cleaning up
Monday was all about cleaning up: cleaning up my diet, cleaning up my fitness routine, and cleaning up running route.
EATS
It seems to be a common theme on Mondays for me to try to clean up my diet. I tend to go all out on the weekends, eating everything in sight regardless of whether or not I did a long run (which, by the way, you’re only supposed to tack on like an extra 300-400 calories – yeah, I’m definitely eating more than that). My meals lack seriously in nutrition, so Monday is always my attempt to get my eating back on track. And I think I didn’t a pretty darn good job at fitting in fruits and vegetables at every meal, with a little something sweet for dessert at the end of the day.
Breakfast: strawberry + peach green monster smoothie
Lunch: brown rice with mixed veggies, veggie burger, spinach, and nutritional yeast with pineapple on the side
Dinner: leftover veggie pizza from this weekend
Snacks: coconut Larabar, an apple with string cheese, Greek yogurt with granola
Dessert: M&M’s
I’d tell you what MacKenna ate, but after we went running Monday afternoon, she projectile vomited ever.y.where. I proceeded to freak out, worried that my baby was dying. But, she’s just fine now, thank goodness! We’re still getting the hang of eating so there’s not much to talk about anyway…
EXERCISE
I know it doesn’t seem like I would really need to “clean up” my exercise routine. I’m pretty dedicated to working out – I get time for myself (a rarity these days) and it makes me feel awesome and hardcore. ;) But, I’ve really been slacking on lifting lately. I’ve been doing New Rules of Lifting for Women and I’ve grown a little bored of it. So, I decided I should put to use my training/certifications and actually create a few of my own workouts for awhile.
Since the gym doesn’t open up early enough for me on Monday, I did a little at-home workout to start off my day. I haven’t done Tabatas in a long time and I know they’re great for making the workout go by fast and keep me from getting bored. I did supersets of each exercise – one set of one exercise followed by a set of the other exercise in the duo and alternated back and forth until all the sets were completed. Each exercise is performed for 20 seconds followed by 10 seconds of rest and 4 sets of each exercise.
A quick 25 minute workout that left me sweaty, huffing + puffing, and sore… just how I like it!
ENVIRONMENT
Katie emailed me this weekend asking if I would be willing to be part of her 5K Clean Up Challenge (#5KCleanUp). After thinking about the route I regularly run, I realized that I do see a ton of trash along my running route. I live just a few miles away from a high school and my turnaround point is at a gas station, so I don’t need to explain why I see so much trash on my run. It was the perfect way for me to celebrate Earth Day while also getting an easy run in on Monday.
I put on a glove for sanitary purposes, grabbed a leftover shopping bag, and strapped MacKenna into the stroller. I didn’t even have to get to the end of my street before picking up a crushed water bottle on the ground. I probably saw at least 1 piece of trash every tenth of a mile. Sadly, most of the “trash” was recyclable – glass/plastic bottles, aluminum cans, papers, cigarette cartons (ew), McDonald’s wrappers… it was pretty gross. I actually had filled up my small trash bag half way through and had to throw the rest in the bottom of the stroller. And I didn’t even pick up every piece I saw since some were on the busy road and some were just too hard to get to with the stroller.
And you know what made me the most upset along the way. Picking up an empty GU wrapper. As a runner, I always think we are more conscious of the environment than most other people. I don’t really have any reasoning about it, but it’s just the impression I get from most runners. And I understand being halfway into a 20 mile run and not wanting to carry around an empty GU packet with you, but still. I think we can do better than that. It’s only acceptable to throw cups on the ground when you’re in a race. (Side note: I was impressed that GO! St. Louis made an effort to recycle almost all of their paper cups from the course and samples from the race line. Very cool.)
It was definitely a learning experience and I’m going to be much more conscious about what I do with my trash and maybe even do another run sometime where I go pick up some of the trash along the way. If you’re interested in participating, go check out Katie’s blog for more details and follow the hashtag #5KCleanUp on Twitter and Instagram.
What effort have you made recently to “green up” the way you live?