Memorial Race & Dinner

Woohoo, I survived the No Excuses Memorial Day 5K! And considerably better than last year, PR’ing at 9:23 minute miles. I know that’s not too impressive, but good for me and hopefully I can do better next weekend at the Fleet Feet Women’s Fitness Festival. I started this morning as I usually do, with a monster smoothie.

Organic carrots, organic spinach and organic frozen blueberries with hemp protein powder, maca powder and some splurge ingredients.

NuNaturals Pure Liquid Clear Stevia does wonders for veggie loaded smoothies and I need to order some more soon.

The end result was a sweet, chocolaty delight that tasted more like a dessert rather than a veggie-loaded breakfast. I had this about 2 hours before the race and it worked out perfect, not too filling, but energizing and kept me feeling full even after the race.

After breakfast I coated myself in this.

This morning was overcast and cool, but I wasn’t taking any chances considering I usually get sunburned the worst when it’s slightly overcast and I don’t think I need sunblock. This generic Target brand sports sunblock works great, BTW, it sprays on and spreads nicely without being stinky and seems to last for hours.

We literally got there minutes before the race started, I barely had time to visit a disgusting porta potty before getting in line.

But, that worked out well. During the race, I felt much better and more energized than last year. I remember feeling labored and struggling a bit to keep running through the entire race last year and it seemed effortless this year. But I joined the race late last year with little time to train and wasn’t a runner before. I had more training time this year and felt much more comfortable keeping pace through this one.

After the race, I looted the free snacks.

I only ate the banana (well half since the other half was mush :-P) and stuffed the other items into hubby’s work bag for his emergency breakfasts.

Heh, I color coordinated my shirt with my shoes and iPod, so girlie! Last year hubby and I, being racing noobs, wore the race t-shirts to the race thinking that’s what everyone does. But found that hardly anyone did that and kind of looked like dorks. Plus it was just a generic t-shirt not cut for a lady’s figure and looking like a baggy sack on me. I wised up this year. :-)

I was feeling pretty good when we got home and made a huge salad for lunch topped with mango salsa, nutritional yeast and pumpkin seeds.

And watermelon chunks for dessert, yum! Hot dogs and hamburgers say Memorial Day to some, but watermelon does it for me. :-)

For dinner, I had leftover salad from last night and corn-on-the-cob that hubby grilled in the husk.

Light, but I was saving room for a splurge dessert.

Cafe Gratitude Frozen Nut Milk Dessert, or ice “cream”. :-) It’s essentially the Ben & Jerry’s for raw vegans, yum! The texture was a little different from traditional dairy-based ice cream, but the flavor was amazing. The chocolate bits were nicely distributed through the dessert and it had a very rich and creamy flavor. Now, it’s not cheap, $8 for that a pint. But this was a once-in-awhile splurge and totally worth it. There are several recipes for similar nut milk creams in Ani Phyo’s books that I’m almost tempted to get an ice cream maker for. But, I rarely crave ice cream, so probably not a good idea to add another kitchen appliance that we’ll probably occasionally use.