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… 😉Tenth Hole Honeycomb Pie
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.IMG_7071

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.IMG_7090

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).Ribs and chicken

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.Netley NYs Day parkrun

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!Neltey parkrun splits

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.

New Year's Day Park Run, the Common, Southampton.               Picture: Chris Moorhouse.                Friday 1st january 2016

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.Southampton parkrun splits

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!

IMG_7135

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!Coast to Coast

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!IMG_7154

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!IMG_7158

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?

18 Replies to “Starting the year with all my favourite things”

  1. Wow you are so speedy! Well done! I am very envious of all the parkrun doubling going on- maybe next year for me. Last year I had just had about a month off so it wasn’t a good idea, and this year we were away. But also they are at least a 30 min drive apart, plus at the first one you have to park a little way away from the start, and so I think I would be cutting it fine to have my chip scanned, race back to my car, drive to the next one, get a parking ticket (as you have to for the second one) and then run again. But one day. In fact there is meant to be one coming to my town in the spring, which is in between the other two, so it might make it easier on the slower members of the parkrun tribe!
    I did manage a Christmas day parkrun which pleased me no end.
    I am never a huge fan of new years either- a normal nice evening in sounds good to me.
    Maria @ runningcupcake recently posted…12 months of runningMy Profile

  2. Well done on those times! Lovely negative splits across the two!

    After the wedding on New Year’s Eve, we were in bed by midnight – so we could get up for our New Year’s Day Slither round Thursford (North Norfolk is so lovely. And so far away from everywhere…).

    (I’d have been disappointed by that tall thin glass too. I’m a pudding person).
    Jane recently posted…Well, it’s not quite knittingMy Profile

  3. Nobody seemed to blog very much over the holidays. Although my blog reader has gone crazy this week with everyone trying to catchup posting about Christmas fun times!
    Yay for the parkrun New Years Day double! And that’s a fab picture of you overtaking those two females. It seems loads of people attempted the parkrun double this year. Did parkrun release any figures? I haven’t seen any. It was a little crazy between getting our barcodes scanned at the first parkrun and making it to the second on time, but fun all the same!
    Mary recently posted…The parkrun doubleMy Profile

    1. For some blogs I just clicked ‘read’ because there are only so many resolution and Christmas recap posts I can take 😉
      I haven’t seen any figures for parkrun – but probably did a good lot! I imagine it’s only going to increase as well…
      AnnaTheApple recently posted…Those ribs though…My Profile

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