Marathon - AnnaTheApple

June 25, 2014

My Cake Day, whoops I mean Birthday

Right, bare with me. I know I talk a lot about cake. I’m trying to tone things down a bit (talking about it and eating it). BUT it was my birthday…so I’ve got a free pass.

My birthday was last Thursday, and sadly I was at work so it was fairly nondescript. I hadn’t asked for anything from Ben as I couldn’t think of anything I’d want. In the end we agreed to go on a daytrip and do some shopping together and have a nice lunch out. But this will need to be sometime July as our weekend’s are so fully booked!

Just to rewind quickly back to Wednesday first. I ran the 10k Race for Life in Basingstoke with my newbie runner friend. She’s ran the 5k RFL before and she has done quite a bit of training so I wasn’t worried she wouldn’t complete it. She’d previously done a training run of 11k in 1hour 15minutes so I suggested we try and beat that and maybe aim for around an hour.

Ben, my mum, my dad and my friend’s husband and son came to cheer us on. The three of us girls were kindly bought a flower by our respective loved ones (*cough* let’s not talk about how I cajoled Ben to do this *cough*).I’ve never been to or raced a Race for Life before (if you’re not aware, it’s a women’s-only charity based event raising money for breast cancer – pink is a major theme!). It was completely different to any of the races I’ve been to before. There was a kind of party atmosphere and it was very informal. So many people had pictures of loved one attached to their backs for whom they were running and raising money for. It was very sobering.

The race was all on grass and through a very windy course completely off-road.

We were running around 10-11 minute miles. I found this quite challenging as this is quite slow for me. I don’t mean any disrespect to anyone who runs at these paces, this is just something personally I found. It helped though as I could chat away and encourage my friend easily.

My lovely sparkly pink nails done specially for the event

My friend achieved the brilliant time of 1:04! To be fair, she could have got a better time but we were held up a fair bit by walkers (it was a two lap course). She’s really getting into it now though: she’s going to Parkrun at the weekend and trying to improve her times. I’m so proud 🙂

Right, so back to Thursday and cake. Sorry, my birthday. I got into work to find one of my other friends had made my friend and me a Mars Bar crispy cake to celebrate our 10k.

Ohmygawwwwd this was incredible. I could eat so much of this, it’s so moreish. I had about two…yeah let’s say two, pieces of this. Then at lunch I wandered over to nearby Tesco to by the standard cakes for the office. A weird tradition but one that I think is important to be upheld 😉

I tried to be good. I tried to buy things that didn’t really take my fancy. Except I picked up Smartie cookies. How can you resist a Smartie cookie?

When I got home one of our friends was over and Ben was being all sheepish. I wasn’t allowed in the living room. My friend (yo Nathan!) gave me some birthday goodies…err think he’s got me down to a tee!

Mini rockit apples (a variety I must say I have not been acquainted to before), some M&S sweets and muffins. Boom. Edible gifts are the best gifts in my book 😉

Then the piéce de resistance…I was allowed into the living room. And there on the table was the most phenomenal cake I have ever seen.

A Paris marathon birthday cake, made by a very talented lady at Ben’s work. I mean seriously, how absolutely fantastic is that?? There’s a little me on the top, even wearing compression socks! And the medal is very similar to my Paris marathon one – she got Ben to describe it!!

Needless to say I almost cried and then debated whether I should have dinner or just eat cake? Well, the sensible Anna implored the Cake-Frenzied-Anna to eat something sensible and then gorge on cake.

Alarmingly though I was only able to have one slice as it was so dense and sweet – but 10/10 in terms of flavour and consistency. And four layers?? Jam and butter cream? Heaven.

And I guess as we’re on the subject of cake I might as well mention the incredible chocolate cake I had a slice of (I say slice, more like WEDGE) at my other friend’s birthday party on Saturday. How dare she have a birthday so close to mine! 😉 It was a bit of a shame considering after my cake-filled birthday I had decided to lay off the cake a little bit…then arrived at Saturday’s birthday BBQ to find this bad boy. How can you refuse?

Whew. So there we have it. What more could a girl want? This week I’m trying to eat less cake. That’s my mission. It hasn’t gone entirely well but the motivation is there and that’s half the battle right?

What is your dream birthday scenario?

Favourite type of cake…? I’m not sure I could narrow it down. Each cake has its merits.

Do you like more formal or informal race events?

June 23, 2014

Week #2 Marathon Training

I loathe to write anything hugely positive about my running for fear that the sword of Damocles hanging above my head will drop…and injury will strike. However, I am trying my best to avoid that situation as you can manage!

I’ve pretty much followed my training plan but shifted some miles here or there depending on the time I had, though the overall week’s mileage remained the same. I’ve also modified the Ab challenge because I read a few articles about how it wasn’t that good for you…specifically crunches and sit-ups being bad for your back and neck, and rather than creating a nice strong core it’s actually just working specifically your abs. I’m not interested in getting a six pack or the aesthetic side of things but I do want a strong core.

So instead of doing the sit-ups I do Russian twists instead to work my oblique muscles (side abs?) and instead of the crunches I do bicycle crunches which I hear are better for your back and more dynamic. I’m not judging anyone else doing the Ab Challenge (Ben is sticking with the regular plan), just personally for me I didn’t want to risk anything. Everything else on the challenge I’m sticking to.

So last week, this is what went on:

Monday – no running. 45 minute strength workout:

– 100 weighted squats
– 4mins toe lifts
– 3mins calf raises
– 4mins crab walk (—> demo)
– 3mins bridge
– 1mins bridge pulses
– 10×3 bridge leg lifts

Toe lifts

Tuesday – 5k at a fast pace. Not breaking any records here but I’m chuffed I almost fully negative split it (damn you 0.1 nubbin).

I also did a strength workout after work:

– 30 x3 (per leg) hip hikes
– 30 x3 (per leg) backward lunge and knee lift with ankle weights
– 5mins toe lifts
– 3mins calf lifts
– 24 x4 (per leg) clams with resistance band (—> Demo)
– 30 (per leg) bird dog (4-8 sec hold) (—> Demo)

Wednesday – 10k Race for Life in Basingstoke.

I ran this with my friend at her pace to support her in her first 10k. It was such good fun! More on this in another post, though I will say she smashed her target at got 1:04 which is brilliant (and she could have done better but we were held up by walkers).

Thursday – no running but a strength workout after work:

– 4 mins bridge
– 3x 10 (per leg) bridge leg lifts
– 5 mins toe lifts
– 3 mins calf raises
– 3x 1min heel taps (—> Demo)
– 5 mins crab walks

Friday – 4 mile run on feel keeping it easy. Another (almost) negative split run! I wear my heart rate monitor for my runs so I can make sure I’m not pushing too much. My heart rate was an average of 157 (my fast 5k on Monday was 172 average).

Saturday – 5k at Parkrun. In my plan I had said this was a speed session so I wanted to push it.Parkrun Selfie

I just ran as fast as I could basically. There was a girl in front of me the entire time and though I managed to overtake her twice she still beat me.It was a bit frustrating but what are you gonna do! I should have kept to her shoulder and not wasted energy in premature over-takes and seen if I could pip her towards the end.

My time was 21:42 and I was third female. Not too shabby!

Sunday – I got up early and ran a 7 mile easy paced run. I found this run quite tough. Even though it was early (8.30ish) it was already very warm. I struggled to maintain a good pace and felt a bit rubbish. I don’t think what I ate the day before had helped… (BBQ and lots of cake).

From the get-go it just felt like a slog.

After the run Ben and me met up with our friend to go for a 15 mile bike ride again.

I enjoyed this a lot more than last week. Not sure why but it felt nice to work the legs in a completely different way. We didn’t go at any great speeds but it was just nice to be out in the sunshine, chatting away while moving the legs. I think we’re going to try and continue this every week when we can but probably move it to a Saturday as the long runs are going to increase and I won’t fancy a bike ride afterwards!

Total of 23 miles.

I’m pleased with the week. Feel like I’m getting faster and hopefully getting stronger.

How has your week been?

Has the sun been affecting your running?

Have you ever done the Race for Life?

June 16, 2014June 16, 2014

Week #1 Marathon Training

Morning all. Don’t worry, I’m not planning on documenting every single week of marathon training (assuming I do manage to complete all the training without getting injured…there’s confidence for you). But as it’s the first week, why not.

My marathon training plan is HERE. Alongside this I’m also doing the ‘Ab Challenge’ which I started on the 1st June. This includes, every day (except for a few rest days), sit ups, crunches, leg raises and a plank. Each day the number increases (for the plank, the length of time increases). It’s no joke now having done Day 15.

Monday – no running, but I did a 45 minute strength workout after work.

This included:
– 100 weighted squats
– 3x 10 weighted calf raises
– 3mins toe lifts
– 2x 20 of kick-backs, leg swings and hydrant lifts

Tuesday – 3 miles easy run in the morning. For my easy runs I’m trying to keep to around 8.30mins/mile which is a comfortable speed. I also did another strength workout after work.

This included:
– 3mins calf raises (no weight)
– 3mins toe lifts
– 3x 1min side planks
– 2x 1min plank with leg touches to the side
– 3x 30 Russian twists

Wednesday – We had the RR10 that evening. This was an off-road 4.5mile race (the RR10 is a set of league races with all the clubs in our area).

I really wasn’t feeling motivated. I was in a bit of a bad mood anyway. Then they delayed the start by 15 minutes and that just furthered by lack of motivation. I ummed and arred about whether to run with Ben or on my own and push it. I decided to push it. Within the first mile I knew it wasn’t a good run. My hip was niggling (possibly because of the unstable terrain?) and I just felt tired.

One of my team mates who wasn’t running cheered me on but at this point (maybe mile 2) I was considering dropping out. She shouted “just enjoy it!” when she realised I wasn’t feeling it. This really helped. Suddenly I realised, “hey, yeah I can just run this as slowly as I want and it doesn’t matter. Just get the miles in.”. My whole mood changed and I dropped the speed and just ran comfortably. Loads of people overtook me but I didn’t care. Eventually my friend Matt caught up (I was hoping Ben would catch up and I could run with him but he was having a rubbish run as he was exhausted (*cough* and hungover *cough*) after getting back from Bucharest earlier that day). So I ran with Matt instead and helped push him along (well sort of, I’m not sure who was pushing who!)

I finished 39th or 38th position (can’t remember) out of the females. Previously I’ve been 10th and 11th but I actually didn’t mind. I’ve also come to realise I don’t like the RR10s one bit. They’re heavily competitive (you aim for position not time), they’re in the evening, they’re always a very short distance and they’re off-road so there’s a big chance of turning your ankle (which a guy at our club did). To me it’s not worth it during my marathon training. Sure it’s a good speed session but I’d rather do that with the club Tuesday night on road or on my own where the pressure (that I put on myself I hasten to add) is less. I know I sound extremely ‘sour grapes’ but the relief and weight off my shoulders felt when I decided not to do anymore was huge. I felt so much better.

Thursday – another after work strength session:

– 2x 1 min side planks
– 3x 30 heel taps
– 3mins toe lifts
– 3mins calf raises
– 3min bridge
– 10x 3 bridge leg lifts

[I’m focusing on areas that I know I’m weak and also making sue I have strong shins and calves as I’m terrified about getting shin splints – because let’s be honest, that’s the next thing I’m bound to get]

Friday – another easy 3 mile run in the morning.

Saturday – I didn’t get to Parkrun because my uni friends were down so I went for an earlier 3 mile speed run. I was chuffed with this. Not my fastest but on my own not too shabby!

Sunday – 5 mile ‘long’ run (fairly amusing but it will get longer later) I really enjoyed this.

I ran very comfortably, rarely looking at my watch and was happy to see my paces were around 8 minutes. Bodes well!

Total run miles: 18

After getting back from my run and Ben returning from his, we had breakfast and then (without showering – yep we’re that gross) we headed out for a 15 mile bike ride with our friend, Nathan. It was fairly hilly and we didn’t blast the speed so it was quite nice.

I was fairly shattered for the rest of the day. Onwards to Week 2!

Do you put pressure on yourself to the point you stop enjoying something?

What workouts have you enjoyed this week?

What workouts have you hated?

June 9, 2014

Here we go again…

Today starts the first day of the rest of my life. Alternatively, the first day of Marathon Training.

Oh Running God, high on the fluffy track clouds in the sky, please let this training cycle go better than my last. Please let me not get injured and miss weeks of training. Please let things go smoothly. I don’t mind being tired or bored or fed up. I don’t mind getting up before 6am to run. I don’t mind getting rained on, running in heat, wind, or snow (it’s Britain, who knows). I don’t mind getting blisters. I don’t mind gaining weight with excessive food consumption, more muscle (fingers crossed) and water retention. I don’t mind getting insatiable runger.

I just want to train. Yes I am fully aware it will be tough but I am mentally ready. I don’t think though that my mental state can cope with another injury. Niggles, aches, tiredness – fine, I can deal with those. But a proper injury. PLEASE NO.

Got that Running God? Good. Now let’s get down to business.

The Plan

This time around it’s going to be a bit different from my last plan for Paris. Well, the plan I had aimed to do but never actually because I got injured and had to slapdash a lot of it. Clearly I am an injury prone runner (*cringes*). To tempt fate with running very long runs is probably not a good idea for me. I know it’s important for ‘time on your feet’ but honestly I think it’s just going to push my body over the edge. In the future, when I’m more experienced and my body is stronger, then fine but not right now. I also don’t think I need to run 18+ milers to calm me psychologically. I know I can run a marathon now.

I also won’t be doing big weekly mileage. Ideally I top out at 37 miles but I’m also happy to lower that depending how things go. My plan is more about consistency than pushing my body to the limit.

Maybe this plan sounds fairly basic and ‘beginnery’ but at this point, after all my stupid injury issues, I think this is the best way forward. A cautious approach, if you like.

As you can see, there’s between 4-5 days a week running depending what I’ve got going on. A fair few races as well (RR10s and half marathons). I wanted to make sure I had two strength sessions a week as well. These are 45-60 minute weight sessions focusing on glutes, core, hamstrings, calfs/shins, etc. This is to aid injury prevention (here’s hoping).

I’ll do a speed-specific session on Tuesday (either with the club or on my own), a tempo run Thursday mornings and Parkrun on Saturdays (but not necessarily racing them). My Sunday longer runs and anything in between will all be easy paced (except for my goal half marathon in Maidenhead).

There’s no cross-training in there. I don’t want to overload my body. I found spinning with running a nightmare mix and just made me more inclined to get injured. Maybe the odd bike ride or swim will appear but nothing crazy.

My longer runs top out at 16 miles. But I will be running fairly medium distances the days before so this should (in a bastardized Hansons method approach) tire my legs, replicating what it will feel like in a marathon. I didn’t want to go the whole hog with the Hansons method because I’m not ready to run six days a week and the mileage goes higher than I’m comfortable with. So I dropped the Monday run and lowered some of the other runs.

Another main change for me will be not running with the running club on Thursday evenings. The majority of my runs (apart from Parkruns) will be solo runs in the morning. As much as I love my running club and love the Thursday night sessions, I find that I stop listening to my body and run faster and further than I should. By running on my own I can stay in tune with any niggles and pace my run exactly how I need to (hold certain tempo paces for a certain time for example). I’m sad about it but I know it’s for the best. Plus I love running in the morning rather than the evening.

None of this though is set in stone. My main aim for this marathon training is consistent injury-free running. So regular sports massages will hopefully happen as well to keep things in tip top shape as much as possible.

Whew. So that’s it. Who knows if it’ll work. I do have a time aim in mind for Berlin, but I’ll keep that to myself for the moment. It’s nothing dramatically different to Paris. Paris has given me the confidence that I know I can run a bit faster because I felt so comfortable all the way and finished without feeling like I was at death’s door. But we’ll see!

Anyone else training for a specific race or marathon?

What are your top tips to staying injury free?

What have you learnt about your body over the years when it comes to exercising?

May 8, 2014October 28, 2016

North Dorset Marathon Relay

This week feels very strange to me. The UK had Monday off as a bank holiday and then I was only at work for Tuesday and Wednesday before having Thursday and Friday off (another wedding, hurrah!).

Anyway I mentioned in my last post that I ran the North Dorset Marathon as part of a relay team. There were four of us in total from (all female). Quite a few people from the running club were there as part of the relay (we had four teams in total), or part of the marathon, or to support.

Ben and me had to get up at the joyous time of 5.20am on Sunday to meet some guys for a lift at 6am. I ate my porridge in the car in a state of tired confusion.

There was a tiny part of me that was jealous of the marathon runners. I much preferred the idea of running slower for longer than faster for shorter, if that made sense. But the course is very hilly so in retrospect I’m happy I didn’t!

One of our team members had made us all hair ribbon ties to wear which were amazing.

A go faster bobble!

Coincidentally Ben and me were down to run the last legs of the relay so despite the race starting at 8.30am, we actually had around 2.5 hours until we were running. This was both good and bad. It gave my body time to wake up and get going, but also there was a lot of nervous energy coursing through me for an extended period of time. I sort of wanted to just “get it over with”, you know?

Before the race keeping warm in jeans – he didn’t run in them! (Ouch)

Actually though there really wasn’t much time to wait around and dwell. After seeing our first lady off for her first leg, we had to dash to the Race Mobile and get going to the hand-over point for the second leg. After getting there, parking, using the loo (I used each loo at each handover point – my pee likes to save itself up apparently), we stood there with the other running club guys and supporters and cheered on the super fast marathoners zooming through and other relay teams. It was a lot of fun to cheer people on and we saw our running club marathoners pass which was great. And it was also fun cheering on cyclists that happen to pass through too…and the odd car hehe “strong driving!”

Princess Leia, Darth Vader and some other Star Wars characters were out in force (tee hee) as it was May 4th (Star Wars Day). I am hugely impressed with them being able to run in full costume. Amazing.

As soon as our first lady appeared the hand-over commenced and then we rushed to the Race Mobile to get to the next location. This was a bit more hairy as we only had 4.5 miles (the first leg was 7ish miles). Our poor first team member barely had a chance to catch her breath! But she’d set us up well for a strong start.

The next location was fairly similar. At this point I was getting hungry. It was about 10am and having had breakfast a good four hours ago I was starting to wilt a bit. Luckily the other guys had the forethought to have brought more than just apples with them so I snacked on half a bagel.

The weather was lovely, though a little chilly in the shade. You just knew it would get hot on the run. Our ladies were running really strong and soon it was my turn to wait for the handover of the baton. I started doing a little warm-up as I waited. We knew only the rough time of when our runner would be coming in from working out predicted splits.

Warming up

After seeing my team mate in the distance I whipped off my long running top to reveal my superman costume…whoops, no, to reveal my vest underneath with the bib ready to go go go.

As I grabbed the baton and headed off I felt exhilarated and ready. I knew that my section was fairly hilly (well, the whole course was really) and it was 6.8miles. I’d set myself a very loose target of a pace 7.30-8minute miles and just see how it went. It was a strange race if I’m honest as it wasn’t just my race, it was the team’s race. So that added some pressure but also relieved me a bit as it wasn’t just my time that mattered.

With a very small field of runners (less than 500 I think) it was quite lonely out there. I settled into a nice rhythm around 7.30min/miles and felt that I was comfortably pushing it but nothing extreme (not a Parkrun/5k exertion if you know what I mean). This did mean however that I quickly came upon marathon runners. Obviously I’d just started, my legs were fresh and I was only running about 7 miles so it made sense I’d be overtaking marathoners. But I felt very bad. I made it very clear when I ran past I was a relay runner and tried to encourage them (not sure if this was the best thing to do but I felt I couldn’t just overtake them).

I ran with one guy who was lovely and we chatted for about 0.5 miles until he told me to push on as he was trying to keep up with me which was ruining his pacing – he said something about a “male ego” 😉 I ran past another guy who grunted “hmph, relay runner” when I overtook. When I asked him if he knew how far we had left to go (as I couldn’t do the maths from my Garmin) he said in a very clipped voice “no”. I quickly apologised and headed off. Don’t annoy the marathoners, Anna!

After passing the 25 mile marker I knew I could push it on. I’m so pleased with how I felt during this race. I never once felt like I was dying, or it was too hard. It felt good.

This gives me huge confidence for my upcoming 10k (worst distance) in a few weeks.

I finished literally as my team arrived after getting to the finish and parking the car. Fairly amusing. We came second female relay team and our overall time was 3:23:05. Amazing, super running ladies! But it seriously made me realise I am so far away from that sort of time doing a marathon on my own.

One of our speedy marathoner’s had finished already in a very nice time of 3.17.xx (he did Paris as well…oh and he was the one who cycled with us on Monday – fresh as a daisy!) We then stood to cheer our other relay teams and marathoners.

Our other marathoners did amazingly too. Seriously impressive times considering the course profile and warm/sunny conditions. To be honest, I’m just hugely impressed at anyone who completed that marathon – my leg was hard enough with those hills! Paris was hard but that was flat. Not sure how keen I’d be to do this marathon…maybe when I’m a bit more experienced.

Strong running from the hubby

Ben’s relay team did great too with a time of 4:02:22. The morale was just brilliant and I loved supporting everyone and hearing how everyone’s run went.

As our team came second we got a little trophy (wish I’d have taken a photo) and a bottle of cider each. Not bad at all!

I definitely recommend a relay marathon to anyone; the morale within the team, the fun of driving off to the next location and supporting the marathoners is just a brilliant experience.

Have you ever done a relay?

What’s your ideal course profile in terms of terrain, popularity, length and elevation? I think mine would be a half marathon, off road with no more than 500 people (Cheddar Gorge half anyone…?).

Do you talk to people in races or do you like to be left alone? If I’m pushing hard then I tend to not be able to chat away but I do like a good natter in a race.