Britain - AnnaTheApple

February 10, 2014

Marathon Talk Weekend – Part 1

Hi guys! I am buzzing. I had such a fantastic weekend. Ben and I went to the Marathon Talk spring weekend over at the New Forest. It really was a brilliant weekend.

You probably know I’m fairly obsessed with running and spending an entire weekend purely focused on running with fellow runners was just heaven. I have so much to say about it so I thought I’d break it down into ‘manageable chunks’. I’ll try to include some non-running stuff as well because I know running isn’t everyone’s cup of tea…

Ben and me headed to the New Forest with one of our running club friends who was also doing the weekend on Friday afternoon. It wasn’t far for us at all – but some people came all the way from Edinburgh! That is dedication. There was an informal meet and greet style thing on Friday evening. I’m terrible. OK I know Martin Yelling and Tom Williams aren’t celebrities and most non-runners haven’t heard of them…but I was so chuffed to meet them and listen to what they said. I think they’re just great and actually see them talking rather than hear them on a podcast was brilliant. I tried not to be that creepy fan girl but I was pretty much smiling the entire time. They were very welcoming and so friendly.

Unpacking the essentials in the lodge

Saturday we got up early and got ready for Parkrun.

Ben loves it when I take random photos – ha!

And we convoyed over with everyone to Brockenhurst. Check out the car we were following.

Of course! Not Martin or Tom’s car though.

It was fairly wet and muddy but when has that ever put off a runner?? It’s funny because Brockenhurst Parkrun hasn’t been running since the beginning of December, but when the Parkrun director (i.e. Tom Williams) comes into town anything is possible. An out and back route was set up that avoided the worst of the flooding/fallen trees etc.

I might have had lofty unrealistic ambitious of having a podium finish…but as soon as we started three ladies just zoomed off. Honestly, even if I was in peak fitness and 5k shape I think I could have caught one of them. Those ladies had some serious speed – major kudos to them!

The course…oh the course. It was off-road so nice and soft underfoot, but it was hilly. We ran down one very steep hill which wasn’t as great as that sounds – tough on the quads! And the ever present thought of “I will have to climb that hill on the way back”. Half way I thought I might have to stop, it was so tough. But I finished! My time was 23:11, 4th female, 24th out of 71.

I am more then happy with that!

Martin Yelling came second (18:55) and Tom William (32:52) pushing his daughter in a pram! There was a great atmosphere and community feel – everyone cheering everyone. I loved it.

Then we convoyed over to a local tea room in Brockenhurst. Can you picture a large number of runners suddenly landing in a tiny quaint tea room? It was rather funny and the staff looked a bit taken back. I kind of wished I hadn’t worn my tiny shorts…I felt a little naked.

I hadn’t had breakfast and I was starting to feel hungry. I checked around with other people and found that others were ordering food. So Ben and me ordered a very satisfactory post-run meal.

Well, it was that or afternoon tea…Martin walked past and said he was fully impressed haha.

Then we headed back to the lodges to get showered and ready for a 1pm meet up for the Marathon Talk quiz.

Right I’ll leave it there as I could waffle for ages. News on my knee (I know – exciting stuff, curb your enthusiasm 😉 I think it’s holding up really well. It still aches from time to time but it felt fine during the runs over the weekend and I feel like I’m running strong. Gradually does it.

One last Marathon Talk weekend point. As we were unpacking Ben goes “Where’s my towel?” (we had to bring our own). I said “well unless it’s in your bag, it’s probably in the airing cupboard at home”. Apparently I was supposed to remember it! Ha! So he had to buy one from the little shops on site.

Beggars can’t be choosers!

How was your weekend? Did you do anything nice?

What kind of Parkrun do you prefer? Challenging? Flat? I like a flat one now and again to see if I’ve made any progress, but challenging helps with training.

If you could have anything, what would you eat after exercise?

February 6, 2014

Marathon Talk Weekend and Windy Days

I’m in a bit of a quandary. I am trying really hard to take things slowly and ease gently back into running…but at the same time I have an impending marathon approaching (Paris 6th April). So the mileage obviously has to increase.

Ideally I’d love to ramp up fast and heavy: four or five runs a week with big long runs at the weekend. But I can’t. Number one rule of returning to your sport post-injury: take things slow. You can’t take time off, get all healed and then jump back into 30 miles a week. Well I can’t anyway.

Being all sensible and boring means I’m not running Brighton half marathon the weekend after next. Part of me harboured this optimism that I could do it, take it slowly, use it as a training run. But however slowly I do it, it’s still 13.1miles pounding away on my knees. And it’s quite a jump from my current long run mileage. Sure I’ve run nine miles and I plan to do 10 this weekend…but jumping up three when I’m still getting back into it and my knee is still feeling delicate…Recipe for disaster.

Onto more exciting news…This weekend Ben and me are off to the Marathon Talk spring running weekend.

Basically we’re going to Sandy Balls (actually it’s real name) in the New Forest with 50 or so other runners to have a three day running-filled jolly. We get to do to the Brockenhurst Parkrun on the Saturday with everyone, then a few talks, training stuff, then a fun Saturday night in the local pub (I hear there’s a quiz – I do love a good quiz) and then Sunday a nice long run with everyone. There are several options (all the way to 20 miles) but I will be sticking to approximately 10 miles. Then a big fat roast dinner afterwards.

Happy days! I’m so excited. I love the Marathon Talk podcast. But I’m hoping I won’t turn into one of those weirdo fans…you never know how you’re going to react. They’re not massively famous, but I just love the show!

And on a quick note to “what the hell is going on with the weather”…I hope everyone in the UK (and elsewhere as well) aren’t struggling too much with flooding or the stormy weather. It’s become a bit of a joke on our road. It’s a new build development and there’s still lots of work going on. The builders are working on the actual road and they’ve put these bollard things up. I was driving along and suddenly a huge gust of wind swept them across the road at rocket speed.

Five seconds later and they’d have rammed into my car! Scary stuff. Annoyingly I had to jump out in the rain and wind and put them upright again. They weigh a bloody tonne!

Anyway, it’s almost Friday. Thank God for that.

Have you ever been on a fitness-related holiday? I’d love to go to one of those yoga resorts in the middle of some hot beautiful country…

Have you been affected by the crazy weather?

What’s your next race? Mine is Reading half marathon 2nd March.

February 3, 2014

9 miles, Bath and lots of fudge

Thank goodness January is over. OK it wasn’t a terrible month for me, but I just hate that sort of fog of depression that everyone has after Christmas. February is where we really start getting on with the year and looking forward.

I found Friday a day that just draaaagged. Everyone at work seemed a bit sleepy. Doing Pilates in the morning as well really didn’t help things.It’s so relaxing and gentle. But this Friday it was actually quite tough as well. I feel like we’re really getting into it now and getting to the good stuff, like the hundred move which just kills your abs.

I had a fairly early night on Friday as I was getting up at 6.15am on Saturday to do my long run before heading to Bath.

(Along with Garmin Connect I use Strava to upload my runs – follow me if you like! I like Strava as it shows my GAP pace which is basically adjusting for elevation, up and down)

I’m really happy with how things went. It was tough but I kept an eye on my heart rate and general effort level and I wasn’t going crazy. I just listened to a podcast and ran as naturally paced as I could. The only thing I did notice was a slight ache in my other knee when I’d finished. Nothing near like I’ve had with my bad knee but just like a ‘hello what’s this’ feeling. Possibly because I could have been slightly nursing the right one and putting more pressure on the left? But it feels fine now. Honestly, I can’t take anymore injuries!!

Then I jumped on the train to Bath. I was supposed to be meeting one of my uni friends on the train but sadly her train had been cancelled which meant she couldn’t come. Really sad as I was looking forward to a lovely train ride catch-up. And I hadn’t brought my Kindle which meant I was a little bored on the journey.

Normally I don’t put my feet up on seats in trains but it was empty, my boots were relatively clean and I was elevating my legs post-run 😉

So I did a lot of looking out the window. It made me appreciate living in such a beautiful country though – so green and picturesque. But so much flooding!

I met up with my friends and we straight away went for coffee…time for a good catch up and chin wag!

We then went for lunch in one of my favourite chain restaurants, Giraffe. I could eat just a plate of their sweet potato fries for lunch. Seriously so good.

I had these with a chicken, prawn and mango salad. At first they brought me a really small salad. I poked through it and found it really wasn’t what I had ordered! But the waitress quickly swapped it for the right salad – which was so much bigger. But still a little stingy on the chicken I have to say. But it was still nice.

Then we walked around Bath and saw the Cathedral.

And then the highlight of the day…an amazing fudge shop (The Fudge Kitchen) where you could see them making the fudge. And they offered free samples!

I tried the salted caramel, after dinner mint and butterscotch. It was so hard to decide between them. They were so tasty. The mint was very creamy whereas the butterscotch was very crumbly. They were so friendly in the shop as well, it was a lovely experience. I bought Ben a cheeky slice of the mint one – he was very pleased.

We also went to another fudge shop (the Fudge Factory) and I got a rather large marshmallow dipped in chocolate.

Yum!

Then we finished the day with a lovely tea/coffee in one of the small tearooms.

How lovely is that tea cup?

Then our farewells and back to Southampton for me. Such a lovely trip. And we missed the rain in the end which was fantastic.

My legs felt pretty good the whole day. Just a bit achy. And Sunday they felt the same. Just achiness and tiredness. Ben thinks I’m over thinking everything (very possible) but it’s hard not to when it’s been this way for so long now. It’s hard to remember what post-long run feels like…whether that’s a normal achiness/tiredness or not.

I was going to run this morning (Monday) but I’m going to give myself another day as I really don’t want to push myself too much. Nine miles was a long way for me, I must remember that. I’m not where I was three months ago where nine miles was just a normal run. But I plan to run tomorrow morning, I think. Just an easy three miles.

After an injury, how slowly did you get back into things?

Have you been to Bath before?

What’s your favourite flavour of fudge? I need to try more before I make my mind up 😉

January 30, 2014

BBQ chicken and weekly workouts

I spotted this while out walking Alfie a few days ago:

I got stupidly excited. Does this mean spring and warmer climes are just around the corner? Unlikely, but it did make my day.

I’m all about things making me happy recently (with the exception of excessive cake consumption. That has been put on hold for a little bit). I like to plan our meals in advanced so I a) know what to buy at the shop and b) can easily prepare the meal in the evening after work. Waking up one morning I just thought “you know what, it’s not on the menu for this week but I really fancy it.”

Slow cooker BBQ chicken

I had this with broad beans and roasted butternut squash

Oh my life this was good. And so very simple. Just chicken breasts, BBQ sauce (our favourite is Reggae Reggae at the moment) with a big dollop of cream cheese. The cream cheese makes things nice and creamy but it also helps cool things down a bit because the Reggae Reggae is quite spicy! I put a little bit of water in there as well and some seasoning and it’s good to go for 6 hours on low.

Apart from BBQ chicken, running is obviously making me very happy. My physio on Tuesday said things were looking really good and he positively encouraged me to up my mileage. He even said do a run up to 10 miles! In terms of my injury, he said he couldn’t see Paris being an issue!! But let’s just see how training goes…

I ran six miles on Wednesday morning. Well that was fairly tough I have to say. But I kept things nice and steady, not pushing too hard. Apart from stepping in a large puddle literally two minutes into the run it went very well. And for the rest of the day things (aka leg) felt good.

So my plan is to run between eight and 10 miles on Saturday. No Parkrun this week as I’m off to Bath to see my uni friends. [This time I will definitely be going (last time I had to cancel going because I had to work over the weekend).] I will see how I feel on the day and how it goes as to what distance I’ll do.

This week my workouts have and will (hopefully) look like this:

Monday: 4 mile run
Tuesday: off
Wednesday: 6 miles run
Thursday: morning personal trainer session and evening leg strength workout
Friday: Pilates
Saturday: 8-10 miles run
Sunday: leg strength (optional, depends how I feel)

Notice there’s no spin in there? I’m taking a break from it as I’m back into running. Spinning is a very intense workout and at the moment my body is learning to adjust back to running and I don’t want to stress it out. To be honest, this is such a relief as spinning is hard and not that fun!

And cake count this week? Zilch. Sad times but it’s got to be done 😉

How have your workouts gone this week? Any long runs planned for the weekend?

Have you noticed any hints of spring appearing?

What’s your favourite BBQ sauce recipe? It’s got to be BBQ ribs for me.

October 28, 2013October 28, 2013

The Great South Run

Hello! Well clearly I can’t start this post without saying it’s been a bit mad with the wind here of late! In the UK there’s been a good old gale blowing and weather warnings have been flying about all over the place this weekend.

Clearly not exactly ideal for the 10 mile Great South Run race Ben and me were doing on Sunday. Hey ho! The show must go on.

Sunday morning Ben and me got up, got ready, had breakfast and then Ben’s mum arrived and we drove to my parent’s house to pick them up. We were all lovely and cosy crammed in the car and then headed to Portsmouth for the race. It wasn’t far for us at all and we know Portsmouth well so we parked in nearish car park and walked 15 minutes-ish to the start area.

Gunwharf Quays: There’s the Spinnaker Tower in the distance

Portsmouth has a lot of history based around the naval docks. There are lots of museums, old ships, naval buildings…things like that. I’ve lived around the Portsmouth area most of my life so it’s all very familiar to my family and me which is nice for a change!

As we got along the sea front in Southsea (where the race begins) it quickly became apparent just how windy it was.

Nothing like being slapped in the face with your own pony tail!!

We got to the race start with plenty of time. We met up with some of the guys from our running club and then moseyed about for a bit. It was cold. Not the wintery bitterly cold, but the very windy cold. The sun was out intermittently but that wind was relentless.

I attempted a warm up run but I was so cold and my body was all cramped up from hunching over.

The long stretch of the start before everyone has begun lining up

This race was huge. There were just under 30,000 people doing it. So there were, I think, about four different waves. I was in the orange wave which meant I was the first wave to go after the elites. Ben was in the wave behind that one. So we said goodbye to the parents, then each other and I headed to the start.

My original plan for this race had been to run with a guy who’s around the same speed as me. We were aiming for the now laughable time (for me) of 1 hour 10mins. So 7 minute miles all the way. In retrospect this was stupid. I’ve lost a bit of speed in the recent weeks due to my stupid, stupid niggles. I haven’t done any speed work. There was no way I was going to hit those times.

In the end I never saw the guy. We had attempted to meet up but it just didn’t happen. I was actually very relieved. Even before starting I knew deep down it wasn’t going to happen for me. I went into this race feeling very unconfident and terrified of that wind.

Mile 1: Bit of bottlenecking to begin with and dodging around people. I tried to huddle into groups of people to avoid the wind (7.19mins/mile).

Miles 2-3: Still busy but now able to pick up speed. Nice route through the old naval docks area with the old ships, like the Victory and the Mary Rose museum. Then at the end of mile 3 we ran past Portsmouth Cathedral (7.06mins/mile for both).

I took this photo as we walked past it beforehand, not during!

Miles 4-6: I started finding the run quite tough. My pace dropped down and I got myself into a bit of a bad mood (stupid I know). Everything started annoying me. My hair slapping me and the loose tendrils were getting stuck on my face. I was stupidly hot; the sun had come out and I was in a long-sleeved top and running club vest. I also saw the water station and when I ran over no one gave me a water and I had to wait for them to get one out of the plastic. Nightmare. (7.20-25miles/min).

Mile 6: My darkest hour. I just wasn’t happy. I know this sounds quite stupid (and believe me I know it is) but I wasn’t enjoying it. I didn’t feel like I was in control. I felt like everything was against me. I realised quite a few miles back that my target was never in a million years going to happen. And nor was my second target, and the rate I was running nor was my third. This hugely got me down.

But, just as mile 7 approached, I saw a girl from my running club ahead. She’s a little bit slower than me normally but was running a good pace. I was fed up of being all down on myself so I caught up with her. I told her I was having a bad race and could I run with her and she was lovely and happily said yes. She said her target was to get under 1:20. Well, there’s a target I was happy with finally! (7.25mins/mile)

Miles 7-8: It’s amazing how a race can suddenly improve when you drop the pressure off yourself. Suddenly this wasn’t my race at all anymore. It was her race and I was merely joining her. I no longer beat myself up about the pace we were running. I stopped worrying about trying to ‘gain back’ the seconds I’d lost. I just ran alongside her trying to keep an even pace, telling her I was happy to slow down at any point if she was struggling (7.19-7.27mins/mile).

Miles 8-10: Hello hell. This was along the front and it was TOUGH.

It felt like running in slow motion. My running buddy and I were struggling through but we kept each other going which was brilliant (7.54-8.01mins/mile).

And we made it. I hit none of my targets apart from my absolute lowest one: beat the New Forest 10 (that was 1:18 something). Well, I did! Official time 1:15:13 (1148th overall, 552nd in age category, 82nd female, 43rd in age/gender category).

But the best part for me was my running buddy rushing over to me in tears and grabbing me in a huge hug and saying “I’ve taken 3 minutes off my PB. I couldn’t have done it without you”.

That made everything worth while.

And Ben finished in a brilliant time of 1:26:20 – a huge PB for him! He was grinning from ear to ear when I met up with him. He was buzzing.

Sensibly this time I’d packed some chocolate milk in my bag as I never normally eat anything after a race until I get home a few hours later and have lunch (I’m genuinely not hungry and never fancy eating in the hours after). It went down nicely! I noticed later on I felt much better in myself.

This was my bag (though the Protein Plus bar came from Ben’s – we both got one PowerBar product)

The goodie bag at the end was quite good. We got a free t-shirt as well (cotton, boo!). There was a Chobani stall handing out free yogurts and a Powerade stand handing out free drinks so that was cool as well.

And after getting home and devouring a huge lunch I was ready to chill.

Hot shower? Check. Medal? Check. Free t-shirt? Check. Compression socks? Check.

Then we relaxed on the sofa with our furry friend watching the live coverage of the Great South Run on TV that we’d recorded. Reliving the magic – ha! As terrible as this sounds, it was nice to see some of the elites struggle against the wind as well. They’re only human!

I did enjoy this race but it was tough and it almost brought me down. But you can’t always have a brilliant race and hit your goals. That’s just life! I helped a friend get her goal and her happiness at the end made all my moodiness a thing of the past and seem so silly.

When was your last bad race? How did you come back from it?

How do you relax after a race or hard workout? You better believe I enjoyed a slice of cake last night!

What’s the best thing you’ve got in a race goodie bag? It’s always the medal for me!