Baking Fail and Weekly Workouts

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

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

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

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

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

*sighs*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And to recap this week’s workouts:

Monday: Spin

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

Wednesday: Off

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

Friday: Spin

Saturday: Parkrun (3 miles)

Sunday: 12 miles and body pump

Total miles: 30

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

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

How was your weekend?

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

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

A little slice of a great weekend

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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So true

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

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

Red velvet

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

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

London Tube

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

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

London pub

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

London pub food

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What did you get up to this weekend?

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

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

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

Spa day, races and tasty snacks

OK, I don’t want to rub it in…but I haven’t been at work today! I’ve had the day off! Hurrah! And I had a very lovely day indeed with my mum and mother-in-law. We bought Groupon vouchers ages ago for a spa day. Ooh-err!

We went to a local hotel which was all rather posh and lovely.

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And indulged in a bit of a pampering. We had a neck, shoulders and back massage, and a facial. Oh it was divine. It lasted for so long and then we could mosey about in lovely thick robes (though it was a tad hot in them considering the weather). We went in the pool and Jacuzzi (well, I just sat in the Jacuzzi) and then had a lovely salad for lunch in the gardens.

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I went for marinated chicken with sundried tomatoes and rock. So good.

Does anyone else find it awkward having a treatment? I’m always so self-conscious. And about the most stupid stuff…like what should I be wearing under my robe? Should I be in just my knickers, should I be in my bikini? And then when she’s actually massaging me I start over-thinking…should I be talking to her? I hope my back is a normal back…Should I be complimenting her technique? Jeeze I never know. So I just stayed silent. Better to say silent then say something stupid!

Well, despite my ridiculous over-thinking anxieties, it was wonderful. We had a lovely morning/afternoon.

Just looking back at the week, on Wednesday night Ben and me headed to a league run with our running club called the RR10 league (do other people have that??). Basically all the running clubs in our area compete in a set of 10 races at different locations. It’s not based on time but rather actual place you finish.

Because I never manage to get home in time from work I haven’t made any others except for Wednesday night which was really close to home.

I was feeling a bit nervous as my hip/knee has been giving me a bit of grief again (*wails in frustration*). I’ve found I have hip bursitis. Joy of joys. Basically my hips flares up a bit when it’s tight and it causes a bit of discomfort in my hip and knee. All I really can do is use lots of ice, stretching and strengthening of my hips.

So I was going to take this run as just a fairly standard run. Not too easy but not going like lightening. The race was off-road and apparently 4.8 miles.

As we started the first mile was quite slow anyway as it was single file through a corn field. You couldn’t overtake which was so frustrating. But I thought this was ideal really as it stopped me from sprinting.

Then the next couple of miles were OK. We came out of the corn field and I could speed it up a tad and get past some people.

RR10 Anna

I’ve been wearing a knee thing to just give a bit of extra support

Towards the end of mile three we hit a steady incline and it got rough. I felt like my legs were like lead and I was tired. I literally felt like I had no energy.

Then mile four was another loop of the bloody incline. I found myself despairing by looking at my Garmin but I literally could do nothing about it. Anyway at like 4.5 miles I was thinking “excellent, almost there”.

We hit mile 5 and I was thinking “ermm, where’s the finish then?”. Some marshals shouted we were almost there and I decided to give it my all. I mean we were at 5.1 miles, it must be round that corner right?

I got round that corner and no finish line was in sight. I lost my speed and motivation. Finally I saw the finish and practically crawled across it. Really not fun.

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Man it was tough. I came twelfth girl though (whoop whoop). Considering the first mile was pants as I got stuck behind so many people (as did everyone I guess) and I’m still having issues with my leg I think that’s great Open-mouthed smile

I went home and had a lovely ice bath and whipped on the compression socks. I still have an irrational fear of my compression socks since the dreaded cramp incident the other week…Ben has to help me now. Haha.

And I also want to share with you guys these great snacks I’ve been sent for review. The lovely Jemma over at Celery and Cupcakes got me involved and I was more than happy to try these bad boys as I’d heard good things about them.

Garbanzo

They’re called Garbanzo snacks and have only been around since 2011but the fan-base is expanding! Basically they’re roasted chickpeas and they have a pretty clean ingredient’s list: GM-free, no additives and no preservatives. And they’re high in fibre so help keep you full.

And they taste really good. They’re satisfyingly crunchy and the flavours are great (my favourite is the Thai sweet chilli).

And the best part? The serving sizes are huge for 88 calories!!

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This, my friends, is only half a portion! I decided to drag them out for as long as possible as I was addicted and only had three bags. Really, really good.

***Thanks to Jemma, I can offer you guys 20% extra if you decide to purchase any of the snacks from their website. Basically the discount is two packets free of charge for every order. Just type in GARB/02 in the notes section of the shopping cart.***

And that’s it from me! We’ve got Parkrun tomorrow and then the dreaded New Forest 10 miler. I may not survive due to dehydration, so thanks for reading guys. I’ll miss you! Winking smile

What treatment would you have a spa? I’m all about massages. It feels SO good.

Have you suffered from any injuries?

What snacks can’t you get enough of?

Summer BBQ – WIAW

For this What I ate Wednesday, I thought I’d share the BBQ we had at the weekend. As I said in the last post, we turned up at my parent’s house and found they were thinking about having a BBQ…so we sort of just invited ourselves! I’m sure they didn’t mind really… Winking smile

Thanks, Jenn, for hosting as always Open-mouthed smile

I found my parents had bought some pink lemonade so I started myself nicely on that while relaxing in the beautiful sunshine in my parent’s garden.

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The men folk did what men folk do best…play with the BBQ, drink beer and set fire to stuff. Supposedly cooking Winking smile

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The women folk did what we do best…sit and relax!

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I found a BBQ cookbook at my parents and also borrowed their mini iPad, score!

In the morning I ran 10 miles so I was definitely ready for a lot of food! And happily, my parents seemed to have bought enough food to feed an army…or at least a very hungry Anna Open-mouthed smile

BBQ July

I thoroughly enjoyed several glasses of pink lemonade and snacked on lots of carrots and cucumbers dipped in the amazingness that is avocado and hummus dip (seriously this is amazing) while the meat was cooking.

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Whoops, caught red handed!!

For the meat I had a very large kangaroo burger. FYI: kangaroo is amazing. It’s like beef but slightly gamey. Really flavoursome. Ben kept reminding me I was eating ‘skippy’ though. My dad thought it was funny that I didn’t want a bun with it. To which I replied: why waste valuable stomach space on boring bread?? I had a lot to get through and I did not want to be hindered Winking smile

Next up were chicken tikka skewers which their local butchers make. Heavenly. I’m not going to lie. I ate three.

Then came the piece de resistance. BBQ ribs. Unfortunately I didn’t grab a photo. I was too eager to scoff them down and by the time I realised, my hands and face were a state. Two big chunky ribs. And my mum even had two as well – I never knew she liked them!

I was stuffed. But then came pudding.

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I had a few scoops of rocky road ice cream and also millionaire shortbread ice cream (thank you M&S). It pretty much was as good as it sounds. I added fresh strawberries as well.

I then had to be crane lifted home. I was so full. I personally blame it on the pink lemonade Winking smile

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Sam, Dylan and Lexi (my parent’s dogs)

I’m sure the dogs enjoyed the BBQ too…but they don’t looked amused do they?

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I think Alfie really just wanted that avocado dip. I don’t blame him.

I have to share this photo. My mum, bless her, is not the world’s greatest cook (but is the world’s greatest mum). She was in charge of only one food-related thing.

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Boiling the eggs for the salad. In the largest saucepan known to man. That’s global warming for you right there.

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Anyway it was a lovely very chilled afternoon. And I’m not ashamed to admit that Ben and me got home and had a little nap. I don’t even like naps usually!

What kind of BBQ food do you like best? I’m all over chicken, ribs and fish. And vegetable skewers. And kangaroo now.

Favourite ice cream flavour? Usually I’m all about Ben and Jerry’s but Marks and Spencer’s was pretty darn tasty.

What’s your favourite dip? I didn’t even know they did avocado and hummus dip. It was so creamy and tasty. I also enjoyed a blue stilton dip which was very strong.

What makes you happy?

Hi guys, hope the week has treated you well. I thought I’d be a little reflective in today’s post. I read something online during the week that really got my brain ticking. It was this article from the BBC news website:

Can we make ourselves happier?

Everyone wants to be happy in life. I think when people make goals and plans, whether that’s to save up for a new outfit, run a significant race, or progress in your career, it’s ultimately to be happy. Unless you have some pretty altruistic goals, that tends to be the case I think.

In the article, for example, apparently you’re happier if:

  • You’re in a long-term relationship
  • Go out to dinner (that’s my kinda happiness right there Winking smile)
  • Lead an active life
  • Actively engage in politics (I listen to the news does that count??)… and so on.

So this got me thinking: what makes me happy?

Well, I guess it comes as no surprise that my husband is on the top of the list.

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Marrying him was the best thing I ever did.

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Oh sure he annoys the hell out of me quite frequently (man-related bathroom paraphernalia not put away, ringing me panicked and confused when I ask him to put the washing on if he gets home before me from work despite the fact I have told him a million times how to do it Winking smile) and I’m 100% certain I annoy the hell out of him too (apparently I malt like a yeti…). But we’re stronger every day because of our trials and tribulations.

Sorry, mush over.

I would also say that a strong contender for increasing happiness (that I didn’t see mentioned in the article) is having a pet. Specifically, having a dog. Cat-lovers don’t hate me – I have limited experience with cats…but we’ve always had a dog. When I was living at home my parents had dogs (and still do) and now Ben and me have our own pooch, Alfie.

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He’s part of our little family and our home would be empty without him. His little quirks which drive me mad (eating kibble on the LIVING ROOM FLOOR, thus crumbing everywhere) only make me love him more.

And obvious family (and friends) in general:Family

They’ll do Winking smile

And it will come as no surprise that I love running and it makes me incredibly happy.

DDay Photo

When I couldn’t run properly for a couple of weeks it made me the grumpiest person known to man. And my husband (and family) were getting pretty fed up of me. I called it my Running Depression.

But we’re through that. I’m past it. I’m a new woman. A more-cautious-terrified-of-any-niggle woman, but it’s all good. Though honestly, I don’t even want to admit how many races I’ve got coming up. It’s become a problem. But I’m hoping they’re staggered sufficiently to avoid any over-training/injuries.

Food. BIG contender for making me happy. Cooking healthy, hearty meals:

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And enjoying not-so-healthy, but equally enjoyable food:

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That was the day is ate three and a half puddings. It was a great day.

Food for heart and soul is essential for happiness. It’s all about balance.

And though there are hundreds of things I could write that make me happy, the last thing I will note is reading.

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Going to bed with a good book is the best way to end a day in my opinion. I may sound like an old granny, but I really relax when I lose myself in a book Currently I’m absolutely gripped by Ken Follet’s Winter of the World. It’s a good’un.

Just one simple question today: what makes you happy?