Running - AnnaTheApple

August 12, 2013

Good times all round!

Hey guys! How are you doing? The weekend has gone and we’re back to it.

All last week my fitness-related aim was: beat last week’s Parkrun time. I needed some validation that what I was doing was going to pay off. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve found that I’m really loving spinning twice a week, and I always feel such an accomplishment after the interval session I do with my club on a Tuesday night…but they’re painful sessions. I feel like I’ve been through the mill after them! But it’s all about balance for me at the moment and focused training to keep improving without getting injured again.

I’m still doing body pump once a week and every other day I’m doing my stretches and foam rolling. And, well, everything seems to be going quite nicely! I smashed my Parkrun time by 25 seconds from last week’s time which I am over the moon about.

I have absolutely no game plans when it comes to 5ks. For me it’s just go as hard as can for as long as you can. There’s a sneaky hill which we have to do three times and it’s tough to not let the pace drop but I blasted on the downhill to make up for it. I placed second lady so I was very pleased indeed.

The rest of Saturday was getting the jobs done around the house and then chilling. My dad was over once again to watch the football with Ben in the afternoon so I got myself nice and comfy with a magazine, the iPad (with the World Championship athletics playing) and watermelon. Ahh perfect.

I’m reading the Empire magazine, I do love my movie reviews…

I might have also indulged in a slice of cake in the evening while we watched some Friends… I do love Saturdays!

Sunday morning I had planned either a 10 mile run or a 12 mile run. I was going to decide how I felt as the run went on. And from the get-go it felt like a great run. I had Marathon Talk on my iPhone (can’t recommend this podcast enough to runner-lovers out there) and it was raining on and off. Made a lovely change from the heat.

So I made it 12 miles and just really enjoyed it. One of those runs you kind of relax into. The miles flew by. I decided to pick up the pace towards the end just to challenge myself a bit as well. Now fingers crossed next Sunday’s half marathon goes that way! I’m thinking that’s unlikely considering the hills…(“super challenging terrain” says the description. Oh joy).

Despite the rain in the morning, it cleared up beautifully to be a lovely sunny day. Alfie and me went for a nice gentle walk after lunch.

We’re so lucky to live within a five minute’s walk from these lovely trails. Though considering Britain’s usual weather we don’t get to utilise them as much as we’d like

So this week has been great for my workouts. One of my best in a while.

Monday: Spinning

Tuesday: Interval session with running club (2 miles warm up, intervals, 2 miles cool down; total 7 miles)

Wednesday: Off

Thursday: Trail run with running club (9 miles total)

Friday: Spinning

Saturday: Parkrun (5k)

Sunday: Glorious 12 miles and body pump

Amongst this, as I said, lots of pre-run stretches, post-run stretches, foam rolling and my strengthening stretches. I’m like a stretching machine. And it really isn’t that much hassle. I used to be so blasé about the whole warm-up and warm-downs, but now I’m like the golden girl of following running best practice. I’m boring myself talking about this sorry!

Hope you all have a lovely week

What has been your favourite workout this week? Mine was my long run. PBs and great speeds come and go, but that mental peace you get from a slower, longer run is just incomparable to anything else I find.

Do you have a dog? Or enjoy going for walks? Like my long runs, I enjoy just popping a podcast on and taking Alfie for a lovely walk to just chill out.

What magazines do you love to read? Empire magazine, BBC Good Food or Runnersworld are my favourite!

August 5, 2013

Baking Fail and Weekly Workouts

Happy Monday. Here we are again at the start of the week. And two weeks until my half marathon crazy trail run. Mmm, I’m a little bit nervous!

So this weekend has been very low-key. Don’t you just love those kind of weekends? Ben and I had Parkrun in the morning on Saturday. I beat my last time by 15 seconds which I was over the moon about.

Then we had my parents over in a tag-team style affair on: my dad came over to watch football with Ben (joy of joys) and then my mum popped over later for coffee. Conveniently for Ben and my dad, they had ~~on purpose~~ accidentally got the time wrong and ‘unfortunately’ had to play an hour or so of Fifa on the Xbox before kick-off. *sighs*

While they did that I got on with a very important task: cake baking. I rarely bake because I’m really not that good at it. I really wish I was…but I’m just not great at following recipes. I don’t read them properly or just don’t follow them as well as I should. That’s fine for cooking…but baking, not so much.

I chose a Victoria sponge, because that’s my favourite and I know my mum likes it too (perfect for afternoon coffee).

*sighs*

I honestly followed the recipe exactly. But to no avail. It all went fine until I had to get the damn things out of their baking trays (I had greased them well I thought)…then the jam didn’t seem to like the cake. Oh it just didn’t work out well.

I bet you’re thinking: wait, that doesn’t look so bad. Right? Well, we all have bad angles in photos (I know I do!) so let’s see this baby’s bad side.

As much as I’d love to say that big gaping crack was due to me throwing my face in head first for a good old bite. But, alas, no. That’s just what it looks like naturally. And my lovely father called it the “earthcake” (as in earthquake but a cake).

But clearly the most important part about a cake is not it’s appearance, it’s the taste. And it tasted gooooooooooood. And I have you know, both parents, my mother-in-law and Ben all enjoyed it. So that’s that.

After having a good old natter with my mum, I spent the afternoon just chilling reading my Empire (movie review) magazine. I read an interview with Richard Curtis (legend in my eyes – Notting Hill, Love Actually, Bridget Jones and of course Four Weddings and a Funeral) and I read a bit to Ben as something made me laugh. And Ben goes “I’ve never seen Four Weddings and a Funeral”.

…

“What?” How am I married to this man?? How did I not know this? Seriously??

Four Weddings and a Funeral is like the quintessential British comedy. It is one of my favourite films of all time. How has he not seen it? Well this needed to be rectified immediately. Needless to say we had our Sunday afternoon planned.

Sunday morning I ran my 12 mile long run. Compared to last weekend’s long-run (which I thoroughly enjoyed as was just one of those great runs)…this run sucked. I started running and I just knew it wasn’t going to be good. Maybe I pushed myself too hard at Parkrun, maybe I didn’t eat properly the night before (cake before bed is never a great recipe for a good run I’ve found) or maybe it’s just one of those things. It really felt hard the entire time. Last weekend’s run was 8.11mins/mile average for 13 miles but this weekend it was 8.32mins/mile. Well, you win some you lose some.

After the run I had breakfast, then my mother-in-law came over to catch up with coffee (and cake), and then I went to body pump which was OK. I’m sorry, I can’t get excited about weights. It’s a purely supplementary exercise for me in order to stay injury-free and get stronger to support better running. The rest of the day was watching back-to-back Friends episodes (we have the entire box set – amazing) and then Four Weddings and a Funeral in the evening. Perfect.

And to recap this week’s workouts:

Monday: Spin

Tuesday: Hill session with running club (7 miles total)

Wednesday: Off

Thursday: Lonely 8 mile run on my own as I got home too late for running club

Friday: Spin

Saturday: Parkrun (3 miles)

Sunday: 12 miles and body pump

Total miles: 30

Quite happy with the week. With the half marathon coming up my mileage is higher than normal but I’m loving it so that’s fine. Spin is still tough but I find after running it really shakes out my legs.

Because I’m running quite a lot and spinning now as well I’m very careful to make sure I’m eating more to help sustain me through the week. I’ve been adding chia seeds to my oatmeal, having nice large dinners, lots of snacks at work (such as pistachios and dried fruit) and, er, yeah lots of cake. But I’ll show more of that on Wednesday

How was your weekend?

When you increase your workouts, how do you fuel to make sure you’re not going to flake away?

What have been your baking fails? Please tell me I’m not alone in my lack of domestic goddess-ability.

August 2, 2013

How to Run Fast

Today I wanted to chat a little bit about running fast. [Sorry, it’s a very running-based post…] I am not an expert obviously. I am not even that ‘fast’. Firstly, it’s a tricky thing to really define how fast fast is. Speed is relative. When I first started running I was running 10 minute miles on the treadmill like it was my job. Four times a week, 5 miles, 50 minutes. Done and dusted. It felt tough. But I didn’t push the speed, I just kept going at that pace because that’s what running was to me back then.

Then I changed jobs and lost my lovely little gym at my old work. So I started running outside. Hang on a second! Where’s my speed button?? Where’s my incline button? It all became a little less formalised. Just running, pure and simple. I found I naturally ran faster than my treadmill slog. I was hitting 9 minutes, and 8.30 minutes if I pushed it.

Suddenly I discovered how much I loved running.

But I still ran around 5 miles four times a week. Some days I’d see it as a good workout as I’d hit around 8.30 min/mile average. Some days I’d see as a bad workout (9 mins/mile). And that was that. A tick-box affair if you like.

Since reading blogs, magazines and running with other people I discovered the key to running faster. There’s this special drink you have every morning and night… kidding (damn I wish there was a drink – or cake, I love cake). How do you run faster? You run faster. Simple, right?

Yes but it’s painful, it generally sucks, and I pretty much hate it the entire time.

Here are some of the workouts that you should try and incorporate to increase your running speed:

Fartleks
Intervals
Hill repeats

Last year I dropped my mileage and started running a couple of times a week 2-3 miles with regular bursts of random speed – 100% effort, absolutely blasting it for a short period of time. Then slowing it down to recover for a minute and then repeating. This is fartlek training (Swedish for ‘speed play’ – ha biggest joke ever; that implies it’s fun!)

Dropping from 20ish miles a week to under 10 miles and suddenly my speed on a normal everyday run was boosted. It was amazing.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s tough. But it’s only tough for short periods.

Since my irksome injury, I’ve lost of a bit of speed as I couldn’t do any effective speed work without causing myself further issues. It’s amazing how quickly you lose speed when you stop trying. Now, however, I’m back in the game and ready to play ball.

Tuesday nights at my running club are the training nights. Usually I only go to the Thursday sessions which are just nice medium runs (6-8miles) at brisk pace. But I know I need someone to yell at me to do some proper training. So this Tuesday were hills repeats.

It was 300m jogging downhill, then 300m sprinting flat-out up hill, then 300m jogging flat, then 300m sprinting flat. We did that entire sequence five times. Doesn’t sound like much, but seriously it killed me. We only worked out for 30 minutes but I was toast.

I kept saying to the girl next to me: surely this is the last one, right??

We also do intervals. This is basically a more formalised version of fartleks, usually on a track. This is when you have an exact distance planned that you sprint flat-out for (e.g. 100m, 200m, 300m, etc.) and then an exact distance or time of recovery (say 800m recovery, or a minute). And you repeat this a certain number of times.

Again, like fartlek is all about a sustained hard effort for a period of time, with a length of recovery. The recovery is just as important as the speed. It allows your body to, well, recover and then be good to go again.

Over time, the speed of which you were flat-out a few weeks ago will feel a bit easier. So you rank up the speed again. The intensity of the speed helps your muscles work more efficiently and gets used to higher speeds.

Basically the aim of these sessions is that they feel hard so you’re normal runs feel easier. And your normal runs become faster.

There are other runs you could incorporate, like tempo runs, but I’ve gone on a fair bit already. I guess you must know by now then when I start talking about running I find it hard to stop! I know running isn’t for everybody but it’s what I live and breathe. I am trying to find more of a balance – reading Kat’s blog helps me see the other side Strength is so important for running as well. You need the power in your muscles to allow the speed to happen.

Like I said, I’m not an expert and will never pretend to be, but I hope this has helped anyone who needs it!

If you have any questions, let me know! Or if you have any tips and tricks yourself, please share!

Do you enjoy running? If not, what are you passionate about?

What’s your favourite run? Mine is definitely the ‘long run’. Easy pace, big distance.

What are you up to this weekend? We have a weekend of nothing planned. Bliss.

July 29, 2013

Week’s Workouts

Howdy, howdy! Hope you had a great weekend. Ours was nice and quiet, which was definitely needed after last week’s London adventures.

Maybe it’s the sunshine pouring through my bedroom window or maybe I’m changing but honestly I never sleep in anymore. Obviously I can’t during the week due to that annoying but rather essential thing called work, but at the weekend I’ve been known to snooze in until 9am. OK that’s not a huge lie-in, but since university I haven’t been able to sleep later than that unless I went crazy with a late night. These days my lie-ins don’t go past 8am, but quite frequently I’m awake by 7am. Well, I’ll have to see when the lovely sunny mornings disappear I guess.

So this week gone has been crazy in terms of varied workouts for me. Who am I?? Previously I would just run five times a week. Not even a sneaky core or stretching session. Ergo, I got injured. But things are a-changing!

Monday: body pump

In case you weren’t aware of what that might look like

This kicked my butt. Literally I was an achy mess after this. My puny muscles quivered in pain.

Tuesday: for some inexplicable reason I thought running five miles would be a good idea the next morning. Just to ‘shake out’. I was running 30 seconds to one minute slower than normal. But I finished it and felt good.

Wednesday: rest

Thursday: running club in the evening (eight miles off-road). It felt tough but I felt like I was back on form. I’m definitely aware that my speed has diminished slightly. I’m still speedier than I was months ago, but definitely not top form like I was during the height of my races.

Friday: spinning. I was nervous about doing spinning in the morning considering I ran the night before. However, apart from being a bit tired I was fine. So much less stress on my legs. And I felt great for the day.

Yep that’s a spinning bike

However, spinning was TOUGH. Jeeze I am so out of practice. The ~~demon~~ guy that was running the session was like “Come on! Push it harder! Get those RPMs to 125” and I was spinning as fast as my little legs could go and only reaching at most 110. Sweat literally poured off of me. One girl next to me was on fire. I was pretty sure she was going to cycle that bike off it’s stand if she wasn’t careful. Teacher’s pet.

Just shows really that you can be good at one thing and suck at something else. Fitness is not a universal thing. It can be very specific to the sport or workout you choose.

Saturday: Parkrun (5k informal race). I was nervous about it beforehand and did a little warm-up (new thing, let’s actually warm-up before racing. Well done, Anna). But once we got going it was fine. We were on the slightly harder course (only three laps with a hill, rather than a flat five lap course) so I knew PBing was very unlikely. However, I did beat my previous time for this course from a few weeks ago.

I came second girl and 20th overall (out of 142). Not bad! And the best part was that I enjoyed it. It was tough and I felt the burn, but it felt like a normal run. No discomfort or twinges or feeling held back. The only thing holding me back was my stamina and running ability.

And check out Mr Volunteer doing his thing as he’s still sadly out of the game

Time-keeping – a very pressurised job

Ben was keeping the time of the runners finishing. Quite an important job, I think you’ll agree. I did try and bribe him to give me a good time. Haha, so joking. He wouldn’t be that nice to me!

Sunday: long run. Did I mention I’ve got a half marathon in about three weeks? 18th August Cheddar Gorge Half Marathon. We signed up to it ages ago. Anyway, this is not a race to even consider getting a good time for. We’re talking 1,600ft elevation. It’s on a gorge. It’s off-road. Help.

For the Reading Half Marathon (way back in March) I didn’t take any gels or fuel because I didn’t need them. I felt fine. However, for this half marathon it’s not just a simple road race. It’s hilly like you wouldn’t believe. So I plan on taking a gel at mile six as I know it’s going to be intense. This run on Sunday was therefore to practice what having a gel on a run would be like. I’ve never tried gels before and wasn’t even certain it would sit well with me <—never try something new on race day, always practice beforehand!

Long-run survival guide (my water bottle collapses – I love it)

My plan was to run 13 miles but make sure I do a route that if at 11-12 I felt tired I could cut it short.

For whatever reason, the big Running God in the sky smiled down on me and I had a brilliant run (even notched on the .1 because it would be rude not to). Whether it was because I made sure I ran at a nice easy pace, or the gel at mile six, or just because it wasn’t so blinking hot: it was a great run. One of those highly coveted runs.

Like I said, I took the gel at mile six. Apart from the texture (like warm weird yogurt…yuck) it was fine and I honestly think it helped speed me up. The only annoying thing was despite passing a million bins before taking the damn thing, there wasn’t a bin in sight after taking it for like a mile, which meant I had to carry the empty sticky packet for a while.

Anyway, I felt brilliant after the run. After eating a big bowl of oatmeal, I quickly headed out (yes, before showering. I’m disgusting) in search of ice to have a nice ice bath. I went to four shops and they had nothing. I did buy apples though so not a complete fail

Later I then had body pump again. I am crazy I know. But it seems Sundays are the only really good time for me to do pump (as I only managed on Monday as I had a day off). Strangely it was fine! Obviously afterwards I was quite tired and after finding ice (woohoo!) promptly went home to have an ice bath and do nothing all day. Fabulous!

So this week has been a great mix of running, spinning and pump. Alongside this I’ve tried to do my stretches and strengthening exercises three times a week. I won’t be aiming for two pump sessions a week but I definitely want to do one pump and one spin and only run four times a week.

How’s your weekend been?

What workouts have you been doing?

What’s your favourite gym class to do? I really want to try kettle bells soon but it’s always on a Saturday which is an issue for my long run the next day.

What’s your experience with gels?

July 3, 2013July 3, 2013

Running is tough

Yep, that’s right people. I am back to running my usual stuff (albeit building the mileage back up slowly).

My hubby sent me this picture and I thought it was rather cool. I am a very clumsy person so this makes sense. I have been known to randomly fall over without any external influences.

On Tuesday morning I’d planned to do around 4-5miles and after getting up at stupid o’clock 5.40am I took Alfie for his walk and just prayed that my leg would deliver. I was worried I had taken too much of a chance on Sunday with my nine mile long run. But as I headed off on the first mile I felt no pain and no issues. Just a slight discomfort, which I’m firmly believing is diminishing (every time I do my stretches the discomfort is less and less every day).

But it was hard. I was concerned it was my niggle holding me back (I’m referring to my injury as a niggle as it really wasn’t that serious, despite all the moaning and complaining I did). Partly it was hard because of the niggle, but mainly I was held back because my morning runs are always tough. I’m tired, I haven’t eaten since the night before and my muscles, in all honesty, aren’t as warmed up as they could be.

However I managed a great five mile progression run:

I’m so chuffed I got the last mile down to 7.20mins/mile as I was worried I wouldn’t be hitting times like that for a while due to my break.

When I wasn’t running, in my head running was easy, running was amazing, I adored every minute. In reality, running is TOUGH. It is pretty much tough the whole damn time. Even when it’s good, it’s still tough. I would be lying if I said I enjoy every run. I would be lying if I said I fling myself out the door with sheer merriment and joyously hop down the road with exultation of the impending miles.

But, I love it.

I always remember what my dad says to me about running:

I don’t truly believe running is like this but I can see his point. 99% of the time, I always feel good after a run. No matter how tough or how bad it went, I’m always smiling afterwards.

Anyway on to food, and in joining the party for WIAW (thanks, Jenn!) I thought I’d share a couple of meals that rocked my world.

First up was Sunday night’s meal. It was one of those evenings when I just couldn’t be bothered to cook anything exciting. Ages ago I bought some turkey sausages to try and they had been living in the darkest corner of the depths of my freezer for too long. I thought it was time to bring them back to life…and then grill the hell out of them (does that even work…?).

Now, I’m not a big fan of sausages in general. I really can’t stand pork sausages. But I love turkey so I thought I’d give them a go (while Ben had regular pork sausages).

I had two of them and cut them in half to grill them (read: paranoid about eating raw sausages), two fried eggs (devastated when one of them broke. Tears almost happened…joking but it was touch and go), and cauliflower/cream cheese mash (and broccoli). Yum! Big thumbs up for this meal.

Then Tuesday night I made this random concoction:

Grated sweet potato with diced onions, cream cheese and a fish pie mix (salmon, mackerel and haddock). Basically a version of my paprika chicken. Oh this was good. The fishiness of the fish (yep you read that correctly) paired perfectly with the creaminess of the potato and cheese.

I love it when random meals work out well!

And I love it when the sunshine means I get to wear shorts to work!

Shorts: Peacocks//Shirt: Next

I’m embarrassed to say these shorts are soo old (we’re talking pre-university). In fact, there’s even a hole in one of the pockets that luckily the shirt covers. Shhh… I’m too cheap and rubbish to buy/fix it.

But can you believe we’re a 1/3 through summer already? Ha. What a joke.

What meals have been rocking your world lately? I haven’t had sweet potato in so long so it was good to get that back in the routine again.

What do you wear to work/school/college/uni/other in the summer? I’m lucky that I work in a relaxed office, but I do like to keep things relatively smart. It helps keep me focused.

When do you find working out the hardest? I love running in the morning but I’m never as fast as I am in the evening or late morning when I’ve had time to properly wake up and warm up.