Naughty but nice - AnnaTheApple

September 18, 2014September 18, 2014

Weekend fun and Uzuma drinks

So my weekend recap is a little delayed, but hey these things happen. Weekend’s are precious. Sleeping, eating, running (god willing!), cake (separate category to eating because it’s cake and amazing), friends, family…all the best things really!

After getting over the boredom that was pool running on Saturday morning I got home and pottered about waiting for Ben. He was out doing a 30 mile cycle ride. I was tempted to go with them instead of the pool running but I wanted to do something a bit more running-specific and frankly wasn’t up for a long ride.

After eating lunch we headed to go shopping in the wonder that is West Quay in Southampton. It’s like another world. It’s HUGE (I’ve blogged about the amazingness before HERE last Christmas). One of the main reasons I wanted to go is that it’s like the only place that sells frozen yogurt outside of London in Southampton.

I went in a few shops but just felt a bit…old. The fashion right now is just not me – all crop tops and weird skirts. I’m not a fashionista (can you tell? Ha!) and just like normal clothes. So Fatface is where I found success!

After that I was kind of done. We headed straight to the fro-yo!

Notice that my fro-yo has the fruit in it!

The server asked what size we wanted and we both went for the biggest – obviously 😉 And both chose salted caramel.

Embarrassingly as we were paying the lady went “you do realise your top is on the wrong way?”. Erm…nope I hadn’t been aware of this. Epic fail for a basic human skill: dressing oneself. Hopefully it was just after trying stuff on, otherwise it was a bit of an embarrassing day and my husband doesn’t look at me anymore 😉

Genius right there

On Sunday I ran 11 miles which went well. And then for lunch we went to Nando’s with our friend, Nathan.

I just don’t get bored of that combo: whole chicken (medium spice), corn on the cob and salad. It rocks my world. I could go there every week (let’s pretend I don’t…).

The other week I was contact by the people at Uzuma to test out some of their newly released products. Uzuma are a Dutch company and have released a “green slow juice”. Basically they are vegetable (and fruit) juices that have been cold-pressed and processed under high pressure (HPP) in order to preserve the drinks and give them a shelf-life of 21 days without adding any preservatives.

“We add nothing extra to our green juices, meaning there are no preservatives, fragrances, colourings or flavourings. Nothing. What you experience from Uzuma green juice is the 100% pure power of nature. Our green juice allows us to bring you closer to a healthier lifestyle in a simple and convenient way. We do not use destructive traditional spinning extraction to produce Uzuma. All our vegetables and fruit are slow juiced using the latest innovative methods, allowing you to benefit from maximum vitamin and mineral retention.” Source

Zen flavour – broccoli, cucumber, kale, apple, lime, avocado etc.

How is it different to other juice drinks? Basically it’s the method they use in order to extract the juice from the vegetables and fruit. It doesn’t involve heat and so has a better nutritional value than regular juice drinks (i.e. it’s raw). Read more about it HERE.

Rise flavour – carrots, apple, pineapple, orange, lemon

What did I think? Well, I love vegetables so this is right up my street. Some of them tasted a bit better than others – mainly the ones with more fruit in them as this made them sweeter. But saying that, I quite enjoyed all of the flavours regardless of their sweetness.

I think the big test was how Ben found them. I made gave him one each day to take into work to drink. He is a vegetable dodger so these were more beneficial to him than me who loves veg and eats it regularly.

Shine – melon, mango, carrots and orange

He much preferred the sweeter ones and detested the one that had beetroot in it (Vibe) as he doesn’t like beetroot. But he said they were “alright” and that he could “endure taking them” to maximise his health.

Each one literally just contains vegetables and fruit. They’re dairy, gluten and soy free and they’re around 100 calories (some more, some less).

Personally I wouldn’t necessarily drink these everyday, only because I get enough veg already. Maybe I’d have some if I’d been on holiday and hadn’t eaten much veg and needed a bit of a health boost. I would definitely recommend them to people like my dad and Ben who don’t eat that much veg on a regular basis. It’s an easy way for them to get a lot of nutrition quick and easily.

Do you like juicing? What are your favourite ingredients?

What’s a restaurant you regularly keep going back to? We have many pubs we go back to, but Nando’s is the main chain we visit a lot.

Ever had an embarrassing shopping-related incident?

*** Full disclosure: I was sent the Uzuma products for free to review. But all opinions are my own***

August 18, 2014August 18, 2014

A busy weekend of all the things I love

Happy Monday lovely people. I hope you all had a great weekend.

Mine was bittersweet. Ben is sadly injured. He’s marathon training like me for Berlin (end of September, less than six weeks- PANIC). And, like I mentioned a few posts ago, he went to the Ultra 12 event and ran 4 laps of 5 miles over 12 hours. He was already slightly injured before going into it (although he hadn’t told me this – he’d only said he had a small niggle) and Ultra just pushed him over the edge. He’s seen our physio and the outcome is he’s sprained his knee and can’t run for a week and then see how it is.

This meant all plans for him running at the weekend dissolved and he was in a Dark and Shady mind space. I feel so sorry for him as I know exactly what this is like, being injured while marathon training. But he’s got so many miles in the bag already and if it’s only a week (even if it’s two or three weeks) he’ll be absolutely fine. Ben is determined and strong willed, even if he doesn’t get the training he wants he’ll still do Berlin.

But it meant Saturday I was off to parkrun on my own.

Ben decided to have a lie-in instead which I could totally understand and I went down early to help set up.

It’s always a nice crew of people who volunteer setting up so there’s always a bit of banter and good conversation which helped with me being Ben-less.

Ben and me recently got Steve Way t-shirts so I wore mine to test it out.

My not-so-pregnant-anymore running friend was at parkrun which was lovely. Ages ago I posted about how she was still running while pregnant and doing amazingly (find it HERE). Well she had her baby boy about 10 weeks ago and has been getting back into running. So when we started parkrun and she was running a good clip I decided to hang on to her a bit – it’s always easier following someone doing a good pace than doing it on your own.Karen, my not-so-pregnant-anymore friend, running next to me

I felt good on the last lap so decided to speed up a little bit and managed to get 22:08 and third female which I was chuffed about. Nice tempo run!

Then, after clearing down, it was back to the Wounded Soldier. I let him off housework duties so he could mope a bit more and then we had to dash for some coffee with Ben’s mum.

Alfie loves Ben’s mum as she always gives him doggie chocolates

Then I managed to persuade Ben to go for dinner at Nando’s for our friend, Nathan’s, birthday.

Whole chicken and double salad = perfection

Chicken and beer, what more could you need? While chomping away on chicken Ben and Nathan planned to do a swim in the morning and then a cycle. I was planning a long run so decided to join the cycle afterwards.

The next morning I got up early and did 13.1 miles. It did feel like a hard slog for the first half and from mile four onwards I started getting very thirsty. I foolishly hadn’t brought any water thinking the temperature was cool enough. I started fantasying about drinks and wondered if I could beg for water from a shop as I had no money. At 7.5 miles I realised I was quite close to Ben’s mum’s house and as it was 9.15am it wasn’t too early…I rang her and she was more than happy with me dropping by to grab some water. Bliss! Bit of a strange experience to talk to someone on the phone mid-run though!

Ignore the fact that the mile numbers don’t make sense – I stopped to stretch after the first mile and randomly stopped my Garmin completely. So annoying! The run took just under 1:50 which I’m pleased with. I felt stronger towards the end so picked up the pace a bit. It’s funny because Saturday’s parkrun the work was all happening in my lungs and heart, whereas Sunday’s run my lungs and heart felt fine, it was all to do with my legs which is how it should be I think.

After getting back and foam rolling a bit I then had breakfast and quickly changed my top to get ready to cycle with the boys.

Straight away my legs felt like lead. It was a good cycle but it was tough. Usually our 15 mile route is fine and I can speed off along the straights but honestly I felt like an old lady. But it was nice to spin the legs. When we got home it took about 10 minutes for me to take my socks off though as I was so shattered.

As Ben and Nathan went to the pub to watch the football, I showered, reluctantly walked (shuffled?) Alfie round the block and then promptly collapsed onto the sofa with half a watermelon and chilled for a bit. Then Ben returned and we headed to my parent’s for the piece de resistance…afternoon tea.

Awkwardly Ben’s football team had lost and my dad’s football team had won (same match) but they were good sports about it (whew). It also helped Ben was four beers down by the this point and like a hyperactive child.

We went to the same place we went last week (The Tea Rooms in Lee-on-Solent) and it was lovely. Roast chicken sandwiches, a beautifully tasting scone with cream and jam and carrot cake. Ben had coconut and lemon cake and my dad had Victoria sponge (my mum just had cream tea).

As we went for a walk along the seafront Ben spotted an ice cream shop and jokingly (or so I thought) said he really fancied ice cream. I called his bluff and he so he went and bought one!

By this point Ben is both hyped up on alcohol and sugar. Bouncing all around the place, climbing walls and just generally being good fun. I’m glad he was feeling in a better mood (even if it was under the influence…).

Finally a happy chappy with his ice cream 🙂

And then we headed home to crash, both from exertion and sugar, on the sofa. Another weekend complete.

When you’re feeling down, how do you make yourself happy again?

What’s your favourite ice cream? I really can’t stand the Mr Whippy ice creams, I like the proper stuff!

Have you ever cycled after a long run? Triathletes are just amazing! It was very hard.

August 12, 2014

The one with all the selfies…

This past weekend was quite a strange one for me. Ben was off camping for a running event called Ultra 12 (solo or relay runners running Saturday 7pm until Sunday 7am). I had planned on doing it as well and being part of a team of six with Ben but as it got closer I realised my time was probably better spent focusing on the marathon.

I didn’t feel too bad leaving the team because this actually meant they could get more laps in without me and they’d get a better running experience (I hoped) from it. Obviously I was sad I wasn’t going and being part of the team but I knew my decision was sensible (albeit boring). I’d get to go to parkrun on Saturday and do a longish run Sunday.

This past week or so I’ve had a few niggles I wanted to put to bed so have been focusing a bit more on cycling and hoping the niggles don’t develop further. So far so good. Just means I haven’t been able to run as far in my long runs as I’d want at this point. But I’m not dwelling on it or panicking.

Friday night I was on my own and watch the Dallas Buyers Club (a film I knew Ben wouldn’t want to watch) occasionally interrupted with a few selfies from the husband to keep me informed of all his good behaviour…

Preparing well for the race the next day

Saturday morning I cycled the four miles to parkrun and helped them set up.

Parkrun selfie

Then ran a nice and easy parkrun with a friend from my club. I just ran on feel and didn’t want to push it but felt good at the end and picked up the pace a bit (to the surprise of my running partner, whoops!) I would like this documented that this was my first ever royal flush negative split parkrun (I know it’s only three miles but still, this is something for me!)

Very pleased with that! Then I helped pack up and cycled back home.

Ben was away until Sunday lunchtime-ish so I’d planned on hanging with the parentals for Saturday until Sunday morning, where I’d planned to do a nice long run along the seafront (as my parent’s live closer to the sea than we do).

I took Alfie with me and we headed there at lunchtime. I enjoyed a nice walk down to the local village with my parents to pick up some supplies for the evening dinner.

Then we had a nice lunch and headed out for another walk, this time along the seafront to stop for coffee in one of the little tea rooms. The walk was very windy but lovely in the sunshine.

I do love being near the sea. And this helped take my mind off that I was missing out on all the Ultra fun and Ben 🙁

Sea-side selfie

I sent some selfies to Ben and he responded likewise so I sort of felt in the loop.

Ben and Nathan

The weather was looking to turn to the worst however…

Some less happy than others!

Anyway, back to the walk. Our plan was to have coffee and to also buy a slice of cake each to have after dinner. Well that did not work out at all after seeing the amazing selection and having worked up a bit of an appetite for a snack.

Yeah right I could walk a slice of cake the two miles back to the car without eating it!! We all agreed cake would be far better now than after dinner. Good decision, yes?

That absolute beast of a slab is red velvet. So. Damn. Good. My dad had an incredibly sized slice of carrot cake and my mum had the same as me. I think I need to return though for test purposes because they said they had a cinnamon bun cake and I’ve never tried one of those before.

Our walk back was powdered by cake; we were stuffed! As we continued to walk we all agreed our planned steak dinner was probably not a good idea anymore. It’s a shame because it was going to be Steak Diane and this is one of my favourite recipes my dad cooks.

Anyway we had a lazy evening of a snacky dinner (soup for me) and a good film, the Guilt Trip. This film is just made to watch with your mum. Seriously. It was very funny and the perfect choice for the evening…while Ben and the team were working hard in the night…

Head torches to the rescue?

The next morning I planned on running 10 miles down the beach…until I looked outside.

It was absolutely pelting it down and the wind was unbelievable. Hurricane Bertha was saying good morning it seemed. Running along the beach in this? No thank you! I’m not a fair weather runner (I’ll run in wind, rain and snow any day) but this was stupid. I’d get blown away! My parents agreed I shouldn’t go out so instead I enjoyed a bit of Xbox with my dad (geek at heart I’m afraid).

Then I made my way home and had the lovely company of my returned exhausted runner. The team absolutely smashed it and came first for the mixed relay runners – how about that! They were amazing and I’m so glad they all enjoyed it. Ben managed four laps (of the 5 mile course) so he was pretty spent for the rest of the day.

His well deserved medal still round his neck

I’m a very proud wife! He did amazingly. Though I don’t regret not going, I am sad I wasn’t involved and didn’t get to see them all do so well. Next year!

What films have you seen lately?

Have you ever done a relay race?

Do you enjoy spending time with your parents? My parents and me are very close and I’m not ashamed to say I like spending time with them. And Ben’s mother in law as well. I’m very lucky to have such a lovely family! (Cheese alert sorry)

August 6, 2014August 6, 2014

Something different for once

I’m not a big drinker. It’s not that I don’t drink for a particular reason, I just never feel the need. I don’t go out clubbing or go to pubs to drink. I tend to go to pubs to eat! Ben loves a glass of red at the weekend but I just don’t have the taste for wine.

I like a crisp cold G&T occasionally, and an exciting cocktail on a special occasion but otherwise I’m good. Except last week sucked. I was stressed and had a few down moments and was looking forward the weekend like crazy. Ben finishes at 12.30 on a Friday so had planned a boy’s afternoon/night down the pub leaving me pretty much a spinster on Friday night. I’d planned to watch a film and just go to bed early. Humph.

Until he graciously extended the invite to me as well when he realised I needed a bit of cheering up. Go to the pub? Well why not! That’ll definitely de-stress me. We decided to take a day off from parkrun the next day and actually get a lie-in for once so I didn’t need to worry about what time to get to bed as I had no set time to get up. Perfecto.

After work I headed straight for the pub and joined the drinking wagon (which by this point was merrily trucking along). I ordered and drank my first ever Desperados. And it went down a treat.

We hadn’t eaten dinner yet so we ordered food. Two huge sharing platters of Mexican chicken, chicken dipper things and other fried goodies. Then on to the main event.

I was hugely surprised that the menu had quite a few salad options (you know how I love my salads) but even more surprising was that you could order a side of BBQ ribs. I mean seriously this menu was made for me. So I got my chickpea chicken salad with a side of ribs. As you do.

The evening was good fun and a lot of laughs. Ben got fairly drunk, which was hugely amusing. I must say I did get fairly tipsy (I managed 4 Desperados). My lie in until 9am the next day was blissful and entirely necessary.

We’d planned a walk in the New Forest and invited our friend Nathan with us (also in attendance at the pub).

All looking a little tired and delicate

Ben and Nathan was somewhat delicate but I think the fresh air really helped. Or at least I told them it would and stop moaning 😉

We took Alfie along as well and he absolutely loved it. Incidentally it turns out this was the same route we ran for the MarathonTalk weekend long run! We didn’t realise until we arrived.

We walked 3.75miles and stopped for lunch in a lovely little pub called the Royal Oaks. The menu was small and all home-made. No chips (fries) in sight. Just ploughman’s, dressed crab (!), fresh sausage rolls and pork pies. Nath and I went for crab with salad, Ben went for a sausage roll and we shared a cheese and gammon ploughman’s because we were hungry (and hello my name is Anna the food machine).

It was so tasty. Everything fresh and homemade (even the chutney in little mini jam jars – and there was an apple as well!).

My crab was amazing. The boys had salted caramel and honeycomb ice cream and we were raring to go again. It was funny because we’d all forgotten to turn off our Garmins when we first arrived which we was a bit annoying as our pace had been quite consistent and then we all had to keep clicking our watches every so often to stop them from power saving and turning off. So there was a lot of beeping during our meal.

A Ben selife

We continued on our set route which was actually quite tough. Some gradual inclines and deep sandy tracks. Glad I wasn’t running it!

The full route was 8.5 miles and we did it in around 2 hours 43 minutes. Not too shabby. Though obvious we had a break in the middle!

We were all shattered at the end, Alfie included. And stupidly thirsty. We had to stop at the services on the way home to buy drinks. I unwisely chose Diet Mountain Dew. The luminous colour of the bottle should have been a warning to me, it tasted so chemical and wrong. Bad choice. Not Fanta Zero for sure.

We dropped Nathan off and Ben and I promptly flopped on the sofa for some quality relaxing time watching How to Train Your Dragon (this film is AMAZING, I want a dragon!!).

Do you enjoy going for a long walk in the countryside?

What’s your favourite pub meal?

Do you drink? What’s your beverage of choice?

July 23, 2014October 28, 2016

Stansted Slog Half Marathon

There is absolutely no other way to describe this half marathon but by it’s apt title – The Slog. That is the first word that came to my mind on finishing.

A few of our running friends mentioned this half to Ben and me and persuaded us to do it (who am I kidding that I need persuading to do a half marathon? Favourite distance!) It’s described as off-road, challenging and undulating/hilly. I’d go ahead and remove the word undulating and just stick with plain old hilly. Going into this I had only one real goal: to finish uninjured. I had a soft goal of finishing in under 2:15 but finishing uninjured was most important.

That is some sweet elevation. Maybe nothing compared to some hardened hill-loving runners out there, but for this road racer it was a shock.

My main worry was flaring my hip issue up again. Remember Endure? Yeah off-road stuff doesn’t seem to help things. But all body parts felt good so I thought just give it a bash, have some fun and enjoy the scenery. It’s not a goal race for me and I needed to do 13 miles.

With Ben’s mum and my parents in tow, Ben and me headed to the lovely Stansted House in Havant on Sunday morning.

We met up with a small number of fellow Hedgies and enjoyed the very lovely facilities. Not a portable loo in sight.

It was all very relaxed, friendly and had a local feeling to it. There was a marathon relay going on but there was only 150ish runners for the half.

Lovely and informal

At 10.30am we stood in a huddle at the start and the race director counted down and shouted “go!”

I bombed it straight away. Hear me out, my logic was “run as fast as you can while you’re able”. I knew the elevation would rip into me so I thought I’d go for it while I could. The two mum’s cheered us on (then headed to the coffee shop, bless them. My dad had already headed out to his spectator spot further on).

The first few miles were through woodland area and it instantly felt like one of my much loved (*cough*) RR10s so my speed was somewhat limited. Well ,what was I expecting?

Depressingly several women overtook me almost straight away. Massive respect to them though, I didn’t see them again for the rest of the race. I saw my dad at this point. I love my dad but why does he feel the need to tell me how many girls are in front of me? Like I’m going to catch them?! He’s as competitive as me!

Anyway mile two came and another girl overtook me and stayed just ahead. We played a bit of position-swapping for a while until I managed to absolutely cane it on a downhill and get enough distance between us to not see her again.

Mile five was an absolute BEAST. We hit this mountain hill and I made a feeble attempt to continue running and realised it was causing more harm then good. Everyone else had started walking so I joined in. No shame.

As we finally got to the top, we ran freely across some fields with such beautiful views. I had my phone and I thought if ever there was a time for a race selfie, now’s it.

A man ran past me and saluted my photo taking. He even offered to take one of me but I declined, very kind of him though.

Finger on lens sorry – best I could do while still running!

I don’t remember every single mile, but there was lots of running through fields, up and over stiles, through kissing gates, up hill and after hill. I broke the race into three parts. There was a drinks station just before 3 miles, half way and just before 9 miles. So I went with those segments, knowing at mile 10 the significant hills had finished and it was just a parkrun left.

I didn’t bother looking at my watch because a) the mile markers were out from it (as expected) and b) my pace was all over the place with the hills. So I just put in some effort and tried to keep going. I won’t lie, before halfway I wanted to stop. It was very warm and I was being destroyed by the inclines. I should have taken water with me as I was desperately thirsty between the drinks stations. And my heart rate monitor was chafing so much so that I had to take it off.

I had taken some mango puree with me to try on the race in place of a gel.

Yep it’s baby food. I’m experimenting, what can I say? But I didn’t fancy it at all. With the hot weather it would be warm mango puree. Yeah no thanks.

I saw my dad again at the last drinks station and was far happier by this point. He asked if I was on target but I didn’t know how to answer as I didn’t really have a target. It was nice to see him and I gave him the mango puree and my sweaty HR monitor as a thank you 😉

The drinks stations were so different to what I usually find at road racers. I would usually grab one and keep running as I drink. But everyone would fully stop at the station, grab a drink and almost leisurely drink it before toddling on. I followed suit – lovely and relaxed!

I got back on the trail and was off again. I was in such good spirits at this point. I was surviving! I wasn’t able to catch another woman ahead of me sadly – though we also played the overtake game as well. She was amazing at the uphills and by the end she was a blip in the horizon. By this point I was firmly set in my position and was happy to remain that way following the people in front. The runners were very stretched out though so sadly no in-race conversation happened. It felt a bit lonely at times.

On the last mile I was visualising the 13 mile marker that we saw when we drove in towards the car park. The last mile was all through woodland on a narrow path and I knew when we got out of there I’d see the sign and it would be the home straight. I saw a family walking ahead and they kindly moved to the side. I ran past and shouted “one mile left!” they cheered and laughed.

I broke free of the lovely shade and saw the mile marker and the two mums. They clapped and cheered and it was brilliant. Then a nice 500m downhill to the finish.

Whew! I got as much water as I could and then stumbled back to the two mums to collapse in a heap and cheer the other runners on.

I felt exhausted! But in a good way.

My official time was 1:53:09 and fifth female. What I’m really chuffed about is that I beat my target and I beat my half marathon time from last year’s off-road crazy hilly Cheddar Gorge race (I think I got 1:58 something). But I found it so much harder than Cheddar Gorge. There were just so many uphills and inclines.

Ben ran past and we cheered him on. He finished in 2:09:16.

He didn’t have a great race. His ankle is still not 100% and it was fairly uneven underfoot. Ben also doesn’t run well (his words not mine) in the heat. He really struggles when it gets too hot. But considering he did Cheddar Gorge in 2:52 he did amazingly.

The other Hedgies did so well too. All coming in not long after. Everyone agreed it was brutal. We were all shattered and sort of broken.

My heart rate monitor had ravaged my chest and was so painful.

Apologies for the tummy shot!

OK it doesn’t look that brutal there at all but I assure you it is raw and even worse under the sports bra – like hideous. I almost cried in the shower later when the water hit it. So so painful. I had tried the Polar HR monitor strap a few days previously with the Garmin monitor bit as I’d heard that was better but it kept popping off. I really like wearing it though for the extra data. I need more Vaseline I think (or any, I’d forgotten to put some on…). Good job I’m not going anywhere requiring a bikini!!

As some consolation, I managed to swag a bit of birthday cake that had been presented to one of the runners pre-race.

All was well again in my world!

My dad appeared a little while after Ben had finished. He’d walked a fair way to see us at that 10 mile point and had just made it back. I’m so proud of him for walking so far and trying to be more healthy (he’s trying to lose weight) and also so grateful for him being so supportive of our running. But when he moaned to me about his one blister, I may have wanted to punch him.

On leaving the race the race director told us to wait as he grabbed two platters of cake to give us and thanked us all (the Hedge End guys) for coming. How nice is that??

That bread pudding was AMAZING

And then we all said goodbye and the parents and us headed to find food for lunch. At this point I was actually OK without food considering I’d just eaten two bits of cake fairly quickly and I’m never that hungry post race.

We found a lovely pub in Rowlands Castle (disappointingly, there is no castle) and I had a nice goat’s cheese and beetroot salad which ordinarily I might have scoffed at as it was quite small with literally four ingredients (leaves, bit of onion, goat’s cheese, beetroot). But it was perfect for my cake-filled (though heart-rate monitor ravaged) tummy.

I have to say all in all this race was the hardest race I’ve ever done. The heat, hills and uneven terrain just killed any sort of speed and killed my legs. But it was challenging in a way that invigorated me. Pace isn’t everything in a race. The scenery, the camaraderie, the feeling of completing something bloody hard just made the race for me. Everyone nodding to each other at the end like “we survived, we are invincible”. You can’t buy that feeling of accomplishment.

What’s the hardest race you’ve ever done?

Do you wear a HR monitor – does it ever chafe you? How do you solve this??

If you had to choose hills and cool weather or heat and flat, what would you choose?