Weekend recap

Well, I had an interesting weekend. How about you?

For me this was my first weekend off since March 27th. I was so excited for this workless weekend. And I must say I did enjoy the not having to work, however I did have social obligation I needed to be present for. However they were nothing like having to run around getting ready for work.

Saturday I got up nice and early to go for my first ever 5K race. Then at noon I was in attendance to Kevin's cousins bridal shower. After that I had the house to myself, and wore my quitters. Mainly I spend the night in front of the TV, however I was folding laundry, and took breaks away to clean my bathroom.

Sunday, was equally relaxing. I woke up when my body told me to wake up. No alarms were set! It was truly a beautiful thing. I put away 4 over flowing baskets of clean laundry and did some ironing. With some help from Kevin the house got swiffered, dusted and vacuumed. The house was so desperately crying out to be cleaned.

My mom and I went out to Costco to pick up some dinner supplies, and then the two of us headed back to my place so I could get dinner prepped and made. I love hosting special occasion meals at my house for my family!

So that was my weekend, as I didn't really do much posting focused on food, or post at all. This was all part of my weekend devoted to doing what needed to get done around the house and relaxing.

This morning I woke up at 6am to get a home workout in. Lately it has been so cold out here in Ontario. It was only a week or two ago that we had 26 degree (78.8 F) and now it has been ranging from 0 (32F) to 13 (57.2F). I just wanted to be warm this morning so I nixed the early morning run.

As I relaxed this weekend, my only workout that I got in was my 5K race Saturday morning. To make up for not having done my 30Day Shred Saturday and Sunday I thought I would ramp up my home video workout session this morning.

I did my Day 6 of Level 1 in the 30 Day Shred, then I popped in for my first time ever Jillian's Blast Fat Boost Metabolism video.

Wow I had no idea BFBM was a 40 minute video. I sadly ran out of time and could only completed 10 minutes of this video. Also, should I try this combination again, I will definitely lead with BFBM and follow it up with some shredding. However I did like what I was doing in the BFBM video. I love me some kickboxing style workouts.

After the workout, I went and made myself some breakfast. Nothing to start the week off right like a Green Monster! I kept this mornings GM simple, mainly because of the lack of fruit selection and also just to bring it back to basics.

• 2.5cup spinach
• 1 banana
• 5 strawberries
• 1tbsp PomWonderful
• 1tbsp ground flax
• 1cup skim milk

I would also like to take a quick minute to talk about some new straws I bought. They are reusable glass straws. I bought two of them. I am very excited about these straws. I have seen them in a couple of different blogs.

These particular straws came from Glass Dharma. I ordered 2. One for water and one for shakes. Plus this way when one is dirty you don't have to go without a straw.

I love that Glass Dharma offers different sizes, designs and shapes in their straws. I knew what I was looking for, and I was so happy when I found it.

A 'bendy' glass straw. I love bendy straws and was worried that this could be something I might lose when using a glass straw. But thankfully Glass Dharma offers glass straws with a bend in them to simulate a bendy straw.

I also love how the straw doesn't fall down in to the contain I am drinking from. I do not like having to stick my finger into my water bottle to fish out the straw.

I do not however like that the straw is taller and sticks out of the water bottle. This is because I like to close it up and transport my water bottle around with me everywhere. This means that I will have to take my straw out and possibly dry it to tote it around with me. This is why I have pictures of the box it came in. I plan to keep them in as good condition as possible to keep my straw clean, while out of my water bottle.

The race that almost wasn't.

Well after a long day Friday (up at 5am, and out to dinner and not home until after midnight).

We were strong and got out of bed on time not a problem and fueled up on some peanut butter oatmeal and in the car to make the hour drive to Lakefield.

Once we got to the check-in point, we sat in the car. We had to. It was pouring rain. Verging on torrential for a good 15 minutes.
My legs were sore, and sitting around in the dark overcast morning, we got drowsy. I wavered, I became weak. I asked Kevin if he still wanted to do this (the race). Kevin said 'naw, we paid to race today, and we already made the hour drive to get here'.

After a quick trip to a local Tim's to warm up, I told Kevin that I was sure that I just needed to good long stretch and to get my body warm and I would be feeling better.

No doubt too that I was mildly nervous. This race is all just for fun, just for something to do to keep me active. This is not a race for true competition, I run way too slowly for competition. ;-)

Wow stretching really helped my hamstrings and quads feel better! Luckily the rain let up, but didn't come to a complete stop. Remember when I blogged this entry, I love to run in the rain!

All warmed up and waiting for the race to start.
The couple to run together have fun together.

Vogue!

The start & finish line.

Kevin was gracious enough to take lots of pictures of me, and I of him. Remember I am new to the blogging, and as a result Kevin is new to having to help me out with the picture taking.

Wet from the rain. This is just from a light raining. Imagine if it had continued to rain torrentially.

Running along the waterfront. Was so beautiful, and nice change of scenery from running along the sidewalks.

After Kevin took this picture, the ladies behind me said to each other that they wanted to get the name of "that guy with the camera", lol. Not sure if that was a good thing in their minds or not.

Kevin is such a strong runner, and faster than I. He is such a good running partner, that he refuses to run the race at his own pace and leave me to run my own. He will try to run my pace, but then he slowly starts to pull away. And I will without realizing try and keep up with him. It's good in that I will push myself harder, but I haven't quite learned how to properly pace myself for a full non stop 5K race.

Looking good and strong!

Less than 1K to go and feeling I was feeling strong. I had only stopped 3 times for 10 second walking breaks. I was feeling happy that I didn't chicken out and bail on doing the race at all. It's only 5K and when Kevin and I run at home we do 5.3K.

In the final stretch, I picked out a lady in her 40's, in black, who had passed us with her husband around 2.5K. I pointed her out to Kevin. I said her, she's my goal. Kevin told me to go for it. I went from a jog to a slow paced run. I was going to pass this lady and going to cross the finish line before her.

I was tired after passing the lady in black.

Ooops, earbud falling out. lol

Still going strong. Almost at the finish line. I joked with Kevin that I thought they had pushed the finish line back. He thought it was funny.

The lady in black's husband in blue.

Kevin said that he was going to run ahead and cross the finish line before me. this way he said he could get me my first ever picture of me crossing the finish line. What a great guy. I didn't even ask him to do that.

Here I come.

Wow do I look tired. So tired that I didn't even look to Kevin and smile for the camera.

When I crossed the finish line I thought I saw that the time read 35 and change. Kevin disagreed as the time read 32 mins when he crossed and there was no way he was 3 minutes ahead of me. So at most I was 33 mins and change. That is pretty awesome. Sadly I have no idea how to get my official time. I might call up the running room tomorrow to find out.

An orange to refuel after the run and the first dirt incident my shoes suffered since buying them

I was so happy to have lost my race virginity. It wasn't scary though I was nervous, and I can't wait to do my next. Which I am scared for (an 8K race around my home town, Bowmanville), June 6th.

Question: What was going through your mind during your first race?

Wicked Wednesday

First off my day started terrific!

Today at my full time job we are hosting Bowling For Kids Sake. Basically we have a bunch of teams of local businesses who are joining us for bowling and have so far raised 17K online for our agency to provide for children.

How fantastic is that.

My day gets better. Because I will be working until after 9pm, I didn't get to work until noon.

I slept in until 7:15am! Whoot!
For breakfast I made myself a strawberry banana Green Monster, with 1tsp chocolate vegan protein powder. It was so tasty.

It was a great breakfast to have as, Kevin was home with me this morning and though he was tired and said he didn't want to, the two of us went on a 5.3k run.

I even made better time than our last run.

Last run 5.3k = 39.53 mins
Today's run 5.3k = 38 mins.

I'm totally proud of myself. Especially because Saturday May 8th, Kevin and I run our very first race. It is a 5k race in Lakefield Ontario. I have signed up for various races this summer as I have mentioned here. These races are totally just for fun. Actually my boss might be running in the race Saturday.

After the run, it was right to the basement to complete Day 4 of my 30 Day Shred with my new BFF Jillian.

Day 4 is definitely easier than day 1, but I still struggle to do more than 5 real push ups, and shoulder raises. Oh well, I'm still happy to know that I am working hard at something.

Kevin and I had a bank apt today at 10am. Can't tell you what for though. ;-)

By the time we left the bank, it as 11:50, and I hadn't eaten my morning snack. I was famished! I knew Kevin was too, as I heard his stomach growl a couple of times in the bank.

So needless to say once I got to work, I got right down the business. The business of eating lunch!

• 2 Cups romaine lettuce
• 10 cherry tomatoes
• 1/12th avocado
• 1/2 cup cucumber
• some red onion
• 4oz broiled salmon

And I ate that salad like it was going out of style! I vaguely remember tasting it. I decided to eat what would have been my morning snack as a lunch hour dessert. Greek Yogurt, Blackberries and a cereal mix (1/4 cup grape nuts & 1/4 cup Kashi Go Lean). So good!

Usually I don`t post what I haven`t eaten yet, but today I am. This is because I know that once I get home I am not going to want to post after a long day. And honestly though it happens more times than not, I hate having to back blog. I hate leaving out all without something to read. So this is what I will be eating to finish off my day.

When making my meals last night I packed foods that were going to keep me full for a long period of time and provide me with lots of protein to help do that. So my afternoon snack was no different. I love these guys. A little too much. So much so that when I first got them, I was eating them too much. I had to store them in our under the basement sitars storage, so that they were out of sight out of mind.

Dinner is a smaller sized dinner. Not as little as I am used to. However it is packed with good filling calories. And let me go on about this new bread I bought and will be trying for the first time today. I haven`t even tried it and I am already tooting it`s horn. Stonemill - Sprouted Grain bread. BAKED WITH 100% GREEN POWER! How awesome is that! Seriously I think that this is part of what excites me about this bread more than I was before I read the tag. Some good nutritional values here too. & healthy ingredients that can all be pronounced. The slices themselves are pretty little compared to what you would get out of a regular slice of bread. No complaints here. It smelt so good and fresh too, and that is after buying it from the grocery store. Simply yet to be satisfying Cashew Butter and banana sandwich. So excited for dinner, hehe.
Because the sandwich is filling, it`s simply not enough calories to get me through the busy night I`m going to have. So some baby carrots and 1 sliced gala apple to go along with the sandwich/nibble on through the evening *while everyone else drinks and has pizza - I will stay strong!)

I hope everyone else is enjoying the day and the beautiful weather we are having here today in Ontario and everywhere else my readers are from. Have a great night filled with fabulous foods!