Back to the grind

If you didn’t catch my post yesterday (I know you didn’t cause it has 0 views) go check it out now!

If your workout playlist feels old and you’re looking for new music then I think you’ll be interested.

(I later found out that no one saw it because I didn't actually hit the publish button - oops!)

I had a great weekend. I feel recharged and ready to get back out there today and get some things accomplished. …Which is good since today is going to be CA-RAZY!
Up first: 6 mile run and 2 mile walk with Mom followed by normal post run stuff – shower (always a good idea), breakfast, stretching, foam rolling

I made a Green Monster for the first time in... well, a long time.   

I opened up the fridge and found....

BUGS!!!

Oh wait a minute...

The culprit:  Flax seeds!

Yummy!  So refreshing... now if only I didn't look half dead

I used spring mix today (red and green leaves) and didn't peel my apple.  Thus, the puke green color.  But it tasted just as good as always!

Ingredients:  orange vitamin water zero, almond milk, lemon juice, ground flax seed, amazing grass greens powder, protein powder, maca powder, a few handfuls of spring mix greens, frozen pineapple, mango, peaches and an apple.

In a short while I'm going to head out to babysit for a few hours then head straight to teach from 4:30-6:15.

After teaching I plan to hopefully grab a quick bite to eat and then I'm off to drama practice from 7:00 - ??? 

Hopefully earlier than 11:30 like last time.  My body cannot handle that.  When I get home I'll probably flop into bed like a zombie... wait, do zombies sleep?

Part of me wants to lay in the sun all day napping like Smokey

But then I remember that I did that all weekend and it's time to get a move on.  Good start to the day, hopefully the rest will follow suit.  Happy Tuesday!! :)

Will Run for Candy

Well, it did end up raining all week and instead of sucking it up like I talked about I let any excuse I could possibly use come between me and running.  I would forgive myself if I had actually done something productive the days that I stayed home but I pretty much just did this all day.

The most moody cat I know.  I don't even know why he came into my room and hogged my pillow because he wouldn't let me pet him.  He really flipped out when my phone started ringing and I started moving him around.  Turned out Smokey was sleeping on top of the phone.

By Friday the weather had taken a 180 degree turn for the better and I had no excuse.  As a matter of fact, it was really cool out for this time of year.  When I checked the weather it was 42 degrees outside.  I felt like this was an appeasement gift from the weather gods for the awful weather that had ruined my spring break and confined me to the house for most of the week.

I'm not sure if it was the beautiful weather, the fact that I hadn't been on a run in a whole week, the shirt I was wearing or the sport beans I brought with me... but something made this a really really good run.

By the way, those sport beans are money.  Sooo good.  Heck yes I will run for candy!

I'm too lazy to get up and check my watch to tell you everything exactly so I'll just kind of go from memory.  I always start my run in the neighborhood.  It takes about 1.2 miles to get out of the neighborhood.  For some reason it's always the absolute worst part of my run (followed very closely by the last 1.2 miles home).  I decided not to put any pressure on the first mile and run really slow and easy.  I didn't look at my watch at all because when I do look at my watch I have a tendency to run faster than I planned originally.

When the watch beeped at one mile I glanced down, expecting to see something like 8:45.  What did I see?  7:19!  I couldn't believe it!!!  Just goes to show what you can accomplish when you run for the joy of it and don't pressure yourself.  I ended up running 8 out of the 10 miles sub 8 minutes.  The other two were like 8:12, I don't know exactly but I ended up getting a new 10 mile PR :).  1:18 something!

Then I rushed off to spend some time with my favorite little Asian ;)

I'm basically the weirdest babysitter ever.  I knew I needed some help with recovery after this run in preparation for the long run I was planning for today (Saturday)... so I brought these babies along and wore them while I was babysitting. 

This morning I woke up and I was NOT in the mood to run at ALL.  I had wanted to go for 13-15 miles but as soon as I woke up I lopped the run to my new favorite distance: 10 miles.

That still didn't make things easy.  Thankfully my mom woke up right around when it was getting time for me to leave.  I was complaining about how I didn't want to go and I just wanted to stay in bed.  Thankfully, she's heard me talk enough about how I often feel no motivation to get out there and by 0.5 miles I'm really glad I did and end up having a really great run.  She told me to suck it up and get out there and have a great run.  So I did...

Well, I did the getting out there part anyways.  It took me a loooong time to settle into this run.  As in, mile 5 or 6 I finally decided to stop fighting myself mentally and just finish the dang run. 

I have issues #123408234:  Can't seem to get in photo frame =/

I rewarded myself with this... thing

Blech.

I'm out of the vitamin water I usually add so I just put in extra almond milk... and some strawberries, oh and spring green mix instead of just spinach.  Maybe I added too many supplements?  I'm not sure but it was pretty bad.  I'm sure it was really good for me though.  Amazing greens powder, maca powder (this is the real blech - it smells so nasty), and some vega sport protein powder.

I'm super excited because next week my grandparents will be in town for my mom's spring break.  YES, people in the house!  In preparation for this joyous occasion I am realizing that it is absolutely essential that I clean the mess that I sometimes refer to as "my room" - time to get down to business! :)

Anything exciting happening for you this weekend?

Go insane go insane

I might even throw some glitter and make it rain...

I got an email last night from DISNEY WORLD!!!  Yes, they love me that much.  No, they just want my money.  I told myself after the Disney marathon that I would never be back.  I wasn't swearing off marathons, just the Disney marathon.  That was a little over 3 months ago and I guess enough time to start making me think a little differently?

If I register between March 15 and May... something, I'll get a decent chunk of money off the registration price which is super enticing since marathons are so expensive (especially Disney).

Here's the part where I am insane... I think if I register I won't just register for the marathon.  I think I'm going to register for the Goofy challenge.

What is the goofy challenge you ask?  It's a half marathon on Saturday followed by the full marathon on Sunday.  Um, please sign me up for torture?  Yes please!  But here's what's really making me want to do this... other than proving to myself that I am a super amazing endurance athlete (It's okay, I'm laughing at that statement too).  If I do the goofy challenge I get not one, not two but THREE medals!  I also get three shirts!  Not that I ever get any use out of my race shirts but that is beside the point. 

Do you want to know what is making me feel like this is even possible?  I sure would like to know.  I've been running a lot of back to back long runs.  10 miles one day and 10 miles the next and for some reason this makes me feel like I would be fine doing 13.1 one day and less than 24 hours later completing another 26.2.  INSANE!  If worst comes to worst, I measured my walking pace and it's about 15:30/mile which means I wouldn't get picked up by the people who come and pick up all the people who are going too slow and disqualify them.  This is great news because there very well may be a lot of walking involved.

Since it's a whole year away it doesn't seem that scary at all.  If, however, I do end up registering, I will probably be peeing my pants come December. 

I wore my 26.2 apparel shirt and shorts today.  I love them!  They don't quite live up to the reviews I read prior to buying but they're still really nice.  I had heard they were the softest workout clothes ever and they're soft but nothing out of this world.  The thing about them being so matchy matchy is I feel like I'm on some kind of running team which I am definitely not.  I feel like everyone who sees me out running thinks I'm trying too hard.  Why I care about what people driving by think is beyond me but I can't help it.

Last night I ran 7 miles without my knee brace.  I think that knee brace has sort of become a safety blanket for me.  The run was great.  I got a little sore at the end of it but I get sore with the brace on too.  I wore it for my 10 miler today though which just erased all the work I've been putting into evening out my striped legs.

I'm out of all of my normal smoothie ingredients so I decided to be brave today.

Almond milk, frozen blueberries, banana, splash of lemon juice, scoop of Amazing Grass Green SuperFood, a scoop of vanilla Vega Whole Food Health Optimizer, several ice cubes and about 10 leaves of romaine lettuce with the stems removed.

Not the best smoothie I've ever tasted but really nice after a long HOT run.  I think variety is better than having the best food on the planet day in and day out.  Spinach is thought to be better for you than romaine but I'm all for rotating your greens as long as everything tastes okay.  I'm excited about finding more ways to use up those salad greens that I buy and then never use.  I go through salad phases where I want them multiple times everyday and then suddenly I really don't want them at all.

I have a busy second half of the day filled with piles of laundry, teaching dance, dance meeting and grocery shopping.

I hope you all have a terrific Tuesday! :)

haha, why yes, I do spend most of my time with children under the age of 10.

What is your favorite brand of exercise clothes?  Do you have an addiction to buying more and more exercise clothes like I do? 

Crowd Support

OH.MY.GOSH

If I could bottle up a day and replay it over and over again (weather wise at least...) I would save this day forever.

I had such a great run! 10 miles down in 1:22:20.  I don't record my time consistently.  My watch does but before I switched to the Garmin it was kind of inaccurate.  I would stop at a light or take a bathroom break and there was no way to stop it without completely resetting the workout so I would just try to keep track of how long I stopped and subtract all the stops at the end.

Anyways, the whole point of all that is just to say that I have been recording my times lately and I have three recorded times for 10 miles.  Today's recorded time beat my first recorded time by 10 minutes.  For someone who has only been running for about 10 months this kind of time improvement is really encouraging.  I feel like Boston Qualifying actually is possible at some point. 

The best part of my run?  Okay, it's a close tie between the gorgeous weather and the great "crowd support"
An older man out walking his dog told me I looked "really good out there."  Who knows, maybe he was being creepy.  I thought it was really sweet though. 

Later I caught up to a woman who I see out running a lot.  I scared the pants off of her.  I know exactly how she feels: even when I know a bike is approaching behind me and even if I'm out of the way when they shout "passing on your right" I jump about a foot up in the air and move even further to the left onto the grass.  When she caught up to me at a stop light I apologized again for scaring her and we chatted for a few minutes while we waited for the light to change.  I really enjoyed out short chat and of course what I enjoyed the most was when she told me I had a great pace.  At the back of my head I kept thinking of all the incredible people I know who run WAYYY faster than me but you know what, I'll take it.  :) Day made!

On top of those two comments I got way more honks than usual... and let me tell you I was not lookin hot today.

I had on the most unflattering, unformfitting, unrevealing little outfit that I've probably ever worn before.

That being said, I took every honk as someone telling me I was doing a great job and to keep going.  Wishful thinking I'm sure but whatever it takes.

On the subject of honking and people in cars paying attention to you:

On Sunday when I ran with my brother he said people threw stuff at him all the time.  I'm talking starbucks coffee and eggs.  Yes, EGGS. What the heck?!?

I am SO glad I have not experienced this.  I told him I would probably just stop and cry.  I'm not even kidding.

I'm hoping that because I'm a girl they won't throw anything at me.  Who knows.

And back to honking: seriously, what do you expect me to do?  Run after you and throw my number at you?  I can't even tell if you're a guy or a girl, let alone if you're around my age and attractive.  Even if you are my age and attractive if you're honking at girls running on the side of the road it probably wouldn't work out between us... there are a lot of girls that run along the road.

I wore my new BIC band today

Super cute, didn't slip, matched with my ugly shirt... which does not mean it is ugly

I love it!  I ordered two and they just came in the mail yesterday.  I will definitely be ordering more of these and not just because I am a headband addict.

I've never used sweaty bands but apparently they are similar but cuter and more affordable - plus, a dollar is donated for each BIC band purchased.  Check them out!

I fueled up afterwards with a "green" monster which wasn't really green because I used blueberries.  It does have a bunch of spinach in there though! Promise!

Water, coconut water, apple, blueberries, spinach, hemp milk, lemon juice.

I'm off to babysit for awhile and be super productive today.  I plan to spend most of my day OUTSIDE in this gorgeous weather. 

First Homemade Green Monster

I've been drinking Odwalla for weeks now

It's delicious... and super expensive

Well, last night I started to feel super guilty about the large unopened bag of spinach that I had purchased that was on the verge of going bad.

My options were pretty limited:  A bunch of cooked spinach, a large spinach salad... or...

A GREEN MONSTER

I've heard people raving about these things and just haven't gotten around to trying one out myself so I popped a banana in the freezer last night and then this morning...

I used Angela's Classic Green Monster recipe 

Mine is nowhere near as beautiful a color green as hers.

Almond milk, ground flax seed, spinach and frozen banana

It was super creamy and kind of... well, bland

I added some Vega chocolate powder and about a tsp of stevia and that seemed to sweeten it up a bit.

I realized I'm not really a big fan of creamy, milkshake like smoothies.  I prefer a fruity, tangy flavor. 

Promise it tastes better than my face indicates

All of this happened yesterday but blogspot is dumb and wouldn't let me upload any photos so I went to bed instead.  After my semi success with the green monster yesterday I was itching to try again, this time with more fruit. 

All I had on hand were some frozen blueberries

I omitted the almond milk this time and used some vitamin water zero instead.  After I blended everything up it still tasted a little bland.  I ended up adding a splash of lemon juice - I think this will be my "secret" ingredient from now on.

I think I may be hooked... on my way home from teaching tonight I stopped at the store and picked up pineapples and peaches.  Tonight's concoction?  I call it Tropical (green) Breeze

Ahhh!  Look at the pretty green color!  Inside: The orange flavored vitamin water zero, spinach, ground flax seeds, pineapple, peaches, banana, a splash of almond milk and a splash of lemon juice.  Mmmm... soooo good.

Well, this week I have done no running whatsoever.  Last week I ran 30 miles - this week 0.  Hmm.  Perfect for the week of a race, right?  Uh, not ideal.  I got something in the mail today that might help get me running tomorrow... I'll share that tomorrow :)

Happy hump day!  Hope the rest of your week is much more productive than the first half of mine has been.  Time to kick it into gear!