Restaurant - AnnaTheApple

May 12, 2015October 28, 2016

Hackney mini-break

I am buzzing. I had such a fantastic weekend full of lovely people, good food and my first (non-marathon) PB since 2013. To say I’m pleased is an understatement!

So the weekend started, as normal, with parkrun at Netley Abbey. For the first time in the year we were on the faster course, which is five laps of a cricket pitch. Fairly boring and repetitive but, crucially, flat. It’s called the “marmite course” as you can imagine.

Annoyingly I couldn’t attempt to blast it as I had the Hackney Half Marathon the next day that I needed to save my legs for. However I did go faster than I should have. I remember looking at my watch and seeing 7.30min/mile and thinking it felt comfortable enough that I could chat to Mark, my running club friend who was running with me, but wondering if I maintain it (and faster) for so many more miles? I started to doubt myself a little bit. It was a good run nonetheless (22:25) though it did start raining at the end.

I had such good intentions of getting all my housework done before leaving for Hackney later that day but time just flew away. I got home, showered, breakfasted, picked up a parcel and packed and saw my parents as they picked up Alfie and suddenly it was only an hour from when I was to be picked up by Mike who was driving Karen, Mark (different to the previous Mark) and me to our hotel in Hackney. I hadn’t done any of my normal jobs! This did plague me a little as I hate leaving the house with chores left to do, knowing I’d need to do them the next day post-race…

I’ve never been to Hackney before so it was all very new and strange to me when we got there. I’ve been to London a few times but obviously London is a big place and there are so many different areas. Hackney is very culturally and ethnically diverse. There were so many shops selling food and bits and bobs I’d never heard of. Our hotel wasn’t in the most affluent area so it was a bit of an eye opener to me (I fully admit I live in a middle class bubble – it’s just how I’ve grown up and I know I am very, very lucky).

Despite our hotel (Ibis Style) being very cheap and not being in the safest area, our rooms were lovely. Karen and I were sharing one, and Mark and Mike shared another. They were James Bond themed which was quite cool.

But what does the top right stencil mean??

It was very clean and modern – though it was a little loud in the evening with a few boy racers and police sirens. And most importantly, it wasn’t too far from the race start in Hackney Marshes.

After checking in and dumping our stuff we decided to head to the nearby Westfield shopping centre for a little mosey about the shops and some food. The last time I was there was in 2013 when I did the National Lottery 5 mile run around the Olympic park and Olympic Stadium (also with Karen funnily enough). It felt surreal being back for another race.

It’s massive. So many shops! And shops that aren’t on normal UK high streets either, like Victoria’s Secret, Forever 21, American Eagle…Karen and I were in heaven. The boys not so much 😉 We also depressed ourselves by looking in Nike. So many beautiful things but so expensive. I did get these shorts in Forever 21 though:

I’m really chuffed with them because I found them online last week and really wanted to buy them but didn’t want to pay P&P for just one pair of £12 shorts. They also have a zip at the back which is so handy as my other shorts don’t. I was tempted to wear them for the race the next day but thought it best not trial a new pair of shorts for the first time during a half marathon.

We then found a brilliant restaurant called Cabana Brasil which just sounded right up my street. I was secretly quite glad we weren’t going for the (in my opinion) boring option of just pizza or pasta but it hurt my soul not to be able to order the full rack of ribs. Especially when I saw someone else enjoying them. Major food envy!

Instead I went for nachos with guacamole to start and then a garlic marinating chicken skewer with sweet potato fries for my main – safe food. Although it was all very tasty, I was a bit disappointed with the size of the main, especially as I had to add in the sweet potato fries. For my monster appetite it wasn’t really enough! I couldn’t help but steal some fries from Karen who has a far more lady-like appetite and was feeling full with the same meal.

We all went for pudding though and honestly it rocked my world. The boys had a delicious looking cheesecake, Karen went for a frozen yogurt with toppings and I had a frozen yogurt sundae (with brownie chunks and chocolate sauce).

Frozen yogurt sundae?! Good lord, it was good.

The boys had a cheeky Starbucks before we left and we got to admire the cool London 2012 Olympics display they’d created.

Different Olympic athletes had signed a cup! It was fascinating to read what they wrote and who they were. Admittedly there were a lot from Team USA…what? Americans liking Starbucks coffee – surely not! Hehe 😉

Then we headed back to the hotel and had a master plan meeting for the next day: what time to get up, breakfast, leave, etc. Then we headed to bed. I wasn’t nervous and fell asleep quite easily surprisingly.

But then the stress began when the alarm went off the next morning at 6.20am. Not my alarm, but Karen’s alarm because my phone had decided to turn off and not turn back on at all. PANIC. I went into Full Anna Melt Down. No phone means no contact with anyone (what if I got lost on my own in Hackney!?), no music during the race and no photos. My phone has been playing up recently with the touch pad going crazy and either not working or just randomly typing so I did a full restore on Friday but now I had no idea what was going on.

Mike came to the rescue with his excellent Googling abilities while my dad (on Karen’s phone) calmed me down. I managed to wolf down some instant porridge and a shot of Beet It with a black coffee through my pathetic drama thankfully. I chose not to have the breakfast that came with our rooms as I wasn’t sure they’d have porridge (they didn’t) so I brought my own.

I strangely enjoy the Beet It shots. I love beetroot so maybe that’s it? The shot is very earthy but also sweet with a hint of lemon they add to make it a bit more palatable.

Karen and I made the executive decision to wear crop tops instead of our Hedge End Running Club vests because it was already warm despite not even being 7.30am and the forecast said it would be hot and sunny later. I was quite nervous about wearing a crop top as I’ve never run in one before and I was worried people would think I thought I was some sort of elite or I thought a lot of myself. I was glad Karen was with me as I’m not sure I’d have had the courage to have worn it without her! But honestly it was the best decision I made – I felt very streamlined and cool (temperature wise!) wearing it while running and was grateful to not have a vest flapping about me.

I applied sun tan lotion all over me as I knew I’d burn or risk overheating (despite wearing next to nothing!) and wore a long-sleeved top and leggings to walk down to the start that I could put in my bag for the bag-drop.

Our walk took us along a pretty canal

The walk was about three miles and it helped calm my nerves and loosen us up.

As we got closer we saw more and more runners and began hearing the music. It was all very exciting!

There were loads of food stalls in the race village and I instantly zoned in on the rib stand! I mean, come on, how mean is this?? I can’t have them before and undoubtedly I wouldn’t fancy them afterwards *sighs*.

The place was buzzing with people stretching, warming-up and milling around. We headed straight to the portable loos as we knew they’d get very busy closer to the start (we got there about 45 minutes before the 9am start). Then we peeled our layers off and headed to the bag drop. It was very well organised so no complaints!

We wrote a message on the Brooks chalk board (“Come on Hedgies #HERC”) and had a standard pre-race photo. I still felt very nervous about wearing pretty much nothing but saw quite a few other ladies wearing similar tops so this helped. As did this…

Very amusing!

Karen and I parted ways with the boys so we could visit the loos once more and then go to our pens. The guys were aiming for 1:45-1:50 and Karen was aiming for sub 1:30 (yep, she is that fast) and I was aiming for anywhere near 1:36 (my PB being 1:36:10).

The loo queues were massive and we wouldn’t have had time to queue as our pen was going off first (I say our pen but really I mean Karen’s pen as it was the 1:15-1:30 but we wanted to start together, though, crucially, not run together for my sake!!) Anyway, we decided to find a bush instead and as we went round the back of the loos we saw a lone portable loo sat on a trailer. No one was near it and on closer inspection it looked perfectly fine. What a find, eh! Though it did slightly rock when you were in there as it was on a trailer – we just made sure not to lock the door in case it fell over or something. Could you imagine?!

And then the race happened 😉 I’ll recap that fully in another post. Stay tuned (or something as equally as cheesy…).

Are you calm or stressed on the morning of a race?

What’s your usual go-to pre-race meal? (Breakfast or dinner!)

Have you seen a lot of London?

May 5, 2015

Southsea parkrun and The Tenth Hole

Why do long weekends go so quickly? This Bank holiday weekend has just flown by. One minute I’m bouncing to my car after work on Friday evening and the next I’m trudging back to work through gale force winds Monday morning. *Sighs* Such is life.

To mix things up a few of us from my running club decided to do a bit of parkrun tourism on Saturday morning instead of going to our usual local parkrun, Netley Abbey. I went with three other running club friends to Southsea parkrun, which is renowned for being super flat and speedy (depending if the wind isn’t too bad). I wanted to test out where my speed was on a flat course as I haven’t really had the chance (Netley has a hill you do three times).

Southsea isn’t far from us at all so it didn’t require too much of an early morning thankfully. I’m actually very lucky to have so many parkruns near us if I fancy going somewhere different (Eastleigh, Southampton, Winchester, Southsea and Netley are all fairly close – though Southampton is quickly becoming a very popular one with almost 800 going each week!).

We convoyed together and soon realised that it was fairly windy and quite cold. My hopes of getting a sub-21 minute parkrun were diminishing by the minute as I watched the seagulls getting battered about by the gales as we sat in the car, waiting until the last second to get out to go to the start.

The course is quite simple: it goes out along the seafront 2.5k and then back on the same route 2.5k. The first half was straight against the wind. I pushed my legs as fast as they would go, barely keeping my super speedy friend, Karen, in my sights. I just kept pushing and pushing, knowing that soon we’d be turning around and things would get a lot easier (in theory). I even tried to wedge myself in with bunches of runners but it didn’t seem to help.

It was quite cool to see all the speedy front runners zooming past the other way as I got closer to the turnaround point and then finally I was heading back. Ah relief! The wind was pushing me along now and I looked down at my watch to see a 6.15min/mile pace! I was gobsmacked – the fastest parkrun mile I think I’ve done is a 6.3Xminute. But it was clear how much the wind was helping when we ran through a slightly sheltered area and suddenly it became very hard again. Don’t get me wrong, even though the wind was helping it was still a tough run back, but it was a lot easier with the wind for definite! I wouldn’t have got that pace without it.

I could see the finish ahead but looked down at my watch and was confused – it was far too early! As I finished I stopped my watch – 2.9miles?? Short by 0.2miles. I looked around and other people finishing and saw they too were looking confused.

My time was 19.22 – which was stupid because in reality it would never be that quick if the course was a proper length. I felt a little bit cheated. I know it sounds silly but if I’d have known I’d have probably carried on running to get to 3.1miles (while somehow grabbing my finisher’s token…). I was on for such a good time! I was also concerned that that supposed PB would go on my parkrun profile. How would I ever be able to beat it!?

Post run: Matt, Karen, Mike and me (L-R)

Thankfully we chatted to some of the parkrun guys and they said that everyone had agreed it was short and they would do some time adjustments later when they inputted the results. This made me feel so much better! But still I was deflated because it still wouldn’t really be a ‘real’ 5k time. Southsea parkrun made a lovely statement on Facebook afterwards so I’m not annoyed at them at all – these things happen, it’s not the Olympics after all. It just means we have unfinished business with Southsea and we will be back!

Very close to the parkrun area there’s a lovely little tea room/cafe called The Tenth Hole where we had planned to refuel. The Tenth Hole do they most amazing cakes and initially we were going to refuel with cake but all decided that at 10am that was probably unwise and no one’s stomachs were quite ready for that onslaught of sugar (yes, even mine!).

Barely containing my excitement

So we chose more time-appropriate things like toast, toasted muffins and (what I had) a veggie breakfast.

A toasted muffin, two fried eggs, a mushroom, black pudding and bubble and squeak

Though I swapped baked beans for black pudding so de-veggifying it! They did get a little snotty about me asking to swap the two items as apparently making amendments to orders would make things far too confusing in the kitchen which slightly baffled me considering you could add extra items to the meal anyway, and they weren’t exactly heaving! Anyway, they did kindly agree in the end with no extra charge.

It was very tasty and I adored the teapot and milk jug! How cute! And then obviously we did what all runners do…check out our stats and generally debrief about the race and our performance. I think everyone felt a little dissatisfied with the short course but in general we were all pleased with how speedy we’d been.

All our watches – mine is the purple Garmin 220

This parkrun has made me keen to test my legs on another 5k so I think I’ll aim for one of the local 5k race series towards the end of May. Normally I’d never bother with a 5k race other than parkruns but it’s awakened a slight hunger in me to see how fast I could go as my marathon training is going so well…Plus it’d be a good speed session!

Obviously I couldn’t leave without taking cake with me. My cake freezer stock (doesn’t everyone have one of those?) is running a little low so I thought this was the ideal opportunity to restock. I didn’t think I’d eat it that day as I was going for afternoon tea the next day with my parents (yes, yes, I know, again) so didn’t want to spoil that.

I went for a slice of carrot cake and a slice of toffee apple cake. But the decision was so hard with things like Mars Bar cheesecake, Oreo brownies and raspberry vanilla sponges on offer!

They are huge wedges (doorstop slabs – the ideal cake slice proportions in my opinion). Honestly I don’t think they’re going to last long in my freezer at all! But I do have that warm fuzzy feeling knowing that they’re there 🙂

So Southsea parkrun, we’ll be back! A great, friendly, inviting event on a super speedy course – just hopefully not so short next time 😉

Do you do enjoy a bit of parkrun tourism?

What would annoy you more: a short course or a long course? I’d rather run further because then at least you can look at what you could achieved at the correct measurement, rather than just wonder.

What’s your idea post-workout meal if you’re out at a cafe/restaurant?

April 28, 2015

A lot of running and a lot of ribs

What a weekend! If you’re a British runner then this weekend gone was bloody fantastic. Nothing makes me smile like the London marathon. Truly love being part of such an awesome community.

But winding back first to Saturday morning and my usual parkrun fun at Netley Abbey. I’d decided to take it somewhat easier (medium effort I’d say) as I knew I had a lot going on the next day with the Southampton Half Marathon and running there to make it a total of 18.5 miles (more on that later). This meant I was quite chilled beforehand.

The handy tree where everyone hangs their stuff

That was until I headed off for a warm-up with my running club friend, Mike, and his daughter, Kelci who was running her first ever parkrun at nine years old, and we didn’t realise the time until we saw everyone heading over to the start. But we were still all the way across the other side of the park! We had to properly sprint over, ripping off our jackets as we went and tossing them under a random tree to meet the line-up just in time for the start. My heart was thumping before we’d even begun!

I decided to rock out my new Adidas Boosts that I’d won as being parkrunner of the month for Netley (saving myself an incredible £130!!)

They are so pretty! They’re slightly less cushioned than my regular Mizunos and Brooks so I’ll only be wearing these for short runs and ideally when I’m not running on concrete roads – so parkrun is ideal.

This also handily meant I was matching!

Small things, eh!

What was funny about the parkrun was how many volunteers we had. Because obviously it was the London marathon the next day and we had the Southampton half and 10k it meant lots of people were saving their legs. This also helped with a very quick clear down!

Anyway, my parkrun time was 22:05 which I was happy with. My running this week has gone really well. Honestly, who the hell am I!? The only hard things I’m finding are my gym sessions which are a) boring and b) hard. Running seems to be the easy part funnily enough. The gym sessions I truly believe are keeping me in good shape and injury-free so stay they must, though I might drop to one session a week as the weeks continue and mileage climbs. I can always pick it back up again full throttle post-marathon.

Mike’s daughter did very well but was pretty shattered after her first ever three mile run. She had a great finish though and the look in her face was one of sheer determination. Well done Kelci!

The rest of the day was same old same old, apart from having a little trip to West Quay shopping centre with my dad. My mum is away so I was suspicious when he invited me out shopping with him. What? Shopping? You don’t like shopping? Is how I responded. Ahh yes, the new Apple Watch was out…he wanted to have a look and feel.

Personally, I’m not won over by the Apple Watch. I have far too many watches now to need another one (my Vivofit, my Garmin, Polar watch and normal watches!) Plus my iPhone does everything I want it to and the Apple Watch doesn’t have GPS so I couldn’t even swap it for my Garmin (assuming of course I could even afford one of these – ha!) But my dad loves his gadgets so was in his element.

As it was the Southampton Half the next day a few of us from my club had arranged to go out for some carb loading that evening but due to several reasons it just ended up being Mike and me. It was lovely and chilled and a far better way to get a good dinner in than me being on my own at home (and let’s be honest, I’d have probably just gotten an Indian take away…).I went for the chicken Caesar flatbread which was perfect. I didn’t feel overstuffed (which is always the temptation) and it was delicious (Caesar never lets me down!).

I was feeling very relaxed about the half marathon the next day because I wasn’t racing it. I’d planned to make it into a long run after discovering it was 5.5 miles from my house. This was perfect considering I ran 17 miles last weekend and all the roads were going to be closed anyway to get into Southampton. Mike (yep, him again!) graciously offered to take my bag with him the day before so I had a spare set of running clothes, warm clothes, my bib, food and drink when I got there. He also works at Southampton Solent university which is all of five minutes from the start and said I could use their facilities to get changed in. I mean, seriously how perfect! He was doing the race too and I had planned to run with him and some other friends from my running club so it worked out very well.

Except I did get stressed the night before because I was running a route that I’d never run before (and I’m notoriously bad at navigating anywhere), it was a hilly route and I had a set time to get there. This meant a rubbish night sleep. I gave myself plenty of time and left at 7.30am on Sunday morning having checked my route a zillion times, but felt very ‘naked’ without any of my race things.

But the route went perfectly, the hills weren’t half as bad as I’d imagined and I got there in plenty of time to meet Mike and co. I was instantly de-stressed and got myself ready in real toilets in Solent University. It was a cold morning so I was grateful to have somewhere warm to get sorted. I’ve never felt so relaxed before a half!

I hadn’t had breakfast before I left but had decided that because I had an hour and a half to wait until the half began that I’d need something easy beforehand. I found I had a High5 Energy Bar and went with that. It was chocolate orange flavour, which isn’t a flavour I’m big on, but it went down well and I felt good. I also had some water with a nuun tablet in.

I’ll do a full race recap in another post so I’ll leave it there. After the race I got a lift back, got myself into a lovely hot shower and ready to meet my dad for lunch. Both of us are meat-lovers so the obvious choice was Ranchos Steak House which would cater to his love of steak and my ~~obsession~~ love of ribs.

After 18.5 miles I was sooo ready for food! Because I’m that obsessed I went for a half a rack of ribs to start and then ribs for my main. Go big or go home 😉 It’s just what I really fancied so I went with it.

And chocolate fudge cake for dessert. I was stuffed, but hugely satisfied. My dad enjoyed his meal too and it was a lovely dad-daughter lunch outing.

When I got home and I just immersed myself into my recorded London marathon coverage and two separate Paula Radcliffe programmes. One from ITV and one from the BBC. The BBC was more of a celebration and was a lot happier, but the ITV was gritty at times and more of an unblinking look into Paula’s ups and downs. I had no idea about the relationship with her husband being under such scrutiny and the media attention surrounding it.

I also didn’t realise they’d show that unfortunate moment in the London marathon where she had to stop at the side of the course because of tummy issues. Despite those tummy issues though she still finished the marathon in a time that tops all the latest female times today (2:17:42). Seriously, that is hardcore. What I admired most was how she spoke about that unfortunate incident. She was so down to earth about it and not fazed at all. It was just one of those things that happened and she had to deal with it. Massive respect.

I’m very sad I didn’t get to run it this year but honestly 2016 I am ready for you!!!

Have you ever run the London marathon?

Who’s your sporting idol?

What do you love about being British (or whatever nationality you are!)

April 20, 2015

Afternoon Tea Connoisseur

Thank you all for your lovely and kind words for my last post. It’s a fairly rubbish situation, I won’t lie, but such is life.

Having a marathon to look forward (yes I am really looking forward to it weirdly enough) and having a training focus really helps. It means weekends are pretty much spent running, seeing friends/family, and eating. Very good uses of my time, I’m sure you’ll agree 😉 No sitting around on my own feeling sorry for myself.

This weekend was good fun. I had parkrun Saturday morning and when I looked out the window at the sunny, cloudless sky I was very happy. That was until I stepped outside to give Alfie a quick walk before I left. It was freezing! OK, not freezing, but the wind had a nasty bite to it.

I wrapped up warm to help set-up and then reluctantly peeled off my layers at the last possible minute.

Brrr! My legs were chilly! My friend Mike turned up without a coat in just shorts and a T-shirt and I felt very sorry for him. He was jumping around desperate to get warm. The weather can be very deceptive!

Anyway off we went. It was a frustrating run. It felt great, I pushed hard and I thought I was running faster than before…but I wasn’t. I’m consistent at least but I just cannot get past 21 minutes – not on the current course anyway. To be honest, I’m not that bothered as being near 21 minutes is good enough for me as I haven’t been there in a while and my 5k time is right at the bottom of my running wishes at the moment (keeping injury free, enjoyment and marathon training are my priorities right now). But it still irks me!

I did get to wear my new Nike running top though so that was nice. It fits like a dream and is a really nice cut. Also nice that I coincidentally have a matching hair band – small things 🙂 And despite being freezing at the start, I started getting really hot on the second mile so I was glad to have worn what I did.

I saw my parents in the afternoon (after quite a cathartic deep clean in the house – very refreshing!) and my dad and me went for another nice walk along Stokes Bay with the dogs. They’re all very good after the walk at just jumping straight into the boot of the car…except Dylan.

Dylan, bless him, is not what you’d describe as an athletic dog…the others will zoom across the fields and chase birds, while Dylan will trot beside you gently. He’ll keep looking up at you as if to say “are we done yet?” And at the end of the walk he just lies down and rolls over when we try to get him into the car. Very cute, but a little annoying!

In the evening I saw some friends and we just hung out having a very easy evening chatting and watching Britain’s Got Talent. It was a lovely, relaxed evening. I headed back home afterwards, rather than stay at my parents (sort of got to get a grip with spending Saturday night’s alone at some point!)

This meant a new route for my long run on Sunday morning. I had 17 miles planned and decided to psychologically break it up so it didn’t seem so scary. I ran towards where my local parkrun is held (Netley Abbey) which is about 4 miles, ran around there for a bit as it’s very pretty and off-roady, then ran back past my house to find another seven miles. It almost felt like two runs if that makes sense. It also meant that on my pre-run walk with Alfie I could leave a bottle of water in a plastic bag in some bushes near my house.

Though I actually didn’t feel thirsty at all during the bulk of the run so I left it there. It was literally only the last mile or so that I fancied any water and passed it again just at the end so it worked out nicely.

The run felt really good and the change of route was a nice change. Though it had more hills than the beach run I do at my parent’s. This meant a far quicker start as I went downhill at the beginning, then slower coming back. Despite my best efforts to keep things consistently slow I just couldn’t get to grips with what I should be running with all the elevation changes. So instead I kept an eye on my heart rate and effort level.

(Ave. pace 7.59mins/mile)

I only started to find the run tough towards the end, probably 14 miles onwards. It didn’t help that I had changed my route last minute and was having to mentally work out where to run and the mental arithmetic involved (the simplest maths becomes very tricky on a long run). My legs felt tired but not niggly or broken, so I pushed through and finished strong.

Cat photo bombing!

My lovely short tan lines are reappearing again. Good job I have no holidays in sight requiring me to wear a bikini!

I enjoyed such a luxuriously hot shower after the run. It sounds weird but, as hot as I was running, there is nothing more lovely that a hot shower afterwards!

I ~~stole~~ borrowed my parent’s Nutribullet so I could have a post-long run smoothie. Unfortunately I had limited ingredients so it was just kale, blueberries, summer berries, almond milk and the Nutribullet super powder mix.

There you have Smoothie Sludge. There are other descriptions but I’ll leave it to your imagination… I’m not sure why it turned so brown (all the dark berries?) but there you have it. It was edible, that’s all I’ll say. I hope my body appreciated the goodness at least! I wasn’t hungry at all so it was a struggle to drink (spoon?).

My mum popped over to go for a walk with Alfie and me which was lovely. I always find a leisurely walk after a long run really helps keep things loose. It’s tempting to sit down and stay there all day but from past experience I know this doesn’t help. Plus, who wants to be inside on such a sunny day?

Runger appeared with a vengeance suddenly as we headed back from our walk. This was handy because we’d planned to have afternoon tea. We went to a different tea room this time as unfortunately our plan to go to my local and favourite tea room, Elsie’s in Botley, had a private party.

We went to The Tea Party (another tea room in Lee-On-Solent). The perk of this place is they have a licence to sell alcohol so we had a cheeky glass of Prosecco to toast the cake occasion.

The Tea Party is lovely and quirky with its decoration and the range of cakes looked delicious.

We both ordered afternoon tea. I went for ham and mustard sandwiches and a slice of lemon meringue cake (my mum had cheese and chutney sandwiches and toffee apple cake).

I like to think of myself as somewhat of an afternoon tea connoisseur having done this now a fair few times so I feel I am a good judge on these things. The sandwiches were lovely. Lots of cheese for my mum and thick tasty ham for me. The scones were warm and crumbly but smaller than other tea rooms I’ve been too, and we had a small pot of cream to share between us. For someone who struggles with sharing food, this was annoying.

My cake was absolutely divine. Very light and lemony. However the slice was small. Now perhaps this is the Cake Monster within but my mum also commented that they looked small. She took hers home though in the end whereas I polished mine off very easily and quickly. Very nice, but slightly disappointing.

I probably should find better ways to refuel after long runs, but this is a far more fun way to do it!

What do you look for in a good tea room (and/or afternoon tea)?

Have you had any smoothie disasters?

How do you stay hydrated during long runs?

April 8, 2015

Easter fun – part 2

Soo continuing on with my Easter weekend (catch up HERE for part 1).

After running 14 miles on the Sunday (and enjoying a very tasty smoothie) I zipped off to Winchester to meet up with a friend to have a mosey about the shops and have lunch (I suppose the theme of Easter for me really!). Not all the shops were open as it was Easter Sunday but it really didn’t matter as we just walked and walked chatting away – actually it was wonderfully quiet which is just brilliant for Winchester as it’s usually rammed. The weather was lovely and the scenery very pretty so it was rather pleasant!

When we stopped for air after chatting so much we realised it was probably a good idea to get some lunch (runger was attacking with a vengeance)! We stopped at CaféMonde which was surprisingly good as it looked quite small and non-descript from the outside. I went for a salad…surprise surprise! And not just any salad, but my favourite…the Caesar of course.

At first I was a bit disappointed as it wasn’t huge and from experience usually the main bits of a salad in restaurants are all on the top. However, on digging deeper there were just tons of olives, slices of parmesan and chicken, along with a boiled egg and pitta bread. This is up there with one of the best Caesar salads I’ve had in a while (and I’ve had a lot!). My friend had a crayfish and avocado salad which also looked very tasty. Very reasonably priced as well (around £7 for the salad and a drink).

We then did some more walking (and shopping). We also found Jane Austen’s house which I’ve never seen before, despite going to Winchester many times…

And we went on the hunt for cake of course. My friend chose a banoffee cheesecake slice to take home to share with her son, which I thought was immensely saintly and selfless of her – I however do not share cakes. I found the last slice of simnel cake in a little cafe and was over the moon because not only have I not had this cake before but because it was the last slice I got all the crumbs from the platter too!

It was pretty much like Christmas cake but without icing and perhaps not as dense. It was delicious! Big fat juicy bits of dried fruit, marzipan topping, moist sponge…oh it was delicious and I very much enjoyed gobbling this all as I sat watching Masterchef that evening at home.

At the end of the day I couldn’t believe how many steps I’d done! And my legs definitely felt it. I had that pleasant drained feeling of a very busy but good day.

This included a walk with Alfie when I got back from Winchester but I was truly shocked at how far I’d gone even knowing I’d run 14 miles. For the day of the Berlin marathon I ran/walked 55k steps!

And guess what I was doing Monday? More walking!! I met up with a bunch of friends to enjoy the Queen Elizabeth Country Park with Alfie. One of the couple’s brought their whippet, Willow, and I think Alfie felt a bit chunky alongside her 😉

Willow bounced along so daintily and was incredibly fast. Alfie was a little apprehensive (he’s a friendly but shy dog) and kept looking back to make sure I was there, bless him.

The walk was lovely – though tough at times for my friends who brought along their little baby boy in a pram. We all took turns to push the pram and I got nominated for the hilly sections because I “run lots”. I’ll accept that weird compliment I think!

The views were fantastic and the weather superb. I even took my coat off and walked in my T-shirt! I have every intention of going there again soon as it’s not far from me at all and Alfie loved it.And what a day for it! I even think I caught the sun! Beautiful 😀

Not as many steps as the day before (I think it was 25k which isn’t bad!) but Alfie was well and truly pooped. We settled down for the evening with The Imitation Game and though I really thought it was going to be dull and not my thing, I was hooked instantly. The acting was superb and the story was fascinating but tragic. It made me so angry about the way Alan Turing was treated, though I felt woefully ignorant to what had happened. I learnt about the Turing test during university when I studied psychology but knew nothing about his life. I also found out that Alan Turing achieved a 2:43 marathon time – how incredible is that?? Brains and speed!

Do you enjoy walking?

What’s your favourite salad?

If you have a pedometer, what’s the highest number of steps you’ve achieved in a day?