Running - AnnaTheApple

November 7, 2012

Merry Christmas??

Brrrrr it is cold! Though it’s actually quite nice in a weird way. To be snuggled up inside nice and warm and for it to be chilly outside. Though getting out of bed in the morning is not fun – nor is taking Alfie out for a walk first thing. Winter coat: check, Uggs: check, gloves: check. Result = a happy Alfie but a cold Anna.

And Christmas seems to have suddenly appeared out of nowhere. One minute we’re all vigorously carving our pumpkins and admiring the autumnal colours of the trees when suddenly, boom! hello tinsel, hello Christmas adverts on the telly! Now don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas so as far as I’m concerned this is brilliant. HOWEVER, I have now been thrown into a state of stress. When am I going to bake our Christmas cake? When will I have time to go shopping? What do my friends and family even want??

And breathe. Anna, it’s the beginning of November. But I am getting excited. I love Christmas. I love the food (who doesn’t?), I love how everyone is just more merry than normal, I love the Christmas decorations, the time with the family…the never ending boxes of Celebration chocolates (I don’t love that Supermarkets seem to think that they’ve put them on offer at the moment…erm, weren’t they always that expensive??) It’s without doubt my favourite time of year. So the sooner the better!

As usual as it’s Wednesday it’s WIAW. A big thanks to Jenn for hosting this as usual. I’ll show you a selection of different meals from the week as my best eats were spread rather than an individual day if that’s alright!

Breakfast: OK, OK you’ve seen pancakes a fair few times now if you’ve been reading my blog for some time…before you fall asleep, I did try a new topping to jazz things up a bit (and use some of the mass of fruit I have sitting in our freezer…)

As it was too difficult for me to work out how to defrost my pumpkin purée from the freezer (yep I’m that person) I decided just to stick with the standard recipe I use (find it HERE). The topping I decided to just have fun with.

I thawed some frozen blackberries, then sprinkled them with quite a generous amount of cinnamon and a few drops of Stevia. Then I zapped it in the microwave for maybe a minute. Basically so the fruit turns a bit mushy and is warm. Then I poured it over the pancakes. Bliss!

Lunch: During the week I always take food with me to save on costs. I used to have chilli using Quorn mince but I’ve gone off that mince a bit now and much prefer using mixed beans.

[Apologies for seriously bad photo]

I used a yellow bell pepper, onion, courgette, mushrooms, chopped tomatoes and mixed beans (like butterbeans, kidney beans, chickpeas, etc.). I also added chilli powder, paprika, cumin, a little bit of sugar and some mixed herbs. To spruce it up I added a large tablespoon of Philadelphia cheese. This made it so creamy and delicious – definitely adding this again! Along with this for lunch I have two Baby Bells and an apple. Maybe not the prettiest lunch, but it works for me!

I’ve set myself a little target for November to make a new recipe every week as I was finding myself in a bit of a food rut. You know what’s it like…getting in from work, being tired, you don’t want to whizz up some all singing and dancing dinner. But I’m pushing myself to try – at least on Friday and Saturday nights! So far this is going really well. I made coq au vin the other day and that was deeeelicious. But I also made another meal this week as well. And I probably say this about everything I cook I cook but it was such a good meal! Filling and sneakily nutritious.

I used THIS recipe. Basically it’s chicken coated in a ground almond coating and then baked in the oven. Crunchy and spicy!

And alongside that I cooked some cauliflower and then mashed it with some mozzarella cheese (well I blended it with a hand-blender).

I LOVED this. Seriously easy and a good alternative to mash potato if you fancy a lighter dinner. With all the ground almonds and chicken, this was a very filling dinner.

Snacks: I sponsored Maria for her Great North Run a while back and she very kindly sent me some baked goods (Swedish Apple Muffins) as a thank you. How sweet is that?? (Due to me going on my honeymoon she sent them to me now – I’m very chuffed):

PICTURE

[Please don’t judge the photo too harshly, they have travelled via post to get to me!]

So I have been happily tucking into these this week. They are so moist and yummy. Perfect evening snack. I thoroughly recommend Maria’s blog, she always has such yummy recipes and ideas!

Oooh and I’ve also been indulging in a few squares of these in the evening:

I can’t always be snacking on apples after all I guess!

Fitness: I’m still following my strength routines three times a week. It’s not quite as difficult as it was originally so I feel I’m making some progress. I’ve got my plank back to 3 minutes. Does anyone else get bored doing the plank? I mean, it’s tough and painful but so boring. I just end up staring at my stopwatch…

I’m thinking of getting a resistance band – has anyone tried this? Is it worth it?

Running is going well. The only problem I have at the moment is that now I’m running at work it means that if I have a busy day I can’t always run. I’m quite a structure, routine person (have you noticed??) so I find this really frustrating. I hate pushing workouts to a different day. But it’s one of those things I guess.

Outfit of the day:

[Can you spot Alfie hiding in the background?]

I can’t actually remember where I got this dress from, whoops. But the cardi is from New Look!

Have a great Wednesday!

Do you hate it when you have to postpone a workout?

Are you in a Christmassy mood yet?

November 4, 2012

No-plans weekend

Hi guys, hope everyone is having a lovely weekend! I’ve had a great weekend of pretty much doing nothing. Don’t get me wrong, I do love weekends where you go out shopping, or see your friends or do something crazy. But I also thoroughly enjoy doing absolutely nothing. Ben and I got the boring jobs done Saturday morning and then pretty much just chilled. I got some nagging tasks done that had been bothering me for ages (like cleaning the kitchen floor – we have the world’s smallest kitchen so it’s not a big job but still). We also saw both mums (an essential task that apparently can’t be left for long stretches of time…)

I mentioned in my last post that I had been planning a long run for this weekend but…it didn’t happen. Ben and I both did go running Saturday morning but when I started I just wasn’t feeling it. It was a struggle. So I just stuck with a quick sprinting two miles and called it a day.

Not too shabby. Ben really enjoyed his run (this is Big News, people) and said he wanted to go again on Sunday [I love it when Ben enjoys running = happy Anna]. So I thought why not as I hadn’t done the big run I’d planned. And because we’re a boring married couple now and were tucked up asleep by 10.30pm it was easy to get up early and run.

Shaved some time off as well! I’m happy with that

No Pilates this weekend unfortunately. My one-to-ones are over and I need to wait for the classes to begin…in 3 weeks! Boooo.

On a plus note, this weekend was filled with some good food. I’ve had a recipe for coq au vin sat in my diary for ages. I finally bought the ingredients and then kept putting it off. Neither of us fancied it and it seemed a lot of effort. But I had eight shallots sat in my kitchen that wouldn’t be used and I hate wasting food…I mean seriously, I’ve never bought shallots in my life. What do people do with them?

So I made coq au vin. Actually Ben was quite up for it after I told him there would be a glass of red wine in it. Suddenly he was all keen *rolls eyes*.

Coq au Vin – serves 2 (The recipe’s from Zest magazine which I’d torn out)

1 tsp. oil

2 skinless chicken breasts, seasoned

1 rash lean back bacon, diced

10 button mushrooms

8 shallots, peeled

1 large carrot, roughly chipped

1 cove of garlic, chopped

1 tbsp. plain flour

1 tbsp. tomato purée

300ml red win

150ml chicken stock

1 bay leaf

Leaves from 4 sprigs of thyme

– Heat oven to 180 degrees C. In a casserole dish, heat the oil and brown the chicken on each side. Take out of the pan and set aside.

– Sauté the bacon for 2-3min until browned. Add mushrooms, shallots and carrots and put on the lid and reduce the heat. Sweat for 10 mins, occasionally shaking to stop veg sticking. Add in the garlic at the last minute.

– Stir in the flour and the tomato purée and cook for 1 min, stirring. Gradually add the wine, and then add the stock and stir to prevent lumps. Add the bay leaf and thyme and seasoning. Return chicken to the pan and put the lid on and put in the oven for an hour, stirring halfway.

Apparently this is about 390 calories Zest tells me. Not bad for what was a hearty, rich meal. I served mine with Brussels sprouts. Ben had garlic bread.

Very pleased with this! It was so yummy. The sauce was divine. OK it took an hour in the oven which was a pain but while that was cooking away I got on with other stuff and wasn’t tied to the kitchen. Excellent for the weekend!

Only downside was a brief appearance of the clumsy idiot that is Anna. We don’t have a casserole dish so I decided to risk it for a biscuit (or chicken in red wine) and put my actual saucepan in the oven. This was fine. It worked brilliantly. I took it out of the oven and told Ben approximately five times “DO NOT TOUCH THIS PAN IT IS STUPIDLY HOT”. So what does Anna then go and do? She grabs the metal handle of said pan which has been out of the oven, oh I don’t know, 10 seconds. Cue Anna screaming blue murder and then standing with her hand in freezing cold water for the next five minutes. Yes I am that much of an idiot. So I’m sat here typing away but I have to stop every two sentences to hold an ice cold Coke can to soothe my still very painful hand. The things I do for food…

Was it worth it? Of course it was

What have you gotten up to this weekend?

Do you have a clumsy streak like me?

October 26, 2012May 25, 2016

Refreshing my routine

I thought I’d do a short and snappy post on my new workout routine.

A few months back I used to do lots of longer runs every week (5 miles – which is quite long for me!) but then decided it would be better to vary things a bit more by doing shorter runs and more strength training (check this post out for a recap). I’ve been really enjoying this because it means I don’t get as bored. I do love running but I was finding that my runs were becoming very prescriptive and wearing. Same miles, same route, snorrrre.

Now I run no more than 3 miles and ensure I’m doing bursts of speeds and then recoveries throughout the run. This has been increasing my pace amazingly! I can now run 3 miles in under 23 mins.

I’m so chuffed! And running mainly at lunch-time rather than stupid o’clock in the morning is making me enjoy the runs more and push myself harder. I no longer think “I can’t run faster, I only woke up 10 minutes ago”. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to get my run done in the morning as it’s done and dusted, but I much prefer running in actual day-light (granted, it’s grey, drizzly and cold daylight, but I’ll take what I can in Britain!)

I still do my strength training in the morning but I get to do this in the pleasure of my warm home, usually in my pyjamas. Alfie looks at me like I’ve gone mad when I do my routines in the living room. But as I said in a previous post, this means I get 30 minutes more sleep and can still do the workouts I want. It’s a win-win situation!

Previously my strength routines have been vary random. I would find a routine on YouTube, or whatever I could remember from various sources (years ago Pump classes, Internet, other blogs). Not very structured. Now I’m getting serious.

I devised three workout routines: core, upper body and lower body. They each pretty much take 30mins to complete. In about 6 weeks I’ll change the moves to continue challenging my body. Both Jemma and Laura do this and I thought I’d follow suit as it seems like a very good idea. Also it requires less brain power in a morning to work out what I’m doing – very important!

CORE ROUTINE:

Core Workout
Plank	2.30-3mins
Side plank	1 min
Sit-ups	60-70
Bicycle sit-ups	60-70
Reverse crunches (instruction)	30-40
Vertical leg-crunch (instruction)	30-40
Seated Russian twist (instruction)	45
Wiper Plank (instruction)	46

UPPER BODY ROUTINE:

Upper Body Workout Routine (instructions)
Three sets of 12-14:
Press ups	Chest
Flat chest flies	Chest
Triceps push	Triceps
French presses	Triceps
Lateral raises	Shoulders
Upright rows	Shoulders
Hammer curls	Biceps
Single arm row	Back

LOWER BODY ROUTINE:

Lower Body Workout Routine
Three sets of 12-14:
Dumbbell squats	Legs
Dumbbell sumo squat	Legs
Lunges	Legs
Side leg raise (instruction)	Thighs
Hip-lift progression (instruction)	Butt
Toe-Taps (1-2 minutes) (Instruction)	Butt
Single-Leg, Single-Arm Reach (instruction)	Butt & core

[For the lower body squats and upper body moves I use dumbbells.]

So far these have been great. The upper body one absolutely kicked my butt. Well, it kicked my arms, shoulders, chest and back! Just opening doors was painful put it that way. As the weeks progress I’ll be upping my weights and/or repetitions to keep pushing myself.

So with running three times a week, these three routines every week and Pilates on Saturday I think I’m all set. Maybe this sounds a lot but I’m really enjoying it. I can’t not run, I know that much is true. But running alone didn’t give me a balanced workout. I’m a perfectionist, what can I say?

Soon this will all change though and I will be sticking to a training plan for the Reading Half Marathon. But this won’t be until after Christmas. Enough time for me to get bored of this routine!

And HERE’S a great site for lots of “booty-focused” exercises too. Glute strength is something that tends to get forgotten about with runners and cyclists alike so it’s quite a handy list.

How do you keep in shape?

October 24, 2012October 24, 2012

Pumpkin mad – WIAW

Hi guys! Hope your week is going well. Mine is sailing along. Work is good, home is good, Ben is great and Alfie still needs a hair cut. Well, you can’t have everything. He’s a lucky pooch at the moment for escaping this particular event. But soon…just wait, he will be smartened up whether he likes it or not!

Why I do believe it’s Wednesday! Soooo another WIAW post if you don’t mind. And I’m finally matching the Halloween theme for this month!

I love getting involved in this because it really makes me conscious that I need to eat less boring food and make things exciting, for fear of boring the hell out of you. Well, you might still find it boring but I’ve put some effort into my eats this week…so prepare yourself.

This is what I ate Sunday.

Breakfast: I thought I’d throw something new out there (new for me, not for the nine billion other bloggers who have done and dusted this a million times before).

Pumpkin pancakes! These were undeniably delicious. Ben looked at me in disgust when I told him what I was having for breakfast. I ignored him; he just doesn’t understand the pumpkin craze. I used this recipe from Ashley’s blog. OK it’s meant to be a waffle but I don’t have a waffle maker…yet. [Mother, if you are reading this –> IDEAL CHRISTMAS PRESENT]. I also didn’t have any chocolate chips but didn’t really fancy any so it worked out nicely.

I then jazzed them up with some raspberries and peanut butter sauce.

I was stuffed. I wasn’t hungry for hours! And they were so simple to make.

For lunch I wanted to use my little munchkin to make a quick soup. I roasted up the chopped munchkin (sounds a bit harsh doesn’t it?) and a couple of carrots while slowly sweating some diced onion in a pan with some garlic. Then I threw the roasted veg in with the onion.

I added some vegetable stock and some spices (cumin, a touch of cinnamon and nutmeg, lots of pepper). I simmered until it all smelt yummy and the veg was completely soft. Then I whizzed it up with a hand-held blender.

I sprinkled some pumpkin seeds on top but I hadn’t roasted them yet so they look a bit feeble to be honest. But the soup was very tasty. Warm and filling! Ideally I would have liked to have had a chunky slice of rye bread alongside but realised I didn’t have any (bad planning) so had to do with three rice cakes but added some Philadelphia to make them taste less like cardboard.

Not nearly as exciting but not too shabby actually. Dipped in the soup it worked out quite well. So a bit excessive on the pumpkin front, but tasty none-the-less.

Dinner: I decided to try a new recipe that I’d found here. Such an easy recipe with ingredients that I adore (hello goat’s cheese obsession).

Basically it’s sliced cherry tomatoes, fresh thyme, chicken, goat’s cheese and a splash of olive oil. In the oven for 30mins (or until the chicken is cooked through).

I served mine up with a corn on the cob that I got from the farm shop.

And for Ben I made some garlic bread (as we’d run out of our usual stash from the freezer).

Granted, it does just look like dry toast with bits on it. But I soaked the bread in some butter that I’d ‘infused’ with garlic and then oven baked. He said it tasted amazing and that’s all I care about!

Snack-wise was usual. An apple, a banana, another apple, Snack a Jacks, maybe another apple (who’s counting anyway??).

For my fitness I’ve changed my routine. Shocking news, I know. It’s just too damn difficult to get up half-way through the night at 5.30am. I’ve moved my runs to lunchtime. This actually came about because a woman at work who knows I run and wanted to start running at lunchtime and invited me along. I wasn’t too sure but thought I’d give it a try. I still do my strength training in the morning (three times a week) but I can start half an hour later because I’m not running the morning. Woohoo! And believe me, there is a BIG difference between getting up at 5.30am and getting up at 6am.

Anyway I was ready to run but unfortunately she was suffering from a cold. So I thought I’d still go and ‘check the scene’ you know – the lay of the land and find a route and see how it went. It went amazingly! I got a personal best time for 3 miles – 22mins 30secs!! Despite the fact that the hills around where I work are a NIGHTMARE.

OK, it doesn’t look so bad in the photo. But let me tell you, IT KILLED ME. Anyway, the next day I was aching like crazy – which I haven’t done after a run in ages.

The shower at work is, er, adequate…

Not too bad I suppose! So the verdict is, I prefer now to run during work. It’s so nice to get out in the fresh air at lunch time. It makes me feel less bitter and grumpy at the world in the morning – I’m in a less dark and twisty place And gone are my slug dodging mornings.

The change in routine is working out really well. I do three sets of strength training a week (more to come on that in another post), two runs a week at work, one at home (so I can push Ben out of bed and come with me) and then Pilates at the weekend. Whew.

So good food, good runs, happy Anna!

When do you work out? Morning? Evening? During work?

What have you been eating and loving recently?

October 12, 2012January 5, 2017

Hello Reality

Hello! I’m going to do a couple of recaps of the holiday as well but I need a bit more time as it requires sorting through hundreds of photos (yep, I got that holiday feeling of MUST TAKE A PHOTO OF EVERYTHING). So please stay tuned, I hope to have the first one rocked out by the weekend

As jet-lag goes, it didn’t affect me too bad. I fell asleep stupidly early Sunday and Monday night and now I’m back into the rhythm of UK bedtimes and mornings. Though it was a horrific shock of the alarm going off a 5.30am Wednesday to get me up for my first run post-holiday. Though we did get up relatively early during our holiday (I think the latest we stayed in bed was 8am) it was still horrible. No consolation of IHOP for breakfast or roller-coasters in a few hours. Nope, just the cold dark British weather and slug-dodging. Anyway, it was tough (to be expected I suppose). I like to think we didn’t massively indulge on the holiday and we kept fairly active. But it was still tough.

Just over 2 miles. Not my best time. But I congratulated myself on getting out there anyway. I also did some ab work afterwards which wasn’t so tough. I guess general fitness declines quicker than muscle.

I’m thoroughly enjoying our normal meals again though. Don’t get me wrong, eating in America was AMAZING. But the portion-sizes are quite hefty and I’m a starter and a main girl so it was heavy going. Oh, here’s a question for any Americans out there, why do the waiters/waitresses bring out the main meal when you’re still eating your starter?? We were quite baffled.

And the sweets….and FRO-YO. Seriously, Britain, get your act together. We don’t have enough fro-yo places around.

Yogilove…self-serve. Disaster. Eyes waaay to big for the stomach (toppings including). Not that I left any! Pinkberry was definitely the best though. So creamy.

You get that holiday feeling of “I’ll never get to eat this again!”. So as you can imagine, by the end of the holiday we had over-dosed a bit on food and eating out. I just wanted some normal Anna-friendly food. Also, I think I’ll definitely be holding back on Diet Coke for a bit – free refills!! Monster glasses. Heaven.

Anyway, so eating our normal meals (easy salads, chicken with roasted veg, omelettes) is great. Though one thing that I will try and continue that I picked up from America is drinking Bud Light. I’m not a beer drinker but I tried some of Ben’s and it was so refreshing! Definitely be on the look out for that.

So in the spirit of a new era (sort of), I’ve signed up to the Reading Half-Marathon! It’s in March so ages away to worry about just yet. But it’s something I can now work towards and dread look forward to. And I’ve signed up to Pilates on Saturday mornings! I get a one-to-one session to begin with (in a couple of weeks time) and then I get to join the ‘proper’ group. I’m so excited. Things are a-changing! Well, they’re mildly different.

Hope you’re having a good day! Bit of rambling post I’m afraid.

How do you recover from a holiday?