Running - AnnaTheApple

August 19, 2013

What a weekend!

Hi guys! How was your weekend? Mine was pretty much a whirlwind. One of the best weekends in a while I think.

Ohhh before I start with the weekend: MY MUG HAS RETURNED!!!

Apparently it had been taken down to the canteen downstairs. My poster worked

Anyway…

Saturday morning Ben and me woke up late (whoops) for Parkrun and had to mad dash around the place to get ourselves together. I like to arrive at least 30 minutes before so I can relax a bit as I get so nervous and stressed before races. Even though Parkruns aren’t really ‘proper’ races as they’re so informal and just a bit of fun.

Anyway we got there and made it to the start. I didn’t really know how I was going to run but I did want to try as I’m not going to be back at our local Parkrun for a couple of weeks now. As soon as I started running I felt strong and happy. What was brilliant was that there was a bunch of guys who were running the same speed and I kept with them so it really helped.

With 5ks I just like to give it my all and hold on for as long as I can. Not sure if that’s a great strategy as the last lap is always so tough. My running club friend was right behind me as well which helped push me on but she managed to sail past me breezily on the last stretch. She obviously has a great strategy of keeping something in the bag because she looked very fresh as she zoomed past me hehe.

Amazingly I beat last week’s PB by about 5 seconds. I think I’m going to plateau soon because it just gets too hard now.

Then we zoomed home and got ready to go to my work’s summer BBQ. I was the designated driver as I rarely drink and I wasn’t going to drink the day before the half marathon anyway. My parents came with us too (my dad works in the company as well).

It looked a bit gloomy and like it was about to rain when we got there but it didn’t really matter as they had a huge marquee in the garden.

The marquee is that white tent on the side of the photos

There was mini golf, giant Jenga, a beer tent, a tent for other alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, a puppeteer, a face painter (more on that in a bit!) and a beautifully huge garden.

Oh and even very posh temporary loos! Of course I took a sneaky photo in the interior of the toilets as I was so impressed.

And there was a bouncy castle. *Sighs* I love my father. I really do. But seriously.

Within five minutes of arriving he was on that bouncy castle. I feared for his life

I stuck to sparkling water (which I really love – anyone else with me on that?) and just milled around enjoying myself.

I enjoyed a lovely plateful of BBQ food when food was served.

Burger, kebabs, a sausage (I’ve found I quite like actual sausages – since having turkey sausages things have changed!), rustic-flavoured bread, corn on the cob and salad. And maybe another cheeky burger and sausage afterwards…

So good. Always a good spread as these things!

Ben enjoyed himself too and was (in my opinion) daring and had a few glasses of wine! His mentality was that he hadn’t really done the training, had been in Germany for the week on business, had just come back from an injury…so why the hell not! If the odds were against him he might as well enjoy it haha.

Then pudding. Oh pudding.

Honestly I just did not know what to have. So I had one of everything.

Totally joking! Wish I could have, haha. No I was sensible and stuck very diligently to two puddings only. Believe me when I say I was enormously tempted to go back for more.

There was a conversation like this between Ben and me:

Me: “But surely a cupcake doesn’t count, right?”

Ben: “Anna, you told me to stop you from having more than two puddings. Don’t do it.”

Me: “Yeah…I don’t think I was being sincere though.”

Ben: “You’ll regret it for 13.1 miles tomorrow.”

Me: “Fair point.”

So I stuck with a slice (should I say slab?) of Victoria sponge and a brownie *grumble grumble*. No in all honesty it was perfect and in the evening I was thankful that I hadn’t eaten a buffet of cakes (which, let’s be honest, was a real possibility).

Obviously we had to get a bit of face paint action.

And of course so did my dad…

He had ‘LFC’ on his cheek…*sighs* Liverpool Football Club. Bless him. He kept checking his phone all the time watching the score of the match while we were at the BBQ as well!

Even the rain didn’t dampen our spirits. It was a great day!

When Ben and I got home we really didn’t fancy anything to eat which was annoying. So we had some crisps and snacky things and left it like that. Ideally I wanted to have a proper meal before the race the next day.

And then the half marathon on Sunday…well, I will continue this in my next post as it might be a bit lengthy otherwise and I want to do it justice. Though I will say that it was one of my favourite races of the year. It was epic! And we both survived

How was your weekend?

What is your best pre-race meal the night before? Usually it’s a pizza without cheese (so it’s less heavy and I’m not a bit fan of regular cheesy pizzas – unless it’s goat’s cheese of course).

Did you ever used to get your face painted? It brought back so many memories of when I was little!

August 12, 2013

Good times all round!

Hey guys! How are you doing? The weekend has gone and we’re back to it.

All last week my fitness-related aim was: beat last week’s Parkrun time. I needed some validation that what I was doing was going to pay off. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve found that I’m really loving spinning twice a week, and I always feel such an accomplishment after the interval session I do with my club on a Tuesday night…but they’re painful sessions. I feel like I’ve been through the mill after them! But it’s all about balance for me at the moment and focused training to keep improving without getting injured again.

I’m still doing body pump once a week and every other day I’m doing my stretches and foam rolling. And, well, everything seems to be going quite nicely! I smashed my Parkrun time by 25 seconds from last week’s time which I am over the moon about.

I have absolutely no game plans when it comes to 5ks. For me it’s just go as hard as can for as long as you can. There’s a sneaky hill which we have to do three times and it’s tough to not let the pace drop but I blasted on the downhill to make up for it. I placed second lady so I was very pleased indeed.

The rest of Saturday was getting the jobs done around the house and then chilling. My dad was over once again to watch the football with Ben in the afternoon so I got myself nice and comfy with a magazine, the iPad (with the World Championship athletics playing) and watermelon. Ahh perfect.

I’m reading the Empire magazine, I do love my movie reviews…

I might have also indulged in a slice of cake in the evening while we watched some Friends… I do love Saturdays!

Sunday morning I had planned either a 10 mile run or a 12 mile run. I was going to decide how I felt as the run went on. And from the get-go it felt like a great run. I had Marathon Talk on my iPhone (can’t recommend this podcast enough to runner-lovers out there) and it was raining on and off. Made a lovely change from the heat.

So I made it 12 miles and just really enjoyed it. One of those runs you kind of relax into. The miles flew by. I decided to pick up the pace towards the end just to challenge myself a bit as well. Now fingers crossed next Sunday’s half marathon goes that way! I’m thinking that’s unlikely considering the hills…(“super challenging terrain” says the description. Oh joy).

Despite the rain in the morning, it cleared up beautifully to be a lovely sunny day. Alfie and me went for a nice gentle walk after lunch.

We’re so lucky to live within a five minute’s walk from these lovely trails. Though considering Britain’s usual weather we don’t get to utilise them as much as we’d like

So this week has been great for my workouts. One of my best in a while.

Monday: Spinning

Tuesday: Interval session with running club (2 miles warm up, intervals, 2 miles cool down; total 7 miles)

Wednesday: Off

Thursday: Trail run with running club (9 miles total)

Friday: Spinning

Saturday: Parkrun (5k)

Sunday: Glorious 12 miles and body pump

Amongst this, as I said, lots of pre-run stretches, post-run stretches, foam rolling and my strengthening stretches. I’m like a stretching machine. And it really isn’t that much hassle. I used to be so blasé about the whole warm-up and warm-downs, but now I’m like the golden girl of following running best practice. I’m boring myself talking about this sorry!

Hope you all have a lovely week

What has been your favourite workout this week? Mine was my long run. PBs and great speeds come and go, but that mental peace you get from a slower, longer run is just incomparable to anything else I find.

Do you have a dog? Or enjoy going for walks? Like my long runs, I enjoy just popping a podcast on and taking Alfie for a lovely walk to just chill out.

What magazines do you love to read? Empire magazine, BBC Good Food or Runnersworld are my favourite!

August 9, 2013

Taking a tumble in running

Friiiiiiiiday!

Nothing better than waking up Friday morning knowing it’s the weekend the next day. That’s pretty much the hardest part done, right? Sort of? I have spin Friday mornings which I currently have a love-hate relationship so it’s usually after that that I start celebrating. Today I quite enjoyed the session. I got the resistance right on the bike (last week I did it way too tough and really struggled to hit the RPMs) and felt like the time flew by. Got a spinning high I think!

Last night I went out with running club for our usual medium run (though I added a mile warm up before and a mile cool down after) around some local trails. We went on a new route and honestly it was brilliant. I felt really strong and speedy.

I like the trail runs as it’s so varied. We’re on road, then off-road, on a path, on the grass, in the forest…which I guess explains why the pace is all over the place. It’s brilliant.

Lately I’ve been really trying to work on my running form. I’ve been reading some articles and watching YouTube videos to help improve my form. For example, not over-stride my leg outside my centre of gravity, not bend at the hip…that kinda stuff.

Source

Interesting stuff! But it makes running a bit more of a mental thing. I was constantly trying to keep everything ship-shape. It requires a bit of concentration. Work in progress!

But unfortunately while running I managed to fall over a tree stump. *sighs* Maybe if I’d have spent a bit more time watching where I was going than checking how I was running I wouldn’t have fallen haha.

Please ignore my attire…PJs and compression socks post running and shower are an essential requirement

OK maybe not the best picture, but basically I’ve scraped all along my thigh. A very superficial injury but very painful as a load of skin has been scratched off. So annoying as well as this is the leg that I need to do lots of foam rolling on for my IT band. *sighs*

Anyway, it was more embarrassing than painful at the time. One of the other guys also took a tumble on the run as well and he hit his face which looked very painful! Crazy.

Moving on to food. I completely forgot to blog about this at the time so I just have to do it now. My lovely and amazing big sister baked me a cake the other weekend. She has suddenly got into baking and is whipping these cakes out like nobody’s business. All the while looking after an adorable but hyperactive 3 year old and almost 3 month old!! Super mum.

She made me a a red velvet cake with cream cheese vanilla frosting. Omg, omg, omg.

Can you hear that choir of angels singing in the background? That’s the soundtrack to this cake. Amazing. Thank you, big sis!

After enjoying a slice (or two) we popped it into the freezer in slices to stock up on our cake supply. An essential requirement in our household is we need cake in the freezer at all times. It got critical a few weeks ago when we were down to safety stock (one slice each left) but it’s back up to standard levels now. Panic over, people.

Time to get Friday done and dusted now. Enjoy your weekend!

What is your essential food requirement in your home? Oats, apples and cake. Absolutely no flexibility on that.

Have you ever taken a tumble on a run? Someone at work said “I guess you just went home then after that?” Yeah right, as long as nothing’s broken or sprained my motto is keep running!

What exercise highs have you enjoyed? Do you get them in strength training? What about yoga??

August 5, 2013

Baking Fail and Weekly Workouts

Happy Monday. Here we are again at the start of the week. And two weeks until my half marathon crazy trail run. Mmm, I’m a little bit nervous!

So this weekend has been very low-key. Don’t you just love those kind of weekends? Ben and I had Parkrun in the morning on Saturday. I beat my last time by 15 seconds which I was over the moon about.

Then we had my parents over in a tag-team style affair on: my dad came over to watch football with Ben (joy of joys) and then my mum popped over later for coffee. Conveniently for Ben and my dad, they had ~~on purpose~~ accidentally got the time wrong and ‘unfortunately’ had to play an hour or so of Fifa on the Xbox before kick-off. *sighs*

While they did that I got on with a very important task: cake baking. I rarely bake because I’m really not that good at it. I really wish I was…but I’m just not great at following recipes. I don’t read them properly or just don’t follow them as well as I should. That’s fine for cooking…but baking, not so much.

I chose a Victoria sponge, because that’s my favourite and I know my mum likes it too (perfect for afternoon coffee).

*sighs*

I honestly followed the recipe exactly. But to no avail. It all went fine until I had to get the damn things out of their baking trays (I had greased them well I thought)…then the jam didn’t seem to like the cake. Oh it just didn’t work out well.

I bet you’re thinking: wait, that doesn’t look so bad. Right? Well, we all have bad angles in photos (I know I do!) so let’s see this baby’s bad side.

As much as I’d love to say that big gaping crack was due to me throwing my face in head first for a good old bite. But, alas, no. That’s just what it looks like naturally. And my lovely father called it the “earthcake” (as in earthquake but a cake).

But clearly the most important part about a cake is not it’s appearance, it’s the taste. And it tasted gooooooooooood. And I have you know, both parents, my mother-in-law and Ben all enjoyed it. So that’s that.

After having a good old natter with my mum, I spent the afternoon just chilling reading my Empire (movie review) magazine. I read an interview with Richard Curtis (legend in my eyes – Notting Hill, Love Actually, Bridget Jones and of course Four Weddings and a Funeral) and I read a bit to Ben as something made me laugh. And Ben goes “I’ve never seen Four Weddings and a Funeral”.

…

“What?” How am I married to this man?? How did I not know this? Seriously??

Four Weddings and a Funeral is like the quintessential British comedy. It is one of my favourite films of all time. How has he not seen it? Well this needed to be rectified immediately. Needless to say we had our Sunday afternoon planned.

Sunday morning I ran my 12 mile long run. Compared to last weekend’s long-run (which I thoroughly enjoyed as was just one of those great runs)…this run sucked. I started running and I just knew it wasn’t going to be good. Maybe I pushed myself too hard at Parkrun, maybe I didn’t eat properly the night before (cake before bed is never a great recipe for a good run I’ve found) or maybe it’s just one of those things. It really felt hard the entire time. Last weekend’s run was 8.11mins/mile average for 13 miles but this weekend it was 8.32mins/mile. Well, you win some you lose some.

After the run I had breakfast, then my mother-in-law came over to catch up with coffee (and cake), and then I went to body pump which was OK. I’m sorry, I can’t get excited about weights. It’s a purely supplementary exercise for me in order to stay injury-free and get stronger to support better running. The rest of the day was watching back-to-back Friends episodes (we have the entire box set – amazing) and then Four Weddings and a Funeral in the evening. Perfect.

And to recap this week’s workouts:

Monday: Spin

Tuesday: Hill session with running club (7 miles total)

Wednesday: Off

Thursday: Lonely 8 mile run on my own as I got home too late for running club

Friday: Spin

Saturday: Parkrun (3 miles)

Sunday: 12 miles and body pump

Total miles: 30

Quite happy with the week. With the half marathon coming up my mileage is higher than normal but I’m loving it so that’s fine. Spin is still tough but I find after running it really shakes out my legs.

Because I’m running quite a lot and spinning now as well I’m very careful to make sure I’m eating more to help sustain me through the week. I’ve been adding chia seeds to my oatmeal, having nice large dinners, lots of snacks at work (such as pistachios and dried fruit) and, er, yeah lots of cake. But I’ll show more of that on Wednesday

How was your weekend?

When you increase your workouts, how do you fuel to make sure you’re not going to flake away?

What have been your baking fails? Please tell me I’m not alone in my lack of domestic goddess-ability.

August 2, 2013

How to Run Fast

Today I wanted to chat a little bit about running fast. [Sorry, it’s a very running-based post…] I am not an expert obviously. I am not even that ‘fast’. Firstly, it’s a tricky thing to really define how fast fast is. Speed is relative. When I first started running I was running 10 minute miles on the treadmill like it was my job. Four times a week, 5 miles, 50 minutes. Done and dusted. It felt tough. But I didn’t push the speed, I just kept going at that pace because that’s what running was to me back then.

Then I changed jobs and lost my lovely little gym at my old work. So I started running outside. Hang on a second! Where’s my speed button?? Where’s my incline button? It all became a little less formalised. Just running, pure and simple. I found I naturally ran faster than my treadmill slog. I was hitting 9 minutes, and 8.30 minutes if I pushed it.

Suddenly I discovered how much I loved running.

But I still ran around 5 miles four times a week. Some days I’d see it as a good workout as I’d hit around 8.30 min/mile average. Some days I’d see as a bad workout (9 mins/mile). And that was that. A tick-box affair if you like.

Since reading blogs, magazines and running with other people I discovered the key to running faster. There’s this special drink you have every morning and night… kidding (damn I wish there was a drink – or cake, I love cake). How do you run faster? You run faster. Simple, right?

Yes but it’s painful, it generally sucks, and I pretty much hate it the entire time.

Here are some of the workouts that you should try and incorporate to increase your running speed:

Fartleks
Intervals
Hill repeats

Last year I dropped my mileage and started running a couple of times a week 2-3 miles with regular bursts of random speed – 100% effort, absolutely blasting it for a short period of time. Then slowing it down to recover for a minute and then repeating. This is fartlek training (Swedish for ‘speed play’ – ha biggest joke ever; that implies it’s fun!)

Dropping from 20ish miles a week to under 10 miles and suddenly my speed on a normal everyday run was boosted. It was amazing.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s tough. But it’s only tough for short periods.

Since my irksome injury, I’ve lost of a bit of speed as I couldn’t do any effective speed work without causing myself further issues. It’s amazing how quickly you lose speed when you stop trying. Now, however, I’m back in the game and ready to play ball.

Tuesday nights at my running club are the training nights. Usually I only go to the Thursday sessions which are just nice medium runs (6-8miles) at brisk pace. But I know I need someone to yell at me to do some proper training. So this Tuesday were hills repeats.

It was 300m jogging downhill, then 300m sprinting flat-out up hill, then 300m jogging flat, then 300m sprinting flat. We did that entire sequence five times. Doesn’t sound like much, but seriously it killed me. We only worked out for 30 minutes but I was toast.

I kept saying to the girl next to me: surely this is the last one, right??

We also do intervals. This is basically a more formalised version of fartleks, usually on a track. This is when you have an exact distance planned that you sprint flat-out for (e.g. 100m, 200m, 300m, etc.) and then an exact distance or time of recovery (say 800m recovery, or a minute). And you repeat this a certain number of times.

Again, like fartlek is all about a sustained hard effort for a period of time, with a length of recovery. The recovery is just as important as the speed. It allows your body to, well, recover and then be good to go again.

Over time, the speed of which you were flat-out a few weeks ago will feel a bit easier. So you rank up the speed again. The intensity of the speed helps your muscles work more efficiently and gets used to higher speeds.

Basically the aim of these sessions is that they feel hard so you’re normal runs feel easier. And your normal runs become faster.

There are other runs you could incorporate, like tempo runs, but I’ve gone on a fair bit already. I guess you must know by now then when I start talking about running I find it hard to stop! I know running isn’t for everybody but it’s what I live and breathe. I am trying to find more of a balance – reading Kat’s blog helps me see the other side Strength is so important for running as well. You need the power in your muscles to allow the speed to happen.

Like I said, I’m not an expert and will never pretend to be, but I hope this has helped anyone who needs it!

If you have any questions, let me know! Or if you have any tips and tricks yourself, please share!

Do you enjoy running? If not, what are you passionate about?

What’s your favourite run? Mine is definitely the ‘long run’. Easy pace, big distance.

What are you up to this weekend? We have a weekend of nothing planned. Bliss.