afternoon tea - AnnaTheApple

March 23, 2015March 23, 2015

Running and cake

I know this is so damn clichéd and boring to start with but I don’t care – how amazing is the weather right now?? I’m not sure what it’s like elsewhere in the UK (or world in general I suppose) but in the South Coast of England it is SPRING. The weekend’s weather was beautiful. This is my favourite time of year – such hope of things to come and better days.

My weekend started with a fabulous parkrun at Netley Abbey. It was Netley’s third parkrun birthday so it was all very festive and fun with a Hawaiian fancy dress theme.

I was devastated when I couldn’t find my grass skirt – I love a good fancy dress run! I loved how everyone really got into the theme (though I failed miserably).

And it was lovely weather – a little chilly but beautifully sunny.

We were on the same course but a slight variation. Well, I say slight but really this meant instead of having to deal with six hills (two hills three times) we only had to deal with three hills (one hill three times). I decided to see what had to give on a less hilly course.

I wore my new Jabra Sport Rox ear buds on this run and though I do find them a bit fiddly to fit in my ear snugly (it takes a bit of patience, of which I’m not known for!) when they’re in they are IN. It is great to run without having a wire dangling about you and getting caught on your arms. The sound quality is amazing as well (they’re made with Dolby). I’ll do a thorough review of them soon.

Photo credit to Kookie51

I can’t believe how good I felt on this run. Yes it was tough in terms of keeping the legs and breathing going but I felt like I was gliding. I also only looked at my watch three times (once per bleep of the mile) – this is MASSIVE for me. Normally I watch my watch like a hawk. I clung on to a running club friend, Mark, who had overtaken me at the start and I vowed to keep in my sights.

Photo credit to Kookie51

On the last lap I managed to overtake him and speed off but I’d judged it badly and had kicked too soon as he pipped me at the finish when I had nothing left. I might have shouted some abuse at him as he sped past (all good natured of course) but he played it well so kudos to him!

I managed to get first lady (though a lot of people were saving their legs for the Eastleigh 10k the next day) and a time of 21:05 which is the fastest parkrun time since October 2013 according to the parkrun website. Jeeze somewhat depressing but also great to know I’m getting back on track. It’ll be interesting to see how I perform on a flatter parkrun.

After parkrun and usual housework duties, I headed off to my parents to spend some quality time with them. We had a lovely walk down the beach with their three dogs and my Alfie (madness, absolute madness walking four dogs) and enjoyed the fantastic weather.

Lee-On-Solent beach

We enjoyed a nice Indian take-away that evening and I even suffered through The Voice (*sighs*) though I did have my Runner’s World Magazine and my iPad!! I’m not sure I would have survived otherwise.

The next morning I got up and set off on my 12 mile run. I ran along the beach path which was wonderfully quiet with just the odd dog walker and fellow runner. My run just felt fantastic. My legs felt good and my pace felt easy. I’m getting highly confused with how I should be running these runs at the moment – terrified I’m dicing with potential injuries.

Average pace 7.52min/mile with a total time of 1:37:42. I attempted to slow down but when I looked at my watch later on the pace had crept up again. I’m just going with it. I won’t be able to sustain this pace for the longer runs so I might as well enjoy it now. I know this might sound ridiculously stupid but honestly that run felt brilliant and today I don’t feel ruined or exhausted. But I know my main issue is not keeping these runs slower.

After this I got home, stretched and foam rolled and had breakfast. A bit later on I went out with my mum and enjoyed a lovely walk, again down the beach. I feel so bad for my mum at the moment as she had such a painful back. She’s been seeing a physio and he’s had to refer her for an MRI as he thinks she has a bulging disc. She has such bad nerve pain all down her back, hip and leg. She finds sitting down for too long excruciating and has to take strong painkillers. It’s awful to see someone you love in so much pain, and you can’t do anything to help. As she said walking helps a bit, we walked down the beach and then cheered ourselves up with a lovely afternoon tea. Oh it’s been too long!!

The Tea Room in Lee

We umm’ed and arr’ed between the Victoria sponge and red velvet and in the end decided to go for the Victoria sponge. My mum went for a scone and slice of cake as she didn’t fancy the sandwiches but I went for the whole hog, so to speak.

And it was fabulous. The scones are so huge and tasty, they really are the best part I think (slathered in jam and cream). I had delicious chicken sandwiches as well.

Very scrumptious indeed.

So all in all: good running, good cake and lovely time with my family.

How was your weekend?

Have you ever had back pain?

Do you enjoy fancy dress’? Running or otherwise!

November 17, 2014November 17, 2014

What did you expect?

So Ben left for Hong Kong on Friday. It’s very strange without him. Mind you, it’s very tidy though 😉 He spent the weekend in Hong Kong and today he goes to China (actually he’s just arrived as I’m posting this!). I am beyond jealous and hope to be able to go out with him next time – or for us to continue a holiday on after he does his work stuff. We’ll see!

On Friday I worked from home which is always nice – especially as I got to spend the last few hours with Ben before he left. OK we were both working away on laptops but it was nice to be there with him anyway. Then I had a meeting with Kyle my running coach to discuss my training plan for London, my current running and good advice on running in general. All good stuff. And then Nando’s in the evening with some guys from the running club. I know, I know. I’m fully addicted. Anyway, it kept my mind off the fact I was now Ben-less.

Saturday morning was all the usual stuff of helping set up and doing parkrun. It was all very squelchy and wet so very tricky to get round corners. Again I wasn’t blasting it, just ‘plodding’ it. Though saying that I ran with a lovely girl from the running club whose first parkrun it was and we had decided beforehand on a pace 8-8.30mins/mile which was nice and comfortable. However on the third lap I felt us speeding up and we did the last mile in 7.20!!! I haven’t run a 7.20 in sooo long. I just don’t do any speed work or races at the moment and before Berlin I was trying to be really cautious. Needless to say it was tough. I’m very much out of racing shape at the moment, but that’s OK because I’m just base building. I want to do well at London (OK, I want to not get injured first and foremost) so taking things easy at the moment is paramount. There’s no point burning out before I’ve even got into my training.

After clearing down the parkrun bits and pieces I headed to the cafe where lots of the guys from the club were. They were doing the ballot selection for the London marathon places we’ve been allocated as a running club. I already have my place but I was there representing Ben. In the end Ben got a reserve place, which means if someone gets injured or doesn’t fancy it anymore he gets the place. He has a places at Brighton anyway so it’s not catastrophic, but it would be nice to run Lodnon together (providing Ben isn’t still injured…).

On the way back to the car I saw this little bird having a bath in a puddle which I thought was quite sweet.

One good thing about puddles I suppose!

Later on after all the usual guff of showering and housework I headed to my parent’s for a spot of afternoon tea down the beach. We’ve been to this cafe before and it’s lovely (the Tea Room in Lee-on-Solent) and very good value.

The sandwiches are delicious (I had roast chicken on granary) and the scones are the best I’ve ever had. They’re GINORMOUS and lovely and warm. Deliciously soft in the middle with good chunky raisins (sultanas?) in. And a pot of clotted cream and strawberry jam.

I immediately knew which cake I wanted as it just looked fantastic. I am a small child at heart 😉 I went for the angel cake which is a vanilla sponge with jam and butter cream and butter cream icing with hundreds and thousands all over it. I mean come on, it looks amazing, right? My parents sensibly got their cakes to take home (a slice of chocolate orange and a slice of lemon cake). But I was not to be defeated. I did however find myself in quite an intoxicating sugar coma afterwards. It was a good job we’d parked the car so far away that it meant I could have a decent walk in the fresh air to help digest!

I soon went back home to my quiet house and watched lots of easy trashy telly. I also started watching the OC again. I will happily admit I love that programme. No judgement please 😉

Sunday morning, after walking Alfie, I headed out into the lovely rain and ran 10 miles.

Happily I feel my easy pace is getting faster naturally which is always nice. My week this week was exactly the same as last week in terms of running:

Monday: 30 mins easy (3.8 miles) and strength training in gym
Tuesday: 30 mins easy (3.8 miles)
Wednesday: 30 mins easy (3.8 miles) and strength training in gym
Thursday: 30 mins easy (3.8 miles)
Friday: Off
Saturday: parkrun (3.1 miles)
Sunday: 10 miles

A total of just over 28 miles. However I do get worried when I hover around this level of mileage (I know it’s not high in comparison to a lot of other runners). I’m always terrified of injuries. So far things are OK and I think the consistency is helping rather than pushing up higher just yet. And also all my miles are easy paced which, depending how I feel that day in terms of tiredness etc., means a pace of 7.50-8.30mins/miles. My shin is still a bit grumpy from time to time but I’m hoping I’m managing it with some extra strength training, stretching, foam rolling and being sensible. FINGERS CROSSED.

So with Ben being away it was basically chicken, cake and running – what else did you expect? 😉

What do you do when your partner or family goes away?

What mileage do you think your body is naturally comfortable with?

What programmes do you love to watch?

August 18, 2014August 18, 2014

A busy weekend of all the things I love

Happy Monday lovely people. I hope you all had a great weekend.

Mine was bittersweet. Ben is sadly injured. He’s marathon training like me for Berlin (end of September, less than six weeks- PANIC). And, like I mentioned a few posts ago, he went to the Ultra 12 event and ran 4 laps of 5 miles over 12 hours. He was already slightly injured before going into it (although he hadn’t told me this – he’d only said he had a small niggle) and Ultra just pushed him over the edge. He’s seen our physio and the outcome is he’s sprained his knee and can’t run for a week and then see how it is.

This meant all plans for him running at the weekend dissolved and he was in a Dark and Shady mind space. I feel so sorry for him as I know exactly what this is like, being injured while marathon training. But he’s got so many miles in the bag already and if it’s only a week (even if it’s two or three weeks) he’ll be absolutely fine. Ben is determined and strong willed, even if he doesn’t get the training he wants he’ll still do Berlin.

But it meant Saturday I was off to parkrun on my own.

Ben decided to have a lie-in instead which I could totally understand and I went down early to help set up.

It’s always a nice crew of people who volunteer setting up so there’s always a bit of banter and good conversation which helped with me being Ben-less.

Ben and me recently got Steve Way t-shirts so I wore mine to test it out.

My not-so-pregnant-anymore running friend was at parkrun which was lovely. Ages ago I posted about how she was still running while pregnant and doing amazingly (find it HERE). Well she had her baby boy about 10 weeks ago and has been getting back into running. So when we started parkrun and she was running a good clip I decided to hang on to her a bit – it’s always easier following someone doing a good pace than doing it on your own.Karen, my not-so-pregnant-anymore friend, running next to me

I felt good on the last lap so decided to speed up a little bit and managed to get 22:08 and third female which I was chuffed about. Nice tempo run!

Then, after clearing down, it was back to the Wounded Soldier. I let him off housework duties so he could mope a bit more and then we had to dash for some coffee with Ben’s mum.

Alfie loves Ben’s mum as she always gives him doggie chocolates

Then I managed to persuade Ben to go for dinner at Nando’s for our friend, Nathan’s, birthday.

Whole chicken and double salad = perfection

Chicken and beer, what more could you need? While chomping away on chicken Ben and Nathan planned to do a swim in the morning and then a cycle. I was planning a long run so decided to join the cycle afterwards.

The next morning I got up early and did 13.1 miles. It did feel like a hard slog for the first half and from mile four onwards I started getting very thirsty. I foolishly hadn’t brought any water thinking the temperature was cool enough. I started fantasying about drinks and wondered if I could beg for water from a shop as I had no money. At 7.5 miles I realised I was quite close to Ben’s mum’s house and as it was 9.15am it wasn’t too early…I rang her and she was more than happy with me dropping by to grab some water. Bliss! Bit of a strange experience to talk to someone on the phone mid-run though!

Ignore the fact that the mile numbers don’t make sense – I stopped to stretch after the first mile and randomly stopped my Garmin completely. So annoying! The run took just under 1:50 which I’m pleased with. I felt stronger towards the end so picked up the pace a bit. It’s funny because Saturday’s parkrun the work was all happening in my lungs and heart, whereas Sunday’s run my lungs and heart felt fine, it was all to do with my legs which is how it should be I think.

After getting back and foam rolling a bit I then had breakfast and quickly changed my top to get ready to cycle with the boys.

Straight away my legs felt like lead. It was a good cycle but it was tough. Usually our 15 mile route is fine and I can speed off along the straights but honestly I felt like an old lady. But it was nice to spin the legs. When we got home it took about 10 minutes for me to take my socks off though as I was so shattered.

As Ben and Nathan went to the pub to watch the football, I showered, reluctantly walked (shuffled?) Alfie round the block and then promptly collapsed onto the sofa with half a watermelon and chilled for a bit. Then Ben returned and we headed to my parent’s for the piece de resistance…afternoon tea.

Awkwardly Ben’s football team had lost and my dad’s football team had won (same match) but they were good sports about it (whew). It also helped Ben was four beers down by the this point and like a hyperactive child.

We went to the same place we went last week (The Tea Rooms in Lee-on-Solent) and it was lovely. Roast chicken sandwiches, a beautifully tasting scone with cream and jam and carrot cake. Ben had coconut and lemon cake and my dad had Victoria sponge (my mum just had cream tea).

As we went for a walk along the seafront Ben spotted an ice cream shop and jokingly (or so I thought) said he really fancied ice cream. I called his bluff and he so he went and bought one!

By this point Ben is both hyped up on alcohol and sugar. Bouncing all around the place, climbing walls and just generally being good fun. I’m glad he was feeling in a better mood (even if it was under the influence…).

Finally a happy chappy with his ice cream 🙂

And then we headed home to crash, both from exertion and sugar, on the sofa. Another weekend complete.

When you’re feeling down, how do you make yourself happy again?

What’s your favourite ice cream? I really can’t stand the Mr Whippy ice creams, I like the proper stuff!

Have you ever cycled after a long run? Triathletes are just amazing! It was very hard.

June 18, 2014

The Scone Debate and dog selfies

My friends from university came down on Saturday for a visit… (*whispers* because it’s my birthday this week) Well we combined it with a sort of hen do celebration for my friend, Charlotte, who’s getting married in less than two weeks. She is doing a ‘planned elopement’ to Italy with her to-be hubby for a romantic ‘just them’ ceremony.

Sadly I couldn’t make Parkrun in the morning. It would just have been a nightmare to have got back in time and wash and dry the beast that is my hair. So many hours of my life wasted drying it…But I did manage a speedy 5k on my own earlier in the morning. Anyway, my friends arrived at 10ish. We had the usual hen do bits and pieces (penis straws are always standard, right?) and some cupcakes one of my friends had made to celebrate Charlotte’s wedding. We caught up and then headed out to my favourite tea shop…

Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately perhaps) it is very close, about 2 miles. So we walked there chatting. Girls just like chatting don’t we? Ben joined as well and was an honorary girl for the day 😉

I’ll never get sick of afternoon tea. I had ham and mustard sandwiches, a fruit scone with cream and jam and a slice of LEMON MERINGUE sponge cake. Sorry for the caps, I got all excited. There were pieces of meringue on the top all crushed and lovely. Seriously good cake. Though I must say, the best part of afternoon tea for me is the scone. And there’s always the debate of jam or cream first. I’m of the opinion that it should be jam first, then a dollop of cream. Otherwise the jam gets all smeary? But this is a fairly heated debate. Ben is a cream then jam man – how are we together?? 😉

Then we had a good long walk back through some lovely countryside. The next day was a five mile easy paced run and then a 15 mile bike ride. I never feel the same love for bike rides as running but it was nice. I still can’t not break on downhill’s though. A cardinal cycling sin I hear.

We popped over to my parent’s house later on as it was Father’s Day. We all just sort of monged out in the conservatory relaxing. Can parents ‘mong’ out? Not sure. We had some selfie fun with their absolutely mad dog Lexi.

She is literally wired all the time. She’s the same breed as Alfie (Westland Terrier cross with a Cavalier King Charles) but she couldn’t be more different. She’s a beast. She’s eaten a bag of POTATOES before. And bitten through a can of beer, spraying it everywhere. What fun for my parents.

Ben doing his best ‘gangster’ impersonation. I think he’s been watching too much of The Wire…

Tonight I’m doing the Race for Life with my friend from work. She’s a fairly novice runner (and I mean that in the nicest way). She’s done a 5k race before and has now made the leap towards a 10k. She’s done lots of training and even went to her local Parkrun (ahh I’m so proud!) so I’m sure she’ll be fine. I’m going to run it with her and support her.

She told me last year she had no one to cheer her on or hug at the end because her husband and son didn’t really understand the importance of it and didn’t go (I think it’s a cultural thing, she’s Indian and in India running isn’t really done, or so I’ve been told). I found this heart breaking and said I’d sign up and run it with her. Ben is coming to support, my mum and dad will be there and she’s guilt tripped her husband and son into watching now so she’ll have loads of support. She’s hoping to run it in around an hour so finger’s crossed for her please!

Do you like a lot of support at a race? Both my parents and Ben’s mum love to come and watch and cheer us on. Though my dad properly likes to get involved – he likes to pre-read the course map, find a good spot, work out our paces of where will be when. He’s a runner at heart!

Do you have any pets?

The Big Question: jam or cream first?

March 31, 2014

The best kind of weekend

Posting a bit later today as things have got a bit ahead of me. The story of my life at the moment! Definitely didn’t enjoy losing that hour Sunday morning.

The weekend was a busy one. We went to Parkrun in the morning and helped set out the course. Ben is a huge fan of doing this and now has me hooked. I don’t mind getting up earlier to help out as you get a bit more social time with other runners.

I was a bit nervous for the run as my calf had gotten quite tight after Thursday and it’s so close to the marathon now that anything is causing me huge amounts of stress…someone sneezing near me is enough to freeze up my system in terror.

I made sure I did a very good warm-up with jogging, dynamic stretches and specifically stretching my calf using a handy tree.

I’m sure a fun caption could be made here… “Ben I can’t seem to move this tree no matter how hard I push”

Which was caught on camera…lovely! Not one of my best photos haha!

I decided to take Parkrun nice and easy and there were quite a few of us who decided to run together so we had a nice natter as we ran round the course in the lovely sunshine. My calf was OK <– WHEW.

I’m still wearing my gloves even though it was so warm. My hands are the very last things to heat up.

My time was 23:29 and third female – not too shabby at all! After this we had a nice cup of tea with some of the running club and then headed home for breakfast. At this point I was STARVING.

We met up with a friend in the afternoon and did a huge walk with Alfie around the countryside. It wasn’t meant to be so long it’s just we got caught out with lots of muddy routes and had to go the long way back home (needless to say Alfie required a bath that evening…). At the end of the day I’d done almost 30,000 steps. And, more importantly, this happened:

If you don’t know what this game is, I urge you to download it (it’s an app). It is so simple but so very addictive!!

We had a lovely early night as we had to get up early the next day for a long run. I was so tired when the alarm went off at 6.40am – which my body thought was 5.40am due to the daylight savings. Arghh!

My plan was to run 13 miles. Perhaps not the most ideal distance considering I have the marathon a week later but psychologically I needed to do it. Ben and me had decided to meet up with some guys from our running group to run with them. The route was only 10 miles so I ran the 2 miles to the meeting point instead of going in the car with Ben, then planned on adding a bit on at the end.

The route was lovely. Credit to my husband who planned it (though I think it was based on a route one of the other guy’s had used before – so credit all round). It was fairly hilly though which was tough.

There were quite a few of us – eight or nine? Not sure. But in the end we sort of spread out from each other as we found our natural paces. It was really nice to spend a long run chatting to people rather than go solo. Though I will always love my solo long runs listening to podcasts…

I’m not going to lie, it was tough with the hills and not feeling completely fresh from a week of running (6 miles Tuesday, 8 miles Thursday, 3 miles Saturday) of which I’m not as used to anymore with my sporadic training. But it didn’t feel that bad as to worry me. I felt like I could have gone on further (bloody lucky considering it’s double that seven days later).

I was shattered when I got home though. Absolutely drained. So was Ben. We’re pretty sure the long walk the afternoon before hadn’t helped. Then it was time to treat two lovely ladies to some afternoon tea as it was Mother’s Day in the UK.

My mum showed up with the same handbag as me but slightly smaller – it was like mum and baby handbags! (She had originally given me the big handbag as she prefers smaller handbags and I love a huge bag to put my multitude of things in it).

Then off we went to indulge in some very lovely tea, sandwiches and cake at our favourite local (dangerously local) coffee shop: Elsie’s Tearoom if you’re in the area.

[Ben wasn’t happy with this photo; he said he felt uncomfortable because the table next to us were gawping at us – how rude!]

We all had afternoon tea. I had ham and mustard sandwiches, a fruit scone (with strawberry and rhubarb preserve, oohh err) and a slice of lemon cake.

Honestly, I am getting to be somewhat a pro at this afternoon tea business. Way to easy to eat. And I even had a bite of my mum’s unfinished lemon cake. Oh god…

After spending some quality time with The Mums, Ben and me pretty much did nothing. I fell asleep on the sofa to the dulcet tones of Ben blowing up zombie brains on the Xbox…then awoke with a new lease of life to tackle the ironing while we watched Elysium. I would give this movie a rating of “meh”. An OK film for when you’re not in the mood to think too hard.

The plan for this week is all easy running. Probably three miles Tuesday, three miles Thursday, the Paris breakfast 5km on Saturday (to shake out our ‘plane legs’) and then just a short gentle jog taking in the different sights of Paris. Probably 26.2miles, but we’ll see how it goes 😉

For those who celebrated it, how did you spend Mother’s Day?

Do you struggle with a full afternoon tea?

Ladies, do you prefer big handbags or small? (Men you can join in too with your manbags!) I have small handbags when I’m going out for an evening, but I do love a good handbag. Looking forward to all those back problems in later life 😉

Long runs solo or with a group?