Day 9 Volume II

This morning I woke up at 4:00 a.m. and could barely open my eyes. I kept blinking in the hopes that my vision would get clearer… eventually it worked. If I didn’t have two friends showing up in 45 minutes, I most certainly would have crawled back into bed and put off my run until tomorrow and then feel guilty all day for doing so. Thank goodness for the buddy system. By the time Dana and Amy showed up, I was about half awake and a few more brain cells had charged up. Running is incredible, because as soon as we were out the door and hitting our feet to the ground, I felt fine. No more foggy head, no more sleepiness and I forgot all about my crazy week and lack of sleep every night. It was cooler this morning than it has been, but very humid! We did a shorter run than normal for a Saturday (5.5 miles), because we all wanted to head to head over to a local 5k where we knew a lot of the people racing; we joked about bandit-ing the course, paying for registration if they’d let us and just running around the park. We stretched for 2.5 seconds and then got in our cars and headed to the 5k!

Oh yeah, before my run I ate a piece of toast, but due to my hazy head, I forgot to take a picture of it… so here is the package. 🙂 (65 calories, 11 carbs, 2 g fat, 2 g protein)
Knowing my appetite, I grabbed half a banana for the car ride to the 5k – again – no picture because we were in a hurry! (26 calories, 7 carbs, 0 fat, 0 protein)

We arrived in plenty of time to pay for registration, only it was cash or check only and none of us had planned THAT far ahead.;-) We succumbed to simply running 2 miles and timed it so we could be at the finish when the first runners crossed the line. It was great to see so many familiar faces – all excellent runners too! From left to right, Derek Delancey of Parents On The Run (finally got to meet Allison!), Priscilla Schultz of Going Running Mommy and Rob Byers who doesn’t have a blog, but I’m going to plug his painting business, ACP Contracting. 😉

After the race, Amy and I went to breakfast at a local restaurant. Look at the size of that protein pancake! I’m proud to say I ate almost the entire thing! (I had to totally guess on this one… 440 calories, 88 carbs, 7 g fat, 11 protein – sure, why not…)

We split ONE ORDER, which contained TWO of these suckers! So much flour. Geez.
I came home, took care of all the pets and decided I wasn’t done running for the day. I hopped on the treadmill and ran 4.3 miles while listening to an audiobook! That made a huge difference in passing the time. Total estimated calorie burn for the day: 1,195, but who really knows.

I’ve been waiting for this next moment, anxiously for about 3 days now… my first taste of Shakeology. If you haven’t heard of Shakeology, it is a meal replacement powder (or in my case, a snack) produced by Beachbody. Great. Who is Beachbody? They are the company behind P90X, Insanity and the newly released T25 home workouts and many, many more. I’ve been extremely curious about Shakeology for a long time, but never wanted to invest the money to try it. Thanks to the beauty of social media, I have “met” a few Beachbody Coaches and one in particular stood out to me, especially with his approach to the Vanilla Shakeology giveaway and just his overall approach to coaching and motivation. Thanks Coach Eric!

Along with the packets, he sent a recipe for me to try. I modified it slightly based on the ingredients I had available: water, vanilla Shakeology, half a banana, 1/2 cup of mixed frozen berries, 12 raw almonds and ice. (271 calories, 33 carbs, 9 g fat, 20 g protein) Have you tried Shakeology? If so, what did/do you think?

I was really impressed with the ingredient list and I know the vegan ones are even better, since all the nutrients come from whole foods which are more readily absorbed in the body. I have two more samples to use up and then I will decide if ordering the vegan chocolate is a GO! 
The smoothie filled me up, but didn’t last very long since I had burned so many calories already… so I ate a Envirokids bar while I iced my feet and calves. It actually only has 6 g of added sugar, so I felt ok eating it after all my sugar research yesterday! (120 calories, 18 carbs, 5 g fat, 2 g protein)

Once my legs defrosted, I made myself a healthy but filling lunch! Baked yukon gold potato drizzled with some grapeseed oil and a little salt, topped with pan seared brussels sprouts, carrots, garlic, dill and walnuts. Really tasty! (423 calories, 61 carbs, 18 g fat, 16 g protein)

I’ve had a hard time rehydrating today and a big glass of ice cold water with fresh cucumber and lemon sounded so good! You can witness firsthand the humidity in the air in the desert right now, from the perspiration on the glass!

For dinner Mr. Zucchini Runner and I went to Pomegranate Cafe… our favorite vegan place! We started out splitting their Blood Builder juice which has red & golden beet, carrot, orange juice and pineapple. (~135 calories, 31 carbs, 0 fat, 2 g protein) I LOVE that flower! Does anyone know what it’s called?

For my final meal of the day, I ordered their Green Bandito Burrito: grilled spinach wrap stuffed with broccoli, spinach, quinoa, vegan cheese, Baja sauce, and seasoned tofu. (560 calories, 63 carbs, 24 g fat, 23 g protein) S T U F F E D. 

On our drive home our monsoon season brought us some beautiful clouds and an amazing sunset. 🙂

Grand totals for the day:

I had room for more of everything according to My Fitness Pal, but I was pretty darn close. I am still stuffed as I’m typing this up and I’m heading to bed to sleep for probably 10 hours. I’m not even joking. Saturday night is my catch up on sleep night!

Calories: 2,080

Carbs: 312

Fat: 70 g

Protein: 76

Sugar: 99 g (this is mostly intrinsic sugars…)