Snack Monster

The heating is on. The big fluffy socks are out. The winter coat is being embraced. My early morning walks with Alfie are becoming very chilly. And when I say chilly, I mean COLD. I don’t understand dogs really. Alfie never looks cold. He never grumbles about going out in the cold or rain. He gets so excited regardless of what outside is like. I think we all need a bit of that relentless joy in our lives.

So I’m joining the fun with What I Ate Wednesday today:

Hosted by the lovely Jenn (check her blog for more info)

Honestly, I have become a hungry beast. Runger is going crazy in these parts. I am a snack MACHINE. At work my drawer is full of different snacks.

Snack drawer

Yes that is a salt shaker there; it’s for my popcorn Winking smile

Some relatively healthy (dried fruit, olives, pumpkin seeds) and some not so healthy (cranberry cookie, chocolates and sweets). This isn’t one day’s worth of snacks though! Usually in the day I’ll have my first snack about an hour or so after lunch, then another snack an hour before going home. Then I’ll have an evening snack after dinner.

There are lots of opinions as to whether snacking is healthy or not. For me at the moment, snacking is what I need. I haven’t vastly changed what I’ve been eating for my actual meals since training for the marathon but I have bumped up my snacks. I hate feeling so full and bloated after lunch or diner so I make sure my extra calories come from snacks around those meals. Plus I love food, so more time eating different food is a win in my eyes.

I recently got a Groupon voucher for Flavourly which is kind of a more elaborate foodie Graze. They send a box of assorted treats to you every month. So I tried it out.

**I have not been compensated for this review or been contacted by Flavourly, these are just my opinions**

Flavourly

I got loads of different items, such a curry kit, salad dressing, aubergine and basil paste (you should have seen Ben’s face with this one)… I’m not sure I’ll carry on my subscription only because it’s quite expensive but I enjoyed it as a once off. So many different things I’d never tried before.

I especially enjoyed these:

Bacon popcorn

Maple syrup and bacon popcorn. You know I love my popcorn but this rocked my world. SO tasty. Kind of salty and sweet. Don’t be scared of the bacon!!

I also enjoyed these dried apple crisps:

Apple crisps

Because I don’t eat enough apples I thought I better have these to up my intake Winking smile I was impressed that they were literally just apple slices. Nothing else in there.

And yes, I have been very much indulging in less than stellar snacks as well. You need a balance.

Chocolates

These were the special chocolates I paid a fortune for bought the other week. Unfortunately I’d forgotten what they all were, so it was a magical mystery tour of chocolates. I’m one of those people who spend ages looking at the chocolate flavours before trying one – no Russian roulette for me in the chocolate world.

And, for evening meals, I’m still loving my slow cooker.

Bean, squash and lentil stew

Bean, lentil and butternut squash stew

I used THIS recipe. I had to switch the chickpeas with cannellini beans though as I’d run out. This was so filling, hearty and tasty. Ben didn’t like it as much…apparently there were “a lot of vegetables”. Pft! He’s not on-board with the obsession with squash or lentils…

So after my first ever 17 mile run on Sunday I decided it would be sensible to not go to spin Monday morning. I definitely needed that day off! I slept for like 10 hours straight Sunday night. On reflection I’m changing my marathon training plan so that Mondays are my day off instead of Wednesday. Seems wise. My body thanked me for it. My hamstrings were so tight!

What’s your opinion on snacking? As much as I can Winking smile

What are your favourite snacks? Apples.

How many rest days do you take in a week? I have at least one rest day a week where I do nothing except walk Alfie.

Friday Favourites

Happy Friday! I cannot believe how quickly time is flying. I’m started to get those pre-Christmas panics (you know the ones…cards, presents, food, decorations). But it’s still October. Whew.

I thought I’d do a post on some stuff I’m loving lately.

Treats in the office:

Although it’s always sad when someone leaves, I do fully appreciate them buying cakes for us to indulge in. Or having a wife that bakes cake and has leftovers!

Office treats

Clockwise: Halloween themed cupcake, oat and raisin cookie, caramel cupcake

Delicious! Nothing like cake to brighten up a day in the office.

Ben embracing the plank challenge:

I’ve been trying to do planks every other day, usually in an evening in my PJs just before bed. Ben sits on the sofa watching TV muttering some weak words of encouragement (“come on, it’s not that hard”). So when I’d collapsed into a heap on the floor I turned and challenge him to do a plank. I scoffed that he wouldn’t manage a minute.

Ben planking

Challenge accepted and accomplished! He proved me very wrong. He did a very successful minute plank. He refused to go further than a minute though. Apparently proving me wrong was enough.

Doing stretches in the ladies’ toilet:

Yeah it sounds weird. Yeah it is weird. I need to get these stretches in and so I’m squeezing them in wherever I can. Nothing major, just hip flexor stretches and pendulum kickbacks.

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I live stretch in fear of someone walking in and seeing me though…Not like I haven’t already got a reputation at work of being a little bit strange (mug incident).

Slow cooker meals:

I’ve been enjoying a fair few slow cooker meals recently and I’m loving it.

Slow cooker

It does involve a little preparation either the night before or in the morning, but it saves so much time in an evening. Perfect for when I’m back late. More on my favourite recipes to come!

Running in thunder storms:

My eight mile run on Tuesday evening began with some scattered bits of lightening which was all very exciting. On mile four, however, the heavens opened up and it was a crazy downpour!

Running in the rain

Sorry that the video is a bit rubbish! You can see how hard it was raining in the puddles though. When I got home I was soaked and ready for a lovely hot shower.

Running in the rain

Doing my best drowned rat impersonation

But other than getting drenched, it was a good run. I kept it fairly easy running 8.30-8min/miles. I wanted to ease gently back in to it after my niggle reoccurrence and also with the race on Sunday.

My best friend and worst enemy:

I recently got a new foam roller as I found my smooth one wasn’t quite ironing out all my kinks. So I upgraded to this bad boy:

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A Trigger Point foam roller. It has ridges in it to mimic a person’s hand, attempting to emulate a sports massage. I love it. It really does get into your muscles and work hard. Plus it’s nice and small to tuck away easily. Now if only I could take this to work and use it in the ladies’…

Cold weather running gear:

I can run in the cold no problem. I get warm quickly and it doesn’t bother me. All except my hands. They never get warm on runs. Last winter I just used regular gloves and they were sort of OK but a nightmare when I wanted to do something on my iPod. Now I have some great running-specific gloves with a thumb area that works on the iPod/phone screen!!

Nike Running Gloves

Plus they just look cool and aren’t bulky. In fact I feel a bit like a magician in them Open-mouthed smile

And here’s some random links for your viewing pleasure:

What things are you loving lately?

What’s your essential workout item?

Foam rollers: do you use them? I can’t live without mine now.

A spot of afternoon tea

Hello! It’s Wednesday – half way there! Not that I’m living for the weekend or anything… Winking smile

This week I’m joining the blogging link-up What I Ate Wednesday and share the delightful treats and meals I’ve been loving lately. Pop over to Jenn’s blog to see what’s going down Smile

 

So here’s a recap of Saturday’s eats as they were pretty damn good. As I mentioned in my last post, I didn’t run Parkrun on Saturday. This was really hard and sad for me. Without sounding overly dramatic, it sucked. Ben went but I went to spin instead. I could have volunteered but I wanted to get the endorphins going and to be honest I was in a bad mood.

And let me tell you, spin was hard core. The usual person was sick apparently so we had a stand-by person do it. I assumed it would be a cop-out session. Ha. Usually we have little breaks between songs but not this time. It was just non-stop. And then the instructor goes “right, time for a 5 minute sprint”. Seriously?! It was 30 seconds of sprints, with about 10 seconds recovery, over 5 minutes. I was a sweaty mess.

After this I had my usual breakfast:

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Same old same old. Porridge (oatmeal), almond milk and chia seeds.

Then after getting ready and usual house stuff, Ben and me headed to my parent’s where I dropped Ben off for some ‘man-time’ with my dad to watch the football and play Xbox. I picked my mum up and we headed off for a lovely spot of afternoon tea for lunch.

Besides from getting immensely stressed out trying to find a car park in the world’s smallest village square and ending up giving up and parking in a ditch, we arrived at Lilly’s Tearoom in Wickham in one piece (not always guaranteed when I drive).

We ordered soup to start because we weren’t sure afternoon tea would be an adequate lunch (rookie error right there).

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Delicious pea and ham soup

I loved how beautiful all the crockery was. In fact, the whole tearoom was beautifully decorated and the service was fabulous.

Tea at Lillys

Obviously we had tea Smile

And then our ‘main’…

Afternoon tea

Heaven! We had the choice of so many different cakes (carrot, chocolate, lemon drizzle, coffee and walnut, rocky road, millionaire shortbread or Victoria sponge). Well, my mum and me both adore Victoria sponge so we both went for a slice of that. It also came with crustless chicken sandwiches and crustless cucumber sandwiches (but of course!) and scones with clotted cream and jam.

Yeah so we clearly did not need that soup!! We were both quite full by the end, only leaving a couple of the sandwiches (choose your battles I say – cakes all the way). It was perfect.

And then we looked round the little square at all the lovely little shops. And lo and behold I found the most amazing chocolate shop.

Chocolate shop Wickham

Because after so much cake, surely this makes sense??

So many beautiful and tasty looking chocolates! Well, I pushed the boat out and went crazy. I bought Ben and me a box to share.

Box of chocolates

I forgot to take a photo of inside, but I will share soon as it’s pretty impressive

The shopkeeper thought it was hilarious that I was buying this for just Ben and me to eat ourselves. How terribly indulgent, I know Winking smile

Well, dinner wasn’t needed for quite a long time afterwards! Luckily Ben had had a pub lunch so we were both happy to have a nice late dinner.

Roast sausages and veg

I kept it simple and had roasted vegetables and sausages. I threw in a chopped cooking apple as well (because I don’t eat enough apples – it’s something I’m trying to work on Winking smile). I threw some herbs on it (rosemary and thyme) and then drizzled it with some oil and balsamic vinegar. LOVED this. Definitely happening again. And so easy – everything just went in a casserole dish and then in the oven for 20ish minutes.

And that’s that!

Last night I went for an easy 8 mile run and it felt pretty good. No pain, no major discomfort. Just a bit of aching but I was more concerned with the raging thunderstorm going around me! But more on that another day.

Have you ever had afternoon tea? I think it’s pretty much the best thing in the world. OK I’m easily swayed by anything cake-related.

What treats do you like to buy? A box of chocolates is fairly extravagant for us, but I just couldn’t help myself. Usually it’s Cadbury’s chocolate or Lindt!

What’s your favourite filling in a sandwich? I am a bit turkey or chicken fan, with loads of salad. And cranberry sauce.

Solent Half Marathon (1:40:34)

So you know how I said I wasn’t going to race the half marathon on Sunday…well I didn’t technically race it, but I did go a lot faster than I originally intended.

To be honest, I had no idea where my head was at for this race. I went into it with absolutely no plans. In retrospect I don’t want to do that again. I’m not a big fan of not planning my paces or at least having an idea of paces before a race!

Ben and me arrived at the race (which was only 30 minutes away) with my dad who had kindly come to support us (he loves cheering us on and he was excited that this was the first half marathon he could actually come and see).

Pre-Solent Half

It’s a league race so we’ve got our running club vests on

Originally I was supposed to run 16 miles on Sunday but then I signed up randomly to this half marathon. So I decided to run two warm-up miles and then a cool down mile at the end to make it up.

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My dad at this point had marched off to where he was planning on supporting from (around the 5 mile mark). And we headed to the start. The race was chip timed but we soon found out it was only chip timed for the finish. I was stood with the ladies from my running club and we were so far from the front. Very frustrating.

Anyway, we started running and I straight away found myself running with one of the girls from the club and we just matched each other nicely. I did get a bit concerned because we were starting quite fast (7.40mins.mile)…and we didn’t slow.

I’m not really used to running races with other people. I’m also not used to running such long distances WITHOUT MUSIC either. There was a ‘no headphones rule’ for this race as the roads weren’t closed. I can’t tell you how much this sucked. I get bored quite easily and feed a lot from music. Hey ho!

Solent half 3miles

This was around mile three

As we carried on running I realised that I wasn’t going to take this easy. It was nice to run with someone else. It was her first half marathon and she told me she’d “hang on” for as long as she could. But to be honest I don’t know who was pacing who! Then another girl from the running club joined us and we became a power trio, keeping each other going.

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I saw my dad around mile 5 and he snapped a photo and cheered us all on

I found this race quite tough. There were a few nasty slow inclines and a couple of sneaky hills. I didn’t know what pace to keep to and constantly worried I was going to fast for our little group, or not fast enough. It was really hard mentally. I’m so used to running races on my own! But it was nice to have them there.

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Finally the finish!

Physically, I didn’t breeze through this one like the Bristol half. Maybe because it was ‘undulating’, maybe because I hadn’t gone into the race mentally prepared to run fast, maybe it was the extra two miles before the race, who knows! Though I’d say I wasn’t properly struggling until around mile 11, then it became really tough.

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My official time was 1:40:34. I came 9th in my age category and 25th female (173rd overall out 375). Ben helped pace a girl from our running club round and finished 2:08:48. He really enjoyed it.

After finishing and getting the goody bag I saw my dad and then headed off for a mile cool down. Oh man my legs were not happy to start running again. They were so stiff! So I kept it nice and easy!!

This was definitely not my favourite race. It pushed me mentally (no headphones, running with two others, no game plan) and physically (faster than I intended and hills). And the weather was pretty terrible. But I’m glad I did it. Not every race can be a great one! I’m happy with my time don’t get me wrong and it felt like a great work out. I just wished I’d have enjoyed it a bit more!

OH, and there were no medals. NO MEDALS. Shocking.

We did get one of those Choob scarf things though so that’s a slight consolation. It’ll be a good running scarf when it gets colder!

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And as a side note, I love this photo my dad took on his walk to the five mile point:

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It looks like the horse is about to charge him haha.

After the race, Ben, my dad and me were freezing when we drove back home. So wet and cold. I thoroughly enjoyed my shower when I got back!

And the cake I wolfed down Winking smile [from our Brighton adventures]:

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I microwaved that beauty for a minute and thoroughly enjoyed just over half of it before feeling sick. Ben feebly managed a third of his. Pft! Poor effort.

Race + cake = happy Anna

How do you keep yourself entertained on a run? I always listen to a podcast on long runs or for races listen to music. It pumps me up and keeps me going. Though running with a group at running club is good too.

Who’s your biggest race supporter? My dad loves supporting us and he’ll always listen to me yabber on about running. He’s brilliant.

What do you like to get in a race goody bag? It’s all about the medal for me.

Delicious treats in Brighton

Hey hey hey. Welcome back Monday, what a joy you are…

This weekend has been exhausting to say the least. I am shattered. But it was great!

Saturday Ben and me had to sadly miss Parkrun as we were heading to Brighton around 9ish. We both got up early to head out for a run though. Ben ran with his friend and I ran solo listening to a podcast. I love running on my own as long as I have something to listen to. The white noise in my head is not very entertaining.

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I’d planned a tempo run so aimed to do at least three of the middle miles speedy (somewhere around 7.20-7.30mins/mile). I set off at a nice warm-up pace and then found the speed came quite easily and I just tried to hold on to it for the entire run.

Then lots of foam rolling and stretching before racing around to get ready. This might have involved eating a bowl of porridge (oatmeal) in the car as we set off!

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Brighton is beautiful. After catching up over coffee, my friends and me set out for a lovely long walk along the Brighton promenade to the famous Palace (Brighton) Pier.

Brighton beach

I didn’t actually get a good photo of the pier but I did get lots of photo of tasty snacks we had (pier or snacks…hmm I know what I’d choose!!). IMG_5367

I got some extortionately priced frozen yogurt with fruit salad in it. Heavenly. But bloody freezing!!! My friends chose chips (fries to you Americans out there Winking smile) but my heart was set on fro-yo and I had seen something else that I instantly knew I wanted.

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CHURROS!! It was a serious mental battle though because I also wanted a toffee apple but I knew I’d feel incredibly sick if I got both #firstworldproblems

So Ben and me shared a bag of FOUR churros. Two each and I could have gone back for more. We also got melted chocolate to dip them in. That, my friends, is heaven right there.

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We larked about a bit and enjoyed the arcade, a few of my friends tried the bucking bronco (hilarious) and, dodging the seagulls, we headed into town with one important mission. Find the Choccywoccydoodah shop. This is possibly the best chocolate shop ever. They make chocolate everything. The level of carving and sculpting skills is phenomenal. They even have a TV programme about this shop. So I was excited to say the least.

We first found the Choccywoccydoodah cafe where they sell chocolate-related drinks, coffees and cakes. IMG_5381

I all but threw myself at the cakes. Ben went for a hot chocolate (made with melted chocolate) and (still feeling a little full from churros and fro-yo) I decided to buy two slices of cake to gobble up immediately for Sunday after our half marathon.

The pieces the lady cut I can only describe as monsters. They were HUGE. She advised that we microwave them, add a dollop of ice cream, put our jogging bottoms on, close the curtains and enjoy Winking smile That’s my kind of advice!

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Ben very much enjoyed his hot chocolate. I enjoyed stealing a (full-sized!) marshmallow or two off him Winking smile

We found the actual shop close by. They had all their Halloween displays out. They always have a theme. This year it was pet cemetery. So there were lots of carved chocolate animals about!

Choccywoccydoodah display

Once inside the shop you just didn’t know where to look. So many decadent delights. Skulls carved from white chocolate. Chocolate tombstones. Chocolate cakes. Rocky road slabs.

Choccywoccydoodah

Amazingly I didn’t buy a thing. Maybe this was because I had two very weighty slices of cake with me Winking smile

We enjoyed a late lunch at a lovely little pub near to my friend’s flat. I had the chicken Caesar salad.

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It was amazing. Good amount of parmesan and anchovies. Crunchy croutons. Spot on.

Then it was time to say goodbye to Brighton and head home for an early night before the Solent Half Marathon the next day…

I’ll leave you with this photo. Sunday’s post-race dinner.

Choccywoccydoodah cake

Sicilian lemon cake and chocolate icing, with strawberry sauce and melted chocolate all over it (because why not!!). I don’t even need to tell you how good this was.

What did you get up to this weekend?

Have you ever been to Brighton? What are your highlights? I wish we could have seen more but we were only there for the day and it was more important to catch up with my friends.

Have you heard of Choccywoccydoodah? It’s amazing. That is all.