AnnaTheApple

Thanks for all your lovely comments and tweets regarding the marathon. It is definitely the right thing to do. It sucks. But it’s sensible.

This week hasn’t been great if I’m honest. I’m trying not to let this get me down but it’s hard. Especially when I have to tell people I’m pulling out, like co-workers, friends and the running club. Embarrassingly I ended up in tears telling my friend at work. I feel overly emotional about the whole thing. I know it’s ridiculous and there are bigger things to worry about, but hey ho.

It doesn’t help that work is hard at the moment and overly busy. Meaning I have to work this weekend again, Saturday and Sunday. I just feel things getting on top of me a bit.

Sunday was a hard day but after having a good heart-to-heart with my parents and having Ben’s continual support, I felt better. And cupcakes always help too:

These are what I call Cupcake Therapy

Why have one when you can have two? My mum dropped four cupcakes round the day before – it’s as if she psychically knew Sunday was going to be a rough day. Mum Power.

Later on today I have a physio appointment which should be fun. I swear I’m keeping this woman in business. I thought it was probably best to proactively seek guidance for the knee thing because, let’s be honest, I took 10 days off and it didn’t solve anything did it?

On a different note, we had friends over on Saturday night for a Mexican themed evening. We had dips and tortilla chips to start. I made guacamole using THIS recipe. Then found out I was the only one who likes guacamole. Well, I see that as a win in my eyes!

For the main we had slow cooker chilli. Honestly, so so simple. Just throwing everything in a slow cooker is like having a little fairy in the kitchen. If only that fairy would also do the washing up as well.

Slow Cooker Chilli (serves 4)

Based on THIS recipe

• Lean beef mince (500g)
• Large white onion, diced
• 1 tbsp. garlic powder
• 1 tbsp. mild chilli powder
• 1 tsp. paprika
• 1 tsp. ground cumin
• 1 beef stock cube
• 400g can chopped tomatoes
• 1 tbsp. mixed herbs
• 1 tsp sugar
• 2 tbsp tomato purée
• 410g can red kidney beans, drained

I fried the onion first in a tbsp. oil. Then put everything in the slow cooker and gave it a good stir. I cooked this for 6 hours on LOW.

We had this with (Uncle Ben’s) Mexican rice, refried beans, sour cream and the remainders of the chips. Not too shabby for our first Grown Up Dinner Party.

This picture is terrible I’m sorry. But it tasted delicious.

While eating we had an interesting conversation about what foods we couldn’t live without. Ben and one of the friends said there wasn’t any food they’d be that sad about never having again. I mean, what?? That’s not normal right?

I wonder if you can guess what mine is? Apples. Literally couldn’t live without them. I think oats for my porridge also comes very close second. And cake. Not a specific cake, just cake in general.

My other friend said potatoes, which I found hilarious as if I never ate potatoes again I wouldn’t be that bothered! Sure I might miss chips (fries) occasionally but I could live without them. I can honestly say I have never craved potatoes.

What food can’t you live without? I’d give up chocolate over apples. Is that weird?

What food makes you feel better when you’re sad? For me it’s cake. That may be an unhealthy way to look at things, but it’s impossible to be sad when you’re eating a slice of cake.

Do you enjoy hosting dinner parties?

Well, this is the post I hoped I wouldn’t have to write.

The weekend started so well. Ben and me got up early to go to Parkrun and help them set up everything.

We’re now on course C due to the weather. This means another hill has been added and a lot more running on gravel. Definitely not a PB course! As we finished setting up I realised I’d forgotten my Garmin. I never run without my watch so immediately panicked. But I realised this was probably a good thing. I wasn’t aiming for a PB, I was just going to run however I felt. Time didn’t matter.

Anyway, it was tough in a good way. I’d missed running with such speed and I was happy. I managed 21:59 and 3rd female. Not a PB by far but for the course and my current running fitness I was pleased.

But I got home and throughout the day my knee ached a lot. I stretched, foam rolled and iced. I tried to convince myself it was fine.

The next day I got up early for an ‘unplanned-distance’ long run. I walked Alfie first. Immediately I could tell my knee felt off. Again I convinced myself it was fine. I did a long warm up at home – dynamic stretches and foam rolling. As soon as I set off I knew it wasn’t right. But who judges a run by their first mile, I argued  in my head. It’s laughable now to think I’d even put my fuel belt on and had dreams of running 18 miles. I was running 9min/miles and it wasn’t good.

I managed 5 miles. I got home and just sat on the floor and went into overdrive panicking about how I could make up lost runs and miles. It’s OK, I’ll run 18 miles next weekend. I’ll give it time this week. It’ll be fine. I went upstairs to shower and looked at myself in the mirror.

What am I doing?

What am I doing to my body? What am I putting it through? I have four weeks left until the marathon. I’ve run 17 miles – three weeks ago. And it wasn’t a great run. I haven’t had a consistent good full week of running since before Mexico. Why the hell do I think I can run a marathon?

Do I want to run a marathon and feel disappointed with my time? Do I want to run a marathon and just make it? Do I want to finish at the end broken? Or worse, not finish?

My knee is not better. And sure it could get better in time for the marathon – but what training will I manage before then? What happens if my knee isn’t quite healed? And the adrenaline of the race masks any pain my body is desperately trying to tell me about? I run through it and ruin my body.

I want to walk to the start line knowing I am ready. And I don’t want to just make it to the finish line. I want to absolutely smash it. I want to feel proud of what I’ve achieved, with no regrets.

I can’t pretend I’m not absolutely devastated. I can’t pretend that I didn’t do a lot of crying yesterday. But as soon as I decided to pull out of the marathon, a huge weight was lifted off of me. The deep sickness in the pit of my stomach disappeared. This is the most sensible thing to do.

This isn’t my time. This isn’t my race.

I probably haven’t mentioned this on the blog but Ben and me signed up to the Paris marathon ages ago – when things were better in the world of running for me. The Paris marathon is April. My plan going forward now is spending up until the end of the year being sensible. Limiting my running and strengthening my body. I can then, providing I’m all injury-free, properly start my training plan in January. I’ll have three months to give it my all, starting with a healthy body.

Though I feel incredibly down about this whole thing, I know this is the right thing to do. I’ll still be there on 22nd December to support Ben. I’ll support and cheer him on, vicariously running it through him. My time will come, just not this year.

Have you ever had to pull out of a race?

Have you ever DNF’ed at a race?

OK, I don’t want to prematurely start celebrating…but I’m thinking (I’m praying) that my running is almost back to normal. Obviously trying not to jinx this!!

I went to my running school session last night and I was quite nervous. But I did loads of tough speed intervals on the treadmill while trying to maintain a good form…with no pain. This involved a lot of shouting from the coach “hips forward!”, “relax that foot”…that kind of thing. We did speed intervals, high incline intervals, high incline with speed…jeeze it was HARD. I almost fell off towards the end!

Then he got me running on the treadmill backwards. Yes, backwards. Apparently this works a load of different muscles. I have no idea to be honest, I was just concentrating on not falling off.

Then we did lots of stability work. This involved one legged squats on one of those wobbly disk things (technical term there), lunges, core work, bridges… My legs felt fully abused by the end.

But, no pain. And when I got home, I foam rolled, stretched and iced…no pain.

This morning…no pain.

But I’m not going to get ahead of myself. I’m going to see how Parkrun goes tomorrow. I have absolutely no goals. Just run, see how it feels. Don’t blast it, just run it. Sounds so simple, right?

I’m not even going to talk about Sunday. One day at a time.

As I mentioned, this week was gently getting back into things. And I’m fairly happy I did this.

Monday: nothing.

Tuesday: 5 mile run (easy)

Wednesday: strength work in the gym

Thursday: running school torture

Friday (today): 35 minutes recumbent bike, 10 minutes rower

For the moment I’m not doing Spin as I was worried it was putting pressure on my knee (all that standing up and sprinting). So I did 2 minutes easy, 1 minute speed, 30 seconds sprint on the recumbent bike (less pressure on hips and knees) for 35 minutes. Then the rower for 10 minutes.

I hope to get back into spin soon though as I do love it. Sort of?

Saturday: Parkrun

Sunday: I hope to do a long run but I’m not setting any targets for fear I will be quickly smited down by the big Running God in the sky for being too ambitious.

I have started to feel less sick about the marathon…though obviously anything could happen in the next four weeks (FOUR WEEKS!) and let’s be honest I wouldn’t be surprised at all if my world comes crumbling down once again with another injury or reoccurrence of a niggle. Ahh the joys of running.

What are you up to this weekend? I’m working (from home) tomorrow. Joy. But I do have friends over in the evening for a Mexican evening (helloooo guacamole).

How do you exercise when you’re taking things easy? I do less intense workouts. I try to workout for just as long, but at an ‘easier’ level.

What gym equipment is your favourite? I love the rower. It’s the rhythm I think.

I went running last night…It went surprinsgly OK. After spending ages warming up, I left the house and started running. Everything felt normal. No twinges. No pain. No discomfort. Just normal running. I swear I almost stopped in the road and danced about with happiness.

I’d be lying if I said it was a truly spectacular run though. It was tough. I kept around 8mins/mile and it felt hard going. Not tough as in my legs felt niggly. Just tough as in “wow I haven’t really run this speed for a while”. This obviously fills me with great confidence about the upcoming marathon. Not. Anyway, I was aiming to do 6 miles but couldn’t find a route off the top of my head through areas that were well-lit as it was so dark. So I did 5 miles. Towards the end of the run my knee started to make itself known just a little. No pain, just discomfort. But this is to be expected, right?? There was no pain afterwards, maybe just a feeling of weakness, and this morning (Wednesday) everything feels pretty much fine.

Fingers crossed! I have my running school session tomorrow night so I hope that doesn’t aggravate anything.

Anywho…Ben has been flying about Europe recently leaving me on my lonesome…well, with Alfie! Thankfully he’s back this week but previously he’s been gone like every week. Alfie loves this as it means he gets to stretch out a bit at night on Ben’s side of the bed.

Though through the night he still manages to move right where my legs want to go and I wake up in the morning curled up in an uncomfortable ball.

The one benefit of Ben being away is that I get to eat whatever meals I fancy without some sort of sarcastic comment about there being too much veg. I love my husband but he doesn’t share the same love for vegetables that I do. He always looks at his plate in mock disgust if I’ve had the audacity to put a few peas on there.

For What I Ate Wednesday I thought I’d share a couple of meals that I’ve been loving lately.

As always, thanks Jenn

I didn’t do any slow cooker meals last week as (surprise surprise) I had a lot more free time on my hands with not going to the gym or running. But I still fancied something quick and easy one night.

OK, granted, this looks pretty awful. But it’s one of my favourite meals lately. I’m sure I’ve posted it before but hey ho. It’s chicken and lots of veg (courgettes, mushrooms, onions, squash) and a small jar of salsa with a big dollop of cream cheese (probably two tablespoons). It’s a kind of ‘throw it into the saucepan and see what happens’ kind of meal. So creamy and tasty though.

I also enjoyed a lovely roasted vegetable and bacon meal.

This was courgette, mushrooms, tomatoes, beetroot, onion, squash, 1/2 tin of chickpeas and 2 slices of bacon. I scattered lots of garlic, rosemary and thyme over this with a good splashing of balsamic vinegar. So good.

Yep way too many vegetables in there for Ben. I’ve been really enjoying these sorts of meals though. It feels very season-appropriate. Variations are endless…sausages, goats cheese, sweet potato…anything really goes.

I plan on making a nice creamy tomato soup tonight so hopefully I will post the results of that at some point if it’s tasty 😉

Do you like bacon? What’s your favourite meal with bacon?

Does your other half enjoy the meals you cook? Ben usually does unless I go crazy with too many vegetables. Usually as long as there’s cheese in there he’s fine 😉

How long does it take you to get back into shape after some time out of exercising? I don’t think I’m out of shape from not exercising for over a week, but I do think I’ve lost a bit of fitness. And that my legs aren’t as strong, especially my knee now.