Out of the ordinary - AnnaTheApple

November 3, 2016

Eye update and Halloween adventures

So my eyes are five days out from having had LASIK laser eye surgery.

They’re feeling pretty damn good I have to say. My vision is clear and I can see perfectly. The only thing I’m noticing is a bit of dry eyes, which is normal and probably exacerbated by having to stare at a computer screen for eight hours a day. I also still have very bloodshot eyes.

I take three different types of drops four times a day (5-10 mins apart) which is annoying to remember but I have an alarm set on my phone (always funny when you forget about that and leave the office to go to the loo and get back and everyone is staring at you as your phone has been going off for the past five mins…).

I managed to solve the hair washing conundrum as well. As I’m not allowed to get my eyes wet at all, washing my long hair is a bit of an issue. I’ve been using goggles for non-hair washing days but really my hair can only last three days before it really needs a wash. There’s only so much dry shampoo can do when you go to the gym as often as I do.

Instead of goggles (as that would have been impossible) I decided to use my eye guards that I have to wear at night. I attached them to my face using the special medical tape and jumped in the shower. I was very careful to not fully submerge my head as the guards aren’t that secure and have holes in them for ventilation but it protected them enough for me to get the job done. Whew!

Also, wearing sun glasses outside has been somewhat embarrassing when it’s not sunny at all and rather overcast. I look like I’m avoiding the paparazzi and am about to screech, “no photos!” at any moment. And it’s very tricky walking Alfie in sun glasses in the evening when it’s pitch black. But only a few days left to endure this – and it’s fully worth it.

It still stands that the worst day post-surgery was the few hours after surgery. I never did fully recap that evening…It was Halloween weekend and I’d planned on going out with my friends for some pub crawling adventures and as I originally thought the surgery was Friday I thought I would be fine to go Saturday night. But as my surgery was actually Saturday this did make me wonder if going out was a good idea…

But I wanted to go. I’m trying to be more of a “yes person” rather than the more comfortable hermit I’m inclined to be. Plus I hadn’t gone out drinking for months. It’s not something I fully enjoy doing, but once in a while it is good fun (and enough to remind me why I don’t do it more often). Plus I love fancy dress.I was going for witch fancy dress… It was such an easy costume. All I did was buy some cheap striped tights from Amazon and then spruced up a black dress I already had with a black sparkly tutu I found in the children’s section in Sainsbury’s (elasticated waists for the win – and only £11!).I had some black sparkly heels (not too high thankfully) and then added a black belt and boom! Done.

The night out was fun. My friends all dressed up too and we did a pub crawl along Albert Road in Southsea. It was all going well (a few cheeky shots here, a few G&Ts there) until we got into a place called The Wedgwood Rooms, which is a club/live music place. It’s a bit more of an indie/rock scene which I don’t mind but what I did mind was that we were the oldest people in there by quite a few years. The average age must have been 20. Nothing makes you feel old than being in a university drinking scene. Also, annoyingly, it was very smoky in the room with the aggressive use of a smoke machine. This was really not good for my eyes. I avoided the main room where the smoke machines were and hung out in the bar. My eyes were not feeling great in this place and I was starting to feel nervous. A couple of my friends who hadn’t just got drinks decided to move on with me to the next pub instead and we’d meet the other guys there when they finished.

My friend casually mentioned that a Scoops Gelato place was nearby and this peaked a bit of interest. Oh reeaally?? Important question: Would they still be open? It was half 11 and amazingly they closed at midnight. We ditched the pub and hightailed it to Scoops as fast as we could and got there with 10 minutes to spare. Sadly the were only offering ice cream and not the waffles and pancakes on the menu (obviously as they were just about to shut shop) but this was good enough for us.I chose white chocolate Oreo (I’m so into white chocolate at the moment) and mint Oreo. A stellar selection if I do say so myself. As we headed back to meet the others at the next pub while munching happily away at our ice creams we agreed that we kind of felt a bit old for this “going out” business now. We much prefer house gatherings with hot beverages, snacks and movies. The rest of the evening was good but my drinking enthusiasm had now diminished and my bed was calling me…

It was a fun night and quite handy that it was Halloween as my bloodshot eyes and weird sunglasses-wearing tendencies fitted nicely in with all the other people in fancy dress. Fortuitous you might say!

How did you spend Halloween?

Do you like fancy dress?

What’s your ideal evening with friends? Mine probably involves getting food and then going back to someone’s house and chilling out there.

October 10, 2016

Post Marathon

I’ve had such a blissful week off but now it’s back to reality. It was exactly what I needed. A whole week of no gym and no running post marathon.

After I finished the marathon I was walking along on cloud nine. I was just so flabbergasted at what I’d achieved. I genuinely hadn’t expected it to go as well as it did so I was fairly chuffed and surprised with myself.

As we headed out of the race village we spotted the area where the winners of the horse races go (the race village was situated in the Chester Racecourse). It did look cordoned off from the public…but the gate was slightly ajar and I couldn’t help but quickly grab a few amusing photos.As we snuck out of the area a few fellow runners noticed the ideal photo spot and trickled through. We felt a bit naughty but hey ho, it’s got to be done!

As food is obviously a crucial factor in any post-marathon experience 😉 I’d previously hunted a good spot online for lunch earlier that week. This saved us having to walk around Chester hunting while I slowly become more and more hangry. We had a bit of time to kill as I’d sensibly booked the table for 2pm which would give me some time to feel a bit more normal post marathon. For me it goes something like this: ooof don’t show me any food… bleurgh food… can’t eat a single thing… I can’t even look at a cake right now… SHOW ME ALL THE FOOD… I NEED FEEDING. The switch-over happens very quickly 😉

The restaurant was a Turkish restaurant called Meze. It was an ideal spot for me because it was all about the meat but it was actually fairly healthy so it was ideal for my parents, who are trying to lose weight. It had lots of options like grilled meats, hummus, vegetarian plates, salads and rice so it was a good all-rounder. I went for the mixed grill and it was divine.Very handy that as I got a bit chilly I had this lovely long-sleeved technical t-shirt to put on! The restaurant was really nice and the service was fantastic. The chef even sent over a freebie little plate for us to try – it was some sort of Turkish-style salsa creation. Very tasty.
After eating, we wandered around Chester and had a look at the Cathedral. The bells were going and the sun was shining so it was perfect.After we got back to the cottage and I’d showered, we headed to the hot tub. Honestly I had been dreaming about this moment. And it was FABULOUS.Well it would have been fabulous had I not dramatically face-planted into the to tub when I got in. I slipped, fell forwards and then knocked my shin on the side. It wasn’t quite the graceful dip I was hoping to achieve and it was rather painful. I now have the most ridiculous bruises on my shin *sighs*. But the bottle of Prosecco we shared helped!

If I could do this after every marathon I definitely would (sit in a hot tub, not the falling in part). Bruised shin aside, I didn’t actually ache that much. I remember after my first few marathons every step was tough, though my calf was definitely feeling unhappy and niggly.

The rest of the week was very low key and chilled. I woke naturally most mornings between 7am and 8am, had a leisurely breakfast in the cottage (the ease of having self-catering accommodation) and then we’d set off to explore nearby places, such as Ludlow.And Powis Castle, which was just beautiful.It was full of peacocks as well, wandering about all casually. The grounds were beautiful and we had a lovely cup of tea in the cafe (isn’t that what National Trust locations are all about??)Over the week I ate lots of good food of course. Nothing crazily outrageous. Just a few scones here or there, some hearty sandwiches and a few puddings.
I did lots of walking and it was just so blissful. We were very lucky with the weather we had as well. Lots of sunshine, albeit a chill in the air indicating that autumn is very much en route.One of my favourite days was going on a 5 mile hike with my granddad around Longnor.

We did this on the Tuesday and it was a perfect way to stretch the legs a bit after the marathon. Though during the steepest sections I could definitely tell I’d run 26.2 miles!

It took just over three hours and was fairly hard going but we survived. Not too shabby for an almost 83 year old and a post-marathoner, eh? Both my grandparents are in fantastic shape – heading off for bike rides and long walks.

It was, as always, lovely spending time with my grandparents and my family. It was just nice to switch off, sleep lots and rest. I ate whatever I fancied and reset myself basically. On the last day we went back to Chester before heading to pick up the dogs from my other granddad who lives in Stoke and we had a lovely time shopping and then a gorgeous meal at The Botanist.I had literally a basket of chicken wings which weren’t amazing but tasty nonetheless (bit too overdone) – though the presentation was amusing. But the showstoppers were the main and pudding. I had a deli board for my main which you could pick lots of different things to have. I went for a baked Camembert with fig syrup, rollmops, honey glazed ham hummus and a fougasse bread (yes, the same as in the Bake Off!). It was delicious.

But the pudding… oh the pudding. It was the perfect end to such a fantastic holiday. A baked cookie with toffee ice cream and salted caramel sauce.I died and went to heaven. GLORIOUSLY tasty.

Though it’s sad it’s over, I feel very happy and content now I’m back. Exactly how you should do after a good holiday 🙂

What do you like to do after a big race or marathon?

What’s your favourite type of bread?

Have you been hiking anywhere interesting?

August 18, 2016September 17, 2020

Secret London #SecretFitness Session

I’m not usually that keen on going to London because it’s such a faff; I hate trains and I’m a country bum. Buuut when I got invited to the Secret London event that involved getting my hair done, Alp products and yoga on a stand up paddle board, well I was convinced!

The location of the event was a mystery until 24 hours beforehand (hence the “secret” part), though I was told it would be around Oxford Street so I could at least plan my parkrun into the equation!

It was actually really easy to get to and was set in the lovely location of Merchant Square.

I was greeted straight away by the very friendly people from Secret London and Collective Two (the organisers of the event) and shown the cool set-up they had.

I got to choose a pair of SuperDry flip flops and sipped on a delicious Alpro Berry and Coconut Smoothie while I waited to get my hair done by the guys from Headmasters.

Charlie (from TheRunnerBeans blog) and Bex (from TwinsInTrainers blog) were already getting their hair done so I went and said hi.

It was a bit like meeting the cool kids from school to be honest as their blogs are a lot more popular and known about than my iddy biddy one. They were lovely, of course.

I can’t tell you how nice it was to have someone do my hair for me. I am the girl who has my hair cut once a year and the most exciting thing I do with it is put it in plaits (braids) or a pony tail because my capability to do anything else is beyond me. We were all having braids done and in cool styles. I literally said to the hair stylist, do as you wish!

In the end it looked fantastic (if I do say so myself!). It’s definitely not a style I’d be able to recreate at home or that I’d normally choose. While we were all chatting and enjoying ourselves there was a camera crew hovering around and a photographer snapping away. It felt very glam but made me a little insecure…There I was, fresh from parkrun with no make up on. Bex and Charlie looked so effortlessly glamorous in comparison, clearly more used to this sort of thing than me!

And then we headed to the water area to begin our stand up paddle board yoga. We were all fairly nervous because there was a genuine risk of falling in. I’d brought spare clothes and a towel but still! The instructor, Jen, from Pure Yoga Zone was lovely though. And she had the most adorable little dog, Clyde, with her too (yes, he went on the SUP with her too!).

We got on board and headed out onto the main bit of the water. It was fairly windy so our SUPs clustered together but this meant we could chatter and giggle together while trying to master the yoga moves.

The yoga moves weren’t tricky at all in themselves. It was fairly ‘entry level’. But on a paddle board it was a different story. Even moving from your knees to your bum was a dodgy episode that required balance and strategic navigation.

And yet as the time went on we all became more and more confident. It required us to think carefully when doing the moves and to use our core to keep us balanced on the board.

It was actually quite a tough session! I’ve done yoga before but sometimes you can ‘sleepwalk’ through it. Despite the tranquil surroundings there was no sleeping through this session!

At the end we got our boards together in a line (no easy feat in the wind I assure you) and posed together like the yoga buffs we’d become.

Then after safely getting back onto dry land we headed for some vital refuelling (I hadn’t eaten breakfast or eaten post parkrun so I was definitely ready for food!).

We were treated to a smoothie bar that was stocked with the toppings you could imagine (OK, relatively healthy toppings you could imagine) and smoothie flavours.

I went for a berry smoothie with just about everything in it from chia seeds, to fruit, to nuts and almond butter. Delicious. Now I’m not usually a smoothie lover but I was very happy to chomp this down.

The three of us then had a little interview to talk about our session and were chuffed to hear that we sounded almost like we’d had media training with the answers we gave and our ease in front of the camera. Dahhhhhling we’re bloggers, don’t you know? This is what we do. (<—Ummm, yeah I’m about the most awkward person in life ever).

It was a fantastic experience and I fully recommend SUP yoga (and now want to go SUP’ing again asap). If you get the chance to go to a Secret London session I’d definitely give it a go. It was a fun experience. And we got lots of cool goodies to take away with us too.

You can buy tickets to these events, it wasn’t purely invite only, so keep your eyes open if this is your thing!

Have you ever been SUP’ing before?

Do you do yoga?

What’s your perfect smoothie creation?

August 15, 2016

A trip to London and Highbury Fields parkrun

Happy Monday! Back at it with another week. This weekend was a bit of a mad one.

I was sent an email invitation midweek to a blogging event in London on Saturday and made the snap decision to go. It sounded really cool and, though London is such a faff to get to and get around, I’m trying to be more of a “yes” person. I also wondered if I could squeeze in a London parkrun before as the event didn’t start until 10am.

I almost gave up on the idea as it seemed all the parkruns were about 40 minutes from the location of the event and just not doable… until I had a look at Highbury Fields parkrun and realised it would take about 15 minutes on the tube.

I’m terrible at anything to do with public transport or being organised in general so I was a bit worried of all the pieces falling into place. I jokingly said to my dad he should come with me to help and he said that him and my mum had been wanting to go to London for ages so they’d be happy to come. The plan was we’d get a very early train (6.40am) and then get the tube to parkrun from Waterloo, do parkrun, then go to Oxford Street where my event was going to be near and they’d go off shopping while I did my thing. Then we’d meet up later for lunch.

We had enough buffer time to get to the parkrun thankfully so that wasn’t too much of a rush. The tube station is very close to the park and we saw the familiar fluorescent jacketed people setting up the finish funnel as we got into the park. We headed over and they explained the course and start to us and pointed me in the direction of the toilet as well.

The course was five and a bit laps around a smallish park and fitness centre (side note: I saw people running on treadmills which blew my mind as it was a beautiful day and there was a lovely park outside!). There was a slight long incline up one side of the parkrun and a gentle decline the other. I’d been previously warned about this by the lovely Helen that though the incline wasn’t steep it did become wearing as the laps went on.

I started off way too fast and the first stretch was going up the incline. My legs felt drained almost immediately. Today was not my day, I thought. My parents (my mum’s first parkrun experience) stood on the side-lines to cheer us on. My dad had brought his GoPro so got some cool photos.

After one lap my only thought was, “I have to do this four more times?”. I really wasn’t in the zone and was finding it quite tough.

I fell into step with a guy running a similar pace to me and that really helped. He was probably running slightly faster than I would have if I’d have run on my own so it was good to stick with him. We overtook people which felt encouraging.

One more lap

My pace master friend was the guy in blue in the above photo. He encouraged me to keep going on the last mile and I gasped, “I’m trying!”. He helped me pick up the pace.

I finished in 22:06 which was quite surprising (though my Garmin has measured it as 2.9 miles so maybe that’s why!). It wasn’t the best parkrun experience (in terms of actual running) and that incline DID feel more and more horrific as the laps went on. I hugged the guy and said thank you to him as honestly I probably would have gone a lot slower otherwise!

Always smiles when you’ve finished!

Then it was a mad dash back to the tube to get to Oxford Street. On the tube I had to baby wipe myself and freshen up as best as I could. I took my trainers off and put my flip flops on and attempted to sort my hair out. I was sat there doing all this next to a seriously elegantly dressed lady and felt like a right mess! But needs must.

I got there just five minutes late and they were fine thankfully. The event was a Secret London event (partnered with Collective Two) and was to involve getting your hair done by Headmasters, then yoga on a stand-up paddle board (!) followed by some smoothies from Alpro. But I’ll talk more about that in another post. Thankfully I was able to properly change and freshen up.

Bathroom selfie for the win

The event lasted around two hours and was super fun. I then caught the tube to meet my parents for lunch at Barbecoa, Jamie Oliver’s London steak house. I adore Jamie Oliver so was really excited about this!

I was still in my yoga gear so felt a little dressed down but my hair looked cool soo…

The restaurant was fantastic. It had beautiful views of St. Paul’s Cathedral and the service was incredible. Out waitress was so friendly and so helpful and made us feel very welcome and relaxed.

Top left picture is the view from the window

For starter I had chicken wings (I know, I know, so boring and predictable). They were very tasty. Though there were ribs on the menu I decided to try something different for once. I chose the pit beef which, if I’m honest, I didn’t really know what it’d be!

It came with half a romaine lettuce, bacon crumbs and bacon jam. I also ordered a side of charred broccoli with almonds and some parmesan-y sauce.

The meal was incredible. Literally every mouthful I was like, “this is so tasty”. It was very rich though and by the time I’d finished I was really full. I’d fully intended to have a pudding but I just didn’t fancy it. Who even am I, right?? I didn’t want to spoil the meal by feeling overly full so I decided to give it a miss (and hopefully find something sweet a bit later).

Then we headed to Covent Garden for a bit more shopping. Can we just talk about those stairs though at the Covent Garden tube station?! I saw a big queue at the lifts and then saw the sign for the stairs and thought that’d be quicker. I didn’t actually see the warning that there were 192 stairs (!!!). It just kept going and going and I thought I was in some weird tube station nightmare. Everyone around me was puffing and panting (as I was) and I was like “will this ever end!?”. There were two guys behind me and I kept thinking, don’t let them overtake you!

As I got to the top the security guard was congratulating everyone saying we were champions which was amusing. I assumed my parents had taken the lift. I waited for ages, seeing the people who had taken the lift all fresh faced and happy and the people who had taken the stairs on the brink of collapse.

Finally I saw my parents and they fell into the latter category. They looked like they were about to die. My mum, bless her, couldn’t even talk. I couldn’t stop laughing (I know, I’m very mean). I mean I was very proud of them of course but I couldn’t believe it – I’d found the stairs tough and I’m fairly fit!

I only had one shop I wanted to go into… Lululemon. Walking round that shop is DANGEROUS. Honestly I could have bought everything. I do find the whole Lululemon experience a bit odd though as all the staff are very American. NOTHING against them but American retail sales people are a lot different to British. They’re very chatty whereas Brits kind of leave you alone and don’t engage much in random conversation. But anyway, they were very helpful and in the end I bought a tank top, a gorgeous pair of leggings and a long-sleeved top. My credit card needed resuscitating thought afterwards!

Me in my leggings and top at the beach walking the dogs when we got back to my parent’s

Then I topped off my happiness quota by getting a giant tub of fro-yo with strawberries, raspberries and brownie pieces.

It was delicious and perfect to finish the day with!

It was such a good day but it was a very tiring day. I was exhausted when I got to bed that evening and fully dreading my 17 miler planned for the next day…

What do you like to do in London?

What’s been your favourite blogging event if you’ve done one?

Have you done any parkruns in London? I’d have loved to have done Bushy parkrun but it was just too far away to have been feasible.

August 8, 2016

Pudding stomach

This weekend fully proved to me that I have two stomachs: a normal food stomach and a pudding one. But more on that in a bit. First, as usual my weekend started with parkrun.

My two newly converted parkrun runners came down from Bristol for the day. They were keen to test out their 5k times on a flat parkrun course. Pomphrey Hill parkrun in Bristol has been good fun but ultimately a flat course is always nice to do to see where you’re at. Originally we were going to meet in Swindon where another friend wanted to do their first parkrun but that fell through so they came to me.

We chose Lee-On-Solent parkrun as it is super flat and also very close to my parent’s house so they could meet me there, drop off their pug, Doug, to hang out with Alfie and my parent’s dog and we could convoy together. My dad was joining but decided to forgo doing it as he hurt his shoulder.

:Look at that blue sky (and the Isle of Wight behind)! Beautiful. No one wanted to say what their targets were really…we all felt quietly confident that we’d do better than Pomphrey but we didn’t want to vocalise it and put silly pressures on ourselves.

I saw a few people from my running club which was nice and also finally got to meet the lovely Kerry, who I’ve been chatting with via Twitter and Instagram (aka UKRunGirl).

After the briefing (which made me chuckle when the run director told the under-11s to firmly supervise their adults), we were off. I found it quite busy and hectic as it’s a fairly narrow promenade for us all to bunch together on but it helped slow me down. Another point that was made during the briefing was that there were lots of foot traffic from non-runners this morning and that we were to give them right of way and be courteous as we didn’t want any complaints to the council or reasons to cancel the parkrun. I noticed throughout the run that all the runners I saw took this to heart and gave walkers wide berths and moved out of the way quickly. It’s true, parkrun is a run not a race, as much as we’d all like to get fast times we still want parkrun to continue without issue!

My dad stood on the side-line cheering us on and testing out his new GoPro. He’s such a gadget-lover. I’m considering getting one myself but I want to test out using my dad’s first before I commit.

Screenshot of GoPro filming

I gave it my all and hilariously did not achieve a negative split after blowing my own trumpet last week about how good I’ve suddenly become at managing my pace, ha! But I did notice a wind against me during the second (and hardest) mile.

Photo credit: Ethan Gee

The last mile I was able to put the peddle down as it was a straight run to the finish.

I finished in 22:08 which I’m really pleased with. Yes it would have been fantastic to dip under 22 minutes but for where I am in my training and coming back from injury (yes, excuse excuses) I will happily take that!

Kate and Jamie smashed their previous Pomphrey times and their last Lee-On-Solent time too. Jamie got the sub-30 minutes he’s been aiming for too (Kate missed out soo narrowly!). We were all very pleased with ourselves!

We headed back to mine (quick stop at Starbucks of course) and got showered and sorted before heading to Casa Brasil for lunch.

Casa Brasil is an all-you-can-eat Brazilian Rodizio restaurant. Basically the waiters come round with skewers of meat and slice it up in front of you.

There’s a fairly decent salad bar as well. The staff are so friendly and attentive there and it was all decorated with Brazilian flags which felt very appropriate considering the Olympics has just started. Though I did say to one waiter if he was excited about the Olympics being in Brazil and he replied “I’m Portuguese…”.

It was amazing and right up our street, as you can imagine. When we were finished we were all very full. We didn’t fancy pudding per se but we did fancy just something sweet, you know? I was trying to think of nearby ice cream or frozen yogurt places… hmmm. Then I remembered so many people going on about Sprinkles, an gelato cafe in Southampton of which I’d never been to. It was only 10 minutes away and we had some time before we were going to see Suicide Squad at the cinema.

Yes that is a Jammie Dodger flavour!!

Well, we walked in and were greeted by so many different ice cream flavours and cakes it was ridiculous. We grabbed a menu and sat down. Oh dear. Sundaes, waffles, crepes, ice cream milk shakes… this was not a place for a small something sweet. None of us could bring ourselves to just order one or two scoops of ice cream. Feeling fairly greedy, I ordered a brownie sundae (as did Jamie) and Kate ordered a Nutella waffle.

To be fair, we didn’t think they’d be that big. It was OUT OF THIS WORLD. I’m not usually a big ice cream (she says after ordering the biggest sundae of her life). I like ice cream to have stuff going on, like Ben and Jerry’s with chocolate bits in etc., so this was perfect. It was chocolate, vanilla and caramel ice cream with brownie chunks (and I mean chunks), cream and hot fudge sauce to pour over. I couldn’t finish it. I was so full and feeling rather sick. But I bloody loved it. We all did.

It was a good job we literally just had to watch a film after this because we were so stuffed. Suicide Squad was really good. Yes it’s been slated by the critics but I genuinely enjoyed it (apart from Cara Delevingne who I found cringingly bad). We laughed all the way through and just thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We were fairly surprised that quite a few people didn’t wait for the end credits to finish for the sting at the end though – don’t they know!?

Thankfully post-film we all felt a lot better having digested a bit! Then Kate and Jay headed home with Doug. It was a fantastic day! I then popped over to my friend Lou’s to see her week old baby. I’m not a baby person so I always feel a bit awkward with what to do but Tom, Lou’s husband, literally handed me the baby and was like “chill out, Anna”. PANIC. But no it was fine and their baby, Henry, is adorable.

Ehh, the next morning I had to run 15 miles. I was seriously dragging my heels. I woke up at 8.45am (already a bad sign), walked Alfie and just faffed about…I almost decided not to go. I just had no desire to go out running for over two hours. I’ll talk more about my marathon training and plans in another post but this training has been really tough as the ramp up has been quite sharp due to my injury and lack of running.

Just before 10am I was out of the door and actually felt surprisingly good (must be all that glycogen flowing around my system…). I took my dad’s GoPro and had some fun filming bits and bobs (lots to learn though, especially angles. When I tried to film myself I literally just filmed my boobs as I hadn’t quite got the angle right.!). I’ve also not mastered smooth filming so watching it back made me feel a bit sea-sick.

I wore my hydration belt this time so happily had some water to sip on as I went as though it wasn’t sunny it was very humid and warm. As my two hydration bottles are quite small (like 250ml each) I made sure to drink them both before I got to my favourite Dodgy Tap so I could then refill. The Dodgy Tap was exactly half way so this was perfect.

I took a photo of the tap when we took the dogs for a walk so I could show you and see what you thought… would you drink from it?

Anyway the rest of the run was a slog. A real slog. I was counting down every mile. I felt tired and hot. I reached 15 miles about 0.5 miles from home and ordinarily would have just run that extra bit but I stopped straight away and rang my dad to pick me up (I’d run from their house and I knew they were in). My dad didn’t mind thankfully, part of his “coaching duties” apparently .

Then I spent some time in the garden stretching with an ice cold drink…and the dogs licking me because I was so sweaty. Nice.

My parents were building their swinging chair at the time, hence the stuff behind me

Then I spent the rest of the day doing the usual Sunday schizz. It was 1pm by the time I had breakfast…but this just meant I could eat lunch sooner

Would you drink from that tap?

Have you seen any parkrun/non-runner clashes? We’ve occasionally had the odd complaint at Netley from dog walkers.

What’s your all-time favourite ice cream flavour or sundae combo?