Running - AnnaTheApple

May 23, 2016

100th parkrun

Saturday was a really special day for me; it was my 100th parkrun. If you don’t know, parkrun (always small ‘p’) is a free weekly 5k that takes place on a Saturday all over the UK, as well as many other countries. You just register online, print out your barcode and then take it with you to your nearest parkrun (you can find out which one is nearest to you using their events page).

You then run (or walk!) the 5k, go through the finishing funnel where you’re handed a finisher’s chip. You take that and your personal barcode and get it scanned by a friendly volunteer. Later on you’ll receive an email with your results. It’s simple, free and super friendly. It’s one of my favourite parts of running. I go every Saturday I can, usually to my local Netley one, and I love it. You don’t have to run fast or PB every week, you can plod along, take selfies, natter to other regulars and just enjoy it. Marshals are different volunteers each week and will cheer you on as you run past.

Before Saturday I had run 99 parkruns, mostly at Netley but I’ve also done others (15 different ones in total). It’s traditional to bring cakes to a milestone parkrun so I decided on two very simple cakes: rocky road and marshmallow crispies. Essentially it just involved melting and mixing. I am notoriously bad at baking so I thought I could handle this.

The rocky road was easy peasy and involved melting chocolate, butter and golden syrup and then mixing crushed digestive biscuits and mini marshmallows into it. There was an iffy moment when I thought I was close to burning the chocolate but thankfully this didn’t happen. After putting it in a large casserole dish it went into the fridge.

Then it was on to the crispies. I melted butter and then added marshmallows and began mixing together.

Simple. Then it suddenly became very difficult. Have you ever tried mixing the sticky gloop mess of melted marshmallows with light little rice crispies?? It is a sticky NIGHTMARE. The marshmallow starts to harden, your spoon gets stuck, you get stuck, there’s pink Spiderman-style webby marshmallow glue everywhere…it’s ridiculous. Then trying to put the damn thing into a dish… Jesus, never again. Anyway they too eventually went into the fridge to later be chopped up the next morning.

But in the end it all turned out OK. Hurrah!

As normal I helped set-up parkrun. I took Alfie with me as my dad was going to pop down to cheer me on and celebrate with me so when I ran he could look after him. It’s always nice to bring Alfie along as he runs along next to us as we walk the course and gets on with everyone.

Despite the weather being overcast, it was a lovely parkrun. My fellow setter-uppers, Chris and Geoff, were celebrating their 50th and 200th parkrun, respectively, as well. So there were a lot of good spirits.

Thank you, Kirsty for the photo

Hedge End Running Club’s female team captain, Kirsty, also arranged for the Southampton Echo to come down and take some photos which was all very exciting. Though we did have to do some cringey running shots. They’re in the Echo today (we even had to give a little interview!).

(Source)

My dad arrived and we got ready to start actually running (after a lovely mention of us in the speech at the beginning).

Wearing my purple 25 Volunteer parkrun t-shirt

My dad cheered and took lots of photos and Alfie stood a bit confused watching all the crazy people running

I ran with my friends Mike and Mark and though I wasn’t pushing it, I found it really tough. I felt like my legs had nothing in them and that three miles felt ridiculously long.

Mike and me (Photo credit: Ken Grist)

To be honest, I was just really glad when it was done, though I did have fun at the end doing the ‘aeroplane’. Got to be done!

Mark storming ahead “taking it easy” with me

And then the cake feeding frenzy began! All three of us celebrating our milestone run had brought cakes so pretty much everyone at parkrun was eating cake afterwards. It was fabulous. And I must say, my rocky road went down a storm and was exceptionally tasty, if I do say so myself.

My dad enjoyed himself too. We had our photo taken in a similar place that we’d had a photo taken on my 50th parkrun (ahh the consistency…).

My dad said he enjoyed it so much that he’s going to register and do a parkrun walk next week! He’s done a 5k before (in around 47 minutes) and he does walk a lot so he says he feels capable of doing it. He felt encouraged that Netley has a number of walkers so he wouldn’t be the only one. He also has a heart rate monitoring watch so he can be sensible too (though he actually doesn’t have high blood pressure surprisingly – but best to be safe! And my mum won’t let him go otherwise…). And because Netley is laps if he doesn’t fancy doing it all he can stop when he wants. I’m very proud of him

My time was 23:16. It didn’t feel like a good, easy run but I’m still pleased with the negative split.

It felt mentally wearing and like a slog. But the cake, the lovely parkrun community who made me feel very special and loved and my dad being there made up for it. Despite having a pants run, I couldn’t stop smiling and I went home very happy. And that’s the thing, parkrun is not just about the running.

What would you bake for a milestone celebration?

Have you ever been interview by a paper before?

Do you like your photo being taken?

May 19, 2016

Fun Questions – The Liebster Award 2016

A few weeks ago I was been nominated for The Liebster Award by runner extraordinaire Lucy from EuroGirlRunning and thought I’d get involved. I’ve been nominated a couple of times before (check out THIS ancient post; my love for ribs has been going on for some time!) and it’s always fun because it’s proves for generally quite random post.

The Liebster Award is just a nice blogging thing where you shout out to some blogs you’re enjoying currently. You get some questions to answer from the person who nominated you, then you pass on some of your own questions to other bloggers you nominate. Nice little chain. Now onto the questions!

1. Is there a sport you’d love to try, but haven’t yet? What is it and why?

Generally at school I did loads of sports. I was kind of a Jack of all trades and a master of none. For example, I was part of the basketball team. I’m 5ft4. I also did cricket, hockey, gymnastics and trampolining. I’d love to get into mountaineering and rock climbing though. My granddad was and still is an amazing mountain trekker and climber and has been all over the world scaling dizzy heights and teaching others. It’s just a bit expensive sadly (with all the gear and me having no idea) and the fact that the South Coast is generally quite flat.

2. Where did you go on your last holiday?

Boston…I won’t harp on about it again!

3. Who inspires you the most?

As cheesy as it sounds, my parents. They’re such hardworking and giving people. They also know not to take life too seriously.

Growing up our house was always full of laughter. Granted, things were often disorganised and a bit chaotic (and I blame them entirely for my poor time-keeping skills ) but they showed me that life is not a rehearsal. I have a fantastic relationship with them today and without them last year would have been really hard. And they have such a strong, loving relationship. Of course they argue, but they are the definition of soul mates. They don’t compute without each other. Unfortunately this instilled in me that love was everlasting and sadly I found out this wasn’t entirely true for everyone.

4. Why do you blog?

First and foremost because it’s a nice cathartic process and I love keeping a record of how races went (not just split times), how my training was and just things in general happening in my life. I enjoy the process of writing it, taking photos and just recapping things of significance. If no one read my blog, I’d still write it.

Secondly, I love the blogging/running community. If my blog is helpful to just one person then that makes me happy. I love reading people’s comments and I also enjoy reading other people’s blogs and commenting on the things they’re getting up to. I’ve made some good friends through blogging

5. What’s number 1 on your bucket list?

Currently it’s doing all the Marathon Majors. So far I’ve done Berlin and Boston. Next up is Tokyo, then London, New York and Chicago. Then you get a HUGE medal to say you’ve done them all. Other than that, I’m not sure. There’s nothing I’m absolutely dying to do or go.

6. What’s your happiest memory?

I have several really good memories. One of them was finishing my last exam at university. My friend Charlotte, who was on the same course, and me arranged a day of fun straight afterwards…silly things that we loved like getting a Starbucks, eating sushi, going to the cinema and eating lots of sweets. The sensed of relief we felt finishing that exam and essentially our entire degree was AMAZING. We’d done this each year after finishing our last exam. Hilariously we managed to recreate the first year’s post-exam photo at the cinema each time.

We had good fun doing this! (Let’s not talk about my hair in the first photo, clearly the first year exam’s were quite stressful for me…).

Another good memory was picking up Alfie and driving him home. He was such a tubby little puppy. I remember feeding him a bit of apple (the only other being I’d voluntarily share my apple with, true story) and he then threw it up on my lap. Ahh good times.

7. If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be?

Hmmm. This sounds weird, but maybe the queen? I find it bizarre to imagine her getting up in a morning, eating breakfast and that sort of thing. What’s her life on a daily basis like?? We only ever see this perfect, austere women in the public eye. It’d just be a great insight, not that I particularly fancy being an old lady for a day.

8. Road or trail?

I like road for properly racing and trail for taking my time and enjoying the scenery. Either are good. I just love running

Cheddar Gorge Marathon

9. What’s your dream job?

I’d love to work for parkrun. Sounds weird but I just love parkrun and I love what they’re doing for running and the community. Whether I’d be any good is another story though and I’m sure it’s not “all the feels” that running is in reality. As a fun job though probably something involving eating cake. Like a cake taster. I don’t care that that might not be a real job. I’d make it a job.

10. What was your favourite race/event?

The Cakeathon was pretty damn good last year and I’m SUPER excited to do it again this year (in less than two weeks). So relaxed, so much fun, lovely people, LOTS OF CAKE and the best medal of my life.

And for the past three years I’ve done the Romsey Beer and Cake 5 mile race. It’s a tough course but I just love it. It’s the only short distance race I genuinely enjoy. Nothing about the cake at the end obviously…

There were obviously loads of blogs to nominate to answer my questions, but here are a selection of good’uns ]who I thought might be tempted to get involved…

Maria @ RunningCupcake // Mary @ AHealthierMoo // Jane @ ExtremeKnitting // Steph @ BeyondTheSofa // Jemma @ CeleryAndCupcakes // Kat @ KatalystHealth //Staci @ TheGirlRuns

And here are my questions:

1. If you could have only one meal for the rest of your life what would it be?

2. On a similar note, what would be your last meal on Earth?

3. If you could have a superpower what would it be?

4. What annoys you the most in life that other people do/don’t do?

5. What’s your favourite movie?

6. If you had to dress up in fancy dress, who/what would you be?

7. What’s your biggest weakness?

8. Favourite exercise and why?

9. If you could go back in time and tell yourself something when you were at school, what would it be?

10. If you could only RACE one distance ever again, what distance would it be?

But feel free to answer these questions in the comments – I’d love to hear your answers!

May 18, 2016May 18, 2016

It’s a Knockout hen do and Bath parkrun

I dread when I get invited to go on hen dos (bachelorette parties). I fear it’ll involve clubbing, which I detest. I’m too old for that sort of thing now – sticky floors, luminous sugary alcohol, smoke machines and toilets that made you gag. Not my thing. So I was hugely relieved that when I was invited to my university friend’s hen do in Bath it wouldn’t involve clubbing. Hurrah!

I’d taken the Friday off so I could get to Bath at a reasonable time so decided to switch my long run around as I knew Sunday would never happen. I’d planned to run 16 miles but on waking I realised mentally I wasn’t in the game. To try and persuade myself it would be OK I decided, instead of doing a huge 16 mile loop like I usually would, I’d break it down into a 10 mile loop then a 6 mile loop. As it was quite warm this would work well as I could drop by the house to pick up water if I needed to.

Unfortunately it wasn’t to be. As soon as I started running I knew 16 miles would be a real push. My legs felt heavy and my mind just wasn’t happy running. It was such a struggle. The weather was fine, it wasn’t even that hot, I just didn’t want to be running. In the end I managed 10 miles.

I hadn’t put on any BodyGlide either and my underarms were really sore from chafing. Basically it was a thumbs down experience.

Thankfully I had a fun hen party weekend to look forward to! We stayed in a beautiful three-story house doing fun activities and going nowhere near a club

The furniture and decor were awesome and the amazing Rachel and Charlotte, who organised the weekend, decked it out with balloons and hen party paraphernalia, food and drink.

But first can we just marvel at my amazing parking? This was in central Bath and there was literally nowhere to park but this one tiny space.

My little red Fiat 500

This might not seem amazing to any normal, able driver but to me this was a HUGE feat. A curb might have been mounted in the process but that’s just details…

Eventually Shell, the hen, arrived and the frivolities began. We enjoyed many glasses of Prosecco and finger-food on the Friday night. We all got suitably merry!

Me, Shell and Kate

My friend, Kate, mentioned that she was going to go running the next day. HOLD THE BOAT – what?? This is all very new to me. She doesn’t normally run. She said she’d started the Couch 2 5k programme and was working steadily through it. I tried to persuade her to come to parkrun with me the next day but, understandably, she said she wasn’t ready for that distance yet. She’s also very embarrassed about running, getting up at 5am in the week so no one sees her. This really makes me sad. No one should ever feel embarrassed about running in public. I know there are knobs out there who are awful and heckle people (it’s happened to me many a time!) so I can understand her reluctance, but it still makes me sad that she’s so worried.

I wasn’t sure how my run would go if I’m honest. I’d planned on driving to the parkrun as it was just up the road and I didn’t want to push myself when I felt so rubbish the day before. However I was worried about losing my parking space and that stress all over again. parkrun was only two miles away so I thought I’d risk it and run there. If I felt awful on the two miles I could turnaround.

I felt good during the first mile so kept going. Then suddenly I was going uphill and when I say uphill I really mean UP A MOUNTAIN.

It was almost an entire mile uphill. It just kept going and going. No wonder the parkrun is called Bath Skyline!

Up and up and up

My pace on the first mile was 8:02 and the second mile was 10:26! It was ridiculously tough, especially after the night before. I thought I was going to be sick about 10 times.

Eventually I arrived at the parkrun. I saw some suspect parkrunners so followed them trying not to look creepy. They noticed me though and asked if I was parkrunning. Then we chatted away about the course and running, as you do. parkrun is just so friendly!

I learnt about the course from the man I spoke to, which is also very handy. Not particularly flat as it has 37 steps towards the beginning you have to go up! I wasn’t planning a speedy run (let’s not further encourage a Prosecco-related incident) so I was quite happy to hear it was scenic.

Bath parkrun is a very varied course. The terrain pretty much has everything from trail, to grass to pebbles. When the marshal had explained the course she mentioned being careful of cows and I thought she was joking but we ran through a field and had to dodge cowpats! The steps were tough-going and, like many people, I walked up them.

(Photo credit: Phil Wyatt)

At one point there was a spectacular view of Bath. I wish I could have taken a photo. I got stronger as the run continued and started picking off people towards the end and was chuffed at overtaking a few ladies, though one speedy lady I just couldn’t catch and she finished two seconds ahead. It was nice to feel a bit of speed again!

My time was 23:50 which I was quite pleased with. The first male finished in 15:58! It was more busy than Netley but it never felt crowded.

And then I had the glorious run home. The mile downhill was amazing (6:49 mile!)…to start with and then became a bit of a pound session for my feet. They were tingling when I got back.

Kate’s run had gone well too. It was surreal talking to her about running. Normally my non-running friend’s just think I’m a bit mad. Kate’s going to do a parkrun with me hopefully in June when they come down for my birthday so this is HUGELY exciting.

Anyway the main part of the hen do was going to It’s A Knockout in Bristol. It was like hen and stag do central there. There were 24 teams in total (each hen/stag do was a team). Many were dressed up in crazy outfits (the best being a stag do dressed as Apple – the stag was an actual apple whereas his compatriots were all dressed as Steve Jobs wearing black turtle necks and glasses).

The day involved several different games trying to win points. The games were things like dressing in a huge giant costume and then trying to get across mats that were moving, to wearing vision-changing goggles and kicking footballs at blow-up targets. We’d been told we might get wet and I had visions of that previous hen party I’d been to involving a freezing lake… But thankfully there were only two wet games. One which involved standing in a line on buckets (above photo) and throwing wet sponges to each other to the last person who had to squeeze the sponges into buckets in order to get the most water to win. I was the ‘runner’ by which that meant I ran backwards and forwards collecting the dry sponges to bring back to the person dipping them in the bucket. It was like interval training!

Another game involved trying to pull ourselves over that blow-up slide (above photo) using a rope while there was soapy water all over it. Only two of us managed to get over (me being one of them – thank you, gym!) so the two of us just went over and over again (each time we’d get a point). We won every single game but one and sadly we used our ‘Joker’ (triple point enhancer) on it (the 24 teams were split further into 4 groups against each other for each game). We came 5th at the end which wasn’t too bad at all!

It was fairly exhausting but such good fun! We had such a laugh. It was gone 4pm when we got back and we hadn’t had lunch so a few of us high-tailed to a local burrito place and got something to eat.

I went for a salad as I was planning on having quite a big dinner but the salad was actual massive! I had pulled chicken, cheese, sour cream and guacamole and it was delicious.

After showering and getting dressed up we were ready for some more fun and games that evening. We played more drinking games and watched Eurovision (I’ve never actually watched a whole Eurovision, this was an experience!). We got food delivered using the Deliveroo app, which is amazing! Most of us went for Grillstock (probably due to my squealing about how excited I was about the food…).

I went for wings and ribs (are you surprised?). It rocked my world. Not the best ribs I’ve ever had (bit dry and not that meaty) but the wings were awesome.

We had a great evening watching Eurovision while playing drinking games and just generally having a laugh. This even included the cereal box game (you have to pick up a cereal box with nothing but your mouth and nothing touching the floor but your feet, and the sides get chopped after each round so it gets lower and lower).

I came second to the amazingly flexible Charlotte. Anyway a good night was had by all! The next day it was Operation Tidy Up and then off home!

If you drink, what’s your alcoholic drink of choice?

Are you competitive?

Did you watch Eurovision?

May 16, 2016October 28, 2016

The worst race of my life?

[This was meant to go out last week but I had Blog issues annoyingly]

Alton 10 on Sunday was fairly horrendous, and sadly I wasn’t alone in that opinion. I hasten to add that this was nothing to do with its organisation, the lovely volunteers or the race itself.

I’ve done the Alton 10 before, two years ago, and it was pretty much the same course. Funnily enough when I went back to read how it went it was from a post where I also claimed to have experienced the “worst race of my life” (I’m nothing if not dramatic I suppose). Though the race I was talking about was one of our club league races, an RR10, and not actually Alton 10.

It’s handy having a blog where you document your training and races because you can go back and refresh your memory on what a race was like. From my memory and the post, it sounded like I quite enjoyed it, though I wasn’t racing it then either. No the thing that made this race hideously horrendous was the weather. Now don’t get me wrong, I loved how beautiful and sunny the weather was all weekend but for running a 10 mile race that began at 10.30am it was tough indeed. I’d also eaten a small farmyard the day before at that BBQ restaurant…

Because the Cakeathon is looming ahead (last Bank holiday in May), I’m trying to get my long runs up again so I can attempt to do a fair number of laps (it’s a three mile lapped race where you have 6 hours to do as many as you like; laps = cake as well). Last weekend I did 10.5 miles so this weekend I wanted to do 13 miles so I got up early and ran three(ish) miles before leaving for the race.

It was handy to have these three miles beforehand so I could a) test the weather out and b) test my stomach out. I’d slept awfully and that was probably mostly due to the excessive quantities of meat eaten the day before. I felt like a BBQ was happening in my tummy all night. Anyway, the three miles went well but I realised quickly it was going to be a very warm race.

I decided to don the old crop top on for the first time this year, though I was a bit apprehensive as I didn’t feel quite my best after my few weeks of greediness indulgence post-marathon [side note: no I’m not saying I’m fat, I’m jut saying that I personally felt a bit fluffy].

I thought I wouldn’t fancy any breakfast before we left but I was actually really hungry. HOW DOES THAT EVEN WORK? Bizarre. So I had a nice bowl of steaming porridge – perfect for the weather, I thought and my dad drove us to the race. I picked my bib up easily, went to the loo (an actual loo; hurrah for no portable toilets) and met up with some of the club while my dad headed off to a spot to spectate.

I chatted away to my friend, Sarah, on the start-line and realised I was thirsty already. She kindly gave me some of her water. And then we were off. My intentions were to use this simply as a long training run, aiming for a pace between 8-8.30min/miles. I knew the course was hilly so wasn’t going to stress if my pace edged closer to 9min/miles.

The first mile was pretty standard. I got into a nice groove and overtook a number of people. It was chip-timed but tricky to work out where to stand at the start so after a fair amount of overtaking I found a nice spot of people running a similar pace to me. The first mile is downhill so it was all very comfortable and la-di-dah.

(Photo credit: Alan DenmeadPhotos)

I saw my dad and he gave me a quiet “hello” which was slightly underwhelming, but given that the race was sparsely spectated and in the middle of some lovely, idyllic country roads on a Sunday morning I’m fairly glad he didn’t go mad with the cheering.

My dad actually made a GIF of me running – how cool is that?? I find GIF’s quite mesmerising…

Mile two hit and I was feeling HOT. There was limited shade and the sun was beating down hard. Urgh this was going to be a long old slog.

I managed to slowly crawl my way past a few people and tick along, but inside my head I was in my own personal hell. My face was hot, my quads were burning from the hills (not the sun thankfully) and I remember distinctly thinking “my legs never felt like this during the marathon”. And then later thought, as the sun seemed to sap every happy thought I’d ever had, “this is worse than the marathon”. I heard one girl really struggling saying to her friend, “I can run 10 miles no problem, just not in this temperature”. There were no happy vibes around.

My dad said even he noticed that the race felt very flat and people looked dejected. The heat was just making the race such hard work. The hills were relentless but that was to be expected. Downhills still sucked because of the sun. There were only three water stations which ordinarily in a 10 mile race wouldn’t be that bad, but in that temperature it wasn’t enough. Sensibly I stopped, literally stopped, at the water stations to drink a full cup of water and then take another to dump on my head. It revitalised me for a moment until I was hot and dry again.

I managed to get through the race by counting up the miles to mile five, and then counting back down again. The course goes out and comes back (albeit a different route) so you know when you’re heading back, which helped. I stared in wonder at a man running in a cotton t-shirt. Poor guy. Side note: I also saw a woman with four gels attached to her belt. Do you need four gels for a 10 mile race? I can sort of understand one if you really think you need it, but FOUR?

Not sure how I’m smiling…and the photographer was handily just after the water station, just after I’d poured water all over myself! (Photo credit: Alan DenmeadPhotos)

I didn’t push the pace, not that I could have done if I’d have tried! I felt comfortable with the pace but in terms of motivation and general happiness I was struggling. The last mile was horrendous. It was like someone had popped my balloon and I was slowly deflating. My legs were like blocks, which is odd because I hadn’t suddenly got faster or anything. I’d maintained a similar effort. I felt like I was crawling to the finish and the final hill right at the end all but ruined me. Then there’s a glorious little downhill and round the corner to the end.

Another GIF; a bit shaky and tricky to see me!

So yeah it was pretty tough. I couldn’t have imagined trying to race it. I think had I run at home I would have run slower and I’m chuffed with the effort levels involved because of the hills but realistically this race felt awful. My time was 1:20:20, with an average pace of 8min/miles. So not too shabby at all.

Everyone I spoke to found the race just as hard. There was a feeling of Post Traumatic Race Disorder floating among us as we all agreed it was the hardest race for a long while. It was nice to have people to share my pain with as sometimes in a race you have a bad one because of your own pacing or training, but to have everyone agree was nice – though obviously I’m not pleased everyone suffered like I did!

Kudos to the Scouts who were earnestly filling up people’s cups left, right and centre afterwards as well. You can see one behind me (IN A JUMPER AND FULL TROUSERS) in this photo. Bless him.

My hair is lovely and slick back due to the water I threw over myself during the race and obviously the sweat. Nice

But despite it probably being ridiculous hard, I’m glad I went. It was nice to be on the ‘racing scene’ again with my club mates. It made for a more interesting long run and would have been jut as hot at home anyway.

Nothing like getting a medal for a training run after all!

How do you stay cool during summer?

Have you ever suffered from ‘Post Traumatic Race Disorder’?

What races do you use gels in?

May 9, 2016

The best meal of my life?

This weekend was one of those weekends that was just great from start to finish. It probably helped that the weather was just fantastic. It felt like summer on the South Coast!

My mum was away so my dad and me decided to have some dad-daughter time and make the most my mum not being there. To that effect we went to a restaurant we knew she would hate and saw a film we knew she wouldn’t enjoy.

But first parkrun. The day before my local parkrun, Netley Abbey, had posted on their Facebook page that they needed someone to assist a partially sighted runner round the course. The runner was aiming for 8min/miles and they didn’t need someone with experience as a guide. I thought, why not? I wasn’t aiming on blasting a parkrun so 8 minute miles sounded good. I signed myself up. And then proceeded to feel ridiculously nervous. What if I was rubbish? What if I tripped him up? What if…what if…

The next morning I headed to help set parkrun up WITHOUT my coat (hurrah!). It was nice to be back at parkrun after three weeks off so there was lots of catching up to do. And the sunshine was an added bonus. We were on the cricket pitch course which I was quite happy about because it meant easier in terms of guiding, and you do five laps so it’s relatively simple.

Unfortunately though Southampton parkrun had been cancelled due to a race so a lot of people decided to come to Netley. This meant it was very busy. I met the partially sighted runner, a lovely guy named Khalid, and he briefed me what I should do. He had a short piece of string for us both to hold onto. Verbal cues were ideal but if something appeared in front of him suddenly then I should grab him and move him rather than waste time telling him.

I donned an enormous high-vis vest and got ready to go. He suggested we start right at the front as it would be easier for people to overtake us then us to try and navigate around people. I felt quite nervous stood right at the front with all the fast people but it made sense.

This was one of the hardest parkruns I’ve done. Physically it was absolutely fine, but mentally I was concentrating very hard. I had to look ahead the whole time to prepare for what was coming – any downhills, holes in the ground, twigs, turns – and also what was directly in front of us, such as people.

I would say things like, “a downhill approaching in 3, 2, 1” which worked well as it gave him time to prepare. There aren’t any big downhills on the cricket pitch course thankfully but there are small declines which you could lose your footing on. And obviously four turns as well as some veering on and off grass to paths.

Without a doubt the hardest part was people. I was surprised they didn’t mention about Khalid in the race briefing, but on reflection I don’t think that would be fair on him. He just wants a normal run after all, rather than be made to feel ‘special’ or centre of attention. However it was hard on the five laps because you’re doing a lot of overtaking of people all the time or being overtaken yourself. And it was very busy. I would do a lot of shouting ahead to people to say what side we were overtaking or in some cases, when people were oblivious or wearing headphones, I had to push past them or physically move them as there was just no time if they didn’t hear me yell. Many people were fine and very apologetic once they saw Khalid but some people gave me such boggy looks. They did later apologise but it was a bit hard to take initially and I was feeling very stressed. I don’t like to be rude or for people to think I’m rude but I didn’t want Khalid to bump into people or trip.

It made me realise how annoying headphones can be to other people. I too like to wear headphones when running. However I can’t remember the last time I wore them for parkrun. It made me feel very isolated. I love how social parkrun is and wearing headphones shuts you out from that. I’ve recently bought some Aftershokz headphones which don’t cover your ear but work on vibrating through your head (“bone technology”; yes it does sound weird!) so you can still hear regular external sounds because your ears are free. Obviously sound quality of the music/podcast isn’t as good but when I’m running on my own along roads it’s far safer and I feel far more aware of my surroundings (incidentally some races that previously banned headphones allow these headphones now). But anyway, I digress. Wearing headphones isn’t a cardinal sin or make you any less of a runner, but it did make me see it from another perspective.

We finished in one piece, me with a time of 23:48 and Khalid just before me. He seemed happy so I felt relieved it went well! I then enjoyed a nice cold slush puppy-style drink sitting outside the cafe with some running club friends. Perfection!

Later I met up with my dad and we headed to a new-to-me restaurant, Sadler’s in Southampton. I’d only heard about this place the day before from my friend’s Instagram picture. As soon as I saw his picture I was like, “I must go there IMMEDIATELY”. I knew it would be a place my dad would love but my mum wouldn’t. Basically it’s a BBQ restaurant (my favourite food). We had a table for 4pm as we had the cinema booked for early evening. It was quite quiet which was nice! And our waitress was just amazing.

Their menu is basically just BBQ food. There are no starters, just main meaty numbers. It does have a vegetarian section as well though. We decided to push the boat out and share a Bears’ Grill sharing platter. Let me just talk you through this. On the board you get: two smoked turkey breasts, four chicken wings, four chorizo pork sausages, four ribs tips, three smoked gammon pieces, a mound of pulled pork, two chunks of cornbread, more chips than you can believe, coleslaw and a side salad.

I had also cheekily asked the waitress if there was any chance to add a small portion of the St. Louis ribs to the platter as, you know me, I love ribs and I’d heard the ribs were the business. She said normally they don’t as they come as there own separate meal but she’d have a word with the chef. She came back and said she could add two for a fiver. SOLD.

That is the face of someone who has died and gone to heaven. It was absolutely delicious. Special mention goes to the turkey. Normally quite a dry meat but it was really moist and tasty. The ribs were obviously incredible – and MASSIVE. The wings were so good. I mean it was all good. I couldn’t touch the sausages though as by that point I was at risk of turning a very good experience into a very bad experience. I think I had one chip! My logic was to enjoy the main bits rather than fill up on something I could have anytime anywhere. Five star meal.

My dad enjoyed it too – we were both just in a bubble of happiness. Though I think if we went again he’d go for steak as he’s more of a beef man and it was all pork, turkey and chicken. For once I was defeated. We just couldn’t eat anymore. Filling up on protein is so different to carbs. After a while you can go back to carbs and nibble a bit more but with protein, when you’re full you are FULL.

I think we did a good job! I think we left most of the chips, cornbread, coleslaw, one and a half sausages, a piece of gammon and a whole load of pulled pork. I asked to take the leftover meat home and the waitress said she’d wrap it up in a “swan of shame”.

Oof! I was so full. We did a bit of walking before the cinema thankfully to let things go down. We had some time before the cinema so we walked around West Quay for a bit. I think my dad wanted a nap but I needed to move!!

We then saw Demolition, the new Jake Gyllenhaal film. I’d seen a trailer and it looked quite funny in a weird idiosyncratic way. It was that or Jungle Book and we didn’t really fancy it.

Source

The film was very strange but I really enjoyed it. The music was great and Jake Gyllenhaal was superb. Strange but good. The screening was completely empty as well until right before the film began when a couple joined us. They literally had seats next to us. Surely you’d choose seats somewhere else?

I enjoyed a HUGE diet coke – I was so thirsty after that meal – and just settled back in a nice comfortable state of contentment.

I had a rubbish night’s sleep though as I was still quite full and there was a garden party happening across the road that was so loud. It went on really late – and there’s something so awful about drunken girls ‘singing’. Moan over. It was also really warm. So not a great sleep! The next morning I had planned to run three miles, then run Alton 10 miles, which I did two years ago. More on that in another post!

What was the best meal of your life so far?

Do you prefer to fill up on protein or carbs?

What was the last film you saw?