Fun Times - AnnaTheApple

January 15, 2014

Let there be cake… #WIAW

Hello, you fabulous people.

The weekend gone was amazing. My mother-in-law, who I get on so well with, had the brilliant idea of hosting an afternoon tea party at her house on Saturday. Obviously this is the best idea in the entire world to me. So I thought I’d get involved with What I ate Wednesday!

Check out Jenn’s blog for more details

But before I get to the good stuff…I had a really good workout in the morning. Obviously I would have much prefered to be out Pakrunning (do I say this every week? I think I do) but this was a second best. I went to spin and endured that torture for 45minutes before then going and doing my own strength routine afterwards. I like Saturdays at the gym because I don’t have to rush off straight after the class or worry about time like I do in the week. Though Saturdays are heaving with people furiously running on the treadmills (don’t they know about Parkruns??), using machines or doing personal trainer group sessions.

I did a similar routine to my Winter Workout but I missed off the single leg squats and added instead:

Russian twists with 8kg kettle bells
Planks
Lateral pull-downs
Kettle bell single arm presses
One arm rows

Ahh I fear that the days of my 5 minute planks are gone…I didn’t attempt a lengthy one, I tried to vary it up by moving each leg out and in while maintaining the same core position. And that was tough. Use or lose it!

In the end I was at the gym for two hours. Seriously. I am that sad. But it felt good to take my time and get what I needed to done. I didn’t want to go to the gym Sunday so it was then or never.

Back to cake.

My MIL had done herself proud 🙂

There were sandwiches (ham, prawn, coronation chicken, cucumber and salmon with crème cheese), home-made Victoria sponge, home-made lemon drizzle, éclairs, little biscuits, scones (with raisins & plain)…a feast!

Well, I pretty much had everything. Obviously.

A few sandwiches (I see it as a necessary ‘lining of the stomach).

The coronation chicken was my favourite. I went back for a few more of those!

Then a lovely slice of Victoria Sponge. Positively scrumptious.

A cheeky slice of lemon drizzle.

And obviously a raisin scone with jam and clotted cream (no photo. I can only assume I was too concerned with stuffing my face and floating in cake heaven).

Mmm. Though I must say I was quite stuffed. This was Ben and my late lunch…and dinner as it turned out. We were so full! (How does that surprise me? Three cakes and a platter of sandwiches??)

Sunday was just a blissful day of nothing. I took Alfie on three lovely long walks though as I did get a bit cabin fevery. Sometimes I just have to be outside…I listened to Marathon Talk on two of the walks and walked with Ben on the other one. We were spying on some potential houses that we would love to buy…Fingers crossed maybe to moving out this year!

What would be on your menu for afternoon tea? I’m not a fan of éclairs at all but my dad loves them. Victoria sponge is always a winner for me. And cucumber sandwiches.

Does it annoy you when the gym is busy? Thankfully our gym is quite big so there’s never a queue for machines or weights.

Have you been Parkrunning lately? I have such withdrawal symptoms!!

January 9, 2014January 16, 2014

World’s Best Sundae and heart rate monitoring

Breathe, it’s almost Friday!! I still feel so behind with everything – it’s crazy how a holiday can do that to you. I’ve been bugging Ben to write his race recap of his marathon so I’m hoping to have that coming up soon, apologies for the delay. Boys, eh!

Anyway, last weekend Ben and me enjoyed two very nice meals. On the Friday night we went to Ben’s mum’s house and had a second turkey dinner. I do love them. And some fruit salad with ice cream to finish. Yum! No photos as I completely forgot, but all the trimmings as standard 😉

On the Saturday we didn’t do a huge amount. I tested out one of my gadgets at the gym for Spin in the morning. My Polar FT7 heart rate monitor watch. I’m obsessed. I love numbers. What with no running and having weekly mileages, pace per mile, distance etc. I don’t have much to get me excited in terms of numbers. But I’ve seen these Polar watches on different blogs (Laura did a great review) and so I was quite keen to get one.

I’ve never tracked my heart rate when exercising. And now suddenly having this number on my wrist, well I was quite excited about it! So I tested it out on Spin.

While I was spinning it was telling me my HR (and it connected to the LiveStrong spin bike as well so I didn’t need to look at my watch at all, just the mini screen on the bike). Then afterwards it told me calories burnt and average HR, max HR and how long I’d spent in ‘Fat Burning’ zone and the ‘Fitness’ zone. I am aiming to stay in the fitness zone as much as possible because this is my goal, not fat or weight loss. The HR strap around my chest was very comfy as well.

It’s also great because I can see when I’m really not trying that hard – there’s no escaping your heart rate!

[**I wasn’t sponsored for this review – I just love it!**]

So the second meal we had was Sunday. We went out for lunch with my parents last minute. We chose a local pub we always go to, The Osborne View.

The sign behind my parent’s say “Impeccable: having immunity to woodpeckers” and “Heroes: what a guy in a boat does” Hehe

I was like a bottomless pit!! We shared a mezze board between the four of us and had starters as well. I got Asian chicken wings. Oh my life these were good. Crispy and sticky. For main I went for a chicken, bacon and avocado salad (I love me some chicken).

But the piece de resistance…the pudding of 2014 (seriously, this has set some high expectations for the rest of the year)…salted caramel popcorn pretzel sundae. You heard me right.

Toffee ice cream, salted caramel sauce, popcorn and pretzels

Ben got it too. It’s funny because he usually struggles with three course so I was a little hopeful I might get some of his sundae as well as my own (hi my name’s Anna, I’m the food MACHINE). But there was no way in hell he wasn’t going to finish. Damn. We both looked at each other afterwards like “that was amazing”. Needless to say I was ready to be rolled home.

Good start to 2014 😀

What’s the best dessert you’ve ever had?

What’s your favourite restaurant? I love a good traditional British pub.

Have you ever tracked your heart rate while exercising before?

January 8, 2014January 16, 2014

A late Christmas recap and running update

Hello! How hard is this week? I was back at work Thursday and Friday last week but it didn’t feel ‘proper’ if you know what I mean… What with the horrendous weather, RUBBISH commutes and just general fog of depression hanging over everyone it really does feel a bit gloomy round these parts.

I missed out on doing my Christmas recap due to not blogging over the festive period. And if I’m honest, I don’t really fancy doing such a late recap now. It’s a bit depressing. But I’ll do a quick version…

Ben holding the bean bag looking like Father Christmas

My parents and Ben’s parents came to ours. We had a traditional British Christmas dinner. My parents cooked the turkey that we’d bought from M&S as our oven was too small. So all we had to cover were snacks, drinks and all the trimmings and carving.

Nothing too crazy. Honey roasted carrots and parsnips, sprouts, broad beans (my favourite!), runner beans, sausage stuffing, apple and sage stuffing, roasted potatoes, red cabbage, cranberry sauce, gravy. Heaven.

Afterwards there were profiteroles, Christmas pudding and mince pies. I enjoyed a lovely heated mince pie. I forgot to take a photo but it was an unusual puff pastry one. I quite liked the change from the usual thick pastry ones. I love Christmas cake but I find Christmas pudding very rich.

Obviously I had Christmas cake later for supper 😉 It’s my favourite part of Christmas (well, favourite food part).

We spent time opening presents, listening to Christmas music and playing board games. Good fun all round. Apart from my dad not feeling well and then subsequently passing it to Ben and me. Merry Christmas to us.

Lovely little photo of me ill in bed. Thanks Ben!

Anywho, despite being ill we had a lovely Christmas and had lots of lovely presents. I must mention these as I am SO excited to try them.

My parents got me these popcorn flavour toppers. I have popcorn every day with my lunch at work that I pop myself from plain kernels. I sprinkle salt and pepper over it. My dad found these in Lakeland and got them for me as a stocking filler. AMAZING.

And, though I do say so myself, I love this present I got Ben.

Along the side it has markers and half way says “13.1” and then at the top it says “26.2” and along the markings “Pacing yourself is everything”. Ben loves his wine and I just thought this was a perfect way to mark his achievement. Especially because he gave up alcohol for a portion of his training!

I did my first workout at the gym on New Year’s Day as we had a quiet evening in the night before. I felt raring to go and ready to get back into things. My physio had OK’ed spin so I was happy to not have to motivate myself on a machine! Honestly though it was hard work.

In terms of running – ahh the saga of my life. I’m up to 2 miles. Good Lord, I’ll have to start carb loading and properly fuelling myself soon 😉 I’m not trying to belittle anyone’s running efforts but personally for me this is such a change from the mileage of last year. I just hope I won’t have lost too much when I’m fully back into it. But at this point, as long as I can run without issue I DON’T CARE.

My knee seems to be calming down with the intense ultra sounding that’s going on and the little runs are helping in a weird way to ‘break it down’ to build it back up again stronger. It’s a cautious and slow approach but it’s what I need.

My decision about the Paris marathon will happen in about two weeks. My ultra sound will have ended and I hope the runs increased a bit. If I’m still struggling with the knee and it needs longer time off (come on, seriously??) then Paris is a no-go. Ben has agreed he won’t do it either (bless his socks). But if all things are OK…then I’ll have 10 weeks to train. Obviously this is not enough in the ideal marathon training world BUT I think I can do something with it. I won’t pre-empt things by going into more detail yet though!

What’s your on your plate at Christmas?

What’s your favourite Christmas dessert/treat? It’s all about the Christmas cake for me.

What was your favourite Christmas pressie?

December 11, 2013

Cake, fro-yo and shopping – happy happy happy

Hello! Woah woah woah, how is TWO WEEKS until Christmas? When did that happen! And less than 2 weeks until Ben’s marathon debut. Scary times.

I had a great weekend gone (despite having to work Sunday afternoon – don’t even get me started on this; third weekend in a row). On Saturday Ben and I got up early and he headed to Parkrun while I headed to the gym. Envy doesn’t quite cover the strength of my emotion…The gym really sucks. But I got a good workout in and did 50 minutes on the bike and 30 minutes on the rower.

My aim was to try and emulate the length of time I’d spend on a long run to try and maintain some form of endurance. Who knows if it’ll work!

Then after making myself presentable I headed out to have some absolutely fabulous afternoon tea with some very lovely ladies from my running club. Yes I do realise this afternoon tea business is getting a bit out of hand…but when it’s so tasty and good value (£9.50!) and there’s great company I just can’t help myself.

I made a huge error when ordering and ordered the wrong cake! I thought I was ordering the one I’d seen as I walked in and had tried to describe it to the waitress but I think we misunderstood each other. Though one of my friends kindly swapped hers (which was the cake I wanted) for mine (not the one I wanted). Cake drama let me tell you! 😉

Sunday and I headed to the gym again (I do know how to have fun, don’t I?) and did 20 minutes on the rower and then followed my personal trainer strength routine.

After the gym, Ben and I decided to nip quickly into town and pick up a few Christmas shopping items we can’t get online. This might have involved me updating my wardrobe a little…whoops!

Lovely and Christmassy!

I was SO chuffed to find a frozen yogurt stall in the shopping centre!!

It was a self-serve and there were quite a few different flavours available…like peanut butter, strawberry, banana, plain and…SALTED CARAMEL! Well I just went for a whole load of salted caramel. I was quite impressed as the fro-yo was only 80 calories per 100g. Not too shabby. Let’s not talk about how much mine weighed in the end though 😉 Though I was sharing with Ben!

What more could a girl want? Starbucks (black Americano with hazelnut syrup), fro-yo and shopping.

Then sadly it was back to work. Ho hum.

What’s your favourite flavour of frozen yogurt? I think I actually prefer the plain with lots of toppings.

What’s your usual Starbucks/Costa/etc. order? Mine is always black Americano with a splash of some sort of syrup (my favourite being hazelnut).

Do you enjoy shopping? I enjoy clothes shopping if I’m in the mood and it’s not ridiculously busy. Sunday morning wasn’t actually too bad and I found some really nice tops.

October 23, 2013October 23, 2013

A spot of afternoon tea

Hello! It’s Wednesday – half way there! Not that I’m living for the weekend or anything…

This week I’m joining the blogging link-up What I Ate Wednesday and share the delightful treats and meals I’ve been loving lately. Pop over to Jenn’s blog to see what’s going down

So here’s a recap of Saturday’s eats as they were pretty damn good. As I mentioned in my last post, I didn’t run Parkrun on Saturday. This was really hard and sad for me. Without sounding overly dramatic, it sucked. Ben went but I went to spin instead. I could have volunteered but I wanted to get the endorphins going and to be honest I was in a bad mood.

And let me tell you, spin was hard core. The usual person was sick apparently so we had a stand-by person do it. I assumed it would be a cop-out session. Ha. Usually we have little breaks between songs but not this time. It was just non-stop. And then the instructor goes “right, time for a 5 minute sprint”. Seriously?! It was 30 seconds of sprints, with about 10 seconds recovery, over 5 minutes. I was a sweaty mess.

After this I had my usual breakfast:

Same old same old. Porridge (oatmeal), almond milk and chia seeds.

Then after getting ready and usual house stuff, Ben and me headed to my parent’s where I dropped Ben off for some ‘man-time’ with my dad to watch the football and play Xbox. I picked my mum up and we headed off for a lovely spot of afternoon tea for lunch.

Besides from getting immensely stressed out trying to find a car park in the world’s smallest village square and ending up giving up and parking in a ditch, we arrived at Lilly’s Tearoom in Wickham in one piece (not always guaranteed when I drive).

We ordered soup to start because we weren’t sure afternoon tea would be an adequate lunch (rookie error right there).

Delicious pea and ham soup

I loved how beautiful all the crockery was. In fact, the whole tearoom was beautifully decorated and the service was fabulous.

Obviously we had tea

And then our ‘main’…

Heaven! We had the choice of so many different cakes (carrot, chocolate, lemon drizzle, coffee and walnut, rocky road, millionaire shortbread or Victoria sponge). Well, my mum and me both adore Victoria sponge so we both went for a slice of that. It also came with crustless chicken sandwiches and crustless cucumber sandwiches (but of course!) and scones with clotted cream and jam.

Yeah so we clearly did not need that soup!! We were both quite full by the end, only leaving a couple of the sandwiches (choose your battles I say – cakes all the way). It was perfect.

And then we looked round the little square at all the lovely little shops. And lo and behold I found the most amazing chocolate shop.

Because after so much cake, surely this makes sense??

So many beautiful and tasty looking chocolates! Well, I pushed the boat out and went crazy. I bought Ben and me a box to share.

I forgot to take a photo of inside, but I will share soon as it’s pretty impressive

The shopkeeper thought it was hilarious that I was buying this for just Ben and me to eat ourselves. How terribly indulgent, I know

Well, dinner wasn’t needed for quite a long time afterwards! Luckily Ben had had a pub lunch so we were both happy to have a nice late dinner.

I kept it simple and had roasted vegetables and sausages. I threw in a chopped cooking apple as well (because I don’t eat enough apples – it’s something I’m trying to work on ). I threw some herbs on it (rosemary and thyme) and then drizzled it with some oil and balsamic vinegar. LOVED this. Definitely happening again. And so easy – everything just went in a casserole dish and then in the oven for 20ish minutes.

And that’s that!

Last night I went for an easy 8 mile run and it felt pretty good. No pain, no major discomfort. Just a bit of aching but I was more concerned with the raging thunderstorm going around me! But more on that another day.

Have you ever had afternoon tea? I think it’s pretty much the best thing in the world. OK I’m easily swayed by anything cake-related.

What treats do you like to buy? A box of chocolates is fairly extravagant for us, but I just couldn’t help myself. Usually it’s Cadbury’s chocolate or Lindt!

What’s your favourite filling in a sandwich? I am a bit turkey or chicken fan, with loads of salad. And cranberry sauce.