AnnaTheApple - The life of a girl who loves apples and running

January 4, 2016

Starting the year with all my favourite things

Oh jeeze, it’s Monday…back to work, back to normal. But no point complaining, this is life. Gotta pay the bills! I didn’t blog very much over the break as I wanted some time off to just chill. I read a few blogs here or there but I have a lot to catch up on.

I didn’t do anything crazy exciting over the break but I had a nice time nonetheless. I saw friends, went on nice walks, spent time with my family and ate lots of really good food. Standard procedure!

I obviously fitted in some cake… 😉
I went to the Tenth Hole (an amazing little cafe in Southsea that does incredible cakes) with a friend and had the honeycomb pie cake… good grief it was good! I also took a slice of the carrot cake home for another time (I say slice, but really it’s a wedge).

As well as cake, there was running. Through my running club I found out there was a cross country race on the Monday after Christmas. I was planning on running around 5 miles so when I heard about the race I had no excuses not to join. I’ll recap that in another post as it was such good fun.

That evening, despite being exhausted and really fancying either a nap or an early night (hugely underestimated the toughness of the cross country!), I had my friends coming over for a games evening flat warming party. We played Disney Trivia Pursuit, which FYI is actually really hard. Some of the questions were very specific and there were a few films we’d never seen, like Herbie and Atlantis. It was tough going so we quickly moved to Cranium which was far better. Defeated by Disney, pathetic.

The next day I went for a lovely long walk with a friend and Alfie. I was concerned the weather would be pants but it actually held out and we had a really good walk around Queen Victoria Country Park.

Alfie, predictably, got ridiculously muddy. He ran through every puddle, every muddy track and just loved it. He got a good bath when he got back to mine and even a little blow dry (so fluffy!)!

For New Year’s Eve I went round to my friend’s, Lou and Tom’s, house. They were having a quiet night in as they have a little one and I’m not a huge New Year’s Eve fan so this was perfect. We planned the evening to be a major chicken and rib fest. I came with some pork ribs and pork strips marinating in a BBQ sauce (passata, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce and a few squirts of the Heinz BBQ sauce).

My friends did a selection of Tikka drumsticks, Chinese chicken thighs and hot spicy wings. There was so much food (the picture above shows barely any of it). I was in heaven, until I was in a food coma… We also had some chocolate panettone which was delicious and lots of crisps. I felt rather full! We saw in the New Year and then I headed home.

The next morning was the double parkrun morning. My alarm went off at 7am which was hard-going and I hadn’t even drunk the night before! I helped set up the Netley parkrun before running in it. The weather thankfully was lovely, though very cold.

Photo credit: Paul Hammond

I wasn’t really sure how to run it as I was doing the Southampton parkrun at 10.30am afterwards. I took it easy before deciding at the end to speed up a bit. I felt incredibly sick though from all the food I’d shovelled into myself the night before… a whole lot of chicken!

I got 23:44 which I was chuffed with. Then it was a case of getting to Southampton quickly ready for the start. A bunch of my club were doing it too so it was nice to have a crowd of us there at the start. And the Daily Echo got some great photos.

Photo credit: Chris Moorhouse (Southampton Daily Echo)

The run itself was tough going at the start as my legs felt stiff and my toes were numb (Netley had been quite wet and muddy so my shoes were soaked). Southampton is an easier course as there aren’t as many hills (just one incline you do twice) and it’s all on a path, so no mud or slipping.

I started towards the front as it was very busy (lots of my club who were really gunning for it were really close to the front). I wanted to give it some wellie but not go too crazy. Depressingly I got overtaken by so many people on that first mile. But I just pushed on and didn’t let it bother me.

I felt myself getting stronger as the run continued and on the last mile I was picking people off to overtake. I overtook many of the females who had overtaken me at the beginning, which felt really good as you can imagine!

I got 23:15 and out of 484 people I came 105th and 8th female, which I’m pleased with at my current fitness. My running club friend Michelle smashed it with first female!

I managed to overtake these two females on the last sprint 🙂

The rest of the day was spent, quite frankly, chilling out. My parents, grandad and I went out for a meal early evening to Coast to Coast (my current favourite restaurant). I was so looking forward to it! I pretty much had exactly what I had the last time I went (a BBQ platter to share for starters and chicken wings for main) but I made sure to sub my sweet potato fries for something a bit lighter (green beans) this time so I could fit pudding in <– strategic eating!

I was really tempted by the ribs but I knew how much I enjoyed the chicken last time… My granddad however went for them and I was fairly jealous by the size of them. I know what I’m having next time!

My rib eating obsession goes back to my granddad as I remember eating ribs with him often when I was younger and him teaching me how to eat them (i.e. leave nothing behind!). He was in rib heaven. He even gave me one which I was eternally grateful!

For pudding I went for the Oreo ice cream sundae, which I’d been dreaming about since I last went. It was good, don’t get me wrong, but I kind of expecting some actual mini Oreos to be in it rather than just crushed up randomly. As sundaes go it was quite small as well – it looks huge but actually the glass is quite thick and narrow. For any normal person I’m sure this would have been enough, but for me (the greediest person alive) it was a little disappointing. I’ll try the carrot cake next time!

I’ll stop there! Basically my holiday was pretty damn good. Family? Check. Friends? Check. Cake? Check. Running? Check. Ribs? Check. Chicken? Check. Boom!

What did you do for New Year’s?

Did you have a good time off (if you were off!)?

Did you do any fitness-related activities over Christmas?

December 31, 2015December 31, 2015

Christmas – lots of food and parkruns

So Christmas has been and gone far too quickly! Depressingly quick. It’s still nice to be off and enjoy the time to relax and see friends.

Rolling back to Christmas then, the morning began with me dressing up like an idiot in fancy dress (with Alfie) and heading to the Netley Abbey parkrun. I was staying at my parents and before I left I somehow managed to persuade my dad to take a photo of me. I was heading there early to help set up which is why it looks so dark.It was so lovely seeing everyone and wishing them merry Christmas. Lots of people had dressed up too so it felt very festive.The run itself was tough. I felt like I was plodding the entire time. My body just didn’t want to go any faster. Luckily my friend Mike felt similar so we ran together, taking it easy, dreaming of the turkey to come later 😉 I managed 24:58 which I wasn’t too happy with (considering Mike and me had said we’d aim for an easy 24…whoops). Sometimes it just doesn’t happen. And when I’m dressed in a tutu on Christmas day I’m not going to complain about it!

Alfie loved his time at parkrun and got ridiculously muddy. He also managed to get his little Santa outfit off at the end as well, bless him. I think he felt a little ridiculous in it. Can’t understand why personally…

We cleared up quickly and parted ways, everyone heading off for their respective Christmases. I went straight back to my parent’s house where I first had to get Alfie in the bath and clean. My parents thankfully took over so I could go and shower and not delay the celebrations. I enjoyed a cheeky glass of Bucks fizz with my porridge and then we opened presents.

I got some lovely gifts which I was rather chuffed with. My parents had bought me some Nike pro shorts (I’m obsessed), some bits and bobs and some items for my new flat.

The ‘A’ is battery powered so I can turn the lights on and off.

Then I helped my dad cook the Christmas meal. We both really enjoy cooking so it was quite fun. We had Christmas music on, peeling carrots, scrubbing parsnips and just enjoying the day. The food, as always, was awesome. We had a prawn and salmon starter and for main turkey with all the trimmings.

It rocked my world. I probably say this every year, but Christmas day is my favourite meal of the year. I just love it. I requested for broad beans as one of the veg as it’s one of my favourites (I know I’m weird). And we had Monopoly crackers!!!

After dinner we went for a walk with the dogs. The weather was so mild but fairly windy. It was great to see all the houses all lit up and people enjoying Christmas. Walking on Christmas day is one of my favourite things to do. It’s a shame we didn’t go down the beach but it was just ridiculously windy and dark so we kept it simple with round the block.

When we got back we had pudding. Normally you’d have Christmas pudding in the UK but no one really likes Christmas pudding in my family. So my mum and granddad had a panacotta and my dad and me had giant portions of a melt in the middle chocolate pudding with ice cream. LITERALLY THE BEST THING EVER.Then we played the Logo Game which we’ve now played for the third time in a row at Christmas. I love it. I stayed at my parents over night, which meant I could get into PJs and watch some Christmas TV into the evening with them (where I enjoyed round 2 of Christmas dinner with the leftovers…because it’s Christmas!)

The next day, Boxing Day, was the proper parkrun as it was Saturday. My tummy didn’t feel in too great a shape to run it must be said…All that food. But surprisingly I felt far better running than the day before and I managed to shave almost a minute off my time (24:12). I felt myself getting stronger as the run continued as well which was great. I usually warm up into a run about five miles in… I’m a slow burner I think (and probably why I hate 5ks and 10ks).

I spent the rest of the day at my parent’s again and my sister, her fiancé and little girls came over. It was manic but lovely. Ellie, my little niece who I ran the kid’s race the other week with, loved her Nike leggings I bought her. She even asked me if one day we could run together and I could run at my top speed and hold her hand so I could pull her along. Bless her!

So Christmas this year was very chilled, a little bit different to normal but full of fun, happiness, family and (let’s be honest, the best bit) GOOD food. Now it’s New Year’s Eve and I’m going to be heading to my friend’s house for a chilled evening of lots of food, films and games.

How was your Christmas?

What’s your favourite Christmas food? Mine is the whole turkey dinner.

What are you/did you get up to on New Year’s Eve?

December 23, 2015

Christmas and the year ahead

Not long now! Hopefully you’re nice and organised with wrapped presents, cards sent, food bought… (if you are indeed celebrating Christmas, of course). I personally love, love, love Christmas. I’m not religious so I don’t observe Christmas as a religious celebration but I see it as a great time to spend with the family, eat copious amounts of food and just generally get into the good cheer of it all.

Christmas eve (after I’ve finished work, boo!) I’ll be at my parent’s house for the traditional takeaway (Indian for me, obviously ;-)) and then I’ll head home as I plan on doing parkrun in the morning and it’s closer to my flat.

Then, after smashing out a PB at parkrun (hahaha) I’ll be spending Christmas day with my parent’s and granddad at their house and we’ll be having turkey with all the trimmings. I’m beyond excited I can tell you. I’ll be helping my dad cook and then in the afternoon, after presents and food, we’ll all play some board games and probably watch a cheesy film. It’ll be a strange Christmas for me but I’m looking forward to it nonetheless.

I thought I’d have a little time of reflection on my year. Apart from one injury recently, my year of running went amazingly. I PB’ed at 5k, 10k, half marathon and marathon, and I had my longest no-injury streak (<– that was the best part). I trained really well for my first marathon of the year, Liverpool. I was super strict, on the ball and listened to my body. I worked hard at the gym to strength train and I loved that marathon so much and got my Boston Qualifier.

Then I sort of forgot to be as sensible and got greedy. I did two more marathons too close together. That said, I loved the Cheddar Gorge marathon. It was awesome, freeing and just one big adventure as it was off-road and crazy hard terrain. On the other hand, Bournemouth marathon sucked royally but it taught me a lot.

This is a chart of my year that I made a week or so ago from Strava (miles on the y axis):

Next year I have the Boston marathon in April and Chester marathon in the autumn. It is highly tempting to do the Cheddar Gorge marathon again in August but I just don’t know. It doesn’t sell out so I’m playing it by ear. I know it’s very similar to what I did this year which caused me then to get injured but the marathons are a bit more spaced out this time. I think if I did do it I’d need to take proper time off before building the miles back up again for Chester. But anyway, two marathons (all being well) is my plan.

Another race in the plan is the Cakeathon in May (one of my favourite races and my favourite medals). I’m also signed up to the Marathon Talk Run Camp in February (with which I’m also signed up to the New Forest Heartbreak Half). So I’m quite excited about the year ahead. I just need to stay sensible, keep focused and listen to my body.

Aside from running, this year obviously wasn’t that great for me personally. This time last year if you’d have told me I would be living in a flat with Alfie on my own and Ben living in Switzerland I’d have laughed at you. But I’ve grown stronger and more independent because of it. Life doesn’t always go how you think it will and you have to roll with the punches and get out alive. I have no idea what my life will look like this time next year but I’m excited, optimistic and ready for the challenges ahead.

Have a lovely Christmas, and I’ll see you on the other side!

What are your Christmas plans?

What do you hope to achieve in 2016?

What races do you have planned?

December 22, 2015September 17, 2020

Handmade Pistachio Panettone Cake from Sicily

Considering how much cake I eat and like, it’s surprising how few cake reviews I’ve been asked to do. I’m not great at baking (there’s an understatement), but I know my cakes when it comes to seeing how they taste and look!

When I was asked if I’d like to review a Pistachio Panettone from the guys at Artminodo.co.uk I was obviously only too pleased to say “yes please!”. I had previously reviewed their trio of preserves that they sell on their website and really enjoyed them so I was looking forward to the panettone.

It’s quite a large thing (all the best cakes are in my opinion…) and when I unboxed and unwrapped it (it travelled very well) I was surprised to see just how, well, green it was! It’s handmade by a Sicilian company called Bacco. Panettone is a sweet bread and a traditional Christmas dessert in Italy. It’s similar to the brioche in France in terms of taste and like the stollen in Germany in terms of it being Christmassy and not overly sweet (though there’s no marzipan in this cake). Panettone is not always pistachio flavoured so this was a nice twist.

I joked that it looked like a large green bogie but I couldn’t resist a tiny nibble before my friends arrived to help me test it out. It’s covered in a delicious but not overly sweet pistachio flavoured icing.

When my friends arrived for our make-your-own afternoon tea, we sliced it in half to see the inside. We were a bit disappointed that it didn’t look as good as the photo did. But let’s be real here, not many foods do.

We cut ourselves a slice making sure we got some of the icing on the top and the pistachio cream in the middle. We were all really surprised at how tasty it was. The bread itself is similar to our iced buns in that it’s slightly sweet but not only a hint. The real sweetness comes from the pistachio cream that runs through the inside of the cake and the icing. There’s a subtle pistachio taste and it’s very light and springy in texture.

We all found ourselves going back for more. It’s not heavy or sickly so it’s very easy to eat a lot of this! I can imagine it being a great breakfast treat or a nice finish to a meal when you just want something light and sweet but not too much like a proper pudding.

I’d fully recommend this cake. And to be honest, I’d eat it all year round! Caffè Nero sell mini Panettones so why the hell not 😉

Do you like sweet breads?

Do you like pistachio flavoured things?

What’s your usual Christmas tradition for baked goods?

**Full Disclosure: I was sent this product for free in exchange for my review. All opinions are my own (and my friend’s in this case as well) honest one.**

December 21, 2015December 21, 2015

You can never have too much cake

This weekend past was pretty damn good, if I do say so myself. It was a great balance of being ridiculously busy and then nice and chilled.

Friday night was a casual Christmas drinks evening with some running club friends at the pub. Annoyingly this pub was walking distance from my new home but I had to house(dog)-sit for my parents while they were in London over the weekend, which meant I had to drive instead. Anyway it was a great evening with most people wearing Christmas jumpers and just having a nice natter.

There was even a Michael Jackson tribute singer so a few of us had a boogie. Don’t blame it on the sunshine…

The next morning, as usual, was parkrun at Netley Abbey. The weather was ridiculously mild, albeit a bit windy. We decided to get a photo of our usual set-up crew which was lovely. A few us had our parkrun Volunteer 25 t-shirts on as well which worked out nicely.

I love setting up parkrun with these guys. They’re all just so lovely and we have a good laugh. They were all really supportive when I had my rough times earlier in the year as well. There’s something about running that just brings people together in a good way.

There were loads of guys from the running club running as well because it was our club’s Secret Santa. It was great to see so many familiar faces. At the start I was quite concerned that I was stood next to my super speedy friend, Michelle, but she assured me she was taking it easy having run eight miles already. I think I stayed with her for all of about 100m before she was like a blip in the horizon! Even my friend Chris who I used to be faster than pre-injury zoomed away despite being hungover having not left the pub last night until 1am. My ego got a bit of a kicking 😉

However I was really chuffed with some very even splits. I got 22:59 which I’m over the moon with. I really kept my mind focused on the effort. It’s funny because I’ve stopped listening to music at parkrun now. I’ve found it distracts me and makes me feel claustrophobic. I think if I was really pushing for a specific time I might wear some motivating music, but at the moment I’m enjoying ‘naked’ runs. I’ve taken a minute off my faster time from a few weeks ago. This is definitely progress!

I did do some investigation on Strava to see what my fastest time on this course was and found it’s 21:57 in March this year. Jeeze that’s a challenge! Maybe in a few months…

Secret Santa was good fun as well. We all crammed into the café and exchanged gifts.

Thanks again to my official blog photographer, Mark, for the photo 😉

My label said Anna Jayne Smith (*sighs*) so the person didn’t know me that well but they knew me well enough to get me very posh Strawberry and white chocolate cake and a Christmas pudding shaped chocolate slab. Very pleased!!

Afterwards my sister, her fiancée and Meg and Ellie, her two daughters, met up with me so Ellie could run a children’s fun run which was happening in the park at 10.30am. It was a charity race for Ben’s Heroes and entry was £3. Such a good cause. Ellie is almost six years old and has been doing Junior parkrun quite a bit lately with her dad. I’d love to do it with her but it’s a fair distance away from me and I haven’t been able to get there so I was really excited that I was finally able to see her (and join her!) running.

My heart melted when Ellie said she wanted to be a runner like me and run marathons. I’m beyond proud. Obviously this might be a passing trend but for now I’m over the moon she’s so into it. For Christmas I’ve got her some really funky purple Nike leggings.

I’m jealous! I want a pair! But they are TINY.

Back to the race, Ellie was really excited and kept sprinting off and showing me how fast she could run, bless her.It was two laps of the cricket pitch (our usual fast summer course) and the race organiser said the kids could run one or two laps depending how they felt (there were some quite young children). She held my hand and chatted the entire way round. She even told me that running was good because it made you “live longer”. I’m not sure Ellie should be worried about her mortality at this point in her life but it made me chuffed that she associated running with being healthy. I was careful not to run too fast and kept to her speed andsaid we could walk if she needed to, but she was adamant to keep going. In the end we did the two laps (her choice) and she did an amazing sprint finish at the end.

She got a little goodie bag and a lovely medal. She was really pleased with herself and looked like she had so much fun. I was also so proud of her when she offered her goodie bag to a little boy who didn’t get one because they ran out.

The rest of the day was a mad rush of getting myself sorted, checking on my parent’s dogs and then getting back to my flat to have a catch up with my friend Louise and her husband Tom. We’d arranged a kind of afternoon tea gathering as I said I had a panettone I was reviewing for the blog that would be great to share with them and Lou said she might bake something.

Well, they turned up with some very nice artisan bread, loads of different filling choices for sandwiches, scones, clotted cream, jam and a huge freshly baked carrot cake! Afternoon tea indeed!

I had a delicious brie sandwich with onion marmalade, a pallet-cleansing slice of panettone 😉 following by a clotted cream and jam scone and then finished nicely with a slice of carrot cake. All washed down with tea obviously. They brought their little one, Jake, over and we had a lovely time stuffing our faces and chatting away. I’ll do a full review of the panettone in another post but honestly we were all pleasantly surprised at how tasty it was. It was the perfect level of sweetness for such a sugar-frenzied afternoon.

I then had to rush to an opticians appointment and then rush to my friend Mike’s surprise 40th birthday party (honestly, there was not one single thing I was on time for the entire day). I took with me some sticky garlic and honey chicken wings and breaded paprika chicken tenders that I’d rustled up earlier. Mike was really surprised when he got home and saw us all there after being told he wasn’t allowed in the house until 5.30pm. It was lovely to see how chuffed he was (I might be over-using the word “chuffed”…).

Sheryl’s photo of her amazing cake and my own poor quality photos below (chicken wings bottom right)

Now you might think that considering all the food I ate earlier would hinder my process in making a dent in all of the buffet food on offer here. You would be wrong. My capacity to eat a lot of food still astounds me. Sheryl made this amazing cake and she let me have a taster piece before she sent out slices to everyone – you know, just to make sure it was tip top quality 😉 I then proceeded to have another slice afterwards. As if I hadn’t already eaten enough cake for one day…

The birthday boy (Photo credit to Sheryl)

It was a lovely evening. Towards the end after some people had left, there were just a few of us and we just sat around chatting about all things running and funny stories. Such a great party!

That night I woke up in the middle of the night not feeling well at all. That’ll teach me. I never learn though. I regret nothing! If you can’t enjoy good food with good friends then something is very wrong.

I was going to recap Sunday but this is far too long now!

Have you ever been to a surprise birthday party?

Are you good at being on time? I am awful. I never leave enough time or contingency time when things invariably go wrong.

Have you ever run with a small person?