Gym - AnnaTheApple

January 13, 2014January 16, 2014

Winter workout and tasty pastries

Happy Monday, everyone. Is it me or is it starting to get lighter in the mornings? I can’t wait until I’m woken by sunlight in the morning again…such a gentle way to wake up.

During my time off of running [apart from boring the socks off of everyone about how much I wish I was running] I have been going to the gym and trying to strengthen my body so that when it decides it is happy to run again, it will run strong.

I’ve been seeing a person trainer pretty much once a week (apart from Christmas) and he’s been guiding me through lots of exercises that I would never have done on my own. And lifting weights I would never have dreamed I could have done. Now I am by no means comparable to lots of other far stronger people out there, but for me I’m amazed.

My session last week he instructed me to deadlift a dumbbell bar weighing a total of 50kg. This is pretty much my weight! I realise this might seem so easy to some people but I couldn’t do it. I was terrified: it was too heavy, I was convinced I’d break my back or knees.

He took the weights off and started with just 20kg. He tutored my form and then added more weights, I deadlifted, then rested. He added more weights, I deadlifted, then rested. We continued with this until we were back at 50kg. And I did it – all 8 reps of it!!

It’s not running, no where near. But I was so proud of myself.

I also follow workouts that my running coach devised (all those weeks ago) which is mainly focused on lower body:

This took me 40mins to complete. And I looked like a right berk doing the unbalanced squats.

I’m hoping that I’ve been using my ‘non-running’ time well. And when I get back into running I will continue with my strength workouts, hopefully, twice a week. That is the plan anyway!

On an entirely different note, I was sent some pastry cases made by Pidy to try out. Pidy products are made with their award winning pastry recipe that the Pidy family initially created in their little patisserie shop in Ypres, Belgium back in 1952. They have a huge range of different pastries ready for fillings to be added.

I’m not a huge fan of pastry I must say but these sounded very cute and dinky. I was sent three types: mini square puff pastry squares, award winning pastry ‘sponnettes’ and veggie cups. The puff pastry squares were 130 calories per square and the spoonettes and veggie cups under 20 calories. There are no artificial colours of E-numbers and they’re a great source of fibre too.

Because we were feeling lazy on Sunday night Ben and me decided to have a sort of snack plate so we could try out the pastries.

I filled the different pastries with tuna pate, hummus and Brussels pate. We could have been more adventurous I’m sure and made them more exciting but these little things were perfectly delicious just like this and very filling! My favourite was definitely the veggie cups which were with 30% beetroot juice (hence the colour) and they were very crunchy which I loved. Other veggie cup flavours are carrot, spinach and celeriac.

I’m sure they’d be perfect versatile snacks that you could really go to town on the fillings and offer to guests when hosting an evening (ooh er, how posh!). And they don’t just have to be savoury, you could easily fill these badboys with sweet fillings – like fruit and yogurt, or chocolatey yumminess.

Thanks to food PR agency CLIP Creative and PR for the samples!

**I was sent the samples to review, but these are all my own opinions of the product**

Right, let’s get this week started!

Are you good with balancing strength workouts with cardio?

Do you like finger food and canapés? I love canapés. I especially love weddings with posh canapés 😉

What would you fill these pastries with? I was a bit boring with mine but they were very tasty regardless.

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.

September 9, 2013

Drizzly running and weekly workouts

And just like that summer is over. This weekend just seemed like never ending rain. Lying in bed in the early hours of Saturday morning I could hear the rain pounding down. I was so tempted to just not get up for Parkrun in the morning…

But we got up and got to it. I wasn’t certain about how Parkrun was going to go, so in my perverse logic I decided to run there (4 miles) to see how I felt. Running nice and slowly. If I felt any sort of pain then I would opt out of Parkrun. I’d rather find it out beforehand then when I’m actually running Parkrun as I know I’d never stop and then I’d cause further issues.

Anyway, I felt a bit stiff to begin with and not amazing but it was alright. It just started to rain as I arrived. Ben had already arrived and everyone was huddled under the tree branches to stay out of the rain. It looked quite funny.

I decided to run with Ben instead of pursuing any sort of PB. I just didn’t think it was a good idea so close to Bristol and with my intention to run 12 miles the next day. I said I’d help pace Ben (which he was chuffed with, especially as he’d forgotten his watch). The problem was, which I only realised as we started, was I hadn’t reset my watch so it was carrying on from the 4 miles I’d just ran…so I couldn’t tell him accurate paces

But I could keep pushing him on and telling him a sort of average we were doing.

In the end we did around 24mins 45seconds which Ben really wasn’t happy with but he had only just got back the night before from Romania on work so I thought he did pretty well!

I was going to go and see my parents in the afternoon but I went to see them the night before for a sneaky Indian the night before (FYI: Indian food – not amazing pre-running fuel). So instead we did something we haven’t done in ages. We went SHOPPING. Shopping for holiday clothes. AMAZING.

Yeah, amazing until you realise that every damn shop is now selling their autumn/fall collections. Lovely big woollen jumpers. Long cardigans. Thick skirts. Not exactly what I had in mind. However, the sale stuff was still good and I managed to snag a few bargains which I’ll show in my next post. Think lovely dresses with beautiful patterns!

We were both shattered when we got home so just had a nice chilling evening (I’ve gotten into Cougar Town – anyone else a fan? I literally laughed like 10 times during the first episode).

The next morning we were up earlyish to run again. Ben’s plan was 9 miles and mine was 12. I listened to a podcast and just lost myself in a lovely run – albeit a bit wet at the end du to the rain again. I kept the pace easy and found it a lot better than last week’s long run.

I felt very chuffed with it. I feel ready for Bristol half marathon! I hope…

Last week’s workouts:

Monday: Spin (+ 3minute plank!)

Tuesday: Spin

Wednesday: Circuits (overhead squats – errr they hurt a little bit don’t they??)

Thursday: Running club (8 miles, nice and easy pace off-road)

Friday: Spin

Saturday: Parkrun +4miles

Sunday: 12 miles long run (+ 3.15minute plank!!)

I didn’t mean to not have a rest day. I was intending to have Wednesday off but I really wanted to try Circuits. And I’m glad I did because it was tough but a good full body workout. Lots of squats, lunges, press-ups, Russian twists and a few other arm exercises that I can never remember the names of. But it did kill my legs for running club the next day which was a bit annoying. So no circuits this week – I don’t want to do anything to tire my legs too much before Sunday. This week will be no pump or circuits and another easy Parkrun I think. LOTS of foam rolling and stretching too. I’m also aiming for 2 planks a week. Well we’ll see how long this goes on for…

Do you have any fitness goals? I’m really trying to get more core in (OK get a few planks in during the week). It’s always something I forget.

Do you mind running in the rain? I don’t really care as long as it’s not windy.

How many rest days do you take in the week? Usually I always have one. I think it’s important for your body to have a rest and repair itself. Bad example this week obviously!

September 6, 2013January 5, 2017

Pyjama plank time

Thanks for all the interesting comments for yesterday’s post. I really hope I didn’t offend anyone. That wasn’t my intention. Nor was it to say clean eating was wrong. Clean eating is what you want it to be, in whatever form that might be. Not eating processed food, not eating meat, not eating grains etc. My point was just that I get a bit narked with some of the attitudes around it when people become a bit tunnel versioned and dogmatic about it all. And that eating a bit of rubbish now and again won’t kill you

Moving on! Not that I want to brag…but I’m off on holiday in TWO WEEKS time. To Mexico!

But I have a confession. I’m slightly concerned with what I’ll look like in a bikini. Not in the way you might think though. I have some embarrassing tan lines going on at the moment. With all the summer running I’ve been doing and wearing my shorts and vests…well, it ain’t great. Oh I’m going to be a hottie on those first couple of days.

Oh I look all smiley there, but now I wish I’d run in a bikini…[totally joking]

Every other day I am still doing my usual injury prevention routine (clams, side leg lifts, foam rolling) and have also added core work in because you can never do too much core! I amazed myself by doing a three minute plank the other night. In my pjs…naturally.

No idea where that came from (the plank, not the pj’s– they came from my dresser). I think it was because Ben was watching TV at the time and I could distract myself. And his occasional “come on, keep it up, don’t be lazy” comment helped as well. Love him.

Then last night after running club (a crazy off-road through the countryside run of 8 miles) I spent a lot of time foam rolling my kinks out. My groin still doesn’t feel amazing if I’m honest. But foam rolling is definitely helping.

Especially will Grease in the background.

Anyway, random story time. I overheard a conversation at the gym last night that made me sad. I was in the toilets just having a final pee before circuits (too much info? I’m setting the scene!) and I overheard two girls talking. One of them said to the other “Right, we are not leaving until both of us do 400 calories. Our target though is 450 calories”.

I’m all for people having targets and it’s great people are excising but I just thought that was a bit sad. Exercise shouldn’t be just about burning a set number of calories. OK, it isn’t going to be a daytrip to the zoo. It’s tough and I hate it sometimes, but there are very frequent moments – a lot in running – where I feel ‘kick ass’. Like I’m doing something amazing and I’m hard core. In reality I’m not, I know that. But I feel good. I know that this isn’t going to be the case for everyone but maybe it’s because they haven’t found their kick ass thing yet? For example, when we were warming down from circuits, Zumba had just started. 90% of the class were smiling. And they had some serious moves. They were kick ass.

What makes you feel ‘kick ass’? Going for a long run or a fast speedy Parkrun makes me feel unstoppable. I love how strong I feel, like I’ve just climbed a mountain.

What strength and core exercises do you do? I like planks, squats and lunges. Pretty standard.

What is your aim when you workout? A specific time, number of calories, goal distance, number of reps, exhaustion…?

September 2, 2013

Weekly workout and weekend catch-up

Hello September! I think September is my favourite month. It’s the month where I feel everything is starting again. Does that sound weird? When I was at school, college and university the new year would begin in September. It was the month Ben and me got married (it’s almost our one year anniversary!) And it’s the month where you can see summer disappearing and the colder weather creeping it.

Don’t get me wrong, dark mornings and dark evenings can be so depressing. As can cold blustery winds and relentless rain…but there’s something so lovely about curling up in bed hearing the wind outside and being snug and warm inside. And runs that aren’t stupidly hot!

This weekend has been great. A nice quiet one, while also having dinner with friends and seeing my mum for a coffee and slice of cake. Unfortunately Ben has come down with a cold. SORRY – man flu. So I’ve been making him lots of hot lemon with honey drinks and giving him some TLC.

And I finally went for a run! Hurrah! This whole week has all been about avoiding running and mending myself. This is what my workouts this week have looked like:

Monday: LBT (due to spinning fail) and circuits

Tuesday: Spinning

Wednesday: Spinning

Thursday: Pump

Friday: Spinning

Saturday: 4 mile easy run

Sunday: 11 mile long easy run

Yeah I sort of went spinning crazy. I really enjoyed it. OK it wasn’t the same as running but it was still good to get that “oof that was tough” buzz afterwards and sense of accomplishment. Don’t get me wrong, I will always choose running over spinning though.

One thing that annoyed me about spinning was one of the instructors kept talking about weight-loss and fat-loss – “burning those calories”. That is not why I go to spin. I go to spin to help compliment and improve my running without actually running. Spinning is a tough workout and really works my legs and works muscles that I don’t use when I run so I become stronger overall.

It just annoys me when people can be so narrow-minded. The gym is not all about losing weight! I get a lot of judgements from people as well when I tell them I go to the gym. Comments like “you don’t need to go to the gym!”. It just irks me that that’s all people think I’m doing.

Moan over. So as you can see I did go running eventually. I decided not to do Parkrun because I couldn’t guarantee I wouldn’t go into ‘race mode’ and do something stupid and reignite my groin problem (hmm, maybe I should call it something different? That sounds weird haha). Instead I ran the 4 nice and easy miles to Parkrun (while Ben drove) and then marshalled. I love marshalling because it’s great to cheer people on and a few people afterwards said it really helped

Later Alfie and me had such a lovely long walk while I listened to an old MarathonTalk podcast (interview with Nell McAndrew one running a stupidly fast marathon – she is amazing and sounds lovely).

Then we had dinner at my friends house which was great. Felt like proper grown ups having a dinner party!

Then Sunday I tentatively went out for my long run. I was so worried it wouldn’t happen. That I’d aggravated things the day before…but it went fine! My groin didn’t hurt but it didn’t feel completely sorted, still an annoying niggle, so I kept things nice and easy.

I don’t think I’ve ever run at such a consistent pace! It didn’t hurt and it felt amazing to get out for a long run. It just cleared my mind wonderfully of any stress.

This week I’m still going to take it easy on the running front. Probably keep going to spin but see how I feel for the Thursday running club session and then maybe Parkrun Saturday.

It’s two weeks until my next half marathon (Bristol)!! So I’m glad things are getting back on plan…finger’s crossed!!

How was your weekend? What did you get up to?

What’s your next race or big event your planning for?

What’s your favourite time of year and why?