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

May 8, 2014October 28, 2016

North Dorset Marathon Relay

This week feels very strange to me. The UK had Monday off as a bank holiday and then I was only at work for Tuesday and Wednesday before having Thursday and Friday off (another wedding, hurrah!).

Anyway I mentioned in my last post that I ran the North Dorset Marathon as part of a relay team. There were four of us in total from (all female). Quite a few people from the running club were there as part of the relay (we had four teams in total), or part of the marathon, or to support.

Ben and me had to get up at the joyous time of 5.20am on Sunday to meet some guys for a lift at 6am. I ate my porridge in the car in a state of tired confusion.

There was a tiny part of me that was jealous of the marathon runners. I much preferred the idea of running slower for longer than faster for shorter, if that made sense. But the course is very hilly so in retrospect I’m happy I didn’t!

One of our team members had made us all hair ribbon ties to wear which were amazing.

A go faster bobble!

Coincidentally Ben and me were down to run the last legs of the relay so despite the race starting at 8.30am, we actually had around 2.5 hours until we were running. This was both good and bad. It gave my body time to wake up and get going, but also there was a lot of nervous energy coursing through me for an extended period of time. I sort of wanted to just “get it over with”, you know?

Before the race keeping warm in jeans – he didn’t run in them! (Ouch)

Actually though there really wasn’t much time to wait around and dwell. After seeing our first lady off for her first leg, we had to dash to the Race Mobile and get going to the hand-over point for the second leg. After getting there, parking, using the loo (I used each loo at each handover point – my pee likes to save itself up apparently), we stood there with the other running club guys and supporters and cheered on the super fast marathoners zooming through and other relay teams. It was a lot of fun to cheer people on and we saw our running club marathoners pass which was great. And it was also fun cheering on cyclists that happen to pass through too…and the odd car hehe “strong driving!”

Princess Leia, Darth Vader and some other Star Wars characters were out in force (tee hee) as it was May 4th (Star Wars Day). I am hugely impressed with them being able to run in full costume. Amazing.

As soon as our first lady appeared the hand-over commenced and then we rushed to the Race Mobile to get to the next location. This was a bit more hairy as we only had 4.5 miles (the first leg was 7ish miles). Our poor first team member barely had a chance to catch her breath! But she’d set us up well for a strong start.

The next location was fairly similar. At this point I was getting hungry. It was about 10am and having had breakfast a good four hours ago I was starting to wilt a bit. Luckily the other guys had the forethought to have brought more than just apples with them so I snacked on half a bagel.

The weather was lovely, though a little chilly in the shade. You just knew it would get hot on the run. Our ladies were running really strong and soon it was my turn to wait for the handover of the baton. I started doing a little warm-up as I waited. We knew only the rough time of when our runner would be coming in from working out predicted splits.

Warming up

After seeing my team mate in the distance I whipped off my long running top to reveal my superman costume…whoops, no, to reveal my vest underneath with the bib ready to go go go.

As I grabbed the baton and headed off I felt exhilarated and ready. I knew that my section was fairly hilly (well, the whole course was really) and it was 6.8miles. I’d set myself a very loose target of a pace 7.30-8minute miles and just see how it went. It was a strange race if I’m honest as it wasn’t just my race, it was the team’s race. So that added some pressure but also relieved me a bit as it wasn’t just my time that mattered.

With a very small field of runners (less than 500 I think) it was quite lonely out there. I settled into a nice rhythm around 7.30min/miles and felt that I was comfortably pushing it but nothing extreme (not a Parkrun/5k exertion if you know what I mean). This did mean however that I quickly came upon marathon runners. Obviously I’d just started, my legs were fresh and I was only running about 7 miles so it made sense I’d be overtaking marathoners. But I felt very bad. I made it very clear when I ran past I was a relay runner and tried to encourage them (not sure if this was the best thing to do but I felt I couldn’t just overtake them).

I ran with one guy who was lovely and we chatted for about 0.5 miles until he told me to push on as he was trying to keep up with me which was ruining his pacing – he said something about a “male ego” 😉 I ran past another guy who grunted “hmph, relay runner” when I overtook. When I asked him if he knew how far we had left to go (as I couldn’t do the maths from my Garmin) he said in a very clipped voice “no”. I quickly apologised and headed off. Don’t annoy the marathoners, Anna!

After passing the 25 mile marker I knew I could push it on. I’m so pleased with how I felt during this race. I never once felt like I was dying, or it was too hard. It felt good.

This gives me huge confidence for my upcoming 10k (worst distance) in a few weeks.

I finished literally as my team arrived after getting to the finish and parking the car. Fairly amusing. We came second female relay team and our overall time was 3:23:05. Amazing, super running ladies! But it seriously made me realise I am so far away from that sort of time doing a marathon on my own.

One of our speedy marathoner’s had finished already in a very nice time of 3.17.xx (he did Paris as well…oh and he was the one who cycled with us on Monday – fresh as a daisy!) We then stood to cheer our other relay teams and marathoners.

Our other marathoners did amazingly too. Seriously impressive times considering the course profile and warm/sunny conditions. To be honest, I’m just hugely impressed at anyone who completed that marathon – my leg was hard enough with those hills! Paris was hard but that was flat. Not sure how keen I’d be to do this marathon…maybe when I’m a bit more experienced.

Strong running from the hubby

Ben’s relay team did great too with a time of 4:02:22. The morale was just brilliant and I loved supporting everyone and hearing how everyone’s run went.

As our team came second we got a little trophy (wish I’d have taken a photo) and a bottle of cider each. Not bad at all!

I definitely recommend a relay marathon to anyone; the morale within the team, the fun of driving off to the next location and supporting the marathoners is just a brilliant experience.

Have you ever done a relay?

What’s your ideal course profile in terms of terrain, popularity, length and elevation? I think mine would be a half marathon, off road with no more than 500 people (Cheddar Gorge half anyone…?).

Do you talk to people in races or do you like to be left alone? If I’m pushing hard then I tend to not be able to chat away but I do like a good natter in a race.

May 6, 2014November 8, 2018

Cars, bikes and a snowman

Oh man what a weekend. There were a fair few ups and downs I have to say!

Friday ended appallingly. I was driving home from work and just before getting on the motorway and I was stuck in the usual stop-start traffic. The roads were wet and the car in front put its breaks on a little sooner than I was expecting. I slammed my foot fully to the floor and watched as my car slid forward and knocked into the back of the car in front. My poor little Corsa didn’t stand a chance.

The other person’s car was fine – no superficial damage anyway. He was a nice guy but I felt terrible. So embarrassing and stressful 🙁

But anyway, I was fine, he was fine. The only thing not fine was my car. The damage isn’t too bad but I’m pretty sure it’ll be a write-off as it’s such an old banger. Ironically, I had spent some time looking at car insurance reviews on Consumers Advocate not too long before this happened. Ben and me came to the decision that a brand new car would probably be better for me considering my mileage to work everyday. I need something a bit more reliable, safe and economic. Every silver lining, eh? Fairly rubbish way to start the bank holiday weekend though.

Saturday we had a pacing event on at our local Parkrun. I had volunteered to run the 24 minute pace. I was quite excited about doing this as I’d never paced before. But I was very nervous as I was being relied upon!

My bib was huge. I looked sort of naked!!

As we headed to the start I was suddenly followed and surrounded by people hoping to achieve 24 minutes or there abouts. No pressure…

I had planned to run 7.50minute/miles as this would give a bit of lee-way for the ‘nubbin’ of 0.1 mile. I kept fairly consistent to that pace, though I slowed on the up-hills and then sped up on the down-hills to compensate. One guy ran up next to me and said “you do know you’re going slower than you should be for that target?” This hugely panicked me. I checked my watch. Nope, I had gone through the first mile in perfect time. I tried to say no I was fine but he didn’t believe me. He told me I should speed up. I didn’t, but I kept panicking.

My group dwindled a bit as the run continued and this made me panic a bit more but also feel bad because there was nothing really I could do for them. I had to stick to the plan whether they kept up or not.

I finished in 23.45 with a consistent pace. I got thanked by a fellow runner for helping him PB and other runners said they still kept me in their sights despite dropping off. This hugely boosted me. I was so chuffed! The man who had criticised my pace came up and apologised me afterwards as well, saying he misjudged my pace. Mmm, yes, thanks for stressing me out!

After Parkrun we got ready quickly and then headed out to find some road bikes with a friend. We went to quite a few different shops. Big ones, like Decathlon, and small local ones. We got some good information from the different salesmen (what gears were good, what frame sizes we should be looking at, price differences, etc.)

We tested a few out as well. In the end, the price was right and the spec looked good (from our limited knowledge!) for two Carreras from Halfords. We’re not after all singing and all dancing, or top of the range. We wanted something in our price range that fitted well and met our requirements. It had good reviews on the website so we bit the bullet!

TDF for Ben, Virtuoso for me. Maybe these aren’t the best bikes in the world, but for now they’ll be fine I’m sure. We’re hardly going to use them every day or rock out a 60 miler on them any time soon!

On Sunday we did the Dorset Marathon relay race. I was part of a team of four ladies and Ben was in a team of four men. In our running club I think we had four teams in total? And we had several guys running the whole marathon. I’ll do a recap in another post. It went well though and was such a fun day.

Monday was my first ever riding experience on a road bike. Though we’ve bought our new bikes, we haven’t collected them yet so I was borrowing a friend’s bike and shoes. I went out with three other guys from the club and it was good fun!

I was definitely the slowest by far and probably holding them up a fair bit. But it was a fun, sociable ride. The weather was lovely. But it was tough, don’t get me wrong. Jeeze, you think you’re fit until you try something new!

And quite hilly. But the down hills were so much fun! Wind in the hair, crazy speed (for me), exhilarating fun!

I don’t really know what’s fast or not at this stage, but what I do know is it felt more like a long run in terms of endurance rather than a speed session (which I guess you can see from my average speed). And I didn’t fall off once amazingly. I got used to the clip-on shoes and started getting the hang of gears and positioning on the bike.

I was shattered though afterwards. My bum hurt (despite wearing new padded shorts), my legs felt tired and my wrists actually ached a bit as well. Then it was off out to look for new cars.

After going round different car dealers I’m pretty much 100% decided on a Fiat 500. A very iconic and ‘girlie’ car perhaps, but small and dinky enough for me (and very safe, economical and eco-friendly). We’ve spec’ed up what we want so it’ll be a wait yet. Ho hum. Well, I say ‘we’ spec’ed up. Ben pretty much did this for me as I literally don’t know anything about cars. Ben had a lot of fun though as you can imagine 😉

We then went to Nando’s and had chicken. Perfect day, really! Topped off only with an evening of lolling on the couch in a chicken-induced coma watching Frozen. Ben’s face when the characters started singing was hilarious. He’s very much a Disney novice and didn’t quite expect how much singing there would be. He did enjoy it though and I heard him singing “Do you want to build a snowman?” while getting ready this morning. Excellent.

Have you ever paced a race before?

What car do you have? I’m such a car novice. Ben did all the talking in the dealership!

What’s your longest bike ride?

Have you seen Frozen? I loved it. Disney doing what Disney does best. And any film with a Princess Anna (though said ‘Arrrrnnna’) is fine by me.

May 1, 2014May 1, 2014

I’ll always be a runner but…

I’m thinking of getting a road bike. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a runner. Running is at top of my list and, for the foreseeable future, will continue to be.

However, I know I can’t just run. And the probability of getting injured again is quite high (8/10 runners every year get injured…how depressing that??). So I need a back-up plan to stop myself from falling down a well of despair when this happens – because let’s be honest, it’s not if it’s when.

What started this thought process was that I quit my gym membership this month (how very liberating!). I haven’t been for ages. Spin wasn’t doing me any favours as my IT band always felt terrible afterwards and I actually hated every single of the 45 minutes I’m there. I also hate using cardio machines. When I’m injured the last thing I want to do is get on a machine to further my depression. Also, we have a ‘mini’ gym at work which is perfect for all my strength workouts. So really I’m not missing out on much. Except for some cross-training…which is how the road bike scenario has occurred.

Quite a few people at my running club are into their cycling and going on ‘Big Rides’ so my interest was peaked. They’ve given me so much good advice (as have some other non-runners I’ve been asking too – it’s amazing how many cyclists I actually know). Though I do feel a little overwhelmed with information. Running is so much more simple – believe me!

This weekend I’m hopefully going to be borrowing a road bike off one of them and joining a group from the club for a 30 mile ride on Monday morning. Gargh! Though I’m terrified because I actually don’t know how good a cyclist I am, I’m very excited. I do love a good personal challenge and it’ll be great if the weather’s nice. Though I’ll be using clip-on shoes…I’ll keep you informed of how many times I fall off the bike.

The plan is that I’m hoping to get myself a relatively inexpensive road bike soonish (not a rubbish one but not one I need remortgage the house for). Then I’m thinking maybe once a week, or every two weeks, to get a good ride in. All supplementary to my running of course 😉

Now that the weather is getting better(ish) and the mornings and evenings lighter it seems like a good time to start. Ben is keen too (and secretly I think he hopes he can out-cycle me as I can currently out-run him 😉 so it’s all looking good. Just need to get kitted out with those oh-so-attractive padded shorts, get road bikes and zoom zoom zoom. Or, more likely, amble along slowly, fall off, continue to amble along slowly.

This is not a precursor for me becoming a triathlete though. I am fine with just running events at the moment. This is just about trying some different and hopefully distract my body from getting injured 😉

If any cyclist out there have any advice, I’m all ears!

Do you enjoy cycling?

What cross-training do you do?

Have you ever taken up a sport your not familiar with?

April 30, 2014April 30, 2014

Weddings, cake and apple

Hello! We’re in that awkward spot of half way between last weekend and next weekend (and a Bank holiday on Monday, wahay!)

Last weekend was a busy one. We had Parkrun in the morning as usual. We had to dash off pretty quickly afterwards to get home, showered and sorted as we had my friend’s wedding later in the day in Bristol.

I do love a good wedding, don’t you? Though it was a little overcast and drizzly at the start, when it was important the weather held out and there was some beautiful sunshine. Though it was quite chilly!

The ceremony was lovely. It’s so strange seeing one of your close friends walking down the aisle with her dad about to marry someone.

I mean I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I’m a married woman!

I know this is quite sad, but I’m so happy I was actually able to wear my fascinator! My mum gave it to me ages ago and I finally had an occasion and a dress that went with it. The dress is from Warehouse and I love it! I didn’t do anything with my hair because, well, I’m not that creative and it’s quite stubborn in that it just likes being straight. Ben looked rather dapper as well I must say!

I don’t normally drink but I did enjoy quite a few G&Ts and bucks fizzes, but luckily it was over a long period of time so I wasn’t an embarrassing drunk! I don’t usually drink so it was a nice change. My lack of drinking is not really a conscious thing, just that I don’t like wine or beer. I find cake and chocolate help me relax better anyway 😉

The table favours and theme for the wedding were great. The wedding couple are obsessed with Florida and the theme parks so they named each table a theme park, like Magical Kingdom, Busch Gardens and Universal Studios. We were Seaworld. In our table favours there were American sweets (candy?) like Reese’s Kisses and Baby Ruths (what on Earth are they??) and Tootsie Rolls.

The wedding breakfast (though really lunch – isn’t that a strange term?) was delicious: tomato soup, followed by chicken with vegetables and a creamy mash and then the most amazing slice of apple pie.

Then it was time to cut the cake.

How cool is that? An upside-down cake! It was chocolate cake with a white chocolate hard coating.

I had three slices. To be fair they were tiny slices so really I’m sure it was only one ‘proper’ slice 😉

Later there was a lot of dancing and craziness. I missed the second coming of the cake and was a little disappointed (I know, I know…) but had a spare apple in my room in the hotel to tide me over into the evening.

I am too cool for school I know. Can’t beat a late-night apple 😉

Needless to say I felt so tired on Sunday. The bride had booked the breakfast room in the morning for 8.45am for us all to have breakfast together. The day before that didn’t sound too bad, but in the morning I could have definitely had a bit more sleep! I might have had a little doze in the car on the way home…

We then enjoyed an afternoon of doing nothing. We watch the new Thor film (not bad at all!) and just chilled. Normally I hate just sitting down and doing nothing all day but actually it was lovely. A nice way to recharge the batteries.

Have you been to any weddings recently? What’s your favourite part?

Do you know of any interesting wedding themes that people use? At our wedding we used a ‘sweet’ theme, so each table was called a different sweet and the favours contained pick ‘n’ mix.

How do you recharge your batteries after a night out?

April 28, 2014January 5, 2017

Last week’s workouts

Last week was a weird running week. I sandwiched a tough run (the first RR10 race) between two fairly easy runs.

I took Monday off as a complete rest day. I think it’s so important to rest your body. It can be so tempting to just run all the time but I know from experience that this never works out well for me.

Tuesday I could have gone to the interval session with the club but I had the RR10 on Wednesday night and really wanted to try hard. So I went for an easy 6 miles after work. Nothing remarkable.

Wednesday was the RR10 in the evening. This is basically Hampshire’s set of league races that are around 4-5 miles long and tend to be fairly hilly and off-road. Like clockwork the rain started as soon as I left work about two hours before the start.

Ben dropped me off at a fellow club friend’s house so I could do a mile warm up run. I can’t just start flat-out race speed without warming up first. My legs de-friend me that way. Ben’s knee was giving him a bit of grief so he declined the extra running.

The RR10 was located at our local Parkrun in Netley Abbey so I was familiar with the area.

Sadly the toilets were locked at the time of the evening and I was desperate for a wee (sorry for TMI) It wasn’t even like a safety wee, it was a ‘genuinely-required-pee situation’. I had to dash off to find a bush, which was such an effort as most of the bushes were a bit scarce in their foliage and there were so many flipping dog walkers. Anyway, I found one of the necessary criteria. Hmm a whole paragraph on my peeing situation – apologies.

We did a bit more warming up. Anyone else just feel terrible during warm ups? Like every ache your body has ever experienced rears its head. I felt so de-motivated and tired.

Anyway we all headed to the start (our running club was looking strong with it’s red white and blue vests and such a great turn out). I planned to line up fairly near the front so I wouldn’t get caught behind people (RR10s are based on positions not time). Then we were off.

It was painful, fast, muddy, slippy and the whole time I was just thinking “this is hard.” and “I could slow down, that would be nice”. I decided not to look at my watch because a) I was concentrating on not falling over with all the mud and b) I just didn’t have time. It was one of those races I just kept my head focused the entire time.

Amazingly I came 10th female, and first female in my club. Judging from how tough the race felt and my race photos, it’s clear I worked hard for it!

Source

Still have my name on my vest from the marathon. All the cool kids are doing it 😉

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Are race photos ever flattering? This is on the last 100m. I remember seeing the photographer and in my mind briefly thinking “Oh jeeze this is going to be bad” as I desperately tried to sprint to the finish.

The next photo is one of my favourites. Not because I look nice or anything like that. It’s just the evil daggers I’m throwing at the photographer.

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I look seriously grumpy!

I was so chuffed with my position and after grabbing a drink I stood and cheered as other club runners finished.

Ben finished 192nd out of the men. There are always a lot more men than women unfortunately for Ben. He was chuffed though as his knee hadn’t caused him any issues. Whew.

Safe to say it was a very muddy run!

Then cakes appeared. Well, obviously I was there in a nano-second. Would you be surprised if I said I had four cakes? Yeah I’m not either. To be fair though two of them were quite slim biscuits. The other was a regular sized (amazing) cookie (with mini eggs in it?? WOW) and a slice of iced sponge.

I went home buzzing as you can imagine!

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It took ages to fall asleep that evening. Maybe it was the cakes or my aching legs but I really struggled.

Thursday I woke up tired and achy, but in a satisfying way. That evening I went to running club with the absolute iron intention of an easy run. I ran the mile down there at a nice relaxed pace enjoying the sunshine. I tagged along with the normal group I go with but telling myself over and over again not to go to fast. My options were limited with groups – it was either an off-roader (the one I went with) or a 7 mile 8-8.30min/mile group, or the much slower (than me – it’s all relative!) groups.

In the end I think I’d chosen well as we took it nice and easy and the terrain was very similar to the previous night’s RR10 so speed just wasn’t an option. Whew. But my legs felt very heavy and tired. I almost dashed off home as we past near where we live. It was a good 8.5 miles though in the end with an average pace of 9mins (a couple of those miles 10mins so that was good).

Friday was another rest day. I had intended on a strength workout (this week has been terrible for that) but it just didn’t happen sadly. You win some, you lose some. I did have a sports massage though on my calves. My left calf was feeling tight and almost a little niggly so I wanted to nip that in the bud quickly.

Saturday I got up earlier than usual and ran the 4 miles to Parkrun to help set up. I ran the extra miles because Ben and me were off to a wedding later in the day so a Sunday run was never going to happen 😉

On starting the run I felt so tired and my legs so heavy (still!). I was not feeling it at all. I made Ben make me a coffee that he’d take with him so I could drink it when I got there. He’s lovely like that.

He took me a black coffee and my water bottle. Very handy having him go by car. I saw him pass me when I was about 0.5miles away and it definitely made me run faster “need coffee!!!”

I got to parkrun, we helped set up and I was dragging my feet a bit. It was cold and I just wasn’t in the mood. However, when we lined up I put some music on and just got into it. I ran 22 minutes flat! It was crazy, I suddenly just decided “let’s do this”.

Not my fastest, but the course is the three laps with the hill and some fairly boggy grass so I was chuffed. The effort was definitely there! I was pleased I went for a speedy run.

After that, it’s two days off and then strength workout tonight (Monday night) and then hopefully intervals with the club Tuesday evening.

How was your week in terms of work outs?

How do you motivate yourself to work hard? Music tends to help me and also the ‘race environment’ gets me going.

How often do you work out and what’s your balance between cardio and strength? I try to do at least two strength sessions a week and usually 4-5 runs.