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Running in the heat and our adidas haul

So this heatwave is fun, eh?

Makes running tough going, as I’m sure you’re aware. Ideally you want to get out early before the sun is in full beam. For us that’s quite hard because Isaac dictates our mornings. We wake up when he wakes up and this can be anywhere from 5am to 7am. Either Kyle or I can head out separately whenever or we can head out as a three with Isaac in the running buggy.

It really depends how the night has gone and what the weather is like. If it isn’t too hot I’ll run him to nursery (meaning I leave at 8am). If it’s too hot and Isaac has woken up very early we’ll head out at 6.30am or 7am. It’s a fun juggling act!

I’d love to be sure that Isaac is going to wake up at a certain time (7am would be amazing obviously) and get out and run before he wakes up. But that’s tough with the uncertainty and the fact that he’s usually still waking up 1-2 times a night, making it a tough ask to get up before he’s awake and lose that valuable sleep!

But anyway, the hot weather makes running hard work, with or without a small human! It’s important to hydrate (water and electrolytes), keep to the shade, not go out when the sun is at its strongest and to adjust your expectations for a run (i.e. don’t go out thinking you’re going to smash a speed session perfectly).

Wearing the right kit helps too. Something airy and not too heavy. As you probably know, I’m a big fan of adidas and have reviewed a variety of their clothing before. I was recently sent some more items and it’s perfect timing for the weather.

I was sent two sports bras and asides from being gorgeous, they’re perfect to just wear with shorts and avoid double layers.

The first sports bra is very simple, just plain black but I love how smooth the lines are. Fittingly, it’s called the Ultimate Bra. It’s very comfortable. It has a lovely cross-back as well which works perfectly with so many of my running tops.

As someone who has recently gone up a few cup sizes (thank you Isaac) I’ve been needing sports bra with more support now. Previously I could get away with sports bras that were basically crop tops, but now this is now the case! This sports bra is perfect for running. And because it’s so simple and chic looking, it means it looks quite nice to wear out with a pair of shorts.

The other sports bra, the International Women’s Day Allover Print Bra, couldn’t be more different in terms of aesthetics. It is loud and proud!

I like the longer fit. It looks great with a pair of shorts for a hot run. I love the mesh bits as well as the vibrant design. It has good support as well. It’s just so unique, I love it!

Also, trying to take photos in the clothing was fun work with Isaac wanting to be involved, haha! This was just after he’d pulled everything out of one of our drawers as well… chaos!

I also got a pair of trainers, the 3MC Shoes.

Perfect for walking Alfie or going out to meet friends. They’re casual but chic (can you say that about trainers?). They go with everything which is exactly what I want with trainers!

They’re a beautiful white so I really will need to look after them to make sure they stay that way! They’re lovely and comfortable as well.

Kyle was also sent a pair of trainers. They’re the Kaptir 2.0 Shoes.

We took a photo after a walk so they’re very slightly dusty!

His old shoes were pretty much falling apart so this was ideal. We both walk a lot – whether that’s walking Alfie, walking with the pram (invariably to get Isaac to nap!) or just a nice walk down to the beach, so the trainers are perfect for both of us. Kyle’s quite fussy with his trainers but he loved these. He’s got quite big feet but said they fit great and were really comfortable.

So we’re summer ready with items! As I always say, adidas is one of my favourite sportswear brand. It’s quality stuff and I can never fault them Their running items have always lasted me ages.

This weekend we’re off to Cardiff for a nice weekend away. We have the 10k Pizza Run which will be fun on the Sunday and plan to run beforehand to get in some more miles to make it a long run. We’re not taking Isaac which is bittersweet. I ummed and arred about leaving or taking him but in the end because it’s such a flying visit it seemed easier for everyone involved for him to stay at his Nana’s.

Hopefully the weather won’t be a scorcher like it was last weekend but we shall see. Either way I’ve got the kit ready to go!

Do you enjoy running in summer?

What’s your tip for keeping cool in the heat?

**Full Disclaimer: I was sent the items for free in exchange for a review. All opinions are my (and Kyle’s) own honest ones**

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All the good stuff in life

I love this time of year. Before it starts to get really cold, before the super short days, and all the beautiful colours of the leaves and cool running weather. I’m feeling particularly happy at the moment. Life is good, running is going well and I have some exciting things coming up. Happy days. So things making me smile lately include but not limited to, are…

Bake Off delights: More tasty baking from lovely colleagues at work. Every week we have something new and it really does brighten up a Monday. In ironic celebration of the other week’s vegan week, my work friend, Trystan, brought in maple bacon cupcakes. Yes they may sound weird but they were really tasty. I’m a firm believer that bacon is a good addition to sweet things 😉And yesterday was a very zesty and tasty lemon tart. Genuinely I’ll be sad when this ends. I’ve gotten used to the constant supply of home-baked goodies.And even more on the note of cakes… It was Kyle’s birthday the other week (and his twin brother, Zack’s). His team at work bought him a “unicorn cake” from the CoOp downstairs (we both work at Wiggle FYI) so I was able to have a slice. I’ve wanted to try it for AGES, passing it so many times in CoOp so I was quite excited.If you’re not into ultra sweet and sickly cakes, I’d avoid but for me this was perfection. I’m basically a small child.

That evening, his family, him and I went out to Coast to Coast to celebrate. Before (yes more) cake, we had some really tasty food. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while then you’ll know just how often I go to this restaurant. It’s a local favourite after a marathon.I went for chicken wings to start and ribs for main (predictable AF).
We had a voucher for “buy one main and get another free” but as there were 7 of us we needed another main to make it work so Kyle and I shared a main chicken wings as a starter so we could get it for free. Happily this meant another portion of chips! Genius 😉 The waiters were really nice -Zack and Kyle got free cocktails.Then for pudding Kyle’s sister, Lucy, had made two INCREDIBLE chocolate cakes. Kyle’s was covered in Malteasers, Dime and Bueno. I had to try both of course!I did prefer Kyle’s though. Usually I’m not a huge chocolate cake fan but this honestly rocked my world. As a thank you to the amazing waiters, we gave them a slice of cake too.New trainers: My trainers have racked up over 400 miles so it was time to swap them out for a new pair. When I originally bought my trainers I bought two more pairs of the same kind because they were so cheap. £35 each in the Nike Outlet! So pleased.I love the colour! And they’re so soft and comfortable. I’m so pleased I’m set for the next 800 or so miles with this pair and my safety stock pair. I do love adidas Supernova Boosts but I’ve found these work for me really well too. They’re Nike Lunarglides. I had them in a lilac purple but I much prefer this bright colour.

Surprising speedy runs: I haven’t done any structured speedwork lately. Track…ehhh it’s just not a priority right now. I don’t have the urge to do it and the motivation is just not there. But I do like to surprise myself some days by just putting a blast into a random run. Actually this run I’m about to talk about was the day after #allthefood from Coast to Coast. I felt amazing going out at lunch and decided to see what I could do.

I randomly managed a 43:30 10k! It was a flat route I often do and the temperature was lovely and cool so really the odds were in my favour (and I was fully powered by cake from the day before).And I’m so pleased that I managed to pick up speed towards the end! Yes it was tough but not impossibly so. I’m just pleased I’m maintaining some sort of speed despite slacking on the track front. I have ideas of maybe “going for it” at the Gosport Half Marathon (November) and maybe the Portsmouth Coastal Marathon (December). Not PB attempts specifically (I think I’d need a lot more work ahead of those races to get under my current times), but just “let’s see where I’m at” kind of runs. Whoooo knows. I haven’t been injured for a bit so that’s probably in store for me soon 😉

What are you enjoying lately?

Do you like super sweet cakes? I’m very much big on icing/frosting.

How many miles do you run in your trainers before changing them? I used to be super cautious and run up to 300 miles but now I can get away with 400-450.

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What Fridays were meant for

One thing I love about my job is that usually every last Friday of the month we have a selection of organised cycles or runs (and swims, badminton sessions and walks!). You can get involved if you want, or not. This time we had three runs (a beginners, a 5k and a 9k), two rides (one fast and one more beginner orientated) and a walk.

I’d decided to do the 5k because I knew it would be a bit slower and ‘easier’ and as I was adding this as an extra run to my usual four, this would be perfect. I knew a lot of the people who would be doing it and it was a nice friendly crew (well, generally everyone at Wiggle are friendly but I knew these guys well from working with them regularly every day). I helped plan the route as the original route was going to be too muddy. It came out as about 6k but it would be better as it was going round the lake and we could stop when necessary to regroup or if people wanted to finish earlier they could.

We also had Gore in the office showing off their new nifty jackets and kit. They too were going to join us for the activities. Several people got to try their new jackets as well which was fairly well planned considering how rainy the afternoon was (Gore do great waterproof kit). It’s great with this aspect of my job, seeing new kit and meeting people behind the designs and the brand. It’s a bunch of people walk past and someone goes “Oh looks it’s the guys from adidas” and you get to see the new coming shoes. It’s often a “pinch me” moment at work with stuff like this…obviously amongst the scary presentations and boring parts of everyday work! I don’t intend on working in the sports industry forever as I know I’ll need to expand my horizons and learn more about the digital marketing industry in general in other sectors, but for now it’s pretty damn cool.So after a morning of rushing to get everything done that I needed to, at 2.30pm we congregated in the canteen before the run/cycle. Gore had also brought along Fabian Cancellara, their ambassador athlete. I won’t lie, I didn’t really know who he was (after a quick Google…he’s a four time world time trial champion and won countless of other cool races, like the Tour de France – I’m no cyclist so this is not really my area of knowledge!)But I still got involved in the shameless selfie situation obviously 😉It did make me laugh though as he took the phone off the girl who was going to take it and said “I can do this, I know the best angle”. No rookie selfie-taker clearly! Ha. He was super friendly though. He did seem confused by what I was wearing though asking if I was going to be cycling. Clearly I did not look like a cyclist! I explained there was also a run that was going on.

Then we got ready to head out for our run. We had a nice friendly crew of mixed abilities. My friend Kyle (who I sometimes go runching with) was leading the run but I helped out to take the front and he took the back for anyone who might get left behind. It worked well. Kyle had some serious amounts of enthusiasm and everyone joked that whatever he’d been taking we wanted in on it too. It was a fun run. Nice and relaxed, with everyone having a laugh and chatting.Annoyingly my adidas Boosts have run over 460 miles and really need to be changed but I won’t be picking up my new ones for a week and the Mizunos I thought I’d be able to wear feel dreadful. It’s so weird because I’ve worn those models before but they gave my foot cramp when I put them on and just felt SO structured and unwieldy. I’m thinking it’s better to go with an old pair of comfortable trainers than a new pair of uncomfortable ones.We didn’t manage to avoid the rain but luckily it didn’t tip down on us… Seriously lucky because I was off for dinner straight from work with my sister and didn’t particularly want to look like a drowned rat.The run felt so gentle and relaxed. I literally felt like I was jogging. I guess my marathon training is still helping. We had a couple of stop breaks to gather the group together when we separated out a bit and in the end did 3.8 miles.Then I quickly showered, did a bit more work and headed to pick my sister, Rachel, up so we could head for dinner at Cabana in Southampton in the new West Quay restaurant bit (the cinema there, Showcase, is amazing. Reclining seats and everything).

It was lovely seeing my sis and we caught up on life and the universe and ate some tasty Mexican/Brazilian food (I’m not really certain of the cuisine if I’m honest but it seemed a mix of that). I had chicken with a side of crispy cassava (a Brasilian root veg that were a bit like big chunky chips) and chicken wings. Delicious.Originally I’d planned on getting some pudding but decided to be sensible with my money… instead I enjoyed some Halo Top (Cookie Dough, best flavour) in bed watching Captain America: Civil War. I need to get up to date with the Marvel movies as I’d quite like to see the new Infinity War in the cinema. It looks crazy epic. Ice cream in bed with a good movie? Pretty good.

Do your work ever organise team events like this?

Are you into the Marvel movies?

How many miles do you use your trainers for until you replace them?

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Life Lately

So life is pretty good right now. I feel in a very happy place.

My job is something which I’m really pleased about. I look forward to going each day and the challenges I’m given. Now that I’m fully in the grind, as it were, I feel confident and happy. Of course I still have days when i haven’t a clue what I’m doing but everyone is always so helpful and friendly that I never feel stupid. It’s been so long since I’ve felt excited about my career and I hope this continues. Of course it’s nice to work in an industry I’m passionate about as well but it’s not just that. sure the subjects I deal with are to do with cycling and running etc. but the tasks I do could be applied to any ecommerce and digital marketing industry.

And speaking of good stuff at work…As I do a lot of running and people at work know this (I tend to do a lunch time run – runch if you will – twice a week) I occasionally get some freebies to try. Recently I was given some adidas Ultra Boost X’s to test out. I can’t quite work out my feelings about them though.

Walking around in them felt very odd and not particularly comfortable as they were quite tight fitting across the tops and heels of my feet. But when running they felt great. Very bouncy and soft, and like they propel you forward. I love the colour of them and the knit look as well. Very in Vogue (like I know what’s in fashion, ha).

Along with testing the trainers I was filmed with two other girls from Wiggle not only running in the shoes but also answering questions about how I found them. I’m sure I turned into a bumbling blithering idiot on camera but it was a fun thing to do at work.

I was also given a pair of adidas shorts. I love these! They’re great to run in – crucially they rarely ride up and they’re my favourite style. I so much prefer shorts to run in than leggings! Which is funny because we all know how big a leggings fan I am in other areas of life 😉

Speaking of running then… My runs continue to be doing OK. I had a nice social nine miles with Mike last week after work and thoroughly enjoyed it. Mike and I used to do these Thursday night runs all the time and now the evenings are lighter I think we’ll be doing them more. They’re nice easier paced runs where we chew the fat and catch up while getting a slightly longer run in – usually 7-9 miles. I hope to do some more of these 🙂

I also did a good progression tempo run on Tuesday. I started around 8min/miles and got down to 7:08min/miles. It was quite windy so I didn’t manage a royal flush negative split but I felt strong and smooth running. I don’t want to do any crazy speed work right now because I’m still paranoid about injury and don’t want to risk the Brighton Marathon. But I feel like my running is naturally just getting stronger. As I always though, fingers crossed. It did feel good though sailing along at some speed rather than questioning every footstep and wondering if the niggle was still there.

My gym visits are also going well. I still go around three to four times a week and I’m honestly still loving it. It’s part of my morning routine and gets me going for the day. My routine is usually two strength circuit workouts, one legs/glutes day and one back day. One circuit workout is usually focused on upper body and the other on legs and glutes again. An example for upper body is something like this:

  • Rowing machine (3mins)
  • 20x press ups
  • 12-15 overhead presses (depends on weight for no. of reps)
  • 12-15 upright rows (again, weight dependent)
  • 15-20 front raises
  • 20x Russian wists
  • Plank (1 min)
  • 10x burpees

Repeat x4

Lower body circuit goes something like this:

  • Rowing (3 mins)
  • 15-20 hip thrusts (15w/ barbell, 20w/ resistance band only)
  • 20x kettlebell swings
  • 20x squat jumps
  • Walking lunges (1 min)
  • Wall sit (1 min)
  • 20x leg raises
  • 10x burpees

Repeat x4

I like the circuit workouts as they’re quite go, go, go and keep my heart rate raised while working my muscles. It keeps me entertained! But I still enjoy the pure strength stuff too. It’s just a balance. I try and plan what I’m going to do at the gym the night before. That way I don’t turn up to the gym without a clue and walk round aimlessly. Plus at that time in the morning the less thinking I’m required to do the better!

My only annoyance with the gym was the fact that there was no hot water there on Monday. It was BALTIC. It was lucky I didn’t have the wash my hair and so basically just stood next to the stream of ice water and splashed myself in an attempt to wash.

Luckily it was pretty much back to working the next day when I did need to wash my hair. I’m not sure I could have taken the brain freeze otherwise. This is what you get when you pay £18 a month eh! But I love how conveniently my gym is located and the fact that it’s open 24/7. I’d happily have a cold shower no and again for that sort of accessibility and cost.

So yes, life is good. Things are going well. Happy days indeed.

Do you go to the gym?

Do you like to do more cardio or strength workouts at the gym?

Do you like adidas workout gear and trainers?

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Calf and running update

Let me first begin this with patting myself on the back for getting too cocky about running and basically jinxing myself. I’m well aware of the irony of my posts leading up to the calf niggle, believe me!

As always with niggles and injuries I was running so well. Then the calf became uncomfortable and my running took a nose dive. It’s one of those things. I can’t get too upset because I kind of knew my bubble of good running needed to burst at some point. I am after all still an injury prone runner.ASICSSo, the chain of events as far as I can see was that I changed trainers to ASICS after really enjoying a solid period of good running in my Adidas Supernovas. Both calves became super tight but I continued to run in them despite this and then decided, as they got worse, to quickly re-purchase the faithful Adidas again. But it appeared the damage was already done. This was during my time in Wales with my family and my calves felt tight on each run – the left more so.IMG_1697Then I ran the Portsmouth Marathon… calves not 100% but nothing terrible. Though speeding up at the end probably didn’t help things, nor did running so soon (and up a giant hill) a few days later.

I believe this is what we call a “dick move”. I only have myself to blame. My glorious period of amazing running convinced me I was a new woman and my legs didn’t need the normal recovery. And then the left calf became uncomfortable and no longer just simply tight. It felt “wrong” and almost painful in the back body of the calf muscle.

After a very uncomfortable Christmas Day parkrun where the calf was still unhappy, I took just over a week off. I ran on Wednesday of last week…still a bit grumpy but far better. Then I ran a back-to-back on Saturday and Sunday (another dick move). It ached straight after the run on Sunday. A little panic ensued as I wondered, for the first time, if I could do Dubai (don’t get me wrong, I’d still go, I just wouldn’t run the marathon if I still felt the discomfort. I’ve run enough marathons now to care about DNS’s. I want to run long-term not just for a race. I’d enjoy my time in Dubai regardless).

I found a Physio nearby (South Physiotherapy Gosport – I can really recommend) and booked in for Wednesday. I planned on using the elliptical machine in place of running and my mind calmed and I felt quite chilled. Action plan in place. No point stressing. I know I can run a marathon as long as I’m not injured. I would just get rid of any time goals and hope to run an issue-free relaxed race.

By the time Wednesday rocked up my calf felt absolutely fine. I’d previously been feeling it when I walked Alfie or when I’d walk up stairs (pushing off from my toes caused it to feel very uncomfortable). To clarify things in my mind I decided instead of walking Alfie in the morning I’d run with him round the block (a mile). Firstly, Alfie thoroughly enjoyed himself! His very first whole mile of running – I’m so proud! And he only stopped once for a poo (necessary on his morning walk you see) and happily would have carried on after the mile. My calf? Absolutely fine. No discomfort. Now I felt silly.

I still went to the Physio appointment and explained the issue and the fact that it felt better now (who know show it would have felt after the single mile). The Physio examined it and got me doing lots of exercises. Then he massaged the area, cracked my back in different places, massaged my hamstring and did acupuncture all over my legs, glutes and back. He suspects I had a very mild calf sprain a few weeks ago (probably caused by the change in trainers tightening up my calves and then over-exerting my calf while it was still super tight).

He told me I could give attempt an easy run the next day (today). I’ve never had such a positive physio appointment. He was really thorough and super friendly. He also treats the RAF and Army – very cool.

So finger’s crossed for today’s run. The plan, if today’s run does indeed go well, is to run a gentle parkrun on Saturday and then run as normal the week after. No speedwork! In a perfect world I’d get a “long” run done the Sunday before I go to Dubai (21st – I go on the 22nd, the marathon is the 26th)… 10-13 miles maybe. Just to give me a bit of courage! But as long as I’m running discomfort-free I’m happy to crack on with the marathon.

Keep your fingers cross for me please!

Have trainers ever caused you an issue with running?

Do you calves ever get really tight? Mine are usually fine.

Have you ever had acupuncture?