Too much of a good thing

I think I need another day off…this weekend was so rammed, I’m not sure I’ve recovered.

It was my friend’s wedding on Saturday in Dorset. I live in Southampton so that’s about an hour and a half away. Originally I was going to camp there overnight as that’s what the invitation stipulated guests to do as they had an entire field booked for the wedding where the marquee was set up. Then I (thankfully) found out my couple friend and their one year old son were driving up and back. So I scored a lift with them, hurrah!

I sadly couldn’t make parkrun (breaking my 18 week streak *sob*) but I got up early to get in a four mile tempo run. I warmed up on the first mile and then aimed for 7min/miles for three miles and I was meant to cool down on the final 0.75 but I was really pushing for time and needed to get home quickly. Standard Anna procedure: only give yourself the very bare minimum of time and end up rushing like a madwoman.

The run went well though and I felt strong. I did miss parkrun but it was an OK alternative, even if I was running in the opposite direction to those running to the local parkrun 🙁

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It was so warm and then having to have a shower and blow dry my hair was just a nightmare. Nothing like feeling super hot and sticky while trying to get into a nice dress.

Like I said previously, I went for a very simple dress so I could jazz it up with accessorises. My mum has lots of lovely fascinators so I went for a cream one and added pretty statement necklace.

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For the first time in ages I wore heels! I sensibly took a pair of flip flops with me as well for after the ceremony when we got to the field – there’s only so much heel wearing I do.

The ceremony was gorgeous, set in a beautiful courtyard on the grounds of a castle.

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It was fairly windy though which was slightly problematic for my skater skirt! It was a beautiful ceremony with Sarah, the bride, arriving on her horse (seated on it in the traditional side-on way ladies used to back in the day) and I felt a bit emotional – which is so unlike me! It was such a lovely touch as Sarah is very into her horse riding and the couple are both very outdoorsy (they were camping that evening too!).

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Her dress was beautiful too. Nicely fitted with lots of lace detailing – she looked stunning. Afterwards we had the usual photo session and there was homemade elderflower champagne – oooh er!! Delicious.

We then left for the field for the wedding breakfast. My best friend (and lift), Louise, looked lovely in a white and blue dress with matching blue heels. Yummy mummy indeed!

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We both enjoyed a glass (*cough* or three) of Pimms and I felt far more relaxed in my flip flops. Unfortunately I’d applied my suntan lotion a little too late and could already feel the slight sun burn tingling. Gargh!

The marquee was fantastic. They’d done everything themselves in terms of arranging furniture, catering, doing all the decorations and flowers. Honestly, Pinterest would have exploded.

IMG_2108Outside there were hay bales to sit on and space hoppers, giant Jenga, balls…it was brilliant.

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They had handmade jam favours that had labels saying “Spread the love”. I mean, wow! Such great attention to detail.

The food was BBQ food which was very tasty indeed. The sausages were really good quality and the beef burger handmade.

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Lots of salad and BBQ sauce as well, of course 😉

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The pudding was Eton mess, very light and tasty.

Ohh another glass of champagne, a sneaky gin and tonic…I was quite on my merry way. We played with the balls and space hoppers outside, danced lots and basically just enjoyed ourselves.

Then the fish and chip van turned up as the evening guests arrived. Now I don’t even like fish and chips and somehow there I was in the queue waiting my turn for a battered cod and greasy chips.

IMG_2106 The portion was huge. Though that didn’t stop me from consuming all but three chips. Honestly, I have no idea what happened! But it tasted good and I enjoyed it. The chips weren’t those horrible soggy ones, they were nice and crispy. Not quite content with consuming a ridiculous amount of stodge I then proceeded to eat three (albeit small!) slices of wedding cake. I can only blame the good atmosphere, my lack of self-control and the alcohol. But you know what, it was bloody fantastic. I did feel sick though and far too full. And massively regretted wearing a belt 😉

As I headed outside to walk to the nearby toilet facilities an elderly man was staggering back. He stopped in front of me and said (quite politely) “Excuse me, but you have lovely legs”.  I sort of laughed and said thank you and he continued saying “you made an old man feel young earlier in the courtyard when your skirt blew up. My pacemaker went wild”. I’m pretty sure I just stood there laughing awkwardly. What do you say to something like that?? It was somewhat flattering I suppose…

I have to say, there’s nothing like a wonderful wedding to make you feel quite significantly alone. I wouldn’t say I’m lonely at all right now, being newly single, but being at a wedding where there are lots of couples and love-themed things…well it does sort of salt the wounds a bit. I tried not to dwell on it and just enjoy myself.

Eventually though it was time to head off home around 10pm. I had nicely sobered up by this point (well, I had been drinking since 12) and felt very tired. When I got home and collapsed into bed I fell asleep immediately. Only to wake up at 1.30am to be sick several times (sorry if this is TMI). Not my finest hour. Especially considering I had a half marathon the next day, though thankfully it was at 10.45am and not far away so I would get a lie-in at least. But honestly, I felt so ill. Being sick did help but I also felt very cold and shaky. I reckon being in the sun all day and not hydrating properly along with the alcohol and stupid amounts of food really did a number on me. But hey ho, life is meant for living right??

Not the best way to prepare for a half marathon for definite, but I wasn’t planning on going for it anyway. It was just a nice catered training run on hilly and off-road terrain. PBs were certainly not on my mind! I’ll leave it there for now and recap the race in another post!

Do you enjoy weddings? What’s your favourite part? There’s a lot of standing around…but there is also cake 😉

What handmade touches have you noticed at weddings before?

Have you ever gone to a race hungover and feeling delicate?

Staying fit and healthy at work

Ahh wouldn’t it be nice to be a professional athlete where it’s your job to keep fit and healthy? The high end ones having access to round the clock coaches, physios, masseurs, lucrative sponsorship deals, nutritional advice, high quality training camps…well, I could go on.

The reality though is that most of us have regular 9-5 jobs (give or take a few hours before all you teachers start harassing me for underplaying the sheer number of hours you do…;-)). Fitness for most of us has to play second fiddle. We have to get up ridiculously early to squeeze in gym time or a workout, or wait until we finish and go in the evening. I know for me it’s a juggling act and I don’t even have kids to worry about!

In fact research shows that 80% of adults in the UK don’t exercise enough. It’s a sad but not entirely surprising statistic in this day and age. Those who do run or try and keep fit are the minority. Gym memberships get wasted, running shoes get dusty and general day-to-day life can really just make you forget or not want to get a sweat on.

What’s clear for me though is that the more I exercise, the better I feel. Yes it sucks when my alarm goes off at 5am but once I’m up and out there I feel fantastic, and afterwards you can’t help but feel euphoric, strong and a little smug.

But not everyone is a morning person or has the motivation to work out after work. Personally I really have to motivate myself in a big way to run after work. And there’s no way I’d go to the gym. I just don’t fancy it and have probably found a million excuses why not to go that evening.

So when can you squeeze it in then? I’m lucky that in my office we have a shower and a gym (albeit a very tiny one). So if I fancy a quick strength session or a run I know I can without having to worry about ponging the office out.

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I do think it’s important to incorporate fitness or at least some movement into your day. Most of us are at work for 8-9 hours at least which is basically the significant portion of your daily life really (as sad as that is!)

And another study showed that people who sat for the longest during the day had a 112% increased risk of getting diabetes, a 147% risk in experiencing cardiovascular events and a 49% increased risk in death from any cause compared to those who sat the least. This bolsters my argument for why I have a standing desk.

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And why I take regular walking breaks to get a drink or go to the bathroom (the perfect cycle of events really…) to make sure I hit over 12,000 steps for non-running days. I love my Vivofit for highlighting with the Dreaded Red Line when I need to walk a bit more.

Garmin Vivofit Yes I am showing off my nail varnish as well 😉

SimplyHealth has once again provided some great tips on keeping fit in the workplace by outlining some incentives and initiatives for encouraging a businesses’ employees to have a more active lifestyle. I would argue that it is in an employer’s best interest that they keep their employees healthy and fit. Not only does this provide a good environment to work in but it’s likely people will be more productive and take less sick days. Anything an employer can do to encourage its employees to being fit is a big win in my eyes. I just hope more companies take the initiative to do things like cycle to work schemes, standing desks, organised exercise, etc.

Well, we can hope!

How do you keep healthy and fit at work?

Does your company do anything to encourage you to be healthy?

**Full Disclosure: Simplyhealth asked me to write an article regarding how to promote fitness at work with links to their website. The links are not affiliated but I will receive a related gift in return.**

So what’s next?

My main goal for this year was to successfully complete marathon training and run strong at the Liverpool marathon. Against my wildest dreams I managed both of these things without issue (apart from a minor shin blip that I probably blew way out of proportion in my maranoia).

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So what now? Well, I didn’t really know how I’d feel after the marathon, whether I’d be injured, ruined, exhausted or raring to go again so I didn’t plan anything in concrete. As it turns out my good training meant I was in pretty good shape afterwards (can I get a HALLELUIGH!) so really the door was open to whatever I fancied, in reason obviously.

Even though my DNAFit results told me my body’s apparently good (relatively speaking) with both short and longer distances I know which I prefer and which feels better. I adore marathons. There’s just something so special about them. And so far they’ve been enjoyable rather than painful. There’s no OMG I CAN’T BREATHE OH THE LACTIC ACID BURNS pain of the shorter distances. Marathons are hard in other ways though: mentally fatiguing as well as physically tiring with the dull aches of continuously running over so many hours.

When I finish a marathon I instantly want to do another one. When I finish a fast 5k I want to be sick and never run again. I constantly think “why am I doing this?”, whereas during a marathon I’m thinking “I can’t believe I’m doing something this amazing”.

There are some pretty incredible runners in my running club and in the blogging world that are striving to hit certain shorter distance goals. My friend Karen, my blogging friend Autumn and my fellow Brighton half marathon buddy Cathy (over a year ago now??) are all striving for (and likely to hit) the elusive and indeed very impressive sub-40 10k goal. That’s eye wateringly fast. That’s insane. But it’s not for me. Don’t get me wrong I’d love that PB on my roster but I just don’t have the drive to put the effort in to get it. Because it would require a lot of effort for me…speed drills, intervals, bleurrghh! And to be honest, I’m not sure I’d ever achieve it.

So again, what’s next for me? Well another marathon obviously. I’ve signed up to Bournemouth marathon and I’m very excited.

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Loads of my club are doing it, it’s within driving distance so I can actually sleep in my own bed the night before, my parents can easily watch and I can join my cub for loads of the Sunday long runs leading up to it. At the moment I don’t really have a goal time-wise as I’m so pleased with Liverpool…but a little part of me wonders because it’s flatter what I could do. But that’s food for thought right now.

There’s also another marathon I’m considering. Now I know it sounds greedy, maybe stupid and reckless given my past issues…but hear me out. It’s the Cheddar Gorge marathon. Yes OK that sounds even more mental. It’s hilly and completely off-road.

I’ve done the half marathon and absolutely hands-down loved it. It felt like an adventure the entire time and I’ve been meaning to get back there to relive the experience. Only this time I want to do the two laps – the marathon distance.

If I did do this then it’ll be without a care in the world for pace or time. I’m well aware it will take over four hours to do (my half time was almost two hours, so I’m pretty sure I’m looking at around 4.5 hours if I have a good day!). I’ll walk the hills, stroll through the aid stations and stop to chat…I won’t be thundering along pushing the pace. I’ll be stopping to smell the flowers 😉

Anyway it’s just over six weeks away…I have the Stansted Slog Half Marathon (which I did last year) this weekend which will be a good indicator as that’s a very hilly off-road half. Another good test will be the the Ultra12 event I have coming up the weekend after. This is a 12 hour event where I’ll be part of a five person team running 5 miles laps all night on an off-road course…a bit like Endure, but in half the time. I hope to do three laps so that’ll be a nice lot of mileage to play with.

Then I’ll just take each week as it comes. If things get too hard, too tiring, or niggles start appearing I’m going to drop to the half distance and focus on Bournemouth, which is ultimately more important to me.

So that’s me! Who knows if I’ll do the Cheddar Gorge marathon or not. I won’t be too sad, but I would like to do it as a change from the road marathons…but we’ll see.

What are your current running/fitness goals at the moment?

Have you done multiple marathons in a year? Or back-to-back?

Am I risking it by doing another marathon so soon?

Rants and Raves #15

How the weeks are flying by! I know it’s such a cliché but everything is just moving so quickly. And with another week I have another set of rants and raves…

Rave: I entered a competition with Brooks a while ago and forgot about it. If I remember correctly you had to talk about why running makes you happy and upload a photo of yourself “running happy”. I didn’t win but they did send me a consolation prize.

Brooks Run Happy TShirt

A very nice Brooks t-shirt. It’s made from wicking material but it’s not a ‘proper’ technical t-shirt if that makes sense but it’s still good for short runs, gym visits or just general wear. It’s lovely and soft and fits nicely.

Rant: My gym has been renovated which has just been *so* much fun trying to find an area to work out in that wasn’t a building site. Though I can understand their issue as it’s open 24/7 so it must be hard to do any sorts of improvements without closing the gym.

But anyway, they’ve created a new door system to get in and out. Before it was like a caged turnstile. Now it’s like something out of Star Trek.

IMG_1755 You type in your code, one part of it opens, you step in, it closes before opening the next part. There is about two very long seconds where you fear you’ll never be let out. What a way to spend the rest of your life…locked in a glass cage with only your own sweat smell to comfort you.

Rave: Speaking of the new gym renovations, it has meant that we’ve had loads of new equipment and weights. Including a proper stepper machine! I was quite excited as previously we’d only had that annoying step machine that when you put your foot on each step it sinks down. I tried it once and it was awful. I just didn’t get on with it as I couldn’t work out if I was meant to do shallow little steps or big deep steps. The real step machine however is far better.

Stepper machine

It’s actually like climbing stairs and you can get a good rhythm. Great for the glutes and legs! And for towering over the gym and people watching 😉

But I honestly have no idea what this new machine is…

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On closer inspection it looked like a rowing machine, but upright…very strange.

Rant: Hot running! Though it is nice to be warm when you’re doing your warm-up…oh those days not so long ago I was standing in the car park in my tiny shorts absolutely freezing doing my leg swings while people were coming out to their cars wrapped up in coats and scarves looking at me like I was mental. But it does make for harder running.

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Sweaty, uncomfortable and harder efforts for the same speeds…it’s tough! And even more so when you come back to the office and find…

IMG_1757 NO cups for the water machine. I did consider putting my head under the water release bit and drinking that way but I thought perhaps this wasn’t proper office etiquette, even if it was past normal working hours 😉 Luckily they had another one in another corridor that I had to hunt for in my heat-induced delirium.

Rave: Pretty purple Nike capris! I’m clearly a bit obsessed with capris right now. I don’t tend to wear them running as it’s too hot but I love wearing them to the gym.

Nike Capris

These are really comfortable and nice fitting. Normally I’m not one for crazy patterns but I just love the colour! I can’t remember where I got them from, otherwise I’d post the link as well.

Rant: Dropping your hair dryer on yourself while blow drying your hair is painful. And further proof of the accident prone idiot I am.

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And also gives the impression that you’ve been mauled by a small animal. Very painful burns from the grating in the hair dryer!

Rave: Alfie just makes me smile every single day. This is him not wanting to get up one morning.

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I reckon he thinks he’s invisible if he can’t see me 😉

Rave: I’m very excited about being sent these 33Shake products. I haven’t tried them yet as I’m waiting for a good time to test them out on (I have the perfect event in a week or so to give them a good testing – but more on that soon). I was sent three All-in-One Shake blend which are ideal after hard sessions as they contain great ingredients like hemp seeds and flaxseeds, natural antioxidants (which I’ve found I really need after hard sessions!), protein, and anti-inflammatories like turmeric and green coffee (oooh er!). They’re 100% natural, meaning no additives, no preservatives, and nothing manmade.

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I was also sent Chia Energy Gels which will provide energy during a hard workout. And again contain all natural with a blend of carbs, proteins, Omega-3s and antioxidants.

So I’m fairly excited about testing these bad boys out!

What are your rants and raves this week?

What do you look for in sports nutrition, whether that’s before, during or after?

Where do you buy your workout gear from?

Sweaty long runs and Running Heroes

Monday morning, hello again!

My weekend was nice and relaxed, which was lovely. Geoff, one of Netley Abbey parkrun’s event organisers, had given me the honour of being responsible for the keys for the Saturday run as he was going on holiday. I’m a regular member of the set-up and clear down crew so I felt very touched he picked me to look after the keys. With great power… 😉

This meant I needed to make sure I got there dead on time (8am) to help set-up. The keys opened the store cupboard with all the parkrun kit in it (cones, signs, etc.) and it also opened two of the gates that we run through as part of the course.

I’d decided a bit last minute to have breakfast before I left (usually I’ll wait until after, but I was meeting my mum later to go shopping and needed to eat lunch a bit earlier). I was rushing about so much and just before I was about to put my oats and milk in the microwave I knocked it over with quite some force accidentally. The oats and milk went everywhere. All up my legs, all up the walls, the kitchen cabinets, the floor, and even Alfie’s bowls! Argghhhh! I just stared at the carnage around me and could have screamed in frustration – so much mess. But with limited time I had to just get on and clean it up as quickly as I could (and as thoroughly as I could – milk is not a smell you want hanging around in the heat!). Bloody chia seeds are the most stickiest things in the world, I tell you. And those little suckers got everywhere. Alfie sadly missed his walk as I just didn’t have time but I promised to make it up to him later as I dashed out the door.

The set-up went fine and though the morning had begun quite cool it was now heating up. We were on the three lap course but I wanted to see how fast I could do it, having had breakfast. I felt quite confident…

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Photo credit: Chris Stapleford – Ahh the face of a happy runner

I actually felt really speedy and like I was gliding along at the start. Then I looked at my watch and saw this wasn’t computing into actual fast times. I was pushing so hard but wasn’t getting better than 6.45min/miles. Though these times are still fast for me, I was bewildered that the previous weekend I was running around 6.50s with no apparent issue for six miles. Surely I could run faster for just three?

FullSizeRenderPhoto credit: Chris Stapleford

I felt stupidly hot and it was a tough slog at the end. I managed second female with 20:48. Not too shabby at all but, I won’t lie, I was a little disappointed. I know in reality if I want to be speedier at 5ks I need to put some real work in to it, like sharp short intervals, but I just don’t have that desire, so I’ll take that time and be happy with it!

The clear down went smoothly and I was pleased to have successfully done my temporary job well. Netley had actually been very busy with our highest attendance yet at 314! Southampton parkrun has been cancelled so we got a lot of runners from there I believe.

Later on I met my mum for a shopping trip to find an outfit for a wedding I’m going to next weekend. Oh the pressure of finding an outfit…but I found a very simple but very chic black dress in H&M which I can jazz up with a statement necklace and a fascinator. I’m all about the accessories! I got two other summery dresses as well and in total paid under £30!! I mean come on, that’s such a bargain!

Sunday I’d planned a long run but didn’t know what distance to run. I have a dream trail race (*cough* marathon) I’d love to do in August but I’m not sure if it’s sensible or if my body will handle it so I’m judging things as I go for the next couple of weeks…

I stayed at my parents and decided to go a different route to incorporate a few hills and some off-road trail, but still get to run alongside the sea for part of it. As I headed out I knew I felt good. No niggles and no mental exhaustion like before…just plain sailing, relaxed running.

As I was on my second mile I passed a man with a young boy (probably about nine years old? I’m rubbish at judging small people’s ages). The boy started to run with me and at first it was funny. Then it was annoying. He just stayed with me. I got a bit worried because he was running further from his dad (I assume it was his dad). I said to him “you do know I’m running 10 miles, right?” hoping to scare him off but he replied “well my dad ran a half marathon”. Oh alright then! Cheeky bugger, I felt like replying “well I’ve run a marathon so there” but stopped myself as I remembered he was a small child and I’m an adult. Anyway he dropped off thankfully a few moments later.

The run went well. I really enjoyed it. Though I was drenched in sweat. I don’t normally sweat a great deal – that I notice anyway. But I was coated and my arms were chaffing because the sweat just wasn’t evaporating off me because of the high humidity. There was absolutely no wind either which was lovely as normally it can get quite windy along the seafront.

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(Ave. pace 7:51 min/miles)

In the end I did 12 miles and felt good. I felt like I could have gone further which is great because this shows me I’ve still got a lot of endurance left over in my legs from the marathon. Just need to make sure I don’t over-train or injure myself.

The rest of the day was all about enjoying the wonderful weather. Meaning, it was time for a BBQ!

IMG_1785 All those ribs were mine

My dad multi-tasked with setting the BBQ up and cooking while watching the Grand Prix on his iPad that was propped up on the table. Quite impressive really that nothing got burnt or under-done.

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I went for ribs (soooooooo good), a kangaroo burger and a garlic chicken skewer. With lots of salad of course. Delicious! I felt well topped up after the run.

And away from the weekend…

I’ve recently found out about a company called Running Heroes that went live in the UK a few weeks ago. Running Heroes are basically trying to encourage people to run by rewarding them.

They’ve built the largest running community in France with more than 150,000 members. The company have a lot of well known partners as well, such asNike, Spotify, Uber, Birchbox and many more. In the UK they already have 5,000 users and were named a “Cool Vendor” by Gartner (like Dropbox, Evernote, Instagram or BlaBlaCar before) in April 2015.

The way they reward runners is very simple:

  1. Runners connect their running app / watch to the website (Nike+, Runtastic, Garmin, Strava, Runkeeper, Polar, MapMyRun or Endomondo);
  2. The more they run, the more they gather points;
  3. With their points, they get access to exclusive discounts and gifts offered by our partners on our website.

It rewards your effort based on your profile meaning that it’s a fair distribution of rewards. So women gets 20% more points for the same effort as men, as studies have shown that they have to make 20% more effort for the same performance. There’s also a forum to exchange tips and experiences.

image Just a snap shot of the rewards you could get

They’ve set me up with a code for my readers and I to start off with 100 free bonus points, just go to « activate a bonus code » et type in “RunAnnaRun” if you want to join!

How was your weekend?

What do you think about Running Heroes? I’m quite intrigued by it and am giving it a go!

What do you like on a BBQ?

**Full disclosure: The company contacted me and asked if I would spread the word and in return received the code to use for myself and you guys.**