t in the same shape I was in when I was last there where I got 20 something minutes but I wanted 21 something.

I was pleased to find out there was a pacing event on but disappointed when they only had 20 minutes and then 24 minutes and above. Hmm. So I kept a way behind 20 minutes but in front of 24 roughly.

As I got to the final lap I saw a woman in the distance and planned to try and overtake her. Part of me wanted to sprint to do it straight away but I knew that would be stupid so I just patiently increased my pace slightly and caught her up. The advantage of overtaking is that they’re unaware of it happening until it happens. The over-taker has all the control. I finished in 21:35 and third lady so I was happy with that!

Then I rushed off to meet my friends at the very nearby Starbucks (her house is so well situated) as they’d gone to walk the dogs. I grabbed a quick coffee with them (outside with the dogs) and then dashed back to get showered and breakfasted so I wouldn’t be holding anyone up.

We left late morning to go to Kate’s main birthday event. It’s called Locked in a Room and basically you get locked in a room for an hour and have to solve a load of clues in order to get out. It was so much fun! Honestly, I fully recommend it.

There’s a whole backstory and theme and inside the room is full of different objects and boxes with locks on and combinations so you have to work out what the codes are to find more clues. There are other teams in other identical rooms doing the exact same thing so it’s a big race against the clock and against them. There’s also CCTV cameras watching you and if you start to get super stuck they give you more clues via a screen (otherwise I guess it would be rather rubbish to spend a huge chunk of time having no idea what to do).

It’s very frantic and you have to think carefully but you’re obviously keen to get it done quickly so to get out in time. You’re racing around the room looking at different objects, reading a clue you’ve got and trying to make sense of it. Really good fun. And we won! We escaped with seven minutes to go and before any of the other teams.

You come out into another holding room where you can then watch on the televisions the other teams trying to solve their clues. Quite amusing.

We then walked through Bristol to get to our restaurant of choice. We saw a couple of Banksy’s and we walked through the area that had been the race village for the Bristol half marathon (that I did a number of years ago).

We then arrived at Spitfire for lunch.

Spitfire is a restaurant that pretty much calls to my heart. My friend Kate is very much on the same page as me with food and meat so she had suggested this BBQ/meat smoking restaurant.

Bless my vegetarian friend, Charlotte. She took one for the team as there really wasn’t a huge veggie choice for her, but she did enjoy her halloumi burger she said!

Oh my god, the menu. Jamie’s husband (a huge rib and meat fan like myself) recommended the spare ribs so I was set on that. I’m quite glad for the recommendation as honestly I wouldn’t have known what to have gone for! So many tasty sounding things. For starters Kate, Shell and I shared some pork rashers to start.

And then we all (apart from Charlotte) had the spare ribs.

Good lord they were good. Literally heavenly. They came with a cranberry and apple glaze and were just so tasty. I had sweet potato fries with them (a superfluous item to be honest that probably wasn’t necessary… though of course I did have some of).

For my shame I was the only one who finished theirs (let’s be honest, I’ve had a fair bit of practice). I left some room for pudding of course though (hence not finishing the sweet potato fries – pick you battles!)

More brownie! It was very tasty but to be honest it wasn’t anything special. It wasn’t all that hot and not really that gooey but it was tasty nonetheless. I’d probably just been spoilt the night before…

Then I rolled myself out of the restaurant. Standing up I sudden’’ly felt extremely full (what a surprise eh). The problem was my friend needed to get to her train rather sharpish so I was required to walk slightly more quickly than the snail’s pace I wanted to. Ooooof that’ll teach me for being so greedy (but will it?? I never learn!).

Luckily she got to her train on time and it was time to part ways. It was lovely, as always, seeing my friends and I had a great time. I drove back to Southampton listening to the audiobook version of Room. Oh god that book. It is incredible – so good but also very unnerving.

Surprisingly I didn’t need dinner that evening… I woke up the next morning fairly early to meet my friend, Shantha, for another long run. I didn’t have anything before the run because I was pretty sure I had enough inside me to keep me going!

We had a lovely run around her area (Hamble and Netley) which was great. It’s nice to go somewhere different from the usual routes I always do on my long runs. It was quite cold but the sunshine was bright and I was warm fairly quickly. We chatted away about this and that and the miles flew by. I hadn’t been that worried about this run because I knew I’d get at least 10 with Shantha and that would break it up so it wasn’t such a huge mileage on my own.

Our pace was nicely matched (though I always do worry I’m slowing her down as she is quite speedy) and it was nice to leave the route-planning to her. I’m awful though as I have no sense of direction so she did have to keep guiding me as I’d randomly turn off or miss hear her directions! But I was grateful for a lovely route

As Shantha had to get back for her Mother’s Day service fairly promptly we only ran 10 miles together before parting. My plan was to run 18-20 miles but I’d decided to run 18 unless I really felt the urge to go further or if my route ended up that way. I had a vague idea of where to go. I put my headphones on and listened to more of Room. It was actually quite stressful at points listening to it while running because the story got quite dramatic and I was so absorbed. But it did help the miles fly by.

I didn’t feel like the run was that tough in terms of speed or pace but I could feel a tiny glimmer of my foot niggling so I stopped at 18 miles to be super safe. Happily my route also ended up back near the car then anyway and I only had to do a small run out and back from it to get up to 18 miles in total.

I had a small casualty of a bramble attack during the run which had caused my leg to bleed. It looks worse than it is. I did have a few people give me worrying looks and one man tried to stop me and point to my leg. I patiently explained I was aware and it was OK thank you.

I quickly got back, had breakfast, got presentable then headed to my parent’s to celebrate Mother’s Day with them. My dad cooked steak (rib eye for me, rump for them), sweet potato wedges, roasted veg and salad.

We were meant to have a baked camembert to start but my dad had put it in the oven but only turned the light on, whoops…so we had that after the steak. Still good though!

No pudding as my mum and dad are trying to eat sensibly and, let’s be honest, I didn’t need anymore pudding either. The whole meal was delicious. And I actually felt pretty good for the rest of the day in terms of tiredness and hunger. My body seems to be adjusting to the miles

So a huge happy Mother’s Day to my lovely mum. She’s always there for me and she’s pretty damn special. And so the weekend was finished off nicely!

How did you spend Mother’s Day (for those celebrating it!)?

Can you eat more than your friends? Embarrassingly I just have the hugest appetite out of most people I know…

Would you enjoy the Locked in a Room game?

March 2, 2016

MarathonTalk Run Camp –part 2

Continuing on with my recap from the MarathonTalk Run Camp (catch up with part 1 HERE)… So where was I? The interval session was fascinating to watch, especially seeing Steve Way taking it ‘easy’ in the third group at 7.20-30min/miles. I wish that was my easy interval pace!

(Photo Credit: Gary Derwent)

During the interval session (that I didn’t take part in) my feet were literally like blocks of ice.

Larking about (Photo credit: Matt Fowler)

I was wearing simple Van shoes without socks so really it was my own fault but it took a good while of them being in front of the electric fire in the lodge to get feeling back into them!

I was also starving as I hadn’t had lunch and it was now 4pm and dinner wasn’t until later. Luckily I had a whole load of snacks back at the lodge so it wasn’t too much of an issue. I wolfed down some beef jerky, a protein bar and a couple of apples. After relaxing for a bit we headed down to the events room again to hear the next talk.

This was from Jamie Ramsay who ran 18,000km in 600 days from Vancouver to Buenos Aires solo with no support crew. I mean, WOW. I’d heard the interview with him on the MarathonTalk podcast and remember being blown away by his incredible story – which he was in the middle of during the time of the interview. Now he was back and was staying in one of the lodges and was involved in the whole weekend too.

He was incredibly charismatic. He had a PowerPoint which showed photos of his trip and some geeky stats (us runners love our stats) of elevation, miles, etc. but mostly we just focused on him telling his story.

It was clear that he was very much a ‘happy go lucky’ kinda guy. He decided one day to quit his job and just go do something incredible. He’d been inspired by other adventurer’s books and enjoyed the feeling of completing marathons and found his life was just grinding along without purpose. So he typed into Google ‘Vancouver to Buenos Aires’ and that was his route – not even joking. He tested out running 10km every day for a month to see if his body would break and when it didn’t he worked out his notice, sold everything and got on a plane. Mind blown? Mine was!

He ran most days and usually over a marathon distance. He didn’t plan ahead, he just ran vaguely the route he needed with everything in a buggy (tent, some clothes, money, passport, food…the bare minimum). His journey sounded absolutely incredible. The people he met, the memories he made, the things he saw, the scenery around him… I literally sat there with my mouth open. Injuries and illnesses were few and far between (I’d hate him but he was far too likeable). Mostly the illnesses came from swimming in dodgy waters! Because I was so blown away by his talk I just had to go and speak to him afterwards (and get a shameless selfie with him – what a legend).

I asked him several things, like what pace he ran and he said he aimed for 60 minute 10ks and that if he needed to stop and rest he would. There was no real time pressures (most of the time). He did say he got dependent on Ibuprofen though and had to wean himself off it as he found when things started hurting he just took the pills. I found him so fascinating to speak to and super friendly, I could have grilled him for hours. He was so passionate and enthusiastic. I have so much more to say about him and this in general that I hope to do another post on it… watch this space! (Also, if you fancy voting for Jamie for the National Adventure Awards you can do so HERE – he deserves it in my opinion!). He’s also writing a book, which I’ll definitely be buying when it’s out!

Then it was time for dinner! Luckily (I say luckily as if this wasn’t well planned on my behalf noticing where the food would be served…) we were sat on the best table for food. Our table got to go up first to pile our plates up.

Don’t let that salad fool you one bit, underneath there was lasagne, chilli con carne, chips, garlic bread and potatoes. Would you like carbs with your carbs…? My empty stomach was definitely making the decisions here. And I went back for seconds. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve eaten so many carbs in one sitting in my life – usually I’m all about the meat but I think the caterers realised we were runners! This was then followed by a fruit salad and cheesecake. I still manage to surprise myself (and others) with how much I can eat.

It helped me with my decision about the next day though as I’d been wondering what to do about breakfast. I had brought porridge with me and also a Trek bar in case I wanted something lighter. I was going to run five miles before the half marathon (which started at 10am at Sandy Balls) to get a total of 18 miles. I’d planned to meet some of the running camp guys at 8.45am to run it with them (pretty much everyone is marathon training!). If I was to have breakfast it would mean getting up a lot earlier so things could digest… but if I didn’t have breakfast it meant I could sleep until 8.15am. What a luxury! Anyway, the decision was made after the sheer quantity of food I ate. I knew I wouldn’t be needing anything before the run now (and, spoiler alert, I felt absolutely fine on the run – really well-fuelled in fact!).

After dinner and pudding, it was quiz time. To make things interesting each table (team) had to write down six questions on ANYTHING and then the questions would all be collated and that would be the quiz. It didn’t even have to be about running, though obviously there was a theme. The questions were so random and hilarious. A few of ours were (which were running-related):

When did women get to run the marathon in the Olympics?
How many official marathons have been run in space?
When did the Marathon bar become Snickers?
How many marathons would you need to run to complete the circumference of the Earth?

One of the most random questions from another team was “how many Lego bricks would need to be piled on top of each other to crush the bottom one?”. These were not easy questions clearly!! (By the way, I think the answer was like 300,000). The best one was “should an adult man wear Crocs with jeans?” referring to Tom Williams who was stood on stage wearing exactly that. It was hilarious hearing him read it out and realising it was talking about him!

Damn, you can’t see his shoes!

It was so funny to actually see and hear Martin and Tom having banter in real life, rather than in an edited podcast. Martin is a lot more rude (lots of swearing and rude humour) and Tom clearly has to keep him under control. You can tell a lot of editing has to happen in the show for it to be ‘family friendly’. But it was hilarious to watch.

We scored 16 out of 60 which was obviously ridiculously bad, but not that far off from other teams. It was good fun though. I also managed to get a photo with Steve Way – who by the way, is the most easy-going and friendly person ever. Despite being a super amazing eye-wateringly fast elite athlete he joined in with everything and was always interested in what other people had to say and how their running was going.

He’s so chatty and funny. God I look so star struck in this photo it’s ridiculous… but I was just really chuffed!

As the night got later (oof past 10pm, can you even imagine! ) we headed back to the lodge to get some decent sleep before the next day. Most people were doing the half marathon, a couple were doing the full marathon (Steve Way included) and some were doing a guided run of either 8 or 16 miles. But we’d reconvene afterwards for a carvery and a wind down.

My tummy was so full I worried I wouldn’t sleep, but actually the carbs sent me off nicely. Despite my alarm being set for 8.15am I woke up after 7am as I’m such a light-sleeper and anything wakes me up. It was also FREEZING. Seriously our lodge was so cold! But I stayed in bed until 8am and had a black coffee, got ready and felt raring to go.

And I’ll leave the run and race recap and the end of the MarathonTalk weekend to the next post!

Have you ever gone travelling round the world?

Do you eat a lot of carbs the night before a race/long run?

Do you enjoy pub quizzes? I’m so rubbish at them but I do enjoy them!

February 29, 2016March 9, 2016

Marathon Talk Weekend 2016–part 1

So I don’t even know where to start really. This weekend has been such an incredible experience. This post will probably be quite long (and will be in two parts) though I’ll try not to ramble too much…

I headed to the Marathon Talk Run Camp straight from work on Friday evening. Marathon Talk is a UK-based podcast all about running and marathon training and it’s co-hosted by Martin Yelling (a fairly proficient runner in his own right but also the husband of Olympian athlete Liz Yelling) and Tom Williams, the MD of parkrun. It’s full of banter and running-related information, like training tips, news and interviews.

I went to the first Run Camp two years ago and it was absolutely fantastic. I didn’t go last year but was really keen to go again this year. It’s based at the Sandy Balls (tee hee) holiday centre in the New Forest and there’s only about 120 people (including the Martin, Tom, their families and the guest speakers) so it’s actually quite a cosy affair. You stay in lodges (a bit like Centre Parcs) and the weekend is full of lots of running, informal chats, proper chats with interesting people and food. So right up my street!

My friend, Matt, who I had first met at the first Run Camp was going again so I would know at least one person. Though to be honest runners and Marathon Talk listeners in general are so friendly and easy-going I knew I wouldn’t be sat in a corner alone with no one to talk to. Matt and me agreed to meet Friday night at the Sandy Balls restaurant, the Woodside Inn. He arrived with his lodge mates in tow (mine hadn’t all arrived yet). We pushed a load of tables together and just got chatting straight away. It’s fairly amusing because there was always the standard questions that got asked: “are you training for a marathon?”, “which one?”, “is it your first?”, “where have you come from?”… and conversation just flowed so easily.

For dinner I ordered the pulled pork flat bread with sweet potato fries and followed up with a Mississippi mud pie with honeycomb ice cream. Heavenly!

There was an informal gathering in the events room next door at 8pm so we all headed there and met up with loads more of the run campers. Martin gave a quick welcome and we just mingled and chatted with each other. I met some really lovely people and it was fascinating to hear about their training and the races they’d done (one guy, Pete, had run the Death Valley half marathon!!) and which marathons they were aiming for. People had come from all over the country so the races were very varied. It was somewhat amusing that as it got closer to 10pm we started heading back to the lodge. Marathon training runners aren’t know for having lots of late nights after all and with parkrun in the morning we all wanted to be fresh.

The lodge was lovely. Quite basic but perfect for our needs (though it was really cold!)

I met two of my housemates (the other two would arrive the next day), Maureen and Hannah. I really bonded with Hannah. She was just so interesting. She had lived in so many different places and done so many interesting things. I was in total awe of her amazingness. She was also so easy to chat to and just lovely to hang out with.

The next morning we all convoyed to Moors Valley parkrun, which was about 20 minutes away. I drove Hannah and a couple called Deni and Marcin who were also really nice. We all arrived just before 8.30am and there wasn’t anywhere warm to stand. So the Marathon Talkers just stood gaggled together jumping up and down trying to stay warm as it was quite chilly that morning.

We then all got together for a Marathon Talk team photo.

I’m just off from the centre to the right in a black coat (Photo credit: Helen Williams)

After a little warm-up, we headed to the start. Moors Valley parkrun has only been going since November and I think they usually have around 150 people, but we almost doubled that with our invasion!

The course is beautiful: it’s set in the Moors Valley country park and it’s on compacted dirt tracks so it’s easy underfoot and it’s fairly flat. There were some cheeky inclines but barely anything to worry about really (in fact, some of the hardy Northerner run campers laughed when anyone said there was an incline on the route). It’s pretty much the same (but shorter) route as the Moors Valley 10k I did a good few years ago.

It was one loop, which was quite refreshing as I haven’t done that in a while! I didn’t want to go ridiculously fast but I found myself in a good rhythm and didn’t feel like I was pushing my limit so I’m happy with how I paced it.

There was a short section where we came back on ourselves so we could see the front runners. They were going eye wateringly fast! Martin Yelling (19:27 with the double buggy), Steve Way (18:34), my new friends Marcin (19:02) and Mark (18:05) were storming ahead. My friend Matt unceremoniously overtook me and squeaked a sub-20 by one second. We’re *sort of* around the same speed (though I’d say he’s just a bit faster than me – and definitely at the moment as he’s further in his training and a more experienced marathon runner) so I’ll let him have it. I got 21:29 which I’m over the moon about as that’s faster than Conwy’s from the other week (#progress).

My friend Hannah was doing her first ever parkrun so it was quite exciting. She’d volunteered before a few times but never actually run it! She really enjoyed it thankfully.

Left-Right: Marcin, Deni, Hannah, Matt and me

I wore my new parkrun t-shirt (personalised with my home parkrun, Netley Abbey). It’s such a lovely fit and has lots of the back as well. Though I wore a base layer underneath as it was quite nippy.

After the parkrun everyone headed to the quite large cafe (thankfully as it was quite full now!). The queue for food and drink was long but it was nice to chat to people so no one really minded.

As I knew lunch probably would be missed later due to all the things happening and timings I decided to fill up on a big breakfast to tide me over.The full English was really tasty. It wasn’t too greasy (though I had swapped hash browns for another tomato). Then it was back to the car where we were annoyingly we missed the car park fee cut-off by five minutes. Until 10:45am it’s free but after that you have to pay. And it was £6!!

After showering and getting sorted we then headed to the events room again for the official welcome. Some people hadn’t arrived last night (like our two other housemates, who were also very lovely) so it was the first time we’d all gotten together as a group.

Martin Yelling

Tom then did an interview with Liz Yelling and Steve Way which was really interesting. It was fascinating for me because they’d been interviewed at the Run Camp two years ago and that was before Steve has achieved his fantastic 2014 with qualifying and then running in the Common Wealth Games… But he was sombre in his reflection of 2015 because it had been full of injuries and set-backs and lessons learnt.

Tom Williams

He spoke about finding your limitations, recognising over-training, engaging in prevention not cure (he does Pilates all the time now and works on his core a lot more rather than just foam rolling himself “to buggery” when he gets a niggle). He also talked about what he calls good nutrition being simple, whole foods. He doesn’t prescribe to low carb/Paleo/Whole30 or anything like that. He just says that as the goal race gets closer he cuts out junk food (like his after dinner Magnum ice creams and sweets) and instead eats fruit or yogurt. To him it was just about making better choices, but never cutting out entire food groups.

This was something him and Liz were very much on the same page about. Tom made the point that he’s always known Liz’s diet, even at her peak, was never that different to other people’s. She didn’t eat slabs of cake or reward herself with cheat meals. She just ate a bit more but always protein, carbs and fats. Interestingly Steve said that though he runs up to 150 miles (!!) a week he knows he doesn’t actually burn the 1,000s of calories that his Garmin and apps tell him do because his body has become so efficient at running that it burn a very small number of calories per mile now. So to refuel what he’s apparently burnt would probably make him gain a fair bit of weight.

Another point that Liz made that really struck a cord with me was that though she could get away with eating rubbish, she’s conscious (or at least she was highly conscious during her prime running time) that everything she puts in her body has to help her achieve her goals. It wasn’t just about calories and macros, but what nutrients did the food contain that would help her recovery, keep her from getting sick and keep her running strong. Sure a cake wouldn’t cause her to gain weight, but how nutritionally-speaking would that cake help her long-term? Though she did admit she didn’t cut out cake or chocolate completely though (whew!).

After lots of questions and answers we then headed for another running session. I umm’ed and arr’ed so much whether to join in but I was sensible and decided to watch instead. A few people were injured or didn’t want to run again so I wasn’t alone and we walked down with Tom to the area where they’d be doing 1,200km reps. I was sad not to do it but ultimately made the right choice when I saw how hard it looked. As they did their loops (split into groups, wow the speedy guys were so fast!) I sat with a lovely lady called Jaz, who’s the head of HR for parkrun. So interesting chatting to her! We were also both eyeing up all the different running gear and making mental notes to do some online shopping pronto…

Jaz works very long hours for parkrun but it’s clear how passionate she was about it. She lives in Leeds (as does Tom) and I asked if the parkrun HQ was there and she said it was at Tom’s house! parkrun is still so much in its infancy and so much dependent on volunteers and donations that you forget it’s not a big corporate company. But the people behind it are just amazing. It was interesting to hear a bit about the behind the scenes stuff.

Deni joined us after one loop as she wanted to be sensible too. We were so cold sat there that we started piling ourselves with the gear people had stripped off!

To be honest though it was nice not running so I could talk more to Tom and the others. I was just like a sponge, absorbing everything being said and having a good old chin wag.

(Photo credit: Gary Derwent)

I’ll leave it there for now as otherwise this post will become more of a monster. I could go on and on about how amazing this weekend was obviously! The next post will be about the evening and then the long run (with a race) the next day.

Have you ever been on a running camp or a fitness camp?

Do you run more than once a day ever?

What would you have asked Steve Way or Liz Yelling?

February 24, 2016

Rants and Raves #27

And I’m back on the Rants and Raves again! I actually have quite a full-house today, so let’s get going.

Rave: As I mentioned in the previous post, I treated myself to a new pair of trainers. Why is it that it always requires an injury or niggle to trigger me to do something sensible? The logic of a runner I suppose… or maybe just me!

They’re Mizuno Wave Paradoxes and I believe this could be my fourth pair. I did consider buying another pair of ASICs (the Luminus ones I reviewed a while ago) but they’re very expensive and my Luminuses haven’t actually worn out yet. So why don’t I just wear them? Well, Mizunos have always been my fail safe. I’ve worn them for several marathons now – possibly all of them and I always go back to them. They are quite ‘stiff’ but I find this works for my feet. For £57 as well you can’t go wrong (I got them from www.sportsshoes.com).

Rant: The colour of said trainers. It looks like they’ve gone through the wash with a pair of jeans. My last pair were pink which was a whole lot better than this light blue colour. But after a few parkrun visits I’m sure the colour will be unrecognisable.

Rave: Crisp cold mornings are far nicer than soggy mild ones in my opinion.Yes it’s cold but it’s just so beautiful. And Alfie doesn’t get anywhere near as muddy.

Rave: And on that note of coldness, I’ve been wanting a hat for ages to wear when I walk Alfie as putting my hood up feels a bit silly and antisocial (and isn’t actually that much warmer). I found this hat in Tesco for £2!

It’s so snug and lovely. I can’t believe their winter stuff is in the sale already.

Rant: Don’t put tissues in your FlipBelt and then wash it.

Big mistake. Little pieces of white tissue everywhere! Arggh. I rarely take tissue with me on a run but I did for my failed 18 miler just in case. Then I forgot and merrily went on my way to washing it *sighs*.

Rave: One of my close friends is getting married in July and I’m really excited. It should be a fantastic day as they’re such a lovely couple. I did have a little bit of fun on the RSVP though…

She found it amusing thankfully

Rant: I’m an idiot (probably a good portion of my rants in general are down to my own stupidity I’m sure). I booked a holiday completely on a whim, paying for it and everything before realising it was the day after said wedding. I evenly smugly booked Southampton airport because “how easy would that be”. Not so easy considering the day before I’m in Gloucester and was intending on staying over in a hotel. It means no drinking for me now and a very late drive home after the wedding. Oh well.

Rave: And to segue nicely into my booked holiday (stupid timing aside)… I signed up to go on the Body Type Nutrition Retreat. It’s run by Ben Coomber, the nutritionist who’s podcast I’m obsessed with. Basically it’s six days of 3-4 hours of training and 1-2 hours of nutrition coaching (per day). There are workshops and training sessions focused on strength and conditioning so you can learn and progress in your fitness goals. It’s not running-focused, but rather overall health. As I’ve got so into the gym and lifting weights I wanted to gain better knowledge in the area, as well as nutrition in general. There’s also a lot of fun and games involved. I thought “hey you only live once!”. I’m in a stage in my life where I can do what the hell I want and this interested me. It’s also nice to know I’m going on holiday with a bunch of like-minded people.

Rave: Good food! I never used to eat much steak at all but I’ve suddenly had such a craving for it. Obviously I’ve always been a keen meat-eater so I guess this is hardly surprising.

This was a grass-fed Irish rump steak (from MuscleFood – use this code AS284829 for freebies!) with a steak seasoning, a load of veg with Saint-Félicien cheese. Very tasty and filling! Mid-week steak, can’t go wrong (unless your a veggie…).

Rant: Idiots on the road. This guy in the photo below wearing SHORTS. Not only is it FEBRUARY but shorts on a moped at any time during the year is a stupid move. If he fell off his bike he could lose half the skin on his leg at best. Rush hour on a Tuesday morning is not a good time to play dice with the traffic.

Speaking of idiots, there was another guy the other week on a motorbike zooming along the motorway with his hands OFF THE HANDLEBARS. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. He was just sat that with this ridiculous grin on his face with no hands, clearly showing off. After ranting on Facebook about it my policewoman friend questioned me about it and then later said they think they have him on camera so he’ll get done. Good! Because it isn’t just his life he’s risking.

And on that happy note…

What’s the worst thing you’ve seen someone do on the road?

Favourite type of steak and how do you like it? I really enjoy rib eye medium rare. I prefer the more fatty cuts just because they’re a bit more flavoursome.

Have you got any holidays planned this year?

February 17, 2016

The most sensible route to take

Continuing on from my trip to North Wales recap…I’d planned to run 18 miles on the Sunday. My grandad, the legend that he is, had said he’d cycle alongside me while I ran.

Before the trip I previously asked his advice on where to find a good running route for the 18 miles I needed to run and he came back with a fantastic route (below) that was comparable to the Boston marathon elevation. My grandfather is truly inspiring. He’s 83 years old and used to be a mountain climber and mountain guide, but is still very active cycling, playing golf or walking most days. One of his most exciting jobs back in the day was taking 40 SAS men out to whittle them down to the 10 best leaders during a gruelling week’s worth of outdoor activities and traversing the 15 peaks of North Wales (which my grandad did in just one minute over nine hours!).

So my grandad is in great shape and knows his stuff when it comes to being outdoors. On Sunday morning I joined my family for breakfast while they all had normal stuff while I munched on a tasty, albeit rather sad, Trek bar and black coffee.

I would have much preferred a hot bowl of porridge but that would have meant getting up a lot earlier to allow it to digest. After quite a big meal the night before I was happy enough to settle for something small instead and get more sleep.

Ginny, my step-gran, was quite worried about my grandad going out with me as it was very cold and windy but my grandad had his plan and felt confident. He had on lots of layers (as he’d be cycling alongside me at my running pace, so fairly slowly as a cycling pace) and a rucksack with snacks, drinks and First Aid.

Ginny drove us up to to our starting point at the Great Orme and we got ourselves together.

Sorting the bike out

I did my warm-up routine (leg swings and lunges etc.) while I was waiting and then decided to hop back into the car as it was very cold and windy at this elevation.

My grandad had sent me the route before the weekend and had talked it through with me, but I was still a little nervous in case I got lost if he decided to speed on ahead or turn back because of the cold. He said once we saw the sea though it was really straight forward: keep the sea on my left and continue along the path all the way to 18 miles. Even I can handle that!

We set off straight away with a fairly steep downhill for the first couple of miles. This is very similar to Boston so was a good test for me to hold myself back and not go crazy burning myself out for the following miles.

I took it nice and gentle and my grandad chatted away to me. It was really nice having the company. My grandad remarked that he was like a boxing coach cycling with me! It did seem like that way – he was able to chat away quite easily and though I could talk too it was harder for me than him. The wind though was tough going and we soon realised it would be against us the entire way.

Despite the cold wind, the views coming down the Great Orme were fantastic. It’s such a beautiful part of Britain I can’t believe more people don’t come here. Llandudno is somewhat touristy but not as much as it deserves considering all the natural beauty it has to offer.

After the first couple of miles I started feeling a bit of discomfort in my left foot, just under the arch. It felt like something was sticking in to my foot or that my trainer wasn’t hugely comfortable. As it wasn’t painful I just ignored it, thinking of stopping at some point to maybe have a fiddle and readjust.

We got to the Llandudno promenade and the wind was really tough going now. My pace was forced to slow. My grandad said he was going to make sure he wasn’t drafting me as that would be unfair training… I value that now but at the time in the thick of the wind I didn’t appreciate this When training is hard it means racing is easier!

Anyway, the wind slowed my grandad down and he dropped behind me. It’s harder to cycle into the wind than to run due to the surface area and weight I guess. I just wanted to get off the direct seafront as quickly as possible so powered on. As soon as I reached the end of the prom though I reached a hill. It was tough going! As my grandad was a distance behind I decided to take the time to check my foot out. I stopped and took my trainer off, fiddled around, felt my foot (slight niggle spot where it felt like it had been rubbing) and then put it back on and retied it back up slightly looser.

The niggle disappeared for a bit so I felt a bit happier. My grandad caught me back up and we carried on along another part of the seafront, again against the wind, but at least back on the flat.

Ginny appeared occasionally alongside us in the car to check how my grandad was doing – which was very sweet but I think exasperated my grandad a little. He’s very driven, so when he plans to do something he gives it his all to complete it.

The miles ticked by. The foot niggle reappeared and I started to worry. It was annoying me and I couldn’t seem to shake it. Eventually my grandad called it a day with cycling as the wind was so relentless and Ginny was persistent that he’d get cold cycling so slowly alongside me. I think he stopped around 10 miles. Ginny had stopped ahead and we could see the boot was open, basically her saying, “End of the road. Time to stop”. Hehe. In the distance I could see where I was heading (Rhyl) as the route just wrapped along the seafront so I was in no danger of getting lost. But now that I was alone I felt the demons come into my head.

This foot niggle… what was it? Was it serious? Was I making it worse running? Should I try and get to the end regardless? Would my grandparents think I failed?

After a mile of umm’ing and arr’ing I decided that the best thing to do was stop. The niggle wasn’t going away and 7-8 more miles of running on it wouldn’t help at all and could compromise later weeks of training. I rang my grandparents and they said they’d meet me at the next car park as I was now on an enclosed cycle/walkway away from the road. When I got there I sat down, took my trainer off and poked and prodded. Hmm, very tender and painful if I poked hard.

A man started walking over to me, quickly saying “don’t worry, I’m not trying to chat you up! I think I know what’s happening here though”. He looked vaguely familiar. “Running injury?” he asked. I nodded sadly. “I’ve been there many times! I’m a past runner too.”

He gave me some solid advice about icing and elevating. He also kindly offered me a phone or a lift but I assured him I had people coming for me. I asked about his running and he said he doesn’t run as much anymore now he was a bit older but he likes to stay involved through race photography. Ah ha! I knew where I’d seen him before. I mentioned that I ran Conwy parkrun the day before and he smiled and said he’d been the photographer there. What a small world! It was lovely to chat to him.

Then my grandparents picked me up. I felt like a huge failure and had a huge amount of disappointment for not completing the entire 18 miles. My grandad was frustrated too as he had wanted a good cycle as well but found the wind just too much in the end.

I managed 12 miles in the end (8.38min/mile pace) which were tough in the wind and mentally tough with all the injury fears flowing through my mind. I’m actually quite grateful for the wind because I think if it had been a perfectly still day my choice for stopping might not have happened as soon, if at all. The wind had mentally drained me and not having my grandad alongside me wasn’t as fun.

I know I did the right thing stopping. I don’t believe I have an injury, I reckon it’s a niggle that might take a few days or possibly a week of rest to calm down (FINGER’S CROSSED). I wasn’t limping at the end, my gait wasn’t changed, it just felt like something had kept battering against a certain spot in my foot for too long. And today (Wednesday) it feels much better, still not 100% but barely noticeable.

I wore a different pair of trainers for this run. I’m so annoyed at myself. I saw on Strava that my older Brooks had only been worn just over 100 miles and I thought, to save money, I should wear them out a bit before having to buy new trainers. I forgot that they were my gym shoes for a long time and that there was probably a reason I no longer ran in them. What an idiot. Though I don’t know for sure if it was the trainers it’s the only thing I can think of as it’s sort of out of the blue. Perhaps the steep downhill at the start aggravated something? Who knows! What I do know is I’ve purchased a new pair of trainers that I trust.

Ahh well, as per usual injury prone Anna picks up a niggle. But on the plus side, it’s a small niggle (I’m confident but not certain…) and I have about nine weeks until Boston so it’s not panic stations yet

Anyway, the run, despite not ending as I wanted and being tough with the wind, was a fantastic experience. Running with my grandad was great and 12 miles is still a good distance. I also felt like I could have gone on and on (which is another frustration that it was just my foot letting me down rather than anything else). The scenery was beautiful and I enjoyed it. So not a fail at all!

Importantly, it didn’t take away from the enjoyable and fun weekend I had with my family anyway!

Have you ever run with someone who was on a bike?

Have you ever had a foot issue before?

Do you enjoy spending time with your grandparents?