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Easter Weekend

The UK just experience an almost unbelievable thing… a SUNNY and warm Bank Holiday long weekend. I mean, this is rare. Usually on long weekends we’ll get darkness, coldness and invariably rain.

Friday I had a lovely 7 mile run to set me up for the day after a nice lie-in. There’s something so magical and wonderful about a Friday off of work. In the afternoon I headed to Reading where I met up with the lovely Emma and Cortney for some Harry Potter-themed shenanigans. I’ve been before but I was excited to go with Emma and Cortney as I’d be able to make some good new memories with them there.

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves as we walked around basically being kids again – getting the different stamps in the different places for our HP Passports and just enjoying all the behind the scene trivia.

We tried the Butterbeer and confirmed, yes it was in fact disgusting. Like cream soda but worse.

We also enjoyed the fact that though we were fans of the books and films, we were not superfans in that we weren’t anal about what we knew or in what book what happened. It was very chilled. It has made me want to read the books again tho (for the zillionth time…).

The next morning we headed to Woodley parkrun. I’ve done Reading parkrun before so I quite pleased to try a different one.

It was very warm already despite not even being 9am. Wowza, summer has arrived!

I was feeling good so decided to see what my legs had in them. I popped some music on and got carried away as everyone charged forward at the start. The course was three laps and pretty much flat asides from a couple of quick inclines and a nice little downhill. It looped around a playing field and was on both trail and pavement. It was a fairly quick course, and quite pretty as it went round a lovely pond area.

I managed to pick off a few females but ultimately just tried to hang on to a speedy pace (for me). I’m chuffed I managed a negative split and a time within the 20s (20:37).

This hasn’t happened for a while and has given me a bit of an urge to ramp up the speed training again… (Parallel to this happening, Kyle was almost smashing a sub-20 minute parkrun at Portsmouth Lakeside with 20:04!).

It was WARM though. I was sticky and sweaty afterwards. Lovely. Emma wasn’t long finishing after and then we both cheered Cortney in. Emma killed my soul though by forgetting her parkrun barcode…and not even minding! Mind. Blown. 😉

We then headed of course to brunch. parkrun and brunch, I cannot stress how much joy this brings me. Emma took us to one of her favourite spots, the Geo Café. It’s a lovely little café and has a very hipster feel offering Georgian-themed dishes and vegan cakes. No dirty big fry-up for me! I got to try something new for a change.

I had the decadent duck dish. This had two fried duck eggs on top of two slices of freshly baked sourdough and black pudding. It was delicious. And not a piggy portion in sight 😉

Afterwards we got some cake to takeaway (obvs). I went for a slice of vegan chocolate cake. Now usually I’m not a chocolate cake fan (or vegan for that matter) but it called my name as I stared at it. It literally looked like heaven.

I managed to polish it off when we got back (Cortney, a normal human being only managed half – why am I like this?!). I did feel somewhat sick though…possibly the cake pop on top finished me off but it was worth it.

Then the three of us went and got pedicures. I mean WHO EVEN AM I!? I tell you what though, it was so needed. My feet have not received such love and attention for a LONG time. I did feel for the beautician though having to deal with my feet… She reassured me that she’d seen worse but I’m not so sure.

I’m SO pleased with how pretty they look. OK I know, my feet are still pretty grim but at least they sparkle now (I pondered whether to upload a photo but thought I’d spare you). Then I drove back to Portsmouth to Kyle’s where we enjoyed a lovely lazy evening with an Indian takeaway.

The next morning we were up at a reasonable time to try and beat the heat ready for our 13 mile run. And to swap Easter Eggs 😀

Kyle”s mum got me two amazing eggs – and on the pineapple shaped egg she crossed out “pine” 😀

Where Kyle lives, it’s tricky to do long runs as it’s ridiculous hilly (it’s near Queen Elizabeth Country Park). The first 5k is very undulating and then mile four seemed to go up a mountain.

It was really quite warm so it was tough going. Unfortunately as we got to almost mile 5 Kyle had to stop due to his calf giving him a bit of aggro. He sensibly decided to head back home (which wasn’t *too* far away at this point) while I headed on to continue the run.

As I didn’t know the route Kyle had planned it seemed most sensible to just do an out and back along a route I was familiar with. Kyle also said he could come back on his motorbike to give me some water and my headphones if I wanted them.

As I carried on running I realised I was actually fine without having any music or podcasts, like I’d normally have during a long run, and just let my mind drift off. I was quite enjoying the run and it didn’t feel too tough, despite how undulating the route was and the hot sunshine beating down.

At 10 miles as I was heading back Kyle pulled up next to me. I was really grateful for the water and gulped it down. It was nice to see him but I turned the headphones offer down as I was quite enjoying the nothingness.

Then I carried on. My run came to 14 miles in the end (I ran too far on the out clearly). It was a lovely run, despite not having the company I thought I was going to have!

Then Kyle and I headed to his dad’s for a roast dinner with that side of the family. It was so lovely. Since meeting Kyle I’ve been welcomed into his family so warmly and through him met so many more lovely people. I feel very lucky and blessed right now – cheesy I know, but true.

We (unwisely?) did some fun and games outside after eating, like high jump and limbo and some ball games. And then enjoyed some DELICIOUS cake pops that Kyle’s sister had made.

Omg so good. Brownie cake pops covered in either white chocolate or milk chocolate. I could have eaten them ALL.

Then we finished the long weekend with a long walk on Monday followed by a BBQ at my my parent’s house with my sister and her partner. Family-time for me is so precious and special. I love that we all get on so well.

What a lovely sunny, happiness-filled weekend!

Did you have a nice Easter?

Did you get any Easter Eggs?

Do you like Harry Potter?

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Harry Potter and doughnuts – what more could I ask for?

Ah this weekend was a mad busy one. Going into it I wondered if I’d actually manage to do all the things I wanted to. Spoiler alert: happily I pretty much did.

Thursday I left work and zoomed to the station to catch a train to Birmingham. It was James’ birthday on the Friday so we had some fun time planned ahead. We spent a chilled evening eating homemade rocky road (so good, possibly my favourite thing) and watching easy TV. The next morning I got a quick 6.5 miles under my belt and even managed a royal flush negative split.

I was trying to take the run easy but half of me also wanted to get back and get sorted before we caught a train to London (well, Watford). The intention was there but though it didn’t feel like a hard effort the paces were a lot quicker than I’d want. I’m trying really hard not to overdo each run in order to remain injury-free. If I want to run consistently five days a week I need to learn the balance of easy and hard. Living and learning!

Anyway, so we caught the train to Watford. We were there to go to the Harry Potter Studio Tour and planned to grab some lunch beforehand. I mean, there’s not a great deal to Watford in terms of exciting things to do (Harry Potter asides) but we got ourselves our first ever Five Guys. Neither of us had had it before but had both been keen to give it a try.

I always seem to say this but I’m not a burger person…UNLESS the fillings are good. A plain burger is so dull to me. But at Five Guys you can go crazy with the add-ins. I had a bacon cheeseburger and went “all the way” but without mayo and mustard. So that includes lettuce, pickles, tomato, grilled onions, grilled mushrooms and ketchup. It was JAM-PACKED.

James and I shared a large fries as well. I have to say, I was fully surprised at how good it was for what is essentially fast food. Definitely far better than a McDonalds or Burger King. That said, you are paying like three times as much…

The chips were immense though. The annoying thing now is that I now have the craving and there’s a Five Guys fairly near to where I live. Oh the struggle.
And then it was time for some Harry Potter fun! I won’t upload too many photos because you really need to go there to see how fun it is for yourself and photos just won’t recreate the magic. If you love Harry Potter you’ll love this tour. So many interesting facts, cool things to see and do and basically just a good time.
I mean, it does make you fully realise how obsessed with Harry Potter people can be though! I’ve been to the Orlando Universal Studios and Island of Adventure where the Harry Potter themed area is (with the cool Hogwarts Express connecting the two parks) but it dilutes the craziness a bit because it’s also got lots of other non-Harry Potter stuff. This was intense Harry Potter-ness. But don’t get me wrong though, I’m a big fan too and will always love the fact that my age-group grew up with the books being released and Harry was the same age as us as we read.After the visit, we caught a train into London where we checked into our hotel. We then headed out to buy some pudding… doughnut style. I’m obsessed with these artisan doughnuts I keep seeing everywhere on Instagram. I’m not usually a big doughnut fan but the artisan ones just look and sound amazing. Something a bit more exciting than your standard ring or jam ones! We bought six from Doughnut Time…despite only aiming to buy one. Oops.It was just a case of not being able to choose just one each. I went for a crunchy-themed doughnut (bottom left), a Nutella filled one (Love at First Bite) and It’s Always a Gay Time (top left) which is basically a lot of honeycomb caramel yumminess. James’ were Stranger Rings (chocolate glazed with Oreo crumbs and Nutella – middle top), Hans Rolo (chocolate and caramel – bottom right) and Cornelius Fudge (actually vegan with lots of chocolate and brownie pies – bottom middle).

But before we got stuck in, we headed to dinner at The Big Easy – a crab and BBQ restaurant. We ordered a sharing platter to start (even number of things helped keep things pleasant between James and I). This had lots of wings (Buffalo and BBQ), fried chicken pieces, ribs, calamari and hush puppies (not really sure what they were, fried corn bread?)This was SO good. The wings were amazing. I mean, to be honest it was all amazing. We thoroughly enjoyed this and polished it off easily. We then had another sharing platter for main. This time containing pieces of chicken, ribs, pulled pork, corn bread, coleslaw and chips (underneath the platter).

I mean it was pretty damn good. The chicken was probably my favourite which is INSANE. Chicken? I know right. But it was just so tender and delicious. The ribs were obviously good too. But man, it was a struggle to finish and we didn’t manage it all. We did give it a good stab though and left feeling extremely happen, albeit quite fat! A fabulous experience nonetheless.We did make quite a few of the staff jealous with our donuts though when we first arrived as we were carrying the box with us. We gave them a sneak peak and they all joked they could look after them for us while we ate. Surrrre 😉

Speaking of the doughnuts… After a good walk back to the hotel we did give them a try back at the hotel. What more can you dream of than doughnuts in bed, eh? I had the crunchy one which was OMG SO GOOD (filled with a delicious caramel flavoured cream). The dough was super light and melt-in-the-mouth.

I also had my Nutella one. Now I have an issue with Nutella. Sometimes I like it and sometimes I’m not a big fan. The doughnut was good but I think it was just too much Nutella for me. It was a bit of a shame but no regrets really!

So yes I realise my day of eating was TERRIBLE and I did go to bed feeling rather full . I also woke up feeling rough and not my best. But I don’t do this every day (Jesus I’d be broke).I do have the odd day at the weekend where I will push the boat out and eat foods people would class as “bad” or unhealthy but in the bigger picture of my diet, it’s fine. I eat my vegetables, I exercise… I’m a balanced individual. And I thoroughly enjoyed every single thing I ate. I woke up feeling the effects of eating a less than stellar diet which just helped remind me why I don’t do this every day. Furthermore, I don’t suddenly restrict what I eat the next day or go into a crazy “I must now diet” mentality. It was just one day (or a few days!). But I do try and get back to my more healthy approach to food and move on. Memories not calories, always my motto.

Do you worry about unhealthy food you eat?

What’s your favourite doughnut?

Do you like Harry Potter?

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Tooting Common parkrun and the Harry Potter escape room

On Saturday I headed to the Tooting Common parkrun in London. This meant another early morning catching the 6.39am train.

Luckily it wasn’t ridiculously cold, but it was still fairly chilly. I was in my running gear plus a jumper (which I’d wear later after the run) and a big winter jacket with a fresh travel mug of coffee to take with me. I was going to meet my friends at 11 after parkrun for some escape room fun (more on that later) so I had a big bag with me as well full of a spare set of clothes, baby wipes, deodorant etc. The best you can do when you don’t have a shower!

On the train I chilled with my iPad watching Mudbound (really good film!) and my coffee. But in the back of my mind I was feeling a little stressed. The thing is, the parkrun I’d chosen wasn’t exactly the quickest one to get to. It was about 20 or so minutes on the tube and then a mile from the tube station. And as my train didn’t get in until 8.23am I was cutting it fine. Not only this but the tube I absolutely needed to get in order to get there in time was the 8.28 one. GAH. I could have made life so much easier on myself by choosing a parkrun that was a little closer to Waterloo, but I wanted to get another letter done for my alphabet parkrun challenge. There are no easy ‘T’s around where I live so this was perfect (I say “perfect” loosely here).

As the train pulled into the station I was like a runner at the start of an Olympic race, I was ready to go go go. As soon as the doors opened I leapt out and stormed it down to the barrier and then out down to the tube. My big bag didn’t help but I had to just move quickly. I thankfully got on the right tube and then was just left catching my breath and standing around for the next sprint. It’s amazing how stressed you can get just standing around waiting and not being able to do anything. The train arrived at almost 10 to and I raced out. I had a map screenshotted on my phone and had memorised the roads I needed to know. I saw another runner running from the tube so assumed I was in good company as they headed in the same direction as me. Though it was slightly awkward as I was running just behind them like some stalker girl.I remember running past a really nice coffee/cake shop and thinking “ooh” and then “FOCUS ANNA”. I got to the Tooting Bec Commons where the parkrun would take place and saw a number of runners. I asked one girl who was running if she was heading to parkrun and she said no. This stumped me a little as I just assume anyone running near to a parkrun would do it! Luckily though I could see a crowd of people in the distance and the welcoming signs of high-vis.I arrived with a few minutes to spare, so quickly stripped off my jacket and jumper and dumped my bag on a big canvas sheet that had been laid out especially for this purpose. I’d done a little bit of research beforehand and knew the course was flat and three laps, but also that it was narrow at points so if you wanted a speedy run you needed to be near the front. This always makes me nervous as “speedy” is so subjective. But I DID want a good time (for me) so tried to position myself in a spot that was behind the clearly very speedy types (you can always recognise them) and in front of the more casual runners. It’s a hard judgement and I was sure I’d probably get overtaken but there we go, you just have to guess!

I got my music sorted (always a requirement for a fast run for me) and then we were off. Tooting Common parkrun is run mostly on tarmac and basically in a triangle. The first bit you run down a path to get onto the “triangle” that you do three laps of. This starts as a long tarmac path, which is great for getting the speed up and finding your place in the crowd. Then you make a fairly sharp turn onto a more mud/compacted trail path. This felt *very* slightly uphill but I might be imagining it. Then you turn left again and run down a nice flat straight of tarmac. The first lap felt quite comfortable (comfortably tough I hasten to add). The second lap begun and I felt the effort of maintaining the speed (around 6.40min/miles) start to become tough. I remember starting to notice more of the course on this lap as the first lap was a complete blur. Like, oh look there’s a nice pond, a children’s play area and nice trees. The marshals, as always, were really energetic and friendly in their support. I tried to thank them all verbally or give a thumbs up as I passed – even if you’re going for a time, they deserve it because they’re standing in the cold! I also feel like they gave me a lot of cheers and support as they could see my gurning face and pain train grimace.

The third lap I managed to overtake a girl who’d been in front of me for a while but had to stop and stretch her calf, then I was on the heels of a guy who was running the same pace. He started looking behind him and then guiding me through other people and giving me the odd encouraging comment. I could barley respond. As the songs changed to the next one on my iPhone I could hear my gasping breath. Not a fun noise it must be said. I managed to drop the last lap to 6.30min/mile and was literally counting down the 0.1s to the end. I saw a girl just ahead of me ask which way to go as we finished out last lap of the triangle and saw we turned off to the right to head to the funnel. I was glad she asked as I hadn’t a clue! As I saw the funnel ahead and made my final sprint I genuinely thought I was about to hurl. That horrible, horrible feeling of almost being sick because you’re trying so hard is awful and one of the main reasons I hate short distance running. You don’t get that in a marathon (or at least the way I run a marathon!). I crossed the finishing funnel in 20:17 (but actually 20:18 officially and second female) with the contents of my stomach still thankfully inside.It took me about five solid minutes to get myself together though. I was absolutely rinsed. I was OVER THE MOON though. My third fastest parkrun (20:06 being my PB and 20:17 from Chelmsford parkrun so many years ago). I couldn’t have given anymore. But it does give me encouragement that a sub-20 minute parkrun might be achievable before the end of the year. As long as I remain uninjured and healthy!I caught my breath and then found my stuff and put my jacket back on as I started getting cold again. As I cheerfully walked back to the tube I noticed that cake shop again (called Crepes and Cakes by Nazish Omar – very nice indeed). Well, it would be rude not to! So I popped in and bought myself a very nice looking slice of rainbow cake. A little “well done me” present. I didn’t eat it then though as I wasn’t quite ready for solids yet 😉 (Actually I haven’t eaten it yet at all because of later foods. It’s safe in my freezer though for a day in need. My parkrun rainbow cake).From there I headed to Liverpool Street on the tube (smiling like a Cheshire cat, looking a bit of a loon in my short shorts it must be said). I had a bit of time before I met my friends so I scoped around for a coffee shop where I could grab a warm drink and a loo to change in. After walking around for ages – so many places closed! – I finally found somewhere that looked ideal. I was cold and really hungry by this point and saw they did fresh porridge, I was sold! Unfortunately after I ordered a coffee and the porridge I found they didn’t have a toilet. Great. Oh well.Anyway I ate the lovely steaming porridge before meeting with the first friend who’d arrived. We found a Costa and I managed to get changed there. Suitably attired for our Harry Potter themed escape room 😉 (Terrible loo selfie there, apologies).

With two more of my friends we got to the Enigma Escape Rooms for what has to be described as the most awesome escape room we’ve done yet (this was our fourth). If you like Harry Potter and like this sort of clue-based puzzle room thing it is definitely for you! It was SO much fun. You’re not actually locked in in this one, it’s more about passing the different classes (e.g. Potions, History of Magic, etc.). God it was awesome. We had put ourselves into the different houses and were wearing our corresponding t-shirts (I’m in Griffindor).We also managed to do the escape room without any clues (these rooms can actually be quite tough and in the previous ones we’ve done we’ve had to ask for help) and finished with 11 minutes to spare. We got a special little wristband thing because we didn’t need any clues and an “Outstanding” level of achievement in our overall OWL (right, I know I sound like a loser right now but I DON’T CARE).After this we headed to the Strut and Cluck where we met the final friend for a lovely lunch. I had a pulled turkey shawarma which was just delicious. It was a little small in my usual portion sizes so I ordered some bread and pita to go with it. But for normal appetites it would be fine.
Obviously an occasion like this will always require pudding so we headed to Shoreditch, not too far away, where the Boxpark is. Apparently this is the world’s first ever pop-up mall. It was very quirky. In fact, it was full of people so hipster it made my teeth hurt. Like you know if you ever walk into Topshop and you see a lot of the clothing and think “who on earth would wear this?”, well pretty much everyone in Shoreditch. It was quite a fun place to look around. It was full of quirky vegan eateries, street-food and, yes, lots of dessert spots. We first went into the Dum Dum Donutterie.After seeing so many cool artisan doughnuts on Instagram and always being so sad they’re always in London I was chuffed to finally see some amazing looking donuts. It was tough to choose but I went for the salted caramel one – I mean, technically it was a “cronut”. It was very dense.
Then, as not everyone wanted a doughnut, we headed to Nosteagia, which is a Hong Kong themed dessert bar (not sure if this is the right term but whatever) which made “bubble waffles”. Basically waffles full of deliciousness. One friend went for a Nutella one and another friend went for a peanut butter themed one, whereas I went for a honeycomb one.Yes, I know. I just couldn’t decide between the doughnut and this. In my head I was sure I’d eat half of each. Hummm.I started with the waffle which was delicious. The waffle itself wasn’t that sweet, but the ice cream, cream, popcorn and salted caramel sauce made it the ultimate pudding. After having about half I decided to try the doughnut. I’m actually not a huge doughnut fan (I really don’t like the jam-filled ones that are predominately popular in the UK) but this was no simple doughnut. It was dense and delicious, a bit like a very dense cake. SO good. (Un)fortunately though, both puddings were far too good to not eat the entirety of. I’m just far too greedy for my own good and finished them both. I’m not even mad. Life is too short to not eat the good stuff. Memories not calories 😉

And then I headed home. It was a lovely, lovely Saturday full of my favourite things 🙂

What did you get up to at the weekend?

Do you like Harry Potter? Which house would you put yourself in?

What pudding would you have gone for?

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What I’m loving lately – October

I haven’t done one of these posts in a while… all the things I’m currently loving lately.

Harry Potter clothing: During my meanderings around the delights of Amazingstoke’s Festival Place last weekend I popped into Primark. In general I don’t do much shopping in physical life. As in, non-online shopping. But occasionally I’ll pop into H&M as there’s one local to me. We don’t have a very accessible Primark nearby (it’s in the centre of Southampton and I don’t generally go there that often because the Internet and Whiteley, a little but fantastic shopping village nearby, save me from such efforts).

Anyway, I’ve digressed. So I went into Primark to hunt down a really nice sports bra someone at work wore when running (she wore it as her running top outside, I didn’t spy on her getting changed or anything weird). I didn’t find the sports bra but I DID find a Harry Potter jumper. And, weirdly, Harry Potter underwear.I bought the jumper but not the pants (and forgot to take a photo of said jumper…). The jumper will go nicely with my Harry Potter t-shirt ready for my friends and my Harry Potter-themed escape room at the beginning of December. There are four of us and we’ve each got a house that fits our personality. I’m Gryffindor 😀New boots: And as a nice segue… a few weeks ago when I was in Chichester my friends and I popped into a charity shop because the Harry Potter-themed window lured us in. Most of the window items had been sold (including an amazing looking Harry Potter chess set!). However I then spotted a very cool pair of boots in almost perfect condition. For £8.50!
OK I rarely wear heels but I’m sure I can push the boat out one day… After all, I no longer have a standing desk at work (I mourn for it daily, believe me. It just means I have to get up and move about more frequently. But it does mean I can relax a bit more at work) so really I could wear heels.

Gin: And another great segue(!), my lovely friend Charlotte and her husband, Paddy, gave me a prototype Christmas present when we were in Chichester. A sort of “make-you-own hipster gin” ingredients set.How cool is this? So each little jar contains different ingredients, like dried lemon peel, cinnamon, juniper berries etc. that you can add to a gin and tonic to spruce it up. Gin has become rather “in vogue” (though to be fair to Paddy and Charlotte, they were loving it waaaay before it became cool) and my dear mother has appointed herself some sort of gin connoisseur recently. She’s bought about five different kinds of gins! So when I showed her this little set she was VERY excited. That evening we made up a few glasses of lemon and juniper berry flavoured gin. Ooh er!So fancy! It tasted very nice. I’m not a big drinker but my drink of choice is a G&T. So crisp and delicate.

Protein powder: Speaking of tasty things. I am currently OBSESSED with the MyProtein marzipan-flavoured protein-powder. I adore it. I add about 20g (so maybe a scoop?) of it to my porridge and it rocks my world. It’s not overwhelmingly sweet or crazy strong, but subtly almondy. I was using the Chocolate Smooth flavour but this is SO much better. I got a small pack as I wasn’t sure what I would think (450g I think) but I’ve since gone back and bought a 1kg. I also bought the Cinnamon Danish flavour and the Speculoos. I had to Google what Speculoos was though. It’s a limited edition flavour (as is Marzipan) so I thought what the hell, why not.As a side note, as I’m living at home I obviously get these things delivered there. My dad also buys lots online as well (usually some random cables or part for his latest robot craze or yet another Alexa – I swear Alexa is becoming an omnipresence in the house. You can’t move for her) and he mentioned the other day that it can be quite disappointing when something is delivered but it’s for me not him. He grumbled that it’s usually “running gear or some powder of some sort”, which did make me laugh. He’s not wrong.

Cake: Cake has been very much in my life in a big way recently. The guys at Wiggle are fantastic at bringing in snacks and baking. It seems like every week we have something new to munch on. I’m not mad. On Monday last week it was one of the guy’s birthday and he brought in a chocolate cake he made. Someone else from another team had also baked him a cake too! A chocolate melt-in-the-middle cake. Obviously I had a bit of both. I was glad to have tried both as well because at the end of the day as he picked up the cake he’d baked to put in the fridge he dropped it on the floor! How devastating! I mean, it was hilarious but equally heart-breaking at the same time. RIP cake.And I’ll try not to think of just how many bits of cake I had the other week when someone left. There was literally an idea table covered in delicious home-baked goodies. I’m an absolute sucker for anything home-baked. After eating 80% of what was in the bowl I decided not to have any more (it was only 10am…). I put it in my drawer and tried to forget about it. Well, the afternoon came and the cake was promptly eaten. *Sighs* I had the best intentions at least.

Christmas snacks: And on the note of delicious snacking, I popped into Lidl before work one morning (handily located on the road from my gym to work. I love Lidl and am really glad I can frequent it more often). I love browsing supermarkets (I’m a strange breed I know) and Lidl’s Christmas selection is always worth a gander. As a side note though, their bakery is at the front of their shop and it gave off the most intoxicating, delicious scents of freshly baked pastries, bread and cakes. I almost passed out (this was post-workout after all). Once I came to my senses though I found one of my favourite Christmas snacks: lebkuchen gingerbread. I first had them when I was in Berlin visiting my friend and they were amazing. I mean the big fat ones you can get at the Christmas markets are the best (I don’t know if they’re the same things but they’re very similar). They’re gingerbread but very soft and almost cake like. I’m not a huge fan of hard gingerbread (the British creations) but these are DIVINE.Running: And finally something to do with running! I’ve “officially” started marathon training. I mean, nothing much has really changed to be honest. My long runs will be getting longer and I hope to do a speed session once a week. The speed session is a new addition to the rota because I never normally do it (other than a speedy parkrun occasionally).

Yesterday I went out at lunch with the intention to do some sort of speed workout. Originally I was going to do two minutes of hard effort, followed by 30 seconds of easy as many times as I could be bothered but during my (almost) mile warm-up I decided to do mile repeats. The lake next to the office has a gravel path around it and it’s about a mile long so I decided to just blast it round, have a jogging break, then repeat. My intention was to go sub-seven minutes for the mile as this is what I’ve been able to do on some miles at parkrun. Well, I definitely surprised myself. I managed THREE mile repeats (with 0.4 mile jogging recovery) at sub 6.45 pace. I mean it was TOUGH, both mentally and physically. But I did it! I definitely needed those recoveries between but I felt strong maintaining the pace (though it did feel like death. God I hate speed work). Afterwards though the feeling was AMAZING. In the end I did 10k total and I was around a minute off my PB! Not too shabby. SplitsUnfortunately though after showering and getting back to the office, I had the most ridiculous red face which quite a few people commented on. Wonderful.

What kind of speed work do you do?

What Christmas treats do you like?

Are you a Harry Potter fan?