Reflections - AnnaTheApple

January 23, 2014

It’s not all rainbows and smiles

I have been waiting to run for weeks. I’ve been dreaming about running. Reading about people’s amazing race recaps, long runs, speedy running club sessions…torturing myself with what I’ve been missing out on. I also stopped reading Runner’s World and volunteering at Parkrun. It was just too hard. I wanted to run so badly.

Now I’m running again. Hurrah! Can you hear those angels singing?

This morning I did another 4 mile ‘don’t care about pace just run’ run. And reality unfolds.

My dreams of running and gliding across the pavement with a smile on my face is not reality. Running is hard. When did I forget that? Running in the morning when it’s still so dark, it’s very cold and there are few people about…it’s tough. Not seeing familiar paces for the effort I’m doing on my Garmin is hard.

And the worst part? Constantly thinking about every single aspect of my body. Literally my mind is doing this: where are my feet falling? Are my knees dipping inwards? Am I leaning over? How’s my back? Woah, am I leaning back too much? How’s my IT band feeling? What about my knee? Knee, knee, knee, knee… This is all I’m thinking about.

And then the time after the run: what does my knee feel like? What about my IT band? My back? What if I poke it here? Or here?

When does an injury really go away? Physically I’m almost there. Mentally I’m no where near. I am terrified of not fully recovering, or worse relapsing and getting injured again. I am questioning everything I’m doing. Strength training, spinning, stretching.

But I need to trust in my physio. I need to trust in my body and not over-think. Otherwise I’m going to explode. And Ben might kill me.

Do you over-think things? I read too much information from too many different places and then panic. Ben calls me ‘PAnnakin’ (lame Star Wars joke I guess).

Have you ever been injured, if so how long did it take to get back to normal? Both physically and mentally?

Do you ever question what you’re doing? Whether it’s at work, in the gym or just in life.

January 16, 2014

I’ve been cheating

So I have a bit of a confession to make. I’ve been cheating…

On my physio.

I started seeing my physio (technically osteopath) in December when I decided to stop running and sort my knee out. She saw me every week and worked with me in helping me ‘re-align’ my knee and sorted my trainers to stop my feet from continuing to over pronate (causing my knees to sink inwards and lean to my right side).

She allowed me to run a few 1 milers and 2 miles. But after standing around watching Ben’s marathon just before Christmas my knee just felt terrible. It was like things were exactly as they were before December. I started to despair. There was a tightness in my whole right leg that was awful. All the way from my lower back to my knee. And my IT band was started to rear it’s ugly head again.

ARE YOU JOKING?

Don’t get me wrong. I think my osteopath is excellent. She offered me some quick 10 minute freebie ultra sounds a few times a week for two weeks. She’s just down the corridor at work so it’s been perfect. And my knee was feeling better. But the tightness was still there.

So I cheated. I went and saw Ben’s physio for a second opinion last week. A fresh set of eyes if you will. [And obviously I have a money tree in my back garden (ha!).]

I stressed the tightness in my right leg, specifically my IT band. He straight away looked at my back. Apparently the whole right side of my back, specifically lower back, is really tight in comparison to my left (interestingly, this is the exact same thing my PT said to me). The tightness in my back and tightness in my glute and hip pulls all the way down my IT band and tugs at my knee.

Apologies for my amateur line drawing!

I then had the most painful back massage known to man. But the release in tension was unbelievable.

I’ve seen him twice and have another appointment tomorrow and next Tuesday. But I’ve also been continuing to see my osteopath for the ultra sound (which will be stopping tomorrow – to be honest my knee feels 98% good).

The problem is, this physio advised no running. My osteopath advised running 2 miles every couple of days. And I’ve been lying to her saying I have been running 🙁

Oh the web of lies that I’ve become entangled in!

I know, I know. Terrible. But I can’t throw back her treatment at her when she’s been so helpful to me and provided free treatment when she really didn’t have to. She’s definitely helped reduce the inflammation and the ‘bottom-up’ side of the problem from my feet. But the new physio seems to be working more on the cause of the tightness I’m feeling rather than just focusing on the knee.

End of the story is…my new physio has allowed me to START RUNNING SUNDAY! My knee discomfort is pretty much gone and the tightness has hugely improved.

Incidentally, I may be fixed physically but financially I’m now broke 😉

Fingers crossed that marathon training begins Monday.

Have you ever sort out a second opinion?

Do you get back pain or tightness? I wouldn’t say I had pain, but the tightness is very uncomfortable.

**Also, BIG thank you for bearing with me on this, I know my injury posts can’t be that exciting. I really appreciate all your good advice and well wishing**

January 6, 2014January 16, 2014

Strong and healthy 2014

Hello and (belated) happy New Year. Looking back 2013 has been pretty good…and bad.

In running and fitness…

At the beginning of the year I was signed up the Reading Half Marathon (my first half). I enjoyed running and I was quite rigid in sticking to my training plan. I thoroughly enjoyed the half and my love for running just sky rocketed.

I found a local running club, started doing Parkruns when I could and signed up to a zillion races. It seemed throughout the summer I was running a 10k every week (at times I was!)

But we all know how that ended. I suffered from what seemed like one injury after another…if it wasn’t my hip, it was my IT band, or my groin…and now my knee. Believe me when I say I have learnt a lot this year about my body.

I have a few regrets from this year and a few races I wish I’d never done (Great South Run I’m looking at you). But you live in and learn. My physio (who I fondly think of as my therapist at the moment 😉 ) says that it wasn’t me being entirely stupid in my running. She thinks my running really took off this year and my body wasn’t fully ready. It was a shock to suddenly be doing all this speed work and races and not backing it up with sensible strength work and stretching – I was a bit uneducated and keen. I was hitting good times and excelling in my running but it was a lot of pressure on my body. One injury leads to an imbalance or weakness and this can cause another injury…

Now I’m working my way slowly to building the running back up while also focusing on areas I would never usually focus on like my upper body to help support my legs.

To be honest, I can’t even think about past January with running right now. I’m feeling very nervous about the M word in April (*whispers* Paris marathon). It’s not guaranteed I’ll do it. Please, knee, don’t let me down!

In life…

Ben and me are strong and happy 🙂 He is my rock. How he copes with me moaning all the time about running is just unbelievable. He’s a saint. I always say he’s the nice one out of us as he’s just too damn lovely for his own good. I’m the selfish one between us for definite! And I can be sarcastic and cutting at times – something I should work on.

Skiing in February was amazing (wow I can’t believe that was this year??)…

My sister sprogging another lovely little girl in March…

Going on an ahhh-mazing holiday to Mexico…

Not too shabby! I don’t foresee any crazy life events happening this year, just more of the same: family and friend loveliness. And one of my oldest besties having a bambino and another getting married!

I’ve decided I don’t do resolutions. I have goals which I’d like to achieve – things like PBs and races – but I’m focusing instead on what is really important to me:

Become injury-free and strong in my running. Wow did you see this coming? This will involve my continued rehab of my current injury and then consistent effort every single week to strengthen my weakness (glutes, hips, hamstrings). Becoming a BALANCED runner.
Run a marathon. I want to achieve this SO much this year. It’s my absolute dream. But I’m only content to run a strong and healthy marathon that I’m proud of. If that means waiting, I will just have to wait.
Go to the cinema more and have more date nights with Ben. I love films and I love the cinema and I love Ben. This makes sense.

There are smaller things that I want to achieve day-to-day like trying to be less selfish and less sarcastic but I think these will be life-goals 😉

Quick fire 2013:

Best film: I think Wreck It Ralph. We really loved watching it.

Best book: The Stephen King book 11/22/63. I knew next to nothing about JFK’s assassination and this book blew my mind. So clever.

Best song: Tom Odell Another Love. Really sad but really lovely. Sit in a dark room and mope to it.

Best race: Without a doubt Cheddar Gorge Half Marathon. No where near my PB but this was an experience I’ll never forget. I loved every second. Body-willing, we’re doing it again this year.

Best meal: too hard to narrow down so I have top contenders:

From left: the amazing meal in the Brazilian all you-can-eat. I wish I had two stomachs. The Caesar salad after the Bristol half marathon. I tell you, nothing tastes as good as running 13.1 miles first. Jamie Oliver turkey Milanese meal after the Reading half. I could eat this every single day (I have eaten it four times). The burger and chips after the Cheddar Gorge half (that relish…oh!) and the Caesar salad at my mum’s surprise birthday meal.

Here’s to more good food, happy family and friends, strong and healthy running and (please!) a successful marathon.

Was 2013 good to you?

Do you make resolutions? What are yours?

What’s your favourite film/movie/song this year?

October 28, 2013October 28, 2013

The Great South Run

Hello! Well clearly I can’t start this post without saying it’s been a bit mad with the wind here of late! In the UK there’s been a good old gale blowing and weather warnings have been flying about all over the place this weekend.

Clearly not exactly ideal for the 10 mile Great South Run race Ben and me were doing on Sunday. Hey ho! The show must go on.

Sunday morning Ben and me got up, got ready, had breakfast and then Ben’s mum arrived and we drove to my parent’s house to pick them up. We were all lovely and cosy crammed in the car and then headed to Portsmouth for the race. It wasn’t far for us at all and we know Portsmouth well so we parked in nearish car park and walked 15 minutes-ish to the start area.

Gunwharf Quays: There’s the Spinnaker Tower in the distance

Portsmouth has a lot of history based around the naval docks. There are lots of museums, old ships, naval buildings…things like that. I’ve lived around the Portsmouth area most of my life so it’s all very familiar to my family and me which is nice for a change!

As we got along the sea front in Southsea (where the race begins) it quickly became apparent just how windy it was.

Nothing like being slapped in the face with your own pony tail!!

We got to the race start with plenty of time. We met up with some of the guys from our running club and then moseyed about for a bit. It was cold. Not the wintery bitterly cold, but the very windy cold. The sun was out intermittently but that wind was relentless.

I attempted a warm up run but I was so cold and my body was all cramped up from hunching over.

The long stretch of the start before everyone has begun lining up

This race was huge. There were just under 30,000 people doing it. So there were, I think, about four different waves. I was in the orange wave which meant I was the first wave to go after the elites. Ben was in the wave behind that one. So we said goodbye to the parents, then each other and I headed to the start.

My original plan for this race had been to run with a guy who’s around the same speed as me. We were aiming for the now laughable time (for me) of 1 hour 10mins. So 7 minute miles all the way. In retrospect this was stupid. I’ve lost a bit of speed in the recent weeks due to my stupid, stupid niggles. I haven’t done any speed work. There was no way I was going to hit those times.

In the end I never saw the guy. We had attempted to meet up but it just didn’t happen. I was actually very relieved. Even before starting I knew deep down it wasn’t going to happen for me. I went into this race feeling very unconfident and terrified of that wind.

Mile 1: Bit of bottlenecking to begin with and dodging around people. I tried to huddle into groups of people to avoid the wind (7.19mins/mile).

Miles 2-3: Still busy but now able to pick up speed. Nice route through the old naval docks area with the old ships, like the Victory and the Mary Rose museum. Then at the end of mile 3 we ran past Portsmouth Cathedral (7.06mins/mile for both).

I took this photo as we walked past it beforehand, not during!

Miles 4-6: I started finding the run quite tough. My pace dropped down and I got myself into a bit of a bad mood (stupid I know). Everything started annoying me. My hair slapping me and the loose tendrils were getting stuck on my face. I was stupidly hot; the sun had come out and I was in a long-sleeved top and running club vest. I also saw the water station and when I ran over no one gave me a water and I had to wait for them to get one out of the plastic. Nightmare. (7.20-25miles/min).

Mile 6: My darkest hour. I just wasn’t happy. I know this sounds quite stupid (and believe me I know it is) but I wasn’t enjoying it. I didn’t feel like I was in control. I felt like everything was against me. I realised quite a few miles back that my target was never in a million years going to happen. And nor was my second target, and the rate I was running nor was my third. This hugely got me down.

But, just as mile 7 approached, I saw a girl from my running club ahead. She’s a little bit slower than me normally but was running a good pace. I was fed up of being all down on myself so I caught up with her. I told her I was having a bad race and could I run with her and she was lovely and happily said yes. She said her target was to get under 1:20. Well, there’s a target I was happy with finally! (7.25mins/mile)

Miles 7-8: It’s amazing how a race can suddenly improve when you drop the pressure off yourself. Suddenly this wasn’t my race at all anymore. It was her race and I was merely joining her. I no longer beat myself up about the pace we were running. I stopped worrying about trying to ‘gain back’ the seconds I’d lost. I just ran alongside her trying to keep an even pace, telling her I was happy to slow down at any point if she was struggling (7.19-7.27mins/mile).

Miles 8-10: Hello hell. This was along the front and it was TOUGH.

It felt like running in slow motion. My running buddy and I were struggling through but we kept each other going which was brilliant (7.54-8.01mins/mile).

And we made it. I hit none of my targets apart from my absolute lowest one: beat the New Forest 10 (that was 1:18 something). Well, I did! Official time 1:15:13 (1148th overall, 552nd in age category, 82nd female, 43rd in age/gender category).

But the best part for me was my running buddy rushing over to me in tears and grabbing me in a huge hug and saying “I’ve taken 3 minutes off my PB. I couldn’t have done it without you”.

That made everything worth while.

And Ben finished in a brilliant time of 1:26:20 – a huge PB for him! He was grinning from ear to ear when I met up with him. He was buzzing.

Sensibly this time I’d packed some chocolate milk in my bag as I never normally eat anything after a race until I get home a few hours later and have lunch (I’m genuinely not hungry and never fancy eating in the hours after). It went down nicely! I noticed later on I felt much better in myself.

This was my bag (though the Protein Plus bar came from Ben’s – we both got one PowerBar product)

The goodie bag at the end was quite good. We got a free t-shirt as well (cotton, boo!). There was a Chobani stall handing out free yogurts and a Powerade stand handing out free drinks so that was cool as well.

And after getting home and devouring a huge lunch I was ready to chill.

Hot shower? Check. Medal? Check. Free t-shirt? Check. Compression socks? Check.

Then we relaxed on the sofa with our furry friend watching the live coverage of the Great South Run on TV that we’d recorded. Reliving the magic – ha! As terrible as this sounds, it was nice to see some of the elites struggle against the wind as well. They’re only human!

I did enjoy this race but it was tough and it almost brought me down. But you can’t always have a brilliant race and hit your goals. That’s just life! I helped a friend get her goal and her happiness at the end made all my moodiness a thing of the past and seem so silly.

When was your last bad race? How did you come back from it?

How do you relax after a race or hard workout? You better believe I enjoyed a slice of cake last night!

What’s the best thing you’ve got in a race goodie bag? It’s always the medal for me!

September 11, 2013September 11, 2013

Everything but the kitchen sink

How s-l-o-w-l-y things seem to drag when you’re soon to be going on holiday. Every day seems to crawl by…I know I shouldn’t complain though. I’m very grateful to soon be on a beach in Mexico applying another layer of suntan lotion…

It couldn’t have come at a better time as well. I feel a bit frazzled. And I know Ben is as well with all his travelling and hard working he’s been doing lately. So bring on the cocktails!

But first I have the small tiny little Bristol half marathon to get through first…I’m strangely looking forward to it. It should be great to do such a big race in terms of numbers of people. Cheddar Gorge half was under 200, whereas this one is around 20,000! Even Reading was only around 15,000 I think. So a lot of people!

What’s crazy as well is that when we get back from our holiday the ‘big’ training begins. Marathon Training. Those words just look scary to me. Marathon? Whoa. It’ll be less than two and a half moths until the big date when we get back from Mexico. I already have two races planned to help the training along:

End of October: Great South Run (10 mile road race – very popular, should be brilliant)

Mid-November: A nice and local half marathon (Gosport Half)

December 22nd: Marathon

Annoyingly enough our work Christmas party is the night before. My work always do a really good Christmas do. Last year’s was in Bruges for the weekend. This year it’s at a beautiful stately home in Winchester. Unfortunately Ben and me will opt out as it just wouldn’t be a good idea. Not with a 9.30am start the next day. I’m not too sad… *sobs*

Anyway, like I said I’m feeling a bit frazzled with work. Definitely in need of a holiday. I’ve been using my workouts as a bit of a escape. Seriously, I can’t think of anything important during those tough spin classes. My mind is purely “this hurts” or “I’m tired” or “when’s it over”. And running is like a cool breeze flowing through my mind. It just wipes all that stress away. For the half marathon I plan on just putting on some music and enjoying the scenery. I do enough introspection and worrying in my daily life to allow myself to get bogged down by unnecessary thoughts for 13.1 miles.

I haven’t really posted much about food lately. Mainly because it’s all been a bit samey and not interesting at all.

However, as it’s Wednesday (WIAW: go check out Jenn’s blog!) I did stumble across a quick meal that I just can’t get enough of at the moment. It was after I’d gotten in from spin and my body was like FEED ME. We had a lot of vegetables in the fridge that needed to be used and I just thought “what the hell”. So it was pretty much a meal with everything but the kitchen sink.

This delightful mess is a three egg scramble with lots of stir fry veg, mushrooms, sun dried tomato and diced trout. With a side salad of course – because you can never have too much veg, am I right?

What made this was the trout and the sundried tomatoes. The tomatoes were in oil so this helped increase the flavour as well. I loved this. And good healthy omega oil from the fish as well!

Another meal that I’ve been enjoying is gammon steak.

I grilled the steak and had this with cauliflower mash with goat’s cheese mixed in (heaven) and broad beans…and maybe a sneaky bit of beetroot (it needed eating). Oh how I miss eating gammon! I’m on such a meat kick at the moment.

And at work it seems everyone can’t stop bringing in cakes. Not that I’m complaining!

Hello oat and raisin cookie. How I love thee.

Sadly our cake stash in our freezer is quickly going down. This is not good. My mum came over the other day for a catch-up…and we had the last slices of Victoria sponge. I almost cried. Well, that just means getting/baking more I guess!

As my last point, I’ve just started reading Gone Girl after it seemed the blogging world exploding with how amazing it is a while ago (I’m so behind the trend). I couldn’t wait to get stuck in. I’m 17% through (God bless the Kindle) and I’m not massively keen. DON’T HURT ME. It’s just that it reads a bit like a comedy romcom style book but so clearly is not. I don’t know how to take it if I’m honest. It just seems a bit odd. I shall persevere though.

Have a great week guys!

When’s and where is your next holiday?

What’s your latest favourite meal?

Do you use exercise to switch off or switch on? Sometimes a long run is quite cathartic to think about different things, but usually I just like to stop thinking and shut off from the world for a bit.

What are you reading at the moment ? Have you read Gone Girl? Thoughts?