What a weekend!

Hi guys! How was your weekend? Mine was pretty much a whirlwind. One of the best weekends in a while I think.

Ohhh before I start with the weekend: MY MUG HAS RETURNED!!!

Return of the mug

Apparently it had been taken down to the canteen downstairs. My poster worked Open-mouthed smile

Anyway…

Saturday morning Ben and me woke up late (whoops) for Parkrun and had to mad dash around the place to get ourselves together. I like to arrive at least 30 minutes before so I can relax a bit as I get so nervous and stressed before races. Even though Parkruns aren’t really ‘proper’ races as they’re so informal and just a bit of fun.

Anyway we got there and made it to the start. I didn’t really know how I was going to run but I did want to try as I’m not going to be back at our local Parkrun for a couple of weeks now. As soon as I started running I felt strong and happy. What was brilliant was that there was a bunch of guys who were running the same speed and I kept with them so it really helped.

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With 5ks I just like to give it my all and hold on for as long as I can. Not sure if that’s a great strategy as the last lap is always so tough. My running club friend was right behind me as well which helped push me on but she managed to sail past me breezily on the last stretch. She obviously has a great strategy of keeping something in the bag because she looked very fresh as she zoomed past me hehe.

Amazingly I beat last week’s PB by about 5 seconds. I think I’m going to plateau soon because it just gets too hard now.

Then we zoomed home and got ready to go to my work’s summer BBQ. I was the designated driver as I rarely drink and I wasn’t going to drink the day before the half marathon anyway. My parents came with us too (my dad works in the company as well).

It looked a bit gloomy and like it was about to rain when we got there but it didn’t really matter as they had a huge marquee in the garden.

Summer BBQ

The marquee is that white tent on the side of the photos

There was mini golf, giant Jenga, a beer tent, a tent for other alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, a puppeteer, a face painter (more on that in a bit!) and a beautifully huge garden.

Oh and even very posh temporary loos! Of course I took a sneaky photo in the interior of the toilets as I was so impressed.

Posh portaloo

And there was a bouncy castle. *Sighs* I love my father. I really do. But seriously.

Bouncy castle

Within five minutes of arriving he was on that bouncy castle. I feared for his life Winking smile

I stuck to sparkling water (which I really love – anyone else with me on that?) and just milled around enjoying myself.

Summer BBQ 2

I enjoyed a lovely plateful of BBQ food when food was served.

BBQ food

Burger, kebabs, a sausage (I’ve found I quite like actual sausages – since having turkey sausages things have changed!), rustic-flavoured bread, corn on the cob and salad. And maybe another cheeky burger and sausage afterwards…

So good. Always a good spread as these things!

Ben and Anna

Ben enjoyed himself too and was (in my opinion) daring and had a few glasses of wine! His mentality was that he hadn’t really done the training, had been in Germany for the week on business, had just come back from an injury…so why the hell not! If the odds were against him he might as well enjoy it haha.

Then pudding. Oh pudding.

Cake buffet

Honestly I just did not know what to have. So I had one of everything.

Totally joking! Wish I could have, haha. No I was sensible and stuck very diligently to two puddings only. Believe me when I say I was enormously tempted to go back for more.

There was a conversation like this between Ben and me:

Me: “But surely a cupcake doesn’t count, right?”

Ben: “Anna, you told me to stop you from having more than two puddings. Don’t do it.”

Me: “Yeah…I don’t think I was being sincere though.”

Ben: “You’ll regret it for 13.1 miles tomorrow.”

Me: “Fair point.”

Victoria Sponge and brownie

So I stuck with a slice (should I say slab?) of Victoria sponge and a brownie *grumble grumble*. No in all honesty it was perfect and in the evening I was thankful that I hadn’t eaten a buffet of cakes (which, let’s be honest, was a real possibility).

Obviously we had to get a bit of face paint action.

Face paint

And of course so did my dad…

LFC face paint

He had ‘LFC’ on his cheek…*sighs* Liverpool Football Club. Bless him. He kept checking his phone all the time watching the score of the match while we were at the BBQ as well!

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Even the rain didn’t dampen our spirits. It was a great day!

When Ben and I got home we really didn’t fancy anything to eat which was annoying. So we had some crisps and snacky things and left it like that. Ideally I wanted to have a proper meal before the race the next day.

And then the half marathon on Sunday…well, I will continue this in my next post as it might be a bit lengthy otherwise and I want to do it justice. Though I will say that it was one of my favourite races of the year. It was epic! And we both survived Open-mouthed smile

How was your weekend?

What is your best pre-race meal the night before? Usually it’s a pizza without cheese (so it’s less heavy and I’m not a bit fan of regular cheesy pizzas – unless it’s goat’s cheese of course).

Did you ever used to get your face painted? It brought back so many memories of when I was little!

Enjoying my food

You know my feelings about cake. It’s my weakness. It’s my kryptonite. My heart’s desire and my biggest nemesis.

This bad boy was brought in to work yesterday (a present from a wife for her husband’s birthday):

Sonic Cake

Sonic the Hedgehog never looked more appealing. The guy is a software developer…so it kinda makes sense. Best wife ever? Seriously, husband, take note.

But I’ll come back to that cake shortly. First off let’s get started with WIAW and the boring other food I ate.

Thanks, Jenn!

I find some days are good days and some days are bad days when it comes to food. I use the word ‘bad’ lightly here because I’m a true believer that no food (or drink) is inherently bad. Oh sure, living on chicken nuggets and milkshake every day isn’t going to do your body any favours and will make you feel pretty rubbish eventually. But once in a while it can’t hurt! Newspapers love to scare us into submission, like pushing the idea that one sniff of a sausage will cause an immediate cancer epidemic. Whatever sells the papers…But in reality, I truly believe no food when eaten in moderation can cause our body’s irreversible damage.

That being sad, I like eating healthy, fresh food. Lots of vegetables, lots of fruit, meat, slow-releasing carbs…for me it’s not something I have to consciously work on because it’s second-nature to me.

Smoked mackerel salad

This was dinner the other evening: smoked mackerel on a bed of lots of veggies, salad, slices of nectarine and sundried tomatoes

That’s not to say I’m the golden girl of nutrition. Far from it. I love me some sugar. Chocolate, sweets, ice cream… and of course cake.

Sonid Hedgehog cake

My best intentions to try and have a day where I eat really well (i.e. avoid the copious amounts of biscuits and cookies at work and don’t consume too much chocolate in the evening) fell very short yesterday. I mean how could they not when you see such a beauty!

Delicious cake

I ate a caramel flavoured slice from the top tier and a chocolate fudge slice from the bottom tier. And promptly felt quite sick.

Afterwards I needed to lie down in the foetal position for a while to recover.

But these things happen. Life happens. I’m not going to turn down an offering of a slice of Sonic the Hedgehog cake! I’d regret not trying it more than feeling a bit sick and a bit guilty after.

Cake ecard

Like I said, cake is my nemesis…and it was damn good.

I’d also like to point out I wasn’t the only one who had two slices. There was a minority that I was joyfully part of… Winking smile

Back to ‘proper’ food (i..e not just based entirely on sugar and food colouring haha)…one of my new favourite meals that I could literally eat every single day is this:

Turkey sausages and mash

Three turkey sausages, broad beans (or other vegetable, I’m not fussy) and cauliflower mash with goat’s cheese. Hold the boat. This was delicious. I’ve had turkey sausages in the freezer for a while now but was inspired to do this meal by the lovely Laura.

The trick to this is to add a good amount of goat’s cheese to the cauliflower to really get the flavour zinging. Yes I said zinging.

Other than these meals, I’ve still been eating my usual stuff; loving the stir-fries and salads!

So basically my motto is, eat healthily but enjoy the good stuff too. Usually I try and ‘be good’ in the week so that I can relax at the weekend with a nice slice of cake in the evening, or a meal out with all the trimmings. But as you can see, this doesn’t always work out that way! But I won’t beat myself up about it because life is too short.

I will say though that I don’t think two slices of cake helped with running club in the evening. I felt very sluggish and a bit sick!! Ho hum.

Now I’m going to have a rant. A while ago I mentioned how annoyed I was getting with people using my mug. My lovely large mug, perfect for a good cup of coffee in the morning and a present from my mum. Yes I did leave it in the communal kitchen and no it did not have my name on it so my complaining was hardly that justified. I secretly glared at anyone I caught using it though.

It’s gone. It’s completely missing. I haven’t seen it in ages. I’m despairing. So I did what any sane, non-obsessed, normal person would do in a time like this. I created a poster and put it in the kitchen for all to see.

Missing Mug

That picture is genuinely a photo of my mug. Ironic, I know.

Well, I’m in a state of mourning now as it’s been a week and all I’ve got are some sympathetic comments and strange looks. RIP mug.

I have lost a mug and possibly gained the title of “Weird Mug Girl”.

Happy Wednesday!

Have you lost something recently? I wouldn’t mind but, damn, that was a good sized mug.

What are you hopeless at resisting? It doesn’t have to be food. I’m also very and when it comes to anything running-related…what’s that? A new electrolyte drink that people are raving about? Let’s get five.

What’s your view on healthy eating and treats?

Taking a tumble in running

Friiiiiiiiday!

Nothing better than waking up Friday morning knowing it’s the weekend the next day. That’s pretty much the hardest part done, right? Sort of? I have spin Friday mornings which I currently have a love-hate relationship so it’s usually after that that I start celebrating. Today I quite enjoyed the session. I got the resistance right on the bike (last week I did it way too tough and really struggled to hit the RPMs) and felt like the time flew by. Got a spinning high I think!

Last night I went out with running club for our usual medium run (though I added a mile warm up before and a mile cool down after) around some local trails. We went on a new route and honestly it was brilliant. I felt really strong and speedy.

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I like the trail runs as it’s so varied. We’re on road, then off-road, on a path, on the grass, in the forest…which I guess explains why the pace is all over the place. It’s brilliant.

Lately I’ve been really trying to work on my running form. I’ve been reading some articles and watching YouTube videos to help improve my form. For example, not over-stride my leg outside my centre of gravity, not bend at the hip…that kinda stuff.

Good running form

Source

Interesting stuff! But it makes running a bit more of a mental thing. I was constantly trying to keep everything ship-shape. It requires a bit of concentration. Work in progress!

But unfortunately while running I managed to fall over a tree stump. *sighs* Maybe if I’d have spent a bit more time watching where I was going than checking how I was running I wouldn’t have fallen haha.

Runnign tumble injury

Please ignore my attire…PJs and compression socks post running and shower are an essential requirement Winking smile

OK maybe not the best picture, but basically I’ve scraped all along my thigh. A very superficial injury but very painful as a load of skin has been scratched off. So annoying as well as this is the leg that I need to do lots of foam rolling on for my IT band. *sighs*

Anyway, it was more embarrassing than painful at the time. One of the other guys also took a tumble on the run as well and he hit his face which looked very painful! Crazy.

Moving on to food. I completely forgot to blog about this at the time so I just have to do it now. My lovely and amazing big sister baked me a cake the other weekend. She has suddenly got into baking and is whipping these cakes out like nobody’s business. All the while looking after an adorable but hyperactive 3 year old and almost 3 month old!! Super mum.

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She made me a a red velvet cake with cream cheese vanilla frosting. Omg, omg, omg.

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Can you hear that choir of angels singing in the background? That’s the soundtrack to this cake. Amazing. Thank you, big sis!

After enjoying a slice (or two) we popped it into the freezer in slices to stock up on our cake supply. An essential requirement in our household is we need cake in the freezer at all times. It got critical a few weeks ago when we were down to safety stock (one slice each left) but it’s back up to standard levels now. Panic over, people.

Time to get Friday done and dusted now. Enjoy your weekend!

What is your essential food requirement in your home? Oats, apples and cake. Absolutely no flexibility on that.

Have you ever taken a tumble on a run? Someone at work said “I guess you just went home then after that?” Yeah right, as long as nothing’s broken or sprained my motto is keep running!

What exercise highs have you enjoyed? Do you get them in strength training? What about yoga??

Baking Fail and Weekly Workouts

Happy Monday. Here we are again at the start of the week. And two weeks until my half marathon crazy trail run. Mmm, I’m a little bit nervous!

So this weekend has been very low-key. Don’t you just love those kind of weekends? Ben and I had Parkrun in the morning on Saturday. I beat my last time by 15 seconds which I was over the moon about.

Then we had my parents over in a tag-team style affair on: my dad came over to watch football with Ben (joy of joys) and then my mum popped over later for coffee. Conveniently for Ben and my dad, they had on purpose accidentally  got the time wrong and ‘unfortunately’ had to play an hour or so of Fifa on the Xbox before kick-off. *sighs*

While they did that I got on with a very important task: cake baking. I rarely bake because I’m really not that good at it. I really wish I was…but I’m just not great at following recipes. I don’t read them properly or just don’t follow them as well as I should. That’s fine for cooking…but baking, not so much.

I chose a Victoria sponge, because that’s my favourite and I know my mum likes it too (perfect for afternoon coffee).

*sighs*

I honestly followed the recipe exactly. But to no avail. It all went fine until I had to get the damn things out of their baking trays (I had greased them well I thought)…then the jam didn’t seem to like the cake. Oh it just didn’t work out well.

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I bet you’re thinking: wait, that doesn’t look so bad. Right? Well, we all have bad angles in photos (I know I do!) so let’s see this baby’s bad side.

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As much as I’d love to say that big gaping crack was due to me throwing my face in head first for a good old bite. But, alas, no. That’s just what it looks like naturally. And my lovely father called it the “earthcake” (as in earthquake but a cake).

But clearly the most important part about a cake is not it’s appearance, it’s the taste. And it tasted gooooooooooood. And I have you know, both parents, my mother-in-law and Ben all enjoyed it. So that’s that.

After having a good old natter with my mum, I spent the afternoon just chilling reading my Empire (movie review) magazine. I read an interview with Richard Curtis (legend in my eyes – Notting Hill, Love Actually, Bridget Jones and of course Four Weddings and a Funeral) and I read a bit to Ben as something made me laugh. And Ben goes “I’ve never seen Four Weddings and a Funeral”.

What?” How am I married to this man?? How did I not know this? Seriously??

Four Weddings and a Funeral is like the quintessential British comedy. It is one of my favourite films of all time. How has he not seen it? Well this needed to be rectified immediately. Needless to say we had our Sunday afternoon planned.

Sunday morning I ran my 12 mile long run. Compared to last weekend’s long-run (which I thoroughly enjoyed as was just one of those great runs)…this run sucked. I started running and I just knew it wasn’t going to be good. Maybe I pushed myself too hard at Parkrun, maybe I didn’t eat properly the night before (cake before bed is never a great recipe for a good run I’ve found) or maybe it’s just one of those things. It really felt hard the entire time. Last weekend’s run was 8.11mins/mile average for 13 miles but this weekend it was 8.32mins/mile. Well, you win some you lose some.

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After the run I had breakfast, then my mother-in-law came over to catch up with coffee (and cake), and then I went to body pump which was OK. I’m sorry, I can’t get excited about weights. It’s a purely supplementary exercise for me in order to stay injury-free and get stronger to support better running. The rest of the day was watching back-to-back Friends episodes (we have the entire box set – amazing) and then Four Weddings and a Funeral in the evening. Perfect.

And to recap this week’s workouts:

Monday: Spin

Tuesday: Hill session with running club (7 miles total)

Wednesday: Off

Thursday: Lonely 8 mile run on my own as I got home too late for running club

Friday: Spin

Saturday: Parkrun (3 miles)

Sunday: 12 miles and body pump

Total miles: 30

Quite happy with the week. With the half marathon coming up my mileage is higher than normal but I’m loving it so that’s fine. Spin is still tough but I find after running it really shakes out my legs.

Because I’m running quite a lot and spinning now as well I’m very careful to make sure I’m eating more to help sustain me through the week. I’ve been adding chia seeds to my oatmeal, having nice large dinners, lots of snacks at work (such as pistachios and dried fruit) and, er, yeah lots of cake. But I’ll show more of that on Wednesday Winking smile

How was your weekend?

When you increase your workouts, how do you fuel to make sure you’re not going to flake away?

What have been your baking fails? Please tell me I’m not alone in my lack of domestic goddess-ability.

A little slice of a great weekend

Ahhh what an amazing weekend! I love weekends where you know the memories will last forever Smile I’ll have to split it into two because honestly this will be a beast of a post otherwise!!

Starting off on Friday, I enjoyed a ‘lovely’ hot and sweaty 10 mile run in the morning. I was so pleased with how this went as it was niggle free! I literally felt normal running; no discomfort, no slight twinges…perfect. The only thing hard about it was the heat. I can live with that! I even randomly decided to make the second to last mile a speedy one. I just felt the urge!

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Then I ate a nice big bowl of oatmeal, showered and set out on my bike for a very leisurely 7 mile cycle to a local coffee shop/garden centre/farm shop to meet up with my mum, sister and little niece, Megan for a lovely coffee.

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How cool do I look? I am rocking that helmet! Winking smile

We nattered and caught up and I even got to hold Megan for a little bit.

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That, my friends, is the look of sheer panic. I’m not very good with babies or small children…or children in general. Megan is absolutely adorable…but I’m just terrified of doing something wrong. She did fall asleep on me which was lovely.

Anyway we moseyed about and I bought some more kangaroo burgers and also some wild board burgers. Love trying new food!

There were loads of baking, cooking and crockery bits and pieces in the shop and I couldn’t help but take a photo of this cool tea pot.

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So true

Then we parted ways and I cycled back a slightly extended route to avoid all the hills I coasted down on the way there. In the end it was a 16.9mile cycle in total! I tell you what, I was pooped.

My lovely sister drove round a bit later and dropped the burgers off (as I had no proper bag on my bike) and she also had made an AMAZING red velvet cake for Ben and me….maybe because I’d pestered her obsessively for ages as she’s strangely got really into baking lately.

Red velvet

Unfortunately I had to wait until Ben got home from work until I could slice and dice that baby. It was tough. A real stretch of willpower I assure you. I can now report though that it was delicious. I’m not even embarrassed to say I went back for seconds.

The next morning, Saturday, we got up early and caught the train to London to meet up with my university friends for a little social gathering.

London Tube

I love seeing my friends but I’m really not a big fan of London. I find catching trains and tubes really stressful so I was glad Ben was there with me. We even had to buy and work the Oyster card machine. Hard times.

After meeting up with them all and catching up we headed to a lovely quirky pub for a drink and food.

London pub

The pub was really vintagey with bunting hanging from the ceiling and random old chairs and ornaments everywhere. It was cool! And the food was pretty darn tasty.

London pub food

I had chicken with roasted vegetables, couscous and a sour cream dressing. And for pudding? Well, let me just tell you. It was immense. It was a tough decision because there was a semi-freddo honeycomb dessert with ore cookie crumble. I was tide. I had a lengthy discussion with the waiter and in the end deciding on the dark chocolate tart with clotted cream ice cream. What pushed me over? He said the tart was bigger. Haha. What am I like??

Then we chilled out on the grass in a lovely park and just enjoyed each other’s company and the sunshine.

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There did end up a massive grass fight as there was all this dried hay-like grass around where we were sat. Luckily I avoided being targeted!

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I’m sure there was a lot of grass in unwanted places by the end!! Haha.

Then after another drink in a pub, a few of my friends headed back to their respective train stations to head home. Ben and me were staying over at the flat of one of my friends and her partner as we were off to Stratford the next day for the Olympic Stadium 5 mile race.

We enjoyed a nice easy pizza, watched some Friends, ate some home-made cheesecake (hey, it’s carbo loading!) and went to bed at a reasonable time as we were up early the next morning. More on that in my next post Smile

Such a good weekend – and it’s not even finished yet!

What did you get up to this weekend?

What do you prefer: pubs/bars or cafes/coffee shops? I much prefer cafes or coffee shops as I’m not a big drinker. I like to have a nice cup of coffee of fragrant tea and maybe a sneaky slice of cake. But a pub is nice too when it’s hot and you can sit outside with a nice cold Coke!

Are you a baby person? Or a mum/dad already? I know I want to have a baby at some point but I am so clueless with kids that it really scares me!

What’s your perfect pre-race meal? I like a good pizza with not too much cheese as I find the cheese sits heavy on my tummy.