Running - AnnaTheApple

May 1, 2013

Hello May!

Hi guys, we made it to Wednesday and May amazingly enough! Actually this week hasn’t been that much of a drag for me. The sun has been shining and work has been good. Aaaaaaand we booked a holiday! I am so excited about this. We are going to…*drum roll* Mexico! We’re heading for 10 days all-inclusive to a resort in Playacar for September of this year to celebrate our one year wedding anniversary. I’ve never been to an all-inclusive so this is rather exciting for me.

Usually I’m not a beach fan as I get bored. There’s only so much lounging around I can do. But with this resort they have loads of planned activities, sight-seeing opportunities and water sports. It’s a compromise between Ben and me as Ben likes holidays where he does nothing (bless him he could have two weeks off just playing the Xbox I imagine) but I need something to do. So this works out well!

Right, enough of that. It’s time for What I ate Wednesday.

Thanks Jenn!

Soo this is what I had yesterday.

Breakfast has been the usual business. Oatmeal, almond milk. Fabulously filling though, yes, predictable….

Boring maybe, delicious definitely.

Lunch has been my usual salad. With tuna and lots of veggies.

Next I had popcorn, which I currently have a huge obsession for at the moment.

I prefer it salted for lunch, though I do love sweet popcorn too. Or a mixture…yum.

And then for afters (do people still say that??) I had Greek yogurt with organic strawberries. Oooh err.

I thought I’d go crazy and push the boat out and have some organic strawberries as they weren’t that much more expensive than the normal ones (and, if you caught one of my previous posts, I’ve been doing some thinking about organic). It’s crazy that alongside the British strawberries you can buy Spanish ones cheaper. What a way to make people buy locally sourced! Ha. Come on, Britain, get behind your farmers.

An honourable mention needs to be made to lunch on Sunday though as it rocked my world.

Roast chicken, roasted butternut squash and broad beans…with of course:

BBQ sauce! I didn’t actually use any of the apple and fig chutney as the BBQ sauce stole my heart. Though the chutney has been a star in many salads. Both are keepers. Yum.

Work snackages have been in the form of my Graze boxes…

In the box I got mini banana cake with an ‘afternoon infusion’ teabag, some pretzelly things, crackers with a salsa dip and some Japanese crackers. Fabulously tasty.

Dinner last night was a new-to-me recipe. I was inspired by Jess’s recipe HERE.

I really enjoyed these stuffed peppers. I filled them with lean beef mince cooked in chopped tomatoes, herbs and some crumbled beef stock cubes. I ten added a big tablespoon of cream cheese just because

Then I popped the mince in the peppers and oven cooked them for about 15 mins. I love this photo of the peppers in the oven. Bless Alfie for photo bombing.

I popped the peppers in a muffin tray to make sure they didn’t fall over and it worked well! Ben and I had two of these bad boys each.

I had mine with broad beans. Really enjoyed this meal.

Evening snackages come in the form of some chocolate that really needed eating (doesn’t it all…?)

These were from a box of truffles that we’ve had loafing around for ages. I’m forcing myself to use up all our chocolate supplies before allowing myself to buy any more (specifically Lindt). Otherwise we just get backlogged with chocolate we’re not going to eat because there’s always the better Lindt option. *sighs* It’s a hard life I know

I snack on other stuff during the day (fruit & Snack a Jacks) but it’s all fairly standard and boring!

Fitness-wise, it’s been my standard running. Last week I managed to get my mileage up to 32.5miles!

Monday: 6 miles tempo
Tuesday: 3 miles interval
Wednesday: 5.5 miles no particular goal
Thursday: 8 mile with the running club
Friday: rest
Saturday: 10 mile long run
Sunday: rest

I’ve been loving it! My body seems to be copying well, no twinges, no aches, no nothing! Though I have been gently increasing my mileage to help prevent any shocks to the system.

I love the variety I have as well. Monday and Tuesday are solo runs stupidly early in the morning (but lovely and light now thankfully). Wednesday is a lunch-time run usually with guys from work. Thursday is my running club and Saturday is my favourite long run listening to a good podcast.

And here’s what I wore:

The dress is one of the ones I got from Camden market, belt and necklace are from Accessorize, leggings and cardigan from New Look

Nothing else to report. Did I mention I’ve booked a holiday to Mexico…? Shoot, I already did? Whoops I promise I won’t go on about it hehe.

Runners out there, what kind of mileage do you like to hit during a week?

Do you, like me, hate wasting food? The chocolate truffles are no where near as good as Lindt but I can’t throw them away. I hate throwing food away!!

Favourite sauce – ketchup? BBQ? Mustard?

Have you ever been on an all-inclusive holiday?

April 21, 2013

10 o’clock brownies

Hi guys, hope you all had a great weekend. I completely de-stressed myself after my busy week. And the sun came out which was just perfect.

Friday night I had planned to leave work at a reasonable time to get home and have a nice long evening with my two favourite Bens. My husband and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream Obviously though this meant leaving work an hour and a half after intended. *sighs* But the consolation of it being Friday was good enough to not dampen my mood.

We had steak again for dinner which was perfection.

With loads of salad and goat’s cheese. Oh this was heaven. Sticky, sweet goodness.

Then we had Ben and Jerry’s (Vermonster for Ben & chocolate brownie fro-yo for me) while we watched Savages.

It was really good. I was so surprised. There were a couple of scenes I had to run out of the room for (read: torture & nasty deaths) but otherwise really good. Salma Hayek was brilliant in it, though Blake Lively was pretty much Serena from Gossip Girl.

Saturday morning I went for my usual long run.

I took it nice and easy and just enjoyed it. The weather was great so I could wear my capris rather than my long leggings. It felt so refreshing to be out in the sun first thing. I really do love my long weekend run. Yeah OK sometimes it’s tough, but I just slow down a bit and take it easy. It’s not always about speed. This is a run where I try not to care what pace I do, I just love the distance.

The rest of Saturday was the usual chore-doing business and not one but two lovely walks with Alfie and Ben in the beautiful sunshine. We walked Alfie just before lunch and then in the afternoon I was just itching to get outside again and somehow managed to persuade Ben to join me again. Whenever it gets sunny I have this immense need to get out of the house and into the sun. I’m worried it won’t last! Get it while it’s ~~hot~~ shining!

And I got my hair cut.

I wanted quite a bit taken off as it’s just got so long. It’s such a hassle to wash, comb, blow-dry and straighten in the morning. Seriously, I feel my life ebbing away with the amount of time I spend on it.

So I said to the lady to take about three inches off and make it a bit more interesting with some layers. Then as she just began blow-drying it the power went! I had to go home with wet hair, which was a bit of a bummer as I love going to the hairdressers as it’s nice someone else having to deal with my hair rather than just me! Ah well. I did get a discount.

Saturday evening we got dressed up to go out for dinner. OK my hair doesn’t look much different to before I know.

But to me it’s a HUGE change. So much lighter in weight and shorter. I also wore my favourite but most painful pumps. I love them, but they hurt so much But I thought I wouldn’t be doing much walking anyway so it didn’t matter.

We drove to the village where I used to live with my parents, about 20 minutes away, to a beautiful little pub on the seafront.

The pub is just there on the left, but look at that sunshine!!

We had a mezze board to start. I know, I’m so predictable. I just love mezze boards.

I also love my husband. He traded me the falafels for the pitta bread. A definite win in my eyes. And he doesn’t like olives.

For main I was torn beautiful butternut squash with feta cheese or BBQ chicken.

So I went with the BBQ chicken. Seriously I can’t get enough BBQ at the moment. And it came with huge chunky potato wedges. They were so crispy and dunking them in ketchup was just heaven.

We were then going to meet friends for a drink at the same pub but we finished earlier than we expected so we went for a walk along the seafront.

It was a little nippy, but so clear.

Beautiful! Though I massively regretted wearing those damn painful shoes.

Unfortunately, because this is the area I grew up in and went to school, I bumped into a bunch of boys who back in the day were the ‘popular’ guys. I politely said hello, as you do, and they said hello and then a couple of them burst out laughing in my face. Seriously I felt like I was 15 again. My group of friends and I were the ‘boffs’ and weren’t cool back in school. We did our homework and got good grades. We weren’t bullied or anything like that, but we weren’t part of the cool gang. It just felt terrible to feel that small at 24.

Anyway, when I met up with my friends we all laughed about it and thought what idiots they are. We are all quite happy in our careers, with partners or husbands, having moved out and making our way in life. They haven’t. They’re still living the dream that ended quite a few years ago.

It felt great to catch up my friends and a few of us ordered pudding at 10pm. Brownie with honeycomb hash ice cream (no photo I’m afraid, some things don’t last long enough for that sort of thing!).

Friends and brownie. Life’s medicine.

Now it’s Sunday. We had a lazy morning watching the London marathon – so inspiring! The 30 seconds of silence for Boston was really lovely. And wow seriously, those elite athletes were SUPER FAST. And I chuckled to see this picture on Twitter:

Love it!

So now I’m still enjoying a relaxing day of blissful sunshine, chicken with BBQ sauce, and cuddles with this guy:

No matter how many times he’ll spread his kibble over the newly washed kitchen floor, malt all over the just hoovered sofas, drip his wet beard all over the floor after drinking water, bark at every person who walks past our house, I will still love him. Just

What have you been up to this weekend?

Did you watch the London marathon?

Do you ever have moments where you’re brought right back to how it was in school?

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?

April 10, 2013

Trying to mix things up

Happy Wednesday everyone!

Hope you’re week’s going well. I’ve been finding it so much easier to get up in the morning because of the light. Obviously when the alarm goes off I’m not leaping out of bed with a huge smile on my face (who does that??), but it’s easier because I’ve already started to wake up gradually so it’s not as big a shock as it was in the winter. Though at the weekend I have this annoying habit of hiding under the duvets when it starts getting light and then I fall back into a really deep sleep and feel so tired when I pull myself out of bed between 8-9am. I hate sleeping later than 9am as I’m one of those people who feels like the day is wasted otherwise.

So it’s What I Ate Wednesday. Check out Jenn’s blog to get involved!

I’ve been really trying to do new recipes more often as I’m participating in Megan’s So Fresh So Clean Challenge. Basically it’s a challenge to see if you can refresh your food and fitness routine a bit.

I wanted to take part in this because honestly I am such a routine-orientated person and can get so stuck in food ruts (see below: oatmeal every single morning). It’s really helping to push me to try new recipes and mix up my routine a bit. I love trying new recipes but can find it a bit of an effort at times…So this challenge has helped motivate me that little bit more!

I know I need to work on switching up my breakfast but at the moment I haven’t quite managed that…it’s still oatmeal with almond milk *hides in shame*.

But honestly, this weekend I really want to try mixing it up. I’m more inclined to experiment with breakfast at the weekend as I have an irrational fear that nothing else will fill me up and I’ll be at work STARVING. Yes a little over-dramatic. So maybe this weekend I’ll step outside my safety oatmeal bubble.

Lunch at the weekend and lunch in the week are obviously going to be different for me as I work in an office during the week and I’m limited by what I can bring or buy. And I hate buying lunch as it’s just so expensive.

Yesterday it was a sandwich with sliced turkey and cream cheese with a side salad.

I had this with some slice melon and Greek yogurt.

Throughout the day I also snack on my Graze box.

The bottom left-hand section were oatcakes with an onion marmalade and let me tell you, they were AMAZING. I opened them fully with the intention to snack on a couple and then save for later. Oh they did not stand a chance. Those babies were gone within minutes.

I also have my usual apple and banana towards the end of the day to stop me keeling over mid-commute back home. Also prevents me from eating the first thing I see when I get home…

Lunch this weekend was something I’ve been meaning to try for yonks.

Sweet potato roasted in the oven with a blob of cream cheese with two fried eggs (and a side portion of Brussels’s sprouts obviously…) I wasn’t sure about mixing eggs and sweet potato but it went so well together.

I made dinner for Tuesday night on Tuesday morning as I was planning to go to running club literally just after I got back from work and really didn’t fancy making anything when I got back at like 8.30pm. Plus who knows what sort of thing Ben would have made himself?? Dangerous to give him so much freedom He’d have cheese on cheese with a side portion of cheese if he could.

So I made One-Pot Moroccan chicken.

I used THIS recipe. The only thing I changed was instead of honey (of which I had none) I used some regular sugar. Probably missed some of the depth of the honey flavour but I wasn’t too bothered. It was an easy recipe to whip up in the morning and then reheat in the evening.

It was quite spicy, but had lots of bold flavour and was definitely very filling with the chicken and chickpeas. Couscous would probably work well this (though I was a bit couscous’ed out from the weekend).

However, I never made it to running club. I found out it was a timed mile (for progress monitoring) and then some intervals. I really wasn’t up for that. Don’t get me wrong, I love running with other people but I didn’t fancy just doing a mile and the intervals. I know I’m being such a picky runner but I want to just run. Anyway, Thursdays are more for ‘normal’ running so I’m going then instead.

I decided to do a quick 3 miles when I got home anyway as I didn’t want to miss a run. I really wasn’t up for it so as soon as I started in my head I was just like “get this done as quick as possible and then you can have dinner”. This was a BRILLIANT motivator

When I first started I was finding it so tough and when I looked at my Garmin I couldn’t believe my pace! No wonder I was dying. I am so pleased with this run. I couldn’t have maintained it for long though – I was already slowing down considerably on the last mile.

So I’ve mixed up my fitness a bit by not always running in the stupid hours of the morning. And I’ve also been managing to use my foam roller after runs (OK some runs…not all. Work in progress).

I have a love-hate relationship with the foam roller. I like following THIS helpful guide of the exercises to do. To be honest, I never do all of them… but the one I always do because it always hurts to do it (so by that perverse logical I know it’s working) is this one:

Sweet, sweet pain.

And I’m trying to do more planks again. Ahh, back in the day I could do 3 minute long planks, but after such a break since I focused mainly on running I’m struggling to go for a minute a half. Again, work in progress

So the challenge is helping me – small steps, granted. But it’s always nice to have that extra motivation!

How do you mix things up when you get into a rut? Fitness or food-related?

What new recipes have you been loving lately?

Do you foam roll?

*** Also don’t forget to enter my giveaway – open only to US residents, sorry non-US readers***

April 5, 2013

Chicken and chocolate

Well I am glad we’ve almost finished this week. It has definitely been a strange one! What with it being Easter and having Monday off, and then having Tuesday off because of my little episode (thank you all for your kind words by the way), it’s just been a bit crazy.

After Tuesday I felt a bit battered and bruised with a HUGE head ache, but otherwise I was OK. On a random note, when I had an ECG in the ambulance to check my heart they stuck these coin-sized sticker things (the things they attach the wires to to read your heart…or something *pretends to sound like she knows what she’s talking about*) on various places on my body. When I got back from the hospital I kept finding the stickers. I had no idea they put so many on me! When I thought I got them all I then found them on my legs! Crazy. And painful to unstick.

I’m now terrified to get up in the morning (or the middle of the night for my various pee trips, sorry TMI) for fear I may faint again. I’m like an old lady getting up in the morning, bracing myself and taking my time.

I went into work on Wednesday because the doctors told me I couldn’t be alone for the next 24 hours in case I fainted again and Ben couldn’t be off work again. But in all honestly, I was fine. And it was rather fun telling people what happened. I know that hospitals are not funny places and God forbid anyone needs to go there, but thankfully my episode was just sheer bad luck of the location of our stairs and nothing serious. If I’d have fainted on the bed I’d have been fine!

Anyway, so I wanted to recap a bit more of Easter (before I was rudely interrupted by my delicate disposition). After looking after Ellie, my niece, on Saturday Ben and I were definitely up for a more relaxed day. Our families had agreed to have a bit more of a quiet Easter and most of us aren’t religious, so Ben and me decided to have a nice relaxed meal on Sunday.

After inspiration from Sara and her Bucket List of recipes I decided to do what I’ve been meaning to do for ages. Roast my first ever whole chicken. I decided to keep things relatively simple so just put some Nando’s mild sauce on and under the skin, pop an onion and some garlic inside it and season before popping in the oven for an hour and a half.

I bought a whole brand new baking tray for this culinary adventure only to find I could cook it in it’s foil container *sighs*. But I’ve got it for next time!

We kept the meal simple as we wanted to maximise the chicken experience (…or I couldn’t be bothered to do all the trimmings).

I had broad beans (the king of all vegetables in my humble opinion), roasted vegetables and mashed cauliflower cheese. Ben declined the cauliflower and had potato waffles instead. Honestly I can’t get this boy away from cheese but if it’s near cauliflower he’s like “helllll no”.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I went back for ~~thirds~~ seconds of the chicken. It was so good.

And I was inspired by another blogger (I know, seriously I have no independent ideas) for using the chicken carcass to make stock. Laura always talks about the pros of respecting the meat you eat by using as much of it as you can and the health benefits involved in bone broth that I was really chuffed to finally try it myself. I felt like a proper housewife with my stock simmering away in the pot. It’s now safely stowed away in the freezer ready to be used in soups or sauces. Yum.

Then mums also popped over on Sunday and we had a nice catch up and coffee with them both. I only wanted one Easter Egg this year because honestly we have so much chocolate in the house it’s ridiculous, so my mum got me this AMAZING egg.

A dark chocolate egg with TWENTY-FOUR mini bars. There are loads of flavours like chocolate and almond, chocolate and raisin, white chocolate… Oh I am loving this. I might have eaten the entire egg in one sitting while watching Downton Abbey in the evening with these two dashing chaps…

…and felt very sick. But I find it so hard with Easter eggs because you keep wanting to ‘tidy up’ an edge and then suddenly you’re just left with a few chunks…and well, you can’t leave them…

Monday started with a 6 mile run:

That mile 5 was TOUGH. I had spotted another runner a distance ahead of me at mile three and I gradually began to gain on him. But he was clearly running just that tiny bit slower than me because it took forever to get to him. Then around mile 4-5 it became a bit uncomfortable because I was right at his heels and I didn’t want to be like a weird runner stalker. So I had to pick up my pace to get past him and then maintain that pace to make sure he didn’t feel like a weird runner stalker to me. Hence my 7.14min/mile pace for mile 5!

And then the rest of Monday was a day of chilling. I might have hoovered to liven things up, but otherwise we just relaxed. I spent some really nice lazy time on the couch watching more Downton Abbey and reading magazines…

I know my Easter weekend might not sound very exciting, but honestly, it was perfect. I got to spend it with the people I love and enjoy good food. What else could I want?

How was your Easter?

What can’t you help but keep eating once you start?