Current obsession - AnnaTheApple

June 3, 2015

Rants and Raves #13

My raves are far outweighing my rants at the moment, which is obviously very good! I just hope life continues along this pattern…

Rave: A while ago at parkrun there was a guy who noticed I was wearing a hairband to keep the hair off my face. He asked if I was a fan of the hairbands, I said I was (obviously) and he said he had a load he could give me for free if I wanted them. He’d bought them for himself to keep his hair out of his face but discovered they probably weren’t his style. Considering I spent around £7 for six I was quite keen to have some for free! OK they’re not the most expensive things in the world but they’re not cheap and I have limited colours.

Anyway that was a while ago and I sort of forgot about it. A couple of parkruns ago he tapped me on the shoulder and said “remember me? The hairband guy!” and he gave me the unwanted hairbands.

Amazing! Now I have more colours to choose from – hurrah! I like wearing the hairbands to the gym and running because I get wispy hair stuck on my face and it can be very annoying. I’m not sure yet if I’ll wear one at the marathon though as they can slip down from time to time (I think I have a small head) and I can’t bear to be adjusting it for miles on end.

Rant: After the Cakeathon and driving home I had some serious runger, as you can imagine. My parents thankfully had looked after Alfie over the weekend but had dropped him off a few hours before so when I got in I needed to walk him…food had to wait a few more minutes. By the time I got back and started preparing said food I was really hungry and rushing around to make myself something. I went into the freezer and picked up a bag of mini veg and didn’t realise it was upside down.

Oh how I wish it had been sprouts or big bits of broccoli, not teeny tiny bits of veg. It was then a race between Alfie and me to see who could pick up the most veg. What it is about frozen vegetables that appeals to my dog I’m not entirely sure. This was not a fun process I can assure you, especially in the raging stages of runger.

[Edit to add: this morning I had a similar incident with frozen berries. It’s amazing I can get through life so well…]

Rave: OK this is quite old news now but I had a bit of fun (and torture) seeing how old the Internet thought I was.

Obviously I’ve cherry picked a ‘good’ photo here haha! I tried a few photos and let’s just say it can make your day or ruin it 😉 But seriously though, I wouldn’t want to be 19 again. I’m actually quite happy being almost 27, despite my life taking a huge twist of events recently.

Rant: Back to the little furry monster, he’s so similar to me in that he has his own ingrained habits and routine in an evening. As soon as I’ve finished dinner and washing up I’ll hear the dreaded sound of a tennis ball dropping at my feet. I turn around and this little face is looking up at me.

“Oh have you finished, can we play now please?” is what that face is saying. Every single night. So I stand on one side of the house and throw the ball to the other side of the house until he is panting and I’m bored. I just can’t say no to that face.

Rave: It’s arrived! My bib for my impending marathon has arrived. It’s funny because this whole marathon process is so different from my other two in every way.

Unlike Paris and Berlin, I don’t have to go to the expo the day before, I don’t have to worry about what I’ll be eating for my pre-race dinner or breakfast and most people will speak English in and around the race! And obviously the whole training process has been so different. I plan on writing a marathon training recap post soon. I just don’t want to jinx anything just yet!!

Rant: OK not a real rant… The Cakeathon for next year has sold out already! I know a few of my club wanted to do it but didn’t get round to entering in time and some other people expressed interest as well who have now missed out. But the race only has 100 or so spaces and it is clearly a big hit. I’m so thankful that I entered straight away. There is a waiting list and I think they host the event twice a year (as I know there’s one in August this year – also sold out) so there could still be a chance for anyone keen.

Rave: Alpro’s new Coconut Almond milk. It tastes really good. Though it is definitely sweeter than the almond milk (though conversely slightly less calories per 100ml than the unsweetened almond milk). It’s a nice change I must say! I bought mine in Tesco.

Have you missed out on entering a race before?

What are you latest rants and raves?

How do you keep your hair back when you’re exercising?

June 1, 2015

Ready to go and an epic fail

This weekend made me realise that I’m getting a bit tired of marathon training now. I’m so close to the end but I’m still not there. I’ve been training since February (about 17-18 weeks) and I’ve really loved it but now I’m tired. I feel drained, both physically and mentally. This could perhaps be due to the amazingness of the Cakeathon last week and running at a tough pace which left me tired, with heavy legs and then still three weeks left to go. But it’s easy going now so hopefully nothing will go wrong!

The weekend was jam-packed. On Saturday I was at the Netley Abbey parkrun. A few of us had tried to persuade the Netley parkrun gods to do the cricket pitch course (boring but flat) but after almost convincing them someone piped up to say it was their 100th and they really didn’t want to do the cricket pitch, which is fair enough. The cricket pitch is really only good for a fast time as it is so boring (five laps) whereas the other course goes up a hill through some woods and is generally more interesting and only three laps. The next cricket pitch parkrun will be the week after my marathon so I really hope I’m not broken so I can give it a good go!

I didn’t have breakfast before parkrun this week but did have a black coffee so I was curious to see how I would do. It didn’t feel quite as gut-bustingly hard as last week (and I didn’t feel sick either) but I did feel that “running on empty” feeling. Half-way through though I did want to give up, mentally I was just not feeling it. But I spotted the lead lady who had overtaken me at the start and decided to try and catch her. At the start of mile three I got past her and then pushed on harder to prevent her coming back to me. It was tough but a good motivator to keep pushing.

On the final mile someone shouted to me that the second lady was just behind me so I floored it (well, I increased my pace slightly but in my painful state it felt like flooring it) and managed to finish 15 seconds before her. I got 20:42, so slower than last week by eight seconds which I’m happy with. Still sub-21!

After a drink in the cafe with some friends from the club, I headed home to get cleaned up ready for a nice lunch out in Chichester to celebrate my mum’s birthday. It was a place called Amelie and Friends and it was lovely! I went for melon with coconut sorbet to start which was really refreshing but sweet. To be honest it wouldn’t have been out of place on the pudding menu but it was tasty. And for main I went for the lamb kofta skewers with hummus, tzatziki and chips. Very tasty.

It was a lovely afternoon spent with my mum, dad and sister, Rachel.

I spent the night at my parent’s so I could have a nice run along the sea front the next morning and I was going for lunch with friends who lived nearby to my parents, so it made sense. Plus it also meant I could leave Alfie with my parents rather than leaving him on his own most of the day.

Unfortunately the weather was terrible the next day. I woke up to rain and wind, which always seems to happen when I want a nice run along the coast!! I felt miserable before I even started. I was dragging my feet getting ready and a big part of me wanted to just not go. But I thought how well I’d done so far. I haven’t missed one long run yet and I should be grateful that I’m running without injury at the moment so I needed to suck it up and get out there.

But it was a miserable run. I felt de-motivated, tired and it was cold and wet. As I ran past the sea the waves were huge. I saw lots of kite surfers in their wet suits apparently loving it and thought how different people were. You couldn’t pay me to have been in that water! But then I suppose they looked at me in my shorts and single layer and wondered what the hell I was doing (but then I was currently wondering the same…).

At nine miles I was fed up and wanted to be done. There was no way to cut the run short as I was past half way now and I could only run the rest of the way home. I honestly did consider ringing my dad though to pick me up. The rain, which had stopped for a while, started again and I got cold. I was so thankful for the run to be over when I got home!

I really enjoyed the hot shower I can tell you!

Average pace of 7.54min/mile.

After showering I had a bit of time to chill and eat something before I was going out so I sat with some partially frozen berries and Greek yogurt and RunnersWorld magazine. I almost napped, I felt that drained and sleepy.

Not my usual breakfast at all but lunch was on the horizon shortly and I didn’t fancy anything huge. I would have had a smoothie but my parent’s didn’t have many ingredients…can’t get the staff can you? 😉

Lunch was amazing. We went to Ranchos Steak House as my friends are fellow meat lovers too. I enjoyed a half rack of ribs to start and then two racks for main – I love that this is an option there. I know, I know, I’m obsessed. But I just love ribs!

And runger was in full force! It was so good. After lunch we did a bit of shopping and I bought myself a lovely blazer from Dorothy Perkins in the sale. It was only £24.90! And then I had to head back home to deal with my garden.

I don’t do gardening. I’ve never mown a lawn before. I decided I needed to get things under control this weekend as we’ll need to start the process of selling the house and, well, the garden looks awful. It’s a jungle out there! And the front of the house there’s a bush and it’s just grown ridiculously huge and almost taken over the pavement. I know my neighbours will be looking down their nose at me as I’m letting the side down and it just makes me look sloppy. Of which, I assure you, I am not! The inside of my house is lovely and tidy and clean…it’s just the garden that’s awful.

My parents thankfully came to help me but to be honest it was a bit of a lost cause. The lawn mower (a budget one bought three years ago) couldn’t cope with the sheer length of the grass (and the fact that it was still damp from the morning’s rain) and started smoking. Epic fail! We couldn’t even do one third of it.

But we did manage to tame the bush. Though I shouldn’t have left my dad alone and unsupervised with the clippers as he hacked a big chunk out of it! Honestly, I could have cried. I was so tired and stressed by this point. Well we managed to do what we could and the bush is now a lot smaller…it just looks a bit crap from one angle. At this point though I couldn’t care!

I’m planning on seeing if I can hire someone to cut the lawn at the back and make it look presentable. I think that’s the only way forward…

How good at gardening are you?

How do you motivate yourself when you’re really not in the mood to exercise?

Are you a big meat lover?

November 12, 2014January 14, 2015

Rant and Raves #2

There’s something rather cathartic about having a bit of moan at times, and also professing my love for stuff, which invariably includes some form of food 😉 I try not to be predictable…but why deny my nature, eh?

Rant: I love my husband (obviously) and I love that he’s really gotten into the whole baking lark. We bought loads of new cake tins and gadgets and we’re about to purchase the rather expensive (though heavily discounted because of Ben being an employee) Kenwood K-Mix. However I was led to believe that him baking would be a regular thing. He threw around the sentence “every other week” quite happily. Has this happened? No. And he’s off to China with work for a while so no homemade cake in the foreseeable future either. Good job I know a lot of afternoon tea joints near me otherwise times would be looking grim.

Rave: I love all these owl-themed things that are going on at the moment. The top right is a necklace I got from Mango at the airport just before we went on our honeymoon, so it holds a special place in my heart (corny, yes I know). It’s a lovely long necklace which just goes with so many things. The necklace below is more delicate and sparkly and is from Accessorize. The top left is a cushion I found in a lovely trinket shop near to where I live. The bottom left is a hand-made Christmas tree decoration my parents bought for us as they know we ~~are weird~~ like owls. The bottom right is cake. I want that cake.

Rant: Garmin watches. Yes I expressed my love for all things “pace” a week or so ago but nothing irks me more than a Garmin that doesn’t find satellites. And standing in the cold at 5.50am waiting to find satellites is not what I call fun. I call that verging on hypothermia and looking like a creepy person loitering on a street corner. However, I have since found a way to combat this…

This was Sunday morning – when the sun had actually risen at this point

By balancing my watch on our front door handle before a run means I can do some dynamic warm-up moves in the comfort and privacy of my own home while my watch takes its sweet time to get itself together.

Rant: The iPhone keyboard for typing texts. Maybe I just have fat fingers because honestly I never seem to be able to get a coherent sentence out via text.

Me asking Ben if he was coming to parkrun on Saturday

I know I’m not the only person who struggles. I know we’re a lot better off than previously when we had to press each button like five times before getting the letter we wanted, but COME ON. Other phones do it better I’m sure.

Rave: Sweet popcorn hot chocolate.Let’s ignore the number of chemicals undoubtedly present within this one mug and focus on the deliciousness that is this hot chocolate. It rocked my world. Normally I’m a mint hot chocolate kinda girl but I went crazy and tried a new flavour. It definitely paid off. Options hot chocolate, thank you. (FYI the salted caramel flavour is also pretty good).

Rave: I’m going with a double rave here rather than another rant as I’m all out of ranting. As I run stupid o’clock in the morning it is obviously very dark. I’ve been sent some truly fantastic running products made by Nathan Sports which make being seen a piece of cake. I’ll do a proper review another date, but so far I’m impressed!

No excuses: don’t run like a Ninja – male yourself visible!

This is a handy little gadget (called the Light Spur) that you attach to your trainer and it lights up. It’s very bright and very easy to wear. I love running, but I do not love risking my life by not being seen when I run. Sometimes you can’t just rely on a high vis top.

[Disclosure: I was sent the Nathan Sports products for free to review, all opinions are my own though]

What are your rants and raves this week?

What’s your favourite hot drink? I love tea and coffee but I adore a hot chocolate in the evening.

Do you run in the dark? How do you stay safe?

November 5, 2014January 14, 2015

Rants and Raves

I thought I’d do a little ranting and raving in this post of some of the thing going on around here lately.

Rant: walking Alfie at 5.30am when the weather is freezing. The weather has definitely realised it’s November now and it is COLD. I walk Alfie before I go running and whereas I have no issues with running in the cold (because really it’s only cold for 5 minutes) the pre-walk is horrendous. I’m half asleep, freezing cold and feeling really grumpy. During that 10 minutes of walking all those annoying voices in my head are having a field day persuading me to just go back to bed. So far I’ve been able to ignore them…

Rave: having friends who bring back treats from India!

I’d love to pretend I know what each of these delights are but needless to say they taste amazing. They’re all sweet treats – some a bit like fudge, others just condensed sugary cakey things. The smell of them is incredible and I’m pretty sure each sniff is about 500 calories each 😉 Those bad boys won’t last long at all.

Rant: As I’ve been running on consecutive days in the morning things have become quite stressful to ensure I’m not late for work. This means getting up at stupid o’clock (aka 5.10am). I get dressed and ready, take Alfie for a walk and then run at about 5.50am. But do you know what’s most exhausting? Washing my hair after every run. So that’s shampooing, rinsing, conditioning, rinsing, towel drying, combing, blow-drying, combing and finally a quick straighten to tidy things up. Effectively my life is wasting before me because of my hair. In desperation I have sought another option.

Dry shampoo! Obviously I still shower, but not washing my hair after every single run means I actually gain back about 15-20 minutes of my morning (all important porridge eating time).

I’ve only used dry shampoo once before and it was ages ago when they were pretty much just white powder. Perfect for blondes but a disaster for any dark haired people like myself. If you don’t manage to comb it all out it can look suspiciously like dandruff. So I was chuffed to find a brunette-specific one.

After finishing a fairly easy run I forwent the hair wash and decided optimistically to just spray this stuff all over my hair. Big mistake. I probably should have been a bit more careful and less liberal because it took quite a long time to not look like my forehead and neck had been beaten up. And it sprinkled lovely dark dust all over our white sink. ARGH. So the time I saved from not washing my hair was spent washing my face and neck again and then cleaning the bathroom sink. I’m sensing I need more practice at this…

Rave: coconut water. Yes I know I’m so far behind the times and trends of the healthy living world but I am fully on board after winning a whole set of Naked coconut waters from Maria’s giveaway.

I pretty much keep one in the fridge at all times so when I get back from my run I have an ice cold coconut water to guzzle.

Rant: I subscribe to RunnersWorld magazine and really enjoy reading it. I often go on the website as well. Sadly the UK version of the site is far less comprehensive than the US version, hey ho, but that’s a rant for another day I think. No my rant for this is when I’m clicking on different articles suddenly a huge subscription advert will occasionally pop up.

And to escape from it you have to click “No thanks, Marathons are easy”. This annoys me. It’s similar to that subscription advert for one of the women’s fitness websites too but that was about getting the a “bikini body diet plan” or something similarly pathetic and you had to click “no thanks, I already have a perfect body”. Awful.

I’m already hacked off that you interrupted my reading pleasure, RunnersWorld, but don’t get all cocky with me with you cheap digs. And speaking of annoying, RunnersWorld is also notorious for having adverts at the top of the page so if you ACCIDENTALLY scroll briefly over it your screen becomes submerged once again with guff you didn’t choose to see. Way to go at annoying your readers!

Whew always feel a bit better after a good rant 😀

What are you rants and raves lately? I might do these posts more as they’re quite fun. There’s always something to moan about 😉

Do you spend a lot of time on getting ready in a morning? I don’t wear make-up but my hair takes ages mainly because it’s so damn long.

What’s your favourite coconut-based product? Coconut oil is still high on my list for frying vegetables in.

August 27, 2014December 31, 2014

Eggcellent food ideas

Forgive me, that pun is terrible… Today I’m teaming with British Lion Eggs for some egg-inspired meal ideas.

We all have go-to meals when you’re tired and can’t really be bothered cooking a ‘proper’ meal. Mine are normally eggs-based meals (or take-away when it’s been a really bad day). It’s funny because I know in the US (correct me if I’m wrong) eggs are seen fundamentally as a breakfast food so having eggs for dinner might seem a bit odd to those across the pond (more like ‘brinner’). But I think in the UK eggs are fair game for any meal really. Scrambled eggs, fried eggs, omelettes, etc. are all seen as a normal non-breakfast specific meals.

Anyway my go-to quick meals tend to help out with left-over sad veggies in the fridge as well so it’s a win-win situation (not for Ben though, veggies are never a win-win situation for him). I’ll literally just throw a load of vegetables (courgettes, chopped onion, tomatoes, mushrooms) in the pan, fry away in coconut oil and then throw in three eggs and maybe a bit of tuna or cream cheese, let it all set together and dinner is done and dusted. It’s sort of my take on an omelette but it tends to turn into a bit of a scramble if I’m rushing (British Lion Eggs website has a great list of omelette recipes that will far outdo mine!)

Maybe with a side of Brussels’ sprouts…

For Ben it’s fairly simple: three eggs scrambled on two buttered slices of toast (brainwashed now into wholemeal bread rather than white). At the weekend he’ll usually have a sandwich for lunch and it’s usually tuna mayonnaise. But his absolute favourite is egg mayonnaise (really not my thing at all as I despise mayonnaise).

Another easy egg-inspired meal is a salad. Salads will always win my heart. And it’s all about the toppings.

Obviously the Caesar salad is my favourite. The best have boiled eggs, grilled bacon, chicken, Caesar dressing and anchovies (lots of great protein). I could literally live on this salad. I’m not sure what it is…maybe the amazing creamy dressing that’s like 100,000 calories, shhh! but it just rocks my world. This was one of my favourite ever Caesar salad meals in a restaurant (Trents in Chichester):

Sadly this was a few years ago and since they’ve lost the egg. Devastating!

For salads at home it really depends what we have in the fridge to what else we throw in the salad: lettuce, chopped onions, roasted courgette, grated carrot, cherry tomatoes, fruit, beetroot, mushrooms, roasted sweet potato if I can get myself in gear…really anything.

This cheeky salad has figs, feta and peach in it and (obviously) a fried egg on top.

My favourite thing is breaking the yolk and using the yellow ‘goo’ as dressing.

This one is all about the hummus and eggs.

Maybe my combinations are a bit strange but I just love salad. I love that pretty much anything goes. As long as there’s a good amount of protein in there I’m happy. And eggs are pretty perfect protein!

Eggs are just a great easy meal addition. Great source of protein, a powerhouse of nutrition and damn tasty – however you cook them!

What’s your favourite way to eat eggs? As long as the filling is good, I love a good omelette. But fried is always perfection too.

What’s your favourite salad toppers?

Do you like dressing on your salads? I’m usually not fussed but with a Caesar salad obviously I need that dressing!

***Full disclosure: I was asked to write this post by the British Lion Eggs in return for an egg boiler. All opinions are my own. The links are not affiliate links.***