Homemade Black Bean Veggie Burger

A Facebook friend posted this and it looked good, so I decided to try it out. The recipe comes from Allrecipes.com.

I ate the burger in between whole wheat bread and HAD to add cheese. It tasted a little better. I probably won't make them anytime soon because the hubs didn't like them at all. I ended up throwing too many out. Though, it is a good meatless Monday idea.

It's Hot! Duh, It's Summer in the South.

Well, it's no secret it's hot outside. Yesterday's run, for a minuscule second, almost didn't happen. And even when I did get out there, I started running and said to myself, I'm stopping at 2 miles. Well, I had to push through what was a mental barrier and slowly got a 5k done. I couldn't give up on the FIRST workout day of the week.

I found this Summer Vegetable Pasta Salad recipe on Pinterest a few weeks ago. Instead of making my own vinaigrette, I used Italian dressing. Really, surprisingly good to me. Never would've thought I'd willingly eat raw squash OR zucchini! It was good though.

Bow tie pasta with fresh broccoli, yellow squash, zucchini, red onion, & roma tomato

Today's Workout

Tuesday is my cross training day, so I chose to do Insanity's Plyometric Cardio Circuit after a very loooong hiatus. I'm going to be honest and say that I half-assed it. Matter of fact, I did the first 20 minutes and cut the crap off. I'm switching back to my Jillian Michael's 30-day Shred for next week. Yup, #thatisall.

Race Recap: ATC's Father's Day 4-miler

Photo courtesy of the Atlanta Track Club

This was my first 4-miler race. I think I like this distance. I signed up for another next month. The route was super hilly, as to be expected when running any given route in Atlanta. I'm glad I'd been running hills and speed training previously. The hills in Grant Park are no joke. They can be super discouraging. Although I was used to hills, I hadn't run a steep hill without slowing down in a while. I was VERY surprised that I not only got up the hill at a good pace, but kept a steady pace even afterwards.

My first bib with my name on it. I was pleasantly surprised. :-)

The finish line was the best so far! We ended the race right inside of Turner Field. I hadn't been inside Turner Field before. The last time I went to see the Braves play, they played at the old Atlanta Stadium and I was in elementary school. I kinda can't wait for the next one.

This Was Good...

I had a really disciplined week food-wise this particular week.

Egg whites with spinach and turkey bacon

Open-faced tuna salad with spinach

Chicken lettuce wrap

Chicken breasts, whole wheat tortilla, and salsa

Green smoothie
(strawberries, banana, vanilla soy protein powder, spinach, and water)

Turkey burger wrapped in lettuce instead of bun

Green smoothie concoction (w/OJ)

Week of June 24th

I'm trying to keep myself accountable for this week and on because last week was a major bust. Here's a snapshot of my plans for the week. My goal is to keep working on speed (I want a 8:30 mile/min avg pace to be easy and not something I'm fighting to the death for on race day) and to build my mileage back up to run half Mary #2 and so on. I'll blog the workout results every other day.

Saturday's long run will be at least  4.

Because It's National Running Day

I RUN because...

...of the major sense of accomplishment,

I like the way it's shaping my body,

it hardly becomes boring (maybe just the route),

to maintain my weight,

I like that people ask me questions and are so impressed with "us" runners, 

and of course to EAT.

Here's some other motivation.

Source: google.com via Tiffany on Pinterest

Source: helpwithweightloss.org via Tiffany on Pinterest

Source: Uploaded by user via Tiffany on Pinterest

Source: tumblr.com via Tiffany on Pinterest

Source: littlemissnike.tumblr.com via Tiffany on Pinterest

Source: fitsugar.com via Tiffany on Pinterest

Protein Pancakes

We love "pannacakes" in this house. I had to stop making them as much (which was like 2-3 times a week) since they're so high in the not-so-good carbs and fat, not including the syrup.

Every other blog I read, I've seen versions of the protein pancake. I finally found a version I could get with on the Tone It Up! site tonight. Luckily I had most of the ingredients on hand, because I was too impatient to try tomorrow. It's missing a few of the ingredients I would of normally had, but I need to go grocery shopping. They taste fine anyway. Enjoy!

Protein Pancake

1/4 cup of egg white

1 scoop of protein powder

2 tbsp of skim milk

1 tsp of cinnamon

*1/2 banana, mashed

*1 tbsp of ground flax seed

*handful of fresh or frozen blueberries, for topping

(* = the ingredients I didn't have. Will try later.)

One didn't make it before I remembered to take a picture.

This has now been added to the breakfast routine. It'll look better next time I try it. With this, I met my protein goal for the day. It was 114 calories (makes 2 servings) and 13.6 grams of protein. 

My 1-Year "Racer-versary" & Today's Workout

Packet pick-up area at ACS's Starlite Stride 5k

This past weekend I celebrated my one year anniversary of racing. :-) I ran the Starlite Stride 5k Run/Walk to benefit the Atlanta Children's Shelter. This was my first race last year, except it wasn't at night. It was cool. Pretty low key. Much less people and theatrics than last year (Phaedra from Real Housewives of Atlanta who is/was on the board and her cameras were there following her, as well as a former Falcons player). I wasn't expecting much. I'm glad actually. It's a genuine charity and I could tell they went the cheap route on everything. To me that shows they could actually be putting the money back into the facility and the kids it supports. One of my near future goals is to volunteer here.

I didn't get an overall PR, but I did beat last year's time by a little. Clock time said 29:51. My watch said 29:38. The best part of the race was high-fiving some of the children cheering us on while running through the second mile.

Today's Workout
I wanted to run the trail this evening, but the weather kind of ruined that wish.

Before I did anything, I had breakfast...

Mixed Berry Smoothie

1 cup of mixed berries 

(strawberries, blueberries, raspberries)

1 cup of spinach

1/2 cup of orange juice

1/2 cup of plain nonfat yogurt

1 serving of vanilla soy protein powder

348 calories

...and then got to it.

45 minutes of intervals on Level 9.

The 2 extra minutes were from working in reverse.

Who knows if that's how many calories I really burned. This HRM didn't come with a chest strap, which I hear is more accurate. The elliptical calories can't be accurate either, because I didn't hold on to the handles the entire time for it to accurately measure my heart rate and account for my level of intensity (& those inclines were intense).

No gym access, not always a problem!

And after that, I came home and did a 20-minute circuit training, including the short warm-up and cool down.

Trail Times

Yesterday I went on an impromptu cross-training escapade (I'd been cooped up all day). I'd been wanting to do a trail run; not to seriously get into it when special shoes are required and all of that, but just to try something different. I put on some older running shoes that were already dirty and met up with some ladies to explore the trail. I thought we were running it, but it turned out majority wanted to walk it. I was cool with that. 

Entrance to the trail

I haven't researched trail running versus road running, but I can imagine it being less of an impact on your joints.

Besides looking down at the ground the ENTIRE way to make sure 1) I didn't trip, 2) no forest creatures took me into captivity (there was a snake out there, people!), and 3) my shoes didn't get extra muddy, it was enjoyable. It actually seemed much easier to run this terrain instead of walk it. With running (I did run a little bit), your feet barely touch the ground from moving much more quickly. It was much easier to look ahead. You just need to watch out for tree stumps and horse ish, and you're cool. We were walking kind of slow so I got a light headache from looking down so much.

 

Despite having gone fishing many times and even camping, I'm still not that much of a nature girl. I just like to look at it. :-) 

I took this pic for the hubs, who wanted me to bring it home. Um, no.

It took us an hour.

I haven't walked for exercise on purpose in a very, very long time. I AM looking forward to running this route REALLY soon though!