I do love weekends. Extra sleep, nice food, bit of running and hanging out with good friends and family. What more could you want?
On Friday night Ben, Alfie and me headed to my parent’s for an Indian takeaway. I had had such a rubbish commute home and was feeling so stressed out and tired so this was a perfect evening. I ate lots of chicken and was a happy Anna.
Saturday I was up early to go set-up for parkrun. I tried to be quiet but did manage to wake up Ben accidentally who was feeling slightly hung over after having a few beers and wine with my dad. He managed to get cajoled into going by a few friendly Tweets from the parkrun guys as they needed some more volunteers. Ben’s just too nice to say no, bless him.
I took it fairly easy as I’m still just base building at the moment – no speed work or heavy-going sessions for now, which I’m quite happy about to be honest! So I chatted to one of my friends from the running club. Always nice to have an easy social parkrun 🙂 I’m also highly conscious that I’m out of shape and nowhere near hitting PBs any time soon. But that’s actually OK because I need to look at the bigger picture of what I’m training for, i.e. London.
Ben marshalled like a rock star and saved the day when a lady fainted mid-run (she’s OK, she just had a moment of dizziness and Ben looked after her in the cafe with a hot mug of sugary coffee).
After parkrun we did the boring household chores, got ready and headed out with our friend Nathan to enjoy a bit of Jamie’s Italian and do some shopping.
As you’re probably already aware, when I like a restaurant we tend to do it to death (Nando’s & Zippers for example). And Jamie’s is no different. I’ve been sooo many times, whether for lunch or breakfast before going on holiday. When we go for lunch I always have the same meal. It’s probably my favourite meal at any restaurant. It’s consistently good.
For starters I had the vegetable plank which was really good. Loads of random bits and pieces, like roasted veg, mozzarella, bruschetta with salsa. Very nice. And then my standard Turkey Milanese (turkey and mozzarella with a breadcrumb coating) and a fried egg. Oh my life it was still just as good as always.
For pudding the boys went for lemon meringue whereas I went for a a chocolate brownie, caramelised popcorn and vanilla ice cream.
Seriously one of the best brownies I’ve ever had. Crispy on the outside, soft and squidgy in the middle. I could have left the popcorn if I’m honest. It didn’t add much. But the sauce and ice cream complimented it perfectly. I’m already working out when we can next go back…
Suitably brimming with food, we did a bit of shopping.
We had a little fun with some furry hats in Mountain Warehouse and I picked up a couple of items from O’Neil and Nike. but we were put off by the rubbish weather and how busy it was so we left. The boys went to the pub and I went home. I watched the brilliant film The Blind Side (so so good) and fell asleep at 9pm. I’m not even joking. I had every ambition to stay up late (like 10pm…) but it didn’t happen. I woke up just before 8am the next morning – 11 hours sleep! Bliss.
I was raring to go for my 10 mile run. It went really well. The weather was beautiful: cold, crispy and sunny. Perfect for running! Unfortunately it rained later on and I got soaked walking Alfie… Anyway I think I’ve pretty much decided to not run the half marathon next weekend. There’s really no point. I wouldn’t be aiming for a time, there’s no medal (yes I’m that materialistic) and it’s all a bit of a faff. My coach said it’s better I remain consistent and run 10 miles instead rather than trying to push things too soon. Sensible words – especially as no doubt though I’ll aim for an easy pace it’ll be faster than what I’d run on my own. Plus it means I get another lovely lie-in…maybe aim for a PB of 12 hours? 😉
Is there a meal at a particular restaurant that you will always order? I once ordered something different at Jamie’s and though it was nice I just missed the turkey the whole time!
What shops do you usually go to? I have such a range: New Look, Dorothy Perkins, Fat Face and more sporty ones.
How many hours sleep do you work best on? I think 7-8 hours are good for me, though I can do 6 without much issue. But I do like a good stretch at the weekend just because I can!
Happy Monday, we’re here again. I don’t know what happened to me over the weekend but I was shattered! I even had an hour long nap yesterday afternoon, which is crazy for me! I’m back running consistently so this is probably the case. My foot seems to be fully OK now, whew!
Friday night Ben and me decided to go out for a meal to our recent favourite find (Zippers) and we invited my parents and Ben’s mum to join. Funnily enough my mum and dad had already booked to go to there after we’d raved about it! Happy days.
I went for my salad duo which, once again, rocked my world: salad bar starter and then chicken, avocado and bacon salad.
Apologies for the poor photos – it was dimly lit in the restaurant
And because it is the best chocolate fudge cake I’ve had in ages, I had it for pudding again. Consistently good – and I think I’m qualified to say that now having had it three times! I didn’t take a photo because I’ve already got twophotos of it…
Needless to say I think we’re done with Zippers for a bit. We’ll be back for definite but we’ve OOT-ed it recently as you can imagine 😉
Saturday morning I finally got back to parkrun. I haven’t been for soo long due to being busy, injuries and marathons. I really missed it. I went down early to help set up and caught up with the parkrun crew. It was the Halloween special which meant people had dressed up in fancy dress for the occasion which was brilliant!
Skeleton morph suit!
The costumes were brilliant, from pumpkins to zombies, morph suits to masks. I love stuff like this. Sadly all I had to offer was a black sparkly tutu and my colourful RunMummyRun compression socks but it felt fun wearing it.
I took parkrun nice and easy and chatted to lots of people on the way round, which I always really enjoy. Unfortunately talking so much gave me such a nasty a stitch – that’ll teach me! I got just over 25 minutes which I’m happy with for a social run wearing, as it turns out, a rather itchy tutu.
Check out the costumes behind me – amazing effort with the face paint!
The rest of the day was spent just doing the chores, walking Alfie and watching some trashy television watch (*whispers* Made In Chelsea) which Ben and me embarrassingly like to watch and Gogglebox (I’m a new comer to this programme but I am fully addicted – it is HILARIOUS).
Sunday I got up and ran for 50 minutes (Kyle confusingly works in minutes not miles…this makes route planning quite hard!!) then rushed about getting ready to go to church to see my friend Louise’s baby’s Christening-but-not-Christening thing. Basically it was a “welcome to church” kind of thing for their baby, Jacob, but not an actually Christening because they want him to decide on his faith later. I won’t lie, I did not sing at all. No one wants to hear me sing especially if I don’t know any of the songs! Louise is an incredible singer though and is part of the church band so she rocked it.
After the service we headed back to Louise’s parent’s house for “nibbles”. Let’s just dissect this word for a moment…we thought crisps and snacky things, which were out on the sides when we arrived. We nibbled away and had some fizzy pop and were quite content. But Louise’s mum is just amazing at hosting these sorts of things and suddenly an hour later BOOM there was an entire buffet of food. Then after the buffet there was a pudding buffet of lemon tart, chocolate tart, meringues, jelly (all home-made!) and ice cream. Wowza. And of course cake afterwards!
I won’t lie. I went a bit crazy having a slice of both the lemon and chocolate tart (let’s call them slithers shall we? They weren’t huge…) and a couple of slices of cake.
All home-made by Louise herself. Vanilla sponge for the main cake and chocolate for the little trains and square blocks. My reputation preceded me as Louise came over after the first cutting of the cake and handed me a chocolate slice saying “I knew you’d want more”. Full sugar coma commenced afterwards (and an afternoon nap later).
Most of my school friends were there too so it was nice to catch up and have a laugh with them. Mostly taking the mic’ out of my fear of small people and how awkward I am around them. It was actually quite scary how many children were there – Louise has a HUGE family. Needless to say, it’ll be a few years yet before I have the desire to have one!!
Do you go to church? I’m not religious but don’t mind going to these sorts of things.
What are you doing for Halloween? We do nothing. Mainly hide behind our curtains and hope no small people come knocking.
I was down to run the Great South Run on Sunday but I’ve decided not to anymore. I’m actually quite pleased about this considering how blooming windy it is at the moment! What is going on??
Ben’s obviously not running it either and we’ve been invited to a church ‘welcoming’ thing for our friend’s baby so we decided to give it a miss this year. And though my foot is feeling better I just don’t want to risk it. It’s such a faff of a race; so many people, difficult to park, crowded…and I didn’t enjoy it at all last year (I hurt my knee). Lots of people from my running club are doing it so it is a shame in that respect and it was £41 for entry!! And you can’t even transfer your bib to someone else or defer. *Grumble grumble*
Anyway, I thought I’d write a random post of bits and bobs that have been going on – a collection of titbits, if you like, that didn’t make the cut for a post of their own.
I often go for a walk every lunch time at work for about 20 minutes. Usually to the nearby big Tesco or sometimes I mosey about a few charity shops. That might sound a bit sad but it’s a habit I’ve had since university when I was looking for cheap books or DVDs. But really any shop with this sign will pull me in regardless:
Cake and charity, a match made in heaven 😀
Speaking of cake, Ben, our friend Nathan and I went to that lovely restaurant, Zippers, in Port Solent again. We went there a few weeks ago and I really wanted to go back because they had an amazing salad bar. Last time I went I just went for the salad bar as a starter which meant I could only visit it once (though I did pile it high to get my money’s worth). This time I decided to go for it as a main so I could keep going back as many times as I wanted (hello, I’m a salad machine).
There were chickpeas, feta, roasted vegetables and just a whole host of veggies. SO GOOD. I’m pretty sure they thought I was a bit strange having three monster plates of salad. But I love it! And the sweet potato fries on the side as well… and the chocolate fudge cake for pudding as it was so good last time. It’s a good job this restaurant is just that little bit too far to go back every week (unlike Nando’s).
It really helped get me motivated for a cycle the next day as well (a thick slab of chocolate fudge cake with chocolate sauce and ice cream has a good way of doing that). And I got to wear my new cycling jacket (from Aldi!! Cheap as chips but the quality is awesome!)
I haven’t cycled in over 5 weeks and I optimistically thought I could keep up with the guys from the club but after about 6 miles I told them to go on as I just couldn’t keep up. They were lovely and told me to not be silly but I just felt they’d get a better ride without me and I didn’t want to feel pressured to keep up. So I pedalled off for a solo slog. I got in 23 miles in the end but bloody hell it was hard. It’s amazing how quickly you lose it when you don’t do it regularly. I was puffing and panting all the way round and going a lot slower than before. But regardless, it was a good workout. My legs afterwards felt pooped.
Annoyingly it was quite muddy and wet on the roads and having a white bike is just ridiculous.
Normally I wouldn’t be precious about this sort of thing. It’s a bike, it’s going to get muddy. It’s hardly going to win awards for what it looks like. But we keep the bikes in the living room as we don’t have a garage (only a car port) so we don’t have a proper place to store them (let’s not talk about the Shed of Death), which means I do actually have to clean it. Well, it was lovely and shiny afterwards anyway.
And related to cycling (smooth segue…?) in one of my orders from Wiggle they forgot to send my Haribo with it (they always send a packet of sweets with your order) and I Tweeted about it saying I was sad I missed out. They generously said they’d send me some and a few weeks later I received a post office slip saying I needed to pay £1.20 for unpaid postage. I had no idea what was being posted but paid it anyway out of curiosity.
Then the next day lo and behold I received an envelope with two packs of Haribo in from Wiggle. It was very nice of them to send it to me, but for £1.20!? They needn’t have bothered! The sweets are probably worth 10p! Oh Wiggle, what a shambles. But in fairness to them they have given me a £2 Wiggle voucher to make up for it. Well play, Wiggle. Well played.
Anyway I’ll leave it there with just one last photo…
Alfie avidly watching the telly. He loves getting involved 😉 and as you can see, my very clean bike in the background 😀
Do you often buy things online? Are you fan of Wiggle?
Are you a fan of buffets or salad bars?
Do you look for bargains in places like charity shops or cheaper supermarkets, like Aldi or Lidl? I’m not a shopping snob, I love a bargain as long as the quality is decent.
It’s hard going on holiday to run a marathon. The days before you’re so nervous that it’s difficult to fully enjoy yourself. Or eat and drink whatever you want, or walk lots and lots. You’re always thinking “will this help for the race?” and that’s not particularly how you want to be on holiday.
But saying that, there is something truly amazing about running a marathon in a foreign country. Ben and me caught a mid-morning flight to Berlin so we left the house at 6.30am. Though an early wake-up call it meant we could have a nice breakfast at the airport. Sadly not Jamie’s Italian, but Giraffe (which is also very, very good).
I had an omelette with lots of roasted vegetables and an avocado salsa (ooh err!) with sourdough toast. Thankfully this was quite filling as we missed lunch entirely because we wanted to get to the marathon expo ASAP when we got to Berlin. When we landed, we got a taxi to the hotel and then headed straight to the old disused airport from there where the expo was happening.
It was huge inside with so many running-related stalls selling clothes, trainers, gels, nutrition…basically everything running-related. It wasn’t like anything was cheaper than normal so Ben and me just by-passed it all and headed straight to the bib collection.
One of the big rooms of running stalls
FYI it’s the furthest possible point – just to ensure you do indeed walk past every flipping stall possible. Not particularly fun for poor Ben who couldn’t actually run at the moment. Almost like a big “F*** you” from the Berlin marathon 🙁 especially when he wasn’t allowed to come with me to collect his bib: “runners only”. I’d have probably burst into tears at this point if I was him but Ben was a true trooper and just waited patiently for me.
There was no queue to speak of which was a relief as I’d heard horror stories of hour-long waits. Friday late afternoon is the way forward!
There was a huge crowd of people all trying to get a photo like the one above and we patiently waited until it was my turn. Embarrassingly as it got to my turn and I stood there ready for my photo a woman pointed at me and said “your bib’s the wrong way up”. Nailed it, Anna.
Ben and me proceeded to then walk a million miles ages to find food. We headed in the direction of our hotel (which was a 45 minute walk away) and hoped to find somewhere en route, or worst case just eat in the hotel. We hadn’t eaten since 7.30am (except for an apple or two for me and an airplane snack for Ben) and it was now coming up to 6pm…Things were tense.
Hilariously we walked up the red light district without realising it. The first lady I saw I was about to say to Ben “oh those boots and skirt combo are a bit risqué, aren’t they?” when I saw her shake her wears at a passerby. Yikes! Ben and me just kept our eyes down and power walked on. It was rather funny though. Finally (away from the red light area!) we found a lovely little restaurant.
We both had beef Carpaccio to start (delicious!) and I, erm…had Caesar salad. It’s embarrassing to admit I know. I just love it! It was just alright: no bacon and no anchovies but good pieces of parmesan shavings and nice chicken. I went for a brownie and ice cream for pudding. It wasn’t dense enough a brownie for a true wow factor but it hit the spot.
And Ben began as he meant to go on…sampling the local wheat beer. I had a few sips and must say I quite enjoyed it. Very light.
We stayed at the Hotel Berlin, which I highly recommend. We had a lovely spacious room with a 70s theme. It even had a mini balcony.
The bathroom was lovely. It had one of those monsoon walk in shower things and a normal shower head for proper hair wash action.
Basically, lovely rooms, great breakfast (buffet – hello!), brilliant service, a gym (which I did not step into) and about 15 minute walk from the Tiergarten and a 30 minute walk from the Brandenburg Gate.
The next morning I got up at 8am and went for an easy 3 mile run around Tiergarten.
My best “I’m a dork” face
Beautiful scenery to run around in a capital city!
My dad had arrived the night before at a nearby hotel and so joined us for breakfast after we’d showered. He paid for breakfast while we had ours included.
I’d be lying if I said this was all I had. Honestly, this was the best hotel breakfast ever. Roasted vegetables with pine nuts and sundried tomatoes – heavenly! Little meatball things – so good! Eggs – delicious! Crispy bacon! All so good. And I had a pretzel style roll as well to go with this. Then followed it by a bowl of fresh fruit salad. The choice was amazing. From sweet pastries, donuts, muffins, to normal bread, German bread, fruit bread, pretzel bread, smoked salmon, all kind of egg, beans, cheeses, meats, cereals…honestly there was so much to choose from. So I ate everything. Joking. Though I did make a fair dent 😉
Then we headed out to see some sights. We walked past the Tiergarten and up to the Victory Column (the Siegessäule: the gold gold statue thing below) and then headed down the long road to the Brandenburg Gate. The roads had been closed off and ready for the marathon (and the skating marathon that would be happening later that day – yes, people skated on rollerblades the marathon).
After walking for an hour or so Ben and my dad demanded a refreshment stop…the beer marathon was to begin 😉
I got a sparkling water and popped a High5 Zero tablet in it to make sure I stayed hydrated – it fizzed up quite dramatically! My dad and Ben got strange pink beers which made for a humorous photo 😉
It was strange to see so many marathon signs and road blockages and made me very nervous!
We walked to Checkpoint Charlie and saw the remains of the Berlin wall (which separated the East and West of Berlin and only came down in 1989!) at the Topography of Terrors.
It was very interesting but also quite depressing. What a scary time to have lived.
Then we headed to Postdamer Platz which is very urban and modern.
After sight seeing for a bit we got fairly hungry and started to look out for a nice place for lunch that wasn’t outrageous in price, which meant walking a fair bit from the main tourist bits.
We seemed to eat a lot of Italian-style meals over the holiday! Ben and me had a sort of platter of dried meats, Carpaccio and roasted vegetables and then I had a feta and olive salad. There was so much feta! I was defeated. This has never happened before with a salad, it was just too salty to eat so much.
I had a major panic when I realised I didn’t actually bring any safety pins with me from home and at the expo I didn’t pick any up (if they even had any there). What a numpty!! I didn’t know what to do. We looked in a few supermarkets but found nothing. Suddenly we were surrounded by hundreds of children who had just finished the mini-marathon and all brandishing their medals…and they were all wearing bibs with safety pins. It was a cruel mocking of my idiocy. I tried to ask one lady for if she had any spares or if I could have her son’s now unneeded safety pins but she looked blankly at me and talked to me in rapid German. I was started to fret when I spotted a boy who was just taking his bib off. I leapt over to him and asked for his safety pins. He was German but could speak English and was more than happy for me to have his pins. Thank you!!! Panic over. And I could resign my position from being weird English girl trying to steal safety pins from unsuspecting children…
Then we walked back. We were almost at our hotel when we saw the skaters fly by! They were amazing. So fast. Though some of them were holding on to each other, creating a long train. I guess they were in teams?
We then killed some time just chilling in the hotel lobby (Ben and my dad now on their 6th or 7th beers?!) We had walked quite a long way! Not a brilliant plant the day before a marathon…
My dad, bless him, started falling asleep while reading a magazine.
Then later on we headed for another Italian meal in a nearby restaurant. We got there fairly early but within an hour or so it became packed with marathon runners wanting their carbolific meal.
Like I said in my marathon post, I had a large pizza and a massive bottle of sparkling water (I love European sparkling water, it just tastes amazing). Then Ben stayed with my dad in the lobby of hotel for more beers while I went to bed. In the end Ben and my dad had 12 beers each!!
Despite maybe too much walking (33,700 steps: over 16 miles!) it was a lovely day to just take my mind off things and enjoy the scenery and sights. It was so nice having my dad there as well as Ben had a partner in crime 😉
One week, one week, one week…before the Berlin marathon. To say I’m terrified is something of an understatement.
The weekend was nice and relaxed though thankfully. Friday night we went out to Nando’s again with friends. Nando’s is becoming dangerously addictive! On Saturday morning I was tempted to go to parkrun to do an easy gentle 5k but after running 10k on Thursday night and cross-training Friday I decided to be super sensible and go pool running instead.
Float time in the swimming pool…
Like last time I took my waterproof iPhone cover and Bluetooth headphones so I could listen to music and keep myself entertained. I was just doing my thing when suddenly my music stopped. I looked over to the side where I left my iPhone and saw it had vanished. Uh oh. I looked down in the water to see it glowing at the bottom of the pool. A small child had managed to knock it in accidentally. He stood there looking all guilty and said “Shall I dive down to fetch it?”… “err yeah” I said, trying my best not to panic. Luckily it was fine and the child lived on for another day. Whew. So 35 minutes of pool running went OK other than that incident.
The rest of the day was non-descript but in a lovely “got no plans” kind of way. Lots of walks with Alfie and watching Kings of Summer (which I highly recommend).
Sunday morning was long run time. I set my alarm for 8am and decided to test out a possible pre-marathon breakfast. My plan is to have two of the Beet It flapjacks before the race. They’re 235 calories each so my thinking was two would be perfect for a good breakfast and I get the whole beetroot benefits (boosting endurance).
Alfie was very interested
I’ve tried the bars before but just at work when I fancy a snack. They’re so tasty – kind of earthy but sweet and crumbly. Anyway I had two and then got myself ready and took Alfie for a longer walk than I usually would before a run, just to give myself a good amount of digestion time.
My tummy felt a bit strange after eating two bars. Not like I was sick or anything would happen, but just not completely right. I instantly regretted eating the bars and decided there and then to stick to my usual porridge before the marathon. I was sad about the bars but it was worth a shot.
On the actual run though my stomach was fine and I just got on with, well, running. I aimed to stay at around 8.30mins/mile as this is nice and easy. I felt quite slow if I’m honest but on my second mile I looked at my watch and found I was storming along 7.30-45mins/mile! I immediately slowed down. I continued letting my mind drift and listen to my podcast and realised I had sped up again.
But it didn’t feel tough at all. This was dangerous territory to be on and I snapped myself out of it and forced myself to slow down. This is not the time I want to have the best run of the month – that’s next week I hope! I need to save it for then, not on a training run.
Anyway the run went fine. No shin discomfort. Just a normal run – woooohooooo! And afterwards I just felt normal aches and tiredness like I would after a long run. And even today I feel fine! I can hardly believe it.
Now this might be completely coincidental but I could it have been the beetroot bars that helped? I felt so fresh and good on the run and even when I was running faster I felt like I was running a minute slower. Now I’m confused. But I do still have the Beet It shots which give the same amount of beetroot power as the bars and then I can still have my porridge. So I need to trial a shot before a morning run this week…
After the run I got showered and we headed to a local pub to have lunch with my parents and Ben’s mum.
Family lunch
I realise my choice of food is odd but hey ho. I had a mango chicken salad to start and, er, a chicken, beetroot and goat’s cheese salad for main…with sweet potato fries 😉 You might have thought I’d have had enough beetroot at this point. You would be wrong.
And pudding…oh pudding, how I do love you. I had a hot chocolate fudge cake with ice cream. Need I say it was to die for?
It was such a lovely lunch.
And cheers to my dad for the lovely ski whiffed photo!
After walking Alfie when I got back, this is pretty much what I felt like for the rest of the afternoon:
Knackered
What did you get up to this weekend?
Are you good with small children? Or children in general really? I am not.
Are you a starter or a pudding person? It really depends for me, usually I will only go for one but I was quite hungry. Normally it’s pudding if they have something good.
I took it fairly easy as I’m still just base building at the moment – no speed work or heavy-going sessions for now, which I’m quite happy about to be honest! So I chatted to one of my friends from the running club. Always nice to have an easy social parkrun 🙂 I’m also highly conscious that I’m out of shape and nowhere near hitting PBs any time soon. But that’s actually OK because I need to look at the bigger picture of what I’m training for, i.e. London.
Ben marshalled like a rock star and saved the day when a lady fainted mid-run (she’s OK, she just had a moment of dizziness and Ben looked after her in the cafe with a hot mug of sugary coffee).
For starters I had the vegetable plank which was really good. Loads of random bits and pieces, like roasted veg, mozzarella, bruschetta with salsa. Very nice. And then my standard Turkey Milanese (turkey and mozzarella with a breadcrumb coating) and a fried egg. Oh my life it was still just as good as always.
Seriously one of the best brownies I’ve ever had. Crispy on the outside, soft and squidgy in the middle. I could have left the popcorn if I’m honest. It didn’t add much. But the sauce and ice cream complimented it perfectly. I’m already working out when we can next go back…
