cake - AnnaTheApple

May 29, 2013

Bank Holiday Weekend – Part 2

Howdy! My last post covered Saturday of the long weekend – catch it HERE if you missed it I’m going to miss WIAW as I wanted to carry on with the rest of the long weekend recap. Hope you don’t mind!

So carrying on with Sunday and the 10k race…

Ben and me woke up early again, had breakfast and prepared for the race ahead. It looked warmed and sunny which is great if you’re not running 10km…I started to feel really nervous as my legs felt tired from the Parkrun the day before and I didn’t know what the course would be like or anything. It was in the New Forest in an area that it being improved (planting trees etc.) and isn’t usually open to the public. The 10k was an event to raise money for the improvements.

Ben’s mum (Di), my parents and me all piled into Di’s lovely shiny BMW and headed off. When we arrived we realised that it was going to a be a bit of a bumpy parking situation…

The ground was basically just peat and random chippings and branches with lots of mounds. I felt very bad as Di had offered to drive and had only washed her car the day before…it got very dusty

The course was stony underfoot and basically all out in the open. In the sun.

I always have about three pees before a race. I’m sorry if this is too much information but it’s true. I get nervous that I’ll need to pee during the race. So I used the porter-loo (my worst nightmare) three times before we began.

There were about 100 people and we all crowded up to the start just before beginning. And then we were off! There was a guy right at the front with his dog attached to him by a lead and as soon as we all started running the dog just went mental. He wouldn’t stop barking. It was quite off-putting to be honest and I think a lot of people were annoyed.

I think the first mile was downhill because we were all zooming along. It felt great! I saw the girl in green ahead of me and decided to try and overtake her at some point. I kept her in my sights and it motivated me to keep my pace up.

Then on mile two I was still feeling strong and managed to just gradually overtake her. I think she slowed down though so that helped!

Look how happy we look there…we didn’t know what was coming

The parents got a good spot to spectate as there were several loops that came back to where they were so they got lots of times to cheer us on and take photos. We would definitely need that cheering later on!

As we got to mile 3 I had slowed down form my first zippy mile and was really feeling the heat, the undulating course and the pain. It was the first time in a race I genuinely considered stopping. Or at least stopping to walk. It was so tough.

No more smiles now!

The photo above of me is on the last mile. When my parents and Di cheered me on I just shook my head and gasped “it’s so hard”. There was only one water station half way through and I can never run and drink very well so in the end I just threw it on myself.

I kept looking at my watch. I elatedly thought as I got to around 5.6miles I’m almost there. Ha. My watch beeped 6 miles and I saw what was ahead of me. A MAMMOTH hill.

The photo doesn’t quite do it justice, but I assure you that hill felt like a mountain after 6 miles of hot running. I finished and as I crossed the line and stopped I felt a little bit dizzy with heat. I quickly headed to the drinks stand and only then realised to turn off my Garmin. That’s how shattered I was!

My official time was 45:47 and I was the first female, 14th overall (out of 90). Quite pleased considering how painful I found the race. Mentally and physically tough to keep going and not give up on that last hill as well.

When I saw Ben in the distance about to start the uphill I headed down with some water for him as I could tell he was finding it just as hard as I had. He pushed through it and finished in 58.32min. Not a PB for either of us but I definitely felt a sense of accomplishment.

The race organisers had a good spread of post-race snacks as well.

I had one of the orange slices and honestly it made me feel terrible. Note to self: don’t eat fruit post-run. I got really bad cramps.

Being first female I got a prize: £30 off of a running website!!

Of which I have already put towards a new sports bra and a pair of running gloves (with a cool thumb but that allows me to work my Iphone screen).

After dying for a little bit we decided to head off and find a nice coffee shop to have a bit of tea and refreshments.

We went to a little coffee shop/garden centre called Lavender Tea Rooms. And it was so pretty! There was a field growing lavender and all these beautiful plants. Inside the tea room they sold all these pretty little trinkets, lavender teabags and lavender-flavoured biscuits.

My dad had a bacon roll (which looked very posh!), my mum had cream tea, Ben and Di had toasted teacakes (no photo sorry) and I had mint and pea soup. I would have normally had a scone but my tummy still felt a bit dodge. I thought soup would be a better call! And I am so glad I had it – it was the best soup I have ever had. So good in fact that my mum tried a bit and ordered some for herself as well! And the baguette was lovely and warm.

Then we headed home. When I got home I quickly showered and then headed out (with a couple of apples for the journey) to a BBQ with my friends. I didn’t partake in any food (apart from a slice of cake) as I had just had lunch and was later having an Indian with Ben but it was lovely to hang out with my friends in the sun. Though I felt a bit like I had heat-stroke and I was burnt from the run on my chest and arms.

I met their little guinea pig as well, who was lovely. I used to have loads of guinea pigs so I was quite content to stroke it on my lap.

UNTIL IT PEED ON ME. There’s gratitude for you.

We played some games and chilled out and then I left early to get back to Ben to eat a very well deserved Indian.

Though we both noticed how thirsty we were after the Indian. I mean I know how salty Indian takeaways are but I think that combined with losing a lot of water during the race really hit us. We both went to bed with water by the sides of our bed.

Monday was a lovely relaxed day with the family enjoying a tasty BBQ.

And so a great Bank holiday weekend if I do say so myself! Family, running, tasty food and sunshine. Perfect!

What do you prefer: tearooms or coffee shops? I do love coffee but there’s something so terribly quaint about a tearoom. I’m just sad I missed out on the scone. Next time for definite. They even had lavender flavoured scones!

What childhood pet did you used to have? We had two dogs, hamsters, nine guinea pigs (at one time!), fish and rabbits.

What do you like to eat post-race? I think I just prefer to drink lots of water and then have a proper meal a little while after.

Hills at the beginning or a race or then end? I thought I’d prefer the end but now I’m not so certain!

**I’m sorry if you’re getting bit sick of me going on about being the first girl in races and things like that – I don’t mean to sound like I’m bragging at all. I’m just pleased with how my running is doing. The races I’ve been doing are by no means huge races. They’re smaller informal races, so there’s a better chance to do well!**

May 17, 2013

The little things

Hello Friday! Wow where did this week go? It went crazily fast. Not that I’m complaining.

I thought I’d do a post on some random thoughts and occurrences of late. It’s the little things in life that keep things interesting!

1. It’s a well known fact that cake on a Friday doesn’t count (FYI this was last Friday’s cake – I didn’t eat cake that went off yesterday. Would I refuse a one-day-stale piece of cake though over no cake? I’d rather not answer that…). Cake is an indulgence I need every week. Without fail.

2. Mini trolleys are AMAZING. This is a tiny trolley from M&S, almost like a basket with wheels which makes me feel like I’m six again. Anyone from the UK: do you remember when they used to do trolleys for children?? So the kids could push a little trolley with their parents as well. I wonder why they disappeared…Oh yes, that’s right because who ever decided to allow young children to push trolleys around a busy supermarket is CRAZY. Hello ankle pain.

3. I can destroy half a melon easily in under 10 minutes. Like a boss. In fact, I have to finish Ben’s off as he is so rubbish at getting all the melon flesh. Take no prisoners.

4. This display on my Garmin annoys me SO MUCH.

The loading bar is full therefore it should be done, right? Oh no. It stays with that full bar for minutes afterwards. While I am stood in the cold just waiting to run. Garmin, stop lying to me!!

5. Why do people leave the teabags in their drinks? Maybe this is a British thing (or a specifically Anna thing) but whenever I see TV programmes (I must say, usually US programmes) and someone is drinking a tea they always leave the teabag in so the little piece of string hangs down the side. It baffles me because doesn’t this over-steep the tea?? Doesn’t the teabag hit your mouth when you drink? It really freaks me out.

Yes, this is not my usual mug. This is my back-up Scooby mug.

6. One of our knives broke the other day when I was chopping vegetables. The knife blade literally pinged past me and hit the wall behind me. It was like the vegetables were fighting back. It would have been funny if I hadn’t been in shock.

7. This photo makes me feel a little sad inside:

He looks so helpless and upset at having being bathed. It needed to happen though. He was getting to one stinky pooch.

8. However this photo brings me right back up to a significantly happy level:

Sea salt Green and Blacks! On offer! Still expensive though. And definitely beaten to the punch by Lindt.

Well, I hope you guys have a great weekend. Ben and me are running a 5k Parkrun tomorrow so I’m quite excited but also nervous. I hate 5ks, they’re just so fast and painful…but we’ll see how it goes! We might be running a 10k run through Moors Valley Country Park on Sunday depending how we feel. I will be taking that one easy if we do go for it. I’m going to take it more of as a nice trail run then a proper race I think as I think I’ll be shattered after tomorrow!

What’s been making you happy this week?

What are your little things in life that keep things interesting for you? Wow there’s a vague question for you

Teabags: in or out?

April 17, 2013

A busy week = WIAW

Firstly, and most importantly, I want to start this post by saying my heart goes out to all those affected by the Boston Marathon tragedy. When I heard what happened my heart literally stopped. I couldn’t believe something as terrible like that could happen. Obviously as a human being I find this abhorrent, and as a runner I am shocked that any one could target should an event. I can only imagine how horrific it must be to the runners who trained so hard to have their dreams shattered by something so terrible. And not just the runners, but all the other people, spectators and race officials etc., to have to experience such a truly nasty attack.

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I know it feels almost irrelevant and small to think of writing something as trivial as a post on What I Ate Wednesday, so please forgive me for continuing ‘business as usual’.

Thanks to Jenn for hosting as usual

These are my eats from Tuesday. The week has been busy with a new project kick-starting so it’s all go-go-go. I feel a bit stressed out with trying to juggle different things. But hey it keeps life interesting.

Breakfast was my usual oatmeal. The consensus being, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. I love it, it works, I have it every day.

(Re-used photo – but seriously, it doesn’t change!)

However, I did make protein flour pancakes with mango topping on Sunday.

They were pretty tasty I must say, and helped reawaken my love for pancakes. And you can’t beat the fresh taste of mango. It’s such a treat for me to get as I can never be bothered to go through the effort of cutting up a mango as it’s so darn messy!

Lunch was my usual salad but livened things up with adding some turkey bacon and regular sliced turkey.

OK I know there looks like just a load of veg there but I assure you there was a good portion of turkey that I put into that beast. You can’t beat a big old salad for lunch. I like food that takes me ages to eat so I can savour the process! I also had a Babybell and fruit salad with Greek yogurt.

(Recycled photo again but essentially identical)

I had some great snacks in between. I’ve been loving my Graze box which honestly is a huge temptation sitting on my desk all day long. The struggle not to eat it all in one sitting is quite strong…

I ate these yesterday when I got peckish some time after lunch. They were Thai crackers with sweet chilli dip. Very yummy. It felt quite novel dunking and crunching at work. Then a banana and apple just before going home.

Dinner was a wing-it meal. But it was pretty tasty if I do say so myself. And thankfully quite quick and easy to throw together when getting in from work later than usual.

I used chicken from the roast chicken at the weekend, fried it with mushrooms and zucchini and BBQ sauce and seriously this was taaaaasty. I had this on salad. The only sad thing is that I used up all my BBQ sauce. I would have the chicken swimming in this stuff if I could! Maybe a good thing it ran out…

Also I have been indulging a bit in eating a few slices of cake now and again in the evenings…

This, if you’d believe it, was a slice of our wedding cake! I have been slowly defrosting and making a dent in the vast amount of cake we have saved (seriously a lot). It was a slice of the lemon flavoured tier. Delicious.

And, erm, yeah some chocolate as well. But they’re only little!!

Not as good as Lindt but yummy none-the-less. Speaking of Lindt…hello offer in Tesco!!

Well, it’s important to have a balance. With running five times a week I need to bump the calories up a bit so I’m happy to fill this need with chocolate and cake. Shhh all you nutritionists out there, I know this isn’t the healthiest way to do it! But I need a bit of fun now and again.

In terms of fitness, I ran on Monday morning and still felt tired. I am so frustrated that my recovery from a tough run takes so long.

OK it wasn’t a rubbish run, I know that. But it felt TOUGH. Really, really hard going. My body just felt tired. I am clearly not superwoman!

However my run last night (Tuesday evening) went better, though it was shorter.

I will be going to the running club on Thursday evening again and I guess I’m thinking of running with the faster guys again but I’m scared. Genuinely scared because of how tough it was last time. I might look into running with them every other week and running with the slower paced guys…I’m a wuss…

And that’s all I have! Not the most exciting eats, I grant, but in this busy week I’m happy with them

How do you cope when you’re busy?

Do you still try to eat well when you’re running out of time?

How quickly do you recover after a tough workout?

March 11, 2013

Mother’s Day and Cake

Hello! Hope you had a great weekend. We had a day of beautiful weather and then a day of freezing temperatures. But it was a really good weekend nonetheless.

On Saturday I ran my last long run before the half marathon next Sunday. It was a good run helped by the fact that it was a beautifully mild day and I went down a route that I really love. Isn’t that weird when you have a route that you get good vibes from? There are definitely certain routes I avoid purely because I don’t get good feelings about.

I like routes that head back home sooner in the run even though they might loop about before I’m actually home. It just psychologically feels like the run is almost at the end, you know?

Then after the run, I showered and had breakfast (usual oatmeal) and did some housework. Then I dared to enter ~~the jaws of hell~~ Marks and Spencer’s. On a Saturday. The day before Mother’s Day. Am I crazy??? And yes, it was MANIC. Dad’s and their kids racing about trying to get presents and flowers everywhere.

OK it doesn’t look so bad in the photo, but literally it was heaving.

I was only in there (thankfully) to pick up some nice flowers as I had everything else I needed for the mums. I wanted the flowers to be fresh for the next day, hence why I dared to go to M&S the day before.

Then I ~~escaped~~ got home and did some housework and had some lunch with Ben. I had my favourite butternut squash soup again.

I’m just so addicted at the moment. I should make big batches of it but I can never be bothered and I know I’d probably eat stupid amounts in one sitting that way rather than putting it in the freezer…Plus I quite enjoy making the soup rather than defrosting it and reheating, you know?

After lunch and walking Alfie, we finally got our act together and saw our wedding photographer to get our photos. How terrible is that considering we got married last September?? Oh well! I might upload some of the photos on the blog as a little memoir to wedding…watch this space.

And because we don’t have a Waitrose near where we live I forced Ben to go to the Waitrose near the photographer’s office so I could stock up on tinned pumpkin. Waitrose is the only place I’ve found stocks it!

I restrained myself in to buying only four. The lady behind the till thought I was mad. Hey, I don’t care!

Then we got ready to take both the mums for a nice meal out. We went to a lovely little pub/restaurant near us called the Jolly Sailor.

We chauffeured the mums so they could drink and relax.

It’s so lovely because Ben’s mum and my mum are friends and go out together anyway so it wasn’t odd having them both there for a Mother’s Day meal. it was just nice to spend the quality time with both of them simultaneously.

Both Ben and me get on really well with our own mum’s and mother-in-laws so it was such a good night out. We are so lucky to have such lovely family surrounding us!

For starters Ben and me went for a sharing platter. Well, what happened was I saw a vegetarian sharing platter that literally had everything I could dream on it and I really wanted to try it but Ben was convinced it wouldn’t come with bread and didn’t want to be overcome by so much veggie-ness so wanted to order a bread basket with it to ‘balance it out’. Fair enough. Until we saw this beast arrive:

Enough to feed an army! There were different cheeses, a falafel, a potato cake thing, hummus, guacamole, grilled vegetables, tzatziki, cauliflower salad, regular salad…and bread. And then our bread basket. Whoops.

Needless to say we were quite full after this. However, on days where I run a long run I’m always more hungry that normal (obviously, I guess) so this was a welcome dinner I have to say!

For my main I went for poussin and fries. This is an unusual choice for me as I’m not a big ‘fries’ fan. I prefer chunky chips or sweet potato fries

But you know what, this pretty much hit the spot. The fries with ketchup went down like a treat. Really yummy and exactly what I was craving. And I might have helped out Ben with his fries too. Hey, I need the carbs what can I say!

No pudding as seriously, no room at the inn. Such a good evening with the mums. I hope they enjoyed it; they definitely deserved to be treated. Speaking for myself, I am so grateful to my mum and everything she’s done for me. She’s a hardworking lady and juggled a lot of things when my sister and I were growing up to make sure we had happy, healthy childhoods so I’m very thankful for that. And I know Ben appreciates his mum just as much. Like I said, we’re both extremely lucky.

On Sunday I didn’t do a whole lot if I’m honest. My mum and dad popped round in the morning and we had coffee and I gave my mum her flowers and card. Once again, a lovely time with my family. Then in the afternoon, Ben’s mum dropped round with a little, delayed surprise for Ben… His birthday cake! As a surprise Ben’s mum and me decided to treat him to an amazing birthday cake from the same lady that made our wedding cake and Ben’s mum’s birthday cake.

It has a little Xbox on it!

How cool is that? Ben loves playing on his Xbox so this seemed like the perfect thing to put on the cake. He was very chuffed.

And it tasted so good

Lemon sponge and buttercream…ahh heaven.

Ben’s mum had to take quite a bit of the cake home with her to put in her freezer unfortunately as our freezer is just bursting with cake (as I might have mentioned before). There’s no way we could eat it all before it goes stale – I mean it’s a BEAST.

So lots of good food, great family time, and cake. That my friends is a damn good weekend in my books.

What did you do this weekend?

If you’re from the UK, what did you do for Mother’s Day?

If you could have any cake in the world for your birthday, what flavour would it be? I think mine would be fruit cake with marzipan and royal icing…or maybe just regular birthday cake style with jam and buttercream…

February 22, 2013

Friday Randoms

It’s Friday! Woohoo! And it is really cold. Very frosty and chilly. But the mornings are lighter and the days are feeling longer. I thought I’d do a recap of the last few days and some random points I wanted to share.

Poor Ben, he pulled a muscle in his back on Tuesday evening…pulling on a jumper. Men! What are they like? He ended up being in agony. So the next day he took a day off work to try and recover but in the end he needed to go to the doctors. He couldn’t drive and I was at work so unfortunately he had to wait until Thursday when I could work from home.

I had a 5 mile run planned so got up early and did that Thursday morning and then we rushed straight out to get to the morning appointment. No time for a proper breakfast so this had to sustain me:

Black coffee and banana. It placated the starving beast within for a short while…

#1 Random Point – does anyone else detest the doctors? I appreciated everything they do, don’t get me wrong. But I feel at risk of catching something at the actual place. Maybe it’s because I’m a bit paranoid and OCD about dirt and germs, but seriously I will never touch those magazines no matter how much the front cover is screaming at me. And everyone there just looks depressed and ill. It’s not a happy place (which I guess is to be expected).

Anyway, after Ben had seen the doctor he came out looking a bit sheepish. His back just required a bit of time to heal as it was ‘only’ a pulled muscle and nothing serious. Ben did tell me he used his appointment wisely though.

#2 Random Point – Ben decided to talk to the doctor about a whole list of issues he’s been experiencing – back unrelated – to make his trip “worth while” (e.g. he’s had a sore foot for a while). Men hate going to the doctors, so when they have to go it’s almost like they’ve saved up a list of problems so they don’t have to go back for another 10 years.

We then went home and I got on with some work. Alfie was a bit confused with my presence and I think a little bit annoyed that I wasn’t sat on the couch with him enjoying some Alfie-Anna time.

I was sat at our dinner table trying to focus. Then this happened:

He jumped straight up on my lap as if to say “hellooo, remember me?” This makes using a lap top a bit tricky…

After giving him some snacks I managed to get him to fall asleep on the floor next to me so I could concentrate.

More coffee.

#3 Random Point – coffee tastes so much better in your favourite mug.

Oh speaking of mugs. I do have a mug at work which I leave in the kitchen. Now I know it doesn’t exactly have my name on it but it does annoy me when in the morning I go to make a coffee and find it’s not there. THEN later in the day I see that culprit with it and making their drink in it. Rude. I mean seriously, is it not clear?

Being at home, it was nice that I could have whatever I wanted for lunch. I had got myself in the mood for scrambled egg and cream cheese when I realised we only had two eggs, rather than my preferred three. So I rustled around and made myself a random combination of chicken, random veggies (carrots, mushrooms & spinach), plumbs, cream cheese and BBQ sauce.

The sweetness of the plumbs and BBQ went well with the creaminess of the cream cheese. Not a bad meal!

In the evening, after doing the food shop, I had my scrambled eggs so I was happy. I had cream cheese, mushrooms (again) and onion.

#4 Random Point – I’ve only just discussed a brilliantly easy way of finely chopping onions without being a whizz chef with an amazing knife.

By keeping one of the ends on it holds it all together so you can easily chop it. Many of you I imagine are now going “yeah, duh!” but I never knew this! [And I wanted to show off my favourite apple chopping board ]

#5 Random Point – we have so much cake still in our freezer it’s ridiculous.

This is pretty much the entire bottom drawer full of cake. Cake from our wedding, cake from last Christmas and cake from the Christmas before.

Speaking of cake. I had an attack of the munchies on Sunday and decided it was time to kill my mini bride.

This was the top tier of our wedding cake and it’s been sat just hanging around for ages .It’s fruit cake so it’s fine to last but those little people needed to go. As in, be eaten.

Ben had his groom as well. I was quite hyped up on sugar after that…but it was definitely worth it. RIP, mini bride.

Right, so it’s almost the weekend – hurrah! Tomorrow I have my 12 mile run planned for the morning, then I drive to Bristol to meet up with my university friends to celebrate one of their birthdays. Then I drive back Sunday. Busy busy but lots of fun I hope!

What are you up to this week?

If you’re married, what was your cake like? Ours was lemon for one tier, vanilla and jam for the middle tier, and then fruit for the top.

Do you have a favourite mug? I have a favourite coffee mug and a favourite hot chocolate mug (which is huuuge, I like my hot chocolates super-sized!)