Seriously painful

Howdy, howdy guys. Happy Friday. And I forgot to say in my last post, happy 4th July to those celebrating it. Do you know, it’s slightly depressing not celebrating a holiday that 80% of the blog world seem to be enjoying. Just an observation.

It’s been quite a busy week here. On Wednesday night Ben and I went to a great running event called Mile of Miles with our running club (did I mention Ben had joined the running club?? Well, he has…). It was at our local track and it was basically teams of 10 people running a relay.

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So each team member would run just one mile. It was a beautiful evening and there were quite a lot of teams and running clubs involved.

I was fairly nervous and not particularly looking forward to it if I’m honest. I don’t tend to enjoy 5ks (3.1miles) so one mile was going to be worse. OK it goes quickly but it’s still painful. In my head I just kept thinking at most it was going to be 8 minutes worth of pain.

I was a little worried about only just being recovered from my previous leg issues. And I was on the fast team! Though the team were lovely and reassured me I didn’t need to go full out and to put my well-being first.

I warmed up and got ready to be tagged in. I was number six and so far our team were flying. Miles ranging from 6.30 minutes to 5.48minutes!!

Then I was off! I could feel my heart beating stupidly fast to begin with as I was so nervous but then I got into it and it honestly felt good. I couldn’t even really look at my Garmin because you literally don’t have time. It’s four laps around the track and I thought this would drag but it zoomed by. And the best part was passing the supporters on each lap.

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My running club and team cheered me on loudly and it honestly put fuel to my run.

My mile came in at 6.12 minutes!

The fastest mile I’ve ever done! I was so pleased. And Ben, who was on a different team, got a time of 6.25minutes. My team ran our 10 miles in 1hour 1minute. I mean seriously, that’s pretty impressive!

And how do you celebrate a good race?

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Check out my Inspector Gadget coat

By cake. Obviously.

The next day though I knew I hadn’t done my leg any favours. *Sighs* So I took it easy at running club the next evening and then enjoyed endured an ice bath afterwards.

It was painful I’m not going to lie. But it did feel pretty damn good. Perverse, I know.

Afterwards I decided to put my new compression socks on. It was so hard. I just couldn’t seem to get them over my ankle, and then when I struggled away I got the worst case of cramp in my calf that I have ever had. I literally screamed the house down.

Ben ran upstairs wondering what the hell was going on and went to touch me and I screamed at him “Don’t touch me!! Don’t come near me!!” as I feared it would only make things worse. Then Ben started laughing (don’t worry I’m currently filing for a divorce) and said “this will be like childbirth”. I then started laughing, then immediately started yelling at him to stop as all my muscles tightened when I laughed.

God. It went on for hours a good few minutes. And I didn’t even get a baby out of it.

In the end, Ben had to put the socks on for me. It was like that scene from Disney’s Cinderella when the guy is trying to cram the glass slipper on one of the ugly sister’s feet.

Then I slept in the damn things because, seriously, I wanted my money’s pain’s worth out them.

Runners, do you prefer roads, track or trail running? I was pleasantly surprised at how good track running felt. Nice and springy and the laps went quickly. I doubt I could run 10 miles on it. Or even three. Too boring.

Do you get cramp a lot? Thankfully I don’t. And after the other day, I never want it again,

How do you recover after a hard run? I’m all about icing and compressing now.

Cake and Recovery

Whew, I feel so much more human after getting some good night’s sleep for the past couple of days.

Honestly, the weekend adventures hugely took it out of me. And, this is going to sound CRAZY coming from me, but I have decided to not jump straight back in to running. My body is literally exhausted. I haven’t done cycling in years so to suddenly jump on a bike and cycle up a mountain large hill is quite a shock to my system. I’m happy to say my previous injury from the other week seems to have disappeared. However I now have a new twinge in the back of my knee but it doesn’t feel that serious. But ice, rest and cake should make things all better.

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As annoying as it is, I’m going to take a break from running this week and try using the elliptical machine at work instead. I think I really need to just take some time to allow my leg to fully heal. The Challenge really didn’t help things just after getting better last week. I hate the elliptical but I think I need to do something to stop myself from going mad.

My next race is a 10 mile trail race through the New Forest (beautiful forest in the South of England) on 14th July so I’m hoping this break will be good enough to be better before then.

So speaking of cake…it was my birthday last week and I didn’t really get a chance to go into much detail about how I celebrated. Well I didn’t to be honest. I had the UK Challenge the next day and that went on until Sunday so celebrations were limited. But my amazing mother brought round cake in the evening. People, there is always time for cake.

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How pretty is this cake?? It’s gorgeous! My mum isn’t a great baker. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her bake. Ever. I could controversially say I’ve never seen her cook…but I don’t want to incur the wrath of the mothership Winking smile (love you, Mumsie!!)

But, despite not being Nigella Lawson, my mum knows how to SHOP. And she did good on picking this beauty out. A Waitrose special cake (for those non-UK-based, Waitrose is like the queen of all supermarkets. Maybe just one below M&S Food).

However, the decorative butterflies could not be eaten we quickly found. Very disappointing and slightly nasty to chew. But otherwise, a very tasty jam and buttercream birthday cake sponge.

At work I was also give some very beautiful flowers from my lovely co-workers. IMG_4530

So I felt very spoilt despite having a mid-week birthday with no weekend celebration!

And in the morning (I’m working my way backwards through the day here for some reason…) my husband, Ben, decided to send me on a bit of a treasure hunt around the house. He had printed out lots of different pictures of my favourite clothes shops and running gear shops and restaurants (and hid them all about the place with clues to direct me to them). I could pick and choose what I wanted in terms of spending some money to get some clothes and going somewhere to have a nice meal. There were also little pictures of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and our favourite Indian restaurant so that’s on the horizon too hehe. So lots all my favourite things to look forward to!

From my parents they gave me a Lululemon workout top. SO chuffed. I’ve seen this top all over the Internet I loved the design.

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Not sure how much I’ll get to wear this year round due to the weather though! Best get wearing it soon Winking smile

From my mother-in-law she bought me a Lumie Bodyclock Starter Alarm Clock.

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Not hugely necessary at the moment as it’s so light in the morning…but in the winter this will mimic the light of a sunrise and will, supposedly, gradually wake me up just before my alarm. I love being woken up my sunlight in the morning at the moment so this will be great (hopefully!) in the winter when it doesn’t get light until like ever 9ish.

On to some food-related news…stir-fries are back in the game again. Anything where more than half the meal is veg is a winner for me. I’m not sure it even warrants a recipe (basically throw together a load of veg, noodles, chicken and a handful of cashew nuts). But I did make my own sauce and that was pretty tasty.

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Lemon Stir-Fry Sauce (serves 2)

  • 2/3 cup chicken stock
  • 2 tbsp. soy sauce
  • 1 tbsp. lemon juice
  • 2 tsp. sugar
  • 1 tbsp. flour/corn starch (to thicken it)

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So easy, so tasty.

Psst! I’ve got some exciting news which I will divulge soon in my next post!

What’s your favourite stir-fry sauce? I love lemon, but I quite like black bean as well.

What do you like getting for your birthday? I’m not great with surprises so I usually ask for things I’ve seen previously. From Ben I just said surprise me and I was so chuffed he put so much effort into the treasure hunt and in the end letting me choose what I wanted from a predefined list (which he knew I’d love haha).

Do you like being woken up early by the sun? Though it means I can’t sleep in at the weekend I love having the whole day ahead of me and feeling all refreshed.

It’s My Birthday!

It’s my birthday! I’ve turned the ripe old age of 25 today. I can now be rounded up to 30. I’m half-way to 50. I’m a quarter of a century old. In my head I’m still 19 though Winking smile I don’t feel like I should be an adult yet. Do you remember when you were younger and your twenties seemed like the age when you became an Adult. Responsible. Old. Confident. You knew what you were doing.

Hmmm. I’m not quite sure I’m there yet!

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Well anyway I’m one year older and I’d like to think one year wiser (ha!). Though I do feel more confident in myself and where my life is going. I’m head of heels in love with my husband, we’re enjoying our life in our little home and I feel happy with where my career is going. So not bad!

And in a nice coincidence it’s What I Ate Wednesday (thanks, Jenn).

Here’s a mix of today’s breakfast and lunch from yesterday and dinner and snacks from the weekend (random I know, but more interesting this way…believe me).

Birthday breakfast: oatmeal…seriously what else would I be eating on my birthday!

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This morning Ben had set up a treasure hunt for my presents so I was running all over the house to get my gifts. We decided to do a surprise this year so I had no idea what I was getting. The boy did good though!

For Lunch I went crazy and had something different. Mainly because I was running late and had forgotten to make my lunch the night before but hey ho.

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Chicken salad with beetroot that I had from home. With this I also had popcorn and fruit with Greek yogurt (I had just enough time to get those in order – and seriously, I’ll be late for popcorn Open-mouthed smile). My office is used to the smell of popcorn now…but unfortunately I’m moving into another room as I’m changing teams and so I’ll have to explain my popcorn obsession again to a whole different set of people…

Dinner: on Sunday after the 10k race we had roast chicken.

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So, so good. I love the smell of the house as it’s cooking away. So homey.

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With this I had roasted butternut squash, Brussels sprouts and watercress (but of course) that we got from the race. And I went back for seconds of the chicken (in fact I’m pretty sure I had a breast, a thigh & a drumstick). It was so good. I obviously had a big dollop of BBQ sauce by the side as well…

Snacks: on Sunday I carved up the beast of a watermelon we had. I can eat a never-ending amount of watermelon. I’ll get full and then 5 minutes later I’m ready for more. It must be the water content. Great for after the race to rehydrate!

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Happily I found Ben hates watermelon, which meant more for me!

Running: my running is almost back on form. I ran 4.5miles on Tuesday morning and my leg still didn’t feel completely better. Not painful, just discomfort and it felt like it was holding me back. But I’m continuing to stretch and ice it.

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Today’s run (because I have to run on my birthday!) was better but towards the end it became tough. And stretching afterwards felt amazing.

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I’m also loving the below yoga moves for helping get back into good shape (read: avoid injuries):

One-legged pigeon pose

Pigeon Pose

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This is great for stretching out tight hips and the muscles right near the bum!

Ardha-Matsyendrasana

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Good for hips (again), spine, abs and bum, while also stretching outer thigh, back, chest and shoulder. Nice.

Janushirasana

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Good circulation stimulator.

Dandayamana Bibhaktapada Janushirasana

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Stretches the hamstrings.

So I’m giving those stretches a go when I can and though I’m definitely not looking as good as the pictures in terms of form and position, it does feel good and I swear each time I do them it feels a teeny bit easier (probably psychological…) Seriously though, what kind of names are they!!

Unfortunately this weekend I can’t celebrate my birthday as I’m off tomorrow on a team building event with work. A crazy orienteering/mountain biking/puzzle solving/running around getting lost in Dartmoor thing. Wish me luck. I’m the only girl going!!

My parents should be coming over tonight…potentially with a cake. Hopefully by the end of tonight I won’t look like this:

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But let’s be honest, knowing me it’ll be something like that haha

How do you like to celebrate your birthday? We’ve postponed the celebration for a few weeks (as we have friends coming over the next weekend). Our plan is to go for a lovely meal and get a taxi home.

What do you think of yoga? If you’re a runner, does it complement your running?

Do you always have a cake on your birthday? I always try and drop not-so-subtle hints to my parents to get me one…

5 Mile Beer & Cake Race

Hi guys, so as I mentioned previously I ran a 5 mile race at the weekend. It was another fairly small race (just over 300 runners) with lots of members from local running clubs – in fact it was hosted by the Romsey Road Runners running club. So there were lots of friendly and familiar faces about.

On the morning of the race, my parents, Di (MIL) and my granddad came over ready for us all to convoy together as they were going to support and cheer us on. In the kerfuffle to get out of the house I realised en route I’d forgotten water. PANIC. OK I don’t need water to run with but I could feel the heat and sun already and knew I needed something before the race.

We judged we had enough time too quickly veer off our route to get to a shop (at that point we were very close to the race). But we soon found that being 9.50am it meant nothing was open! The race starts at 10.30am. Anyway we found an Aldi and I waited outside until it opened then dashed inside and bought a drink. Then dashed back out to the car. 10.05am

Then we headed to the car park. Obviously we then got stuck in temporary traffic lights as you do when you’re in a rush. 10.10am

Get to the car park, find Ben and head to the loos for absolutely necessary last pee (how ironic, I’m late to fill my body with liquid, then even more late to empty myself). 10.18am.

Still queuing 10.25am. I just wanted to shout, PEOPLE, PEE FASTER!! I guess it was some relief that others were in the same situation.

Pee 10.28am. Get out and RUN to the start where the organisers have just started addressing the runners. OMG. How stressed am I at this point! My heart is going and we haven’t even started!!

Then we’re off. It was some relief that I was running as at one point I thought I wouldn’t make it. Several ladies overtook me and this panicked me a little (stupid I know). But this motivated me to keep them in my sights.

The first mile was great. I looked at my watch and was happy with the pace and happy with how my legs felt. And also my left foot as since Thursday’s run it’s been painful on the inner side (just under the arch). I’ve been doing lots of ‘bottle rolling’ (as my foam roller is too big) on it and this has provided a bit of relief but not entirely.

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The second mile and I’d manage to overtake some of the ladies from the start and I was feeling good. It was tough as races always are, but I was confident that I could keep going at a good pace. Depressingly though I past the ‘Four Mile’ sign as we were due to loop back later (don’t you just hate that??).

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The third mile a few hills appeared. Head down, keep going.

The fourth mile I caught up (gradually) with a guy from my running club and we swapped gasping pleasantries, as you do. We pushed each on past a few people and then hit another hill. He told me to go on as he was slowing down.

The last mile I was starting to feel the heat and it was becoming tough. But I was still feeling strong.

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The finish was off on a cricket pitch and deceptively looked closer than it was. I prematurely started to sprint then realised I was too soon and held back until it was more sensible. And then finished! My official time was 34.21, and I came second female overall. I’m over the moon with this as I wasn’t sure how well I’d do after my long run the day before.

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Ben also did amazingly. He did it in 41.09, which was better than he expected too!

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Love my family’s support!

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Aaaaaand the best part of the race? The runners get a little token to get a slice of cake and a beer!!

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Ahhhh-mazing. I was literally dancing around waiting for Ben to finish so I could drag him to get cake. I couldn’t get a slice of cake without him!

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I chose a big slab of raspberry sponge. I decided to save it till later as food straight after running never does me any favours. But I’m glad I got there when I did as the raspberry sponge was one of the popular ones and ran out quickly!!

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I gave my beer to my dad and my granddad to share (though my cheeky dad managed to wrangle another glass of beer himself later).

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Though saying that, I managed to wrangle another slice of cake… I’d sensibly brought a little box with me from home as I knew I wouldn’t fancy the cake straight away (nor did Ben) so we both put our cake stash in the box safely to take home and scoff enjoy.

Then we hung around chatting to other runners and running club members and I found out there were prizes for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd places. I hadn’t even realised! I also spoke to the first girl and she had a time of 32 something. That’s amazing!! There’s no way in hell I could have beaten her but I was very inspired.

In the end I got a little trophy.

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And I even managed to get in the local papers as our running club was only started last November so this is great result for them.

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This was a brilliant run. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Really well organised, lovely atmosphere and such a great novel idea of the cakes and beer.

Compared to last week’s 10k it was miles better (though around one mile less…haha sorry, lame). Psychologically I think it helped to think it was one mile left. Suddenly 3 miles wasn’t half way but only 2 miles from the end. That kinda thing.

And this weekend? Well…maybe I’ll squeeze in another cheeky 10k. It would be rude not to! Winking smile Though first off I’m in for a sports massage this afternoon. All in effort of injury prevention!!

What are your plans for this weekend?

Medals or cakes: what would you run for?

What’s your preferred racing distance? Mine is still a half marathon. It’s longer but you have more time to ‘get into it’.

Do you panic if you’re late to a race? I need like 30 minutes beforehand to chill and collect myself. Not 2 minutes!!

Also, (as a reminder as GoogleReader is dying very soon!): Follow my blog with Bloglovin 😀

You can never have too many puddings…

I don’t know about you but this week is dragging. But it’s finally mid-week. On a side not, embarrassingly, it has taken me ages to get why people say “happy hump day” on a Wednesday. Yep, I’m that slow. (Pssst, if you didn’t know too it’s because you’re over the ‘hump’ of the week!)

And being Wednesday I’m back in the game for What I Ate Wednesday.

 

Thanks, Jenn, for hosting as ever.

This is food is from Sunday – aka 5 mile race day (recap still to come!)

Breakfast – what a surprise I know. If you’ve been a long-time reader you know this is fairly standard stuff. And on race day it isn’t going to change!

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Oatmeal and unsweetened almond milk

I had this before 8am, the race started at 10.30am so enough time to digest adequately! And perfect fuelage for the race.

And to make things interesting, here’s what Ben ate:

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He wanted to share as he felt his breakfast was up to healthy standards for once Winking smile He went for oatmeal with cow’s milk, dried fruit and a chopped banana. Notably absent was any added sugar!

After the race, hanging about chatting to people and getting home, we were famished! So we straight away had lunch.

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This is re-used photo as I forgot to snap it before the hunger beast took over

I had one of my favourite quick meals. Chicken, random veggies and half a tin of pumpkin puree with cream cheese. I know it looks pretty grim there, but seriously this is heavenly.

Sunday was a great day of snacking as well… I might have had another one of these my granddad had left with us:

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Meringue with dark chocolate and strawberry on top

And dinner was another repeat offender but one we hadn’t had in a while.

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Beef meatballs. Mine is on the left and Ben’s is on the right. If he can put cheese on something, he will. I love this meal. I am still loving beef mince.

And pudding…well pudding was fantastic.

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This was a slice of raspberry sponge cake that I got at the end of the 5 mile race. No medals, but a choice of cakes! That’s my kinda running. I didn’t eat it straight after the run as I just didn’t fancy cake straight away (food immediately after running just doesn’t go well in my stomach, plus I wanted to savour it later with a hot drink), so I had it after dinner with a hot chocolate. And I reaaaally enjoyed it.

Er…I might have nabbed another slice of cake as well at the race. I twinkled my eyes and gave my best smile to wrangle another slice of cake… Absolute lie, I offered cold hard cash. All of 50 pence to be exact Winking smile

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Slice of banana bread (infected a little with the raspberry sponge)

Unfortunately I had to share this slice with Ben. *Sighs* I do hate being married. Totally joking Winking smile

An honourable mention this week is the appearance of one of our favourite salads.

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Grilled halloumi (or fairly well done halloumi, whoops) with a whole host of veggies and roasted butternut squash. Divine.

As you can, I love my balance. On the one side I’m a huge fan of salads, fresh vegetables, home-cooked meals, and obviously my beloved and ever-present apples. But on the other side, I will always have my cake. Cake is my indulgence. Cake is my weakness. I need it every week to feel 100% Anna and 100% happy. It’s my soul food. I like to give my body good foods and good fuel to keep it healthy and happy. But for my soul, my mind, my spirit – whatever you want to call it – I need cake. My happy food. Don’t get m wrong I don’t have it every day (seriously, who can afford cake every day?) but it definitely makes a routine appearance every week. Whether I’m curled up on the sofa watching a film on a Saturday night, or sat in a cafe having a chinwag with my mum, or munching on something a co-worker has brought in to the office, I will have my cake. And it is always eaten Smile

Just don’t get me to choose between cake and apples. It can’t be done.

What is your soul food? It doesn’t necessarily have to be ‘naughty’! I would class apples as my soul food too. Basically it’s the food I always look forward to eating, always enjoy eating, it never gets old, and always makes me a happy happy Anna.

What are your repeat offender meals? Halloumi salads are a winner in our house, but meatballs are more of a weekend food as they take a bit longer to throw together,

What’s your ideal pre-race/workout fuel? Oatmeal has always worked (race or no race). Ben will always have a banana but sometimes will leave it at that or have something bigger.