Rant and raves - AnnaTheApple

July 8, 2015September 18, 2020

Rants and Raves #15

How the weeks are flying by! I know it’s such a cliché but everything is just moving so quickly. And with another week I have another set of rants and raves…

Rave: I entered a competition with Brooks a while ago and forgot about it. If I remember correctly you had to talk about why running makes you happy and upload a photo of yourself “running happy”. I didn’t win but they did send me a consolation prize.

A very nice Brooks t-shirt. It’s made from wicking material but it’s not a ‘proper’ technical t-shirt if that makes sense but it’s still good for short runs, gym visits or just general wear. It’s lovely and soft and fits nicely.

Rant: My gym has been renovated which has just been *so* much fun trying to find an area to work out in that wasn’t a building site. Though I can understand their issue as it’s open 24/7 so it must be hard to do any sorts of improvements without closing the gym.

But anyway, they’ve created a new door system to get in and out. Before it was like a caged turnstile. Now it’s like something out of Star Trek.

You type in your code, one part of it opens, you step in, it closes before opening the next part. There is about two very long seconds where you fear you’ll never be let out. What a way to spend the rest of your life…locked in a glass cage with only your own sweat smell to comfort you.

Rave: Speaking of the new gym renovations, it has meant that we’ve had loads of new equipment and weights. Including a proper stepper machine! I was quite excited as previously we’d only had that annoying step machine that when you put your foot on each step it sinks down. I tried it once and it was awful. I just didn’t get on with it as I couldn’t work out if I was meant to do shallow little steps or big deep steps. The real step machine however is far better.

It’s actually like climbing stairs and you can get a good rhythm. Great for the glutes and legs! And for towering over the gym and people watching 😉

But I honestly have no idea what this new machine is…

On closer inspection it looked like a rowing machine, but upright…very strange.

Rant: Hot running! Though it is nice to be warm when you’re doing your warm-up…oh those days not so long ago I was standing in the car park in my tiny shorts absolutely freezing doing my leg swings while people were coming out to their cars wrapped up in coats and scarves looking at me like I was mental. But it does make for harder running.

Sweaty, uncomfortable and harder efforts for the same speeds…it’s tough! And even more so when you come back to the office and find…

NO cups for the water machine. I did consider putting my head under the water release bit and drinking that way but I thought perhaps this wasn’t proper office etiquette, even if it was past normal working hours 😉 Luckily they had another one in another corridor that I had to hunt for in my heat-induced delirium.

Rave: Pretty purple Nike capris! I’m clearly a bit obsessed with capris right now. I don’t tend to wear them running as it’s too hot but I love wearing them to the gym.

These are really comfortable and nice fitting. Normally I’m not one for crazy patterns but I just love the colour! I can’t remember where I got them from, otherwise I’d post the link as well.

Rant: Dropping your hair dryer on yourself while blow drying your hair is painful. And further proof of the accident prone idiot I am.

And also gives the impression that you’ve been mauled by a small animal. Very painful burns from the grating in the hair dryer!

Rave: Alfie just makes me smile every single day. This is him not wanting to get up one morning.

I reckon he thinks he’s invisible if he can’t see me 😉

Rave: I’m very excited about being sent these 33Shake products. I haven’t tried them yet as I’m waiting for a good time to test them out on (I have the perfect event in a week or so to give them a good testing – but more on that soon). I was sent three All-in-One Shake blend which are ideal after hard sessions as they contain great ingredients like hemp seeds and flaxseeds, natural antioxidants (which I’ve found I really need after hard sessions!), protein, and anti-inflammatories like turmeric and green coffee (oooh er!). They’re 100% natural, meaning no additives, no preservatives, and nothing manmade.

I was also sent Chia Energy Gels which will provide energy during a hard workout. And again contain all natural with a blend of carbs, proteins, Omega-3s and antioxidants.

So I’m fairly excited about testing these bad boys out!

What are your rants and raves this week?

What do you look for in sports nutrition, whether that’s before, during or after?

Where do you buy your workout gear from?

June 25, 2015

Rants and Raves #14

I don’t have a huge amount to rant about this week. How can you when the weather is so fantastic?? I thought I’d also tie-in some updates from what’s going on with my living situation going forward (sounds rather illicit…but I assure you it’s not that exciting).

Rant: *Sighs* I am so accident-prone it’s ridiculous. I think I’m genuinely lacking in the eye-hand coordination department, especially when I’m rushing around. This is mostly happening in the morning before work; sorting out my breakfast, tidying, and getting my lunch together. I take my own home-popped popcorn to work (I just put kernels into a plastic box, add salt and pepper and then microwave with the lid on until the lid starts opening). In my haste to get the pepper on it I dropped the grinder.

And all those little pepper corns went EVERYWHERE. Alfie thankfully turned his nose up and wandered off. Clearly not his snack of choice!

What was most annoying was this when I was a) already running later and b) had someone coming over to view our house later that day to possibly buy it. GARGH. I had already hoovered and tidied up everywhere but now had to sweep (and bin the peppercorns – what a waste!).

Sometimes speed isn’t the best way forward when you’re late!

Rave: It’s been very busy around here lately with all the house stuff. A few weeks ago we got the ball moving to value the house. They valued it substantially above what we initially paid for it which is MARVELLOUS obviously, but we still needed to get it sold at that price. As the house was a new build when we moved in (3.5 years ago now) it’s still in very good condition. I also regularly clean it so I didn’t have to do anything crazy before people came to view it apart from just general tidying things away to make it look more minimalist and hoovering.

At the same time I needed to look for a flat to move into. Juggling lots of balls from viewings of our house, viewings for my flat, mortgage appointments and solicitors…it’s all fun and games I assure you not.

Long story short, our house went on the market on Friday (my birthday, happy birthday me…). Our first viewing was Monday and they put an offer in for our asking price. Within this time I also found a flat I loved, put an offer on it and got it accepted. WOW. Luckily the guy buying our house is an investor so has no chain his side, and the person I’m buying from is also an investor and I only need to wait two months for the current tenant to move out (I’m buying, not renting). So actually things are looking (finger’s crossed) to go quite smoothly.

AND (this is like an UBER rave) my flat is still within the same area, still close to my gym and even closer to my running club. Fabdiddlytastic.

Rant: The flat is tiny. Really it’s a studio. I call it my Carrie Bradshaw (but smaller) apartment. One bedroom…But it’s well within the budget I have, meaning I can still live quite comfortably and enjoy my current lifestyle, and it’s in a nice, nice area. I looked round two bedroom flats in not so great areas and it just didn’t feel right – plus it added so much time onto my already long commute. The flat in itself is lovely – it’s only three years old, and funnily enough the kitchen is bigger than my current one and it’s just beautiful inside. There’s more than enough storage as well. So despite it being very small, it’s actually perfect for what I need at the moment and my day-to-day life won’t change vastly.

Rave: The day after the Liverpool marathon I had the day off, as did my parents. So we decided to go for a Nando’s and cinema trip to see Jurassic World.

A whole chicken really hit the spot post marathon. Runger? Adequately defeated.

And a whole screening to ourselves for Jurassic World (for about 15 minutes until a few others came in…damn them!)

Rant: Well not really a rant, more of stating the obvious. Jurassic World is not Jurassic Park and is no where close to being as good. It’s good for mindless enjoyment but there was no ‘pizzazz’…no rippling water, no Ian Malcolm, no goose bumps…I could go on but I shan’t bore you (the Empire Jurassic World spoiler special podcast does a great review).

Rave: After reading Claire’s post about her buying colouring books to relax I promptly decided to do the same. During university my friends and I, for a laugh, bought some colouring books as a way to have down time between revision and exams and found it was very addictive and a great way to relax while still being able to chat to each other or watch TV.

I got one from the post office, one from Amazon (called Indian Summer <— not an affiliate link) and some colouring pencils. Honestly, I am fully addicted. In the evening I watch TV while colouring and I’m so relaxed. Normally I’d be on my phone or iPad and wouldn’t really be relaxing my mind. I also wouldn’t be able to concentrate on what was on TV. But with colouring I can now watch TV as well. I even took a book with my on the train. OK people did give me a few funny/curious looks but the time flew by.

Rave: I was in the paper for the Southampton Echo for the Romsey 5 mile Beer race (bit delayed on this one as the race was a good few weeks ago now…). What was nice was that it mentioned me being part of the top three females the previous two years and now finally securing the first place this year (top left paragraph).

Needless to say my parents are very proud 😉 Sorry bragfest over.

Rave: I hate going to London in general and I especially hate going for work, which I had to do for a big meeting on Tuesday (funnily enough I’m going to London again on Saturday to meet some fellow lovely bloggers – but I’m sure this experience will be far better!)

The one saving grace of it being in London was the amazing catering at lunch time.

It was a buffet and there was just so much food. And not a chip or fried food in sight. It was all fresh, good ingredients and lots of vegetables and salad. I sort of went overboard…but then buffets are my weakness. The bottom left sweet potato and lentil curry was VERY nice indeed.

What are your plans for the weekend? (Yes I know it’s only Thursday…) I’m off to London on Saturday and then doing a 10k race (which I’m racing but not looking forward to – going to be riding the pain train!)

Do you go anywhere exciting for your job? In a previous job the best place I went was Sweden.

Colouring – yes or no? I’m not creative at all so this works well for me as it requires no real skill above what a five year old could do.

June 3, 2015

Rants and Raves #13

My raves are far outweighing my rants at the moment, which is obviously very good! I just hope life continues along this pattern…

Rave: A while ago at parkrun there was a guy who noticed I was wearing a hairband to keep the hair off my face. He asked if I was a fan of the hairbands, I said I was (obviously) and he said he had a load he could give me for free if I wanted them. He’d bought them for himself to keep his hair out of his face but discovered they probably weren’t his style. Considering I spent around £7 for six I was quite keen to have some for free! OK they’re not the most expensive things in the world but they’re not cheap and I have limited colours.

Anyway that was a while ago and I sort of forgot about it. A couple of parkruns ago he tapped me on the shoulder and said “remember me? The hairband guy!” and he gave me the unwanted hairbands.

Amazing! Now I have more colours to choose from – hurrah! I like wearing the hairbands to the gym and running because I get wispy hair stuck on my face and it can be very annoying. I’m not sure yet if I’ll wear one at the marathon though as they can slip down from time to time (I think I have a small head) and I can’t bear to be adjusting it for miles on end.

Rant: After the Cakeathon and driving home I had some serious runger, as you can imagine. My parents thankfully had looked after Alfie over the weekend but had dropped him off a few hours before so when I got in I needed to walk him…food had to wait a few more minutes. By the time I got back and started preparing said food I was really hungry and rushing around to make myself something. I went into the freezer and picked up a bag of mini veg and didn’t realise it was upside down.

Oh how I wish it had been sprouts or big bits of broccoli, not teeny tiny bits of veg. It was then a race between Alfie and me to see who could pick up the most veg. What it is about frozen vegetables that appeals to my dog I’m not entirely sure. This was not a fun process I can assure you, especially in the raging stages of runger.

[Edit to add: this morning I had a similar incident with frozen berries. It’s amazing I can get through life so well…]

Rave: OK this is quite old news now but I had a bit of fun (and torture) seeing how old the Internet thought I was.

Obviously I’ve cherry picked a ‘good’ photo here haha! I tried a few photos and let’s just say it can make your day or ruin it 😉 But seriously though, I wouldn’t want to be 19 again. I’m actually quite happy being almost 27, despite my life taking a huge twist of events recently.

Rant: Back to the little furry monster, he’s so similar to me in that he has his own ingrained habits and routine in an evening. As soon as I’ve finished dinner and washing up I’ll hear the dreaded sound of a tennis ball dropping at my feet. I turn around and this little face is looking up at me.

“Oh have you finished, can we play now please?” is what that face is saying. Every single night. So I stand on one side of the house and throw the ball to the other side of the house until he is panting and I’m bored. I just can’t say no to that face.

Rave: It’s arrived! My bib for my impending marathon has arrived. It’s funny because this whole marathon process is so different from my other two in every way.

Unlike Paris and Berlin, I don’t have to go to the expo the day before, I don’t have to worry about what I’ll be eating for my pre-race dinner or breakfast and most people will speak English in and around the race! And obviously the whole training process has been so different. I plan on writing a marathon training recap post soon. I just don’t want to jinx anything just yet!!

Rant: OK not a real rant… The Cakeathon for next year has sold out already! I know a few of my club wanted to do it but didn’t get round to entering in time and some other people expressed interest as well who have now missed out. But the race only has 100 or so spaces and it is clearly a big hit. I’m so thankful that I entered straight away. There is a waiting list and I think they host the event twice a year (as I know there’s one in August this year – also sold out) so there could still be a chance for anyone keen.

Rave: Alpro’s new Coconut Almond milk. It tastes really good. Though it is definitely sweeter than the almond milk (though conversely slightly less calories per 100ml than the unsweetened almond milk). It’s a nice change I must say! I bought mine in Tesco.

Have you missed out on entering a race before?

What are you latest rants and raves?

How do you keep your hair back when you’re exercising?

May 6, 2015

Rants and Raves #12

Well I haven’t done one of these posts in a while and I certainly have an abundance of rants stored up in me…but I’ll try and keep it balanced.

Rave: I’ve mentioned a few times about how my Garmin heart rate monitor strap rubs when I wear it. This is highly annoying considering it cost around £50 (separate from the actual watch). I don’t really do heart rate training with all the different zones but, like most runners, I love having all the stats from a run (oh the graphs! Oh the numbers! So much information!). It’s also handy to keep an eye on my heart rate when I’m doing a long run to make sure I’m not pushing too hard. But anyway the strap rubbed my chest and was quite painful, meaning I couldn’t wear it. Very frustrating considering I was able to wear my Polar HR strap when I went to the gym with no issues. I did try putting the actual HR bit on the Polar strap but it kept pinging off…so I did some Googling and found a way to overcome the chafe.

Plasters! I found this out from the legendry running tech reviewer DC Rainmaker so I’m hugely grateful to him. I’ve had no issues since! The article is HERE. I’m stat happy once again 😀

Rant: Windy running. I don’t mind running when it’s cold, or wet, or really hot, or even in snow…but wind? Wind just sucks your soul and drains your energy like nothing else. I ran 17 miles on Sunday and it felt like I was being slapped by a wall of sea water as I ran along the coast. I ran past another runner and we looked at each other like “why are we out in this?!”. When I got home I then had to contend with the dread Post-Run Hair: Luckily it didn’t take too long to comb through. Short-haired people and (the majority of) men, you are lucky!

Despite the hair issues, the run went well thankfully though my pace was all over the place despite trying to keep it consistent. Though I wanted the final mile to be faster so I could see how it felt on tired legs. It was tough!

And after last Sunday’s fun Southampton half running with a bunch of friends, this run was lonely and hard work. I’m wondering if I can tempt anyone to join me on my 18 miler in two weeks time – or at least part of it…It seems everyone else’s marathons have finished so there’s a severe lack of long run runners on Sundays now.

Rave: Kangaroo burgers at my friend’s BBQ. A local farm shop sells the most amazing meat and BBQ fodder that I couldn’t resist buying kangaroo burgers and some equally delicious red Thai chicken burgers.

Kangaroo burger

Kangaroo is a bit gamey and a bit beefy but very nice! The BBQ was on the Bank holiday Monday and was good fun, though slightly chillier than I had anticipated (I wore shorts: mistake). And two of my very talented friends baked cakes which were delicious. Homemade for the win every time.

How pretty is that cupcake on the right?? My friend Louise is so good at baking!

Rant: Headaches after my long runs. It doesn’t happen every time, but occasionally I’ll get an awful headache that just persists regardless of what I do. I drink a big 500ml of nuun after my run and drink through the day but I don’t drink on the actual run so maybe that’s it? I also try not to drink too much before running because I hate needing the loo half way through. Re-fuelling with lots of sugary cakes is probably not the best thing either. I know I need to be more sensible but all I want is cake when I do a long run! I feel like I’ve earnt it you know??

Another afternoon tea session with my parents on Sunday – The Tea Room in Lee-on-Solent

Rave: Being in the paper! A lovely reader Tweeted me to say they saw me in their local paper. I was over the moon (so was my mum).

Our moment of fame!

The picture above the photo of my running friends and me is of another Hedge End Runner who ran both the Southampton 10k and the Southampton half (same day!) in a Cookie Monster outfit to raise money for charity – what a legend!

Rant: Being forced out of the communal gym area because one of the personal trainers wants to use it for his customers’ boot camp session. Now I wouldn’t mind so much if it was a proper scheduled class run by the actual gym and is pinned up on the board like the other classes (so I was aware), but this is his freelance work and so he really has no monopoly over the gym space. It’s rude and unfair. He pushed out another girl, three guys and me – we were not amused.

Rave: My mum gave me her spare hot sleeve for my hair straighteners so they can cool safely after I’ve used them (my mum is the type of woman who buys two of everything, just in case).

It’s so useful! It means I don’t have to worry about the hot irons leaving marks anywhere or Alfie finding them (find it HERE – not an affiliated link, just if you’re interested!).

What are your recent rants and raves?

Do you get headaches after working out? Any tips?

Do you wear a heart rate monitor when working out?

March 18, 2015March 30, 2017

Rants and Raves #11

Normally I would recap my weekend but I had a bit of a rubbish one so don’t really want to go through it. So I by-passed Monday’s post altogether.

What I will say is running over 10 miles on Sunday helped. I ran with the mentality of “sod my pace, I literally don’t care. I want to just get out and go.”

Average pace 7.51mins/mile and I happily sped up toward the end. Was this pace sensible for my first 10 miles in a while? No. Did I enjoy it? Definitely. Mentally I needed that run. And it didn’t actually feel that tough – I felt very relaxed and just let go. But my next long run won’t be like this as there’s really no point. I can push it on other shorter runs if I want to.

Onto slightly more lights things…rants and raves.

Rant: Making a tiny error when ordering our food shopping online. So this is more a rant at myself really.

Six lettuces. I’m pretty sure I only want two…how did I manage to order six?! I like salad, don’t get me wrong, but even that’s a bit much for me. Needless to say salads are going to be a big thing this week.

Rave: A while ago I mentioned that I wanted to get more into audio books as I have an hour driving commute to work and then home again. I work at the same place as my dad so occasionally we’ll share lifts but recently I’ve been more on my own and would listen to podcasts. But I’m getting through podcasts very quickly and I like to save a few for running.

So I’ve signed up to the month free trial for Audible (an audio book purchasing site) to try it out (I’m not being compensated or asked to write a review by them, I’m just sharing my experience). After the free month (where you get a free audio book), you then pay a monthly subscription of £7.99 and get one book credit a month which is equivalent to one audio book. This is a lot cheaper than just buying an audio book out-right but it is a subscription service. For me it’s something I’m willing to pay for at the moment as I have a lot of ‘dead’ time and I love books. I can listen to a book and read a book at the same time so there are no issues there (currently I’m reading Stephen King’s ‘Last Stand’ and it’s amazing).

Source

I’ve just finished ‘Still Alice’ and it was incredible. Initially the author’s voice irritated me but then I warmed to it and got quite attached to her accent. The (fictional) story itself was heart-breaking, tragic but beautiful. Completely told from Alice’s perspective and her experiences in being diagnosed and then struggling with early onset Alzheimer’s. It’s recently come out as a film (and Julianne Moore won the best actress Oscar for her role) which is how I heard about it and it was actually nice to imagine her in my head as the character. I really recommend it, though it did leave me in tears during my commute to work! The only problem is I zipped through that book in less than a week…

Rant: I ran parkrun on Saturday at Netley Abbey and it was a ‘naked’ event. This didn’t mean throwing off your running gear with reckless abandon and running free (and cold…and, er, bouncy) but rather not running with a watch or running app. There was also a competition to guess your time.

Initially I thought I’d put down ten seconds faster than the week before (so 21:50ish) as an incentive to run speedy but then I woke up on Saturday morning not really feeling it and getting cold feet. I quickly changed my time to 24 minutes and decided to run an easier pace. But then I warmed up (or at least tried to, it was so cold!) and started regretting my new time – I felt quite good and fresh. This gave me a rubbish head space just before the start and I was neither here nor there on the pace ending up somewhere in the middle with just over 23 minutes as I wasn’t sure whether to push or not. Then on the final lap I got a horrendous stitch in my side which meant I had to completely stop and sort my breathing out. This has never happened to me before. Yes I’ve had stitches but never to the point they’re so painful I have to stop. And insult to injury (or stitch), because I put my watch in my pocket to record the run but still be ‘naked’, the satellites must have ski-whiffed or something because it didn’t get the whole run recorded despite running exactly the same route as always. Ho hum. Just a bit of a pants run really!

Rave: I’m absolutely stoked about being sent a pair of some very cool looking earphones from the technologically gifted guys at Jabra to review for the blog.

Sadly they’re not the heart rate monitoring ones (yes I know how amazing is that??) as they were out of stock but they’re still pretty damn funky. They’re the Sport Rox wireless ear phones. I’m going to be trying them out on my run tonight. The lack of long cable alone makes me happy 😀 A full review will be on its way soon.

Rant: This is minor but at 5.30am in the morning it’s pretty major to me. People who don’t put weights back.

I won’t lie, I’m a bit neurotic and OCD when it comes to my strength training. I have certain weight dumbbells for different things (like single leg squats, Russian twists or whatever). But it really grinds my gears (Family Guy anyone…?) when people just remove them and then leave them all over the gym. My gym is a pretty big place and I hate having to walk all around searching for a single dumbbell. Just use them and then put them back in the same place!?

Rave: Even if he’s thrown up everywhere in the kitchen (*sighs* well that was a fun morning last week) I still can’t get angry at Alfie for long. I’d never get angry at him being sick of course, but tugging my arm out of its socket on a walk when he spies a cat doesn’t make me too happy! It’s that “one up, one down” ear thing that always makes me smile. I like to think it’s his pensive look.

What’s grinding your gears this week?

What’s making you happy?

Do you listen to audio books? Do you read a lot?