And I’m back home, back to reality, back to normality…and it sucks. OK I’m only partly joking of course, but the Marathon Talk Austria Run Camp was EPIC. Amazing, fantastic, so much fun and so thoroughly enjoyable. I’ll be writing a recap soon, but for now I’ll recap the weekend just gone.
I got back late Friday night and decided a lie-in and a day off of running was definitely required. parkrun would not be happening! I had a lot to sort out in the morning (*sighs* how much does it suck to be an adult? Can’t someone else unpack, do my washing and buy my food for me? No? Damn). After getting all the boring shizz out the way I headed to Southsea to meet up with my friend, Michelle, for the Southsea Food Festival. Michelle had also been on the Austria Run Camp so it was nice to see her again and bemoan how we wished we were still in Austria and running through forests and mountains.
Southsea was positively buzzing with activity. There seemed to be a lot going on, on the seafront, near the boat lake and of course along the high street where the Food Festival was being held.
There was so many vendors giving out tasters and selling an assortment of foods.
It was fantastic! Indian food, burgers, sausages, olives, cheese, Spanish food, Caribbean food, cakes (oh the cakes…). So many different options!
There was also a cookery demonstration happening (with free mini dishes of what they’d made) and a smoothie tent where you had to cycle in order to blend your smoothie.
Michelle and I walked through the crowds to check out each vendor, nibbling on what was being offered. I spotted a huge slab of rocky road and decided straight away I needed that in my life.
Then we were on the hunt for something for lunch. My parents met me with Alfie as well which was lovely as I hadn’t seen them for a week. Alfie seemed overjoyed to see me, which just melted my heart.
He also very much enjoyed the Food Festival, hoovering up anything that had been dropped.
Trying to choose something for lunch was insanely hard. But we walked past someone who had just ordered a kebab (not a dirty kebab, but a proper fresh and tasty looking one with salad and lamb koftes).
It was ginormous. I was sold! I went for a chicken kebab (wrapped in a garlic naan, stuffed with salad and homemade tzatziki. Michelle went for a halloumi one.
It was SO tasty. It was a good job it was wrapped in the paper as well as it kept it all nicely together so I didn’t make a complete mess of myself (which so often happens with food and me).
My parents were very restrained and just had drinks. I was so proud of my dad as previously at events like this he’d have probably had a good number of different things. He bought himself some chutneys and was content to just try a few tasters and enjoy the atmosphere.
Sunday I was off to do a lapped race by the On The Whistle organisers at Staunton Country Park. The race, Why Not Run, was a 4.7 mile lap with a six hour time limit. If I hadn’t offered to drive two of my running club friends I would have bailed on this race. I was tired, my legs needed a rest and I really had no ambitions to do a crazy number of laps. I’d done almost 50 miles – which is MENTAL for me. I’m the girl who does 25-35 miles a week. I’m not a high mileage runner. But I’d agreed to drive so off I went!
These events are very low-key and relaxed. The run director is a lovely guy who put everyone at their ease, reassuring everyone that they could or as much or as little as they liked. I was glad for this because I honestly didn’t fancy doing any running! My legs were heavy and my motivation low. But it was a nice atmosphere so I felt very chilled. I love that they decorated the bibs as well, a great touch.
There was a good turn out for Hedge End Running Club, and with a lot planning on doing more than a marathon! Well I felt very pathetic just planning one lap but I knew I needed to be sensible.
We set off and my legs felt niggly and tired. To be expected. I straight away knew to keep the pace fairly slow (for me) and to stick with a single running lap. The course was marked out well, you couldn’t get lost, and the marshals very friendly and supportive. It was a very happy and friendly atmosphere.
The course ran through Staunton Country Park. It was a little tricky underfoot with pebbled, loose stones and uneven terrain but for the most part it was compact and fairly easy to run on. But it did require some concentration.
It was an undulating course with gentle long inclines – not a PB course! It did somewhat sap my energy. But I popped a podcast on and zoned out.
Photo credit: Jon Lavis
As I finished my lap I picked up my wristband (this is how they track the number of laps you do) and headed to the very well stocked aid station.
I had a nibble on some sweets and biscuits and drank some water.
I knew that my two car share buddies, Sarah and Lucy, were planning on doing at least three laps so I decided to head out for another lap, but this time walking. It was a nice day and it seemed a shame not to enjoy the beautiful surroundings. I did get quite a lot of people asking me if I was OK and whether I was injured. I reassured everyone I was fine and just didn’t want to run anymore this week.
Photo credit: Jon Lavis
I joked with the photographer as I walked passed that my photo would be rather boring! I was tempted to do a crazy pose but decided not to subject the poor guy to it 😉
Sarah did three laps and Lucy amazingly did four. Lucy has never run over a half marathon so was super chuffed – as she should be! And she’d been planning on 10 minute miles and had smashed it out with 9.30s! She was buzzing. I was very pleased for them, but equally happy that I hadn’t got carried away and attempted to run anymore. When the body says no, I now listen!
So despite not really fancying this race and it being terrible timing, I had a lovely morning. I’d love to do this race again (or another On The Whistle one) when I’m more fresh and ready for it!
I fully recommend this event as a lovely low key lapped event.
Have you ever done a timed lapped event?
Do you enjoy food festivals? Which ones have you been to?
I had a couple of apples on the train as my breakfast (having a proper breakfast required me getting up even earlier and I preferred to sleep).
Plus I knew I’d be eating more than enough later to make up for it! We then got the tube to Stratford, easy peasy. As we got closer to the area more and more runners started appearing. This always gets me buzzed as the anticipation starts to build. It doesn’t matter what race I’m doing, or whether I’m going to go for a PB or whatever, I still get nervous and excited for every race.
We had more than enough time, which was nice and meant no panicked rushing around (I often think this is my default in life…). We walked through Westfields shopping area and headed to the Olympic Park.
We had a little mosey about, took some photos of course and then I used the facilities. I’m pretty sure I’ve made this point before but it’s always nice to have a proper toilet to use before a race! There were lots of people everywhere but it was all very well organised, with big signs pointing people in the right direction, and water available for people to drink before the race. It was already very very warm. Someone on a speaker kept telling people to drink water if they were thirsty and that “today was not the day for PBs”. I quite liked that approach 😉
Just as we started someone said hello to me and I turned to see my 
The course wasn’t hugely supported but it was clearly marked out and there were two water stops and a shower mist thing to run through if you wanted. We looped around the Olympic Stadium, past the different Olympic bits and pieces. It was a lovely scenic course in that respect. The waters were small little bottles, which are better than huge ones you normally get (so much waste) and you could carry with you as you carried on.
As we entered inside the stadium (the bit underneath the seats) the music started pumping out. It was very warm as the air was so still and stale inside the tunnel. And it seemed to go on f.o.r.e.v.e.r. I had visions of us spiralling and spiralling through the tunnel for hours… until finally daylight could be seen and we came out onto the track. Ahh such a good finish. 100m of Olympic track, trying not to look like I was dying for the cameras and hearing the speakers calling out people’s names. I smiled like a loon as I crossed the line. Whew!
My time was 44:11 (7th in my age/gender category and 16th female and 340th overall – happy with that!).
Considering the 16 miles the day before, how hot it was, the undulating course and my lack of sleep (ALL the excuses of course!!), I am OVER THE MOON. I saw my dad in the stands and he waved at me with a Diet Coke (from a soda fountain – my favourite!) and I headed outside. I saw Matt and congratulated him on his speedy work – I think he was happy with his time. I’m sure he will smash the Berlin Marathon that he’s training for.
I headed outside to find my dad. He handed me the cold Diet Coke, which was just heavenly.
I’m really pleased with the time I did. I did have ambitions after 
Anyway, after the race we headed to Reds True BBQ restaurant for lunch. By this point I was VERY hungry.
The restaurant has a strange religious (or anti-religious?) theme to it… all “unholy sauces” and crazy artwork. I loved it! Very original and unique.
We ordered some XXL chicken wings in a Buffalo sauce to share as a starter. I adore chicken wings (you might have realised this by now) and these were some very delicious ones. They were huge! The sauce was delicious as well, not too spicy but a nice after kick. They came with a very small portion of blue cheese sauce but to be honest it wasn’t the best I’ve had and there wasn’t enough for all the wings. The Buffalo sauce was good enough on it’s own though.
It was SO good. It fully hit the spot of what I wanted that evening. I even got to finish off Charlotte’s skewer as it was just a bit “too meaty” for her (she’s still adjusting to being non-veggie) and she’s also a normal person who doesn’t eat stupid amounts like I do! And of course, a cheeky frozen margarita was in order.
From there we headed to some bars for drinks and then met our other friend Laura, who lives in London, and headed to Camden for some dancing. It was such a fun evening. I’ve been feeling a bit stressed and a bit frustrated with a few things so this was EXACTLY what I needed. We got to Laura’s, where we were to be staying overnight, at 2.30am. Pooped!
Wormwood Scrubs is next to a huge prison (you can see it in the bottom left photo above). I had no idea but it was literally right next to the park. Interesting!
Wormwood Scrubs parkrun is all run on grass and is 2.5 laps. It’s a bit uneven underfoot and though it appears flat, does actually have some deceptively sneaky inclines. I was having some serious hay fever issues that morning (damn Stingy Anna for buying Tesco’s own hay fever tablet) so this was giving me problems. Lots of sneezing and my eyes were SO itchy. Being in the middle of a field didn’t help.
Nothing huge or could be called a hill, but it does increase the effort level. Considering I was feeling a bit, er, tender and the temperature was already at 23 degrees I made the sensible decision to go easy. Actually, that’s a lie; I couldn’t have gone faster even if I tried!!
Wormwood is a really small parkrun. They regularly get less than 100 people there each week (it was actually a course attendance record on Saturday with 107 people). It was very friendly and felt very welcoming. It was nice to go to such a small one. It gives it a nice community spirit feel.
It came with home-made hash browns. Normally I’m not a hash brown fan but home-made? I thought I’d give them a go. And I’m so glad I did!
It was such a beautiful day and so nice to catch up and chat with my friends. We weren’t a full group as one of our friends has just recently had a baby (this blows my mind) but it was nice to see the other girls.
A salted caramel milkshake with a salted caramel donut on top. My gawwwwwwd it was So good.
I mean, I was covered in stickiness trying to eat this but it was phenomenal. And yes, I finished it! A perfect end to what was a really lovely, lovely birthday celebration. Even without all the amazing food, it was just so nice to have a beautifully sunny weekend chilling (and dancing!) with my friends. I went home very happy (and possibly in a deep sugar coma).
Apparently lots of free drink (an open bar, anything you want) and then canapes at 7.30pm. I was somewhat disappointed that the food would “just” be canapes (check out the menu, so many tempting options!) and seemed so far away. But hey we rolled with it and decided to do a lap of the restaurant to check the scene.
It was filling out quickly with lots of people so we decided to head to the outside area and chill with our bubbly. The restaurant has a small but lovely outside area which was delightful to enjoy in the evening sunshine.
We also noticed lots of cool looking cocktails being handed out. Some of which were in plant pots!! The Botanist is well known for it’s very cool cocktails, again all botanically themed.
The barmen and ladies were lovely and friendly and, as you can see very happy to have their photo taken. Anyway, sadly as I was driving I couldn’t partake in much drinking but had insane amounts of Diet Coke instead…love that stuff.
George and I grabbed one of the above cocktails after a bunch were made. I tried a sip (divine, so tasty!) and gave the rest to George. Lucky guy, he lived just down the round.
We were sad not to be able to try the plant pot cocktails but these were very tasty.
We rated our favourites (now serious canape connoisseurs). The chicken lolly pop was the best, hands down. Followed by the pork belly skewer (neither shown in this pic annoyingly). The quails egg Scotch egg rocked our world too. A fellow patron came over and asked to have one of our Scotch eggs as she’d seen them and hadn’t been able to try one yet. George and I looked at each other, both clearly trying to think of a polite way to say no (yes, even though this was our fifth board…), when another board passed by and we told her to grab it. Whew! Crisis averted 😉
The music, the food, the drinks…all made for a fantastic evening. I’ll definitely be finding myself in Reading again soon to go back for a proper meal. I’m really pleased this one has opened up closer to me as I was sad when I realised there were none nearby after I had such a great meal in Chester.
Cookie dough ice cream and fudge brownie. Delightful!
As soon as I started running I knew it was going to be a bad one. I was running far slower than normal and yet the effort level seemed the same. People who I normally run with or ahead of were overtaking me and I just couldn’t seem to catch up. I would occasionally surge forward but then found this shattered me.
As I got closer to the finish I started getting more and more foggy and when I finished and stopped running I completely lost my bearings and stumbled to the floor. I can’t tell you how embarrassing this was. I just suddenly felt so dizzy and out of it. Luckily someone helped me and got me some water. I was very grateful, though hugely mortified. A lot of other people were also feeling the humid and oppressive weather conditions too so I didn’t look like a complete loon. I should have just stopped when I started feeling off.
I somehow managed 23:07, but it felt so ridiculously hard. I helped clear up and then had a hot drink at the cafe. I still felt quite hazy so sitting and taking a moment helped. I had quite a busy day ahead so needed to have my shizz together!
I got back home and was so busy sorting stuff I wasn’t able to focus on feeling under the weather, which I actually think helped (tho I had a moment in the shower where I found myself exhausted and wondering if I should just go back to bed…). I had my divorce party planned for 1pm at my friend’s house and needed to get myself together. And as I was in charge of the food, I needed to have that together too.
I was also planning on making some guacamole and had lots of snacks to take too. After rushing around like a mad thing I eventually made it to my friend’s house. She’d made the most fantastic cake! Red velvet…divine!
We got the food prepared and spread on the table. I made guacamole using avocados mashed with some spices and low fat Greek yogurt and lime juice – delicious! And we were ready to go.
The reason for the party was just to have a fun little get-together to take light of the fact that I’m now officially divorced (well, I have been for a few months now but haven’t really been that free at the weekend to do something like this). Yes being divorced sucks (oh the failure I am, how sad and pathetic my life is, woe is me… blah blah blah) but I’m a half glass full kind of person and wanted to just have a bit of fun with it. You can’t sit in a dark corner and be sad about life events that happen, you just gotta pick yourself up and try and move forward. I think I’ve consistently tried to do that and Saturday was just a way to enjoy myself with cake. My marriage wasn’t a mistake and I don’t regret it, it just had a fixed time limit and that’s that!
To be honest, I just wanted a reason to eat lots of food and have cake 😉 I made a divorce playlist (think N*Sync ‘Bye Bye Bye’ and Destiny’s Child ‘Independent Woman’) and a love/hate themed quiz (Round 1: Connect the famous exes…to Round 4: Connect the song with the singer – again themed as breakup songs). It was good fun. I obviously ate far too much (two slices of cake and copious amounts of chilli and dip).
Now I know people hate this word…but the cake was so moist! It was very tasty. Louise, my amazing baking friend, did herself proud!
I also enjoyed a nice refreshing Sol beer and then Bud Light at the next bar (I love Bud Light!). It was a great evening of chatting, laughing and generally just chilling out. I don’t tend to do much drinking but it was a nice change.