family - AnnaTheApple

October 27, 2015

My little holiday in Wales

I’m back from North Wales where I spent a lovely few days with my family. It just goes too quickly though, doesn’t it?

On Thursday afternoon I hopped into my dad’s car, with Alfie, and headed up the motorway to Stoke-on-Trent. My granddad lives there with his two dogs and had kindly agreed to look after Alfie and my parent’s three dogs while we were in Wales. My other granddad, who we were going to be staying with, is allergic to dogs so we sadly couldn’t bring them along.

It was nice to see my granddad in Stoke, albeit briefly. He makes awesome cups of tea and always has some funny stories. He’s also reindeer obsessed and every year he goes to Scotland to spend several weeks helping out with a reindeer sanctuary up there. He used to be a joiner before he retired and is always carving and making crazy creations from reindeer antlers that they’ve naturally dropped.

On his garage he painted a beautiful silhouette of reindeer too.

We then hopped back in the car for the last part of our journey to Llandudno. We left Southampton at 2pm and arrived at 9pm! I was definitely feeling a bit cabin feverish.

Friday morning we had a lovely walk in Conwy.

The weather thankfully was good and we enjoyed a nice coffee sat outside a quaint cafe.

In Conwy they have an interactive Alice and Wonderland trail for children to follow. There are wooden statues of different characters all over the town.

I saw Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum and the Rabbit. I’ve previously seen the Red Queen but that’s all I’ve found so far.

We also did a little bit of shopping and I found an amazing sweet shop where I just couldn’t help buying a few chocolates and marzipan fruit.

I had a little mosey in Dorothy Perkins and bought a new top as well…the first non-fitnessitem of clothing I’ve bought in a while!!

My grandparents are keen golfers (and despite my granddad being 82 he’s still a very keen walker and cyclist!) so for dinner they took us to their golf club’s restaurant. I had a delicious gammon steak with fried egg and new potatoes. And for pudding a blueberry Bakewell slice with ice cream. Heavenly!

Before getting injured I’d hoped to be able to run the Conwy parkrun on the Saturday but sadly this wasn’t possible. Every part of me desperately wanted to go but I stuck to my initial decision. I’d rather keep on recovering rather than attempt something foolish and delay it longer. It was tipping down with rain in the morning which was some consolation to not running, but I was still grumpy.

Luckily there was the Convwy Taste Festival going on over the weekend so I could take my mind off things by enjoying stupid amounts of food. The festival was just next to the water and down from the Conwy Castle – only a few minutes drive from my grandparent’s house handily!

Despite the poor weather, the place was packed! You paid £8.50 for access to the large tents, where inside were loads of food and drink merchants selling their wares. And, importantly, letting you try them!!

I tried everything, as you can imagine. From chilli jams to sweet chutneys, from Welsh cakes to shortbread… balsamic vinegars, oils, hand-made marshmallows (the choc mint flavour was incredible), curry sauces, BBQ sauces, dried meats, pasties, pies, bread, waffles (best taster ever – a chunk of waffle dipped in caramel sauce…I considered sneaking back to that one to try it again), yogurts, fudge, sausages, meat and, of course, cakes!

I couldn’t not buy a slice of the rocky road…or the peanut butter millionaire shortbread style cake. And then later a large slice of blondie. It took all the effort in the world to not gobble them all up quickly.

After we had all enjoyed so many different foods we decided to head outside of the main tent to look for lunch (I know, because at this point we were soooo hungry ;-)). There were so many different street food options it was quite overwhelming.

Thai, Mexican, Italian, Indian, Chinese, English (bangers & mash, fish & chips), pulled pork and BBQ, Caribbean, Moroccan, mussels… I literally walked up and down the street for a good ten minutes having no idea what to have. I did really fancy a large skewer of tandoori chicken but seen as how we were out for an Indian that evening I knew I needed to go safe and not have anything spicy or similar to what I’d eat that evening.

In the end I went for a lobster roll and fries. I saw it being made and it looked amazing. And it tasted so good. Not the cheapest street food I’d ever had at £10 (compared to the £3.50 hot dog my dad had!) but it was fully worth it. My mum got a sausage roll from a different place to my dad and for the same price as my dad’s they packed in pretty much an entire pack of sausages!! Helpfully, we were all there to assist her 😉

After a quick warm-up coffee we carried on walking around looking at the other food stalls (a few more tasters…) and some of the craft stalls as well. My day was made when I saw a dinosaur walking about – with a fully functioning roar.

Such a great day. I loved it! We all agreed we definitely wanted to come back next year. It was a lot of fun. I came away with three cakes and a meat pack containing a zebra sausage (!!), a boar burger, pigeon breast, pheasant breast, venison steak, black pudding and a slice of bacon. Amazing.

That evening we went to a local Indian and had lots more food…

I had a mixed Asian BBQ started followed by my favourite, tandoori chicken with onion salad. Yum.

I had a great long weekend with my family and it was sad to leave on the Sunday. It was nice to not be at home looking at my empty house still not moving and still not running *sighs*. I would have loved to have done some running while I was away, in such beautiful scenery (and apparently my granddad was going to bike alongside me) but it wasn’t to be. There’s always next time I suppose!

How was your weekend?

Would you have enjoyed the Taste Festival?

Do you like street food? What would you have chosen?

October 19, 2015

Happy things…when I’m still waiting

I still haven’t moved. I wouldn’t mind but it’s hard to really plan ahead for weekends if I don’t know when I’m going to be moving… meaning I’m kind of in limbo. I know a lot of people have been in this situation so I’ll stop moaning. It’s just the negatives of moving house!

This weekend started really well with a Friday night movie and take-away evening with my friend Louise and her husband, Tom. They have a small person called Jacob and I got to witness the whole ‘evening routine’ with him which was quite enlightening. He’s around 17 months (I think??) old so is walking and babbling, very sweet.

The movie of choice for the evening (after Jake was safely in bed) was Silence of the Lambs. It came up in conversation a week ago that I’d never seen it so we arranged the movie evening. It’s an iconic must-see movie so I knew I needed to watch it, I’d just had a mental block on it as when I was little my parent’s had a VHS copy of it and the cover alone used to give me nightmares (I was a sensitive child…).

It actually wasn’t that scary or gory at all (the fact that it had a very 80-90s feel helped). I felt like I needed to watch it as I’m still so obsessed with the Hannible series and the film comes after the series in the time-frames. Anthony Hopkins does Hannible really well but I still prefer Mads Mikkelsen.

Lou is an amazing baker and she’d made a carrot and walnut cake for the evening as well. Look at that beast!

Despite eating an Indian take-away I still had room for a slice (*cough* or two) of the cake. Superb!! She even cut me a huge chunk off to take home with me.

The next day I went to parkrun to volunteer again. My leg still isn’t better… a post for another time. I took Alfie again and headed down to set-up. Alfie absolute loves it as he races around off his lead while we set up. It’ll be a bit of a shame not being able to bring him when I do get back to running. I can’t run with him as he hasn’t run that far before and, no offence Alfie, but I’m not keen to go on one mile runs to build up his mileage. I’m not sure he’s suited to running anyway – he stops and sniffs far too often. I can’t leave him tied to a bench while I run either as he’ll get anxious and probably start barking. It’s not very fair.

It was my friend Mike’s 50th parkrun and he made chocolate tray-bake biscuit things (one Toberlone-style and one Malteser-style). I enjoyed a Malteser one while having a hot drink sat outside the cafe afterwards with a few of the running club guys (another pitfall of having Alfie with me means we need to sit outside).

So tasty! I even got to take a few home with me! People just love to give me cake it seems hehe 😉

Then I headed to go shopping with my parents to pick up my new phone (iPhone 6s). I needed moral support as (and this is embarrassing to admit) but I haven’t really dealt with getting a new phone on my own in quite a few years. Ben had always dealt with the phone side of things. I pride myself on being an independent woman… but seems I need to get myself sorted in certain areas!!

And while passing through John Lewis I couldn’t help but look at the beautiful bags, in particular the Michael Kors ones. I am very much a saver. I rarely make large purchases (apart from holidays) unless they’re absolutely essential. Yes I have a weakness for workout clothes and good food but other than that I’d rather put money into savings, just in case.

That said, I saw a gorgeous handbag that just seemed to call to me. I was feeling down about not being able to run and not having moved yet and just thought “sod it, I’m going to treat myself”.

I have zero regrets. It’s beautiful and I love it. I do have a weakness for handbags but I’m very lucky that my mum does too. She often gives me her ‘off castes’ and I’ve been lucky to have some very nice second-hand handbags from her. But to buy my own and for it to be brand new… well it was just exactly what I needed to make me feel happier. Yes material things are a shallow way to gain happiness, but I can be sad now with a pretty handbag 😉

I’d love to say I had a jam-packed Sunday but the reality is… I didn’t. I packed, I cleaned, I walked Alfie and I rested my leg while watching TV. It was a lazy and dull Sunday, but I felt the better for it.

And my little niece, Ellie, got a Junior parkrun PB!

Look at that running form – what a pro!

Her mum (my sister) and dad are split up so she did the Junior parkrun nearest to her dad which is some distance away annoyingly. I hope at some point I can take her to my local Junior parkrun. I saw my sister on the Saturday and Ellie was telling me all about how she wants to be just like me and do lots of running. I have never felt so proud! I won’t lie, I do struggle with young children and knowing what to say or do but it’s lovely to have something in common and something I can hopefully help her with. I feel useful!

How do you make yourself happy?

Have you ever been to Junior parkrun?

What iconic movies do you love and recommend?

September 1, 2015September 2, 2015

Feeling a bit drained and flat

There is nothing like a long weekend to really kick start out back into life. Though I know not everyone got to enjoy a day off yesterday!

It was a fairly quiet weekend I must say – but sometimes you just need a bit of ‘downtime’ to try and recharge your batteries and, in my case, get into gear with sorting and organising the house. I still don’t have a date for when I’m moving, which is annoying. Especially because it’s already September now and my weekends coming up are getting booked up with seeing university friends, races and a holiday at the end of September. Whoops.

Anyway, rolling back to Saturday I went to parkrun as normal. Because I spectacularly positive splitted last week I wanted to have a strong negative split this time. I find it really hard in a 5k to pace myself. It’s funny because in a marathon I’ve found I can stick to my set paces almost perfectly and have a really controlled race, but when it comes to any shorter races it all goes to pot.

It was quite a chilly start to the day as we set up all the flags for the course, but at 8.30am the sun came out and it suddenly heated up. I wore my new skort (only £12 from Forever 21 – and very comfy and flattering, it has proper shorts underneath as well) and my Paris marathon T-shirt but by the time we got ready to start I decided to forgo the top and just run in my sports bra (I noticed a few others had done the same so I didn’t feel quite so naked). This was perfect.

I started the first lap slightly more conservatively than I would usually but still found it tough going. I managed to hang on to one of the guys from the running club, Berni, who does a lot of our coaching and leading runs. He was great as his pace was so consistent and we chatted a bit which kept my mind off the effort. On the final lap he told me to push on and I suddenly felt I had more energy knowing I only had one more lap to go.

Check those splits out! A nice negative royal flush. OK only three miles worth but I’ll take it! I came second female with 21:14. Happy days.

I also tried my very first blondie afterwards which honestly rocked my world. I think I’ve never gone for them as they’re white chocolate and I’m not a huge white chocolate fan but when a small child offers you a blondie, you take the blondie. And I’m so glad I did!

Later on I needed to pop to the shops quickly to top up on apples and came back with…well, more than apples.

I spotted some tasty looking pork belly and lamb koftas which I just couldn’t say no to, and then spotted the Ben and Jerry’s BLONDIE brownie core. And some frozen berries which I always love having with Greek yogurt at work.

That evening I was round my parent’s house for dinner with family friends. We had smoked salmon to start and steak Diane and roasted sweet potato wedges for main. If you’ve never had steak Diane it is AMAZING. My dad doesn’t even follow a recipe anymore he’s made it so often. The sauce is a cream based sauce with brandy, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce with fried onions and mushrooms. It was delicious.

For pudding there was a choice of Carte D’or ice cream or my Ben and Jerry’s. I went for the B&Js and it was just as good as it sounded.

The next morning was my long run and I was meeting running club guys to join them on a 10 miler. I ran to the meeting point and back to make it up to 14 miles. I’m still trying to be gradual in my build-up for Bournemouth as I’ve only just run Cheddar Gorge. Next week I’m hoping to run 16-17 miles and then 18 the week after and then taper.

It was really humid and from the start I found the run quite draining. I don’t know if it was the heavy meal the night before, tired legs in general or the humidity but it just felt tough. It was nice running with the others though as chatting to them took my mind of my fatigue. I need to be careful to not overdo things as I know recently I’ve done so much. After Bournemouth (providing I get there – I never take these things as a given!!) I’m planning on taking a break from the longer distances. In fact I might take a couple of weeks entirely off of running to just chill and then focus on some 10 milers and a half marathon race instead.

The route we took was fairly undulating as well in the middle section so this was tough going. Thankfully I’d taken water with me as it was really warm!

The photo on the left is before I headed out – I look very fresh and unsweaty!

For the rest of the day I felt drained and tired. I’d made sure to have something before I went running (which I never normally do) to help keep my nutrition topped up for the day as I struggle with long run days to refuel. It was one of those Chia Pods which had an ‘interesting’ texture but tasted nice.

I ate lots through the day and think I refuelled like a pro. For dinner I had the pork belly and roasted sweet potato and it was delicious.

High in calories, fat and protein it went down nicely! I know there’s some dispute about animal protein and fat being the best thing for you, but it definitely filled a hole and left me satisfied. I’ve been tracking my calories and macros using MyFitnessPal to keep me on track of my goal which has been really helpful. I won’t use it forever or get too fixated on it but I need something to give me an idea of what I’m eating as I don’t track calories or macros normally. It also links to my Garmin account so gives me a good idea of how much food I need to refuel after a run. I’ll do a post about it later on what I’ve been eating and how I’ve been tracking things if people are interested!

As I had Monday off (as it was a Bank holiday in the UK, apart from Scotland) I had a luxurious lie-in (I woke up at 7.30am naturally and lazed about until just before 8am, how indulgent) and then headed to the gym at the far more reasonable time of 9am (not my usual 5.30am!).

I’m still following the New Rules of Lifting for Women and I’ve probably got about two-three weeks left (I tend to do three sessions, sometimes two a week) of Stage 1. I’m so pleased with the progress I’ve made. My deadlift and squat weight has gone up significantly and I feel really strong. I still supplement the listed workouts though with my own stuff though as I want to cover running-specific strength training as well (click the link for a great list of moves).

Then the rest of the day was spent doing the fairly depressing task of sorting through some stuff in the loft and house bits and pieces. Nothing like sifting through wedding cards and old photos to really end your long weekend on a high!

How was your weekend? Did you have the Monday off?

What do you eat before a long run or workout?

Do you track calories and/or macros?

August 17, 2015

The day before the Cheddar Gorge Marathon

Well I survived the Cheddar Gorge Marathon! I am so glad I did it, it was truly a fantastic race. I’ll do a full recap of it in another post but I’ll just say that it was tough, hilly but good fun. Marathon number four done!

Saturday I was quite chilled out. It’s funny because I’ve never felt this way the day before a marathon. I was nervous, yes, but more excited and strangely looking forward to it. With a vague finishing time of 4.30-5 hours in mind there was a lot of give so no pressures. I knew the terrain would be technical, hilly and generally tough. But while this was psychologically good to be fairly relaxed, this meant I was probably a bit too blasé when it came to proper preparation.

I felt I had the miles on my legs (though perhaps not enough trail running experience but I have been doing lots of hill work). What I mean by preparation is the food the day before. But I’ll roll back to the start of Saturday first.

I headed to parkrun in the morning to help set-up. It was a bit rushed and stressful as the guy who had the key to the shed where we keep all the parkrun paraphernalia was 20 minutes late. This meant we really had to get a move on to set the course up in time. Surprisingly though we did and it made us wonder what takes us so long normally – all the chatting probably!

Obviously with the marathon the next day I wanted to keep the pace fairly easy. Some people don’t like running the day before a race but I prefer it. I like to give my legs a good shake out, especially as the last time I ran was Thursday. My running club friend, Mark, and me ran together and pretty much chatted the entire way round. I always love parkruns the day before races because I know I shouldn’t push it and feel justified in taking it easy.

After packing things away I had to dash off to get home and sorted as my friend, Bhuvana, was hosting a garden party. She’s a (very close) friend from work so my mum and dad were invited too (my dad works at the same company as me) so they were pleased they could have a couple of drinks and get a lift there and back. I don’t normally drink anyway and it was hardly likely I would before a marathon anyway!

I got to wear my new skirt again

There was a fantastic spread of Indian food (one of my favourite cuisines). Bhuvana knew I had a marathon the next day and was worried how the food would affect me so had made sure it wasn’t hugely spicy, bless her. I practically boasted that I had a stomach of steel and often had Indian takeaways the night before long runs. I’d be fine…!

There was chicken tikka (my favourite), chicken tikka masala, a chickpea curry, samosas, rice, naan bread, poppadoms, salad and dips. Well, I was in my element as you can imagine and went for pretty much everything.

I’m not a rice fan but knew I needed something a bit more carby so I had a naan bread, which I’m usually not a fan of either but the sauce required something to dip in so you gotta do what you gotta do 😉

I had another plate and a half and was lovely and full. Pudding was an Indian ice cream but I gave it a miss as I knew it’d push me over the edge and I can always give or take ice cream (unless it’s with a chocolate brownie).

And what do you do after eating a large load of Indian food? Jump on a trampoline of course!

I love trampolines! I used to be in the trampoline club at school. It was brilliant. Though my tummy didn’t quite agree afterwards.

I had the usual conversations with a few non-runners when I mentioned about the marathon the next day. One said “how far is that? 25 miles?” and another “Is that in London?” which is always amusing. One woman said “I’m just happy to do 20 minute son the cross trainer every day and stay fit that way”. Absolutely fair enough – but to me that sounds unbelievably dull!

Bhuvana’s adorable little dog, Rain, who shakes her foot when she’s scratched

After the party we headed back to my parent’s where I was spending the night. My mum and dad were coming to the marathon to support me so it made sense. [In the end my mum decided she would give it a miss as she wanted to stay with the dogs (three of theirs and my Alfie) so they wouldn’t be cooped up again all day and her back is still not 100% 🙁 I do jokingly call her a part-time supporter…anything more than 10k and she’ll flake on me (I am of course joking).]

As the evening drew in I knew I needed to eat something else, despite not feeling that hungry. I went for the safe option of porridge. We watched Still Alice (such a good film but prepare to cry for 80% of it) and then went to bed…

Do you run the day before a race?

What’s your favourite cuisine?

What’s your favourite curry?

August 12, 2015

Rants and Raves #17

I do enjoy writing my Rants and Raves post because I often have a collection of little thoughts or events that occur during the week that I want to share but don’t always cohesively fit into a good narrative. If you’re bore of the Rants and Raves though, please let me know!

Rant: I work in an office and it drives me mad when people come in ill. I’m not a particularly tolerant person it must be said – I don’t have a lot of patience and I know I need to work on it but this is surely not an unfair complaint. When people come in and spend the entire day coughing up their lungs (not just a little cough, a real lung-blasting one) within a rather enclosed space, well it takes a lot of mental willpower to not yell “GO HOME”. Work is not that important that you need to come when you’re really not well. It’s not good for them and it’s not great for us either!

Rave: Food parcels from the parents. It’s like being 18 again and my parents are sending me back on the train to Cardiff University with a bundle of food.

Ahh university. Those were the days that I was too cheap to buy magazines, chewing gum and quilted loo roll. Small luxuries I still cherish to this day. But back to the food. This time it was more that they were going to throw away this food if I didn’t take it because it would go off.

My parents, I’m sure they don’t mind me saying, are notorious for wasting food. They both have dinners at different times in the week because of when they finish work so what usually happens is my mum randomly buys a load of food from M&S despite my dad buying a load of food from the supermarket. Not all of it will get eaten. This is a rant in itself because I hate wasting food. They do have the best intentions and never set out to waste it, but often as not something will get left behind in the week. And I’m more than happy to take if off their hands.

So I received a half roast chicken, a Cumberland sausage and two slightly iffy looking salad boxes (once the soggy cucumbers where picked out it was fine. I’m not fussy when it comes to eating food past it’s best!).

From this I had a delicious BBQ sauce chicken stir-fry (yes, I know BBQ sauce is practically just sugar…that’s why it tastes so good).

I literally put the entire half a chicken in there and it was massive. I was fairly full!

I used the Cumberland sausage to do something similar but this time used balsamic vinegar and some herbs to flavour it and included some roasted butternut squash and chickpeas.

This was so good! Definitely need to repeat it. At the weekends at the moment I tend to be eating rather random meals as I’m slowly eating my way through the freezer ready for the move (still no date). This also means the hardship of eating all the cake in there too. *Sighs* it’s tough.

Rant: I’m an animal lover through and through but I will always prefer dogs to cats. Sorry but it’s true. I’m sure if I ever owned a cat I would feel differently (though from speaking to other cat owners, you never really “own” a cat…). I own a dog though and I’m pretty sure he would not be happy knowing what was happening right outside his front door.

The absolute audacity of this cat. And when I (gently) shooed it along before opening the door, it sloped off slowly with an indignant air. When I later walked Alfie it was still within proximity to the door and Alfie attempted to do the Big Dog thing of barking at it but then, when the cat simply glowered back, Alfie quickly backed off into the road. *Sighs* My little hero.

Rave: Ahh watermelon. How I adore you.

Such a refreshing and tasty snack. And you can eat so much without filling up as it’s practically water! And it’s so good for you with it’s great anti-inflammatory and antioxidant support.

Rant: I wore a dress to work yesterday. Big mistake.

Bargain dress from H&M; cardigan from New Look; belt not sure

My bare legs were rather chilly. But I refuse to accept that summer is over. I realise I can’t stay in denial forever but it’s August.

And finally this really made me laugh:

Quite amusing! I relate most to Belle I think in terms of nerdiness and book-reading. And I did used to have a boyfriend at college that my friends weren’t keen on – though I wouldn’t have called him at beast!

What Disney character do you most relate to? I think we all knew a Jasmine at school!

What’s your favourite summer food?

Do your parents give you food parcels? One birthday when I was at university my parents surprised me with a hamper of goodies, like sweets, beauty products, chewing gum, magazines and food. It was one of the best presents I’ve had, so random but so useful and appreciated.