Lack of food-related constraint - AnnaTheApple

January 4, 2016

Starting the year with all my favourite things

Oh jeeze, it’s Monday…back to work, back to normal. But no point complaining, this is life. Gotta pay the bills! I didn’t blog very much over the break as I wanted some time off to just chill. I read a few blogs here or there but I have a lot to catch up on.

I didn’t do anything crazy exciting over the break but I had a nice time nonetheless. I saw friends, went on nice walks, spent time with my family and ate lots of really good food. Standard procedure!

I obviously fitted in some cake… 😉
I went to the Tenth Hole (an amazing little cafe in Southsea that does incredible cakes) with a friend and had the honeycomb pie cake… good grief it was good! I also took a slice of the carrot cake home for another time (I say slice, but really it’s a wedge).

As well as cake, there was running. Through my running club I found out there was a cross country race on the Monday after Christmas. I was planning on running around 5 miles so when I heard about the race I had no excuses not to join. I’ll recap that in another post as it was such good fun.

That evening, despite being exhausted and really fancying either a nap or an early night (hugely underestimated the toughness of the cross country!), I had my friends coming over for a games evening flat warming party. We played Disney Trivia Pursuit, which FYI is actually really hard. Some of the questions were very specific and there were a few films we’d never seen, like Herbie and Atlantis. It was tough going so we quickly moved to Cranium which was far better. Defeated by Disney, pathetic.

The next day I went for a lovely long walk with a friend and Alfie. I was concerned the weather would be pants but it actually held out and we had a really good walk around Queen Victoria Country Park.

Alfie, predictably, got ridiculously muddy. He ran through every puddle, every muddy track and just loved it. He got a good bath when he got back to mine and even a little blow dry (so fluffy!)!

For New Year’s Eve I went round to my friend’s, Lou and Tom’s, house. They were having a quiet night in as they have a little one and I’m not a huge New Year’s Eve fan so this was perfect. We planned the evening to be a major chicken and rib fest. I came with some pork ribs and pork strips marinating in a BBQ sauce (passata, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce and a few squirts of the Heinz BBQ sauce).

My friends did a selection of Tikka drumsticks, Chinese chicken thighs and hot spicy wings. There was so much food (the picture above shows barely any of it). I was in heaven, until I was in a food coma… We also had some chocolate panettone which was delicious and lots of crisps. I felt rather full! We saw in the New Year and then I headed home.

The next morning was the double parkrun morning. My alarm went off at 7am which was hard-going and I hadn’t even drunk the night before! I helped set up the Netley parkrun before running in it. The weather thankfully was lovely, though very cold.

Photo credit: Paul Hammond

I wasn’t really sure how to run it as I was doing the Southampton parkrun at 10.30am afterwards. I took it easy before deciding at the end to speed up a bit. I felt incredibly sick though from all the food I’d shovelled into myself the night before… a whole lot of chicken!

I got 23:44 which I was chuffed with. Then it was a case of getting to Southampton quickly ready for the start. A bunch of my club were doing it too so it was nice to have a crowd of us there at the start. And the Daily Echo got some great photos.

Photo credit: Chris Moorhouse (Southampton Daily Echo)

The run itself was tough going at the start as my legs felt stiff and my toes were numb (Netley had been quite wet and muddy so my shoes were soaked). Southampton is an easier course as there aren’t as many hills (just one incline you do twice) and it’s all on a path, so no mud or slipping.

I started towards the front as it was very busy (lots of my club who were really gunning for it were really close to the front). I wanted to give it some wellie but not go too crazy. Depressingly I got overtaken by so many people on that first mile. But I just pushed on and didn’t let it bother me.

I felt myself getting stronger as the run continued and on the last mile I was picking people off to overtake. I overtook many of the females who had overtaken me at the beginning, which felt really good as you can imagine!

I got 23:15 and out of 484 people I came 105th and 8th female, which I’m pleased with at my current fitness. My running club friend Michelle smashed it with first female!

I managed to overtake these two females on the last sprint 🙂

The rest of the day was spent, quite frankly, chilling out. My parents, grandad and I went out for a meal early evening to Coast to Coast (my current favourite restaurant). I was so looking forward to it! I pretty much had exactly what I had the last time I went (a BBQ platter to share for starters and chicken wings for main) but I made sure to sub my sweet potato fries for something a bit lighter (green beans) this time so I could fit pudding in <– strategic eating!

I was really tempted by the ribs but I knew how much I enjoyed the chicken last time… My granddad however went for them and I was fairly jealous by the size of them. I know what I’m having next time!

My rib eating obsession goes back to my granddad as I remember eating ribs with him often when I was younger and him teaching me how to eat them (i.e. leave nothing behind!). He was in rib heaven. He even gave me one which I was eternally grateful!

For pudding I went for the Oreo ice cream sundae, which I’d been dreaming about since I last went. It was good, don’t get me wrong, but I kind of expecting some actual mini Oreos to be in it rather than just crushed up randomly. As sundaes go it was quite small as well – it looks huge but actually the glass is quite thick and narrow. For any normal person I’m sure this would have been enough, but for me (the greediest person alive) it was a little disappointing. I’ll try the carrot cake next time!

I’ll stop there! Basically my holiday was pretty damn good. Family? Check. Friends? Check. Cake? Check. Running? Check. Ribs? Check. Chicken? Check. Boom!

What did you do for New Year’s?

Did you have a good time off (if you were off!)?

Did you do any fitness-related activities over Christmas?

December 21, 2015December 21, 2015

You can never have too much cake

This weekend past was pretty damn good, if I do say so myself. It was a great balance of being ridiculously busy and then nice and chilled.

Friday night was a casual Christmas drinks evening with some running club friends at the pub. Annoyingly this pub was walking distance from my new home but I had to house(dog)-sit for my parents while they were in London over the weekend, which meant I had to drive instead. Anyway it was a great evening with most people wearing Christmas jumpers and just having a nice natter.

There was even a Michael Jackson tribute singer so a few of us had a boogie. Don’t blame it on the sunshine…

The next morning, as usual, was parkrun at Netley Abbey. The weather was ridiculously mild, albeit a bit windy. We decided to get a photo of our usual set-up crew which was lovely. A few us had our parkrun Volunteer 25 t-shirts on as well which worked out nicely.

I love setting up parkrun with these guys. They’re all just so lovely and we have a good laugh. They were all really supportive when I had my rough times earlier in the year as well. There’s something about running that just brings people together in a good way.

There were loads of guys from the running club running as well because it was our club’s Secret Santa. It was great to see so many familiar faces. At the start I was quite concerned that I was stood next to my super speedy friend, Michelle, but she assured me she was taking it easy having run eight miles already. I think I stayed with her for all of about 100m before she was like a blip in the horizon! Even my friend Chris who I used to be faster than pre-injury zoomed away despite being hungover having not left the pub last night until 1am. My ego got a bit of a kicking 😉

However I was really chuffed with some very even splits. I got 22:59 which I’m over the moon with. I really kept my mind focused on the effort. It’s funny because I’ve stopped listening to music at parkrun now. I’ve found it distracts me and makes me feel claustrophobic. I think if I was really pushing for a specific time I might wear some motivating music, but at the moment I’m enjoying ‘naked’ runs. I’ve taken a minute off my faster time from a few weeks ago. This is definitely progress!

I did do some investigation on Strava to see what my fastest time on this course was and found it’s 21:57 in March this year. Jeeze that’s a challenge! Maybe in a few months…

Secret Santa was good fun as well. We all crammed into the café and exchanged gifts.

Thanks again to my official blog photographer, Mark, for the photo 😉

My label said Anna Jayne Smith (*sighs*) so the person didn’t know me that well but they knew me well enough to get me very posh Strawberry and white chocolate cake and a Christmas pudding shaped chocolate slab. Very pleased!!

Afterwards my sister, her fiancée and Meg and Ellie, her two daughters, met up with me so Ellie could run a children’s fun run which was happening in the park at 10.30am. It was a charity race for Ben’s Heroes and entry was £3. Such a good cause. Ellie is almost six years old and has been doing Junior parkrun quite a bit lately with her dad. I’d love to do it with her but it’s a fair distance away from me and I haven’t been able to get there so I was really excited that I was finally able to see her (and join her!) running.

My heart melted when Ellie said she wanted to be a runner like me and run marathons. I’m beyond proud. Obviously this might be a passing trend but for now I’m over the moon she’s so into it. For Christmas I’ve got her some really funky purple Nike leggings.

I’m jealous! I want a pair! But they are TINY.

Back to the race, Ellie was really excited and kept sprinting off and showing me how fast she could run, bless her.It was two laps of the cricket pitch (our usual fast summer course) and the race organiser said the kids could run one or two laps depending how they felt (there were some quite young children). She held my hand and chatted the entire way round. She even told me that running was good because it made you “live longer”. I’m not sure Ellie should be worried about her mortality at this point in her life but it made me chuffed that she associated running with being healthy. I was careful not to run too fast and kept to her speed andsaid we could walk if she needed to, but she was adamant to keep going. In the end we did the two laps (her choice) and she did an amazing sprint finish at the end.

She got a little goodie bag and a lovely medal. She was really pleased with herself and looked like she had so much fun. I was also so proud of her when she offered her goodie bag to a little boy who didn’t get one because they ran out.

The rest of the day was a mad rush of getting myself sorted, checking on my parent’s dogs and then getting back to my flat to have a catch up with my friend Louise and her husband Tom. We’d arranged a kind of afternoon tea gathering as I said I had a panettone I was reviewing for the blog that would be great to share with them and Lou said she might bake something.

Well, they turned up with some very nice artisan bread, loads of different filling choices for sandwiches, scones, clotted cream, jam and a huge freshly baked carrot cake! Afternoon tea indeed!

I had a delicious brie sandwich with onion marmalade, a pallet-cleansing slice of panettone 😉 following by a clotted cream and jam scone and then finished nicely with a slice of carrot cake. All washed down with tea obviously. They brought their little one, Jake, over and we had a lovely time stuffing our faces and chatting away. I’ll do a full review of the panettone in another post but honestly we were all pleasantly surprised at how tasty it was. It was the perfect level of sweetness for such a sugar-frenzied afternoon.

I then had to rush to an opticians appointment and then rush to my friend Mike’s surprise 40th birthday party (honestly, there was not one single thing I was on time for the entire day). I took with me some sticky garlic and honey chicken wings and breaded paprika chicken tenders that I’d rustled up earlier. Mike was really surprised when he got home and saw us all there after being told he wasn’t allowed in the house until 5.30pm. It was lovely to see how chuffed he was (I might be over-using the word “chuffed”…).

Sheryl’s photo of her amazing cake and my own poor quality photos below (chicken wings bottom right)

Now you might think that considering all the food I ate earlier would hinder my process in making a dent in all of the buffet food on offer here. You would be wrong. My capacity to eat a lot of food still astounds me. Sheryl made this amazing cake and she let me have a taster piece before she sent out slices to everyone – you know, just to make sure it was tip top quality 😉 I then proceeded to have another slice afterwards. As if I hadn’t already eaten enough cake for one day…

The birthday boy (Photo credit to Sheryl)

It was a lovely evening. Towards the end after some people had left, there were just a few of us and we just sat around chatting about all things running and funny stories. Such a great party!

That night I woke up in the middle of the night not feeling well at all. That’ll teach me. I never learn though. I regret nothing! If you can’t enjoy good food with good friends then something is very wrong.

I was going to recap Sunday but this is far too long now!

Have you ever been to a surprise birthday party?

Are you good at being on time? I am awful. I never leave enough time or contingency time when things invariably go wrong.

Have you ever run with a small person?

December 14, 2015

Working on my winter insulation layer ;-)

I am so chuffed. My flat is coming along so nicely!

My little home is very small, but it’s perfect for me. I thought that going from a house to a flat (apartment) would be really hard but actually it’s great. My previous house was a two bedroom end terrace so it was quite small anyway but just for me I didn’t need all that space. My new place is only one bedroom but it has enough space for all my things and storage room (which was always the worry for me if I went for somewhere smaller). I could have gone for a two bedroom but for my budget it probably wouldn’t have been in as good an area or would have been too far from my usual commute.

Anyway I had Friday off and got some bits and pieces sorted like getting my Internet hooked up and the delivery of my table and chairs. FINALLY I can eat at the table again after so long perching on my bean bag or my bed.

Friday evening was my friend’s Christmas party. It was planned for the week after but after a change of venue it was moved forward a week. Annoyingly this was the same evening as my running club’s awards evening and Christmas party 🙁But I had good fun with my friends anyway at a new Chinese restaurant. I’m not a huge Chinese fan but the food was good.

There was a sharing platter to start, this had chicken skewers, spring rolls, dumplings and salted squid. Normally sharing food gives me anxieties 😉 but there was an equal number of different items per person so this was fine. It’s when it’s like a free-for-all that I get worried. Fear of missing out on food!

Good friends

For main I had chicken teriyaki and rice, which was tasty but quite sweet. I was glad I didn’t have the duck as I tried some of my friend’s and it was ridiculously sweet. I like sweet stuff but this was a bit too much (for savoury anyway…). For pudding there was another sharing platter of brownies, doughnuts and ice cream things.

Tom, you’re famous! 😉

The next morning my alarm went off at 7am and for the first time in a long while I considered snoozing it. I rarely ever snooze alarms as once they go off I’m awake and that’s it. But I wanted to snuggle back down and sleep. I checked the weather and it didn’t look too bad at 11-12 degrees (centigrade). When I got to parkrun though it was tipping it down and I was glad for my wellies.I was happy to take the rain over gale force winds though! A few people were feeling rather delicate due to the awards the night before. Luckily I hadn’t been drinking at my do, but I was still tired.

My friend Chris tried to persuade me to run with him, but he was aiming for 22 minutes and I’m no where near that yet! I did give it my best though and was happy with 23:14!

It’s annoying because I can’t remember what my best time for this course is (as on the parkrun results it just says Netley Abbey – and there are like four different courses we can do through the year) so I’m not sure how well I can realistically aim to do as the weeks continue. The six hills really do drain you dry whereas the normal course only has three smaller hills.

Anyway, it was fairly muddy but thankfully the rain had stopped when we were running. The temperature wasn’t too cold either (thanks, global warming!).

The rest of the day was deja vu to last weekend where I went to IKEA again with my parents and then spent the rest of the afternoon constructing bits and pieces. I’m DONE with IKEA now. No more!! I have pretty much everything I need now (apart from my new bed being delivered this week).

I was really chuffed to find a sofa I liked and when I ordered it they told me it could be delivered later that day. Unfortunately I failed to realise it would be delivered in four pieces. When the delivery men turned up I asked them if they were going to construct it and they almost laughed in my face. Of course not. It’s IKEA after all. Anyway, it’s all sorted thanks to my dad and me who are now like IKEA pros.

Sunday I had a lovely 6.5 mile run which went far better than last weekend’s. It still felt hard but I didn’t feel like walking so there’s an improvement (though it wasn’t as windy). My endurance is s.l.o.w.l.y improving.

I’m starting to think I should be adding in some speed work but I think I’ll leave it with a tough parkrun each week for now. When I move to four runs a week then one of those might be a fartlek or intervals…*shudders*.

Sunday lunch was amazing. Literally amazing. I’ve found my new favourite restaurant. Coast To Coast in Whiteley. Dear God it was good. The menu was insane. I was torn between four different choices (burger with pulled pork, calzone, ribs or chicken wings). In the end I went for wings but instantly got food envy when I saw a woman get a HUGE rack of ribs.

My dad and me shared the BBQ platter to start (ribs, wings, chicken tenders with blue cheese, battered prawns and chorizo). It was so good. I traded him some prawns for chicken and chorizo for ribs so I think we were both satisfied 😉

My Kentucky wings and sweet potato fries for my main were awesome. I’ve never actually had wings as a main before and it rocked my world. It had some great dips as well – one of them was like a blue cheese thing which I could have swum in if I’m honest.

I’d already seen the pudding menu and had earmarked the mint chocolate chip Oreo sundae but I was stuffed. It wasn’t even a “oooh I could make room” kind of stuffed, it was a meat sweat kind of stuffed. Just too much protein. I needed a nap 😉

Pretty damn awesome. Needless to say dinner wasn’t necessary!

How was your weekend?

Do you snooze your alarm or get up straight away?

What’s your favourite dip?

October 27, 2015

My little holiday in Wales

I’m back from North Wales where I spent a lovely few days with my family. It just goes too quickly though, doesn’t it?

On Thursday afternoon I hopped into my dad’s car, with Alfie, and headed up the motorway to Stoke-on-Trent. My granddad lives there with his two dogs and had kindly agreed to look after Alfie and my parent’s three dogs while we were in Wales. My other granddad, who we were going to be staying with, is allergic to dogs so we sadly couldn’t bring them along.

It was nice to see my granddad in Stoke, albeit briefly. He makes awesome cups of tea and always has some funny stories. He’s also reindeer obsessed and every year he goes to Scotland to spend several weeks helping out with a reindeer sanctuary up there. He used to be a joiner before he retired and is always carving and making crazy creations from reindeer antlers that they’ve naturally dropped.

On his garage he painted a beautiful silhouette of reindeer too.

We then hopped back in the car for the last part of our journey to Llandudno. We left Southampton at 2pm and arrived at 9pm! I was definitely feeling a bit cabin feverish.

Friday morning we had a lovely walk in Conwy.

The weather thankfully was good and we enjoyed a nice coffee sat outside a quaint cafe.

In Conwy they have an interactive Alice and Wonderland trail for children to follow. There are wooden statues of different characters all over the town.

I saw Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum and the Rabbit. I’ve previously seen the Red Queen but that’s all I’ve found so far.

We also did a little bit of shopping and I found an amazing sweet shop where I just couldn’t help buying a few chocolates and marzipan fruit.

I had a little mosey in Dorothy Perkins and bought a new top as well…the first non-fitnessitem of clothing I’ve bought in a while!!

My grandparents are keen golfers (and despite my granddad being 82 he’s still a very keen walker and cyclist!) so for dinner they took us to their golf club’s restaurant. I had a delicious gammon steak with fried egg and new potatoes. And for pudding a blueberry Bakewell slice with ice cream. Heavenly!

Before getting injured I’d hoped to be able to run the Conwy parkrun on the Saturday but sadly this wasn’t possible. Every part of me desperately wanted to go but I stuck to my initial decision. I’d rather keep on recovering rather than attempt something foolish and delay it longer. It was tipping down with rain in the morning which was some consolation to not running, but I was still grumpy.

Luckily there was the Convwy Taste Festival going on over the weekend so I could take my mind off things by enjoying stupid amounts of food. The festival was just next to the water and down from the Conwy Castle – only a few minutes drive from my grandparent’s house handily!

Despite the poor weather, the place was packed! You paid £8.50 for access to the large tents, where inside were loads of food and drink merchants selling their wares. And, importantly, letting you try them!!

I tried everything, as you can imagine. From chilli jams to sweet chutneys, from Welsh cakes to shortbread… balsamic vinegars, oils, hand-made marshmallows (the choc mint flavour was incredible), curry sauces, BBQ sauces, dried meats, pasties, pies, bread, waffles (best taster ever – a chunk of waffle dipped in caramel sauce…I considered sneaking back to that one to try it again), yogurts, fudge, sausages, meat and, of course, cakes!

I couldn’t not buy a slice of the rocky road…or the peanut butter millionaire shortbread style cake. And then later a large slice of blondie. It took all the effort in the world to not gobble them all up quickly.

After we had all enjoyed so many different foods we decided to head outside of the main tent to look for lunch (I know, because at this point we were soooo hungry ;-)). There were so many different street food options it was quite overwhelming.

Thai, Mexican, Italian, Indian, Chinese, English (bangers & mash, fish & chips), pulled pork and BBQ, Caribbean, Moroccan, mussels… I literally walked up and down the street for a good ten minutes having no idea what to have. I did really fancy a large skewer of tandoori chicken but seen as how we were out for an Indian that evening I knew I needed to go safe and not have anything spicy or similar to what I’d eat that evening.

In the end I went for a lobster roll and fries. I saw it being made and it looked amazing. And it tasted so good. Not the cheapest street food I’d ever had at £10 (compared to the £3.50 hot dog my dad had!) but it was fully worth it. My mum got a sausage roll from a different place to my dad and for the same price as my dad’s they packed in pretty much an entire pack of sausages!! Helpfully, we were all there to assist her 😉

After a quick warm-up coffee we carried on walking around looking at the other food stalls (a few more tasters…) and some of the craft stalls as well. My day was made when I saw a dinosaur walking about – with a fully functioning roar.

Such a great day. I loved it! We all agreed we definitely wanted to come back next year. It was a lot of fun. I came away with three cakes and a meat pack containing a zebra sausage (!!), a boar burger, pigeon breast, pheasant breast, venison steak, black pudding and a slice of bacon. Amazing.

That evening we went to a local Indian and had lots more food…

I had a mixed Asian BBQ started followed by my favourite, tandoori chicken with onion salad. Yum.

I had a great long weekend with my family and it was sad to leave on the Sunday. It was nice to not be at home looking at my empty house still not moving and still not running *sighs*. I would have loved to have done some running while I was away, in such beautiful scenery (and apparently my granddad was going to bike alongside me) but it wasn’t to be. There’s always next time I suppose!

How was your weekend?

Would you have enjoyed the Taste Festival?

Do you like street food? What would you have chosen?

October 1, 2015

Reykjavik, Iceland – part 1

I’ve never been on holiday on my own so I was quite nervous when my friend sadly had to bail out at the last minute of our trip to Iceland. Instead of just cancelling it though I thought I’d still go and enjoy myself. It would be an “experience” and a good time to get away from it all. I’m so glad I did go because I had a fantastic time. Though I was alone, I was never lonely.

I’d planned to do my usual tradition of going to Jamie’s Italian for a big dirty fry-up before flying but was aghast to find that Gatwick South Terminal didn’t have one. Despite this, I was spoilt for choice and almost went to Nando’s (I know, I know, I’m obsessed) but in the interest of trying something different I chose WonderTree as it seemed quite unusual and had a good menu. I ordered the ‘Woodstock’ with a side of bacon and sausages (because I’d been craving them).

Poached eggs, avocado, hummus, roasted cherry tomatoes, labneh cheese, za’atar, baked potato wedges and basil-parsley oil

Very tasty. It did feel weird sat there on my own but I enjoyed people watching and reading my Kindle (“My Sister’s Secret“- very good).

I arrived in Keflavik airport after an easy three-hour flight and got a transfer to the Blue Lagoon en route to Reykjavik where I would be staying. I really recommend this as it’s half-way there so you don’t need to waste time during your holiday to drive back out there. I used FlyBus which was great.

The Blue Lagoon was really something else. I changed into my swimming gear and did the mad “omg it’s so cold out here” dash from the lovely warm building into the water.

It was fantastic. I waded around (it’s fairly shallow, but enough so you can submerge your body) and just relaxed. It was cold and windy outside but deliciously hot in the water. It’s probably hot tub warm, though I found an area which was SUPER hot (it’s clearly marked as a hotter area so there’s no danger of accidentally going there). There’s also an area where you can put the white silica mud on your face and body. Lots of fun, though I did get my arm stuck when I foolishly tried to fish some out without using the special ‘stick thing’. It was one of those panicked moments where I tried to pretend it wasn’t stuck so no one would notice but at the same time try to desperately free myself.

A few tips if you ever plan on going there:

Take a towel, your swim gear and flip-flops with you (you can upgrade your ticket to include a towel, bathrobe and slippers but it’s over £7/10$).
DON’T get your hair wet as the water is so full of minerals it will dry it out (I read this beforehand luckily).
I took my waterproof iPhone cover so I could take photos easily without worry.
Be prepared for naked bodies in the changing room. Europeans are quite “free”. There are changing rooms but only a small number.
They have shower gel and a strong conditioner there (if you did get your hair wet).

Then I showered and got dressed (naked bodies ahoy!) and got my transfer to my AirBnB in Reykjavik. At this point I was beyond hungry as I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast (which was around 10am). By the time I got to my accommodation it was almost 7pm and I was HANGRY. I won’t lie, the choice of restaurant was more on “what’s closest” than any other value. But it was a great choice! (And TripAdvisor is so handy to do a very quick check). It was a restaurant called Meze which was Turkish/Mediterranean style.

I wanted to try to eat as much Icelandic food, and different food, as I could on the holiday. I also decided fairly early on not to worry about cost (to an extent obviously!) or about being particularly healthy. This holiday was about relaxing in every sense of the word.

I had a cheese platter (halloumi, feta and mozzarella) to start, followed by a lamb shish kebab for main and a melt-in-the-middle chocolate cake for pudding. OK so Turkish food isn’t exactly Icelandic food, but I was keen to try the lamb as it’s well-known that Icelandic sheep graze relatively freely and are hormone-free, meaning the meat is of fantastic quality and the animals had a happy life.

But I will stress that Iceland is not a cheap place at all. An average three-course meal was around £35/$54. To get a main course cheaper than £15 was rare.

The next day I’d planned to do a three-four mile run. Sadly there are no parkruns in Iceland, though I can attest to some fabulous locations where they could easily have them!

I scientifically tested how cold it was outside by sticking my hand out the window. It wasn’t too bad so went with shorts but wore a long-sleeved top (which later felt far too warm). I had a very vague idea of where to run as I’d Googled some routes beforehand, but I knew I wanted to get to the Hallgrimskirkja church as it looked so awe-inspiring.

Running so early in the morning (well, 7am) meant the streets were clear and there was no one around to get in my photos. It was very calm and peaceful, probably because they all went to bed about 5am judging by the sounds outside my flat. Reykjavik is also surprisingly hilly as you come away from the coast edge!

As I had a kitchen in the AirBnB I decided to save money (and time) by buying oats and milk and making porridge in the morning. I love my breakfast so I didn’t mind. It also meant I could sleep a bit more.

My plans for my first day was going on a tour of the Golden Circle. I used the tour company Iceland Horizon, which were fantastic. I was in a mini-bus with about 10 other people and our tour guide was both interesting and funny. I met a Portuguese girl and a Canadian guy around my age who were both solo travellers as well so we instantly bonded.

The Golden Circle consists of the national park, Þingvellir, the waterfall Gullfoss, and the geysirs Geysir and Strokkur on the valley of Haukadalur. We also saw the Faxafoss waterfall too.

L-R: the national park, a glacier in the distance near the Gullfoss waterfall, the Gullfoss, a geysir

The tour was great as the guide told us lots about Iceland and the areas we were visiting. I found the random facts the most interesting, such as most of the larger trees in Iceland come from Aspen (apparently a well-known joke in Iceland is that if you get lost in a forest, just stand up, as all the Icelandic trees are tiny. Incidentally a lot of teenagers will earn money over the summer planting trees). In the national park you can see the connecting points for two tectonic plates, the Mid-Atlantic ridge and the North American plate.

L-R: The thermally active geyser, the small Faxafoss waterfall, the tectonic plate ridge

We had enough time to look around the different sites and half-way to grab some lunch from a little restaurant en route. I had the Icelandic speciality, “meat soup”. The meat was lamb and it was amazing.

I’d dressed appropriately for the weather so I wasn’t cold but I was very wind-swept so the hot soup was much appreciated. If you’re planning on doing this tour, wear sturdy boots as there’s lots of walking and a mini-mountain you can climb (I saw a girl in Converses struggling…). The weather in Iceland is extremely changeable. One moment it can be sunny and bright, then the next clouds have come over and it tips it down. Be prepared for all weathers!

My two companions were good fun to be with and it was nice to turn around to someone and say “this is amazing”. And to take photos of each other as well. There’s only so much a selfie can achieve 😉

The tour was pretty much all day and I definitely felt like I got my money’s worth. I saw so much! I have so many photos it’s ridiculous. I had a lovely cheeky nap on the way back to Reykjavic to rejuvenate myself a bit.

I was fully ready for dinner after getting back and tidying myself up a bit (oh my hair…). I’d done a bit of research before coming to Iceland for some good restaurants but in the end I decided to walk down the main street, Laugavegur, to see what took my fancy. It’s quite tricky when you’re on own as you have no one to discuss with what you fancy eating! I literally could go anywhere I fancied which was both amazing and overwhelming. I knew I wanted something quite big though as I was hungry and was chuffed to find a fish buffet restaurant called Restaurant Reykjavik. It was quite expensive, but for all you can eat fresh and local fish I was swayed! And it looked very posh inside.

I literally tried everything. There was smoked salmon, cooked salmon, herring in several different sauces, pickled fish, ceviche, marinated fish, salted cod, fish stew, shellfish, soup, salad, vegetables, potatoes…so much food!! And randomly a leg of lamb that the chef would calves for you with a delicious red wine sauce.

Again I sat with my Kindle and thoroughly enjoyed myself. Of course there was a pudding buffet as well, and it would have been rude not to have tried some…I had blondies, rhubarb and oat cake and mango cheesecake. Yep I was stuffed!

I was a little concerned how my stomach would react to all this food as I had planned to run 13 miles the next morning (my last long run before the marathon). Because my tour the next day wasn’t until 1pm I could have a luxurious lie-in and a late breakfast. Thankfully I actually felt pretty good the next morning. I woke up naturally before my alarm (which had been set to 8am) and got ready to go.

I was initially nervous about running 13 miles in a new city but because I’d already done one run and lots of walking about I vaguely knew the area. I could run along the coastline quite easily and keep the sight of the church constantly in view which I knew was near where I was staying. Very handy!

I felt really good on this run. I listened to a podcast and just zoned out. I felt strong running and didn’t really think about my pace too much, except when I started going too fast. Near the coast it was very flat but it was a bit breezy. The weather was beautiful so I was pleased to whip out my MarathonTalk t-shirt from last year’s Run Camp.

I did get a bit concerned as I got to 8-9 miles and found myself quite far out from the church. I started wondering what I’d do if I hit 13 miles so far from my accommodation. Could I ask someone for a lift? Icelandic people seem so friendly (I could almost hear my mother screaming at me as I though this…). Not a good move I suppose! Anyway in the end it was a perfect 13.1 miles. I have no idea how I managed such a perfect route without properly planning. Especially as I have the worst sense of direction.

Have you ever been on holiday on your own?

Do you enjoy running around new cities? I found it such a great way to get my bearings and see the sights!