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Moving moving moving

Thanks to the every so lovely Heidi I was able to finally get all my blog stuff together and we are MOVING!

Update your readers, etc please and find me now over at:

happyhealthyrunner.com

Please bear with me because we're still under construction, but I'm working on getting that all worked out soon :)

And Heidi, THANK YOU!

Progressive Miles

I did 6 progressive miles outside today.

It's the first time in weeks that I've run outside for longer than 2-3 miles per the doctors orders... He told me to stick to the treadmill... but I just couldn't do it today.

He was just too cute not to add in again

I tried, I really did.

But when I walked into my living room the thought of running another run on the treadmill made me a little bit sad inside. And I just couldn't bring myself to walk into the back room and hop on the stupid thing.

So I grabbed my mace, knife, and Garmin and left the house. It's hot and humid outside. But I ran pretty good considering.

These were my splits:

All I wanted to do this run was make it progressive. I wanted to finish strong and I did. So that's a win. I can't wait til it's a little bit cooler and I don't feel like I'm running through a sauna.

For whatever bizarre reason, I'm also breaking out a like a 15 year old boy right now. I think it's from lack of sleep, but I can't be certain.

Gross.

In other news, I think I have hooked LB on running! One down, one to go. Sean, you're next.

If he's reading this, I'm fairly positive he's going "yeahhhh right" right now. But I am stubborn.

Do you try and get family members to run too?? I have been after Sean for a while but it hasn't worked yet. Just recently LB has become interested, which makes me very happy.

3 Things Thursdayyy

It's that time again! And you know what that means - tomorrow is FRIDAY!

1. I guest posted over at Gourmet Runner today. Vanessa is fantastic and you should all be reading her if you aren't already. Plus she loves peanut butter as much as I do, which is a definite win in my book! :)

Seriously, she is so cute!

2. Things are happenin' around here (hopefully) and I (hopefully) will be able to share some good news soon. Secrets secrets are no funnn... I know, I know.

3. When I got home last night I wanted to run. This never happens (I am one of those weird morning workout people, Tara) so I popped in Mamma Mia and jumped on the treadmill to knock out a progressive 5 mile run. This movie makes me so stupidly happy. I was singing along while running. If you ever need a treadmill mood-booster, this is the way to go!

Your turn! Tell me something that's going on with you!!


Do you like guest posting? I love it. And if you love it, I may need you next week.... :)

La Parmigiana Italian Oven - YES PLEASE. Oh and Weekly Workout #9

Bet you thought I was going to start with La Parmigiana Italian Oven huh? Too bad :)

This week is an 'easy' week for me. My body is tired, my motivation is lacking, and I just want to take a break.

If you keep up with my training, you know I normally take Monday's off from working out. But since I'm going on a girl's trip this weekend, I decided I'd take two rest days this week instead of one and make them Saturday and Sunday instead of Monday. 

I almost took Monday off too, but I forced myself to get it done Monday evening. It's a rough life, I tell ya. 

THIS WEEK:

Monday: Rest/Cross-training day

Tuesday: 6 miles @ 9:54 min/pace

Wednesday: Rest/Cross-training day

Thursday: 5 miles @ 9:54 min/pace

Friday: Rest/Cross-training day

Saturday: Rest/Cross-training day

Sunday: 6 miles @ 9:54 min/pace

Easy enough, right? We'll see.

Onto bigger, better things now...

Because I am going out of town this weekend and we are going to Vegas next week, I have been trying to get rid of all the fresh food in the house. This is not as easy as it seems... I'm tired of leftovers!

Last night when I got home I told Sean we could either have leftovers or go somewhere. He opted to go somewhere (and I secretly rejoiced). Since we had Mexican food on Saturday he was brainstorming other types of food we could have (we really get stuck on Mexican or sushi 99% of the time). We've been trying to branch out past our "safe" go-to restaurants, so we drove around for a bit before stumbling on La Parmigiana.

It is conveniently in the same strip center as Orange Leaf. Frozen yogurt afterward? Done and done.

Now, usually I'm pretty good at avoiding bread at restaurants. And by avoiding bread, I mean that I'm pretty good at limiting myself to one piece. And by one I usually mean two.

But they had the cutest little pizza slice shaped pieces of bread that were fresh-baked and came with a pesto-olive oil-parmesan mix to dip in... It was little bites of heave and rainbows I tell you!

But I was good. I only had 1 1/3 pieces... (yes, I stole part of a piece that Sean ate...)

And then we ordered an appetizer that is one of my all-time favorites - steamed mussels in white wine garlic sauce. This one came with shrimp too.

Let me tell you - white wine garlic sauce is the best thing that has ever been invented and the white wine garlic sauce at La Parmigiana was made by fairies and unicorns. I'm not even lying when I say that I could have drank the stuff off the plate. Because I have a *little* more class than that, I really just inhaled two more pieces of bread soaked in the stuff.

Our waitress came over as I was stuffing my face (Sean had stopped at this point, rude) and said she was going to ask if we wanted her to remove the plate but by the looks of it I did not... oops. I let her take it to save myself from eating anymore bread.

Then our pizza came. This is what pizzas should always be made like. The same bread that we had been tearing through seconds before was the crust of our pizza. I die. Everything was so fresh and flavorful and delicious.

We each ate one slice before we both agreed we couldn't eat anymore (yayyyy leftovers!!).

If you are around my part of the world, go here. Seriously. So good. We will be returning very soon.

Then we had Orange Leaf where I drowned myself in cookies 'n' cream and coffee frozen yogurt topped with butterfingers and waffle cone pieces. I'm not sure I think it's as good as my beloved Yogurt Cup, but I also signed up to be part of their preferred members so I get a discount every time I spend $30... which will be every third time I go. I didn't take a picture because someone is embarrassed when I take pictures of my food in public places. Something about not being discreet. Maybe because the flash went off when we were in the dimly lit Italian restaurant. My bad.

Needless to say I skipped the scale this morning.


Oh and sorry for the crappy picture quality but all I had was my phone and like I mentioned - someone gets all in a tiff when I take pictures of food ;)

Weekly Workout Recap, Week 8

I have no pictures right now because my camera is being weird... so, sorry about that. But we'll make this recap short and sweet and I'll try to find interesting pictures to throw in from my phone :)

I bought this shirt for $2.88 at Academy. $2.88!!

What I was supposed to be doing:

Monday: Rest/Cross-training day

Tuesday: 2 miles @ 9:54 min/pace

Wednesday: Rest/Cross-training day

Thursday: 6 mile tempo run; 4 miles @ 8:26 min/pace

Friday: Rest/Cross-training day

Saturday: Rest/Cross-training day

Sunday: 18 miles @ 9:54 min/pace

What really happened:

Monday: rest rest and more rest

Tuesday: 2 miles @ about 9:00 min/pace with the brother; 30 min Pilates

Wednesday: Jackie Warner's arms & abs circuits; 30 minutes on the bike at the gym

Thursday: 6 mile tempo run; 3 miles @ 8:27 min/pace, 1 mile @ 8:20 min/pace with 1 mile warm up & 1 mile cool down

Friday: Jackie Warner's arms & abs circuits; I don't remember if I did anything else, but I think I might have walked and I don't have my workout log with me so I'll update this later ;)

Saturday: 5k race

Sunday: 18 miles; the first 9 were at a solid 9:50 min/pace, the last 9 varied between speeding up and slowing down; 10 min total body Pilates, 10 min long & limber Pilates

Overall planned miles: 26

Overall actual miles: 29.1

Louie decided to get in a quick run before I went out to conquer 18 miles.


Despite the fact that I really had a hard time getting motivated to work out for most of the week, I feel like my week went pretty well. My 18 mile run went much better than last week's 16 miler, and it left me pretty satisfied with my whole week of workouts.

I'm taking this week really easy because I'm tired and my body just needs a break. That being said, hitting 18 miles was a really big deal for me because it showed me that my body is capable of carrying me through a full marathon. I don't know what it was about making it to 18 but it made it very real and exciting :)


Tell me something exciting about your weekend! We went out for Mexican food on Saturday night and I had the most ginormous margarita of my life! Because I am a lightweight these days, I was also tipsy after that 1 margarita. We also went to see Horrible Bosses. Eh...

Lunar Rendezvous 5k Race Recap

This past Saturday I ran the 33rd Annual Lunar Rendezvous 5k race out at Space Center Houston.

Let me just preface this by saying this was not a good race for me. 

Let me also get all of my complaints out of the way and blame this on Sean. It was hot. It was humid. It was about to rain (seriously, it started raining about 10 minutes after I finished running). I got no sleep because Sean was out with the guys and I waited up to make sure he got home in one piece which means I went to sleep at 2am and got up at 5:30am. (Ok, it isn't Sean's fault, but I was really tired.)

See how gross that weather looks?!

Complaining over, this just was not a good race for me.

For one, I started out way too fast. 

I ran the first mile in 7:13 (who am I?!).

The first 1.5 miles were OK. I felt ok, but not great. By about mile 1.75 my head left the race. I wasn't into it, I didn't feel great, and I was running way too fast for me. I couldn't slow down. And I mentally gave up. And I walked for about 30 seconds. My pride died right then, I've never walked during a race before. How I can run 18 miles and be OK but walk during a 5k race is beyond me. 

Needless to say, even with my 30 second walk, I ran the second mile in 7:15 (yeahhhh.... I was running wayyyy too fast)

And then I mentally shut down. I've never even come remotely close to walking in a race before. Everyone talks about how running is a mental sport - it is.

I walked twice more after that. I didn't want to be there anymore. I didn't want to run. I just wanted to go home and cry. Was I being overly dramatic? Yes. Did I care? No.

When I slowed down for the third time (I was less than 4/10's of a mile away from the finish) a guy ran up to me and said "NO". And he paced me in the rest of the way. What a miracle worker. I could have hugged him I was so happy that he showed up when he did. Here's a tragic picture of me finishing:

The irony?

I PR'd.

Go figure.

I also came in fourth in my age group, which I don't want to talk about because if I hadn't stopped three separate times I would have placed somewhere in the top 3. 

All I wanted out of the race was to beat my PR. My PR was currently held at 23:18 BUT the course was only 3 miles, not a full 5k. I finished this 5k (and it was the full 5k) in 23:14. 

And then I ran 18 glorious miles on Sunday. GO FIGURE.

3 Things Thursdayyy

I'm still running on a high from a great run this morning so I'm in a superb mood.

Which brings me to 3 things thursdayyyyyyyy!

1. I guest posted for Britt, so you should go check it out! You can read my post here :) I adore her, so I was thrilled to post for her!

2. I did end up signing up (gah, I'm so last minute about these things sometimes!) for a 5k this weekend. I just couldn't pass up paying only $18 to race out in the heat and humidity this weekend. Hopefully I'll come back with a nice PR.

3. My best friend's hubby is coming home tomorrow! He has been gone since January (he's in the Navy) and I could not be more excited for her!

Tell me something (or 3 things!) about you! 


Anyone else running any races this weekend?!

Competitiveness

Merriam-Webster defines the word compete as follows: to strive consciously or unconsciously for an objective

Taken in that context, I am a very competitive person in just about every aspect of my life. Especially running. Nine times out of ten I have some sort of goal that I want to meet. Usually it's a time goal that I've arbitrarily picked out. Sometimes it's that I want to place in my age group. Sometimes it's both. For instance when I ran the 10k, I had several goals set, the most important of which was that I wanted to run it under 53 minutes. I finished in 51:13 and finished first in my age group. 

Within 20 minutes of finishing almost 2 minutes under my desired time, I already was plotting out the next time that I wanted to beat. My thought process went something like this: 


YES! I DID IT! I AM AWESOME!


::20 minutes later::


Hmm... I should run it under 50 minutes. I will be really fast then. 


And thus the new goal was born and now I won't rest until it's accomplished. The same is true for everything from 5ks to marathons. I set goals and if I reach them I immediately start to plan out how to exceed them.

Don't get me wrong - I think having goals is one of the best ways to advance in anything and everything. But Em wrote a great post the other day about giving yourself some credit. And it really got me thinking - as competitive as I am, I'm doing some pretty awesome things right now.


I had a really sucktastic 16 mile run on Saturday. I bitched about it, both mentally and verbally, all day long. But I RAN 16 MILES. It was hard, it was miserable, I walked a lot, heck I stopped a lot, there wasn't a single step that I took on Saturday that didn't cause me some sort of mental or physical pain, but I did it. And if I can run 16, I can run 18. And if I can run 18, I can run a marathon. And that is a-freaking-mazing, whether I BQ or finish in 6 hours.


Sometimes I think I let my competitiveness with running get the better of me. Sometimes it causes extreme negative self-talk conversations in my head. And sometimes I need a good kick to remind me that every single day I'm working towards incredible things.


And a big tribute to Em for writing the post that sparked this post.


THAT BEING SAID, LB came over last night to run with me. It was a 2 mile training run for me, supposed to be easy, and I figured it'd be a cake walk for him. Needless to say, it was a very humbling experience for me, one that reminded me that we all start at square one. 

We ran at about an 8:45 pace give or take - sometimes faster, sometimes slower. But by mile 1.5 he was dying and I could see it written all over his face. 


So I stopped my Garmin and we walked. I started it back up and we ran. I let him walk while I ran back and forth until we hit roughly 2 miles (my Garmin died at about mile 1.83). And in that last half mile and for the rest of the night, I remembered everything about when I started running. I remembered getting winded after a mere 5 minutes. I remembered hating it. I remembered my first 5k and how freaking exhilarating it was. 

1.5 miles at an 8:45 pace is pretty good for someone that never runs. 


Oh and after taking our picture, Sean had to take this picture "for the blog" (his words) so that everyone knows that he was working while we were running, not sitting around eating bon-bons. Even though when we got back 25 minutes later he was sitting on the couch in the dark.

Are you competitive by nature? With what?


Do you set new goals immediately upon breaking old ones? 

Weekly Workout #8

I'm pretty bad at posting workout recaps on Sunday and workouts on Monday, huh? Ohhhh wellll...

THIS WEEK:

Monday: Rest/Cross-training day

Tuesday: 2 miles @ 9:54 min/pace

Wednesday: Rest/Cross-training day

Thursday: 6 mile tempo run; 4 miles @ 8:26 min/pace

Friday: Rest/Cross-training day

Saturday: Rest/Cross-training day

Sunday: 18 miles @ 9:54 min/pace

This actually isn't very accurate. I'm SUPPOSED to be doing this:

Monday: Rest/Cross-training day

Tuesday: 6 miles @ 9:54 min/pace

Wednesday: Rest/Cross-training day

Thursday: 5 miles @ 9:54 min/pace

Friday: Rest/Cross-training day

Saturday: Rest/Cross-training day

Sunday: 6 miles @ 9:54 min/pace

HOWEVER I am going out of town next weekend so there's absolutely no way that I will be running 18 miles. And let's be realistic here, I would rather give up training then run 18 miles on Friday before work. So I swapped the weeks :)

I've also managed to "gain" 3lbs. in the past 2 days. I'm positive it has nothing to do with the 5 rounds of thin mints I ate before going to Yogurt Cup Sunday or the 15 different meals I ate yesterday. So I don't know what that's all about.

I am pretty cyclical with foods. I tend to get really into one thing and eat it ALL THE TIME for a few weeks straight and then get tired of it. Right now I'm OBSESSED with overnight oats (again). 

These are actually "in the shower" oats because I decided at the last minute this morning that's what I wanted for breakfast. 

I challenge you to get your peanut butter oats jar this clean.

What breakfast foods are you loving now that it's summer?

Weekly Workout Recap, Week 6 + I am so lazy

Right now Sean is busy being productive and sweating out in the Houston heat.

I, on the other hand, am sitting in the AC, reading blogs and calling it "productive". I also have managed to change out of my real clothes and into my workout clothes, even though I haven't worked out today and have absolutely zero plans of doing so. Oops. And I'm debating eating for the third time today.

And I'm eating for the third time today. Oh and I'm being so lazy that even though the Patriot ended 30 minutes ago I have yet to turn the TV off so I'm listening to the theme music over and over again.

I'm also (im)patiently waiting for Sean to finish doing whatever he's doing (ok, he JUST started doing it) so that I can force him to drive me to Yogurt Cup where I can indulge in the source of my broke bank account yet again. If you know us in real life you know that Sean and I are arguably the cheapest people in the world when it comes to stuff and are master clearance shoppers with anything and everything, so why we're willing to fork over $10+ for fro-yo all the time is beyond me. Oh wait, it's because I force us to go AT LEAST once a week. My bad.

So why do I have the luxury of doing absolutely nothing today? Honestly, I should be doing a lot of things but I'm going to blame my lack thereof on my sucktastic run yesterday.

And ya know, actually, now that I've read over all that, I'm doing quite a bit today. So I don't feel so bad afterall.

What I was supposed to be doing:

Monday: Rest/Cross-training day

Tuesday: 2 miles @ 9:56 min/pace

Wednesday: Rest/Cross-training day

Thursday: 5 mile tempo run; 3 miles @ 8:23 min/pace

Friday: Rest/Cross-training day

Saturday: Rest/Cross-training day

Sunday: 16 miles @ 9:56 min/pace

What really happened:

Monday: Not.A.Thing.

Tuesday: 2 miles @ 9:50 min/pace, 30 minute Pilates class

Wednesday: Jackie Warner's 40 min. Total Body Circuit

Thursday: 5 mile tempo run; 3 miles @ 8:20 min/pace, 10 min long & limber Pilates

Friday: Jackie Warner's Upper Body Circuit and Abs Circuit, 2 miles walking

Saturday: 16 really awful horrible miles somewhere between a 9:50 and 10 min pace with lots of walking; 10 min Total Body Circuit Pilates, 10 min long & limber Pilates

Sunday: Eat ginormous baked potato with BBQ turkey, watch the Patriot, eat more baked potato, wait for Yogurt Cup. Eat Girl Scout cookies while waiting. Exhausting.

Overall planned miles: 23

Overall actual miles: 23 (running); 2 (walking)

Yeaaahhhhh about that run yesterday....

I made it to mile 8 before I had to stop. I walked around the house, chugged a bottle of water, laid on the living room floor. Got up, ran to 10 with some sporadic walking. Back to the floor. Ran to 12 with sporadic walking. Back on the floor. Ran to 13. Floor. Ran and walked to 16. Died. It.was.horrible. No clue why. Don't you love that?

LB (little brother) is coming over Tuesday and we're going to run together, so I'm hoping that starts a track of superb runs this week so that I can forget about the awfulness of my run yesterday.

How's your weekend going? Anyone do anything exciting?!

Long runs or races this weekend? I feel like it's been a while since I've raced. I'm going through slight withdrawals. There's a really cheap 5k this next weekend that I'm thinking about doing - $18 entry fee... Hmmm...

GIVEAWAY WINNER!

And the winner of the Gotein giveaway as decided by Random.org is...

#2 - Jenna Z!

Congratulations! Email me your shipping address and information at happyhealthyrunner (at) gmail (dot) com and I'll get that shipped out to you ASAP!

Hope you're all enjoying your Friday so far... Can't wait for the weekend!

3 Things Thursdayyy

There's still time to enter the giveaway!

1. I hit a really bad lull this week with training. I've been going at marathon training pretty hard lately and this week I hit a big fat brick wall. Every.single.workout has been a HUGE struggle. Once I get there I'm OK, it's just the getting there part that has been a little rough...

2. This little book, courtesy of this beautiful BFF of mine, has been a HUGE lifesaver. HUGE. I love writing in my workouts and how I felt during them so that I can look back and see what factored into what when I'm reviewing my weekly workouts.

3. I am the most miserable shopper known to man (woman?)... And I hate the mall. With a serious passion. I used to be a magnificent shopper, but I think after working at the outlet mall in San Marcos that it stripped me of my desire to shop.

Hate the mall or love it?


Do you track your workouts? If so, how?

Weekly Workout Recaps & Weekly Workout #7

I know, I know... I'm behind. So I'm combining. We'll start with Weekly Workout #6's Recap... Oh and I don't feel like uploading new pictures right now (I am lazy, I know) so I'm going to supplement this post with some of my old favorites. :)

What I was supposed to be doing:

Monday: Rest/Cross-training day

Tuesday: 2 miles @ 9:57 min/pace

Wednesday: Rest/Cross-training day

Thursday: 4 miles speed work, 2x1600 in 7:56 with 800 jogs in between

Friday: Rest/Cross-training day

Saturday: Rest/Cross-training day

Sunday: 14 miles @ 9:57 min/pace

What really happened:

Monday: 10 min Long & Limber Pilate's; foam-rolling

Tuesday: 2 miles @ 9:50 min/pace; 30 min Pilate's class

Wednesday: 15 min L5 speed intervals on stair stepper, 15 min L10 elliptical, 15 min L5 hill intervals on bike

Thursday: 4 miles speed work, 2x1600 in 7:53 with 800 jogs in between; 10 min Long & Limber Pilate's

Friday: Walked 3 miles @ L 4.5, I 1.0 

Saturday: 14 miles @ 10:00 min/pace; 10 min Pilate's Total Body Stretch; 10 min Pilate's Long & Limber Stretch

Sunday: 1 mile @ 10:00 min/pace; 10 min Core Basics Pilate's, 10 min Lower Body Basics Pilate's, 10 min Upper Body Basics Pilate's; 1 mile @ 9:50 min/pace

Overall planned miles: 20

Overall actual miles: 20 (running); 3 (walking)

If you're wondering where any of the strength-training was... well, so am I. I really have no good answer other than I just didn't do it and wasn't feeling it. This is 100% against what I believe in, because I am a firm believer in strength-training, but.... I don't know, it just didn't happen. OHHHH WELLLLLL.

THIS WEEK:

Monday: Rest/Cross-training day

Tuesday: 2 miles @ 9:56 min/pace

Wednesday: Rest/Cross-training day

Thursday: 5 mile tempo run; 3 miles @ 8:23 min/pace

Friday: Rest/Cross-training day

Saturday: Rest/Cross-training day

Sunday: 16 miles @ 9:56 min/pace

I'll tell you right now that I'm having a very hard time getting motivated so far this week. I don't know if it's from the long weekend or what, but the workouts I've done so far have been a struggle. 

What do you do when you're lacking motivation? I tend to not give myself any time to think about what I'm doing. I just throw on workout clothes and tell myself to do just a little bit of what I had planned and usually I get through it OK.


How do you do with long weekends? I totally did not do well as far as "healthy eating" went on Monday.... or last Friday... but Saturday and Sunday I was OK. No not really, the whole weekend wasn't what I normally eat and I felt it Monday evening. 

Holiday Weekends Are WAY TOO SHORT.

Seriously.

But first: go enter the giveaway. :)

I don't understand how I can have one extra day and STILL feel like I need more time. I was a majorly lazy bum this morning when my alarm went off and I barely got up in time to run and even then I was seriously cutting it close when it came to running late to work (however there was no traffic so I was actually early).

It feels like this weekend was really short, but looking back we really did do a lot. And by do a lot I mean that I ate my freaking face off all weekend and tried to justify it with Saturday mornings run... but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Oh and I took next to no pictures because I am lame.

Friday when I got home from the longest drive home from work ever Sean and I drove over to Alicia's Mexican restaurant to have dinner with Sean's family. I just love them and love spending time with them. I really was not wanting to go anywhere when I got home from work but within 5 seconds of seeing their smiling faces I was so glad to be there, it was exactly what I needed after a weird work day. The whole drive home from work I was thinking about how I couldn't possibly eat any more because my coworkers and I went to Fuddrucker's for lunch where I devoured a buffalo burger and sweet potato fries, but this all went out the window right after I sat down and inhaled chips and salsa, fajitas and then ice cream. Can't win 'em all...

Saturday I woke up early and proceeded to do a 14 mile treadmill run. This was made OK by my fancy new set-up courtesy of the hubs.

Sounds horrible, right?

It actually wasn't bad at all. I popped in the first Harry Potter movie and set out to conquer all 14. Since I went to the doc last week and he said to stay off the pavement til my leg feels better I've been diligently doing treadmill runs. I had water at mile 4, took shot bloks at mile 6, had water at mile 9 (by the way, I still haven't mastered running and drinking - I got water up my nose every time), took shot bloks at mile 11, and then finished out the last 5k.

Glorious. I was on cloud 9. I ran the entire movie and then, per the doctor's orders, did 20 minutes of Pilate's (OK, he said stretching, but Pilate's instead works for me), and then took a 20 minute ice bath. On the way to the gas station I drank a glass of cherry juice per RoseRunner's recommendation in this post, and afterwards I felt AMAZING. No pain. WIN.

Then I went bridesmaid dress shopping with one of my best friends. We ended up going to lunch and having mimosa's before I ventured back home to my husband. He has had poison ivy for the past week and has been a miserable mess and is finally starting to feel better. We ended up going to B-dubs to watch the UFC fight and then over to Stats and then over to my coworkers house... I skipped most of the drinking though and DD'd. We got home and in bed at a ridiculous time, but honestly being able to see my friends and hang out and catch up was completely worth it.

Don't be fooled by how innocent they look. Because our cats despise when we sleep in, Sean and I were up by 9:30. We woke up our friend Matt (who crashed at our house), went to IHOP, dropped him off, and then I worked out while Sean did the yard.

Then we cleaned up and headed over to my parents. We played Scrabble (I won), ate some pretty rockin' bacon-wrapped shrimp, drank wine, and played Scattergories until we looked at the clock and realized it was 12:30am. Are you kidding me...?

Went home. Slept. Woke up early again. Took the motorcycle out and met my parents (who took their motorcycle out) for coffee, went home, watched True Blood, I napped and fought the worst headache of my life, cleaned up, went to Sean's friend Mike's house to hang out in the pool/hang out with friends, went home, watched Criminal Minds, and then went to bed.

At several different point I thought about doing a 4th of July 5k, but honestly, hanging out with our families and friends really trumped racing this weekend. So now I'm on the prowl for a July race to do. :)

Anyone do any 4th of July races?? How'd they go?


If you haven't entered my giveaway yet, you still can. Giveaway winner on FRIDAY. :)

Protein in the form of GOTEIN: Giveaway

I mentioned earlier this week that there would be a giveaway on Friday and guessss what! It's Friday! What better way to kick off a holiday weekend then with a little giveaway, right?!

A couple weeks ago the lovely folks over at Gotein contacted me and asked if I'd be interested in doing a review and giveaway of their products. I'm not one to turn down free stuff, and I love you guys, so it's a win-win...

Enter: Gotein

What It Is:


Gotein is a portable protein supplement that comes in a powdered form that you can easily add to water for a post-workout protein drink or just for a to-go protein shake.

Why It's Good:


I don't know how you are about getting enough protein post-workouts, but I can tell you three things about me:

1. I used to be terrible about taking in protein after hard workouts (I'm much better now, by the way)

2. I prefer to eat my calories vs. drink them. I am a volume person and food really does it for me. That's not to say I can't be swayed though because...

3. I am obsessed with Honey Milk. Seriously, it's a problem. Their light coffee flavor is ah-mazing.

Which brings me to Gotein. I was 100% skeptical about this. I've used powdered drink mixes before with moderate success, but I'm really picky about that kind of stuff.

And I'll tell you right now, I've only tried 2 of the 3 flavors.

The Stats


Chocolate: 16g protein, 6g carbs, 24 vitamins and minerals, 110 calories


Vanilla: 17g protein, 5g carbs, 24 vitamins and minerals, 100 calories, gluten-free


Strawberry: 17g protein, 6g carbs, 24 vitamins and minerals, 110 calories, gluten-free

Not too shabby, eh?

Day One: Chocolate


I added it to my water and I shoooooooook it up. Still a little grainy so I shoooooook some more.

It was OK. Not wonderful, not horrible.

I'm 100% sure that I should have taken more water out because it had a slightly watered down taste to it. I drank it all though, if that tells you anything.

Day Two: Strawberry


Now would be a good time to mention that I hate strawberry flavored things. I'm not even positive that I've ever had strawberry milk but the thought of it grosses me out. And I have convinced myself that this strawberry protein mix is going to turn into strawberry milk (don't try to make any sense out of it, it doesn't make any).

So I improvised.

And made a smoothie! And it was wonderful! And pretty! And honestly - I wasn't hungry again until lunch and if you know me at all, you know that I eat all.day.long. So not having my 11am snack is weird for me.

Success.

I saved the vanilla one because I adore vanilla flavored drinks and I want to try it after my long run.

What I Liked:


- I love anything portable because I am almost always on the go
- I always have a bottle of water with me, so being able to add in 100 calories worth of protein is a win
- There wasn't the chalky, powdery taste that some protein supplements have
- The stats on them are pretty good for a protein shake

What I Didn't Like:


- They're pretty pricey
- There's only 2 stores in Texas where you can buy them. You can find a list of locations to buy in store here and you can buy them online here

Where You Come In


Gotein gave me extras to give away to one lucky blog reader! You will get one of each flavor :) Cat not included. He just wouldn't get out of the way.

What Ya Gotta Do


There's always a catch, right? Of course. There's 6 different ways you can win. Leave me a separate comment for each one and Random.org will decide who wins. Easy-easy.

- Like Gotein on Facebook and tell them I sent you!
- Blog about the giveaway
- Tweet about the giveaway (You know... @HappyHealthyRun is giving away Gotein!... Or something lame like that. Be more creative than me)
- Be a follower of this blog
- Let me know if you're good, bad or indifferent when it comes to getting your protein
- Tell me your favorite way to get protein

I'll announce the winner next Friday so you have a good solid week to get in. Enjoy your weekend!