Lack of food-related constraint - AnnaTheApple

May 12, 2014

Another wedding and yet more cake

I’ve had four days off and yet I feel like I’m even more tired. We’ve just been crazy busy. But in a nice way.

Ben and me had Thursday and Friday off as we had a wedding Thursday afternoon and were staying the night in the hotel where the reception was being held. On Thursday morning we tried to get some boring house jobs done and also sort my new car out (very exciting!) Then we headed to the wedding, which was being held in the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth.

Basically it’s this huge tower-like structure where you can go up in a lift and see amazing views. Well, I say amazing…it’s about as amazing as it can get in Portsmouth 😉 Because we got there about 40 minutes before the wedding began we waited in the cafe and had a sneaky bit of cake.

We had a slice of carrot cake and millionaire shortbread and had half each of both. This is big news as I never normally share cake!

Despite the weather being less than stellar, the views were fantastic. It was really quite a unique and lovely ceremony.

And there was a glass floor you could stand on (without shoes) and look straight down. Very cool.

After the ceremony we headed back to the hotel for the reception. Despite my previous cake, I was getting hungry. The meal was a buffet and in true Anna fashion I started getting antsy. I hate buffets. I’m always scared they’ll not be enough food – and consequently eat way too much. When will I ever learn? Ben said he thinks it’s hilarious, but I tried to make him understand by saying imagine that the bar was a buffet format and there were only so many drinks available. His eyes lit up in panic. Exactly!

I ate quite a lot of sweets from the sweet buffet too…and three *little* pieces of wedding cake. I felt quite full by the end. And rather rough. It was a good evening though with lots of great company and banter.

The sign reads: “I’m here for the cake”

I woke up feeling a little delicate and quite bloated. Not good!

Then we had a mad whirl-wind of a day where we had to dash back home to Southampton to pick up my paper bit of my driving licence to then drive back to Portsmouth to sort my new car out. We’ve officially bought a new Fiat 500!

And amazingly it’ll be ready this week as they had one in stock to the spec we wanted. How lucky is that??

Then from there we had to go home, do the food shop, go to the post office and pick up our road bikes from Halfords. And I wanted to do a bit of baking for a party I was going to the next day. Whew.

As we don’t have a bike rack we could only get one bike safely in our car so I cycled mine home (it was only 4 miles). It was great to get a proper feel for the bike. It felt really good. It fit well, I felt very comfortable and it was light and speedy – from my limited experience!

Unfortunately we don’t have anywhere to put them yet as our shed is rather full. So they’re in the living room for the moment.

Looks fine, right…? Alfie doesn’t even care.

After Parkrun on Saturday morning I headed to a surprise party for our lovely previous ladies’ captain who’s currently pregnant. A fair few of us made cakes and it was all very lovely. She was very surprised and chuffed (I think!) I brought cupcakes but forgot to take a photo. They looked liked cupcakes… 😉

Obviously I was in my element with the cake…

Which was well documented by our current ladies captain (I’ve stolen the photos from her – thank you, Kelly!)

But this was the best part:

Photo credit – stolen from Karen (thank you!)

Now, I’m not a baby person but that is just adorable! Mini Hedge End Running Club gear. Karen’s baby will be the best dressed baby in town 🙂

On Sunday we went to the Alton 10 mile race where Ben aimed to beat his PB (around 1:26 I think) and I planned to just run with him and help push him along and keep him company. I’ll do a recap of my latest runnings in another post. Spoiler alert: Ben got his PB 🙂

Whew. Lots going on!!

Next weekend is the Netley 10k which is our running club championships (lots of medals up for grabs for different achievements). I’ve eaten so much rubbish the past few days (yep, I include cake in that) that I’ve decided to go on a bit of a ‘detox’ this week. I say detox but what I mean is a ‘cake and rubbish free zone’. No cake, chocolate or ‘big’ treats until I finish the race. I feel like I went overboard the past couple of days and I want to get back to feeling good and in race shape!

How was your weekend?

What’s the best part of a wedding for you? I’d be lying if I said the cake was one of my favourite parts…

What’s your car like? I’ve never had a new car so this is very exciting. I will be cleaning it every weekend…maybe.

How do you deal with a weekend or few days of eating rubbish?

April 24, 2014

Easy Easter

It’s amazing what two extra day’s off can do to your motivation. Getting back to work on Tuesday was tough. It felt like I’d been off for ages. Thankfully we have another Bank holiday off very soon as well. Whew! 😉

Our Easter weekend was quite low key. On the Friday we decided to just have a lovely lazy day. We walked Alfie and went to Sainsbury’s for a few items (read: chocolate adventure). Can’t really beat that! In Sainbury’s we both chose an Easter egg each and we also got a film (Hunger Games: Catching fire).

I went for an unusual egg (a ‘squegg’) because it just sounded amazing. I much prefer more interesting eggs rather than just plain chocolate.

It’s hard to tell, but it’s actually a flat egg. This worked perfectly for me as I love putting chocolate in the fridge. Fitting an entire 3D Easter egg in the fridge is tough, but this slab of choc worked well. Actually too well. That evening I might have stood with the fridge open chomping my way through it. Three quarters of the squegg later…I felt sick but very satisfied. I don’t regret it!

Anyway, Saturday was Parkrun in the morning:

And then lots of jobs. We cleared out some drawers of clothes…apparently I was hogging drawers with my mass of clothes…surely not! 😉 In the end we had three bags of clothes to go to charity, a bag of rubbish (stuff that really couldn’t go to charity) and some bottles for the bottle bank. Love a good clear out! We were both really ruthless.

Sunday we went for a seven mile easy sociable run with some guys from the club. It was just nice to not worry about pace and relax into the run.

Later Ben and me headed to his mum’s for a lovely home-made lunch.

She’s been inspired by Masterchef so it was all very tasty and a bit different (not that her usual meals aren’t nice, it was just more adventurous). *In the posh Masterchef voice* Salmon and cod roasted over a bed of vegetables, all marinated in a delicious orange and parsley dressing, served with pesto stuffed tomatoes and lemon buttered greens. Well I say!

And followed by lemon meringue with ice cream. YES.

We then had a relaxed evening at home in a bit of a food coma.

Monday (oh isn’t it nice to have such a long weekend?) was a rest day. We went out with our friend to Nando’s and all three of us ordered a whole chicken each.

I got a corn on the cob and side salad to go alongside (my mission was not to be defeated. Ben made the mistake of getting garlic bread and mash and couldn’t finish his chicken. Schoolboy error).

I think this went down a bit too easy if I’m honest…

But definitely worth it. Though I felt so full for the rest of the day. Dinner really wasn’t an option that evening.

So lots of food, a fair bit of chocolate, some running and good quality rest time. I do love weekend’s like that. I feel like I need to get my eating in order a bit though as since the marathon I’ve kind of just gone a bit mad on everything. But it was Easter 😉

How was your Easter?

What’s your ideal Easter egg?

Do you have any Easter traditions? We don’t really. We’ll always have a nice meal but that’s about it. And maybe a few eggs…

March 31, 2014

The best kind of weekend

Posting a bit later today as things have got a bit ahead of me. The story of my life at the moment! Definitely didn’t enjoy losing that hour Sunday morning.

The weekend was a busy one. We went to Parkrun in the morning and helped set out the course. Ben is a huge fan of doing this and now has me hooked. I don’t mind getting up earlier to help out as you get a bit more social time with other runners.

I was a bit nervous for the run as my calf had gotten quite tight after Thursday and it’s so close to the marathon now that anything is causing me huge amounts of stress…someone sneezing near me is enough to freeze up my system in terror.

I made sure I did a very good warm-up with jogging, dynamic stretches and specifically stretching my calf using a handy tree.

I’m sure a fun caption could be made here… “Ben I can’t seem to move this tree no matter how hard I push”

Which was caught on camera…lovely! Not one of my best photos haha!

I decided to take Parkrun nice and easy and there were quite a few of us who decided to run together so we had a nice natter as we ran round the course in the lovely sunshine. My calf was OK <– WHEW.

I’m still wearing my gloves even though it was so warm. My hands are the very last things to heat up.

My time was 23:29 and third female – not too shabby at all! After this we had a nice cup of tea with some of the running club and then headed home for breakfast. At this point I was STARVING.

We met up with a friend in the afternoon and did a huge walk with Alfie around the countryside. It wasn’t meant to be so long it’s just we got caught out with lots of muddy routes and had to go the long way back home (needless to say Alfie required a bath that evening…). At the end of the day I’d done almost 30,000 steps. And, more importantly, this happened:

If you don’t know what this game is, I urge you to download it (it’s an app). It is so simple but so very addictive!!

We had a lovely early night as we had to get up early the next day for a long run. I was so tired when the alarm went off at 6.40am – which my body thought was 5.40am due to the daylight savings. Arghh!

My plan was to run 13 miles. Perhaps not the most ideal distance considering I have the marathon a week later but psychologically I needed to do it. Ben and me had decided to meet up with some guys from our running group to run with them. The route was only 10 miles so I ran the 2 miles to the meeting point instead of going in the car with Ben, then planned on adding a bit on at the end.

The route was lovely. Credit to my husband who planned it (though I think it was based on a route one of the other guy’s had used before – so credit all round). It was fairly hilly though which was tough.

There were quite a few of us – eight or nine? Not sure. But in the end we sort of spread out from each other as we found our natural paces. It was really nice to spend a long run chatting to people rather than go solo. Though I will always love my solo long runs listening to podcasts…

I’m not going to lie, it was tough with the hills and not feeling completely fresh from a week of running (6 miles Tuesday, 8 miles Thursday, 3 miles Saturday) of which I’m not as used to anymore with my sporadic training. But it didn’t feel that bad as to worry me. I felt like I could have gone on further (bloody lucky considering it’s double that seven days later).

I was shattered when I got home though. Absolutely drained. So was Ben. We’re pretty sure the long walk the afternoon before hadn’t helped. Then it was time to treat two lovely ladies to some afternoon tea as it was Mother’s Day in the UK.

My mum showed up with the same handbag as me but slightly smaller – it was like mum and baby handbags! (She had originally given me the big handbag as she prefers smaller handbags and I love a huge bag to put my multitude of things in it).

Then off we went to indulge in some very lovely tea, sandwiches and cake at our favourite local (dangerously local) coffee shop: Elsie’s Tearoom if you’re in the area.

[Ben wasn’t happy with this photo; he said he felt uncomfortable because the table next to us were gawping at us – how rude!]

We all had afternoon tea. I had ham and mustard sandwiches, a fruit scone (with strawberry and rhubarb preserve, oohh err) and a slice of lemon cake.

Honestly, I am getting to be somewhat a pro at this afternoon tea business. Way to easy to eat. And I even had a bite of my mum’s unfinished lemon cake. Oh god…

After spending some quality time with The Mums, Ben and me pretty much did nothing. I fell asleep on the sofa to the dulcet tones of Ben blowing up zombie brains on the Xbox…then awoke with a new lease of life to tackle the ironing while we watched Elysium. I would give this movie a rating of “meh”. An OK film for when you’re not in the mood to think too hard.

The plan for this week is all easy running. Probably three miles Tuesday, three miles Thursday, the Paris breakfast 5km on Saturday (to shake out our ‘plane legs’) and then just a short gentle jog taking in the different sights of Paris. Probably 26.2miles, but we’ll see how it goes 😉

For those who celebrated it, how did you spend Mother’s Day?

Do you struggle with a full afternoon tea?

Ladies, do you prefer big handbags or small? (Men you can join in too with your manbags!) I have small handbags when I’m going out for an evening, but I do love a good handbag. Looking forward to all those back problems in later life 😉

Long runs solo or with a group?

February 12, 2014

Marathon Talk Weekend – Part 2

Hello! Hmmm I did say I wouldn’t focus solely on Marathon Talk for a post…but I kind of did sorry. I won’t be offended if you skip this if you’re not interested!

To catch up, check out Part 1

So after breakfast/brunch and getting showered and sorted we headed to meet up with everyone for 1pm.

I tried to discreetly take a photo of Martin talking

They did a little “hello” sort of welcome chat (some people had only just arrived as they couldn’t make the Friday night or Parkrun). I have to say that Tom and Martin are so friendly and so lovely. There was lots of banter and they were exactly like they were on the show. It wasn’t like an “us” and “them” experience – it felt very relaxed and they were very easy-going and ‘normal’.

Then there was the Marathon Talk quiz. We were split into teams (by our birth month). Tom ended up in my team. The quiz was solely focused on Marathon Talk. It was great – Tom knew a lot of the answers which helped, but I was surprised at how much the rest of the team and I knew and that he couldn’t remember!

Tony was the quiz master and he was brilliant. He’s exactly like he is on the show – hilarious, witty and fun. The quiz was such a laugh.

And we won!

In true runner’s style, we won cakes

Everyone on the weekend also got given (for free) a very swanky running T-shirt with “Run Camp 2014” printed on it. These were from Adidas (who sponsor the show) so they were of very good quality, and in a range of sizes. My T-shirt actually fits for once.

We’re on the far left (as our Tom and Martin, Tony is hiding at the back)

Then we were told the next part was an interval session. 6x3minutes with 3 minutes recovery. As jubilant as my Parkrun was and as desperate as I was to take part in this I didn’t think it would be sensible. I’m trying to be gradually get back into things and a hard Parkrun in the morning followed by a hard interval session (because let’s be honest, I’d never do it half-hearted) and then a long run the next day…probably not sensible for me.

Ben and our running club friend decided the same. Ben is only just getting back into running after his hip issues (marathon recap will happen – I am still pestering him). So we wandered over to Tom and asked if we could help out. He was more than happy for us to help him keep the timings as the entire group would be split into two (the speedsters and the not so speedsters). Another lady who had hurt her ankle also wanted to help out.

Everyone got ready and then ran to the interval location (about two miles away). Whereas we followed Tom’s car in our own car. Hilariously Tom took us the wrong way and then had to do a crazy dodgy 7 point turn on some steep dirt hill track. It was so funny (and quite scary…). Ben had a lot of jokes with him about that haha.

After some explaining of the time-keeping and lapping of stop watches (my god my tiny little brain really struggled) we each headed out to a certain distance away from the start.

This is us heading out to our spots – Tom in the bright cap, Martin next to him//There’s the log I stood on to watch the runners pass

I’m glad I’m not great at maths as I didn’t realise I’d be stood there for 40 minutes in the cold!! Every three minutes the speedsters would zoom past me and then back.

The lead runner is Steve Way – stupidly fast!

Then three minutes I’d be on my own again so I did a lot of pacing to keep warm!

Then we were done. Everyone ran back and we followed Tom back again. He seemed really grateful we helped so I felt chuffed despite how cold and wet I was.

After getting back and sorted we then headed to the meeting spot again for a buffet meal. It was quite funny because I was chatting to one of the other runners and we were wondering what we’d get. I jokingly said “probably sandwiches and pasties”. The other runner laughed and said “nah it’ll be a hot buffet of course.” Famous last words. Everything was cold. I hadn’t eaten since my brunch in the morning (11am) so I was absolutely starving (it was now 6.30pm). As you can see, I had everything and lots of it.

After our very cold but filling dinner, Martin did a sort of interview with Steve Way (an 100km ultra champion). I had no idea who Steve Way was before the interview began. But I can now say I’m a big fan. He started running at 33 – going from an overweight smoker to an almost elite athlete; just seconds from qualifying in the elite category for a marathon. He “dabbled” with training for his first marathon and ran a 3:06. This blows my mind. Then after putting in some ‘proper’ training he got down to 2:19. Jesus.

I could say a huge amount about this interview – a lot of useful and interesting information –but it would take up a lot of the post. Unless people are very interested I’ll leave you with just a few tidbits:

He said though he gave up smoking, he is still a smoker. He just doesn’t smoke because it would “affect his running”. He has a cigar after every marathon to celebrate though.
He can run up to around 150miles a week.
The average pace of all those runs (recoveries to speed sessions) is 6.30mins/mile.
He talked a lot about knowing the limits of his body – knowing he couldn’t go over 150ish miles a week as he’d start to break down or become over-trained.
He takes his HR every morning. It sits around 30 beats a minute.

It was very inspiring but a little ‘out there’, you know? Like all I kept thinking was “how can I relate this to myself?”. But you sort of can – the focus, perseverance, the drive…though it was beyond most of the people’s ideas of a usual training week we were all nodding along. It was inspirational.

After the interview (which went on for a good hour with us being able to ask any questions), Martin explained what was happening for the long run the next day. He handed out maps and explain that there was an 11 mile route, a 16 mile route and a 19mile route. We needed to decide what distance and what pace we’d like to do so the next day we could get into groups. I already knew I’d be doing the 11 miler. No way would I be attempting more at the moment. Especially considering the terrain was off-road, challenging and the route was, in Martin’s words, “f***ed” with all the rain water. Haha.

Then we headed back to the lodge where I had a lovely hot chocolate in bed and a fairly early night.

We fell asleep fairly quickly. We were shattered!

I will save the next day until another post (another interesting interview, long run, carvery and Q&A session with Martin and Tom).

Do you listen to Marathon Talk? Would you want to go on a trip like this?

Do you know your limits for exercise? Number of days, level of mileage?

Do you do interval sessions? I will be incorporating intervals in my training soon but for now I’m just doing regular runs and tempo runs to not stress my body out too much –> interesting article on exactly this: Returning to running after injury

January 29, 2014January 29, 2014

This needs to stop

Hi folks. No pre-amble, let’s get going.

I had a bit of a breakthrough. I got up Monday morning at 5.45am I put on all my running gear: leggings, running top, running jacket, high-vis vest, flashing armband, hat, gloves, HR monitor, foot pod, trainers…jeeze. Going to the gym requires much less prep!

I did some quick dynamic warm-ups and then got myself out of the door. Into the rain. Lovely. My new running style is run nice and easy for .5 mile and then stop and stretch for 5 or so minutes. My muscles are nice and warm by then so it’s the best time for it. Seriously if you’ve never done this, do it. Running after that feels so much looser, more free, and you feel stronger and faster.

I ran 4 miles. I hung around the 8min/mile mark and it was tough. On my last mile I pushed on a bit and couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw 7.20min on my watch! In the end the last mile was 7.30mins/mile. And I definitely felt it (and my HR went 10 beats higher) – I was sweating and panting like no body’s business. But it felt bloody brilliant.

But hang on. That’s not my breakthrough. I couldn’t have sustained that pace for longer than I did so to me it’s a blip of wanting to get home faster. The breakthrough is later. I’d put that lovely Physicool bandage on while I was getting ready and the effects had worn off by the time I got to work.

But my knee felt good. Not niggly or achy as it has done previously after a run. And for the rest of the day it felt (dare I even say it) 98% good. Progress. Definite positive, happy, wonderful progress!

Anyway, moving on to another major passion in my life. Cake. Seriously, this needs to stop. I don’t want to think of how many times I had cake last week (or how much cake).

After Parkrun on Saturday, a few of the ladies from the running club and me went for another round of afternoon tea. We tried a different venue this time – one that’s a five minutes drive from my house (far too close!!)

Elsie’s Tearooms in Botley

I ordered ham and mustard sandwiches, with a warm fruit scone with jam and clotted cream and a slice of carrot cake. The pot of tea was loose-leafed as well which was lovely.

Hands down this was the best carrot cake I’ve had in a while. Moist, flavoursome and a lovely texture. In fact it was all very tasty. It’s become worrying easy to eat afternoon tea. I’ve developed a good tolerance for eating cake. This is not a good sign.

Needless to say the rest of Saturday was spent in a cake coma doing not much else.

I’m a little behind on my Runner’s World magazines…

Sunday my mum popped round for coffee to catch up. She came bearing gifts of the best sort. Cupcakes from my favourite Swallow Bakery in Chichester (again!!).

How could I possibly resist?? It has a marshmallow on if for goodness sake!

So this week is all about not eating cake. I just need a break I think. For now anyway 😉

Have you over-eaten a certain food lately? I like to really appreciate cakes when I have them and I sort of lose that if I eat them every single day…

What’s easier in terms of preparation for you, going to the gym or going out running?

Loose-leaf or tea bags?