parkrun - AnnaTheApple

October 12, 2015October 12, 2015

Alfie’s first parkrun and some favourite things

I still have no date for moving. This seems somewhat of a reoccurring theme. For me it’s not too much of a bother aside from not knowing what weekend is going to be affected and not having any furniture in my lounge aside form a TV and a bean bag…For Ben it’s tricky as he moves to Switzerland at the end of the week and the money from the house sale would help for his side of things.

But anyway, another weekend gone by and I’m still in the house. On Saturday morning I still got up to go to parkrun, despite not being able to run at the moment. I like the social element to it and getting out in the fresh air so it was nice going down there, even if I was in “civilian” clothes.

It was a chilly and crisp morning so I bundled up nicely, knowing there would be no lovely run to heat me up. I took Alfie as well as I’ve always wanted to take him to a parkun but wouldn’t feel I could leave him tied to a bench while I ran and it wouldn’t be fair to see if he could run 5k if he’s never done that distance before.

Annoyingly we were on the cricket pitch, the last for the year before the winter course, which was a pain to miss as it’s a great time to test the speed out. But to be honest I’m not in shape for a PB attempt anyway!

It was great cheering everyone on and seeing people looking strong so soon after the marathon last weekend (which so many from parkrun had done) and I didn’t feel sad I couldn’t run. I saw my physio on Friday and she wasn’t concerned. She said my muscles were very tight, especially my left leg, which with the wrong trainers probably just built up during the marathon a bit of a niggle that I then exacerbated by continuing to run further on until the end. I’ve been severely neglected my foam rolling (which I always do when I’m no longer injured…) and I’m one of those people who needs to do everything in my favour to avoid injury. Whoops.

She said it’s likely it’ll only be another week as long as it continues to heal as quickly as it is. I’m still a little dubious that it will be OK in a week but I’d rather be cautious than overly optimistic. I can go to the gym (but no squats) so that’s cool. I miss running but it is nice to have a break.

My weekend was really very quiet if I’m honest. Lots of cleaning, sorting stuff in the house and catching up on Dr Foster (did anyone else watch?? SO good). And I saw some friends on Saturday afternoon and had a nice catch-up.

With no real plans for Sunday I had a nice lie-in. I floated the idea of going to the cinema with my dad to see The Martian as I’d seen a trailer on Friday which looked really good and had heard it was a good film. He was keen and suggested lunch as well…with my mum declining to come we decided to go to Ranchos (which my mum would hate).

Ribs are pretty much my favourite meal. I had the ribs with a parsley and garlic sauce which was divine. My dad had steak.

He had chips with his. I had nothing because did you see the size of my portion?? I don’t like things crowding my ribs experience 😉 As you can probably tell, we were both rather pleased with lunch!

The table next to us was an Asian family of three petite girls and, I assume, their dad. The amount of food they ordered (and the SIZE of the steaks the girls ate) was unreal. They had a large plate of ribs to share in the middle alongside all the sides, chips, mash potato, rice, and they just absolutely demolished it. I was quite impressed!

Anyway, we saw The Martian. I had a brief moment of embarrassment as after we sat down I headed back out to the loo (I like to get my seat first). I went towards the wrong side and stood, pretty much in front of everyone in the cinema, attempting to find the door in the wall (feeling my hands all over it to find the way out…)…then realising it was on the other side. In my defence, there was one of those Fire Exit signs in that area which I assumed meant exit. What an idiot.

I was a bit worried the film would be a bit dry and science-y (I enjoyed Interstellar but I found it dragged a little on the ‘science’ side – however unrealistic that science was!) but I was pleasantly surprised.

It was really quite funny and I felt like the storyline didn’t drag at all. The music was great as well. Fully recommend! (I also loved when they talked about Project Elrond and Sean Bean was there – aka Boromir from Lord of the Rings!). I also found it amusing when at the start they were talking about “preparing for launch” and I heard “preparing for lunch” and I was thinking, come on guys there’s a time and place for that surely – you’ve got a criss going on?! Hehe.

I love going to the cinema and need to do it more often. And if there are ribs involved, well so be it! 😉

What film have you recently seen?

Do you enjoy going to the cinema?

Do you still like to be involved in running stuff even if you can’t run? I think for me it depends how long my injury lasts. If I’m going to be out for months and months then I’ll probably take some time away from running-related stuff because otherwise it can get a b it depressing to see what you’re missing out on. But short-term I like to stay involved.

September 21, 2015

Stress, friends and dessert

Firstly, thanks for the lovely comments for my last post. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so stressed as I do right now. Usually I’m quite a calm person and let things wash over me but when everything is in my hands and my responsibility for big ‘Adult Things’ I get panicked.

But the weekend was a nice escape from it all. My university friends popped down for the day on Saturday and it was so lovely to see them and have a rant, a moan and a good old chat. I managed to squeeze in parkrun quickly before they arrived too, which is always good 😉

I had a terrible run though. I thought I’d try and use it as a tempo run but my legs felt heavy and drained straight from the start and my pace just slipped slower and slower. What annoyed me at the start as well was that when the whistle blew these four lads – and I say “lads” because they were very much laddy teenagers – pushed past me and several other people yelling “urgh this is ridiculous, we needed to be at the front” as they bolted off. It was just not very parkrun-y, you know?

Anyway as my pace dropped, I consoled myself with just doing a ‘t-shirt run’ (just getting the parkrun point rather than aiming for a time). My friend, Mark, who was running a long-run and doing parkrun in the middle ran up next to me and I moaned to him a bit about how rubbish I was feeling and he chatted away to me and kept my mind off it, which I was grateful for. On the second lap we over-took the lads who were run-walking by this point which was somewhat of a silver-lining… 😉

I sort of pulled it back on the final lap (with Mark’s help) but it still felt awful. I’m putting it down to having run 20 miles the week before and a tough week mentally!

My friends arrived shortly after I was showered and breakfasted and, as normal, it was lovely to catch up. We try and see each other for everyone’s birthdays ad events and sometime around Christmas. So five or six times a year? They all live in different parts of the UK which always makes it a bit tricky

We went to an old favourite pub right on the seafront for lunch, The Osborne View.

We shared two mezze boards between the four of us which is always a winner in my eyes (and I’m glad we got two as I’m such a greedy eater!). I had feta and Mediterranean salad (with added chicken) for main and chocolate brownie and ice cream for pudding. Perfection!

The sign on the right is very apt to me right now!

The pub is lovely and I’ve never had a bad experience there yet. And it’s so handy being close to the beach that we could come out and do a long walk next to the sea in the sunshine. It’s near to where I do my long runs if I stay with my parents so it feels very homey with good memories surrounding it.

I had an early night that evening because I just felt shattered. Though annoyingly my mind started to catalogue all the packing I still needed to do and I struggled to get to sleep. My alarm was set for the delightful time of 5.50am as I was going to Bath the next day for a race with some running club friends so this was stressing me out more. Grrr.

I’ll recap the race proper in another post but the race has made me really think about how I need to approach the Bournemouth marathon. I’m someone who needs a game plan. I can’t just rock up and do whatever on the day. I need a structured plan, with some sort of back-up as well just in case. But I’ve not really made a plan as I don’t have any real goals.

The Bath Two Tunnels half marathon was meant to be a training run as I was running with my friend, Mike, who was aiming for a PB, which handily was around my marathon/long run pace. But the race didn’t go to plan really for either of us as we both felt exhausted and the supposedly “fast and flat” course was anything but that (I suppose the give-away is that it was in Bath…). I know I’m not in the same shape as I was before Liverpool marathon so to aim for anything close to that time would be unwise. Yes I could risk it and power through but mentally that sounds awful to me and I don’t want to push the pace. So after thinking about it…My goal is to aim for sub-4 definitely, but around 3:45-40 would be nice and if I fancy anything better towards the end I can give it a go but I don’t want to ruin myself over it. Liverpool was a perfect race with perfect (for me) training, it would be foolish to recreate that! I just want another tick in the box enjoyable marathon.

Plus, I see the marathon as the end point to my major stresses. Whether I go to Iceland or not will have already happened and I’ll have moved house. Finishing Bournemouth will just be like one massive sigh of relief. I might just go into hibernation after that! 😉

Do you always like to have a game-plan for a race? I mess up when I don’t have a plan! Plus for every marathon I’ve always had a plan and it’s always worked well for me.

Do you meet up with old friends often?

How does stress affect you?

September 14, 2015September 14, 2015

Back in the game

Morning, morning. I am pleased to say that I am back in the marathon running game!

OK to be fair (and I imagine you’re used to this now if you’re a long-time reader) I was probably being my usual paranoid runner self about my shin…which actually worked in my favour as I was very cautious and didn’t do my 16 miler long run, nor my Tuesday run. So by Thursday my shin had calmed down hugely and felt absolutely fine. I think the moral of the story for me is not to go crazy with calf raises and tighten up my calf. Oh, and rest is best!

This meant I could join in with a club-organised long run at the weekend, happy days! A few of us decided to make things interesting by doing 17 miles and then doing a parkrun to top it up to 20 miles. The appeal was a faster finish long run, a nice way to break up an otherwise laborious load of miles and also to get in some parkrun tourism. Most of us had never been to Winchester parkrun (which is about 30 minutes away) so it was quite nice to do something different.

The downside, however, was realising that to get the miles in before parkrun meant a very early start. 5.15am alarm for Saturday morning… ooof. This meant Friday night was technically a school night with sensible food and an early night. I made sure to lay my things out the night before ready to make it easy in the morning.

Decided to wear my Steve Way “Don’t Be Sh*T” top to get me in the zone 😉

I slept so badly as I kept panicking about my alarm and just generally feeling nervous about the run. I woke up at 4.30am and was pleased that I had another 45 minutes to sleep. But then a while later I jolted awake thinking I’d missed my alarm. Well, my alarm was going off all right but it was on silent!! I was so lucky that it was only 5.20am. All thoughts of how tired I felt were gone as I leapt out of bed and got ready in a panic thinking I’d be late. I ate a Trek (Original Oat) protein bar as I walked Alfiea fter I got dressed. Probably not a great idea as it was so crumbly and it was so dark outside I was getting it everywhere. I had the world’s smallest coffee and was good to go! Despite my late getting up, I arrived at the local train station before everyone else. The plan was to leave our cars there, run to Winchester, eat something, then get the train back to our cars.

The beginning crew ready to run

We were going to meet another friend, Matt, half way there as he thought it best to not run the entire 20 miles as he was recovering from the dreaded plantar fasciitis, and then we’d meet another friend, Kate, at the parkrun as she was running a half marathon the next day. The route was lovely! All along Itchen River and a fair bit off the main road – which is such a relief when running so many miles. Though it did rain on and off, it was a lovely temperature. I really enjoyed chatting away to the guys as we ran – the time flew by. I do like doing long runs on my own when I zone out and listen to podcasts, but there is something truly enjoyable about running with others, especially for such a long way. Long runs can get very lonely. We made it to Winchester parkrun with about five minutes to spare which was cutting it close. I didn’t want to have to run again after the parkrun and was about 0.5 away from 17 miles so did a lap around the course just before we started. This helped minimise the break between the two runs as well.

Winchester parkrun is very flat and is basically three laps around a field – though apparently we did a slight variation of the usual course doing a weird diagonal run across a field. My first mile was a bit panicked and rushed because after they finished the briefing I thought we’d be starting somewhere else but the guy just said “get ready, go!” and I realised I was quite far at the back and had to do a lot of over-taking and dodging around people. I did have a chuckle though when I saw a man who was running with a dog get yanked back as the dog decided to do his business there and then come what may. The guy had to stop and pick up the poo…a parkrun poo, tee hee.

The second lap was tough. My legs felt very heavy and it just felt hard. My pace dropped and I felt myself flagging. The third mile was easier because I knew it was the last, but my legs (understandably) still felt tired. I got 23:29 which I was over the moon with though. But it did make me think long and hard about what I could achieve at Bournemouth. I just don’t feel mentally ready to push the pace at that marathon and I don’t think my training as been as good as Liverpool had been. I also don’t feel the hunger to get a faster time like I did with Liverpool and I really don’t want to put pressure on myself and potentially have a horrible experience.

We all agreed that it was a tough parkrun because of the miles beforehand but were really proud of ourselves. And though Kate didn’t run the 20 miles, she still smashed out a great parkrun and got first lady! So we all felt pretty chuffed.

(Ave. pace 8:37min/miles)

Then it was off to Whetherspoons for breakfast. We all sort of stumbled there slowly and collapsed at a table. Most of us had a fry-up. I went for the large fry-up but subbed my hash browns for more bacon (a superior swap I think).

It was delicious! I also ordered a diet coke, a glass of water and a coffee. Hitting all bases.

We got a lift back with Kate which was great as well. I’m so pleased how well the run went. It was definitely the confident boost I needed for the marathon. Though I ran Cheddar Gorge marathon recently, it was still a good few weeks past now and having missed last week’s long run I was feeling a little worried. But during the 20 miles I felt strong and like I could have gone on and on. The pace was slower than my usual long run which is probably a good thing as 20 miles at my usual pace would probably make the next few weeks hard in terms of recovering and being fresh. Though I’m happy I got to pick the pace up at the end to push through.

After getting back I had this mad surge of energy. Instead of usually feeling exhausted I was on fire with housework, walking Alfie and getting stuff done. Though I didn’t feel hungry again until 4pm! (To be fair, that breakfast was HUGE so I’m not surprised).

The next day I decided to have a rest day. My legs felt good, no niggles or twinges, but I felt a general sense of tiredness. Remembering how injury-prone I am and that I’m not the fastest at recovering, I thought it best to forgo any exercise other than some lovely long walks with Alfie. <– Can we just marvel out how sensible that sentence is for me. I’ve come a long way!

Later on I saw Ben’s mum again this weekend for afternoon tea. We were meant to do afternoon tea last weekend but we left it too late so we decided to try again. We headed to a place I’ve been before but not for a while, Lilly’s in Wickham.

We both went for a slice of red velvet cake, a fruit scone with jam and cream and I had ham and onion marmalade sandwiches.

It was divine. Though I do prefer to have crusts on my sandwiches they were very dainty!

So all in all, a pretty good weekend. Cake and running – things are back to my kind of normal 😉 And now time to taper!

How was your weekend?

What’s your ideal long run? A training run at a race, running solo, running with others?

Crust or no crusts on your sandwiches?

September 7, 2015September 7, 2015

Not panicking

Here we go again. The weather is definitely on the change. The morning’s are not distinctly cooler and autumn is swooping in fast.

My weekend was a mixed bag really. Just rolling back to the start of the week I decided to book myself a sports massage with my normal physio as I could feel my shin/calf was a bit niggly. I ran on Tuesday night and it felt fine during the run but after doing some track work on Thursday night, it was definitely more grumpy. Luckily my massage was booked for Friday as I was working from home so it was nicely timed.

The physio wasn’t too concerned. She said it was just getting a bit inflamed which was causing the tightness. It’s annoying because I’ve managed to avoid all other injuries by strengthening my body; no IT band issues anymore, no knee issues, hip issues, groin issues etc. All of which have consistently plagued me in the past. After strengthening my body (specifically my glutes) I haven’t had any twinges, tightness or anything. The issue I’ve been consistently having with my shin/calf though I don’t know what to do about. I wondered if it was because I had weak calves and over the past few weeks have been doing lots of calf raises (single leg on the stairs).

After talking to my physio though she reckons that’s unnecessary and probably compounding my issue further. She said my calf (the one I’ve really focused on) feels very tight and this is probably making things worse when I run. Looking back it does seem to make sense as it has only got more niggly the more strength work I did. The likelihood is that it’s a biometrical issues caused by my flat feet (*sighs*) which gets aggravated when I do lots of mileage, but usually isn’t anything that comes to much (I do get a very slight similar issue in the other leg, but it never comes to anything). However adding in my quite enthusiastic calf raises most days (yep, I’m that keen) has just sparked it off. Thankfully though she’s given me some good exercises to work on my flat feet to strengthen my arches to try and stop this happening in the future. All about the toe-grabs 😉

And because I am such a paranoid runner and terrified of stress fractures I asked if it could be or was close to being a stress fracture (I know how ridiculous this sounds…especially as there was no actual pain). She knows my neuroticism and all but laughed at me. She ultrasounded my entire shin and calf area to reduce any inflammation and reassured me that if I had a stress fracture then the pain of the ultrasound would have been severe. The fact that I felt nothing proved I didn’t have one. Well, that’s something!

After that very long explanation, I ran parkrun on Saturday because I wanted to do it and because I wanted to know in my mind how bad it was. It didn’t feel amazing but no pain, just discomfort and, well, niggliness. It was very tender from the massage as well which probably didn’t help. I shouldn’t have run (my physio advised against it…yes I know, I’m ridiculous) but mentally I needed to know. It wasn’t any worse afterwards…

It was the first time in ages that I was cold before we started. I say cold, more chilly really. Nothing like as bad as it gets in the depths of winter when you dread taking your coat off to line-up.

The rest of the day was, again, sorting more house stuff out. Specifically the loft and shed. Everywhere else is pretty much sorted in terms of streamlining my stuff, separating bits and pieces between Ben and me and throwing out/giving away/selling junk. Just the loft and shed are a beomoth of crap and full of stuff that “we might use later”.

The next day I’d planned 16 miles but on the advice of my physio I cancelled it. I’m probably going to take the rest of the week off just to be safe. For once I’m not panicking. Obviously I don’t want to DNS Bournemouth but I don’t think it’ll come to that if I’m sensible. Thankfully this isn’t an injury, but it could become one. A week off now means things can resume again without issue (FINGERS CROSSED). I think I’m mainly not that stressed about Bournemouth because I have no goals apart from to just finish it. Getting close to my previous times would be nice but I want to enjoy the marathon and not rinse myself and stress out. I just love marathons and want to continue my streak of having another good one in terms of enjoyment.

So I ended up in the gym on Sunday morning. I didn’t set an alarm but woke up at 7.30am and realised I could make the 8.30am Spin class. Ultimately having someone yell at you to workout is so much easier than motivating yourself I find (if it’s not running that is).

I haven’t been to Spin in ages and was dreading it. But you know what, I really enjoyed it. The instructor was fantastic and played some great music. The sprints were hard but I found myself really going for it. Good workout indeed!

I wanted to exercise for around the same time I’d have been running for to maintain some sort of endurance (and sanity) so went on the elliptical machine, the rower and then followed by the stepper. I find it so hard to motivate myself or keep myself interested which is why I machine hopped (I tried to keep the breaks minimal when hopping between).

Less time than I would have been running but higher intensity I suppose. No way near as fun as a long run (and calorie stats and HR are so dull in comparison to having minutes per mile splits and elevation charts…) but it is what it is!

The rest of the day was spent having a long walk and chat with a close friend with Alfie. The weather was beautiful and it was lovely. Not much else to report sadly. Like I said, a bit of a mixed bag. I’m not stressing about my calf but I am bummed I can’t run…for the moment. But I have a far more positive outlook 🙂

Also, I’ve just started watching the Hannibal TV series. I was a bit reluctant as it looked a bit gory and scary for me but I liked the sound of the premise and the two guys in it are quite dishy (in a weird way). I AM HOOKED. It is rather grisly but it’s quite enthralling.

What have you gotten up to this weekend?

What TV shows are you hooked on right now? Do you have a particular genre you go for?

Calf raises: yes or no??

September 1, 2015September 2, 2015

Feeling a bit drained and flat

There is nothing like a long weekend to really kick start out back into life. Though I know not everyone got to enjoy a day off yesterday!

It was a fairly quiet weekend I must say – but sometimes you just need a bit of ‘downtime’ to try and recharge your batteries and, in my case, get into gear with sorting and organising the house. I still don’t have a date for when I’m moving, which is annoying. Especially because it’s already September now and my weekends coming up are getting booked up with seeing university friends, races and a holiday at the end of September. Whoops.

Anyway, rolling back to Saturday I went to parkrun as normal. Because I spectacularly positive splitted last week I wanted to have a strong negative split this time. I find it really hard in a 5k to pace myself. It’s funny because in a marathon I’ve found I can stick to my set paces almost perfectly and have a really controlled race, but when it comes to any shorter races it all goes to pot.

It was quite a chilly start to the day as we set up all the flags for the course, but at 8.30am the sun came out and it suddenly heated up. I wore my new skort (only £12 from Forever 21 – and very comfy and flattering, it has proper shorts underneath as well) and my Paris marathon T-shirt but by the time we got ready to start I decided to forgo the top and just run in my sports bra (I noticed a few others had done the same so I didn’t feel quite so naked). This was perfect.

I started the first lap slightly more conservatively than I would usually but still found it tough going. I managed to hang on to one of the guys from the running club, Berni, who does a lot of our coaching and leading runs. He was great as his pace was so consistent and we chatted a bit which kept my mind off the effort. On the final lap he told me to push on and I suddenly felt I had more energy knowing I only had one more lap to go.

Check those splits out! A nice negative royal flush. OK only three miles worth but I’ll take it! I came second female with 21:14. Happy days.

I also tried my very first blondie afterwards which honestly rocked my world. I think I’ve never gone for them as they’re white chocolate and I’m not a huge white chocolate fan but when a small child offers you a blondie, you take the blondie. And I’m so glad I did!

Later on I needed to pop to the shops quickly to top up on apples and came back with…well, more than apples.

I spotted some tasty looking pork belly and lamb koftas which I just couldn’t say no to, and then spotted the Ben and Jerry’s BLONDIE brownie core. And some frozen berries which I always love having with Greek yogurt at work.

That evening I was round my parent’s house for dinner with family friends. We had smoked salmon to start and steak Diane and roasted sweet potato wedges for main. If you’ve never had steak Diane it is AMAZING. My dad doesn’t even follow a recipe anymore he’s made it so often. The sauce is a cream based sauce with brandy, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce with fried onions and mushrooms. It was delicious.

For pudding there was a choice of Carte D’or ice cream or my Ben and Jerry’s. I went for the B&Js and it was just as good as it sounded.

The next morning was my long run and I was meeting running club guys to join them on a 10 miler. I ran to the meeting point and back to make it up to 14 miles. I’m still trying to be gradual in my build-up for Bournemouth as I’ve only just run Cheddar Gorge. Next week I’m hoping to run 16-17 miles and then 18 the week after and then taper.

It was really humid and from the start I found the run quite draining. I don’t know if it was the heavy meal the night before, tired legs in general or the humidity but it just felt tough. It was nice running with the others though as chatting to them took my mind of my fatigue. I need to be careful to not overdo things as I know recently I’ve done so much. After Bournemouth (providing I get there – I never take these things as a given!!) I’m planning on taking a break from the longer distances. In fact I might take a couple of weeks entirely off of running to just chill and then focus on some 10 milers and a half marathon race instead.

The route we took was fairly undulating as well in the middle section so this was tough going. Thankfully I’d taken water with me as it was really warm!

The photo on the left is before I headed out – I look very fresh and unsweaty!

For the rest of the day I felt drained and tired. I’d made sure to have something before I went running (which I never normally do) to help keep my nutrition topped up for the day as I struggle with long run days to refuel. It was one of those Chia Pods which had an ‘interesting’ texture but tasted nice.

I ate lots through the day and think I refuelled like a pro. For dinner I had the pork belly and roasted sweet potato and it was delicious.

High in calories, fat and protein it went down nicely! I know there’s some dispute about animal protein and fat being the best thing for you, but it definitely filled a hole and left me satisfied. I’ve been tracking my calories and macros using MyFitnessPal to keep me on track of my goal which has been really helpful. I won’t use it forever or get too fixated on it but I need something to give me an idea of what I’m eating as I don’t track calories or macros normally. It also links to my Garmin account so gives me a good idea of how much food I need to refuel after a run. I’ll do a post about it later on what I’ve been eating and how I’ve been tracking things if people are interested!

As I had Monday off (as it was a Bank holiday in the UK, apart from Scotland) I had a luxurious lie-in (I woke up at 7.30am naturally and lazed about until just before 8am, how indulgent) and then headed to the gym at the far more reasonable time of 9am (not my usual 5.30am!).

I’m still following the New Rules of Lifting for Women and I’ve probably got about two-three weeks left (I tend to do three sessions, sometimes two a week) of Stage 1. I’m so pleased with the progress I’ve made. My deadlift and squat weight has gone up significantly and I feel really strong. I still supplement the listed workouts though with my own stuff though as I want to cover running-specific strength training as well (click the link for a great list of moves).

Then the rest of the day was spent doing the fairly depressing task of sorting through some stuff in the loft and house bits and pieces. Nothing like sifting through wedding cards and old photos to really end your long weekend on a high!

How was your weekend? Did you have the Monday off?

What do you eat before a long run or workout?

Do you track calories and/or macros?