I'm baaaack! 6 miles and my first Green Monster Smoothie!

That's right, you read that title correctly... SIX MILES BABY!!!!  It was AMAZING!  I think the contributing factors to the great run were that I had 9 hours of sleep the night before (which was wonderful!), and  I met Chris for a delicious lunch at Ruby Tuesdays!  That was especially nice, since we do not often have a chance to meet up for lunch (which had me in a wonderful mood the entire day).  I had a delicious white bean and chicken chili and a wonderful salad that I made at the salad bar.  Oh and some strawberry tea.  Yum!!!  Lunch was really filling, so I did not have my usual afternoon snack of some fruit.  Instead I came home, had a few sips of that caffeinated strawberry energy mix, changed closed, played with cats, then headed out.  I set out really wanting to do 4 miles, but not sure if I could do it.  I made myself stay at a nice slow pace at the beginning (which I actually found to be a bit challenging).  When mile 2 started, I started to get a side stitch and slowed down a bit.  By the time I hit 3 I was feeling great.  The route I had planned would not get me home until roughly a half a mile after my 4 mile mark.  I had planned that half mile as a nice cool down.  But then I felt really good and decided to go for 5, which quickly became "Oh I know I can go around this block which will make it a total of 6 miles!"  The last two miles I sped up.  My last mile ended up being my fastest!  I felt like I could run forever!  I made myself stop at 6, because I did not want to get injured and it suddenly was pretty dark.  Man, I definitely felt a runner's high yesterday!!!!!!  I do not remember the last time I felt soooooo amazing!  Those last two miles I thought to myself, "And you're back!  This is what I remember!  Not wanting to cry or walk but feeling like my legs are flying over the sidewalk!"

Splits:
Mile 1:  10:54
Mile 2:  11:22
Mile 3:  10:49
Mile 4:  10:28
Mile 5:  10:03
Mile 6:  9:43
(and I actually just added a few seconds to that when I hit the "start time" button on Garmy by mistake.  Doh!  But the overall time (that I had written down before I messed up the Garmy was 1 hour and 3 minutes at an average 10:33 pace).



Now that I have that mental distance challenge out of the way, I think I may attempt that distance again on Monday.  I have a 5K this coming Sunday, so I need to do my longer run in the beginning of the week.  My hamstrings are definitely sore today.  I've been using the foam roller.  My back is also sore... which is a little weird.  Of course I do think I slept wrong a couple nights ago, but I do think this also has something to do with my run.  It doesn't hurt, it's just sore.  shrug.  All I know is that I have been floating on cloud nine since my run yesterday!  I had planned earlier in the week to run today as well so that I could log 4 days, but I figure since my legs are sore it would probably be best to just stick to to some nice yoga stretching today using my favorite video on ExerciseTV.

This now takes me to the last part of my super awesome Friday.  I have finally made my first Green Monster smoothie.  I have read in many other blogs about them, yet I was hesitant and well too lazy to try it.  I am now ADDICTED!  I made one last night and it was fantastic!  So good in fact that I had another one for breakfast!  I used some frozen strawberries, frozen blueberries, a little skim milk, a ripe banana, two tablespoons of flax (I am embarrassed to say that I had to ask for help in finding it at the grocery store), and finally two handfuls of spinach (they're right, you really cannot taste it!).  Oh, I did add a very small amount of sweetener, but that was because I was craving something sweet last night.  I made one for Chris (I need to work on the proportions of ingredients as the smooties are coming out rather large).  Chris did like it.  He said it needed more strawberries.  You should have seen his face when I added more spinach! I am tempted to try one with canned pumpkin and some vanilla yogurt.  Maybe I will try that this week.  All I know is that I will be making a lot of smoothies in the near future.

My first Green Monster Smoothie (also featured in the background is our awesome indoor grill, the smoothie blender, and the cap for the canned cat food.)  My smoothie is not nearly as green as others out there in blogland, but it did taste good!

Do you remember me mentioning a running meet-up group?  Well they have a run this Sunday, and it's a little bit of a drive from where I am now, although not really that far.  I've decided not to go yet.  I'm kind of nervous, and to be honest I really want to build up my mileage a little bit more before going out and potentially making a fool out of myself.  I also think I'd like my first meet up to be somewhere a little closer to home.  So I decided not to go tomorrow, and next Sunday I have a 5K (woo-hoo!), but I think the Sunday after that I'm going to try and meet them wherever they are.  I'm excited and nervous (as silly as it sounds), but I'm mostly excited!

Happy Saturday all!