injury - AnnaTheApple

November 20, 2015September 17, 2020

Calabrian preserves and running update

Right, before I get into any injury and running talk… I have a lovely little review of some Calabrian preserves.

I was sent a trio of typical Calabrian preserves from Artimondo.

The delicacies are produced by Sirianni, a family business founded by Agostino Sirianni in 1999 and located in Cittanova, a small hamlet in the province of Reggio Calabria, Italy.

The trio consists of (from left to right in the photo) Spilinga ‘Nduja sausage spread, Tropea red onion jam and a black olive paté.

Spilinga ‘Nduja Sausage Spread

“‘Nduja is the most typical and traditional culinary delicacy of Calabria, Southern Italy. Its name comes from “andouille”, the French word for sausage, and it consists in a very soft sausage, so tender that it can be spread. Its unmistakable flavour is vigorous and piquant.” Source

I made the mistake of putting a big blob on a teaspoon to try it out before using it in anything. MISTAKE. It is ridiculously spicy. Spicy in a nice aromatic way though. It’s lovely and flavoursome. I jazzed up some rather boring courgette spaghetti (courgetti – I hate pasta). I made sure to tame it down with a bit of cream cheese though as it was quite spicy. It’s apparently very good on bread and pizza (and of course regular pasta!).

Tropea Red Onion Jam

This is Italy’s answer to onion marmalade I think. It is SO good. I’m loving it. It’s lovely and sweet but does have a slight bitter twang to it, which adds to the flavour. It’s advised to have with grilled meats and mature cheese, so very much like a chutney on a cheese board or a ploughmans.

To be honest, I’ve just been throwing it into stir fries and salads. It goes especially well with grated parmesan cheese (chicken, the jam and parmesan = SO GOOD). I have such a sweet tooth and love the savoury-sweet combo so this just rocks my world.

Black Olive Paté

I was a little confused about this one. It’s apparently a black olive paté… but I couldn’t see any black olives. And it didn’t seem like any paté I’m familiar with! It was more like an olive pesto. Again, it’s ideal for topping bread, pasta and pizza. I added it to courgetti again.

There’s a lot of oil in it but it’s so flavoursome and mixes really well with the ‘pasta’. It is quite spicy but not crazily so.

It went very nicely with tilapia (a white fish) and chicken as well. If you don’t like olives, you won’t like it as the olive flavour is very strong. I love the taste of olives so this really worked for me.

All three jars are £14.96 (inc. P&P anywhere in the UK). A nice addition to a meal 🙂

Now on to my run on Wednesday evening… I ran at an easy pace for three miles. In general it was quite tough. I’ve lost a lot of fitness and as I haven’t done any cardio (bar a few minutes of warming up before my strength workouts) or running for 6.5 weeks. That said, I didn’t need to walk and I wasn’t hugely struggling. Just the slower pace I was running was a lot harder than it used to be.

In terms of my knee and leg? Well to begin with everything felt creaky. Everything felt absolutely fine but as the run continued I just felt a bit off: tight and stiff, and towards the end a bit of discomfort cropped up. It left me feeling a bit unsure about how it went.

I was disappointed, I won’t lie. I felt 98% fine before the run so I thought that would translate into the run perfectly. Yes I know, rather naive! I got a bit grumpy and fell into a bit of a well of despair thinking I’d regressed. After the run my leg did feel worse than before but there was no pain, just tightness and discomfort. A niggly, slightly tender feeling basically. Though I was pleased to find walking downstairs caused no issue other than a bit of discomfort. Walking down stairs was the one thing when my injury was bad that would always hurt and cause me grief so the fact that stairs are no issue gave me hope.

I saw my physio the next day and he calmed me down. He said that the fact I felt no pain during or after was a very good sign. He said it was to be expected that it would feel uncomfortable and niggly. He worked hard on my whole left side and reassured me that the issue I had before (my internally rotated leg – because of the excessive tightness in different muscles) wasn’t there so I hadn’t buggered anything up. He even said a gentle parkrun on Saturday would be a good idea to see how continuing to run affected things. YAY!

I’m still nervous I’ll regress but I’m hopeful I’m on the path to recovery!

Do you enjoy Italian food?

What’s your favourite pasta meal?

What are your plans for the weekend?

**Full Disclosure: I was sent the preserves for free in return for a review. All opinions are my own honest ones.**

November 18, 2015

Rants and Raves #24

Hello Wednesday! And time for some of my ranting and raving…

Rave: I finally got Alfie into his long awaited Halloween costume. I had to cut the sides to make it a bit more roomy for him but it fits quite nicely.

Alfie’s personality is that he’s kind of a push over. He doesn’t do much growling or get ‘angry’, rather he’ll just stand there and look daggers at you. That’s what happens when I bath him or try and put silly bright orange t-shirts on him. He’s also a huge wuss. When it comes to cats, he’ll be ready to chase them if they run but if they stand there and just look at him he doesn’t know what to do so cowers away. My little hero…

I did take the t-shirt off after getting a photo of him though (which took so frigging long as he just wanted to race about the place).

In other Alfie news… when I have to pop to our local shop quickly I’ll tend to walk there and take Alfie with me and tie him outside. He tries to keep me in view in the entire time and has such a look of despair on his face it’s quite unbearable.

It’s almost like he’s saying “Are you coming back…?”. Bless him.

Rant: Sometimes I wonder how I can ever get through a day on my own. I believe I’m an intelligent person (I went to university and got a first class honours degree from the very respectable Cardiff university in Psychology for what that’s worth!) but common sense? Severely lacking.

The Iceland passport debacle for example. Who puts their passport in the washing machine??

Anyway, so I was working from home last week and, as I mentioned in a previous post, I have no furniture so need to use the kitchen counter for my laptop. When I decided to break for lunch I just pushed the laptop to one side and went on my merry way frying up some bits and pieces on the hob.

Instead of the yummy smells of food cooking there was a horrible acrid smell. Thankfully I quickly realised that my iPhone cable was directly in the flame of the hob and whipped it away while turning it off at the plug. Jesus.

Luckily it didn’t cause any crazy electrical fire… but it didn’t work afterwards (yes I did try it, see above about common sense).

Rave: Getting a lovely new lot of coconut oil.

I use coconut oil for all my frying and roasting purposes. The only annoyance is having to melt the coconut oil before I can coat vegetables/potatoes in it. But it’s a small price to pay for this delicious and nutritious source of fat.

Though I have to say, nothing quite beats onion slowly and gently fried in a load of butter. Literally heaven.

Don’t fear butter! Yes it’s high in calories and fat but when had in moderation it can easily fit in a healthy diet. A tasty healthy diet at that. And when I say ‘diet’ I really mean lifestyle, not the ugly connotations so prevalent in women’s magazines.

Rant: I currently have three running tops that I desperately want to wear but haven’t been able to… yet. One of those is my parkrun 50 top.

It’s so soft and lovely and fits perfectly. But I received it after I got injured so haven’t been able to properly wear it yet.

The same goes for the Marathon Talk t-shirt I ordered.

In ‘classic black’ of course 😉 and I received a free Marathon Talk buff as there was a delay. Again, it fits lovely! Made by Xempo.

And, obviously, my Bournemouth marathon finisher’s t-shirt has been left unworn in my running drawer as well. Now I feel like this week is the week that I can get back to running (PLEASE!). I thought I’d wear all three t-shirts to parkrun and on each lap whip one off to get the maximum effect 😉

Rant: When I was at the gym on the busy Saturday I was just minding my own business doing my squats and there were two men near to me using a bench to do dumbbell presses, taking turns while the other rested. When one of them finished his reps he just threw down his dumbbells (very heavy dumbbells, over 20kg/44lbs each!). They bounced away from him towards me – like literally almost hitting my legs.

I understand people want to do a tough workout and want to be near failure on reps but throwing dumbbells down in exhaustion is dangerous in a busy gym! What an idiot. I glared at him after he did it multiple times but I was too intimidated to say anything. I really should have though. To me that shows a lack of control rather than good weight lifting.

Rave: This is a rave for me and a rant for my bank account. I mentioned in my last R&R post (oooh it has an acronym!) that I’ve been buying lots of gymwear… well here are a few more of my items.

The ridiculous bright yellow shorts are from Nike Pro (from Zalando – in fact, I bought those and a pair of bright pink ones too for £25 in total which I thought was a steal as Nike is always such good quality). Top left is another muscle tee from Forever 21. These are perfect for weight lifting in the gym but not for cardio or running because they’re not technical material. But I love the freedom of muscle tees as the sides gape. The funky leggings are from Boohoo and, again, they’re not technical material but they’re perfect for upper body days. And they were so cheap. I bought a few items from Boohoo as they had a good deal on shipping for next day delivery – £1.99!

MASSIVE RAVE (or potentially MASSIVE RANT): So tonight is the night. I’m going to test out running (3 miles, nothing crazy). I haven’t done a single run since Bournemouth. My leg feels absolutely fine walking and taking stairs so I’m really hopeful. Obviously if anything does hurt I’ll stop but I’m really really praying it’ll be fine. I’m seeing my physio tomorrow so I figured this was the ideal time to test it out. Originally I was going to use parkrun as my tester but realistically I need to run on my own without any external factors… just the road and me. I don’t want to be tempted to push through anything or be embarrassed if I have to stop. Plus my dad and me are driving in together so if the run fails I can emotionally collapse onto him on the way home (what fun for him). FINGERS CROSSED!!!!!

Do you have a lot of common sense?

What kind of oils and fats do you use? I’ve heard gee is supposed to be really good but I’ve never tried it in my own cooking… I keep seeing it in Tesco and I’m very tempted.

Have other gym goers annoyed you recently?

November 16, 2015

That boring gym person…

First and foremost, my thoughts are with all those affected by the devastating events on Friday in Paris. I woke up Saturday morning and couldn’t believe what had happened. It’s very sad and terrifying time.

Saturday morning was very sombre. I headed to parkrun with Alfie where it was cold and overcast. No one was really in that jolly a mood considering what had happened the night before. Alfie though was carefree as anything and raced around the place and dove into as many puddles as he could.

Again I wasn’t running this week. I had seen my physio on Thursday and both he and I could tell there was a marked improvement from Sunday when I saw him for an hour and a half. On Sunday he assessed me completely and rather than finding anything wrong specifically with my knee, he said it was a combination of a tight calf, a tight hamstring and a tight back that was causing my left leg to internally rotate and aggravate my knee. On both Sunday and Thursday he worked into those areas and released so much tension. Now it feels like a bit of a niggle rather than the sharp and eye-watering pain I felt just last week.

I was tempted to run at parkrun but he advised against it, saying just take one more week. He showed this very cool Tensegrity model to demonstrate what was happening.

All the wooden sticks are held together by elastic bands and when he pulled slightly on one elastic band on one side you could see how the entire shape changed due to that small amount of tension. He said this is what was happening in my left side. As I was still tight my body would have to change its biometrics to compensate and I wouldn’t be doing myself any favours. Great visual representation!

Anyway, back to parkrun where it had now started to rain. My friend Mark was supposed to be time keeper but he hadn’t shown up so I was asked to take over as I was otherwise just a marshal. Cue immediate panic as time keeping is not a job I’ve ever done before and a lot rides on it!!

Mark did turn up in the end (and took the above photo of me, thank you!) but I kind of wanted to give time keeping a go so he kindly let me do it. At the start of parkrun, just before they sounded the whistle, we held a minute silence in respect for Paris. It was very moving as everyone stood there in silence. And then they were off.

Annoyingly I’d lost Alfie’s lead (I’d put it in the wrong parkrun bag that had got taken away to someone’s car) so I had to time-keep while also making sure Alfie didn’t trip anyone up when they finished. Mark took over at the end so I could help start clearing away the flags etc. with the other guys. I didn’t mess up, hurrah!

After clearing everything away I was cold and wet and though people were heading to the cafe I thought it best to just go home as I couldn’t take Alfie inside and it would be mean to either leave him outside or make people sit outside in the wet. I was sad to miss the hot drink but I got home and had some lovely hot porridge instead.

Alfie once again got a bath as he was covered in mud and then I got myself together and headed to the gym for my ‘legs day’.

Lift, selfie, repeat 😉

Legs day is my favourite day. I just feel really strong and can feel myself getting stronger. It’s my escapism at the moment while I can’t run. Though I have to say midday Saturday is peak time! The weights area was packed but I was lucky to have a squat rack to do my thing.

I did:

Squats: warming up with 12 reps of 45kg a few times then one rep of 65kg, then seven reps between 4-10 from 55kg to 65kg.
Box squats: Five 6-10 reps 65kg-70kg
Deadlifts: warming up with a few 12 reps of 30kg and one at 62.5kg, then six reps between 4-6 from 62.5kg to 67.5kg.
Leg press: warmup of 20 reps of 46.7kg, then 8-12 reps from 67.7kg to 112kg
Sumo squat: warmup of 20 with 10kg, then four reps of 20 with 20kg
Ab work: hanging knee raises and then parallel bar leg raises

This took two hours in the gym! As I a) wasn’t moving and b) wasn’t going to Cardiff anymore I had some time on my hands and I really enjoyed just going through these exercises, listening to music and zoning out. The next day (and still today) my legs are feeling some serious DOMs.

On Sunday I spent a good amount of time rolling my aches and tightnesses, which was both painful and strangely enjoyable. While rolling and stretching I watched the film Margin Call, a tense drama about the financial crash. I know that sounds quite dull but the acting was really good (Kevin Spacey, Demi Moore, Paul Bettany, etc.) and I was fully engaged the entire time (no iPad/phone distraction at all – just the foam roller).

So my weekend was fairly low-key. I’ve become that boring gym person I’m afraid, but it makes a change from that boring injured runner…or that boring runner 😉 Hopefully next week I’ll be running. I have another session with my physio and finger’s crossed…

What’s your favourite muscle group to work on at the gym?

What fims have you watched recently? (New or old)

How do you recover from a hard workout?

November 5, 2015

Rants and Raves #22 and an injury update

Morning, morning. A few rants and raves this morning and another injury update.

Rave: I’m really enjoying the gym. When I have a focus this always happens.

It makes me feel bad ass 😉 I love making my workout plans the day before and deciding what I’m going to do when I get there. There’s no way I could get a proper workout in if I turned up to the gym clueless.

I’m trying to figure out what the best split is in order to do strength training…upper body/lower body, body parts, mixed… so far I’m kind of combining a few bits and bobs. For example, this morning I worked on shoulders, chest and triceps. I’ll do one or two big compound moves (such as deadlifts, squats, bench press and military press) and then follow with accessory moves or different variations to target different muscles.

I used to hate how my arms looked because they seemed a bit too muscle-y but now I love them! But my main goal is to just feel strong, any additional aesthetic gains is just a bonus 🙂

Rant and rave: Did I mention I bought some goat meat (specifically goat shoulder)? Well, I did. Goat meat isn’t that widely available in the UK. I think people assume it’s a tough meat, but it really depends how you cook it – as with all meat. Anyway, I asked the butcher how best to cook it and he suggested slow cooking it without adding anything crazy as it was my first time having it so I shouldn’t swamp its flavour.

Well, now that I have my teeny tiny slow cooker I couldn’t put the entire thing in it so had to halve it. I seared the entire thing by frying it in coconut oil quickly before slicing it in half and freezing the other half. By searing before slow cooking it helps retain the flavour and moisture.

Slow cookers are marvellous inventions and I love mine. It does help to turn the bloody thing on before you leave for work in the morning though. I only remembered as I was half-way to work. GARGH.

Anyway I slow cooked it over the evening instead (such a lovely smell to wake up to!) and had it for lunch on Saturday. I shredded the meat and then fried it with lots of veggies and roasted pumpkin in onion marmalade (a weird choice, granted, but I have limited condiments at the moment due to the move and packing etc.).

Verdict? Very tasty instead. It’s kind of a cross between chicken and beef flavour-wise? And incidentally it has less fat than chicken.

Rant: As I can’t run at parkrun I’m still volunteering and helping set up and clear down. I take Alfie with me as well as it’s a great way for him to get a good walk in and he’s (fairly) well behaved. However with the autumnal weather and rain he gets so muddy. This means having to give Alfie a bath when I get back.

Oh just look at his face! He hates having baths but won’t kick up a fuss. He’ll just stand there looking miserable. He smelt gorgeous afterwards though.

He raced around afterwards and rubbed himself all over the carpet…lovely.

Injury update: So I’m almost 95% certain it’s not my IT band that’s causing me grief. I’m 4.5 weeks out from the marathon and my knee is still very painful. The odd thing is it’s not consistently painful. Sometimes I can walk around and walk up and downstairs absolutely fine. I get a glimmer of hope which is then promptly dashed later in the day when I suddenly get a sharp pain which then doesn’t go away until I stop walking.

The pain is intense, it’s a shooting and sharp pain inside my knee. There’s still a bit of puffiness around the kneecap. I’m icing, compressing, stretching, foam rolling…and no real improvement has happened. My muscles don’t feel tight at all. There’s no discomfort, just a sharp pain.

At the start of the week, I saw a sports massage therapist for another opinion (and he costs less than my physio and can see me in the evening at my home) and he’s pretty sure it’s an impingement of my fat pad in my knee. Massage won’t help it.

Bizarrely yesterday I was in agony walking a short distance to Tesco. I almost couldn’t make it. The pain was identical to the marathon pain (where I had to walk the last two miles). When I say agony, I truly mean agony. I was almost in tears and wasn’t sure I could make it back.

I’m hoping to see my physio again this weekend (he’s kindly seeing me out of hours on Sunday – I think he can smell my desperation) and I’m hoping he can confirm things and provide me with some light at the end of the tunnel.

At this point, I’m not going to lie, I’m panicking. I’m worried about Boston which I know is so far away but the weeks are quickly flying by. I thought I’d be running at some point in November but it seems highly unlikely. At the moment I can only dream of running at some point in December. As long as I’m running in January I can do the marathon. I’ve paid for the flights already and not mention the non-deferrable ridiculous costing race entry.

The only thing keeping me from falling into a dark, dark pit right now is how much I’m enjoying the gym. I’m just trying not to think about the next few months at all. Because it makes me feel sick.

What are your rants and raves?

Have you ever had a seriously painful injury before?

What’s the most exotic meat/food you’ve ever had?

November 4, 2015

Running Survey

As I can’t blog about any current running, I can do a running survey instead! This is stolen from Mary’s blog and I love the questions so thought I’d steal it…

Would you rather run along a beach path or on a mountain trail? I’d much prefer a mountain trail. This is probably because I live by the sea at the moment so I’m quite used to running along beach paths. Also I detest running against wind and it can get very windy along the coast. It just feels so demoralising to be putting in so much effort and not getting anywhere fast. You could argue that mountains are, well, hilly but at least you can get to the top and feel like superman/woman. And the views are amazing.

If you could choose the flavour of Gatorade at your next race’s aid stations, what would it be? I’ve never had Gatorade. I’m really not a fan of the sugary sports drinks. I know they work for some people, especially for those who don’t want to take gels, but they make me feel a bit sick and I don’t feel they quench my thirst. I love plain water or nuun/High5 water.

If I gave you a £100 gift card to a running store, what would be the first thing that you would purchase with it? Where do I start?? I could be sensible like Mary and say trainers…but I just love fitness clothes. For running I tend to go with more sensible gear in terms of fabric, technical spec, fit and survival in different weathers.

When it comes to the gym I like to spruce things up a bit with colours and style as I have a bit more freedom as weather doesn’t matter. But back to running, I would probably buy a couple of Nike or Adidas items as they’re such good quality and last forever. Though you wouldn’t get much from the price! Ka-ching!

Do you prefer to follow a training plan or wake up and decide then how far and how fast you want to run? I don’t follow a strict plan per se, but I do plan out the weeks in terms of what I want to achieve. It depends if I have a marathon coming up or a race of course but I will never go out on a run without knowing how far I’m going to go. But if the run goes awfully (niggles, illness, tiredness) I’ll cut it short, I’ll never force myself to finish a set of miles purely for the sake of ticking a box. Though I’m quite neurotic and like to plan ahead. I use a spreadsheet to track things. When it comes to marathons I tend to look at online plans and see where the long runs fall and then do my own thing for the other runs.

Would you rather start your run with the uphill and end on the downhill or start your run with the downhill and end with the uphill? Definitely get the uphill done and dusted first. That way I can run it when I’m fresh and then focus on the rest of the course afterwards without dreading the oncoming hill. That said, I don’t really mind as long as I know where the hill is so at least I’m mentally prepared. For Bournemouth I was well aware of two significant hills (miles 12 & 18) so IN THEORY I could have adjusted my strategy accordingly. Well, we all know how that turned out in reality.

When you can’t run, what type of cross-training do you choose to do? I like Mary’s answer of sulking. I’m getting an A* for that at the moment 😉 But, like I said in my previous post, I’m focused on building strength at the gym. I had previously been following the New Rules of Lifting For Women but I’ve put it on hold at the moment as Stage 2 requires a lot of lunges which I’m avoiding for the moment as I want to give my knee some TLC.

Cardio-wise…*sighs* I suppose spinning and rowing. Boring and purely for the purpose of keeping fit.

What is your preference—> Out and back, point to point or loop runs? Oooh I’m just not sure. I like an out and back because you get to know the course and nothing’s a surprise in the second half of the race. I also like that you can think you’re running back to the finish. But I like loops as well (Cheddar Gorge marathon was great for this, mentally I could segment the two halves). Again, the course is no surprise in the second loop. I’m not a big fan of point to points as it feels like one big trek to the finish. Mentally I find that a lot harder. Hello, Boston 😉

If you could recommend ANY running related item to a new runner, it would be a—> BodyGlide. Chafing is a bitch. It takes two seconds to put on but days of pain if forgotten. It’s small to pack in your pre-race bag and I personally find it lasts a bit longer than good old Vaseline. That said, it’s better than nothing!

Do you ever see any wild animals while out on your runs? I love how random this question is. Not really as I tend to run around residential areas. This is such a boring answer sorry!

Ever gotten lost while out on a run? Surprisingly not as much as I probably should do considering how little of a sense of direction I have. I’ve run in quite a few places that I’ve never run before and just made the route up as I went, but most of the time when I do that I play it safe and do an out and back. It also helps doing that when I have a set distance I want to hit. I hate having to think too much about my route when running which is why, unless I’m running with others, I’ll always do the same routes.

If you could have one meal waiting and ready for you each time you got home from a run for the next 30 days… what would that meal be? As much as I love planning what to have when I’ve finished a race or a long run, the reality is it takes me quite a while before I actually fancy eating anything. I have got better though with protein shakes to make sure I’m not a quivering wreck later in the day. My KFC after Cheddar Gorge marathon was pretty damn tasty but I wouldn’t want that all the time. Dream world it’d be ribs (like I did after the Southampton half marathon that I made into 18 miles), but reality porridge is one of my standards. Then cake.

Capris or shorts… what do you run in most often? Shorts. My lower body doesn’t tend to get that cold when I run. It’s more my hands and arms. I much prefer the freedom of shorts and during a marathon I like to wear compression socks and capris and compression socks aren’t a great combo (weird naked knee syndrome).

At what mile (or how many minutes) into your run does your body start to feel like it is warming up and ready to go? Probably 5 miles in, which is why 5ks royally suck for me. I think my perfect distance is 10 miles (which ironically is my worst race distance so far). I absolutely don’t understand how people can do races less than one mile. We’re all different though and I have a huge amount of respect for short distance runners. My body doesn’t just doesn’t like short speedy stuff.

What do you do with your key when you run? This is terrible but when I’m at the club I used to put it on the wheel of my car…until I realised you could leave it in a locked room. If I run from home I take the key off the keyring and then pop it down my sports bra if I don’t have any pockets.

If you could relive any race that you have done in the past, which one what it be? Like Mary said, I’m not sure I’d want to relive any races. Races are hard and generally if you got a PB it was really hard so I wouldn’t want to go back there. After getting my 10k PB in the summer I swore I’d only run one 10k a year!

If I could re-do a race to improve on it then I would definitely re-do Bournemouth.

Or at least the weeks leading up to it. I don’t want to live in regret but I can’t help feel so bitter about a marathon that was supposed to be run just for fun. As many people have said though, I was pushing it with two marathons so close to each other (and three marathons in less than 6 months) and not really recovering properly between them. I don’t regret doing Cheddar Gorge as I loved it so much…but if I hadn’t have done it and Bournemouth went well? I don’t know if I could choose between them. I do wish now that I hadn’t forced myself to finish Bournemouth. Initially I said I didn’t regret it, but now I realise that one race isn’t worth so much time off for an injury. No medal is that good. But lessons have been learnt.

What has been your biggest motivation lately to get out the door to get your run on? Generally that it will mean I have to rearrange my week’s plan if I miss a run! I’m that anal about these things. If I say I’m going to do something I will do it unless something legitimate stops me. Even if I feel really demotivated about a run I know as soon as I start going I’ll be fine. I’d rather push myself to go then spend the rest of the day annoyed that I didn’t.

When you go for a run, do you leave right from your front door or do you drive somewhere to start? Either I’ll run straight from my office, straight from my front door, or I’ll run from my club or parkrun. Depends what day it is!

When running in daylight—> are sunglasses a must or an annoyance? I have a really good pair of (cheap) sunglasses that just sit really nicely when I run. I hate getting blinded by the sun.

When you get tired, what keeps you from quitting? Fear of failure! If I have a goal in mind I will really push myself to reach it. If I don’t hit it it’s because the goal was unrealistic (I’ve set myself stupid goals many a time!) or something out of my control happened (illness, injury, weather, etc.). I’m a very driven person. Of course I have demons in my head and self-doubt but if the goal is achievable from the training I’ve put it then I will do everything I can to get there. A killer playlist as well is a great motivator for me, or crowds. Something like that can suddenly flick a switch inside me to GO GO GO despite how I might have felt 30 seconds before.

Pick a few questions and answer – I’d love to know your responses!