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.