Running - AnnaTheApple

December 9, 2012December 9, 2012

Christmas cake (finally!), new trainers and Total Greek Yogurt review

Howdy all! Hope you’ve been having a nice weekend. On a random side-note, I have literally just painted my nails and am typing like a right idiot trying not to smudge them. I hate painting my nails as they never last that long with me as I always chip them. And the waiting around while they dry drives me mad. I’m not a person who can sit still and do nothing…so here I am typing like an idiot.

This weekend has been jam-packed and I feel shattered! But I only have a three day week next week (can I get a woohoo!) as I’m off from Thursday. It’s our work Christmas do Friday and Saturday and we’re off to Bruges! And partners are allowed to come as well! So excited. But from what I’ve heard about the Christmas parties (as I wasn’t here last year), they are quite wild. So watch this space…

Today I finally made the Christmas cake. Yes, yes most people have made theirs by now…but this weekend was the only time we could really do it. It’s quite a lengthy process. We used Ben’s mum very old (from 1949!) cook book for the recipe.

It’s become a lovely tradition to make this cake. Before we had moved out, we watched Ben’s mum make it and then one year we helped her make it. And last year we made it on our own for the first time. And everyone will be able to enjoy it at Christmas. Basically we’re carrying on the tradition!

So this morning I got cracking. For once nothing went wrong (though saying that, it is currently still in the oven so…touch wood).

[Check me out being all Christmassy with PicMonkey]

Christmas Cake

350g (3/4lb.) butter
350g (3/4lb.) brown sugar
6 eggs
500g (1lb.) flour
500g (1lb.) sultanas
500g (1lb.) currants
100g (1/4lb.) raisins
150g (6 oz.) candied peel
50g (2 oz.) cherries, chopped
100g (1/4lb.) chopped almonds
1/2 tsp. mixed spice
2 tbs. dark treacle
1 small glass of brandy

– Preheat oven to 140C.

– Using a very large bowl, beat sugar and butter together until well combined.

– Beat in eggs one at a time until combined.

– Stir in the sifted flour, fruit, almonds, spice treacle and brandy. Mix well.

– Transfer to a tin well lined with baking paper. Bake for 6 hours and 20 mins.

Mixing all the ingredients together is like an arm workout. Seriously it’s so thick by the end. And our bowl was almost too small to contain it all!

The cake is still in the oven and the smell is deeeelicious. But when it comes out we’ll need to cut the top bit off it as this will be very crispy and might even be burnt. Then we’ll get a lovely square cake which we’ll let cool and then wrap up for at least a week until we then marzipan and ice it.

As there’s always too much mixture for the tin, we tend to do a mini loaf. Though this year I wanted to make something a bit different…

Mini Christmas cakes! Christmas cake muffins if you like. They themselves took an hour to cook! That’s how beasty and dense the cake batter is.

And this weekend I also went for a solo off-road run in my brand, new, amazing off-road trainers. I can’t stress just how much I adore these shoes.

Check out those amazing treads!! Technically they’re a Christmas present from my sister…but I was allowed them early. So I ran a nice and easy (read: I didn’t go fast) 6 mile this morning to test them out.

And my trainers rocked.

[Before and after]

Not looking quite as shiny as before now but who really buys trainers to keep clean??

And a while ago now I was sent some Greek yogurts to try out: Total Greek Yogurt split pots (honey, blueberry, strawberry, and raspberry with pomegranate).

I’m not a massive fan of snacking on Greek yogurt, or yogurt in general I must say. I prefer to add them into things to thicken up sauces etc. I’m not too keen on the taste of Greek yogurt on it’s own. That being said…the idea of adding something sweet and fruity to the yogurt appealed to me.

The yogurt was very thick and creamy and adding in the fruit/honey compote made them much more exciting I found. The sugar content is quite high for each yogurt (around 11g per 100g and they’re 170g pots) but they were very tasty. And very filling (8g protein)!

A lovely afternoon treat I’d say

Right I’m off to make dinner – baked chicken with plums! Nom nom nom.

What have you been up to this weekend?

Are you making/have you made a Christmas cake this year?

Do you like to run on roads or off-roads?

December 7, 2012

Fitness update

Happy Friday all! Today’s post was going to be a recipe for a pumpkin curry I made. However I think I’ve deleted my photo accidentally. Devastating! It was such a good meal that it really deserves a photo to go alongside the recipe so I will have to park this for the moment. I was planning on making it again at the weekend so it will be here soon!

This week has been chilly. The first five minutes driving to work/home are horrible. The car is freezing so I spend the first bit of the journey huddled over the steering wheel like an old woman. But by the time I finally arrive at work it’s positively roasting. Lovely

Despite how cold it’s been I’ve still been loving my lunchtime runs. On Wednesday I ran with the usual running crew and we did another 6 mile route but this time off-road.

I can’t tell you much I love off-road routes. It’s just so much fun. The more mud you’ve got flicked onto your legs the better! I’ve been running in my usual trainers and this isn’t so good as it can be very slippy in the mud. Sooo I have purchased a pair of (fairly inexpensive) off-road trainers. They have grips and everything. You may think I’m incredibly sad (I won’t be offended) but I am so excited about them! [Can you tell??] Hopefully they should be with me soon.

So instead of my beloved pumpkin curry recipe I will do a post about my latest fitness update. I alluded in other posts that I’ve changed my previous strength routines to something a bit more…explosive shall we say?

I’ve been creating some plyometric routines to do twice a week alongside a more ‘general’ strength routine. It’s only been recently that I’ve found out about plyometric exercises. I’ve seen on a lot of other blogs about routines involving burpees and plank jacks etc. but never really paid it much mind. But after finding my current routines were getting a bit samey I decided to explore it a bit.

I ambitiously made this really lengthy routine to repeat like three times and honestly it killed me. I couldn’t even complete it it was that tough.

So I scaled it back a bit… let’s not aim too high, Anna.

I’ve made three workout routines: one is a full body (ish) strength training routine and the other two are plyometric-style routines.

With this routine I tried to get in some core, some glutes, legs and arms. It’s approximately a 20 minute workout and you can add dumbbells in where it makes sense.

See it doesn’t look so difficult does it? Hop on one leg, pfffttt! That’s easy. Yeah, that’s what I thought. Now maybe it is easy for you, but I really struggled. It’s tough to maintain these jumping movements for an entire minute – three times! I was a sweaty mess with this.

This is moderately easier because at least you can rest a bit with the press ups <—did I seriously just write that sentence??

I’ve been trying to do these three workouts a week. The first one is fairly easy (in terms of you don’t need a huge amount of energy to do it; you’re stationary and you can take your time), but the other two are quite tough if you’re tired. With my regular 6 mile runs I’ve been finding that the next day (when I plan to do these routines) I ache too much to attempt both of the plyometric ones in a week. But I’m working on it. If I don’t do both of the plyometric ones I do some Pilates instead for 20 mins.

So that’ my update on what I’ve been doing in terms of working out.

Let me know if you do anything like the above and if you have any tips of advice!

Are you a burpee lover or hater?

December 5, 2012

Getting organised and Christmassy – WIAW

Not including today, there are only two Wednesdays left before Christmas. TWO. Very exciting! Starting to feel extremely Christmassy. You just can’t avoid it really at this point. It’s on the radio, the TV… Sparkling and colourful trees are popping up left right and centre around us – everyone’s uploading their tree to Facebook to proudly show off their work of art. And yes, I am guilty of doing the same. #noshame

So it’s WIAW again. This is when I get to show you guys the exciting food I’ve been eating. Thanks to Jenn for hosting. And it’s a Christmas themed WIAW!

This weekend I enjoyed some great eats, though not necessarily very Christmassy… Saturday morning I had my favourite oats and coconut flour mix:

I’m still loving this breakfast. My coconut flour is slowly running out which is quite upsetting considering how expensive it is and I can only get it online.

After this I dashed off to Pilates. I feel like I’ve got the hang of Pilates now. The breathing and neutral spine malarkey was a bit tough to get right to begin with but I feel much more confident with it now. I’m glad for all the strength training I’ve done because it means I can do a lot of the exercises quite easily in terms of execution. Its a nice small class as well with about six of us in total so it has a nice community feel to it. I’ll definitely be continuing with this class!

After Pilates I then had to race back home, shower and get dressed to then zoom off to my parent’s house with Ben. In the car I had a black coffee as I needed caffeine having not had any in the morning.

I love this coffee carrier! I might have stole in from my mum when I was round their house Thursday without her realising… Hey, it was dusty in their cupboard so I figured it wasn’t used that much…

My mum, sister and me then went to Chichester to enjoy a spot of lunch and shopping while my dad, Ben, and my brother-in-law had an XBox afternoon. A win-win situation for everyone I think you’ll agree.

We went to our favourite restaurant, Trents.

[Me, my sister and my mum]

We went there the last time we went to Chichester – before I got married!!

For starter I had a bit of a piggy portion of hummus dips and olives…

It was meant to be a sharing platter but no one would share it with me and it was the same price as a normal starter so I went for it anyway… It was beetroot hummus, watercress pesto and olives (I ate it all but all of the bread as it was quite a lot!)

For main I went for smoked salmon and king prawn Caesar salad with anchovies and an egg:

I decided to have the dressing on the side as I hate it when the salad is drenched. I’m not a massive dressing fan but this was actually really tasty. It was hands down the best salad I’ve had in ages (and considering I eat a lot of salads, that’s saying something!) I’m desperate to recreate this. The salmon was perfect. Ahh I want this again!

After lunch we quickly headed off to shop as it was already 3pm by this point.

Chichester is so beautiful with lots of high-street and independent shops. I love it. It was really Christmassy as well.

I did really well with my Christmas shopping. I got everything on my list. And I bought a different outfit for our work’s Christmas do…I had bought a lovely outfit from John Lewis but had a change of heart. It’s a jumpsuit but I got cold feet as I’m scared I can’t pull it off. So I got a beautiful dress from Monsoon for the same price. Fabulous!

I also saw lots of beautiful things that I wanted…and have ~~explicitly told~~ hinted to Ben of what I might like for Christmas.

I am loving the scarves that are around at the moment. So fingers crossed!

We had a lovely time mooching around and shopped until the shops closed.

Then we had to dash off to meet with our wedding photographer to finally see the professional photos. More on that another time

After getting back quite late I whipped up a lovely filling and warm soup.

Sweet potato and butternut squash coconut chickpea soup (whew what a name) – large dinner portion for one (or two smaller portions)

1 tbs. oil/coconut oil
Small onion, diced
Very small sweet potato, peeled and chopped
Cup of butternut squash, peeled and chopped
1/2 cup hot vegetable stock
Little less than 1/2 cup coconut milk
1/3 cup of chickpeas
Garlic clove, diced
1/2 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. paprika
Pepper

– Heat the oil in the pan, then fry the onion until soft (5mins), then add the squash and sweet potato and cook until soft (8-10mins). Add the spices, garlic and pepper (no salt due to the stock) and fry for another minute.

– Add the stock and coconut milk and allow to bubble for a few mins. Then turn off heat and cool to blend with a hand-blender/food processor until smooth.

– Add chickpeas and simmer for 5-10mins.

(You could make larger portions to save for another meal but I was limited by the volume of ingredients I had).

I guess you can make it as thick or thin as you like but adjusting the amount of stock you use, but I loved it being thick. And I like soup with bits in as it’s a bit more exciting. Yes, I said exciting.

Then Sunday we got our Christmas decorations up. We don’t have a huge amount of decorations as of yet as we’ve only been living together for just over a year but we’re slowly building it up.

Quite pleased with how it looks! Nothing massively fancy, but enough

So that was the weekend! Busy busy but got lots ticked off my to-do list so I feel quite happy and content. Though I still have the Christmas cake to bake…next weekend!

And lastly, Monday’s run. I brought my stuff in to work but by 11am I had pretty much decided to not run as I honestly could not be bothered. But then the running group said they were going and I got roped in. This is another good reason why I love running in a group. You instantly feel motivated when others are going running. And it was a great run! So I’m so pleased I went.

I ran with the 6 min/mile guy again and honestly it was like having a personal trainer. He motivated me to run faster and do some intervals, and then some extra loops to meet up with the slower paced guys.

I really felt it on Tuesday morning though!!

And it looks like I’ll be in Reading until Christmas now which I have mixed feelings about (i.e. the commute sucks – one morning it took 2 hours and half) but it means I get to carry on running with these guys so there’s a silver lining!

Have a great Wednesday!

Are you feeling Christmassy? Are your decorations up?

What’s your favourite soup?

December 2, 2012

Week Catch-Up

Hi guys, hope you’re all having a great weekend. The rain has finally stopped, hurrah! Now it’s just very chilly. But dry, so I’m happy.

This week has been busy and long but I’m starting to feel Christmassy now. Might be because at work they have the radio on and every other song is a Christmas one…it wasn’t even December yet!! I loathe to think of what it’s going to be like now we’re actually in December…

At the start of the week I had a great (but very wet) 6 mile run, and on Wednesday I went for another run at lunchtime with one of the guys I went running with on Monday; the 6 min a mile guy. I was a bit nervous just running with him alone as I knew he was much faster than me. But actually it was great. Because he was naturally faster than me it pushed me to maintain a speedy pace. He was chatting away to me while I was on the verge of dying but it was good. Hard but good. We didn’t go off road this time due to it being a lot colder than Monday and we didn’t really fancy wading in the cold canal this time. In the end we did we did a nice 5 mile route along the roads.

I was shattered afterwards! Absolutely dead. But it was good to run at a good speed for a longer period of time. Just not something I’ll do many times in one week I think! I definitely felt it the next day.

Friday I ran with a woman who had a slower pace (9 min a mile) so it was a nice easy 4 mile run. Though very cold!

I never thought I’d enjoy running with other people as much as I do. I was always so focused on my own run and hitting certain targets, but sometimes it’s just nice to have a social run! The time flies by. Maybe every run won’t be pushing the absolute limit to my capability, but it still gets me out there and I still enjoy it. Can’t argue with that!

Instead of my usual strength routines, I’m now doing one mixed strength routine and two plyometric routines. When I researched some moves and planned a routine I think I was a bit over ambitious. I thought I could do the routine three times. I barely did it twice!! It killed me. I didn’t think it’d be so hard. But more on that another time!

On Thursday I was house sitting for my parents for the night as they went off and enjoyed an evening out in London. It really stresses me out not having my own things and the same routine so I really wasn’t looking forward to it. But it wasn’t too bad in the end. Ben and me just got an Indian take-away (chicken tikka mmmm – easier than bringing food and cooking) and enjoyed watching all the dogs together. Alfie came with us and my parents have three of their own dogs.

Left to right: Lexi, Dylan, Sam and Alfie

Alfie and Lexi are the same breed (Cavalier King Charles cross with a Westland Terrier) and they go crazy when they see each other.

They love to play fight with each other and run about the house like mad things. The other two aren’t so bothered…

My parents were so lovely. They left Ben and me a HUGE box of chocolates to say thank you.

Which obviously were a GREAT Friday night treat.

Honestly, these are AMAZING. Jam Roly Pudding, Bakewell Tart, Rhubarb Crumble, Sticky Toffee Pudding, Lemon Meringue…and more!! Though after a few you do start feeling a leeetle bit sick. But so worth it.

And my new favourite ‘go-to’ meal:

Balsamic chicken (chicken fried in balsamic vinegar with a touch of sugar to caramelise it into a sticky sauce) with mashed cauliflower and mozzarella cheese. Heaven. And so simple.

Oh, and the other highlight of my week…getting in from work and getting started on dinner while Ben plays ball with Alfie. Ben kicks Alfie’s tennis ball, it hits his wine glass full of red wine, red wine sprays all over our living room wall, sofa and floor. I just love my husband.

Not sure why it went blue, but needless to say it STUNK. So we had to spend the next half an hour attempting to damage control. It needs repainting unfortunately. Though Ben loves the fact he gets to decorate. He loves doing manly things like painting and DIY. Well, there’s a silver lining for someone I guess…

What have you guys been up to?

Have you tried plyometrics before? Any tips?

November 28, 2012

Turn back? Never!

Dear Britain, please stop raining. It messes with everything. The commute is longer and more dangerous…

[Took photo while in stand-still traffic!]

…choosing an outfit (and shoes!) requires more thought [real-world issues here], Alfie has to stay in the kitchen longer after going outside… It makes for a very grumpy Anna. I wouldn’t mind if it’s really cold and dry. Rain is just so miserable. We don’t have it nearly as badly as others around the UK but it still sucks.

It also makes for very wet and muddy runs! I ummed and arr’ed about going for a run at lunchtime on Monday. I had brought in my stuff but I kept looking anxiously out of the window and watching the on-and-off rain. Also I knew the woman who had originally invited me to run with her group wasn’t in the office. So it would mean running with a bunch of guys I didn’t know as well…

In the end I sucked it up and went. The guys were still up for running despite the weather and sheer amount of rain we’d had over the weekend (“Rain? Pah! We are men!”). This time I’d decided to wear my shorts rather than leggings because my leggings just got covered in so much mud that it made more sense that my legs just got covered in mud instead and that I could wash them in the shower.

It began with a lot of slipping and sliding in lots of mud, then sploshing through fields with lots of surface water…and then we got to the path that runs parallel to the local canal. Well, where it should have been. Normal people would have seen the sheer amount of water and flooding and would have turned around. Nope. We continued on – thigh deep in freezing water. Still running!

To be honest, it was good fun. It made for a rather interesting (albeit wet) run. My feet and legs were numb, very pink, wet and muddy by the end.

But it was great! And 6 miles, which I was so chuffed with as I haven’t run that distance in a while. My Garmin died of battery though which really annoyed me.

But all the guys had their Garmins on so at least I knew in the end it was about 6 miles (we were all beeping away on the run it was quite funny).

Anyway, it’s Wednesday! So here’s my WIAW (thanks, Jenn. Check out her blog to see what it’s all about).

I’ve got a bit of a mix of meals from different days as I’ve been changing things up a bit lately.

Breakfast: On Saturday I tried my hand at some coconut and oat pancakes. *Sighs* Disaster. My first one was promising…

But then it got progressively worse. They just all crumbled. So I just gave up and threw it all into a bowl.

Despite how it looks, it tasted pretty good once I’d jazzed it up with some toppings:

I added some frozen berries that I’d microwaved with some cinnamon and then a dollop of Greek yogurt. Not too shabby for a disaster! If anyone has tips for coconut flour pancakes, please let me know! I used 1 tbs. oats, 3 tbs. coconut flour, 2 egg whites, 1/4 cup pumpkin puree and a splash of almond milk.

I also made some rather delicious coffee that we haven’t been able to try until now. We got it in America but thought it was just instant rather than ‘proper coffee’. And we didn’t have a coffee machine or a cafetiere so we couldn’t try it when we got home! But we got one the other weekend purely to try this coffee.

French Vanilla…and it tasted fabulous. Not like donuts as I think Ben was secretly hoping

Lunch: I loved the sound of Laura’s cauliflower coconut soup so I made a variation for lunch for Saturday and Sunday.

I fried a diced white onion in coconut oil, then added some diced garlic and then several large florets of cauliflower. Once that had cooked for about 5 mins, I added 1.5 cups veg stock, mixed herbs, then 1 cup full-fat coconut milk and 3 tbs. Greek yogurt. I cooked it for 5-6 mins and then whizzed it up using a hand blender. Really yummy!

Alongside this on Saturday I made some cornbread using Kelly’s recipe.

A really quick recipe using the microwave. It was lovely and light and great for dunking. I used a funny mug hence the weird shape.

And then Sunday I had the soup with some butternut squash roasted in coconut oil on the side.

These were great to dunk into the soup. Nom nom nom.

Dinner: I’ve still be clinging to my salads despite the weather, but I’ve been adding in some ‘warmer’ ingredients.

With our usual feta salad, I added more of the roasted butternut squash.

And added some roasted sweet potato to our halloumi salad…

And then a range of roasted veggies to it another night…

One night I also had some smoked mackerel that had been sat in the freezer for too long. So I added some Greek yogurt, some spices, garlic, lemon juice and whizzed it up to make a very yummy pate:

Absolutely heavenly! And so easy

Snacks: well, obviously banana bread from the weekend has been picked at…

Very yummy. Definitely need to make more breads I think. Devine.

And more of these very nice yogurts:

Basically, I’ve really had some great days of nice food (perhaps not the best looking food: pancakes, I’m looking at you) but food nonetheless.

Fitness: obviously my off-road runs have been great! And what perfect timing with the weather haha. I hope to do three of those a week with the group but it really depends on how busy work is. And Pilates on Saturday was brilliant. I’ve also switched up my strength training a bit so I’ll do an update on that soon!

Do you enjoy running off-road?

What’s your favourite pancake variation? Have you tried coconut flour?

Have a lovely Wednesday