T-12 Days and Counting

That's right, 12 days from now I will have hopefully just completed my first ever half marathon. I am insanely excited, and somewhat terrified. But mostly just excited. First off, I love racing. I had so much fun at my 10k, I like the slightly competitive aspect. While I realize I am unlikely to ever win a marathon/half marathon/any running race, I do pick someone slightly faster than me and try to stay on them, and maybe even edge them out at the end. What can I say? I'm competitive. I also like the energy, all the people, the adrenaline, the spectators, the volunteers who cheer you on, the food at the end of the race, the sense of accomplishment, the race shirt. In short, there are a lot of things to love about racing, and even though this will only be my second race, I am thoroughly smitten.

I ran eleven miles on Sunday, and it was fantastic. The first three miles hurt, and I felt sluggish and my legs didn't seem to want to respond, and I almost threw in the towel, but instead I told myself I could do it, repeating over and over in my head that I was strong enough to do this and pushed through, around mile four I started to feel good, at mile six the adrenaline really kicked in and I finally hit that zone, runners high, whatever you want to call it where the world goes blurry and the pain dulls, and everything is suddenly crystal clear, and I remembered why I run. Why I love to run, why I started running in the first place. I came home and baked vegan super-charge me cookies (from Eat, Live, and Be Vegan) which were delicious, and some full-fat full sugar banana bread for my boyfriend because I promised him I would actually make good banana bread as the last time I tried it I accidentally only put in half the banana which meant it wasn't nearly as moist or banana-tasting as it should have been. This time it came out perfectly, and was devoured in just over 24 hours (yes I had a piece, or two).

I took yesterday off, because I worked out every single day of last week (Bikram Monday, run Tuesday, run and climbing Wednesday, run Thursday, run Friday, Bikram Saturday, run Sunday), and baked up some spicy kale chips, which were amazing and so so so healthy, and some homemade power bars which I accidentally over-baked a little bit so they aren't as chewy as they should be, but are overall pretty good, and a great post-run recovery food because they have protein and complex carbs.

Today I woke up and made myself a green monster smoothie with almond milk, spinach, banana, a half a scoop of protein powder, some honey, frozen raspberries and a spoonful of almond butter because my life is incomplete without almond butter (yeah it sounds melodramatic, but its true). It was delicious, and great fuel for my easy four mile run. Now I'm off to go shower and then head off to work. Tonight we're going climbing and I'm hoping I can convince the boy to go to Foundation, which is only the best vegetarian restaurant ever, because I am dying for some of their maple-tahini quinoa (I really need to learn to make it at home because oh my god the stuff is amazing, it's like good for you crack. No really.)