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Don’t be a d***head

I’m feeling very behind with my blogging. So let’s catch up.

I got back from Barcelona last week (I’m mid-writing my recap of that) late Tuesday night. I woke up after a solid night’s sleep and then went out for a run Wednesday morning. The run felt fine in terms of my legs. Whew! Nothing broken or injured post marathon, always a good sign.

However not long after I suddenly went downhill. I wasn’t well. I suppose this makes a lot of sense considering I’d just run a marathon and then had a couple of days of non-stop sight-seeing and walking (over 30,000 steps per day!). Then getting on a plane… yeah my body wasn’t having any of it.

I took Thursday and Friday off of work. It was genuinely the case that getting out of bed was an effort. I had to have little to-do lists like have a shower, make breakfast… everything was so hard. And I spent pretty much my entire time on the sofa falling down a black hole of YouTube watching mindless make-up vlogging (I don’t even wear make-up but find these so fascinating and quite cathartic to watch) or napping.

I was actually really gutted to not be going into work Friday as we had one of our Wiggle Run Outs and this time it was going to have SIS visiting – so lots of freebies and cool info. Charlotte Purdue was supposed to be joining the run as well. I was genuinely so sad to miss running with such a running legend and inspiration. However, it turned out in the end that because she’d won the Big Half the weekend before she had to go and do an interview elsewhere so she couldn’t come in. I was somewhat mollified by this!

And now my rant shall beginth.

I had lots in my plan that I was going to get done. I had gym visits, runs and I was RARING to go to get back into my training ready for the Manchester Marathon – at the time about three weeks or so away. Did I feel a bit rubbish not being able to get out because I was ill? Of course I did. Mentally I wanted to get back out there. Did I feel guilty sitting on the sofa all day doing less than 5,000 steps a day? A little bit as it’s not my default.

I spent a lot of time hanging out with this guy

But I knew this was exactly what my body needed. It was tired. I felt exhausted. I felt unwell. Did I miss meals or modify what I was eating to account for the fact that my movement was pretty much zero? Nope. Nutrition (CALORIES) is even more important at times like this. Did I worry I was suddenly going to lose all my fitness, put on a stone and become a blob? Not at all. Don’t be daft. Even if I had to take a month off – yes I would absolutely be getting itchy feet and narked off but if that’s what your body needs, YOU HAVE TO DO IT.

A roast dinner with all the trimmings and pudding to help me get better

Don’t go and test the waters despite STILL FEELING ILL. Go out for a run when you know you’re 100% better, rather than using biometric feedback from your watch (your easy pace isn’t feeling easy, your HR is all over the place). I’m sorry no. You know when you’re not well. We don’t need gadgets to justify us getting outside – look, look, I’m well my data tells me so! No. HOW DO YOU FEEL?

There should be no guilt or worry associated with missing training because you’re not well. Looking after yourself and self-care should be your main priority. What kind of training are you really going to achieve with pushing your body to do things when all it wants is to get better?

very much the sloth existence while being looked after

I’m just glad that I waited until I felt better before I tried running again. I’m back to health, my running is fine, I have no carry on effects. I got over my illness quickly because I prioritised my health not my fitness.

Onto something a bit more cool. I was recently sent some socks from MP Magic Socks.

They began as a crowdfunding venture and due to really positive feedback they took off (even mentioned in places like USA Today, The Times, Mashable, Mirror, etc.

I love that they have the “left” and “right” labels too

They’re unique in that they’re made from fabric that uses three metals: silver, copper and zinc, which gives greater antibacterial protection than any single metal alone. Smelly socks obviously are no one’s cup of tea so these are super handy.

For someone who does a fair bit of travelling I’m a BIG fan. ESPECIALLY on planes. I hate wearing shoes when I’m on a flight but there’s always the fear that you take your shoes off and your feet aren’t smelling of roses. I actually wore these on the way back from Barcelona on the flight. They’re super soft and my feet smelt absolutely fine – despite it being quite toasty in the airport and plane. Hurrah!

Do you cope well with being ill?

How do you get better when you’re ill?

Do you take your shoes off on planes?

**Full Disclosure: I was sent the socks free in return for a review on my blog. All opinions are my own.**


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I am 30 and I live at home with my parents

This was the title of a BBC News article online. But this is also my life. Is this so shocking? I guess if you’d have asked me this 10 years ago I might have been concerned, shocked and disappointed with my life. Jesus, 30 years old, AN ADULT, living at home WITH MY OWN PARENTS.

Someone at work leaned over to me and pointed to this news title and went “ooof imagine that”. But I replied, “well that’s me and I don’t actually see the problem”. I was quite happy to say I wasn’t bothered and that I’m enjoying life. I’m very happy right now. It was a big decision that I made over a year ago, but one I’m 100% content with and have no regrets about.

I first moved out about a year after I finished university. I moved out with my fiancé. We bought a house, we got married and we lived there for about 2 years. The marriage didn’t last and we separated, amicably. We sold the house and split the finances 50/50 and went our merry different ways. I bought a flat and lived there for about a year. At the time I was working in a job I really wasn’t enjoying. I found another job that paid significantly less. We’re talking a 13k pay cut, yes really.

I was very well paid in my previous job but the money wasn’t enough to make me happy. Though I could continue to afford to live in my flat on my own I would be limited to what I could do. I wouldn’t really be able to go on holiday and I would have to monitor my money VERY carefully. Quite the change in lifestyle.

My parents very kindly offered to have me move back home and I could then rent my flat out. This meant I could continue to pay my mortgage but also buffer up my salary so this difference in money wouldn’t be that great. So I moved back home.

I am in a very fortunate position in that I get on extremely well with my parents. We can easily hang out together and have long chats about just about anything. We go to the cinema together, for food together, go walking, go shopping. I enjoy spending time with them. I get their opinions and advice on big and small things. But they ask for my opinion and advice too. I genuinely love spending time with them. Even after I moved out I would speak to them daily and see them most weekends. I never wanted to move too far away from them.

I won’t lie. There was an initial time that I felt like I’d failed at my life. I was embarrassed when I told people what I’d done. I was embarrassed when people asked me if I’d be seeing my parents for Christmas and having to explain, well yes, like every single day. But I got over it when I realised, firstly no one really cared, and secondly I’m still independent and I’m happy. Crucially one of my main focuses in life is to be happy. I mean, if I’m honest, my parents should really make my life a little bit uncomfortable to encourage me to move back out… I’m working on it!

I think the important part is the mutual respect, love and understanding that we all have to each other. My mum does not do my washing. My parents do not cook me dinner. They do not buy me food. I have my own fridge out in the garage. I come and go as I please. Of course I treat them and the house with respect. I clean up after myself. I let them know when I’ll be coming home so they’re not surprised. I give them space. They give me space. I maintain a level of independence and self-sufficiency that means I don’t feel like I’m 15 again.

I love living at home. I mean, I loved living in my flat too, but there is something so lovely about coming home to people rather than an empty house. It’s nice that Alfie gets a garden. It’s nice that I can leave him with them when I go out and not worry about him being left alone. And likewise, my parents like that I’m there looking after the house and dogs if they’re not in (they have three dogs).

This is Dylan

I could go on. My point is: I’m 30 and I live at home with my parents and this is not a problem. It’s just a stepping stone.

When did you move out?

Do you get on with your parents?

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The trials and tribulations of a special bunch of people

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while (or know me even just a tiny bit) you’ll know I’m a bit of a mess at times when it comes to organising myself and being an adult.

There have been many times when I’ve done something stupid and, most likely, had to ring my dad for help, or find myself in an embarrassing predicament. Purely because I throw myself into things with both feet without looking – optimistic I like to say. Stupid is probably more accurate.

Recently it was forgetting to do my car tax… I only found this out after parking my car in Brighton (with the right parking permit and everything) and then enjoying a lovely weekend there, only to return to my car to find it clamped. Had I gotten there maybe an hour earlier I could have called the de-clampers but as it was a Saturday, when they close early, I was too late. By the way, this was two days before Christmas. Obviously.

It cost me £100 (and my car tax…). Kyle and I then had to walk to the train station (carrying EVERYTHING that I needed to take with me from my car), to then get a coach (a replacement service of course) where we didn’t have a seat and had to sit in the footwell, to then get a train, to then get picked up. As I was working Christmas Eve, my very patient father and granddad drove to Brighton to retrieve the car (after it had been unclamped). *Sighs*

But I have to say, I’m not the oddity in the family. I’m not this clueless black sheep. Ohhh no. I come from a very special pure breed of idiots it must be said. We’re nice idiots, but we are idiots nonetheless.

From the time my dad made mushroom soup… He cooked the mushrooms in hot stock, put the mixture in the blender, found the lid to not fit completely but nahhh let’s just hold it on with a teatowel, it’ll be fiiiine. Only to then have BOILING mushroom soup spray all over his arm. I mean, it was kind of funny for my mum and I watching my dad leap around the kitchen – doing the mushroom dance, if you will.

I’d like to say these things are out of the ordinary. But they’re not. My dad and me often laugh at how we haven’t been wiped out yet in some Darwin-esque manner. Driving to the O2 to see Stereophonics, only half-way there realising I didn’t have the tickets. They were at my uni in Cardiff. Or in fact, my parents driving me to Cardiff Uni only for us to have to turn around to retrieve my forgotten laptop. Oh it’s all very joyous being a member of our family. Me frequently getting onto wrong trains…

Most recently, yesterday in fact, while I was at work I got a phone call from dad to say he was heading to A&E with my mum. It turns out my mum had thrown my dad’s phone (over a £1,000 worth of iPhone by the way) up the stairs at my dad, only for her to catch her arm on a picture frame hanging on the wall and for it to break and impale her wrist with a shard of glass that not only cut her skin but also her TENDON.

Jesus. She’s OK now, but it was quite painful, as you can imagine. She needs plastic surgery on her arm now to sort it out. The jury is out, apparently, as to who’s fault this was… I shan’t get involved.

But basically, I am like I am because of the way I was grown. A little idiot seedling now fully flourishing into a full-grown, though not quite adult, idiot. But we’re happy idiots. We live optimistically, usually without contingencies. We fall often but we always get back up, ready to do it all again. I wouldn’t have it any other way!

Are you like your parents?

When was your last accident?

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Oh how I’ve changed

Running and I have come a long way. Not just in terms of PB’s or times or parkrun tourism…but in terms of how it affects my life and my views on it.

My yearly calf niggle has cropped up again. This always happens from time to time and to be fair I’ve had a good run (ha) of not having any issues so it was really only time before it happened again. I’ve done a lot recently – three marathons very close to each other. I can feel my body saying “can we please have a rest?”. I like to think I’m good at judging this, but clearly I need something to actually stop me. I’m good, but I’m not that good.

Of course I’m a bit bummed out – I love running. I do it frequently through the week and enjoy the freedom, the endorphins and the mental “ahhhh” I get from it. It makes me sad when suddenly I can’t run, or can’t run as much, and when things aren’t feeling as good as they felt before.

But that’s all – I’m bummed. I’m not distraught, or depressed, or feeling angry. I know this is my fault and I know I just need a bit of rest to clear it up. Time and TLC (tender loving cake? No?) and I’ll be back in no time. It’s a nice reset and refresh for my training if anything.

It did make me think though. There was a time when running was everything. Where getting injured literally ruined my week. I would become very down, very sad and everything else became tarred by the same darkness. Looking back I think this is because I was putting a lot of eggs into one basket. My happiness was quite dependent on my running. If I didn’t run, what else did I have?

Not to sound too pathetic, but a big part of my life was to do with running. I hated my job (the job before this one) and felt unfilled, lost and indifferent. I clearly didn’t have a marriage that was working (though at the time I kind of just ignored this, assumed all was well and didn’t question niggling doubts or feelings). I had my family and friends, but I was very focused on my running and became somewhat isolated in the relationship I was in. It wasn’t healthy.

Then when my marriage fell apart all I had to focus on was my running. Running would get me through the hard times. And it did. I love running for that. I was able to put a lot of emotion into it and use it to strengthen me mentally. It hugely helped and I’ll never regret that. The only problem is when you use running to make you strong, to keep you going and to enjoy life… when it’s taken away things become hard very quickly. What do I do with myself? How do I define myself? How can my body be so weak? Why have I failed?

I had no happy job to keep me focused. A lot of my friends are runners. My whole social media was just about running. My spare time was about running.

Today things are a lot different. Of course I still love running. It’s a huge part of my life. It makes me very happy and I love doing it. It’s one of the reasons Kyle and I got together – it brought us a closer than just talking in the office at work. I hope to always have running. But the difference is, I have so much more to me now than just running.

I have a great boyfriend. I have a fantastic job I enjoy. I love the gym and pushing myself there – the strength gains and being one of the best in circuits class some days. I still have running friends but I also spend quality time with non-running friends – and the close running friends I have are always there for me with or without running. I use social media for more than just talking about running (heyyyy Instagram food accounts). I don’t define myself by my running. It doesn’t control my happiness.

So yeah, I have a niggle. But hey, so what?

Is running a big part of your life?

What’s a niggle you always seem to get?

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New year, same me

I just re-read my last year’s New Year’s resolution post. I say “resolutions” but I don’t really make them… basically it was what I had planned for the year basically.

It was really interesting. My plan for the Dubai Marathon, that I ran in January, was to “go for it” and my plan for the Brighton Marathon was to just bimble round. How different that turned out! Dubai was my slowest marathon time of the year (3:39:58) whereas Brighton is now my PB (3:16:28). It’s funny how things are never as you plan (well for me certainly).

2018 was a really good year for me in terms of running. I ran five marathons! I put the exclamation mark because this still shocks me. My body is so much stronger. SO much stronger. Regularly going to the gym and working on my strength has hugely helped. I know where my weaknesses are and what to work on. I’ve had minimal niggles, and anything that did crop up disappeared relatively quickly.


I ran 1,633.9 miles. I PB’ed at my 5k (19:40), was five seconds off a 5 miles PB (33:48), unofficiallybeat my 10k three times during training runs (41:49), beat my half marathon PB (1:31:106) and got a new marathon PB (3:16:28). So in purely performance-related achievements, I think I’ve done well!

Hitting my target of running a sub-20 minute parkrun, a goal I had at the start of the year, made me very happy. I mean it was horrifically hard and I felt every single second, but I got there (twice actually, I squeezed a 19:59 at Victoria Docks parkrun). I’m very happy with that time and feel no desire to attempt to go faster. Sure sub-19 minute sounds amazing but so does winning the lottery, some things in life aren’t meant to happen to me 😉

One of my most proud achievements was getting my parkrun Alphabet Challenge completed. It genuinely took me a lot of organising , but I had so much fun along the way. It gave me good excuses to visit friends, go to different places and have adventures. Something I see goes firmly hand in hand with my running.

So 2019. Well, I’d love to do 4-5 marathons again. In the plan currently is a Barcelona in March, Manchester in April (I know, scarily close to each other), Chicago in October (my LAST Marathon Major!!!) and probably Portsmouth Coastal in December again. I see a gap between April and October so I’m sure if all is well I’ll squeeze something in between. But I don’t want to become complacent with my new found “lack of injury” status I have so I won’t make any assumptions lightly!

It might be nice to get close to my marathon PB again. Manchester or Chicago might be viable options as they’re both flat. The New York Marathon showed me I could put a good time in and still enjoy myself so that makes me more inclined to try. But getting under 3:16 will require consistent, solid running and almost certainly with some speedwork put in. This is something I probably should have as a goal… but actual track? No I think I’m done with that. Let’s be honest, going from zero speedwork to intense PROPER speedwork on the track was never going to be a great fit for me.

So perhaps some less formal sessions with Hedge End Running Club (who are a bit more chilled about these things) and some sessions on my own… once in a while anyway. I won’t commit to anything as ludicrous as “once a week” as that’s a lofty target that I’ll never hit. Baby steps.

In terms of my life outside of running… well, if you couldn’t tell I’m very happy. I wouldn’t have thought I’d be this happy last year but I am.

It’s funny because I actually didn’t think I was missing anything. I was quite content bumbling along with my life and didn’t really think I needed anyone to “make” me happy. But there you go. Kyle and I have a lot of adventures planned for this year. I just hope I don’t mess anything up! I mean there’s bound to be many more Anna’isms through the year but I guess that’s to be expected…

Do you make New Year’s resolutions?

What are your goals for the year?

Did you achieve what you wanted in 2018?