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Howdy! Well this week has been tough. I am mentally and physically shattered. We have met our project deadline though – hurrah! And now we have tomorrow off until coming back in the New Year. That’s pretty damn fantastic considering I thought I was in Monday and Tuesday next week.

(Somewhere Ben sighs a huge sigh of relief for his to-do list just got smaller).

Right, so as you may or may not know I have not been running. I dropped out of my pending marathon (this Sunday) after some annoying pain and discomfort in my right knee. I decided to take December completely off running to heal and strengthen. I’ve seen my lovely physio (technically an osteopath) three times. She’s been applying ultra sound and massage to my right knee and leg to get rid of the inflammation and calm it down. She also added a small ‘wedge’ to my existing orthotic on my left foot to stop my foot rolling inwards and putting pressure on my right leg. Apparently I have very flat feet which is why I’m having such issues.

Anyway, she allowed me to try out my ‘new’ trainers in a 0.5mile run. This was Tuesday. I got my gear on, warmed up, stepped outside…and ran.

I literally felt nothing. No pain. No discomfort. No hint of a niggle. It was (dare I even say this) a NORMAL run. I even did a little sprint and an uphill run as well just to ‘test things’.

Can I get a HALLALEUIGH!!

OK, Anna, let’s not get too excited. This was a run that lasted no more than 4-5mins max.

I gave my physio an update of how it went and she said two days later I could run…one mile. She also said no sprints to test it…OK, fair enough.

I got up at 5.25am this morning to get in the mile run before heading to my personal trainer appointment. Again, it went fine. Towards the end there was a ‘ghost’ of an awareness of my knee. But nothing that I could really put my finger on. If I had felt this during a run say 6 months ago I wouldn’t have thought anything of it. That’s my issue at the moment. I am hyper aware of my body and any tiny little niggle. I am a paranoid runner and I think I always will be.

I updated my physio and she said another mile in two days time. I did ask about the Christmas day Parkrun… she said no. I’m trying not to get down about that. If this is what I need to do to get back to form then I will do it. If I have to keep going to the gym for the next two weeks but I get to run in January then I will do it.

In general terms my knee doesn’t feel completely back to normal in every day life – if that makes sense? There’s no pain or anything that extreme, just a bit of achiness and niggliness (medical term) occasionally. After my runs it doesn’t ache more which I think is a good sign! So I’m happy to keep my running to a minimum to just get things completely back to normal. I’m focusing instead on my personal trainer appointments (more on those in another post), spinning (which I’m OK to do now!) and general gym work (oh joy).

One more thing… please, please send good luck running ju-ju for Ben and his first marathon on Sunday! I’ll update you on how it went 🙂

Are you running over the festive period? I’d love to have done the Christmas Parkrun but hey ho (ho ho).

Do you like to relax completely during Christmas or do you stick to your work out routine? I will no doubt still be at the gym next week as I will go mad otherwise. But not Christmas day!

I can’t even begin to think that it’s Christmas next week. Nor can I believe that it’s the marathon this Sunday. The marathon I’m no longer doing…*sobs*. But Ben still is. And he has man flu!

I’m getting so stressed out. I’m worrying about Ben and how he’s going to be on Sunday – what with man flu and not having followed his training plan due to many different reasons (travelling with work a lot the past month and a hip niggle which he’s still seeing a physio about this week). I’m sure he will be fine and I’m just a silly worrying wife.

And also working stupid hours is just making days a lot shorter. When am I going to write and send my Christmas cards? When am I going to do the Big Clean before Christmas? Plan Christmas day? Wrap Ben’s pressies??

Anyway, as my head is all over the place here are a few random tidbits from my life at the moment.

1) I love my husband but why did he feel the need to empty his hotel room every night he’s there?

This is only from one visit – multiply this by four!

There’s just not enough room in our cupboards for this all. I do love mini bath stuff though. Perfect to take on short trips so I won’t complain too much!

2) Speaking of my husband. Bless his heart, while I was working over the weekend he did all the house work and put the tree up. Though, just to reassure me that he was indeed working hard and not dallying about, he sent me regular update photos of his progress.

Sorting the cupboard…

Sorting the dinner table…

He works very much on praise 😉

3) I really hate my commute.

Liverpool football teddy in my dad’s car (*rolls eyes*)

During the week it just sucks. Driving to and from work on Saturday was brilliant, as was Sunday morning. Sunday evening though was terrible – an hour and a half! Just because people forget how to drive in the rain. Come on, it’s Britain, surely we’re used to this now?

4) I tried out this strange chair at the office the other day. It helps maintain good posture apparently.

Though it did nothing for my shins. I couldn’t sit on it all day. But it was interesting to try it out. It forced me to sit upright. I am so aware of myself slouching over my laptop after being told my posture is appalling.

5) Early mornings going to the gym… 

…but coming out and seeing the sunrise.

It helps me feel less tired to get a good sweat on! But the early mornings are starting to wear on me now.

And getting to the gym for my 6.15am personal training appointment Monday morning (read: my alarm went off at 5.40am) and finding my personal trainer had forgot to set his alarm after a bit of late Sunday night. Needless to say I made my anger very clear when he woke up and he was very apologetic. I was so tired I just went home again…and did all the ironing. That’s how I roll. It was one of those days when I needed someone to shout at me to work out, rather than rely on my own motivation.

6) Amazon Prime – I signed up for the free month a while ago and forgot to cancel it (don’t you just hate that??) but I am definitely glad of it now! 80% of my Christmas shopping has been easy peasy as it’s all from there. Next day delivery, no shipment fees…it’s like Christmas every day for me at the moment the amount I’m buying. All for other people obviously…though I did a teeny bit of shopping at Top Shop the other day when I felt a bit down in the dumps.

I treated myself to a pair of Hunter’s wellies. Living in Britain I see this as a sound investment. Walking Alfie will be brilliant in these bad boys.

And I have some great amazing brilliant news regarding my running…but more on that in another post 😉

What’s your commute like? I’d love to be able to walk or cycle to work.

Have you done all your Christmas shopping? What’s your Christmas shopping top tip? I’m not being compensated to say about Amazon Prime…I just honestly think it’s brilliant!

Do you ‘steal’ the hotel goodies? 

I feel so behind with everything. It’s amazing what not having a weekend can do to you.

Thankfully I did have Friday off – though it was only really because I had a doctor’s appointment in the morning and had booked to see The Hobbit in the afternoon with Ben that I managed to hold on to my day off. It’s all a bit hectic at work at the moment because our project deadline is Friday 20th. So it’s all hands on deck!

I did have a lovely day off on Friday though. I endured the gym by doing 40 minutes on the bike and 40 minutes on the rower. I felt really into this and it was almost like getting a runner’s high I was that ‘in the zone’. But obviously no where near as good as actually running.

I saw this as well.

Mr Spin Bike, I feel your pain!

Then after the gym we had to rush to visit my sister to give her much delayed birthday present to her and have a catch-up. Nothing better than a catch up with your sis!

Then we headed home, had a quick lunch and zoomed to Gunwharf Quays for a little shopping and movie-seeing.

It was lovely and Christmassy with all the lights and festiveness. We managed to cross a few more things off our Christmas shopping list, wohoo!

And The Hobbit was amazing. I love the Lord of the Rings and the first Hobbit so this is hardly a surprising review from me. They’re just so epic.

And one of my favourite parts of the cinema…

Ahh sweets. I do love them. Expensive but tasty. I just can’t resist them.

Unfortunately it was just before going into the film that I found out about having to work the weekend, which sort of put a downer on things. Suddenly my Friday night turned into a school night. What was more annoying was I had to actually go into work, whereas previously I’ve been able to work from home. But you just have to do what you’ve gotta do in these situations!

I won’t bore you too much with the details of how my weekend went. But it was a nice feeling of camaraderie from the people who came in and our boss was there and did a huge Tesco round for us for lunch and bought lots of treats. Then he invited us all to his house for a BBQ dinner (yes, I am aware it’s December). My boss is great and he’s very generous, he invited Ben and my mum (my dad works at the company too) as well so that was nice. The company is quite small and very ‘family-like’ if that makes sense. I’ve known my boss for years because my dad has worked at the company for over 10 years. It’s all very weird working with people you heard about as a child growing up!

Anyway, we enjoyed some lovely mulled wine, some very nice steak and jacket potato with pomegranate salad. It did help take the edge of working the weekend to know that what you’re doing is being appreciated.

And wow it’s Monday again…just got to get to Saturday now.

How was your weekend?

If you work, does your job require you to work long hours/weekends?

Do you work in a big company or a little company, or self-employed? I’ve worked in both big and small companies, and I much prefer smaller companies. You feel like you’re not just a number.

What snacks do you enjoy at the cinema?

Hi guys. Tired and stressed doesn’t cover what I’m feeling at the moment. But Christmas is coming…

Anyway, on a positive note, here are a couple of great products that I’ve been loving recently.

First up is a amazingly well-timed item called Physicool.

I first heard about this product on Lauren’s blog and I thought it sounded amazing. So when I got the opportunity to review the product myself, well I was over the moon!

So what is Physicool? It is a basically a bandage that you wrap around an area of your body that is injured or strained, such as your ankle or knee (obviously I used it for my knee!) It provides an instant cooling effect to that area, which (like ice) reduces down any inflammation and helps with pain relief.

It was very easy to apply to my knee, just a simple case of wrapping the bandage around my leg. And it’s held in place with Velcro (the Physicool label). It smells very chemical (though not overwhelming) and is damp with the cooling product, but this is to be expected. Within seconds my knee started to tingle and felt cold. It was very similar to Deep Freeze if you’ve ever used that.

What I loved about it was that it was so easy to use. I often use ice but it can be a pain to keep holding ice to my knee and making sure it doesn’t slide off (and ice can burn if you’re not careful). And ice baths – yeah right! Not in this weather. And it was easy to wrap up again and put away.

I was able to use the bandage three times before the cooling effect wore off. Then you have to ‘top it up’ with the cooling product (the bottle in the first picture – unfortunately you have to buy this separately or as a combo purchase). You basically pour a portion of the liquid onto the rolled up bandage in the bandage container and it’s ready to go again. My only annoyance is that it doesn’t last forever (without buying more liquid) and it is more expensive than frozen peas. But other than that I love it!

Next are these amazingly tasty nakd Fruit & Nut Bits.

I’m not kidding when I say these things are so moreish. The ingredients are pretty damn good. For the Berry Delights: dates, cashews, raisins, raspberries, rice flour and a hint of natural berry flavouring. The only way to describe what these little ‘bits’ are like are like healthy little cubes of all those ingredients combined. And a 35g portion is one of your five a day.

The Chocolate flavoured ones have cocoa powder in them and it feels like you’re eating something very naughty and chocolatey but really it’s just dried fruit and nuts. But beware, they are so so moreish! I had to count a few out and then put them away quickly for fear of gobbling them all up. And they’re quite filling for a nice little snack. I do love the nakd company as you can expect they’re products not to be full of any hidden nasties or crazy ingredients. Check out their other Fruit Bars for more tasty snacks.

Hope you’re all having a lovely weekend!

Do you like nakd products? I quite like having a mid-afternoon snack to tide me over to dinner. I like my graze box with all the fruit and nut nibbles but I’ve been loving these nakd Bits recently.

How do you recover when you’ve got an injury? It was all about ice for me but this Physicool is great as I can have a sneaky wander about to make a cup of tea or whatever without it falling off.

 

Hi guys, hope you had a good weekend. Mine was fairly busy. Christmas is in full-force now really isn’t it?

I feel quite good as I’ve done 80% of my Christmas shopping and I’m off Friday so can hopefully finish then. Hurrah. Our spare room is getting packed full of random purchases. Going to have to get some wrapping going on soon….

Last Thursday I had my first personal trainer appointment. What I love about my gym is because it’s open 24/7 I can go in as early as I like (which is handy for me as I have to leave for work around 8ish). It also means I can book my personal trainer appointments for the bright and early time of 6.15am.

We sat and chatted about my goals before we did anything. He also weighed me and gave me a host of different statistics…my muscle weight, bone weight, fat percentage and how many calories I burn just doing nothing. I’m not trying to lose any weight, but he said one of our targets should be to gain some more muscle weight. Cool.

And then we got started. I was using machines I wouldn’t have gone near in a million years. He would demonstrate the moves while I wrote down in a notepad lots of notes to make sure I got the right form.

There were lateral pull-downs, kettle bell single arm raises, deadlifts, using the Olympic bar (!!) for overhead presses and more. The concept behind using each machine was different to what I normally would have done. He set the weight for quite a heavy weight (for me!) and then I would only be able to do between 6-10 repetitions, decreasing on each set (which was usually three sets). He said I should be aiming to have a small number of hard, heavy reps rather than numerous light repetitions. Apparently if I aimed for light weights it would be more of a cardio workout than actually working on my strength. Something I didn’t know!

When we got to the end of the hour he asked if I had a bit more time. Then he did more sports massage on my back and legs. I was literally lying there on this mat almost crying in pain when he was doing my back. All the way up to my neck, then down to my lower back it was so tight. When he finished there was no residual pain and my whole body felt more loose.

Having the extra time with him meant I was seriously late though – I didn’t leave the gym until just before 8am!! Meaning I had to get home, shower, eat breakfast and leave in record breaking time. Luckily my work are fairly relaxed so I just worked a bit longer in the evening.

It’s funny because during the workout it was tough but I wasn’t sweating and at the end I was a bit like “well that was quite easy”. The next morning though my shoulders, my back, even under my armpits ached! I found getting dressed and putting my coat on a nightmare. Pulling open doors was terrible. Clearly doing something I guess!

My next appointment is Thursday morning. I’m really pleased with how it’s gone. I would never have done these moves on my own. In fact, the only upper body moves I would ever think to do are things like bicep curls or tricep dips. But these exercises he’s going through with me are more aimed at improving my posture and improving how I hold my body and support it when running.

I’m not going to lie though, it’s two weeks from the marathon and hearing Ben talk about it or chatting to the girls from my running club when I met up with them to catch up…it’s still hard. I drove back from the gym and saw a man out running and I just felt a bit down. Nothing beats running. But I’ve just got to stay focused on what matters at the moment. I have to remember that I will run again.

Have you ever had a personal trainer? It was brilliant having someone show me how to use the machines properly and watch me do the moves, correcting me when I went wrong and motivating me when I got tired.

Have you ever tried using kettle bells before?

What’s most important to you: strength, aesthetics, performance, general fitness? I’ve never cared really about strength…I guess I’m only doing it now to help my performance in running and remaining injury-free.