running gear - AnnaTheApple

July 28, 2014July 28, 2014

Brighton, Ben’s nuts and nipple plasters

So things have been a little running heavy round here. Now I know the main focus of my blog is running but I like to liven things up a bit occasionally and talk about other stuff.

The other weekend Ben and I went to Brighton for a daytrip to see my uni friends and their partners. One of them, currently living in Brighton, had just recently got married…the cheeky so-and-so went abroad and didn’t invite anyone, how rude! 😉 We were very pleased for them regardless though.

We had a lovely walk to a local pub which serves the best monster pizzas, salads and Turkish-style pizzas. As it was the day before the Stansted half marathon I thought it best to go for a nice carby meal. For the good of the race of course.

Seriously that thing rocked my world. It was filled with lamb (not usually my thing), beef and chicken with a tomato sauce and vegetables. It was as big as my face pretty much.

No issue in finishing that bad boy. What did you expect?

After that we all went for a lovely walk in the hot hot sunshine along the seafront. I may have even dipped my toe in the sea. Or got ridiculously splashed by a ginormous wave.

This is the new dress I got from Oasis a few weeks ago (the only damn thing in my size). Suitably summery enough. Gotta wear these things as much as possible in Britain as you never know how long the sunshine will last!

We headed back to the flat and the new-husband brought out the most delicious blueberry white chocolate cheesecake known to man.

So thick and creamy. I do love a good baked cheesecake. I might have had seconds but we don’t need to dwell on that.

Speaking of food…Ben has been in a quandary recently about food and what to eat. He wants to lose weight but not lose the will live when he runs. It’s tough. I’d say he does eat quite healthy (for the meals I make him anyway…) but he doesn’t eat breakfast (the cardinal sin) and his lunch of choice would usually be a chunky white mayo-filled cheese laden vegetable barren sandwich at work. With no option really to buy anything else as his office just had a ‘sandwich lady’ and no shop.

I make myself lunch every day and it can be a faff but I do it because I like my salads and can go to town on all my favourite ingredients. But Ben, bless his soul, is not the type of guy to make a salad every day (show me the guy who is…).

As I’m a good, loving wife (no comments please, it’s true) I suggested I’d buy him a salad every day from Tesco as it’s just over the road from work for me (so is Costa and this is becoming an issue) and then he could take it the next day for work. A guess a better wife would make him a salad but let’s not push it here, people.

Salad selfie

Alongside this I would also buy him little portioned pots of nuts. But this was getting to be ridiculously expensive – how much for a 25g portion of cashews? Are you joking? So I bulk bought a load of mixed nuts, salted nuts, dried fruit and chocolate covered raisins…

Now each day Ben gets a little Tupperware box full of nuts etc. to take to work with his salad. I think I’ve earnt a few Wife Points 😉

Now to work on his breakfast…(*cough* and wine *cough*).

One of my other wifely duties is buying Ben his nipple plasters (he has mastered the chafe issue whereas I have not for my HR monitor). But we have serious issues.

Uh oh. We’ve got problems. Tesco do the best ones! OK that’s a lie, Tesco do the cheapest. Who charges over £3 for four blister plasters (*cough* Scholl, are you serious?)?

So you’re prayers are required. Our stock at home will only last so long. Dire times indeed.

If you have a partner, what do they have for lunch?

What’s your favourite nut to snack on? I love salted cashews. Or pistachios because they slow me down.

Ever suffered from the dreaded chafe?

July 25, 2014

Fashionably Fit: Summer Style

Hello there! I think we can safely say summer is well and truly here. Well, us Brits needed something new about the weather to moan about right?

It’s not secret that I get up stupidly early to run. Currently we’re talking at 5.10-20am depending on how far I go. When people hear this their usual response (unless they’re a fellow runner) is “you are mental, why on earth?” Sure I could run in the evening but I love being out there in the morning before most people are awake. And the best part is that the sun is shining! When my alarm goes off I’m actually OK to get up because the sun has been beaming through our white curtains and has gradually woken me out of a deep sleep anyway.

I always tell people who are interested in getting fit or starting running, it’s so much easier to start in spring and summer than winter. I detest getting up so early in winter because it’s like the middle of the night. It’s cold. It’s usually wet. I’m grumpy. So the motivation isn’t there. Therefore summer is a great place to start these good habits.

But before and during summer, us women get hounded by that nasty stock phrase: getting “bikini body” ready. The obsession begins just before summer, flashed across every women-focused magazine (“lose 7lbs in 7 minutes!” or something similar). To combat this horrid obsession SportsShoes think that rather than focus on the ‘perfect bikini body’ the better solution for body confidence is to don some colourful, high performance kit and go for a run in the sun. Nothing is more empowering I’d say.

I’m a huge fan of Nike and SportsShoes has a great range of technical active wear which will help women look good, feel great and ultimately boost their confidence. I could live in my workout gear (seriously) so for me it’s important to feel and look good in it.

I was sent some cool Nike gear to trial and review. A number of very summer-focused running and workout tops. Perfect for the heat!

This purple running top (find it HERE) was perfect when I went on a 15 mile bike ride the other Saturday and running in general.

The fabric wicks the sweat away from my skin so I don’t get all sweaty and sticky. There’s all little holes in the back as well to keep you cool.

Another top was the below yellow one (found HERE): It is very bright. I love that about it! It’s also made from very thin material (slightly see-through?) but keeps you very cool. I adore this top.

Again made from the technical material to help sweat wicking (nice phrase there). In retrospect not a great top to wear with my tiny shorts but it was seriously hot that day so I didn’t care (let’s not talk about the very cheeky joking remark I got about looking like I was just out of Anne Summer’s – how rude!)

The below top (find HERE) I initially thought was just a regular workout top in that it was just cotton, but it’s actually made from that wicking fabric too so I can run in it without any chafing issues.

It’s a little big on me but I quite like that – it’s airy and cool.

Another top is a plain black one (found HERE).

The top is a nice feel but it does slip down a bit which was a bit annoying. I was wearing a pink sports bra underneath to jazz it up so it wasn’t too big a deal. It is quite loose and light so cool in the hot weather.

The final top is more of a gym top than a running top (find it HERE) as it’s a bit thicker and I’m sure it would rub under my arms (that dreaded chafe…).

It’s such a nice colour though. I tend to wear a lot of dark colours in both normal life and running, so it’s nice to add some more bright colours to my stock! Again it’s made from the wicking fabric. And it’s very soft feeling.

I love the summer because you can really wear so much more exciting work out gear. In winter there’s a lot of jackets and leggings which is never as exciting. Plus during the summer you can get a nice tan on your arms and legs (though not always with great tan lines!)

What do you wear during the summer to workout?

Does what you wear help build your confidence?

What colours do you prefer for your workout clothes?

**Full disclosure: These products were sent to me for free in order to review, but all opinions are my own. The links provided are not affiliated links.**

May 28, 2014

Cake (of course), champagne and a whole load of shopping

Other than cycling and swimming, the weekend was still a busy one. It started Friday night with Ben getting a sports massage from our local friendly sports therapist Kyle.

I must say, there was an element of pleasure in watching my husband get a deep massage, rather than it being me this time! He bared up well – no major swear words or serious grimaces.

Then, after swimming and parkun on Saturday, we got ourselves nice and dapper ready for my mum’s birthday. What better way to celebrate than to take my parents for champagne afternoon tea?

We went to the fairly local MacDonald Botley Park hotel. It was very posh. We had little dainty sandwiches, two (two!) scones each and small dainty cakes. As I’ve had my fair share of afternoon tea and I feel I can judge these things quite well now 😉 I must say it was very nice. The scones were superb. Personally the cakes, though tasty, weren’t the best I’ve ever had. I much prefer a big slab of one particular cake rather than tiny portions of different cake (there was a chocolate coffee thing, slices of lemon poppy seed cake, plain sponge and fruit cake).

Can we just continue to talk about cake a moment? I’ve fallen off the wagon and into the dessert trolley it seems. My previous one week without cake only heightened my need for it. Things weren’t great last week.

Well obviously they were great taste-wise, but not great for my sugar consumption!

I went to Wagamama’s with work friends and after feeling rather saintly (but still a tad hungry) after my chilli chicken salad and miso soup I was persuaded to look at the pudding menu – well, I hardly need persuading! This then resulted in two of us ordering a stupid amount of different puddings. It was being expensed by work and some people weren’t having pudding…so it all evened up. In the end I had the above chocolate fudge cake, half a white chocolate cheesecake, I had some coconut ice cream, raspberry ice cream and a try of the passion fruit cheesecake. Needless to say I felt a little full afterwards. It was rather funny to watch people’s faces as my work colleague and I demolished a table of puddings.

But I think I fully put to bed my incessant craving. Obviously I then had afternoon tea on Saturday but I’m in a good place now with my cake love – it’s manageable 😉 Though I did have a baking fail on Monday when I attempted to make a chocolate peanut butter brownie to take into work the next day.

I think it’s probably safe that I can’t really bake very well. Who knows how many cakes I’d try to make in a week otherwise? Dangerous for both bank account and waistline.

To be fair, after I scraped the burnt bits off it looked a little better. A bit of melted chocolate drizzled on top sort of livened it up as well. But cutting it the next morning was a proper arm workout. It was a brick, there’s no denying it.

But can I just say: there was none left on Tuesday evening. Not such a fail after all? Or maybe my office are that desperate for baked goods…

Jumping back to Sunday, Ben and me had a lot of shopping to get done. New trainers, new trail shoes, a tent (for our upcoming 24 hour race in June – I’m trying not to think about that right now), camping chairs and walking boots.

We both successfully got the new trainers (Mizuno Nirvanas for me). It’s funny because I went with the intention of changing from Mizuno’s as that’s what I’ve always had and I thought I might need a change. I’m a serious over-pronator so always have to go for a stability shoe. But out of all the ones I’d be advised to try and had a little run in, the Mizuno’s felt the best. Saucony’s felt very rigid and the Brooks were second best but just not as good.

We got the walking boots done and dusted too.

These are for our upcoming trip to Snowdonia to see my grandad (who is a qualified British Mountain Guide and used to do crazy amounts of rock climbing, mountaineering, and still goes mountain biking and lots of walking – as well as the slightly less exciting golf ;-)). He’s taking us up Snowden (or at least pointing the way) so we needed to be prepared. We’re very excited!

And other than Monday’s cycling and Nando’s extravaganza, that’s pretty much it!

What’s been a recent baking fail for you?

Have you ever ordered more than one pudding off the menu? It felt so indulgent and extravagant!

Have you been hiking before? Anywhere nice?

May 14, 2014May 10, 2016

A long way to go

This year has been very strange in terms of running. I started the year feeling absolutely pants, recovering from a stubborn injury. I got back into running fairly slowly when my knee started to hold up and began gaining back speed and things were going well.

Then after the Reading half (not many weeks before the marathon) I was struck down with another injury (sprained ligament in my ankle). Luckily because it was such an acute injury it went away as quickly as it appeared (just over two weeks). But it knocked my training and made me readjust my expectations for the marathon.

The marathon happened and I did so much better than I could have dreamed. No issues, a GFA and a great experience. Off the back of that though it has been quite a tedious time with running. I love it still, don’t get me wrong. But gaining back speed has been a tough old slog. I’m nowhere near where I was this time last year in terms of my parkrun times and I don’t feel as confident a runner as I used to be.

I’ve been going to regular club training sessions, parkruns and the odd race but things don’t seem to be there as easily as before. I know it’s just time, but I’m so impatient. Though I’m over the moon for my running friends and husband getting PBs, it’s frustrating for me that my PBs were achieved last year when I was in peak condition so my chance of beating them soon are slim.

This was evident when I really tried to go for it at parkrun on Saturday. I had my game-face on, the course was the flat five laps around the cricket pitch, and I was feeling ready.

I got 21:32 (2nd female) which is over a minute away from my PB. I really pushed it and felt shattered afterwards.

I know I can get the speed back if I consistently train and do the right sessions, I’m just having a moan. I know I am very lucky to be able to run and enjoy it – don’t get me wrong. Since my numerous injuries, I am very grateful for every run and I know injuries are so easy to get. My runs could be numbered at any point. I just feel a bit useless at the moment with my running.

I also had the worst run of my entire life. I’m taking part in our running club’s league races (Hampshire RR10s) and we had one last Wednesday night. The races are typically 4-5miles long, off-road and undulating. This one was in the New Forest.

Ben and me met up with the rest of the club and warmed up.

Ah those happy faces, unaware of what was to come

I started ridiculously fast. Like stupid fast. It was downhill and I was just like “la, la, la, I’m so speedy”. Then hit the wall and the wheels came off spectacularly on mile two. It was painful, horrible and I thought at one point just to stop.

Thankfully, I didn’t. I zipped up my woman-suit (girl version of man-suit) and just persevered. There was so much thick mud to get through it was a nightmare. Then a lovely long hill for 3/4 mile at the end. Joy.

My lovely new Run Mummy Run compression socks fully Christened with mud on their first outing

I’ve never been so glad for a race to be over. I’m not joking when I say I’d rather do the marathon again than that race. Too fast, stupid pacing, too much mud. A silver lining at least was that I got 11th female and first female in my club.

Because I knew that I worked very hard at the RR10 and I was also aiming for a good time on Saturday’s parkrun, when Ben and me signed up to the Alton 10 miler race on Sunday I knew straight away I didn’t want to race it. But Ben was keen to go for a PB (honestly, that boy is on fire. He got a PB at parkrun! I’ll be watching my back soon – he was nine seconds behind me). Ben’s 10 mile PB was 1:26:xx but that was last October and he’s made some great improvements since then so it was clear he would PB (providing all went well). It just depended on by how much of a PB it would be. He wanted 1:18. So I said I’d pace him as that was still quite a comfortable speed for me. Not an easy run, but not a racing speed (my PB is 1:15, of which I’m not happy with but let’s not go there).

The run was well organised and the course was very scenic – think traditional little British villages and farms. But undulating and windy on the day.

We ran fairly steady. I struggled a little bit due to a slightly niggling hip (let’s not talk about it) but other than that it went fine. Ben ran well and achieved his goal with time to spare – an 8 minute 1 second PB.

He was over the moon, as you can imagine. Two PBs in one weekend. Nice work, hubby!

Running is never easy. You really have to put a lot of hard, consistent work in to get good stuff out. I know I’ll get there again, it just takes time.

Have you ever felt frustrated with your ability?

Is your other half into sports or fitness? Do you compete against each other? I never want to race against Ben. I’m sure he’ll get faster than me at some point but I don’t mind. I’m happy that he’s doing so well. I never want to compare his performance against mine. It would be silly anyway considering he’s male and I’m female!

Have you ever been paced or have ever paced someone else in a race?

February 5, 2014

Fashionably Fit: Look good to work hard?

I never used to care what I looked like when I worked out. For me it was all about just getting out there and getting it done. I had my bog standard leggings, a couple of tops and a jacket. Who cared what I looked like at 6am on a cold Thursday morning?

But after realising how much I loved running, and general fitness really, I started expanding my wardrobe a bit and looking around at the different shops and online sites.

Suddenly not only did I want good quality gear but I wanted stuff that actually looked good. And why not? I like to wear nice clothes in ‘real life’ so why not running? This might sound vain and vacuous but when I feel like I look the part then I feel more confident. Especially at races. That awkward moment at the start of the race when you look round at other people and judge them by what they’re wearing – ridiculous yes, but it can knock your confidence a little if you don’t feel good yourself.

A while ago Katherine Jenkins got a lot of stick for running a marathon in full make-up (check THIS article out). I can’t understand the venom that went her way. Why have a go if it makes her feel more confident? Surely it doesn’t detract from her performance? We have a girl at our running club who runs in fake eyelashes. She’s happy so what’s the problem?

SportsShoes are running a Fashionably Fit campaign and they invited me to ponder this question of whether looking stylish spurs me on to work harder while exercising or are you fully focused on how you feel rather than what you wear? To me this is like good running music, anything that gets you in the zone can spur me on. And looking stylish and ‘on form’ definitely gets me in the zone.

I was sent some cool Nike workout clothes to review to see whether this was the case.

I received this running top which honestly could be my favourite cold weather jacket.

It zips right up to the neck, or you can unzip it to give yourself a bit of ventilation. It was brilliant during my wet and muddy Parkrun a few weeks ago. And it has a back pocket and thumbholes which I love. Definitely more stylish than my usual boring zip up jackets that flap about a bit.

I also received these amazingly bright capris and workout vest.I love how bright the capris are because most of my running gear tends to be quite dark and all my leggings are black. These will be brilliant for my parents to spot me at races. They’re also very comfy – I foresee these to be worn around the house…The top is ideal for when I’m strength training or doing Pilates. But it does have the ‘DRI-FIT’ fabric which wicks the sweat from your body, so no embarrassing sweat stains.

And this running vest.

I like this top because you don’t have to wear a sports bra under it as it has some extra support.It’s so comfortable and it wicks away the sweat. It also is a very flattering shape. I did feel a little naked though at the gym in this outfit! It’ll probably be a top I use during the summer racing months as well as it’s so lightweight.

And socks. Because socks are so important! I hate socks that slip down and are annoying or give me blisters. These are ideal for running. Probably more on the functional side of things than looking good!

Call me vain, slate Katherine Jenkins, but seriously I’m in the camp that when you feel confident in yourself and how you look, it makes you feel good about what your doing and helps you keep motivated and working out strong.

What do you think?

Do you like to look good when you work out?

Do you put more effort in for things like races, or if you’re going to the gym and people will see you?

Do you wear make-up to workout in?

**These products were sent to me for free in order to review, but all opinions are my own.**