I missed my 10-mile training run with the Road Runners group yesterday (thanks to a late night on Friday) so I HAD to get it done on Sunday. I got up at the painful hour of 5:15am on a Sunday to rock those miles out. I don’t have a stopwatch or a distance meter so I had to “eyeball” where to go for my mileage.

I absolutely LOVE painfully early weekend mornings but man, they are tough to muster up. Remembering my slacker-ish ways of last year’s marathon training, I knew I had to do it. I decided to listen to music and took off at a nice long-distance pace for about 5 miles. My energy kind of kicked in then and I picked up pace, feeling really good. I had not done any leg work since last Monday and took yesterday off from working out so my body was in prime condition for a long run.

Surprisingly, I didn’t really get very thirsty but today’s weather was slightly cooler than it has been. I wore my brand spankin’ new Under Armour tank so that gave me so awesome runnergirl motivation too. I ran up towards the city, then down to Alexandria toward the harbor, which is just beautiful in the early morning before life hits the waters or the decks. After my turnaround spot — at about 9 miles — I made a pit stop at Starbucks for a bathroom break, more water and a bite of a Cliff Bar.

My original running path ended up being about 15 miles — more than I wanted to do so I ended up capping it off at 12, still 2 more miles than planned. But when you are feeling so great, it’s hard to want to stop short. Finally I trudged up the stairs home. After such a hard run, I immediately needed fuel. After gulping water and taking a quick shower, I started up on my GREEN MONSTER! I had all the ingredients:

Amazing Green Monster
Almond Milk
Spinach
Fresh Blueberries
Banana
Chocolate Amazing Meal
Ice

Voila! It was actually pretty good and you get so much good stuff in one little, low-calorie shake. I definitely need to drink these like everyday!