What I Ate This Week: Day Seven and Go Green Half Marathon!

So, I kind of got tired of taking pictures and recording all my food for this blog. It was a fun novel project for the first couple days... aaaaand now I am tired of it. Enough so that I didn't really do it at all this Sunday, or write anything in my blog about it yet. In any case, count this as kind of a combined post - Sunday's food with my latest half marathon!

So I signed up for the Go Green St. Patrick's Day Half Marathon on a whim - I saw that it was local and St. Patrick's Day themed, and since I was training for another race in early April, it was a done deal.

I hit Target for some green accessories to wear, and luckily, it was a super nice day out, so I was able to wear a tank to run, and I had the perfect green one.

6 a.m. race day bathroom selfie!!!

My friend picked me up around 6:45, and we arrived at the park to warm up and use the bathroom. It was a cute set up, and people were milling around in their green shirts and costumes. Lots of green tutus, sparkles, and shamrocks! I was nervous about my new sunglasses (Target $1 bin, whatttt), and that they wouldn't stay on, but I wore them on another run this week and they worked marvelously. Winning. I also attached a light up shamrock pin!

I was nervous about warming up too much before the race - for some reason, it's always seemed counter-intuitive to me to warm up pre-race, as I've always thought about it as wasting energy that I could use for the race, especially since I don't ever eat beforehand. However, my friend Ellen, who ran the race as well, is a much more experienced runner than I am, and always warms up. So we did a 10-minute slow jog/run, and I felt good and shed my sweatshirt soon afterwards.

Pre-Race Photo, Post-Warm Up

Checking out the medals pre-race.



I was more relaxed than I've ever been at the start of the race, I think especially because I know the trail on which the race was run so well. Perhaps warming up had something to do with it as well! In any case, I got off to a typical start, allowing myself a few minutes to warm up and find my pace.

I found that I was able to pretty easily sustain a 10:15-10:30/mile pace throughout the race, which was better than I thought I could do! It was definitely less easy towards miles 9-11, in which there was a stretch of path without much shade. For awhile towards the finish, I was toeing the line of pushing myself and feeling nauseous, so I held back, staying more around the 10:20-10:30/mile pace. I found one woman who was running about a 10:20/mile, and stayed right behind her and let her pace me for awhile. (She actually ended up finishing right before I did!)

Here were my final results:

Time: 2:16:22
Pace: 10:25/mile

And it's a PR by 6 minutes!!

I found one picture online of me finishing the race:

Woohoo!



After the race, a brewery was offering free beer... and then they ran out before I could get one! They were still serving when I finished and I figured I'd wait a half hour or so to stretch and cool down first... laaaaaame.

Empty beer station - lame.

So my friend Ellen, who also ran, bought me this amazing Guinness Chocolate cupcake with Bailey's Cream frosting. I didn't feel like eating much, aside from oranges and bananas after the race, but then I remembered the cupcake... and though my initial plan was to eat half, it was gone in minutes.

YUM.

(That being said, in retrospect, I do wish I had not eaten the cupcake. My sugar cravings all day Sunday, spanning into Monday, were definitely not worth it. I really do think cutting out refined sugar in most instances is the right way to go for me, since afterwards, I just always, always crave more. Stuff like a little ice cream I can do, but a whole cupcake? Sugar cravings for days. I'm learning and wheeeeelp, now I know! It WAS really a delicious cupcake though.)

So the food station at the race was decent - Power Bars, Oranges, and Bananas, as well as a separate station with Kind bars. Post-race, in the future, I will NOT be eating any cupcakes. However, the vanilla protein-packed Power Bar was decent, and I always love bananas! Much better post-race selections.

After the race we got Mexican food. Mole enchiladas. SO good.

Later in the day, I made two recipes from my Gwyneth Paltrow cookbook (again), both from the "Kids' Menu" section. But like, adults can eat that stuff too, right? :) Super easy - just tofu and cooked carrots broiled or cooked at high heat with a mixture of raw honey, soy sauce/liquid aminos, garlic, olive oil, and I added a little Sriraicha. Yum!

I used rainbow carrots - my friends did not believe it was a real thing, but it is a real thing!



Had some fruit, veggies, and (vegan) pesto mayo for a snack.

(Yes, that is a margarita with my snack!)



Finally, I made vegan chocolate chip cookies. And they're meh. I mean, they're good, but I subbed maple syrup for the type of natural sweetner that the recipe called for, and... just yeah, not as good. Still decent with a glass of milk, but I'm going to work on finding a better Paleo/vegan/low glycemic cookie recipe.

Okay! Well now that it's far into the following week, I finally finished the previous week's blog posts. Hope you enjoyed! I will keep you all posted as I continue to experiment with new recipes and different types of foods to try, as well as training for my next half on April 6th!


xoxo
S