run club - AnnaTheApple

April 19, 2013April 19, 2013

Embarrassing Bananas

**SlimKicker have finally got back to me on who won the giveaway. They chose:

So Angela, please email me and we can arrange your winnings! 🙂 **

I’m not going to lie. This week has been tough. I feel like I’ve been chasing my tail and never quite catching it. Don’t get me wrong, I love being busy and I love having goals to hit and chunky bits of work to get my teeth into but I feel like everything has slipped.

Yesterday (Thursday) was a really tough day in terms of work. I felt frazzled by the end. And the annoying thing was that I really wanted to get to running club in the evening but because work went on longing than I thought it would it meant I had to miss it as I just couldn’t have made it there on time.

I know that this is completely ridiculous but it really stressed me out. I had my whole evening planned, I had geared myself up all day to go and then suddenly the realisation hit when I was supposed to be leaving by 5pm I was still sat there at 6pm that it wasn’t going to happen. I am a rigid person, I know that. I’m not that flexible in that when I have something planned it’s a big deal for me to just miss it. Don’t get me wrong, in this circumstance I know that work was far more important and I don’t regret staying. But it really got to me. I felt stressed inside all the way home. It wasn’t just the disappointment of not going to running club or missing a run, it was just the whole messing up of my plan. I really need to work on this. This can’t be healthy. In the past I have found myself getting really annoyed or upset when my routine is shifted. Even if it’s outside my control. Please tell me someone else gets this way too?

Anyway it’s Friday!

Because I missed my run last night, I ran this morning. Unfortunately this meant getting up at 5.50am so I wouldn’t be late for work. But when my alarm went off I actually wasn’t that tired and felt raring to go.

It was a nice clear morning so it was good to be outside. But I would have preferred to have run last night with the guys from the club!

Food-wise, like I said, this week things have slipped. I had planned a few meals but with time just running out it just wasn’t going to happen. However, I’m pleased to say that didn’t mean turning to microwave meals. Not that there’s anything wrong with eating them once in a while don’t get me wrong. But I’m not a big fan and I never think the portions are that big! And any vegetables are just horribly soggy and pathetic.

So a couple of evenings this week we’ve had ‘wing-it’ meals. For example, the other night we had chicken with a salsa and cream cheese sauce. Such a simple meal!

Chicken with Salsa & Cream Cheese Sauce (Serves 2)

2 chicken breasts, diced
1 white onion, diced
half a zucchini, small chunks
3-4 mushrooms, sliced
Half jar of salsa (I used just a supermarket chunky mild version)
Large tbs. cream cheese
Spices (I used paprika, garlic powder, salt & pepper)

Literally took next to no time. The most onerous thing was chopping the veg! Very tasty. We had this twice. The second time we had it I threw in some torn mozzarella as well and it became even more cheesy and rich. Really tasty, this is definitely one for our rotation!

On a food related note… Ages ago I bought a banana holder so I could carry my banana around in my handbag with ease. I have such a hate for bruising my bananas and getting all battered. I have been known in the past to carry a banana in my handbag covered in a thick clean sock to protect it. I did this once when I was going on holiday with some friends and when I went through security the security guys searched my bag and found my sock covered banana. Literally the most embarrassing experience of my life. That obviously all my friends saw. I’ll never forget the security guard’s bewildered face. Anyway, so along came the banana holder…

A large yellow, er, strangely shaped object I think you’ll agree… This lives in my desk drawer at work because, well, I just don’t use it. I tend to buy my bananas at work to avoid the transportation issue from home. One of my colleagues saw this object in my drawer and there commenced a lot of awkward explaining that this was purely a BANANA HOLDER and nothing else.

*Sighs* Seriously, bananas, you have caused my life no end of embarrassment.

And because I haven’t shared my outfits with you in a while (not that they’ve been that interesting I must admit)…here’s my outfit du jour!

Cardigan and leggings from New Look, shirt-dress from Dorothy Perkins

No thick woollen jumper, no huge scarf curled around my neck a million times – a more spring-like ensemble finally! I can’t wait to finally stop wearing cardigans and allow my arms to see the sun. Yes, Britain, I said SUN. Make it happen.

Fingers crossed the weather is spring-like where you are! Have a great weekend people!

Do you get stressed when your routine is messed up? How do you cope?

Bananas: are fanatical about bruising them like me? Or are you not too bothered?

Any embarrassing fruit-related stories? No judgement here

April 17, 2013

A busy week = WIAW

Firstly, and most importantly, I want to start this post by saying my heart goes out to all those affected by the Boston Marathon tragedy. When I heard what happened my heart literally stopped. I couldn’t believe something as terrible like that could happen. Obviously as a human being I find this abhorrent, and as a runner I am shocked that any one could target should an event. I can only imagine how horrific it must be to the runners who trained so hard to have their dreams shattered by something so terrible. And not just the runners, but all the other people, spectators and race officials etc., to have to experience such a truly nasty attack.

—————————————————————————————————————

I know it feels almost irrelevant and small to think of writing something as trivial as a post on What I Ate Wednesday, so please forgive me for continuing ‘business as usual’.

Thanks to Jenn for hosting as usual

These are my eats from Tuesday. The week has been busy with a new project kick-starting so it’s all go-go-go. I feel a bit stressed out with trying to juggle different things. But hey it keeps life interesting.

Breakfast was my usual oatmeal. The consensus being, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. I love it, it works, I have it every day.

(Re-used photo – but seriously, it doesn’t change!)

However, I did make protein flour pancakes with mango topping on Sunday.

They were pretty tasty I must say, and helped reawaken my love for pancakes. And you can’t beat the fresh taste of mango. It’s such a treat for me to get as I can never be bothered to go through the effort of cutting up a mango as it’s so darn messy!

Lunch was my usual salad but livened things up with adding some turkey bacon and regular sliced turkey.

OK I know there looks like just a load of veg there but I assure you there was a good portion of turkey that I put into that beast. You can’t beat a big old salad for lunch. I like food that takes me ages to eat so I can savour the process! I also had a Babybell and fruit salad with Greek yogurt.

(Recycled photo again but essentially identical)

I had some great snacks in between. I’ve been loving my Graze box which honestly is a huge temptation sitting on my desk all day long. The struggle not to eat it all in one sitting is quite strong…

I ate these yesterday when I got peckish some time after lunch. They were Thai crackers with sweet chilli dip. Very yummy. It felt quite novel dunking and crunching at work. Then a banana and apple just before going home.

Dinner was a wing-it meal. But it was pretty tasty if I do say so myself. And thankfully quite quick and easy to throw together when getting in from work later than usual.

I used chicken from the roast chicken at the weekend, fried it with mushrooms and zucchini and BBQ sauce and seriously this was taaaaasty. I had this on salad. The only sad thing is that I used up all my BBQ sauce. I would have the chicken swimming in this stuff if I could! Maybe a good thing it ran out…

Also I have been indulging a bit in eating a few slices of cake now and again in the evenings…

This, if you’d believe it, was a slice of our wedding cake! I have been slowly defrosting and making a dent in the vast amount of cake we have saved (seriously a lot). It was a slice of the lemon flavoured tier. Delicious.

And, erm, yeah some chocolate as well. But they’re only little!!

Not as good as Lindt but yummy none-the-less. Speaking of Lindt…hello offer in Tesco!!

Well, it’s important to have a balance. With running five times a week I need to bump the calories up a bit so I’m happy to fill this need with chocolate and cake. Shhh all you nutritionists out there, I know this isn’t the healthiest way to do it! But I need a bit of fun now and again.

In terms of fitness, I ran on Monday morning and still felt tired. I am so frustrated that my recovery from a tough run takes so long.

OK it wasn’t a rubbish run, I know that. But it felt TOUGH. Really, really hard going. My body just felt tired. I am clearly not superwoman!

However my run last night (Tuesday evening) went better, though it was shorter.

I will be going to the running club on Thursday evening again and I guess I’m thinking of running with the faster guys again but I’m scared. Genuinely scared because of how tough it was last time. I might look into running with them every other week and running with the slower paced guys…I’m a wuss…

And that’s all I have! Not the most exciting eats, I grant, but in this busy week I’m happy with them

How do you cope when you’re busy?

Do you still try to eat well when you’re running out of time?

How quickly do you recover after a tough workout?

April 12, 2013

Running with the big boys

Well hello there Friday, nice to see you around again. These last couple of days in the office I have been FREEZING. A choice few of my fellow workers have decided to commandeer the air con dial and make it sub-zero temperatures. I spend my time glaring at them while hunching over my laptop sipping hot drinks all day long. They’re comments of “there’s nothing of you” for reasons why I’m cold are not well accepted. I mean, what if I was to say the reverse to them hmm? I’m not sure that would go down so well.

Anyway, it’s Friday!

This week has been fairly good (hypothermia aside). I’m really pleased with a few runs I did –especially my out of the blue super speedy run the other evening for example. And though I skimped on the Tuesday night running club run, I did go to the Thursday night (last night) one instead.

I didn’t really know what to expect to be honest. I got to the meeting place and there were like 30 people. And they were planning on doing an off-road style run, but in different paced groups. There were three paces 11mins/mile, 9-10mins/mile and 7.30-8mins/mile. My plan had been to take it easy and just enjoy the run but I really didn’t want to be running 9mins/mile or slower. I hugely faffed about not deciding what to do. Then after speaking with the three guys who were doing the 7.30mins/mile they persuaded me to join them.

It started well, I was happy with the pace. UNTIL we got to like three consecutive hills. Oh my goodness, these hills. And these guys were just bouncing along happily while I was ~~quietly~~ dying. It was definitely an ego check for me. I’d say about 60% of the run I was trailing behind them. To put this into perspective, one of these guys had just done the Paris marathon and was treating this as a RECOVERY run.

I think I held my own quite well, and the guys looked after me well and looped back if they went off too fast and pushed me on when I lagged. There was a great team-feel between us. But by the end I was just couldn’t maintain the pace and had to lag back. I felt terrible that I was holding them back but they didn’t seem to to mind.

I was so shattered by the end that when I past a fellow runner (not part of the club) who said hello to me I replied “morning” in a spluttering daze.

But it was brilliant. Though at the time there were many points where I literally wanted to cry it was so hard (ahh OK maybe it wasn’t that bad) and when we ran close to where I live it took every ounce what strength I had left to not run away home, it pushed me and I felt hugely satisfied by the end. I’d run with the big boys and done myself proud. They seemed happy to have a female member in their clan as well! Haha.

When I got home it was just after 8pm and I literally didn’t want to eat at all. Though obviously I did have dinner it was really hard to get myself motivated to feel hungry.

But I am never one to miss dinner and I knew it was really important to refuel after such an epic run. So I had three whole eggs, a LARGE scoop of cream cheese, and lots of veggies.

When I stood up after dinner my calves had massively cramped and were so painful, so after I showered I made sure to get some of this action in.

Yes those are my PJs

And I am so glad I did because honestly this morning my legs were still quite painful but I imagine not half as bad as they would be. THOSE HILLS!!!

Though I enjoyed running last night it did mess with my system last night. Like not wanting dinner, feeling a bit unsettled in my tummy (lots of strange noises going on in there when I went to bed) and not being able to feel tired at all. Usually I’m ready for bed at like ~~8.30pm~~ 9pm but I got into bed at 10pm and just didn’t feel sleepy. I didn’t fall asleep until after 11pm!!

I know this is because of doing quite intense exercise in the evening and it is a bit annoying but I’m happy to have a change in routine, and plus the next day is FRIDAY so it isn’t that big a deal.

On a non-running related note, I am so excited that my lovely parents have let us borrow their slow cooker so we can give it a test drive to see if we want to buy one ourselves. I have seen so many recipes using slow cookers that I’ve look longingly at and pinned in the hopes that one day maybe we’d invest. But the thing is, I know the slow cooker is potentially one of those appliances that could end up on the Dead Shelf. You know the shelf. The shelf where those amazing, gadgety appliances you bought ages ago because they’d save time and looked cool and of course you’d use every day…that you now never use. Yes, hand-held milk-frother, I’m looking at you.

To stop this from happening, I’m going to see if I’d actually make use of a slow cooker before parting with my hard-earned moolah. I’m hoping it’ll work out well. Especially with me doing the running club now it would be ideal to not have to worry about cooking when I get in late.

So watch this space… if you don’t hear anything about it, you know it’s gone back to my parent’s Dead shelf after failing.

Right, lovely readers, have a lovely weekend!

Do you exercise in the morning or at night?

Does mixing up your exercise (or eating) regime mess with your system?

Do you use a slow cooker? What’s your favourite recipe?