Healthy Tipping Point

Brandi and I crushed an 8 mile run yesterday.  We are just a few weeks out from the triathlon and figured it would be nice to go over the race’s 10K distance.  I wanted us to go slowly and take walking breaks up big hills – the more time on my feet, the better!  I am excited for this race but also nervous because, well, an Olympic triathlon is really freaking far (1500 meter swim, 28 mile bike, 6.2 mile run).  You can’t fake your way through an Oly! 

Right now, my plan for the race is:

Swim slow + steady

Bike slow + steady

Run balls to the wall

Nutrition and Hydration are being NAILED lately.  I’m not sure if it’s the Skratch electrolyte powder. that I’ve been drinking or the timing of my Gus (I took these at mile 4.8 and mile 5.5)… or maybe it’s my pre-run breakfast, which I switched from a peanut butter sandwich to potatoes and eggs.  But I feel really strong on my long runs!  Wahoo.

We stopped at a grocery store for cold water halfway through.  And here’s my latest trick – I put a big squirt of sunscreen in a Ziploc bag and store it in my SpiBelt so I can reapply halfway through.  I sweat off the first application pretty quickly.

When I got home, Kristien told me that Henry said, “Let’s do a triathlon like Mommy. But Daddy, let’s not swim. Or bike. Let’s just run.”  And then he started to do laps around the dining room table.  <3  That kiddo LOVES to run.  Hah!

So… I am thinking of signing up for this Half Marathon at the end of September.   It’s close to my house and the course is supposed to be very nice (and shaded).  I am trying to talk a few of my friends into it, too.   The more the merrier, right?!

After this triathlon is over, I’m going to switch to doing boot camp <3 <3 <3 and long runs as my workouts.  I’ve really been enjoying my longer runs during my triathlon training and want to  keep it up!   Plus, it’s so nice to do long runs during the Fall, isn’t it?  I am very much looking forward to Fall running!

What was your best workout of the week?

Good morning!

We spent another afternoon at the lake with Julie and Britney and all the kids, including one on the outside and ones on the inside!

It’s fun to watch a friend near the end of pregnancy, isn’t it?  I admit that I feel like Julie is now a ticking time bomb!  Hah. 

When I pulled up at the beach, I said, “Julie, I brought you a present!”  My present was a chair.  Could a full-term momma want anything else?  Well… besides her baby to come out!

I love spending time by the water!  My kids come home sun-drunk and sleepy.  Perfect.

This is my favorite meal and/or large snack of the moment:

I mix 2 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder with plain Greek yogurt and make CHOCOLATE YOGURT!  And then I add it to slightly-melted frozen cherries, almonds, and unsweetened coconut.

Sometimes, people ask me for the nutritional info of my meals/snacks, so I put all the ingredients into a calculator.  Here are the results!

And last, but not least, here’s my workout of the day…

I killed it on the treadmill this morning.  I did 3.0 miles in 24:53 – a lot of speedwork thrown into the mix.  While I was running, I was thinking about how I always try to get the last treadmill in the line.  I love to be on the edge and hate to be in between other runners in the middle.  I also feel the same way about public toilets, hah.

What treadmill do you prefer to run on?

My girlfriends and I organized ourselves for a night out.  Whoo hoo!  The five of us are in one big and constant text stream – we truly blow each other’s phones up a hundred times a day.  We do a decent amount of play dates, but it’s nice to hang out in real life sans kids, too. 

Secret to getting ready for a night out without children climbing up my leg – shower at the gym.  Works every time!

We went to the always swanky 5 Church in Uptown.

The place was rammed – we accidentally chose Charlotte Restaurant Week as our night out and hadn’t planned ahead with a reservation. 

We ended up eating way too much (everyone stood up to leave, groaned, and clutched their stomachs) and stayed out way too late for a bunch of moms with eleven small children between them.  And then I woke up at 2:30 AM puking my guts out!  In case you’re wondering, red wine and chocolate tastes gross coming back up.  I think something I ate just totally disagreed with me… This is the second time it’s happened in a month, so I think I’m going to stay away from restaurant food for a long, long time.  

So I’m kind of in recovery mode this morning.  I choked down half a smoothie and a bunch of electrolyte water, and now I’m trying to rally so I can function.

But first…

Book a Week

Week 24:  A Walk Across the Sun

One of the problems with Book a Week is I cannot chose really long books or I’ll get too far behind – 400 pages is fine but 500 is not.  So I took a chance by reading this book, which was a bit longer but came highly recommended by a reader.

A Walk Across the Sun tells the story of two Indian teenage girls who are swept into human trafficking after a tsunami destroys their village.  At the same time, the plot follows an American man who is struggling to deal with the collapse of his family after the death of his child.  Eventually, the two stories collide.  The plot takes you all over the world – from Asia to Europe to North America – and reveals the very true and very horrific nature of the child sex trade (however, I felt like the author wasn’t gratuitous when describing things, which was appreciated).

This book was so good.  Not only did the plot have an important real-world message, but it was fast-paced and intriguing.  And I actually cried big, blubbery tears at the end of the book. I don’t think I’ve cried during Book a Week for a while, but this one totally got me to sob. 

My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars.  If you’d like a more serious version of “beach reading” for the summer, this would be a great pick.

All my Books a Week.

What are you reading?  I’ve got so many books on my nightstand right now, but I think I’m going to read Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee next.  

Good Morning!

Three Weird Facts About Me (why not?):

I cannot leave the house without sunglasses.  If I were trapped on a deserted island and could only bring a few things, sunglasses would be right up there with a knife and a fire starter.

I hate to drink anything without a straw.   A smoothie without a straw?  Heck no.

I think I may have mild ESP, but it’s only about bad stuff.  Like I’ll have a foreboding dream or wake-up in a bad mood and not realize what it means until it happens.  I need to fine tune it AND figure out how to use it to win the lottery.   Hah.

Breakfast!

Henry is super into the USAT Triathlon magazine.  He loves to look through it, especially because there are always articles about kid triathletes.  <3

Oh, and I wanted to give you a brief Claire update!  She is 7 months and 20 days old now.

Getting her first two teeth!

Can use a walker to slowly move around the room.

Babbles all the time.  I’m pretty sure she makes a specific noise for blueberries and water.

Hair is turning a dark strawberry blonde.  <3

Can crawl really fast now – I have to watch her constantly.

Looooves her daddy.  When Kristien comes home from work, she barrels towards him for a hug.

Sleeping through the night and taking two naps during the day.

Weighs about 19 pounds.

LOVES FOOD.  There’s nothing she doesn’t like, even steamed spinach.

Here’s what she ate for breakfast – she ate the whole thing, save for a few pieces that ended up on the floor.  This is a bigger meal than Henry ate! 

He has 2.5 years on her but is only 11 pounds heavier!   It’s fun to have an enthusiastic eater because Henry wasn’t (and still isn’t).  He better start eating his veggies or she’s gonna catch up.  Hah.

Oh, what else?  On Monday, I decided to put tri training to the side for a bit and did boot camp.  It was a killer class to begin with, but after being out of class for a few weeks, it was doubly hard.  It was a lot of cardio sprints.  Whew. 

I’ve got a run on the books for later.  Can’t wait to hit that treadmill later – it’s way too hot to run outside.  AND my momma friends and I are going out to a swanky dinner later.  So I’ve got a lot to look forward to, if I can only get through my work first! 

Hope you have a productive day.

If you’ve got a Little One, I’d love to hear what they’re doing at this stage, too!