parkrun - AnnaTheApple

January 6, 2016

NY’s resolutions, parkrun overload and the National Trust

I’m not really one for New Year’s resolutions I have to be honest. I think the only thing I’d like to do better this year is not be late All. The. Time.

I’ve mentioned this before on my blog I’m sure but I just don’t leave myself enough contingency time. In the morning I won’t add in time for my ‘faffing’, i.e. tidying, swapping shoes at the last minute, forgetting stuff, spilling stuff… I’m a nightmare. I literally arrive everywhere at least 5 minutes late. So there we go, New Year’s resolution: be on time.

In terms of what I hope for the year, like I said in a previous post, I don’t really know. I just want to be happy. I’m not sure how that happiness will look though. I’m at a strange point in my life as everything I thought I was working towards changed very quickly. Basically my motto is “just keep swimming” (or I suppose in my case, just keep running). I have a lovely flat, Alfie, good friends and a very loving family so things are pretty good. I also have no real PB ambitions for the year, just healthy happy running. I’m still loving the gym so hopefully continue on with that and keep getting stronger.

On the subject of running… After the double parkrun on New Year’s Day I was starting to feel a tad parkrun’ed out. So many parkruns within a short amount of time! Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret them and I’ll always love parkrun but the weather on the Saturday just gone was awful and for once I just fancied staying in bed.

It was cold, windy and very very wet. I didn’t really want to be there but life isn’t always sunshine and rainbows (especially not in Britain) so I got myself out of bed and down there.

At the start, after jokingly debating with a friend about sitting back in the car with the heat on, I de-layered and got ready to run. At least it made me want to run quickly (well, as quick as I can lately and with that wind). The winter route goes down along the seafront bit which was just horrendous with the wind. It comes straight off the water and hits you sideways. I ran with (well, held on to!) a running club friend, Jim, and he helped pace me until I was able to push on on the last lap, after having gotten a second wind (no pun intended…).

A fellow blogger, April, was there as well which was nice – she almost out-sprinted me at the end but she was too polite, bless her. Take no prisoners I say! 😉

I got 23:59 which I was happy with. Straight away after finishing I grabbed my coat. Normally I’m really hot after running but I was quickly back to being cold. We were a miserable lot packing parkrun up, soaked, cold and wind-swept. Come on springtime!

The shower I had at home felt so good. It was ridiculously hot and strong so it was amazing. I didn’t want to come out! Thankfully the rain and wind died down and my parents and me met up to go to the National Trust’s Mottisfont Abbey and gardens.

I made sure to wear my wellies! The rain mostly held off and we had a lovely time just walking around the grounds and house. It was very quiet so it was nice and peaceful.

Bottom right: David Breuer-Weil’s Alien

There was a crazy statue (sculpture? Not sure how to describe it) of what looked like a man with his head in the ground. Apparently it’s of an alien that had landed from space… Random but cool.

We had a nice little hot drink in the coffee shop (I love this about the National Trust, there are always coffee shops!). I forwent the cake as I wasn’t fancying it (shock horror, I know) due to the Christmas excesses I’d been readily indulging in. After eating everything under the sun I’m ready to ease back into normal eating (I suppose cake eating is my normal eating though…).

I’m tempted to get a National Trust pass as it’s such a nice way to spend a day and we have several locations near us (for non-UK readers, National Trust is a conservation organisation that looks after historic buildings, gardens and areas and you can pay to look around them). It’s nice to have somewhere to walk and look around. Something to ponder over anyway for the future!

What weather do you really dislike? Mine is wind. I can deal with rain and cold, but wind is a killer.

What day trips do you enjoy?

What National Trust sites have you been to?

January 4, 2016

Starting the year with all my favourite things

Oh jeeze, it’s Monday…back to work, back to normal. But no point complaining, this is life. Gotta pay the bills! I didn’t blog very much over the break as I wanted some time off to just chill. I read a few blogs here or there but I have a lot to catch up on.

I didn’t do anything crazy exciting over the break but I had a nice time nonetheless. I saw friends, went on nice walks, spent time with my family and ate lots of really good food. Standard procedure!

I obviously fitted in some cake… 😉
I went to the Tenth Hole (an amazing little cafe in Southsea that does incredible cakes) with a friend and had the honeycomb pie cake… good grief it was good! I also took a slice of the carrot cake home for another time (I say slice, but really it’s a wedge).

As well as cake, there was running. Through my running club I found out there was a cross country race on the Monday after Christmas. I was planning on running around 5 miles so when I heard about the race I had no excuses not to join. I’ll recap that in another post as it was such good fun.

That evening, despite being exhausted and really fancying either a nap or an early night (hugely underestimated the toughness of the cross country!), I had my friends coming over for a games evening flat warming party. We played Disney Trivia Pursuit, which FYI is actually really hard. Some of the questions were very specific and there were a few films we’d never seen, like Herbie and Atlantis. It was tough going so we quickly moved to Cranium which was far better. Defeated by Disney, pathetic.

The next day I went for a lovely long walk with a friend and Alfie. I was concerned the weather would be pants but it actually held out and we had a really good walk around Queen Victoria Country Park.

Alfie, predictably, got ridiculously muddy. He ran through every puddle, every muddy track and just loved it. He got a good bath when he got back to mine and even a little blow dry (so fluffy!)!

For New Year’s Eve I went round to my friend’s, Lou and Tom’s, house. They were having a quiet night in as they have a little one and I’m not a huge New Year’s Eve fan so this was perfect. We planned the evening to be a major chicken and rib fest. I came with some pork ribs and pork strips marinating in a BBQ sauce (passata, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce and a few squirts of the Heinz BBQ sauce).

My friends did a selection of Tikka drumsticks, Chinese chicken thighs and hot spicy wings. There was so much food (the picture above shows barely any of it). I was in heaven, until I was in a food coma… We also had some chocolate panettone which was delicious and lots of crisps. I felt rather full! We saw in the New Year and then I headed home.

The next morning was the double parkrun morning. My alarm went off at 7am which was hard-going and I hadn’t even drunk the night before! I helped set up the Netley parkrun before running in it. The weather thankfully was lovely, though very cold.

Photo credit: Paul Hammond

I wasn’t really sure how to run it as I was doing the Southampton parkrun at 10.30am afterwards. I took it easy before deciding at the end to speed up a bit. I felt incredibly sick though from all the food I’d shovelled into myself the night before… a whole lot of chicken!

I got 23:44 which I was chuffed with. Then it was a case of getting to Southampton quickly ready for the start. A bunch of my club were doing it too so it was nice to have a crowd of us there at the start. And the Daily Echo got some great photos.

Photo credit: Chris Moorhouse (Southampton Daily Echo)

The run itself was tough going at the start as my legs felt stiff and my toes were numb (Netley had been quite wet and muddy so my shoes were soaked). Southampton is an easier course as there aren’t as many hills (just one incline you do twice) and it’s all on a path, so no mud or slipping.

I started towards the front as it was very busy (lots of my club who were really gunning for it were really close to the front). I wanted to give it some wellie but not go too crazy. Depressingly I got overtaken by so many people on that first mile. But I just pushed on and didn’t let it bother me.

I felt myself getting stronger as the run continued and on the last mile I was picking people off to overtake. I overtook many of the females who had overtaken me at the beginning, which felt really good as you can imagine!

I got 23:15 and out of 484 people I came 105th and 8th female, which I’m pleased with at my current fitness. My running club friend Michelle smashed it with first female!

I managed to overtake these two females on the last sprint 🙂

The rest of the day was spent, quite frankly, chilling out. My parents, grandad and I went out for a meal early evening to Coast to Coast (my current favourite restaurant). I was so looking forward to it! I pretty much had exactly what I had the last time I went (a BBQ platter to share for starters and chicken wings for main) but I made sure to sub my sweet potato fries for something a bit lighter (green beans) this time so I could fit pudding in <– strategic eating!

I was really tempted by the ribs but I knew how much I enjoyed the chicken last time… My granddad however went for them and I was fairly jealous by the size of them. I know what I’m having next time!

My rib eating obsession goes back to my granddad as I remember eating ribs with him often when I was younger and him teaching me how to eat them (i.e. leave nothing behind!). He was in rib heaven. He even gave me one which I was eternally grateful!

For pudding I went for the Oreo ice cream sundae, which I’d been dreaming about since I last went. It was good, don’t get me wrong, but I kind of expecting some actual mini Oreos to be in it rather than just crushed up randomly. As sundaes go it was quite small as well – it looks huge but actually the glass is quite thick and narrow. For any normal person I’m sure this would have been enough, but for me (the greediest person alive) it was a little disappointing. I’ll try the carrot cake next time!

I’ll stop there! Basically my holiday was pretty damn good. Family? Check. Friends? Check. Cake? Check. Running? Check. Ribs? Check. Chicken? Check. Boom!

What did you do for New Year’s?

Did you have a good time off (if you were off!)?

Did you do any fitness-related activities over Christmas?

December 31, 2015December 31, 2015

Christmas – lots of food and parkruns

So Christmas has been and gone far too quickly! Depressingly quick. It’s still nice to be off and enjoy the time to relax and see friends.

Rolling back to Christmas then, the morning began with me dressing up like an idiot in fancy dress (with Alfie) and heading to the Netley Abbey parkrun. I was staying at my parents and before I left I somehow managed to persuade my dad to take a photo of me. I was heading there early to help set up which is why it looks so dark.It was so lovely seeing everyone and wishing them merry Christmas. Lots of people had dressed up too so it felt very festive.The run itself was tough. I felt like I was plodding the entire time. My body just didn’t want to go any faster. Luckily my friend Mike felt similar so we ran together, taking it easy, dreaming of the turkey to come later 😉 I managed 24:58 which I wasn’t too happy with (considering Mike and me had said we’d aim for an easy 24…whoops). Sometimes it just doesn’t happen. And when I’m dressed in a tutu on Christmas day I’m not going to complain about it!

Alfie loved his time at parkrun and got ridiculously muddy. He also managed to get his little Santa outfit off at the end as well, bless him. I think he felt a little ridiculous in it. Can’t understand why personally…

We cleared up quickly and parted ways, everyone heading off for their respective Christmases. I went straight back to my parent’s house where I first had to get Alfie in the bath and clean. My parents thankfully took over so I could go and shower and not delay the celebrations. I enjoyed a cheeky glass of Bucks fizz with my porridge and then we opened presents.

I got some lovely gifts which I was rather chuffed with. My parents had bought me some Nike pro shorts (I’m obsessed), some bits and bobs and some items for my new flat.

The ‘A’ is battery powered so I can turn the lights on and off.

Then I helped my dad cook the Christmas meal. We both really enjoy cooking so it was quite fun. We had Christmas music on, peeling carrots, scrubbing parsnips and just enjoying the day. The food, as always, was awesome. We had a prawn and salmon starter and for main turkey with all the trimmings.

It rocked my world. I probably say this every year, but Christmas day is my favourite meal of the year. I just love it. I requested for broad beans as one of the veg as it’s one of my favourites (I know I’m weird). And we had Monopoly crackers!!!

After dinner we went for a walk with the dogs. The weather was so mild but fairly windy. It was great to see all the houses all lit up and people enjoying Christmas. Walking on Christmas day is one of my favourite things to do. It’s a shame we didn’t go down the beach but it was just ridiculously windy and dark so we kept it simple with round the block.

When we got back we had pudding. Normally you’d have Christmas pudding in the UK but no one really likes Christmas pudding in my family. So my mum and granddad had a panacotta and my dad and me had giant portions of a melt in the middle chocolate pudding with ice cream. LITERALLY THE BEST THING EVER.Then we played the Logo Game which we’ve now played for the third time in a row at Christmas. I love it. I stayed at my parents over night, which meant I could get into PJs and watch some Christmas TV into the evening with them (where I enjoyed round 2 of Christmas dinner with the leftovers…because it’s Christmas!)

The next day, Boxing Day, was the proper parkrun as it was Saturday. My tummy didn’t feel in too great a shape to run it must be said…All that food. But surprisingly I felt far better running than the day before and I managed to shave almost a minute off my time (24:12). I felt myself getting stronger as the run continued as well which was great. I usually warm up into a run about five miles in… I’m a slow burner I think (and probably why I hate 5ks and 10ks).

I spent the rest of the day at my parent’s again and my sister, her fiancé and little girls came over. It was manic but lovely. Ellie, my little niece who I ran the kid’s race the other week with, loved her Nike leggings I bought her. She even asked me if one day we could run together and I could run at my top speed and hold her hand so I could pull her along. Bless her!

So Christmas this year was very chilled, a little bit different to normal but full of fun, happiness, family and (let’s be honest, the best bit) GOOD food. Now it’s New Year’s Eve and I’m going to be heading to my friend’s house for a chilled evening of lots of food, films and games.

How was your Christmas?

What’s your favourite Christmas food? Mine is the whole turkey dinner.

What are you/did you get up to on New Year’s Eve?

December 21, 2015December 21, 2015

You can never have too much cake

This weekend past was pretty damn good, if I do say so myself. It was a great balance of being ridiculously busy and then nice and chilled.

Friday night was a casual Christmas drinks evening with some running club friends at the pub. Annoyingly this pub was walking distance from my new home but I had to house(dog)-sit for my parents while they were in London over the weekend, which meant I had to drive instead. Anyway it was a great evening with most people wearing Christmas jumpers and just having a nice natter.

There was even a Michael Jackson tribute singer so a few of us had a boogie. Don’t blame it on the sunshine…

The next morning, as usual, was parkrun at Netley Abbey. The weather was ridiculously mild, albeit a bit windy. We decided to get a photo of our usual set-up crew which was lovely. A few us had our parkrun Volunteer 25 t-shirts on as well which worked out nicely.

I love setting up parkrun with these guys. They’re all just so lovely and we have a good laugh. They were all really supportive when I had my rough times earlier in the year as well. There’s something about running that just brings people together in a good way.

There were loads of guys from the running club running as well because it was our club’s Secret Santa. It was great to see so many familiar faces. At the start I was quite concerned that I was stood next to my super speedy friend, Michelle, but she assured me she was taking it easy having run eight miles already. I think I stayed with her for all of about 100m before she was like a blip in the horizon! Even my friend Chris who I used to be faster than pre-injury zoomed away despite being hungover having not left the pub last night until 1am. My ego got a bit of a kicking 😉

However I was really chuffed with some very even splits. I got 22:59 which I’m over the moon with. I really kept my mind focused on the effort. It’s funny because I’ve stopped listening to music at parkrun now. I’ve found it distracts me and makes me feel claustrophobic. I think if I was really pushing for a specific time I might wear some motivating music, but at the moment I’m enjoying ‘naked’ runs. I’ve taken a minute off my faster time from a few weeks ago. This is definitely progress!

I did do some investigation on Strava to see what my fastest time on this course was and found it’s 21:57 in March this year. Jeeze that’s a challenge! Maybe in a few months…

Secret Santa was good fun as well. We all crammed into the café and exchanged gifts.

Thanks again to my official blog photographer, Mark, for the photo 😉

My label said Anna Jayne Smith (*sighs*) so the person didn’t know me that well but they knew me well enough to get me very posh Strawberry and white chocolate cake and a Christmas pudding shaped chocolate slab. Very pleased!!

Afterwards my sister, her fiancée and Meg and Ellie, her two daughters, met up with me so Ellie could run a children’s fun run which was happening in the park at 10.30am. It was a charity race for Ben’s Heroes and entry was £3. Such a good cause. Ellie is almost six years old and has been doing Junior parkrun quite a bit lately with her dad. I’d love to do it with her but it’s a fair distance away from me and I haven’t been able to get there so I was really excited that I was finally able to see her (and join her!) running.

My heart melted when Ellie said she wanted to be a runner like me and run marathons. I’m beyond proud. Obviously this might be a passing trend but for now I’m over the moon she’s so into it. For Christmas I’ve got her some really funky purple Nike leggings.

I’m jealous! I want a pair! But they are TINY.

Back to the race, Ellie was really excited and kept sprinting off and showing me how fast she could run, bless her.It was two laps of the cricket pitch (our usual fast summer course) and the race organiser said the kids could run one or two laps depending how they felt (there were some quite young children). She held my hand and chatted the entire way round. She even told me that running was good because it made you “live longer”. I’m not sure Ellie should be worried about her mortality at this point in her life but it made me chuffed that she associated running with being healthy. I was careful not to run too fast and kept to her speed andsaid we could walk if she needed to, but she was adamant to keep going. In the end we did the two laps (her choice) and she did an amazing sprint finish at the end.

She got a little goodie bag and a lovely medal. She was really pleased with herself and looked like she had so much fun. I was also so proud of her when she offered her goodie bag to a little boy who didn’t get one because they ran out.

The rest of the day was a mad rush of getting myself sorted, checking on my parent’s dogs and then getting back to my flat to have a catch up with my friend Louise and her husband Tom. We’d arranged a kind of afternoon tea gathering as I said I had a panettone I was reviewing for the blog that would be great to share with them and Lou said she might bake something.

Well, they turned up with some very nice artisan bread, loads of different filling choices for sandwiches, scones, clotted cream, jam and a huge freshly baked carrot cake! Afternoon tea indeed!

I had a delicious brie sandwich with onion marmalade, a pallet-cleansing slice of panettone 😉 following by a clotted cream and jam scone and then finished nicely with a slice of carrot cake. All washed down with tea obviously. They brought their little one, Jake, over and we had a lovely time stuffing our faces and chatting away. I’ll do a full review of the panettone in another post but honestly we were all pleasantly surprised at how tasty it was. It was the perfect level of sweetness for such a sugar-frenzied afternoon.

I then had to rush to an opticians appointment and then rush to my friend Mike’s surprise 40th birthday party (honestly, there was not one single thing I was on time for the entire day). I took with me some sticky garlic and honey chicken wings and breaded paprika chicken tenders that I’d rustled up earlier. Mike was really surprised when he got home and saw us all there after being told he wasn’t allowed in the house until 5.30pm. It was lovely to see how chuffed he was (I might be over-using the word “chuffed”…).

Sheryl’s photo of her amazing cake and my own poor quality photos below (chicken wings bottom right)

Now you might think that considering all the food I ate earlier would hinder my process in making a dent in all of the buffet food on offer here. You would be wrong. My capacity to eat a lot of food still astounds me. Sheryl made this amazing cake and she let me have a taster piece before she sent out slices to everyone – you know, just to make sure it was tip top quality 😉 I then proceeded to have another slice afterwards. As if I hadn’t already eaten enough cake for one day…

The birthday boy (Photo credit to Sheryl)

It was a lovely evening. Towards the end after some people had left, there were just a few of us and we just sat around chatting about all things running and funny stories. Such a great party!

That night I woke up in the middle of the night not feeling well at all. That’ll teach me. I never learn though. I regret nothing! If you can’t enjoy good food with good friends then something is very wrong.

I was going to recap Sunday but this is far too long now!

Have you ever been to a surprise birthday party?

Are you good at being on time? I am awful. I never leave enough time or contingency time when things invariably go wrong.

Have you ever run with a small person?

December 14, 2015

Working on my winter insulation layer ;-)

I am so chuffed. My flat is coming along so nicely!

My little home is very small, but it’s perfect for me. I thought that going from a house to a flat (apartment) would be really hard but actually it’s great. My previous house was a two bedroom end terrace so it was quite small anyway but just for me I didn’t need all that space. My new place is only one bedroom but it has enough space for all my things and storage room (which was always the worry for me if I went for somewhere smaller). I could have gone for a two bedroom but for my budget it probably wouldn’t have been in as good an area or would have been too far from my usual commute.

Anyway I had Friday off and got some bits and pieces sorted like getting my Internet hooked up and the delivery of my table and chairs. FINALLY I can eat at the table again after so long perching on my bean bag or my bed.

Friday evening was my friend’s Christmas party. It was planned for the week after but after a change of venue it was moved forward a week. Annoyingly this was the same evening as my running club’s awards evening and Christmas party 🙁But I had good fun with my friends anyway at a new Chinese restaurant. I’m not a huge Chinese fan but the food was good.

There was a sharing platter to start, this had chicken skewers, spring rolls, dumplings and salted squid. Normally sharing food gives me anxieties 😉 but there was an equal number of different items per person so this was fine. It’s when it’s like a free-for-all that I get worried. Fear of missing out on food!

Good friends

For main I had chicken teriyaki and rice, which was tasty but quite sweet. I was glad I didn’t have the duck as I tried some of my friend’s and it was ridiculously sweet. I like sweet stuff but this was a bit too much (for savoury anyway…). For pudding there was another sharing platter of brownies, doughnuts and ice cream things.

Tom, you’re famous! 😉

The next morning my alarm went off at 7am and for the first time in a long while I considered snoozing it. I rarely ever snooze alarms as once they go off I’m awake and that’s it. But I wanted to snuggle back down and sleep. I checked the weather and it didn’t look too bad at 11-12 degrees (centigrade). When I got to parkrun though it was tipping it down and I was glad for my wellies.I was happy to take the rain over gale force winds though! A few people were feeling rather delicate due to the awards the night before. Luckily I hadn’t been drinking at my do, but I was still tired.

My friend Chris tried to persuade me to run with him, but he was aiming for 22 minutes and I’m no where near that yet! I did give it my best though and was happy with 23:14!

It’s annoying because I can’t remember what my best time for this course is (as on the parkrun results it just says Netley Abbey – and there are like four different courses we can do through the year) so I’m not sure how well I can realistically aim to do as the weeks continue. The six hills really do drain you dry whereas the normal course only has three smaller hills.

Anyway, it was fairly muddy but thankfully the rain had stopped when we were running. The temperature wasn’t too cold either (thanks, global warming!).

The rest of the day was deja vu to last weekend where I went to IKEA again with my parents and then spent the rest of the afternoon constructing bits and pieces. I’m DONE with IKEA now. No more!! I have pretty much everything I need now (apart from my new bed being delivered this week).

I was really chuffed to find a sofa I liked and when I ordered it they told me it could be delivered later that day. Unfortunately I failed to realise it would be delivered in four pieces. When the delivery men turned up I asked them if they were going to construct it and they almost laughed in my face. Of course not. It’s IKEA after all. Anyway, it’s all sorted thanks to my dad and me who are now like IKEA pros.

Sunday I had a lovely 6.5 mile run which went far better than last weekend’s. It still felt hard but I didn’t feel like walking so there’s an improvement (though it wasn’t as windy). My endurance is s.l.o.w.l.y improving.

I’m starting to think I should be adding in some speed work but I think I’ll leave it with a tough parkrun each week for now. When I move to four runs a week then one of those might be a fartlek or intervals…*shudders*.

Sunday lunch was amazing. Literally amazing. I’ve found my new favourite restaurant. Coast To Coast in Whiteley. Dear God it was good. The menu was insane. I was torn between four different choices (burger with pulled pork, calzone, ribs or chicken wings). In the end I went for wings but instantly got food envy when I saw a woman get a HUGE rack of ribs.

My dad and me shared the BBQ platter to start (ribs, wings, chicken tenders with blue cheese, battered prawns and chorizo). It was so good. I traded him some prawns for chicken and chorizo for ribs so I think we were both satisfied 😉

My Kentucky wings and sweet potato fries for my main were awesome. I’ve never actually had wings as a main before and it rocked my world. It had some great dips as well – one of them was like a blue cheese thing which I could have swum in if I’m honest.

I’d already seen the pudding menu and had earmarked the mint chocolate chip Oreo sundae but I was stuffed. It wasn’t even a “oooh I could make room” kind of stuffed, it was a meat sweat kind of stuffed. Just too much protein. I needed a nap 😉

Pretty damn awesome. Needless to say dinner wasn’t necessary!

How was your weekend?

Do you snooze your alarm or get up straight away?

What’s your favourite dip?