Not the weekend I wanted

This weekend didn’t fully go as I’d planned but it was still a good one. As is standard for running and me, after doing those ridiculous runs straight after the marathon (the seven miles, then the nine miles off-road in Swindon) my ankle had become slightly swollen and very stiff.

If I’m entirely honest, I felt it start to faintly niggle on the first run… then I continued to run the 3ish miles in Bristol, then the off-road run in Swindon. I mean I really only have myself to blame. Especially straight after the marathon. My body, so delicate and sensitive, was clearly still getting over the marathon and though I felt fine didn’t appreciate jumping back into the mileage so quickly. WHY DON’T I LEARN? WHY DON’T I EVER LEARN??

I tried running on Thursday evening but it just wasn’t happy. It wasn’t painful but just very uncomfortable and stiff. So I stopped – I had nothing to gain to keep going. Finally being sensible! But too little too late. This meant my weekend of running, of which I had parkrun planned and a long run with a friend, was cancelled. Humph.

I still went down to Netley though to volunteer and see everyone as I hadn’t been for ages. It was nice to chat about the marathon and to see the usual crew.It was annoying not to be able to run but I enjoyed cheering everyone on and then being the funnel manager. I’ve never done the funnel manager job before (basically you stand there ensuring that people don’t overtake each other within the funnel so everyone gets their right barcode. You check with the timekeepers and the people handing out the barcode every now and again to make sure the numbers are corresponding). To be honest it’s quite a boring job.

And as more and more people started finishing, cakes started appearing as quite a few people had their milestones that day. I watched with envy as the tins were passed around but I couldn’t leave my post… The run director who saw me looking longingly over took pity on me and said I could go and grab some quickly (he himself had a stack of three so he could hardly stop me if I’m honest ;-))

In the end I had FIVE different bits of cake: half a chocolate cookie, a chocolate brownie bite, a delicious chocolate traybake thing, a chocolate crispy thing and, for a change, a lemon shortbread. I felt quite sick as it started to settle! The run director declare me volunteer of the week for this feat, teehee.

Then I had a tiny bit of bread pudding in the cafe that was going spare. Look, I can’t be trusted around so many different cake options!! I have no self-control.

I’d planned on having breakfast after parkrun and heading to the gym but in the end I obvious didn’t need breakfast and just headed straight there (I was in my gym gear already).Trying to get as much wear out of the t-shirt as possible 😉 Not that anyone at the gym cares at all! I did about 30 minutes on the elliptical machine and then some upper body strength work, such as lateral pull-downs, cable face pulls, lateral raises and rows. I felt very well fuelled!

Later I went to my friends’ house for dinner and a movie night, which was great. They made slow-cooked pulled pork with potato wedges and I brought salad. They’re trying to lose weight (they’ve both done so well so far!) using SlimmingWorld so everything was really healthy and tasty.We attempted to watch a film but in the end we were chatting through it so just gave up and chilled. It was a nice easy evening catching up with good friends. They’re also going to help me host my Divorce Party. Yes, that’s actually going to happen 😀 I’m officially divorced and I think that deserves a bit of cake and a knees-up.

Sunday I was meant to go for a long run with a friend… but this obviously wasn’t the wisest idea. I saw my sports massage friend, Kyle, the day before and he’d loosened things up for me and had done a bit of acupuncture to it so it did feel better but I was advised to give it a day or two.

So after a lazy lie-in I headed to the gym again. I did an hour on the elliptical machine this time, and it felt good to get a sweat on. You might be wondering why I bothered now that I’ve done the marathon…but I have a potential goal coming up and as long as my niggle disappears and I remain uninjured I think I can manage it. But we’ll see. More on that another time.

After that I did some leg strength work, such as goblet squats with a pulse (these BURN), some high rep/low weight Romanian deadlifts (for muscle endurance), some cable glute kickbacks and randomly worked on my bench press. I’m feeling really good about my strength increases in this area. I remember a time when I could barely manage any weight.

Though I didn’t get to run it was a nice chilled weekend where I could catch up with life admin and housework, having spent the last few weekends all about the place. So not a complete loss!

What’s your favourite position to volunteer at parkrun?

What do you do to cross-train when you can’t run?

What did you get up to this weekend?

Alfie’s first parkrun and some favourite things

I still have no date for moving. This seems somewhat of a reoccurring theme. For me it’s not too much of a bother aside from not knowing what weekend is going to be affected and not having any furniture in my lounge aside form a TV and a bean bag…For Ben it’s tricky as he moves to Switzerland at the end of the week and the money from the house sale would help for his side of things.

But anyway, another weekend gone by and I’m still in the house. On Saturday morning I still got up to go to parkrun, despite not being able to run at the moment. I like the social element to it and getting out in the fresh air so it was nice going down there, even if I was in “civilian” clothes.

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It was a chilly and crisp morning so I bundled up nicely, knowing there would be no lovely run to heat me up. I took Alfie as well as I’ve always wanted to take him to a parkun but wouldn’t feel I could leave him tied to a bench while I ran and it wouldn’t be fair to see if he could run 5k if he’s never done that distance before.

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Annoyingly we were on the cricket pitch, the last for the year before the winter course, which was a pain to miss as it’s a great time to test the speed out. But to be honest I’m not in shape for a PB attempt anyway!

It was great cheering everyone on and seeing people looking strong so soon after the marathon last weekend (which so many from parkrun had done) and I didn’t feel sad I couldn’t run. I saw my physio on Friday and she wasn’t concerned. She said my muscles were very tight, especially my left leg, which with the wrong trainers probably just built up during the marathon a bit of a niggle that I then exacerbated by continuing to run further on until the end. I’ve been severely neglected my foam rolling (which I always do when I’m no longer injured…) and I’m one of those people who needs to do everything in my favour to avoid injury. Whoops.

She said it’s likely it’ll only be another week as long as it continues to heal as quickly as it is. I’m still a little dubious that it will be OK in a week but I’d rather be cautious than overly optimistic. I can go to the gym (but no squats) so that’s cool. I miss running but it is nice to have a break.

My weekend was really very quiet if I’m honest. Lots of cleaning, sorting stuff in the house and catching up on Dr Foster (did anyone else watch?? SO good). And I saw some friends on Saturday afternoon and had a nice catch-up.

With no real plans for Sunday I had a nice lie-in. I floated the idea of going to the cinema with my dad to see The Martian as I’d seen a trailer on Friday which looked really good and had heard it was a good film. He was keen and suggested lunch as well…with my mum declining to come we decided to go to Ranchos (which my mum would hate).Ribs Ranchos (1)

Ribs are pretty much my favourite meal. I had the ribs with a parsley and garlic sauce which was divine. My dad had steak.

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He had chips with his. I had nothing because did you see the size of my portion?? I don’t like things crowding my ribs experience 😉 As you can probably tell, we were both rather pleased with lunch!

The table next to us was an Asian family of three petite girls and, I assume, their dad. The amount of food they ordered (and the SIZE of the steaks the girls ate) was unreal. They had a large plate of ribs to share in the middle alongside all the sides, chips, mash potato, rice, and they just absolutely demolished it. I was quite impressed!

Anyway, we saw The Martian. I had a brief moment of embarrassment as after we sat down I headed back out to the loo (I like to get my seat first). I went towards the wrong side and stood, pretty much in front of everyone in the cinema, attempting to find the door in the wall (feeling my hands all over it to find the way out…)…then realising it was on the other side. In my defence, there was one of those Fire Exit signs in that area which I assumed meant exit. What an idiot.

I was a bit worried the film would be a bit dry and science-y (I enjoyed Interstellar but I found it dragged a little on the ‘science’ side – however unrealistic that science was!) but I was pleasantly surprised.

The Martian

It was really quite funny and I felt like the storyline didn’t drag at all. The music was great as well. Fully recommend! (I also loved when they talked about Project Elrond and Sean Bean was there – aka Boromir from Lord of the Rings!). I also found it amusing when at the start they were talking about “preparing for launch” and I heard “preparing for lunch” and I was thinking, come on guys there’s a time and place for that surely – you’ve got a criss going on?! Hehe.

I love going to the cinema and need to do it more often. And if there are ribs involved, well so be it! 😉

What film have you recently seen?

Do you enjoy going to the cinema?

Do you still like to be involved in running stuff even if you can’t run? I think for me it depends how long my injury lasts. If I’m going to be out for months and months then I’ll probably take some time away from running-related stuff because otherwise it can get a b it depressing to see what you’re missing out on. But short-term I like to stay involved.