All the food and 18 miles

And now we have the long grind until Christmas… I kid, I kid. It’s just sad that it’s our last Bank Holiday for a good while.

But such is life. I’m actually quite happy tootling along right now. Work is good. Life is good. Running is good. SOMEONE TOUCH WOOD. I’ve got to get Zary parkrun planned at some point but it’s looking to be October now because I’m fairly busy during September now. It will be done by the end of the year though, 100%!

My Bank Holiday weekend was a really good one. On Saturday I was finally back to Netley parkrun. I took Kyle along so he could see what I’d been harping on about for ages. His home parkrun is Havant, which I’ve yet to do, but is apparently VERY tough. It’s always fun seeing your home parkrun through a tourist’s eyes.Everyone, of course, was super friendly as normal. The sun was shining but it wasn’t too hot. I was going to run with Kyle and we were going to take it relatively easy because he was only just coming back from an annoying shin niggle. We started off nice and gentle and chatted as we ran round. My legs did feel quite heavy though. I’d run 11 miles on Thursday evening with my friend Kim and they weren’t feeling as rested and fresh as usual.But my plan was to keep Kyle going a bit slower (we’re both bad at not going slow when we need to) which was ideal for my tired legs, but as we warmed up into the run this clearly didn’t pan out as we both increased our speed to the end.I did advise Kyle not to do some crazy sprint finish though because that’s usually when terrible things happen like injuries. He resisted the temptation and just maintained the speed. My time was 23:21, which I was happy with! We helped clear away and then had a coffee. It’s still nice enough to sit outside and enjoy a drink, but soon we’ll be squirreled inside again with all our layers *shudders*.

For lunch we headed to The Rockstone pub in Southampton (by the time we’d had coffee and gotten sorted it was lunchtime!). I’ve been to The Rockstone before and loved the burger I’d had there last time. They’re renowned for their giant portions and crazy sounding burgers.

For starters I had the loaded nachos (still loving my nachos). Hands down, best nachos I’ve ever had. Pulled pork, guacamole, cheese, sour cream, black beans…it had the works.It was giant! I probably should have shared them and I would assume most normal people would but ehhhh. Kyle had some insanely good chicken goujons as well.For the main, this time I went for the Black and Blue burger, which was a beef patty, mushrooms, black pudding and blue cheese. I love black pudding and blue cheese so this was right up my street.I wasn’t fussed about the chips but was keen to try the chicken wings (the nachos had won in the starter battle) so I ordered three chicken wings as a side (just three this time…). Kyle said he’d eat my chips.

Well the size of the burgers (and the size of my starter!) meant that neither of us touched my chips. I also decided to forgo most of the bun because honestly the burger was huge and the filling is the important part in my eyes. The bun was one of those floury baps as well which isn’t appealing to me at all (give me a brioche or a pretzel bun any day).

The burger itself was a little overdone but the blue cheese and TWO pieces of black pudding were delicious. The chicken wings however were plain and very boring. The main meal itself was just a little disappointing I must say. A lot of quantity but not much taste. We rated it 6/10… but the starters a solid 8.

I had every intention of suggesting a trip to Sprinkles afterwards but both of us were so stuffed we really didn’t fancy it. So instead we headed to Manor Farm Country Park for a nice long walk. The weather was still sunny but not too hot so it was perfect.It was exactly what we needed to help the food baby situation going on! I forget how pretty Manor Farm Country Park is. I only ever run around it when I’m in that area (I used to run there a lot more when I lived in Hedge End).The next day I had 17 miles planned. I was meeting my two friends, Martin and Mark, in Titchfield at the delightful time of 9.20am. Now that’s my kinda running time! Cheeky little lie-in, no stress. I ran two miles down to meet them and then we did my usual 10 mile route from Titchfield, to Lee-on-Solent, to Stubbington and back to Titchfield. It’s lovely and flat and goes along the sea front. It was a bit windy and rainy but thankfully nice and cool.Martin only wanted 10 miles so we dropped him back to his car before heading off for another three with Mark. We did a little out-and-back and were both feeling the grind. The weather was turning and it was getting very overcast. After the three with Mark, I realised I could get my run to 18 miles if I ran slightly longer on the way back.By this point the heavens had opened up and it was tipping it down. This helped quicken my pace! By the time I got home I was drenched through. But I was so happy to have gotten 18 miles because usually that’s quite a daunting run. But it honestly didn’t feel like 18. For the rest of the day I wasn’t overly tired and my legs felt good. Woohoo! Hopefully this means the training is going well and I’m running strong.Monday was a far more chilled day. I felt good so went to the gym and did a Sweat class (basically circuits for 45 minutes) and then had a lovely pub lunch with Kyle.Yes, yes more nachos. I can’t be stopped. A more manageable portion size this time! And Kyle catching me take awkward photos of my food 😉This time we did have room for pudding! I had a delicious rocky road sundae. Kyle had a really tasty looking chocolate orange “crownie” (a cookie brownie) which looked amazing but as I hate chocolate orange I gave a miss.We had another lovely walk and a chilled Bank Holiday Monday. Solid weekend!

How was your Bank Holiday weekend?

What food can’t you get enough of at the moment?

Are there any popular food flavour combos you don’t like?

Things I’m Loving Lately – June/July

My blog has gotten so behind. I’ve just been a bit mad busy lately and haven’t had the chance to actually sit and write about life… I have a lot of notes on my phone and posts that I’ve been intending on writing but ehhhh just time has gotten away from me. Excuses aside, here’s some stuff I’ve been loving.

Football: I was really enjoying the World Cup. Handily at Wiggle we had the TV on all the time so we could watch (while working) the matches that went on throughout the day so I felt quite on top of what was going on.And it was so much fun watching the England game against Croatia in a packed out pub. I’ve never watched a match like that before and hearing everyone chanting was just such a thrill. I’ve never felt so emotionally invested in a World Cup before and that match was both a fantastic and devastating experience. It was sad that England got kicked out but I’m so proud for how far we got.
What really made me laugh though was in the pub two girls were doing their nails. I mean, seriously.

Love Island: Yes, yes judge away. I’m aware it’s potentially showcasing everything that is wrong with our society and it’s vacuous and pointless. That said, I enjoy watching it. I’m not ashamed and happily admit I tune in for every episode. I assume it’s why people enjoy watching horror movies. They obviously don’t want to be in a similar experience but they enjoy watching it. I don’t need to engage my brain, I can switch off and just let the ridiculousness play out in front of me.

My mum watched an episode with me and it was beyond hilarious. The comments (“Anna, do they have nookie on TV? In the same room?” and “Are they wearing bikinis or knickers?”) just made the whole experience another level of entertainment. It was like my very own version of Gogglebox. She quite got into it by the end – Team Danni and Jack all the way!

Cinema Visits: Speaking of horror movies, I saw Hereditary the other week. Why oh why did I do this to myself? In my mind the rationale went like this: I’ve never seen a horror movie in the cinema and people say that it’s a thrill to watch it amongst lots of other people reacting similarly to you… plus I knew I’d never watch it at home and it had had some good reviews (Mark Kermode aside). I genuinely don’t think I’ve ever felt so stressed, terrified and unhappy in the cinema before. I spent a vast chunk of time trying to embed myself into the seat, trying to escape, and then hiding my face with my hands. I’m not lying when I say that that night I had to sleep with a light on. GENUINE levels of fear. The movie Tag however was very funny and I enjoyed it immensely. There was one joke that was a bit distasteful but otherwise it was genuinely laugh out loud. I really enjoyed it.

Nachos: I have quite a weird obsession at the moment with nachos. I literally can’t stop craving them. I don’t know where this has come from but I just keep wanting them. I go through these weird food crazes where I obsess over a certain type of food and eat it to death (though apples, cake and porridge are long-standing fixtures in my life and have never grown old to me).The standard would be tortilla crisps covered in melted cheese, a sprinkling of jalapeños, a bit of sour cream and some salsa. The pinnacle of heavenly nacho experience however is added pulled pork/beef chilli, big blobs of guacamole and maybe some refried bean action. But this is just me being extra picky. God I love it.

Paul Sinton-Hewitt’s parkrun talk: I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned this on the blog yet! So PSH, the parkrun Founder, came to the Southampton Solent University to do a talk on how parkrun got started. I was on it like a car bonnet. Obviously I love parkrun so this was right up my street.My friend Joe and I went together and we met up with the lovely Rebecca (from Lee-On-Solent parkrun fame) and her husband and we had a thoroughly enjoyable evening hearing all the inside scoop on parkrun.I had never properly heard how it had started – and never knew it had been originally called Timetrial before someone advised him to change the name. And I never knew that Coca-Cola have attempted three times to sponsor them (with an “open chequebook”!) and they’ve turned them down each time because the ethos of the company doesn’t mesh well with parkrun. How cool is that??PSH was very inspiring but I also saw a side of him I didn’t really know about before (not that I know him properly at all… just bits and pieces I’ve heard). He’s quite ruthless and has a steely determination. I mean, I guess he had to be in order to keep it going and to make the hard decisions that needed to be made. But still, what a guy eh!

Frank the plant: And finally… I now have a desk plant. I’ve wanted one for ages weirdly (mainly gorwing out of a dinosaur plantar pot if I’m honest) and then our office building had some plant people in and they were giving away free plants. I hot-footed it quickly to grab myself one and I named it Frank.Apparently it’s a jade tree plant, which is essentially a “starter” plant for idiots. It’s tough to kill it basically. This is ideal for this gardening novice!

Do you enjoy gardening?

Do you have a current food obsession right now?

Do you like horror films?