I woke up this morning around 7:30 and knew I wanted to get a little cardio in before I got started on the day. I threw on some running clothes and wasted time until 8 pm, reading blogs and sipping water.
I did a quick 30 minutes on the treadmill, but I made it hard by using the hill option and doing some intervals. I used Hills Level 4, which alternates between no incline and a hill. The first hill is only 1 point something (I can’t remember), then it increases little by little until it gets to 3.6 (you know I remembered that). I also did speedwork much the same way with 6.0 being my recovery pace (10 minute miles), increasing by 0.3 every other minute, until I reached 7.5. I started out doing my speed increase and my hill increase at the same time, but adjusted so I could run hills at 6.0 and do speed work at no incline. Much better!
I really wanted a smoothie in a bowl when I returned. Luckily, I had the forethought to throw a banana in the freezer to use in my smoothie, before I headed downstairs.
Technically, this was a green monster, but it’s only a pale green because it was competing with chocolate whey and a lot of raspberries for color.
In the mix:
1 cup almond milk
1/2 semi frozen banana
1 cup spinach
3/4 cup raspberries
1 scoop Met-RX chocolate whey protein
3 pieces of ice
1/4 tsp. xanthan gum
topped with a bit of Nature’s Path pumpkin flax granola (which does not taste like pumpkin at atll)
I have kind of gotten out of the habit of using gums in my smoothie. I’m not sure how I feel about them since they are typically used in a lot of processed foods as an additive and is basically just “corn sugar gum”. But my semi frozen banana, didn’t make my smoothie as thick as I liked, so I added it so it I could eat it with a spoon. It thickened up pretty well, but actually is a lot thicker with a frozen solid banana.
I completely forgot about coffee while I was making my smoothie, but remembered soon afterwards and heated up my teapot for some French press. I think Brad and I have found our favorite coffee at Trader Joe’s. We’ve tried about five different kinds and have finally settled on their French dark roast. It’s perfectly dark enough for us.
I spent most of the morning catching up on blogs and blogging while Brad tried to organize our wedding photos in a slide show.
After that I left Brad at home to do some work with a coworker, while I met some friends for lunch, but I’ll get to that later.
Happy last day of the weekend! How is it possible that tomorrow is Monday already!?