Running - AnnaTheApple

October 20, 2014October 20, 2014

Why you shouldn’t run a marathon without training

Hello! Hope you all had a nice weekend.

So last week I was meant to start my coaching with Kyle. Unfortunately things haven’t got off to a great start. I took 10 days off of running after the Berlin marathon to rest because I knew I needed it. When I finished Berlin everything ached, but the day after I could distinguish pain from the ache: I had a poorly sore foot. I wasn’t too concerned because I knew I was taking time off anyway.

The foot remained quite sore for that week and then subsided to more of a niggle the next week. But by Friday it felt near enough OK and I had my new trainers arrive so I thought I’d go for a run.

At no time during the run did I feel pain and afterwards it was pretty much fine. But on Monday at the end of my first training run set by Kyle (30 mins easy) I felt my foot. Stupidly I attempted running again on the Tuesday night and it wasn’t happy at all, so I quit the run after half-way through.

I haven’t run since Tuesday. I’ve been using hot and cold therapy (icing for 4 minutes and then putting a hot water bottle on it for 4 minutes, and repeating – what fun evenings I have!). Kyle has been brilliant, he saw me on Tuesday night after the run and we’re pretty sure its do with my peroneal tendon (goes down the leg to my ankle and foot) and he’s been giving me lots of advice and stretches.

Strangely though I’m not panicking or feeling upset. Obviously I’d love to be running right now but at the same time I did just run a marathon on a pathetic amount of training and got a PB. So I would say this is probably what I deserve! I don’t have any real goals for the rest of the year so I’m actually quite relaxed at the moment about the whole thing – which is an absolute first!

I won’t lie, I would still love to run the Portsmouth Coastal marathon in December but I really should be running now if I want to do that sensibly. My thoughts are it’s highly unlikely, especially as I want to start next year feeling fresh and good for training for the London marathon. But like I said, I’m not stressing. I’d just like to get back into normal running but for now I’m OK using the elliptical machine, cycling, doing weights and yoga.

The archaic beast in our small gym at work

What I would say is is that Ben’s injury has given me a whole new perspective on things. He has been out for so long and his injury is fairly serious – months not weeks. My pathetic foot thing can’t compare so I need to shut up and just be patient. It could be a lot worse. The body is precious and I need to remember that. This year has been fairly pants with repeated injuries but I need to learn from them and not rush things. I’ve jumped from one race to the next and haven’t had proper rest. But I’ve achieved what I wanted to this year – two marathons! And I bloody loved them, so I’m happy and content at the moment 🙂

How do you feel when you’re injured?

What are your goals for the rest of the year?

What’s your favourite way to cross-train?

October 13, 2014

Boosts, London and Africa

I used to love thunderstorms. The sound of the rumbling and crashing and the flashes of lightening was always quite exciting. Alfie, however, does not like thunderstorms and as he sleeps in our room, we are fully aware of this. He starts barking at the thunder or running around the room in a panic. Or sitting on our pillows trying to get as close as possible to us. He’s frightened by it I think which is all very sweet. But seriously, Alfie, MAN UP. I need my sleep!!

This weekend, thunderstorms aside, was great. It started Friday night with a great run. I got my new Adidas Boosts delivered to work and was desperate to give them a little trial run (ha!)

I text Ben saying I might go for a run after work in Basingstoke and might be home a little later than usual. He was uber happy about this as he was planning a surprise for me and needed a bit more time. He had told me the night before he was going to put his Friday afternoon off to good use and do something special for me. Well, my curiosity was definitely spiked!

I wore my new Berlin marathon finisher t-shirt and obviously my new Boosts.

Unintentionally colour coordinated!

Having not run for 10 days I was thinking it might feel a bit sluggish. But actually I felt like I was flying. The Boosts felt amazing and my legs felt very fresh. The first mile was downhill but I was very surprised to see a 6.42min/mile! In the end I did 5k in 22.02 minutes. Not too shabby. I probably shouldn’t have gone so fast on my first run but I just felt good and went with it.

When I got home I was welcomed by a very pleased looking Ben and my surprise.

Yep still looking sweaty

A three-layered red velvet cake – all made from scratch. *Swoons*

I was over the moon! What a guy, eh!? And let me tell you, it tastes AMAZING. Cream cheese frosting heaven! He was a bit miffed the sponge didn’t come out that red though, despite using food colouring gel rather than liquid. Bakers, is there a special way to do this?

Saturday morning we got up early to go to London. Ben needed a quick passport change as he’s going to China with work (oooh er!) so we decided to make a day of it.

We did a lot of walking around and saw the classic tourist bits, like Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, the London Eye, Houses of Parliament etc. I’ve seen them before but never actually done this with Ben so it was nice.

Also saw some of the roads I’ll be running along come April next year…how exciting! (Providing I’m not injured – I feel like I have to say this as you know how injury-prone I am)

After getting the passport sorted we went to find some lunch. I tried to tempt Ben into going to Wholefoods for their salad bar but that really didn’t go down well…but he did say we could go and have a look 😉

Before that, we found a lovely South African restaurant called Bbar which took our fancy. There were animal prints and animal pictures everywhere and the waiters were lovely. We went for a pitta and dip board to begin which was a little smaller than I had imagined but all very nice (taramasalata, hummus and baba ganoush dips). And for main I went crazy and had a salad. It’s funny because I didn’t even realise there was avocado in it before I went for a big chunk of what I thought was lettuce – it was so camouflaged! Ben went for an amazing burger which looked huge. There were so many burger options, even buffalo and boar.

After a relaxed lunch we walked to Wholefoods and checked out more sights along the way. We didn’t do much shopping or anything that exciting, it was just nice to walk around London together without any real aim.

Wholefoods was just full of young adults – possibly students and, I guess, people like me.

The cakes looked out of this world

It was just rammed. The salad bar looked good but I’m glad we hadn’t gone for it – the queues were huge and it felt a bit claustrophobic. I know Wholefoods is held on a pedestal for healthy and unusual ingredients but some of the things did make me laugh. A cupcake that was gluten free, diary free, egg free and low fat had the ingredients list that would make a Pop Tart tremble. Seriously, so many chemicals with long and scary names. Fairly ironic.

As we slowly ambled back to Waterlook, fairly pooped now, I kept seeing people with whole coconuts drinking out of them with straws. Then a few minutes later we got to Trafalgar Square and we passed a huge area of tents and festivities. It was called Africa on the Square – which fitted into our theme of the day perfectly 😉 We had a wander around (so many amazing smelling foods and cool music) and I found the coconut tent. For the fairly pricey £4.50 the guy chopped off the end of a coconut, popped some straws in and handed it to me.

It tasted divine. Fresh coconut water! Yum. It disappeared rather quickly! Then we decided to head back to the train before our legs fell off. We both fell asleep on the train we were that tired. And embarrassingly I woke up with my mouth open…classy girl right here 😉

Sunday was supposed to be fairly relaxed until we decided to clear out the Cupboard of Death (under stairs cupboard…*shudders*) and some kitchen cupboards to make space for Ben’s new plaything – a Kmix. He’s really getting into this baking lark and with having Friday afternoons off I think I’m going to be seeing a lot more cakes. Can’t be bad, right? 😀

What are your favourite things to do in London?

Have you ever had a real coconut before?

What trainers do you wear?

October 8, 2014

Things around here lately

Since the Berlin marathon I have pretty much done no exercise. This wasn’t me being lazy, I just intentionally fancied a break.

This is pretty much how I spent the whole weekend

I was shattered after the marathon. My legs ached for three days afterwards – which is totally to be expected considering I ran a marathon without having trained further than 13 miles. Don’t ask me how I survived it at all, I have no idea. But I do know that it’s sensible to take a little break now.

I had a little bit of fun with some photo apps…

You might laugh to hear but I’d love to run the Portsmouth Coastal marathon in late December (just a few days before Christmas). I was going to run it last year but due to injury I never got there. I supported Ben running it and really enjoyed the day. Though the weather was atrocious and the scenery is…well it’s Portsmouth, I’m really keen to do it. It’s a local marathon, under 1000 runners and it’s a bit off-road (there’s a cut off time due to the tide coming in!). It’s only 10 weeks away, but I reckon I have some good fitness behind me now.

I’ll be starting my coaching from Kyle next week and he knows I’m keen to run it but he’s already advised that I should use at a training run in preparation for my goal marathon (London). Whatever a ‘training marathon’ is! Basically, I have no time intentions – I’m quite happy to plod (a relative term!) round slower than I have done in previous marathons and just tick the miles off. Marathons are my distance, I just love them. I love halves as well as an ‘easier’ option in terms of training and recovery but nothing beats the feeling of finishing a marathon. Perhaps this is because so far I’ve had quite good experiences, who knows.

And an update on Ben…it’s not great news sadly. He had his ultrasound and they found that his tendon, which connects his hamstring and knee, is swollen three times its normal size (he gets a ‘clicking’ sensation which is the tendon going over the bone). The pain is still there and he hasn’t run. The ultrasound specialists did a brilliant job of scaring the hell out of him saying he would never run again without getting injections. However Ben’s physio read the report and told him that that was rubbish. The ultrasound specialists have limited muscular-skeletal knowledge and don’t know all the possible treatments. HUGE SIGH OF RELIEF.

Basically the plan going forward is Ben to take 2-3 weeks of complete rest (no cycling, swimming, running) and ice every single day to reduce the swelling. Then he can start stretching and strengthening and eventually gently running as long as things are improving. Our physio reckons it might be 8 weeks until he can run again. But the take away message is he can and will run again. It might even be sooner. This means he sadly can’t do any races he had planned this year, but it does mean he can do the Brighton marathon next year (hopefully).

We’re both sad and pleased. Pleased that it’s nothing that can’t be solved somehow. If the above treatment doesn’t work then surgery is probably the next road to take. But he will run again. I’m sad though because I wish he could run – and so does he. It’s a big part of who we are and nothing compares in terms of exercise. But we just have to look at the bigger picture. I also need to tone down the amount I go on about running because it’s not very fair of me 🙁

Anyway, that’s us for the moment!

How do you recover from a big race or workout?

How do you deal with bad news?

Have you ever had to have surgery?

September 22, 2014

Drowning iPhones, beetroot and chocolate fudge cake

One week, one week, one week…before the Berlin marathon. To say I’m terrified is something of an understatement.

The weekend was nice and relaxed though thankfully. Friday night we went out to Nando’s again with friends. Nando’s is becoming dangerously addictive! On Saturday morning I was tempted to go to parkrun to do an easy gentle 5k but after running 10k on Thursday night and cross-training Friday I decided to be super sensible and go pool running instead.

Float time in the swimming pool…

Like last time I took my waterproof iPhone cover and Bluetooth headphones so I could listen to music and keep myself entertained. I was just doing my thing when suddenly my music stopped. I looked over to the side where I left my iPhone and saw it had vanished. Uh oh. I looked down in the water to see it glowing at the bottom of the pool. A small child had managed to knock it in accidentally. He stood there looking all guilty and said “Shall I dive down to fetch it?”… “err yeah” I said, trying my best not to panic. Luckily it was fine and the child lived on for another day. Whew. So 35 minutes of pool running went OK other than that incident.

The rest of the day was non-descript but in a lovely “got no plans” kind of way. Lots of walks with Alfie and watching Kings of Summer (which I highly recommend).

Sunday morning was long run time. I set my alarm for 8am and decided to test out a possible pre-marathon breakfast. My plan is to have two of the Beet It flapjacks before the race. They’re 235 calories each so my thinking was two would be perfect for a good breakfast and I get the whole beetroot benefits (boosting endurance).

Alfie was very interested

I’ve tried the bars before but just at work when I fancy a snack. They’re so tasty – kind of earthy but sweet and crumbly. Anyway I had two and then got myself ready and took Alfie for a longer walk than I usually would before a run, just to give myself a good amount of digestion time.

My tummy felt a bit strange after eating two bars. Not like I was sick or anything would happen, but just not completely right. I instantly regretted eating the bars and decided there and then to stick to my usual porridge before the marathon. I was sad about the bars but it was worth a shot.

On the actual run though my stomach was fine and I just got on with, well, running. I aimed to stay at around 8.30mins/mile as this is nice and easy. I felt quite slow if I’m honest but on my second mile I looked at my watch and found I was storming along 7.30-45mins/mile! I immediately slowed down. I continued letting my mind drift and listen to my podcast and realised I had sped up again.

But it didn’t feel tough at all. This was dangerous territory to be on and I snapped myself out of it and forced myself to slow down. This is not the time I want to have the best run of the month – that’s next week I hope! I need to save it for then, not on a training run.

Anyway the run went fine. No shin discomfort. Just a normal run – woooohooooo! And afterwards I just felt normal aches and tiredness like I would after a long run. And even today I feel fine! I can hardly believe it.

Now this might be completely coincidental but I could it have been the beetroot bars that helped? I felt so fresh and good on the run and even when I was running faster I felt like I was running a minute slower. Now I’m confused. But I do still have the Beet It shots which give the same amount of beetroot power as the bars and then I can still have my porridge. So I need to trial a shot before a morning run this week…

After the run I got showered and we headed to a local pub to have lunch with my parents and Ben’s mum.

Family lunch

I realise my choice of food is odd but hey ho. I had a mango chicken salad to start and, er, a chicken, beetroot and goat’s cheese salad for main…with sweet potato fries 😉 You might have thought I’d have had enough beetroot at this point. You would be wrong.

And pudding…oh pudding, how I do love you. I had a hot chocolate fudge cake with ice cream. Need I say it was to die for?

It was such a lovely lunch.

And cheers to my dad for the lovely ski whiffed photo!

After walking Alfie when I got back, this is pretty much what I felt like for the rest of the afternoon:

Knackered

What did you get up to this weekend?

Are you good with small children? Or children in general really? I am not.

Are you a starter or a pudding person? It really depends for me, usually I will only go for one but I was quite hungry. Normally it’s pudding if they have something good.

September 17, 2014

Tapering? Don’t make me laugh

I just wanted to say a big thank you to the Tweets and comments regarding my last post, it’s given Ben a lot to think about! The fact of the matter is, we’re going to Berlin come what may. Whether both of us or one of us runs the marathon is anyone’s guess at this point.

If all continues to go as well as it is for me then I will be running it. The only thing that will stop me running is if I go on a run and there is sharp pain. At no point have I actually felt any pain – it’s all discomfort and tightness, like a pulling on my shin. A few weeks ago I stopped a run because the discomfort was so bad. It wasn’t pain per se but it was just so uncomfortable to run on – does that make any sense?

Anyway, after seeing my physio last week and Kyle, my go-to sports massage therapist – both are confident I will run the marathon and have said that my shin is fine now. Just need to convince my over-working over-analysing brain…

Anyway, I thought I might update you on my ‘marathon training’ considering that I haven’t done that in a while and hey why not considering it’s less than two weeks away. Now that the injury has passed (TOUCH WOOD) I just have the simple worry of actually getting round the marathon. Like for Paris, I’ve set myself a realistic target (well, apart from just finishing!) My planned pace is very realistic (in theory) as it’s very much an easy pace for me.

So this is last week’s training:

Monday: 6 miles easy run

Tuesday: 40 minutes on the cross-trainer/elliptical machine (5 minute warm-up, 45 seconds hard, 1 minute easy repeated, 5 minutes cool down)

Tough!

– 2.5mins plank
– 4x 15/leg single leg squat
– 4.5mins crab walk
– 4x 26 Russian twists
– 200/leg clams with resistance band

Wednesday: One hour of yoga (loving this!)

Thursday: 3 miles easy run at lunch and 15 miles speedy (to me!) bike session

Friday: 30 minutes on the cross-trainer/elliptical machine. Didn’t have as much time as usual so tried to blast it.

– 2.5mins plank
– 15x 4 single leg squat

Post workout happy selfie

It was one of those workouts that I felt great about! I really enjoyed it and felt amazing afterwards.

Saturday: One BORING hour of pool running. It all started off great with my waterproof iPhone cover and my Bluetooth headphones listening to a podcast trying to ignore the small people splashing around on floats (I tried to limit my Death Stare a little). Then my headphones ran out of battery.

See the float in the background? I had so many of those things bump into me.

Honestly, nothing is more boring than pool running. I literally stared at the clock. I even did intervals just to pass the time quicker. I felt like this was a seriously successful workout not only in terms of fitness but psychologically – it really tested my mental endurance.

Sunday: The long run I’d been dreading… 11 miles. I was going to do 10 but then I realised two weeks before Paris marathon I did an 11 miler and superstition told me to do that extra mile if I felt good. And I did, so I did. No shin issues before or after…bit of tightness the day after but nothing hugely remarkable. Fitness-wise I feel good. Endurance-wise? Eh…no idea really. I didn’t feel like I was dead on my knees during or after this run, wasn’t tired in the day and the next day I had no muscles aches – it was like I hadn’t run. Good sign? But only 11 miles…! Apart from endurance my big concern is the effect of the pounding on the roads that running does…nothing but running proper can train your body for that.

What workouts did you enjoy last week?

Do you need music/entertainment to get you through some workouts?

Are you superstitious? I didn’t think I was until now!