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Rants and Raves #41

I’m back with some more rants and raves. Enjoy!

Rant: Everyday a new wonder product or superfood appears in the media that is going to prolong your life, make you younger, make you happy, keep you going…blah blah. So it’s really no surprise that a cafe in East London is selling “charcoal activated vegan croissants”.

OK surely it’s just a piece of charcoal shaped as a croissant? I mean, come on now. Just buy a regular croissant and eat your five a day. Stop with this nonsense. Hilariously, BuzzFeed wrote an article on how it tasted: “It’s squidgier than I expected, and doesn’t have the burnt notes I thought there would be.” [Source] Crucially, they didn’t say delicious. If I eat a croissant, that’s kind of what I’m looking for.

Rave: And on an entirely unrelated note on superfoods and their magical properties… I’ve been trying out the Manuka Doctor Facial Oils. As you probably know if you’re a long-term reader (or you know me in person), I’m not a big make-up wearer or skin care advocate in general. I mean, I will moisturise when I remember but in general I don’t do anything. I’m very lucky in that I have fairly OK skin and dark features which helps on this front. However I could probably look tons better if I put the effort in, but ehhh.

So I was intrigued when I was sent the Replenishing Facial Oil. Oil for the skin? Really? But it sounded good: “anti-ageing” and “rich in powerful plant extracts designed to revitalise and restore radiance”. Well, we could all do with some of that surely! Nearing 30 and I ain’t getting any younger. The idea behind it is that it helps regain elasticity and smooth out fine lines.

It was also the Winner of a Beauty Advisor Award in the 2016 LOOK Beauty Awards, and the ingredients don’t sound hella scary:

“Manuka Oil, Rose Hip Oil, Argan Oil, Evening Primrose Oil, Cranberry Seed Oil, Grape Seed Oil, Hazelnut Seed Oil, Sweet Almond Oil, Avocado Oil, Wheat Germ Oil, Sunflower Seed Oil, Borage Seed Oil, Plum Seed Oil, Peach Kernal Oil, Blackcurrant Seed Oil, Raspberry Seed Oil & Carrot Seed and Root Oil.“

How did I find it? Actually I really liked this. You use a dropper thing (like a pipette?) and then smooth it onto your face. It is oily (obviously…) but it didn’t leave my face oily if that makes sense. I actually thought my face looked a lot brighter quite quickly, weirdly enough. I did really think it made a difference and will happily continue to use it. My only niggle with it is that I don’t really like the smell. It’s not an unpleasant smell – it’s slightly floral? But I’m just not a fan. It doesn’t linger though so that’s something.

Rave: Last week was a solid week of eating. I went to Casa Brasil with running friends, Mike and Rebecca. Neither had met each other but had briefly spoken on Twitter. Rebecca is a core team member at Lee on Solent parkrun and Mike is a core team member at Netley, both love running, parkrun and meat so I was pretty sure everyone would get on. They did, happy days. (Also check out Rebecca’s blog!)

Casa Brasil never disappoints but I always eat far too much. I just get carried away and the strong FOMO effect takes over… is that the Parmesan pork I see? Damn I need to get some of that too! Chicken wings? Load me up! Chorizo sausages? Yes please! I’m my own worst enemy. But I did enjoy it, even if I needed about four pints of water during the night because of how salty the food is. Worth it.

Rant: Recently I seem to have been doing an excessive number of presentations at work. OK, just three but it’s felt a lot. The first one went terribly. I mean, my content was OK (well, so I was told) but the technical elements of getting my laptop to hook up to the big screen and then having to use someone else’s laptop who didn’t have all the logins I need…gahh it was so awkward. Lots of filling time and awkward laughter. I got lots of pity praise afterwards… “It wasn’t that bad…” and “Ah don’t worry Anna, it was fiiiiiine”. Uh huh.

Then the next presentation was in front of my BIG boss. It was a less formal affair but he would interrupt and ask lots of hard questions… tough. But that went far better (I learnt from my mistakes. never demonstrate anything live in a presentation – always use screenshots).

Then the third was probably the worst as it was standing up in front of the whole office and presenting (in front of around 60 people). My voice was shaking. My hands were shaking. But thankfully that too went OK. WHEW.

I do feel proud of myself though. I know this is a bit of blowing my own trumpet but I’ve come a long way since starting and I do still love my job and what I do. And you do need to step outside your comfort zone to grow, so I’ll stop complaining.

Rant: And before I get ahead of myself on growing and being a better person… I still do stupid shizz. Like forget my hairbrush when I go to the gym in the morning and only realise after I’ve washed my hair. Now as a girl with long hair, this is somewhat of a tricky situation. Trying to de-tangle it all with my fingers was not a winning solution but the only solution I had. I couldn’t really blow-dry it as that would tangle it further so I just had to scrape it as best as I could into two plaits. Oh, this was on the day I wanted to look somewhat reasonable because I was doing the aforementioned big presentation. What a knob.

Have you done anything stupid recently?

Do you use any facial oils?

Do you get won over by any crazy sounding superfoods?

**Full Disclaimer: I was sent the facial oil for free in exchange for a review on my blog. All opinions are my own honest ones.**

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Raving time

Now normally I’d be having a few rants but actually I can’t think of anything lately that’s been bugging me. I’m pretty solidly in the rave camp at the moment!

Rave: I’m really busy. I love it when my diary is chockablock full of fun and exciting events coming up. I’m off to London on Saturday for more parkrun tourism and brunching with my lovely friend, James. Then it’s the Gosport Half Marathon on Sunday (pacing another lovely friend, Martin). And then the following weekend heading to Brighton to visit even more lovely friends (all my friends are lovely!)… Christmas meals at work and with friends, heading to London again for a Harry Potter escape room… Secret Santas. Ahh I’m just in a very happy place right now.

Rave: And continuing on this theme… having an already jam-packed 2018 planned! I have quite a few exciting events/holidays I’m (hoping) to be able to do next year. I mean, who needs money right…? Most of them in some way running-related 🙂 I say hoping because who knows what my legs will be like next year, but I hope to do most of what I have planned. If all goes to plan (and I don’t bankrupt myself) I should be going abroad FIVE times. Not for massive holidays I stress, but mini-breaks and trips.

Rave: Passing my three month probation at Wiggle. I can’t believe I’ve been here for over three months! It’s mental. And, as I’ve said so many times, I really do love it. And, as far as I can tell, I think I’m doing OK.

Rave: Now THIS is one of my biggest raves at the moment. Do you remember a while ago when, the idiot that I am, I took the wrong barcode to parkrun for a number of weeks? I tried to get the parkrun support HQ people to help me out but, understandably, it wasn’t something they were willing to amend because, let’s face it, it’s my mistake and would require a lot of faff on their side.

Anyway, after speaking to my friend, Joe, who’s been a run director at Netley parkrun, he mentioned that results for individual parkruns could be retrospectively changed. Like when people forget their barcodes and then email them afterwards they can be added. So, I emailed Netley (where I had three parkruns under the wrong barcode) and explained what I’d done. I mean, I do know the main run director, Peter, at Netley so I guess that makes it easier, but he was more than helpful (incidentally the same Peter who sold me his Portsmouth Marathon place – so hugely grateful to him!). He changed the results and lo! and behold I got three emails through congratulating me on my result!I also emailed Brighton & Hove parkrun where I’d also used the wrong barcode (and the one I desperately wanted adding to my account as I’ve only done it once and really want to do a different Brighton parkrun when I visit next). And they too have changed my result over. I am BEYOND pleased. Thank you, Brighton & Hove parkrun! The email they sent to me as well was lovely. They said they don’t usually make changes so long after the event but they like to look after their tourists. Well, I am certainly feeling the love. I know this might sound really sad but I’m literally over the moon about this now. I’ve now done 151 parkruns (and 30 different UK ones and one US). Only 99 until my next t-shirt…Rave: Running at lunchtime (runching if you will). It’s so much nicer to run at lunch than it is after work. I’m so much more motivated to run when it’s not as cold and definitely not as dark. It also means I can toddle off home quicker after work.

Wiggle has great shower facilities and also a great number of routes around the office. It’s especially good for when I do speed work (I’ve done two speedworks now!) as the lake I run round is soft underfoot and almost exactly a mile. Ideal! No traffic lights, dog walkers or hills to break the flow of trying to get some solid speedwork in. No excuses basically.

On Tuesday I did one mile warm-up, followed by two miles at 6:50-55min/mile pace, followed by 0.5 miles easy, and then another two miles at 6:50-55min/mile pace and then a cool down. I mean it was slightly awkward as I kept passing the same work friends who were having a walk on their lunch break so I must have looked a bit mad. But it was such a great feeling to hit those paces and get another solid workout in. Plus, with it being soft underfoot I feel like this is better for me (*cough* injury-prone) than doing the workouts on concrete. 2mile repeatsDon’t get me wrong, I find I do ‘fear’ these workouts and begin them with some trepidation. I know it’s going to feel hard and the temptation to sack it off and do a standard 8min/mile run is SO tempting. But I know this is good for me and the feeling I get when I finish is fantastic. I just need to make sure I stay motivated. I need to mix things up as well so if anyone has any good marathon-focused speed workouts for around 6 miles I’d be grateful for the inspiration…

What are you happy about right now?

Are your parkrun stats important to you?

What speed workouts do you do?

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Trying to keep up

On Friday my work, Wiggle, had another ‘sports day’. They happen on the last Friday of every month at 2.30pm, with several options you can get involved in.

There were two different bike rides, tennis, swimming and two different runs. There was a “slower” 5k and a 15k. The 15k didn’t mention speed but I didn’t think it would be that fast. I saw who was signed up for it and there was a girl doing it who was a little bit slower than me so I felt comfortable.IMG_0151I decided to wear a suitably sporty outfit to work to embrace the day (plus, leggings are just SO comfortable and honestly I’d wear them every day if I could… well, I probably could at Wiggle but I need to maintain some level of smartness in life I think! Plus I really don’t need to give myself an excuse to buy any more leggings).

Before 2.30pm I swapped my leggings for shorts and got myself ready for the run. I met the others downstairs in the lobby and realised the group was actually made up of entirely speedy people. The girl who I’d spotted on the list had decided not to run at the last minute. I mean, I didn’t know for a fact that these guys were speedy but you know when you can just tell? There was also the 2.39 marathoner girl as well. I MEAN SERIOUSLY.I nervously said, “I think I might be in the wrong group here…” but they all politely assured my I’d be fine and they wouldn’t go too fast. Hmmm.

Well, as soon as we started running it was clear their concept of fast were quite different to my concept of fast. As we about to do around nine miles I decided to just keep at the pace I was comfortable with and not feel pressured to run faster. I was running 8min/miles and they were already stretching ahead of me. I resolutely stuck to my guns. If they wanted to leave me behind then fine, but I wasn’t going to risk injury or exhaustion trying to keep up with them.

It did make me a little sad though. I had so much enjoyed the last Wiggle run… it was fun and social and there were no egos or speed dictatorship involved. It was the first time since joining Wiggle where I felt left out and not good enough (entirely in my head I know but still a feeling I felt).

After a mile they waited for me to catch up. I said to them did they think it was better if I just went back and did the 5k instead? But again they assured me it was fine. They slowed down a little and I managed to keep in the group. Though they were chatting away and I was just focusing on keeping up. Again, not an overwhelmingly fun experience.

The route was nice. We went along Farlington Marshes (which is where I got the idea to go walking there on Sunday). It was flat, not too windy and soft underfoot so at least there was that.

There were only five of us and as we settled into the second mile one of the guys started slowing down and drifting behind us. In the end for most of the run he was far behind and we’d wait until he caught up at sporadic moments. I felt mean leaving him and a little angry that as a group we weren’t adjusting our speed to keep as a group.

Right at the end the two faster runners dashed off for a final sprinty mile and I ran to the end with one of the other guys who, despite being naturally fast, was starting to feel the miles. We’d completely left behind two other guys and they ended up going the long way round, unsure of the route. To be honest, it didn’t scream of comradeship or team building but there we go. I’ll know for next time when I see who’s signed up to what!9 milesIn the end it was a solid run in terms of the speed and distance – a good tempo run. But enjoyment factor? Minimal. Constantly feeling like I’m not fast enough or worried about people behind me being left behind isn’t my idea of fun.

Wiggle had also arranged for a pop-up bar with a tent serving sausages as well (with a guy dressed in lederhosen…). The 5k’ers were back so I chatted to them for a bit while enjoying many glasses of Diet Coke. It was so warm and sunny. Ahh here was the fun part – no more egos or feeling left out. Instantly I felt miles better.I know this sounds so corny, but I’ve made friends with a nice group of people at work and I don’t feel like the newbie or outsider anymore (like you do at the beginning). Everyone is around my age or a bit younger so it feels very natural and easy (unlike the run perhaps…).Anyway, onto a review! A few weeks ago I was sent a Sonic Chic Deluxe toothbrush. Now, I used to own an electric toothbrush but…eh… I kind of gave up on it. To be honest, it annoyed me having to charge it with a great stonking cable and unit in my bathroom and it seemed a faff. Yes, yes I know electric toothbrushes are better for you tooth and blah blah…

Anyway, this toothbrush is charged using a USB – which is quite dinky and cute. No long cables or annoyingness. It’s actually a very slimline and attractive toothbrush (is that weird? It’s very travel-easy is what I mean). It’s slimline and has a nice case to it to fit easily into a wash bag.

Despite it’s size, it’s really quite powerful. The vibrations of the bristles are quite intense (32,000 strokes a minute)! And I really like how after 30 seconds it pulses so you know to change the quadrant of your mouth. And the brush head is quite small so it can get to the nooks and crannies of your mouth – like behind your bottom teeth (always a problem area for me my dentist tells me). It also contains a replacement brush. Remember to change those brush heads fairly regularly!You do have to physically move the brush though yourself – if that makes sense? A regular electric toothbrush you might just need to guide it along your teeth as it’s head spins and circles, but for this one you gently do the circular actions as the head only does the sonic vibrations rather than any actual movements. It also doesn’t come with a plug, just the USB connector. I really like it. It’s marketed as a travel toothbrush but it’s now my regular one. The battery is also really good. You get a substantial number of uses before needing to charge it (maybe once per week?). My mouth definitely felt SO much cleaner after using this, fully recommend! You can buy from Boots for £19.99.

Do you use an electric toothbrush?

Do you have friends at work?

**Dull Disclaimer: I was sent the toothbrush for free in exchange for a review on my blog. All opinions are my own honest ones.**

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Life Check-In

So life lately. Asides from doing idiotic things in my spare time, life has been pretty good, albeit somewhat stressful.

Work

In terms of work, I’m still loving things. Now that schools have started again the traffic is heavier but it’s still nothing in comparison to my journeys to Basingstoke used to be. We’re still talking 30 minutes. This makes me extremely happy. Having more of an evening means I don’t feel like all I do is walk Alfie, eat and then go to bed. I can actually live a little. However this will be changing again as I’ve now moved back home to my parent’s house (more on this in a bit). Though they live closer to where I work, they actually live in a very annoying spot in terms of getting on to the motorway. So the likelihood is that I’ll get stuck in more traffic in the future. However, it still won’t be as bad as Basingstoke was I’m sure.

And the work itself? I’m loving it. So interesting and something I’m so keen to learn more and more about. Working in such a cool and friendly environment helps a lot as well. Not that my last place wasn’t friendly (I have some great friends I made there and keep in touch with) but I feel like I’m where I’m supposed to be now.

Moving

In terms of moving, I kind of left everything until the last moment. I mean, ehhh, don’t we all work a bit better with some adrenaline and looming, flashing deadline in front of us? I’m renting my flat out furnished so this did make things somewhat easier in terms of physically moving. But I still had a lot of “stuff” to move regardless. And cleaning. I’ve maintained a very high level of cleanliness in my flat (the letting agency commended it when they visited. I was proud) but there were still areas to clean of course. Cupboards, drawers, deep cleaning the kitchen and bathroom.

I had Friday and Monday off to master this moving process (while still having quite a busy weekend as well – I never make things easy for myself of course). Friday was literally pack my life away into my Fiat 500, and thankfully my dad’s larger car. I packed about half of my stuff (SO. MANY. CLOTHES. WHY) and then realised actually I had quite a lot of stuff.This giant Next bag and the big blue IKEA bags were my saviour. As everything was to fit into cars, rather than a van, it was all about squashability. Plus I didn’t actually have that many boxes. I’m also going through the very freeing process of becoming more minimalist. There’s nothing like packing to make you consider whether you want to actually move something or not. I’ve gotten rid of (well, donated to charity) a lot of old trainers, shoes, clothes, books, DVDs and random items.I’ve sold more expensive handbags on eBay and given away other stuff to friends (ahh smoothie maker, it’s been quite a while since I used you). So Friday, Saturday afternoon and Sunday were spent packing the last bits. As I had a busy day (mainly eating, it must be said) Saturday and then a half marathon on Sunday, it was quite exhausting getting everything done.My flat was scrubbed clean; the fridge, the balcony glass panes, the windows (inside and out!), the oven, cupboards, bathroom, skirting boards…everything!It’s funny because I keep forgetting that it’s still going to be my flat. I can still move back there at some point in the future. I’m not selling it. So the level of sadness is minimal. I will of course miss it and I will miss my lovely cushty lifestyle there but I know this is the right thing to do. But jeeeesus was it tiring getting it all done. My parents helped where they could but they too were busy at the weekend and couldn’t have the time off of work. But I am an INDEPENDENT WOMAN, yes indeed. There is nothing like walking up and down two flights of stairs carrying heavy bags and boxes on your own to drill that into you.Running

By far the most interesting thing to discuss right? 😉 My running since the New Forest Marathon has been pretty good. Weirdly I’ve gone from the lone wolf runner who does most of her running solo, to someone who now regularly does her runs with other people. On Tuesday nights I’ve been running with a guy at work which has been nice. So far we’ve only run two four milers as we’ve both been recovering from high mileage at the weekend. But it’s been good regardless. It’s nice as well to chat to someone outside of work hours about work. I know that doesn’t sound great but for someone who would literally forget about work as soon as I left the building, to have interest and passion about what I do now means I’m genuinely interested in talking about it further.

Thursdays still see me running with my friend Mike. He’s always fun to run with and we often have good conversations regarding dating, life and the universe. It’s a bit like therapy 😉 Our recent run of 10k went by nicely. Though we both wondered how the hell we’d run regularly 7-9miles before. A marathon definitely takes it out of you. However, our splits were nicely around 8.30s rather than 9minutes so that was something.And Saturday is parkrun of couse. Speaking of adulting fails… I somehow managed to register myself TWICE. So when I’ve been scanning my barcodes recently I’ve been scanning a different Anna (it’s still me, but not my usual account, just one I created YEARS ago when I was just starting running outside). I only realised this when I went to see how many parkruns I’ve done and found I’d only done about five, which is wrong! Stupid me. I’ve sent an email to the lovely parkrun chaps but they said it was too time-consuming to change it. It’s fair enough, of course. This is my own error, but I’m still SO annoyed (at myself). This means I’ll be out of count for milestones… OK my next milestone is 250 which is over 100 parkruns away but STILL. And now I don’t have Brighton & Hove on my tourism list. ARGH.

But anyway, parkrun at Netley this week was nice. It was lovely weather and I did a nice negative split as I started feeling stronger as the run continued.

Photo Credit: Glenn Tyreman

I so much prefer to build up to speed than go out guns blazing. Though with 5ks if you want a really solid fast time you do need to be on the speed as soon as you start… but my body doesn’t really work like that for parkrun. I guess I could do more miles to warm-up but with helping set-up there’s never time. Plus I’m not too bothered by getting a super fast time these days!

Photo Credit: Glenn Tyreman

I look very much “in the zone” in that photo above – this was on the finishing straight. So my time was 22:19 which is not too shabby!I think we’ll be moving onto the dreaded winter course soon (which feels so much harder). I had to dash off quickly after finishing as I needed to get a bit more packing done before meeting my friend for lunch. I did get a cheeky photo though with our new sign. Very fancy shmancy indeed! My friend, Joe, decided to photobomb it which was quite amusing.I’ll do a recap of the Solent Half Marathon that I ran on Sunday in another post…

Basically, the Cliff Notes of the post is, my life is going well. I’m a very happy apple right now (yes I did just refer to myself as an apple). Things have slotted into place and life is feeling good.

Do you enjoy cleaning? This is a random question, but I actually love cleaning. I get so much satisfaction from it.

Do you like the people you work with? And the environment you work in?

How’s your running/exercising going?

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What I ate when working in London

Whew last week was tough. I was in London for four days as part of the final bit of a project (for those who don’t know, I’m currently a software test analyst… yes very geeky). These last few weeks have been very stressful as we’ve had some unmovable deadlines to hit and lots of work to get done. But I won’t dwell on that for this post, this post is about the good stuff. FOOD.

I was in London Monday until Thursday. I was the only one in the group to be staying in a hotel. Everyone else lives in Basingstoke or nearby so the commute was a bit more manageable (well, I say that but one guy had commuting issues all week… something I was glad to avoid!). Luckily the office we were in had a very fancy pants kitchen area so I bought porridge oats and almond milk at lunch time on Monday so breakfast Tuesday until Thursday was covered as I could make it in the morning there. Saving money and still able to enjoy my usual breakfast 🙂

My job expenses travel, hotels and dinner but for breakfast and lunch I need to buy myself. The office was located in Victoria so at lunch there was a wealth of options available, from the Shake Shack, Subway, Pret, Itsu, McDonalds, Starbucks…etc. I’d heard good things about Leon so went there on Monday to grab something.

I went for the South Indian Spiced Fish, which was delicious.It was really tasty. It contained chunks of smoked fish in a mild coconut and turmeric sauce on a bed of rice. It was lovely and hot but not too spicy. I actually did buy some extra cooked chicken though to add to it as I knew I wouldn’t get much of a chance to eat again until dinner and I generally have quite a big appetite! It kept me going until 8.30pm (we didn’t finish work until 7pm).

That evening after getting to my hotel, which was in Paddington (so not too far from Victoria) I’d made sure I’d already made a Deliveroo order on my commute back. I didn’t fancy going out as I was exhausted from the day so this was ideal. I ordered from Lokkanta, which is a meze and barbeque restarant. I ordered a Tavuk Shish, which was chicken with Bulgar wheat with a halloumi and sundried tomato salad. I also ordered some bread on the side. I’m always wary of ordering when I don’t know portion sizes so I’m always willing to get more than I need than risk not getting enough 😉 Turns out I didn’t need the bread, but it was tasty.

My hotel… *sighs* was dreadful. It was tiny and not part of a chain, which can be nice sometimes but in London a chain is sometimes better because there’s a level of quality that needs to be maintained however basic the actual amenities are. When I was lying on the bed watching TV after eating I noticed tiny little white dots slowly moving on the sheets. On closer inspection I found that they were tiny mites. URGH. I headed downstairs to talk to the manager (the only person who seemed to work there…) and complained.

He literally looked like he couldn’t care less (by the way, this is the same guy who gave me a master key for the hotel when he couldn’t find the key for my specific room – oh yeah, I felt safe!!). When it looked like he didn’t really a) know what to do and b) want to do anything I suggested quite firmly new sheets for my bed. He looked really grumpy and finally agreed. He appeared at my door a few moments later and handed me the sheets. I handed them back to him and said I was going to step out to make a phone-call. I was not going to change my own sheets thank you very much. I came back and thankfully my bed had been made and the mites had disappeared. But Jesus. So yeah, that delightful abode is called Mina House Hotel FYI.

The next morning I headed out for a run. Despite my hotel being awful, it was very close to Hyde Park. As my last solo run in London had be disastrous I was glad to have somewhere specific to run around that had lots of maps about the place (and water fountains)!

I thoroughly enjoyed this run. I decided to go around the perimeter and see how far that was. It was very warm but the sights were so pretty with trees, grass, fountains, flowers and statues. I don’t think I’ve ever actually been to Hyde Park before so it was a lovely way to explore it.At one point there was this huge line of horses with very fancy looking men all in special uniform walking graceful through the park. Apparently the Queen’s Guard! The Queen wasn’t there (obviously, it was like 7am) but it was very cool to see this procession.In the end I ran 8 miles which felt great! I had breakfast at the office again (porridge) and for lunch I headed out to find what delights I could embark on. I decided on Pret (how original) because I love their salads and their miso soup. I got that with the extra chicken from Sainsbury’s and some apples. The salad was the Greens, Grains and Chicken Salad. Sorted!

For dinner I decided to find somewhere on the way home from work as we finished after 6pm again and I wanted to prolong the time before I had to face my hotel room again. I found a lovely little Turkish restaurant (I think it was called Raffles) in Paddington. I went for something simple so had chicken wings to start (*cough* I know, I just can’t help what I like!) and chicken with rice and salad for main.It was really tasty and just what I fancied. When you have to spend a number of days away from home (and not on holiday) eating out on your own can get a bit tiresome and annoying. Granted this was only my second evening but I was pacing myself. I’d have loved to have eaten crazy exciting meals each night but I didn’t want to be too unhealthy. My usual mantra is eat fairly balance and normal meals during the week and then splurge at the weekend on more fancy and exciting meals.

The next day I headed out early to go to the local PureGym. I’d rung up the day before to extend my membership to the Bayswater one (which was about a 15 minute walk from the hotel). It would cost me £4 for the week on top of my month’s membership which sounded good to me. I punched in my code when I got there and found it wouldn’t let me in. I got a text message from PureGym informing me that my code wouldn’t work at this location. WHAT.

I tried ringing them but at 6.30am the hotline wasn’t open and there was no one in the gym to help me. So I huffed and puffed and then walked back. Luckily the weather was nice so that was something. I rang them later to find out what was going on and it turns out the person who I rang the day before hadn’t extended my membership properly. They were very apologetic and said I could go to the gym for the rest of the week without the £4 charge.

I had the same Pret lunch again (as I did for the next day – I just love that salad) and after work went for another run round Hyde Park.I decided to do something similar to before by running the perimeter. There were some live events going on (music, cinema and things like that) but being on my own I didn’t really fancy getting involved.A run was a far more fun activity for me as a solo person. As I was running I thought I might as well run somewhere to dinner and really fancied Nandos. So basic but I do love it. And handily Nando’s was just over a mile from Hyde Park so I incorporated that into my run.It did mean me sitting there in my shorts rather hot and sweaty but no one seemed to mind and I actually didn’t look that weird amongst the other assorted London folk… I was very warm though and cleaned up a bit in the bathroom. I went for a half chicken, with a side salad, char-grilled vegetables and a corn on the cob. I would have loved a whole chicken but it was only a Wednesday night after all!

The next morning I got up early once again to attempt the gym for the second time. I am but a girl of very small brains. Of course a trip to London must mean at some point I will go wrong and have an adulting fail moment. This was my time to shine. I put in my maps app what I thought was the Bayswater PureGym and headed off. I used a different app from the day before just because I prefer it to the Google one. It took me on a different route, which I put down to it being a different app. But as I became a bit more awake and compos mentis I realised I was actually no where near where I was the other day. And lo and behold, the PureGym I arrived at was not in fact the Bayswater one but a different one entirely. And nope, I could not get it. So I had to turn around and walk all the way back again. Well done, Anna.

My last day in London saw the same breakfast and lunch as the days before. I’m fairly glad I don’t work in London all that often because spending £6-7 at least every day on lunch was becoming expensive! Normally I make my own lunch and take it with me, but for four days it was a nice treat (especially considering dinner was sorted for me).

This will be my only post for the week as I’m actually currently in Austria on the MarathonTalk running retreat (SO EXCITING!). So catch you on the other side!

Do you go to London for work often?

What do you eat for lunch during the week?

What’s your favourite lunch restaurant?